Banner Advertisements - I generally recommend
that people stay away from these. Why? Because
most people are annoyed by banners and they
generally don't pay them any attention. Truth
be told, most people generally don't get a return
on this type of advertisement. However, if you're
in the business of 'branding' your name, then
banners are great. You'll oftentimes see larger
companies with big budgets running these 'branding'
campaigns. Branding is more of a long-term strategy
with these companies and they're not expecting
to see a return on their investment anytime
soon.
If
you're going to use banner advertising, try
these tips and suggestions. They'll actually
increase your click-thru rates and can actually
make you money.
Only
use banner advertising on sites that have your
ideal prospects. If you're selling religious
t-shirts, then you shouldn't be running banner
ads on websites that talk about computers, online
dating, dogs or business opportunities. The
people visiting those sites are least likely
to click-thru to your site. Now I realize some
of you knuckle-heads are probably thinking that
'religious' folks are interested in computers,
online dating, dogs and business opportunities
and that they'll click-thru and buy.
Yes…you're
right! You may get a few clicks and a few sales.
But what I'm talking about here is getting the
best return for your money spent! And don't
you think you'll get a whole lot more people
clicking thru to your site if your banner was
been advertised on 'Christian-themed' websites?
Absolutely!
I know firsthand. I had a religious apparel
company and sold tens of thousands of religious
t-shirts too…
For
example, I ran banners ads on sites that sold
religious-themed checks, bible software, Christian
directory websites, Christian banner exchanges,
etc… By far, the best sites to advertise
banner ads on of course are on sites that actually
sell products. These will give you a better
return on your investment. The only requirement
is that the site sells product(s) that are complimentary
to what you're selling…obviously, the site
owner won't let you market religious t-shirts
if he's primarily selling religious t-shirts
too.
Also,
another suggestion when creating your banner
ad is to create one that doesn't look like an
advertisement. Instead, try to make your banner
color the same color as the web page background.
This will make the ad appear to be part of the
site and not look like an advertisement. In
addition to that, use text, and try to match
the text to that of the website too.
Text
ads that are relevant in nature will get higher
click-thru rates, which means more sales for
you. So try to make your banner look like a
text-ad. Stay away from those banner exchange
web sites and actively seek out sites that allow
you to advertise and more importantly, seek
out sites that already have your ideal prospect.
Automated Website Submissions - You'll recognize
these because they're generally trying to sell
you on the fact that they'll "Submit Your
Website to 10,000 Search Engines and Directories".
If it sounds to good to be true, it probably
is. Again, they're simply blasting your URL
to all of these directories, which for the most
part aren't your ideal target market. And in
reality, the amount of traffic you'll get is
very miniscule.
If
you're going to submit your website listing,
your overall goal should be to submit your website
to the right categories, in the right search
engines and in the right directories. Period!
Need
an example? Here you go…let's say your
site talks about Mercedes Benz. One search engine
/ directory may have a category for Cars, while
the other search engine / directory has a category
for luxury cars. Automated type software would
not know to submit your listing there; instead,
it would simply submit it to the Cars category.
Only you would know which category would best
describe your product/service.
My
suggestion to you would be to submit the website
yourself. There are only a handful of search
engines and directories worth submitting to
anyway, the rest would automatically pick them
up (the ones that really matter of course).
Advertising on Other Websites - This topic
is almost similar to the banner advertising
we discussed earlier. Many sites that have products
and services that are complimentary to yours
do allow advertising. And those would be great
sites to consider if you want to get targeted
traffic. Most sites that offer advertising have
a variety of options available to you other
than banners.
For
instance, many will allow you to place 'text-ads'
throughout their site, while others will allow
you to advertise in their monthly newsletter.
Some websites will allow you to sponsor a particular
page or category within their site, which finely
narrows your ideal target group. Given the option,
text-ads will perform much better than banner
ads every time.
Newsletter
advertising works extremely well too…depending
on how the site owner allows you to advertise.
Some do banners while others allow you to put
a few sentences advertising your product and
service with a link back to your website. Others
allow you to put 1-2 paragraphs.
