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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