For today’s internet marketing advertising business owners there is a growing complexity as to what are the best ways to advertise their goods and services. With all the many marketing options out there today it can become rather confusing when it comes to selecting the top on and offline marketing systems.
Also it seems to be much more difficult to make a comfortable income these days, with the drastic changes to our economy these last few years. I’m sure the small business internet marketing community can attest to this.
I would like to explain how today’s small business internet marketing managers can easily add an additional revenue streem to their current operation. I would also like to show them that thru this system they can learn simplifed marketing methods. These offline and online internet marketing advertising methods are easy to implement and very effective.
Now I would like to assess some of the most common marketing systems used and why they aren’t the most effective or easy to use.
1. Pay-Per-Click: Also known as ppc marketing. This is where the web marketing firm places ads on Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. and they pay a pre-determined amount for each visitor that clicks on their ad. This can be a good way to reach targeted prospects for your goods or service. It can also be very complex and frustrating as the search engines, especially Google, change their algorithms quite frequently. For example, back in December 2009, Google banned over 100,000 advertisers from their network. Many of these were long-time web marketing businesses that have advertised for many years.
2. Web 2.0 marketing A.K.A. Social Marketing 2.0. This is where you join social networking site such as Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, Hub Pages, etc. You set up your personal profile with the goal of finding like-minded individuals. This way you are developing a list of targeted followers that have the same demographics as yourself. The reason this is so important is that sooner or later you will sent targed ads out to the followers. This is called monetizing your list. It just makes sense that you try to develop a list of followers such as yourself taht you can market to. Draw backs of this system are the long amount of time it takes to develop a large list of followers. Not only that, but trends come and go. There’s no telling how much longer they’ll be popular.
3. Classified ads can be placed on sites like: Gumdrop, Kijiji, Backpage, etc. You’ll have to spend hours placing enough ads to earn anything though. and often the people that frequent these sites have some type of product or service they want to sell you. So, unless you enjoy being reverse-marketed to. I suggest staying away from these internet marketing advertising sites.
4. Advertising offline: This is where you place ads in Newspapers, tv, magazines, etc. The good thing is your ad can be shown to many prospects. The bad news is it can be extremely expensive to advertise in the various periodicals. Your ad is usually shown to a wide segment of society and not targeted at all. Not only that, but once you submit your ad to the media company it can take forever for your ad to be seen. What I mean by that is: say your ad is shown in a magazine that is published in March. You will have to have your ad submitted and paid for weeks if not months in advance. It can take months to see a return on your investment.
Now that we’ve reviewed some of the more common offline and web marketing methods, I feel it best to move on to some relatively unknown marketing strategies that can produce results that are both rapid and lucrative.
1. Broadcasting Via Fax: This little-known gem can produce massive results at practically the speed of light. For a minimal charge, your message can be blasted out to your targeted audience. These fax broadcasts can produce many sales literally overnight.
2. Send postcards: You probably don’t realize this. But with the internet’s popularity, there are less advertisements sent in the mail, thus lowering competition. This is a great way to reach customers that are great prospects for whatever it is that you sell. The affordability of postcards is also a real bonus. Not only that, but people just love getting their hands on something that’s real.
3. Email Marketing: Due to the 2003 Can Spam Act this marketing method has lost some of it’s sizzle in recent years. Especially for those that don’t know how to do correctly. You see, if you broadcast your message to a large, annonymous audience you most likely will end up with little if any results. However, if you send out a smaller broadcast to a list of people that have requested information on whatever it is you’re selling. You will be astounded at the high level of response.
About the author: Wayne Hinrichs has ran a profitable small business internet marketing company for the last 5 years. He enjoys helping others with this complex task. web marketing is the top factor in determining a companies profitability. Once an owner knows how to get their message out to their best customers, the other parts of the business becomes rather easy.