Again,
the key is advertising with others who most
likely have your ideal customer (those most
likely to buy your product or service).
Pay-Per-Click Advertising - I personally
like pay-per-clicks myself and they work extremely
well if you know what you're doing. Many people
will tell you to steer clear of pay-per-click
advertising, but that's because they don't know
what they're doing.
What
is Pay Per Click Advertising? Well, I got this
definition from the Wikipedia website and it
gives you the best definition:
Advertisers
bid on "keywords" that they believe
their target market (people they think would
be interested in their offer) would type in
the search bar when they are looking for their
type of product or service.
For
example, if an advertiser sells red widgets,
he/she would bid on the keyword "red widgets",
hoping a user would type those words in the
search bar, see their ad, click on it and buy.
These
ads are called "sponsored links" or
"sponsored ads" and appear next to
and sometimes above the natural or organic results
on the page. The advertiser pays only when
the user clicks on the ad.
Pay
Per Click advertising is a great way to get
online almost immediately. During 9-11, when
everyone wanted to purchase American Flags,
we were able to instantly get online fairly
quickly to market and sell our line of American
Flag t-shirts. If my memory serves me correctly,
I want to say we paid out $3,500 in pay-per-click
fees in a matter of 3-5 days…but we also
sold over $45,000.00 worth of t-shirts in that
3-5 timespan too!
Here
is a list of the top Pay Per Click Search Engines:
Google
Adwords - http://www.google.com/intl/en/ads/
YAHOO Search Marketing - http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/
MSN AdCenter - https://adcenter.microsoft.com/Default.aspx
Find What - http://findwhat.com/advertise_here.htm
Enhance Interactive - http://www.enhance.com/
Offline Classified Newspaper Ads - If done
properly, classified ads can easily generate
you a ton of leads & business. The key of
course would be placing the classified ad in
the proper category.
When
I was in the teeth whitening business, we were
looking for dealers to buy our product in bulk
to resell. In essence, we were searching out
business opportunity seekers. The USA Today
Newspaper had a Business Opportunity section
in their classified ads section. Our average
dealer package cost $1,999.00.
Why
did we choose USA Today? Well, we calculated
that the readers of USA Today had a little more
disposable income, they were more educated and
if they were looking in the Business Opportunity
section of the newspaper, then we could probably
sell them.
We
ran our ad in the weekend edition (Friday, Saturday
& Sunday). I believe the ad cost us about
$475 and the ad read something like this:
TEETH
WHITENING CASH EXPLOSION!
Cash in on this amazing industry. Thanks to
TV shows like Extreme Makeover, you're only
1 phone-call away from being Filthy RICH!
FREE Info at: www.our-website.com
Or Call Toll-FREE: 1.800.888.8888
Did
it work? Yes it did. On average, we received
about 30-35 calls every weekend. With the average
dealer package costing $1,999.00, we generally
closed on 3-4 deals…EACH WEEK! That's $8,000
weekly, from a $475 investment!
It
doesn't matter what industry you're in. Each
paper has a variety of categories and if you
match your product/service to the proper category,
you can achieve some amazing results. When writing
classified ads, you need to follow a few tips
to maximize the response rate.
#1,
don't try and sell your product in the ad. There
simply isn't enough space to do that. The people
who saw our ad had the option to go to the website
or call us for additional information. Did I
try to sell them on the phone? No I didn't.
My goal was to get their name, mailing address,
email address and phone number. I sent them
a package outlining the business opportunity.
That package was designed to sell them on the
business, not me.
If
they went to the website, the website sold the
heck out of them. The website had everything
the mailing piece had. Either way, they received
all the information they needed to make a decision.
Most
people make the mistake of trying to sell their
product in the ad and that's bad. As stated
earlier, there is no room in that small space
to create value of the product or service. That
could only be done with a direct mail piece
or a direct response written website.
And
I'm going to repeat this one more time. Don't
ever try to sell your product in that ad. You
should craft a very detailed information package
to send to these 'qualified prospects'. Your
ad should direct them to request more information…whether
it instructs them to download a free report
from your website, or to call your 24-hour voicemail
recording and leave their name and address to
receive their free information package.
