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ARTICLE:
Paid Advertising: The Laziest Way To
Advertise Online
- Abe Cherian |
"You
can literally make millions selling
average products - if you know how to
market them effectively."
At the risk of sounding sensational, if
you understand the concepts introduced
in this article it could literally mean
the difference between miserable failure
and insane online profits for your
business . I'm not talking about a
magical formula that will guarantee
success, but it's something that all
online marketers need to understand.
Unfortunately, most do not - and
therefore they spend every waking minute
just trying to stay in business . And
within a year, most small businesses
give up any hope of making it big online
- firmly believing that "this
Internet thing just doesn't work."
Well I'm here to tell you that it does.
In fact, the Internet is the best thing
that has ever happened to the home-based
or small business owner wanting to reach
a global market. As with anything else
in life, it's actually pretty easy to
profit online if you know how.
When it comes to making lots of money,
all that really matters is marketing.
This is easily proven by the fact that
you don't need a better product or a
lower price to make more money than your
competition. The truth is that you can
literally make millions selling mediocre
or average products - if you know how to
market them effectively.
Of course, you should always strive to
deliver quality products and great value
to your customers - but the point is
that marketing is all that really
matters. It's what you need to be
spending 90% or more of your time doing
if you have any hopes of developing a
profitable online business.
Doing
paperwork, building web sites, answering
email, and processing orders doesn't
help grow your business - only
advertising does.
Advertising is the lifeblood of any
business. If you do not learn how to
advertise your products and services
both efficiently and effectively, you
won't be in business long. While the
Internet has lessened or eliminated many
of the costs normally associated with
starting and running a small business,
and it's now easier than ever, you'll
never realize significant profits if you
don't grow your business through
effective marketing.
There are really just two kinds of
advertising - that which you pay for and
that which you get for free. And both
should have their place in your overall
marketing strategy. The problem arises
when one does not understand how or when
to use each.
Everywhere we look it seems that someone
is claiming you can get rich online by
taking advantage of the free advertising
the Internet offers.
While it's a true statement, the
misleading part is that it's almost
always followed by something like,
"We'll give you a list of over a
MILLION places to advertise for
free!" They normally go on to
explain how anyone can get rich on the
Internet because all of the advertising
is free, and if you just send them
$39.95 ... well you know how it goes.
Unfortunately, as anyone who has tried
posting zillions of free ads on the
Internet will tell you it just doesn't
work that way. What you really need to
know about posting free ads online is
that for the most part it's a waste of
time - unless you're targeting other
marketers - because an overwhelming
majority of people who visit free ad
sites are other online marketers like
you who are trying to promote their own
business.
Effective "free advertising"
strategies do exist, but they aren't
what the average online marketer thinks
of when hearing this often hyped-up
phrase. In future issues we'll
discuss things like networking, swapping
links, joint-ventures, press releases,
and the other "free
advertising" strategies that you
will want to pursue.
But back to the story at hand - free
versus paid advertising.
Are you ready for the one concept that
separates the men from the boys, so to
speak, online?
Here
it is:
Paid advertising is the laziest way
to promote your site!
You don't really think that Yahoo became
the most popular web site on the
Internet, getting millions of visitors
per day, by using free advertising
strategies do you? Heck no. Among other
things, they spend millions of dollars
per year on things like buying
advertising on other big sites and
advertising on both radio and
television.
Now before you say you don't have
millions per year to spend on
advertising, allow me to show you how
you can apply these concepts to your
business on a smaller scale. The good
news is that if you use the right
approach you can start with a few
dollars. It doesn't really matter what
you're marketing, but let's assume that
you sell widgets at your web site. How
could you utilize paid advertising
profitably?
Now before I scare you off with the
thought of having to spend lots and lots
of money on advertising, there's
something that you need to realize. And
it's a basic concept you should be able
to immediately agree with:
If you spend $50 on advertising and
it generates more than $50 in net
profits, that's a good investment.
Well, through the use of proper testing
and a "scientific" approach to
advertising, there's no reason you can't
turn your original $50 ad into millions
of dollars in profits. It's just a
matter of developing a system that
creates a profit, and then reinvesting
your initial profits back into your
business in order to further expand your
advertising.
Remember the widgets? Assume that
through proper tracking of your ad
you're able to determine that 1 out of
every 100 visitors to your site buys a
widget. Let's also assume that on the
sale of every widget you make a $50
profit. Do you see that any ad you buy
which delivers more than 150 visitors to
your site per $50 spent is a profitable
investment?
Promoting a site should be approached
with this type of a scientific or
mathematical attitude. Any advertising
you do is either profitable or not, and
you need to know which it is so you
don't waste time and money.
Here's a somewhat simplistic strategy
that you could use to get started:
Use a combination of free or low-cost
strategies to promote your web site,
generating initial traffic which will
serve as a starting point.
Through proper tracking of your site,
determine the exact "value" of
a visitor in terms of dollars and sense.
This is absolutely critical.
Utilize paid advertising that proves to
be profitable according to step 2, based
on the value of a visitor and the number
of visitors generated.
Through ongoing testing, tracking, and
tweaking, try to increase the value of a
web site visitor as well as response to
your advertising.
Repeat steps 2-4 as necessary - or
forever. The power of this
scientific or mathematical approach to
web site promotion is that once you have
completed the steps you will have an
almost automated advertising campaign
that can literally send you all the
traffic you need. Rather than spending
hours and hours each day promoting your
site, you simply buy more advertising.
The bottom line is that there are only
24 hours in a day and there's only so
much you can do during that time. Free
advertising strategies can be effective,
but normally, anything that's
"free" is going to
"cost" you time.
Give this 5-step scientific approach a
try. If you find you just can't seem to
make the formula work, there can only be
a few reasons for it - either you're not
advertising in the right places, your
web site isn't doing its job, your
profit margins are too low, or your
product or service itself is the
problem. Figure out which it is and you
can't fail.
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Resource Box:
Abe Cherian is the
owner of Multiple
Stream Media and
pulisher of weeklytips.com
newsletter, where you
will find hundreds of
Internet business
building tips. Visit www.weeklytips.com
to read more tips like
this one.
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