As we've heard from countless people trying to sell us Advertising, Internet
advertising is cheaper and faster. But is it really better? Is it the
right kind of advertising for your company? There are some things that we
should all do when it comes to Internet marketing, but before you go spend
allot of money on big expensive ad spots you need to consider your
alternatives.
First of all lets look at what we all should do. Every business that has a
web site should register their site with all the major search engines,
especially Yahoo. You should also look for listings that deal with sites of
your type and try to get in those listings as well. If you run a carpet
store for example, you will want to get a listing at floorbiz sites. Once
you have done that you should collect e-mail or snail mail addresses from
your customers, and prospects so you can keep in touch with them. You can
try FFA sites, and banner exchanges if you like, but don't expect any direct
traffic from it. You might get a higher search engine placement but that
won't really matter if you're on page 20 of the results anyway.
What are your alternatives? The avenues of Internet marketing continue to
grow faster than most of us can keep up with them. Some of the most common
ways are analyzed below.
Banner advertisements are sometimes very expensive on high traffic sites
and produce a limited amount of traffic. These are like billboards on the
side of the road that you hope people will look at as they drive by. If
they are driving through for the first time, they might read them but at the
moment they are on there way somewhere else and don't have time to stop at
your business. Besides if this is the first time through the area, they
don't want to get off course because they might get lost. And if they
travel that same route very often, they won't even notice when the billboard
changes advertisements.
Another possibility is E-Magazine ads. This type of advertising can be
very effective as long as you place ads in magazines that have the same
readership as your target audience. I have found this method of E-Marketing
to be quite effective in directing potential customers to my site and even
generating additional leads for follow-up. You do want to make sure that
the Magazine has a genuine and substantially large opt-in mailing list
however.
Another possibility is of course the ever-dreaded topic of e-mail
marketing. It is really not that bad. Just make sure you opt-in the
participants yourself. And I wouldn't trust anyone who wants to sell you an
"opt-in list of addresses of people interested in your products or
services." If it was really was as described, you probably couldn't pay
what it was worth. You will have better success having a company send the
e-mails for you to their list of address that they are not willing to sell
(which is a good indication that they are really opt-in). And if they are
not opt-in, then at least you won't loose your ISP. If you do it right,
this can be one of the most effective, and inexpensive forms of E-Marketing
available to you.
About the Author
Bob Stamper. Your small business solution for web site design
and Primary DNS hosting http://www.stamproductions.com/