Trust
me…they'll leave their name and address
to receive the package if you wrote the ad properly.
Here's an example:
Anti-Aging
Secrets Exposed!
Try it and see the results for yourself.
Leave name & address on 24-hr
recording to receive FREE samples
via mail. 404.404.4040
This
is an ad I ran for an Arbonne distributor who
had sample packs for an anti-aging product.
The ad work extremely well…and while she
sold many anti-aging products, she got even
more customers to buy other Arbonne products.
Why was this ad effective…. let's break
it down!
Everybody
loves a secret and giving away free samples
didn't hurt either. If we didn't put the following:
"Leave name and address on 24-hr recording"
we would not have received nearly as many calls.
How do I know? Because we tested it. By allowing
people to leave a message on a recording, they
don't feel threatened. They know they're isn't
going to be someone on the other end of the
phone trying to sell them something. That's
why this works so well…
It's
our job to sell them…when people left their
names and addresses, we sent them the samples,
along with a sales letter…several purchased
right away, while it took a 2nd letter to get
more to buy…on the third mailing we sent
a Arbonne catalog. Can you guess what happened?
Many of them actually picked up the phone and
called the distributor to purchase other beauty
related products.
The
ad above cost about $47 dollars to run for 7
days…this was in one of those counties
that had their own newspaper, with a population
of about 90,000 people.
I
don't mean to babble on, but I want to give
you as much information as possible. In another
example, I ran a roommate matching service.
I grew the business strictly through classified
ads. Here is an example of the ad I ran (I don't
have it in front of me, so it may vary slightly).
Find
a Local Roommate
to Share the Expenses
We match them, screen
them, & do background
checks. Call 24-hr recording
for more info: 404.404.4040
What
did they hear on that voice recording? Well…it
was a 7 minute pitch explaining exactly what
it was we do…I know, some of you are thinking
who in the world would listen to a 7 minute
spill on the telephone?
Well…anybody
looking for a roommate would listen to a 20
minute spill if it lasted that long. The people
looking to use my service want all the information
they'd need to make a decision on whether or
not to use my service.
The
7-minute pitch discussed how we match them and
screen them. It also discussed the type of background
checks being performed. It also explained how
much they'd pay and it also discussed some very
basic safety issues.
We
charged $150 bucks to be split amongst the 2
roommates once we made a match.
Now…after
listening to a 7-minute pitch, it told them
to leave their name and telephone number if
they were interested in moving forward. And
guess what? Those who left their names and phone
numbers didn't have to be sold. They were already
sold! And, I didn't have to go over the same
spill 30 times a day…. the voice recording
did it for me and I simply checked my messages
twice a day and spent the rest of my day 'having
a life'.
Classified
ads marketing works and it works well…Try
it!
Non-Paid
Advertising:
I
didn't mean to ramble on about "Paid-Advertisements",
sometimes I get caught up in the moment, so
I'll keep this section short.
Submitting Articles - Writing articles about
your product or service is a great way to get
exposure. There are many article directories
on the Internet that will allow you to submit
your articles - and the article directories
are setup to allow you to categorize your articles
too…
Ezine
or website publishers (owners) are always looking
for quality content to put on their website.
For example, lets say you have a site that sells
a DVD that shows people how to train Cocker
Spaniels. And lets say you write an article
providing a few tips on how to get a Cocker
Spaniel to shake people's hands.
Now…lets
say there is a website owner who has a website
on Cocker Spaniels and every week he/she generally
post a new article to the site. Chances are,
he/she will go to a directory and type in Cocker
Spaniel or whatever and if your article appears,
and he's interested…he'll copy and post
your article to his website.
How
does that help you? As the author of the article,
at the end, you get to leave a link-back to
your website. People who read your articles
and click on your link(s) found in your Resource
Box at the end of each of your articles are
highly-qualified prospects by the very nature
of how they found your website.
Let's
say 10 publishers decide to post your article?
Now, you have 10 websites pointing back to you…which
looks good to the search engines, particularly
Google…and best of all, the sites are all
relevant to your site, thus making for an easier
sell when the visitors land on your site.
