Where to Advertise Your
Small Business Online
By Jim Daniels
OK, once you have tackled the three items above, (see SPN issue
#55) you're all set up to do some ad buys.
I have tried many strategies online and here's the straight scoop on what works and what doesn't. I've ranked nine online advertising strategies as follows...
Poor: Don't waste your time.
Fair: Worth a try at least once or twice.
Good: A solid way to spend ad dollars.
Excellent: Should be a regular staple in any online marketing budget.
OK, here they are...
1. FFA submissions (Free for all links pages)
You know, those interfaces that say "submit to 50,000 websites for a few bucks. Well, save your few bucks. FFA's had their time in the sun. They worked great when they were first introduced. Now they are not worth a dime. Heck, even if you can do a free submission it's probably not worth your time. The last three tests I ran submitted my URL to nearly a half a million sites. I got four visitors. 'Nuf said.
Rating: Poor
2. Bulk email
Sure, you CAN get website traffic using bulk email. You can do it yourself or hire a company to hide behind. But the fact is, you risk your business reputation and you'll anger a ton of folks. Your domain will end up blocked by many ISPs and could even get sued. Unsolicited bulk email is not worth the trouble.
Rating: Poor
3. Safe lists
This is a twist on opt-in email marketing where you pay for the privilege of being able to send email to a list of other marketers who have done the same. While I have not tried this personally I can comment on it simply because lots of my subscribers have tried it. And I have not heard one good thing about it other than from people reselling it. The folks that have used it have found that while safe list "members" have agreed to be on the safe lists, most never actually read messages or buy anything.
Rating: Poor
4. Banner Advertising
This is an "old school" advertising strategy that I have been testing again now that prices are lower. And early indications are that there is a solid reason for the still-declining prices of banner advertising. My own click-through rates have been less than 1% so far, with a few exceptions. But I do have some decent size banner ad runs planned for the coming months at some busy, targeted sites. Time will tell if I'll continue with this strategy. If you DO want to try banner advertising, ask the site you plan to advertise at what the average click-through rates are and what banners perform best. That may get you up to two or three percent. If that will take you into profit, give it a whirl. But most small and home businesses may be better served using one of the five advertising methods remaining.
Rating: Fair
5. Opt-in list rental
There are plenty of companies that will rent you email addresses that have opted in to receive commercial email. And if the recipients are not being paid to read the messages, that is they are genuinely interested in the offers they signed up to receive, this strategy can be profitable. The problem is you'll pay from ten to twenty cents per address and mailing to a list large enough to get results from can be quite expensive. But if your budget can handle it, you can generate some great targeted traffic.
Rating: Good
6. Paid Search Engines Submissions
While I highly suggest submitting to all the major search engines that are still free (AltaVista, Lycos, Google, HotBot, DMOZ and Direct Hit) this article is about "paying" for advertising. And there are two paid search engine services I have had very good luck with...
a. Inktomi's Search/Submit at $30 a year, which gets your URL into AOL, iWon, MSN and the Looksmart directory within 48 hours.
b. Yahoo! Business Express and sponsored site listings. The
business express service
Rating: Good
7. Pay per click search engines
This advertising model offers a way for you to bid on search terms and pay only when someone clicks through to your site. I've been advertising with www.goto.com and findwhat.com using this method and have had decent results. It's easy to control costs and your visitors are targeted precisely.
If you are not in a super-competitive keyword arena you can do well with pay per click engines. For example, if you sell web hosting, good luck getting traffic for less than a few bucks a click. But if you have a smaller niche, this strategy represents a great opportunity and is worth trying.
And if you DO find that this model works well for you, more than 75 additional Pay per Click search engines can be found at Alan Gardyne's super-duper directory...
Rating: Good
8. Personalized Email Series
Here's one that many marketers don't talk about much. It's actually a secret weapon among many of the big name marketers. You offer a freebie at your site and when your visitors claim it they are not only added to your opt-in list they are added to a series of personalized follow-up messages that you pre-program. If you write a powerful and effective series this marketing strategy can be one of your top sales producers.
Rating: Excellent
9. Ezine Advertising
Still the one. Some people think I recommend ezine advertising because I have an ezine and I'm trying to sell my own ad space. On the contrary, I've been trying NOT to sell my ad space for the last few years. That's why my own rates are so high! I can run my own offers or affiliate offers and make much more than I can selling the ad space. Many other ezine editors are finding the same thing. While this has resulted in rising ezine ad costs over the last few years, one fact remains... ezine advertising is still one of the most effective ways to get targeted traffic -- cheap. Just visit an ezine directory and search for ezines in your niche market. Subscribe to a bunch and start reading them. Look for larger circulation ezines that have a good following. If you like the content then the thousands of other readers probably do too. Place an ad and you'll make a profit, nearly every time. Top sponsorships work best if you can swing it.
Rating: Excellent
About The Author
Article by Jim Daniels of
BizWeb2000. If you're
interested in starting or growing a business on the Internet,
Jim's sites will help you save time and money. He's been making
a living online since 1996 and knows the ropes. Visit Jim and
get your free help!