Marketing:Online Marketing

From BootstrapWiki
Revision as of 19:56, 17 June 2006 by Bmassey (talk | contribs) (Contributors)
Jump to: navigation, search

Bootstrap Online Marketing

Right now, the most cost-effective techniques in online marketing are:

  1. Web Sites
  2. Email
  3. Search Optimization
  4. Keyword Search Advertising

Focus your research on these at first.

Online Marketing Resources

The most popular places to read about marketing, including online marketing, are:

MarketingSherpa (marketingsherpa.com)

Blogs

Books and Manifestos

Don't do anything until you've read the ClueTrain Manifesto

Where to get ideas

Look at your competitor's online marketing. Don't assume it's good, but steal the ideas that seem good and try them yourself.

Choices for Internet Marketing

1. Web sites

Banner advertisements on complementary sites. CPM (Cost per thousand displays of your ad) can be costly for local advertising. Prices range between $5/CPM and $20/CPM for local advertising. The problem is that conversions can be as low as .1% (that's .001). That means that at a $5 CPM, you just spent $5 to get one person to your website. These forms of advertising are great for branding, but a little more difficult for direct sales.

2. Email

Email is complicated with all of the laws surrounding this industry. Make sure that your email source has email addresses that are double opt-in. This means that not only did they sign up for the email, they also verified their account by clicking on a link in an email sent from the company that manages the list.

Do not attempt to email advertise people who have not asked to get your information. If you want to reach new customers, hire a company who has double-opt-in customers who are acceptable to receiving your email through that list company. An example of this service is through Postmaster Direct. This can be costly.

3. Search Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a great way to earn some extra money from the sales of your product or service. SEO is difficult to do correct unless you are technically savvy. If you are, then go to some of SEO forums that exist. Remember that the major search engines don't really want you to create webpages specifically designed to make it into the "top 10" of the search results. Aggressive SEO can get your site banned from the search results.

4. Keyword Search Advertising

Google's Adwords and Yahoo's Overture have keyword search engine advertising programs. You can advertise using low dollar keywords. The problem with focusing solely on keyword advertising is that you might be surprised how limiting this form of advertising can be. The dollars spent here are well spent, but it's hard to spend a lot of them. To gain additional exposure (and therefore the opportunity to show you ad to more people), you might want to consider hiring a company that specializes in this. This service should be inexpensive, and a few quick modifications might double or triple the exposure of your ads.

Contributors

Brian Massey