Don't
believe me? Go and visit this article directory
right now and type in keywords related to your
website and see how many articles come up:
http://www.ezinearticles.com/
Here
is a brief list of my favorite Article Directories:
www.ezinearticles.com
www.kokkada.com
www.goarticles.com
www.articledashboard.com
www.findarticles.com
And
best of all…. it's FREE!
Posting to Blogs - Search for blogs that
are related to what your selling and leave relevant/useful
comments based on the article you read on the
blog. Obviously, don't go spamming the blogs,
but leave relevant comments. For example…if
your site is about "Crappie Fishing",
find blogs on that subject. Read the articles
and leave a comment. Don't say…Great article
man, I really enjoyed it…
Chances
are, the publisher of the blog will delete your
comment and you simply wasted your time. Most
of the blogs you leave comments on will allow
you to leave your name and web site address
(which is linked back thru your name). The name
of the game is getting link backs of course
and the more the better. The search engine spiders
will crawl the site and follow the links back
to your site.
By
the way, it won't hurt to start blogging yourself
either. If you have specialized knowledge, you
should be blogging…this is an additional
way to keep content fresh while ensuring your
visitors return to the site.
Create an Affiliate Program - When you setup
an affiliate program for your own products or
services, you're essentially saying "I'll
pay you each time you refer someone to my website
and they make a purchase".
Affiliate
programs can be huge to your bottom line. Some
get so big that companies (small and large)
will generally outsource the management of the
affiliates to a 3rd party 'Affiliate Manager'.
When
someone joins your affiliate program, they're
assigned a special tracking link that they put
on their website (or e-newsletters, banners,
etc). When a visitor from their site clicks
and the link, it directs them to your website.
And if that visitor makes a purchase, the affiliate
will receive a commission for the sale.
For
example…I ran an affiliate program for
my religious apparel company. I paid out 20%
commission fees. The average sale from consumers
was about $35.00, of which the affiliate would
earn $7.00. On orders that were $500.00, the
affiliate would earn a $100.00 commission.
The
great thing about affiliates is that they don't
get paid unless they generate sales. So there's
no cost to you to have 10,000 affiliates. The
more you have, the more you stand to make obviously.
Affiliate
programs are huge…most of your e-commerce
sites have affiliate programs, to include your
fortune 500 companies, to include Wal-Mart,
Target, Vonage, Circuit City and more…
Simply
put…they work and you should at least investigate
the idea. Manage the affiliate program yourself
in the beginning and if you see that you're
getting busier or bigger, then by all means,
outsource it. When you outsource it, the affiliate
management companies tend to collect a percentage
of all revenues generated by the affiliates.
And they are also proactive in promoting and
recruiting affiliates to join your program…why?
Because they make more money! It's a win-win.
Message Boards - Find message boards related
to your products/services. Join the discussions
and post relevant comments. Message forums are
a great way to generate targeted traffic.
You'll
find that most message board communities will
allow you to leave a signature at the end of
each post you make. In that signature, you can
put your name, website address and a brief blurb
about what you do…If people read your posts
and find the information relevant, they'll click-thru
to your web site…. and that's an extra
FREE back link to your web site!
Don't
overdo it with your posts, otherwise other members
of the forum won't respect you, and will assume
you're spamming the board. Only make informative
and helpful posts, which add something of value
to the discussion.
Reciprocal Links - Get links from other
websites related to yours. Either submit your
site to add yourself to a link partners page
where applicable, or exchange links with them.
Ideally you want links from popular sites, and/or
sites with a high Google pagerank (PR).
Local Searches - Add your website to local
searches. Most search engines have local search
features and you could definitely get listed
there. Visit local.yahoo.com,local.google.com,
and www.superpages.com to add your website.
Whatever
type of free advertising you decide to use,
make sure to use ad tracking software. This
will allow you to track where your visitors
are coming from, and what types of advertising
are the most effective. Don't guess! Our goal
is to get the best return on our advertising
dollar and the only way to do that is to track
it!
That's
it for now. If you have tested and tried some
unique and inexpensive ways to get traffic to
your website, please email us and we'll include
your ideas in our next updated version.
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