“What Should I Do?” – Advertising

In a previous blog post, I give you a link to a fantastic map on MindMeister that contained nearly every marketing technique known to humankind and I promised to go through each of those techniques and show you how to do them well, without spending a lot of time or money.

In today’s blog I’m going to talk about advertising (which is in the top, right-hand position on the map.

The map’s creator lists 3 different advertising channels:

• Affiliate
• Other networks
• Pay per click

Affiliate advertising is when someone else sells your products or service (or, at least points people to your sales page where you sell them your products or services) and they get a cut of your revenue. This is basically a commission-based sales program but it’s automated, which makes it convenient for you.

If you want to succeed at affiliate marketing, you really need to make sure you offer good affiliate support. Your affiliate should be rewarded for his or her effort. There’s a temptation among marketers to try to squeeze out every dollar of profit for themselves and minimize affiliate commissions, but the higher the commission for the affiliate, the more likely they are to sell your product. Also, your affiliate should have the tools to market you appropriately, which means you need to think about buttons, banners, and sales page content. If you support your affiliates, it’s like enabling a sales team and they will sell more for you as a result.

“Other networks” sounds mysterious! And there’s nothing in that part of the map. I would put a site like Craigslist here. Craiglist, which is basically like a giant classified ad section of the newspaper, lets you advertise your services. But there might be local online classified ads, too, so check to see if your local newspaper or media outlet has these. Make sure the content is fresh and relevant for your audience. And if it’s a local advertisement, be sure to highlight that you are local.

Pay per click is exactly what its name suggests: You advertise and pay every time someone clicks. This is most (but not all) banner ads, Google AdWords, and similar ads. The secret to success here is to spend a bit of money and measure everything and then do it again and again. Figure out how many impressions your ad is getting and compare that to the number of times it is clicked. Then compare the number of times your ad is clicked to the number of people who buy from you. Tweak your ad to get more clicks and tweak your sales page to get more sales.

These advertising channels are all about putting out a little bit of teaser content to entice people to go to your site or to contact you for more information.

Good luck!

Related posts:

1. You will not make a fortune overnight, especially selling advertising space
2. Ezines in 10 Minutes a Day – Part 4 – Making Money from Your Ezines
3. Mastering Google AdWords in 10 Minutes – Part 1
4. Mastering Google AdWords in 10 Minutes – Part 2
5. The Power of a List: Part 3