Jim Daniels

How and Where to Advertise Your Small Business Online

OK, I'll admit it, I'm a bit of a cheapskate when it comesto marketing. I let my free ebooks, articles and newsletterdo most of my marketing work.

But I also realize that in order to succeed in business, youmust spend SOME money advertising. And I've been relearningthis lesson recently.

Today I'd like to share with you some of my own recentresults, so you'll know exactly how and where you shouldget started advertising online.

For starters, keep your wallet securely in your pocket.There are three things you must do BEFORE spending ad bucksonline. And here they are...

1. Get a handle on how well your site does its selling.

Figuring out how good a job your site does selling issimple. Just look at your stats and do a little math. Youare after just one number... how much a website visitor isworth to you. Or more simply, how much you should PAY for avisitor.

To figure this out you need to first find out how manyvisitors it takes you to get a sale. If you get 1000visitors a week and 10 sales in that same week, then yourvisitor to sales ratio is 100-1. If you average 20 salesfrom those 1000 visitors, you are closing one sale for every50 visitors. Once you know your own number, you will be ableto determine approximately how much a visitor is worth to you.You simply take it one step further...

Let's say you close 1 sale in every 50 visitors and youraverage sale is $50. Simple math tells you that you couldpay up to a dollar per visitor and break even. So a goodgoal would be to pay LESS THAN a buck per visitor. Any adbuy that averages out to less than a dollar per visitorshould be profitable, provided the traffic is targeted. Ifyou aim to spend fifty cents per visitor you can double yourinvestment every time you advertise.

Of course there are lots of variables. Things like opt-inemail members you may receive from an ad buy and the repeatvisitors that your list generates. But you get the idea.Until you know the above numbers for your site, you cannotspend money wisely on advertising.

Once you have a handle on how much a visitor is worth toyou, the next step you must take before your first ad buyis...

2. Set up your email address capture strategy.

If your site is closing one sale for every 50 visitors, youmay be satisfied. But if you are not offering a way for theother 49 visitors to "stay in the loop" you are making ahuge mistake.

And it is simple to keep them from getting away. Just offerthem something of value in exchange for their contactinformation. An example of one way to do this is offering afree gift at your site and getting their name and emailaddress when they request it. Your gift can be a free ebook,an email course or anything else your visitors would want.

You can get as many as 20% of your visitors to leave theircontact info if you do it right. That's a lot of emailaddresses when you start advertising and getting lots oftraffic.

But what do you do with the addresses?

You treat them like gold.

Regularly publish an email newsletter to your growing listof addresses. Contact them and offer your expertise. Givethem more free, valuable information related to what theyrequested originally. Make them feel special and grow acommunity. This is how long-term profits are made online.

Once you have tackled the two items above, there is one laststep before you actually spend money on advertising...

3. Make sure you have a way to measure your results onceyour advertising starts.

I do this simply by copying my main entry page and using thenew URL in the ad. When I check the stats my web host emailsme I can easily see how many visitors came through that URL.This is just ONE way to track traffic. There are TONS more.But you get the idea. You need some way to measure the resultsof your advertising or you are wasting your money.

OK, once you have tackled the three items above, you're allset up to do some ad buys.

I have tried many strategies online and here's the straightscoop on what works and what doesn't. I've ranked nineonline 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 marketingbudget.

OK, here they are...

1. FFA submissions (Free for all links pages)

You know, those interfaces that say "submit to 50,000websites for a few bucks. Well, save your few bucks. FFA'shad their time in the sun. They worked great when they werefirst introduced. Now they are not worth a dime. Heck, evenif you can do a free submission it's probably not worth yourtime. The last three tests I ran submitted my URL to nearlya 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 cando it yourself or hire a company to hide behind. But thefact is, you risk your business reputation and you'll angera ton of folks. Your domain will end up blocked by many ISPsand could even get sued. Unsolicited bulk email is not worththe trouble.

Rating: Poor

3. Safe lists

This is a twist on opt-in email marketing where you pay forthe privilege of being able to send email to a list of othermarketers who have done the same. While I have not triedthis personally I can comment on it simply because lots ofmy subscribers have tried it. And I have not heard one goodthing about it other than from people reselling it. Thefolks that have used it have found that while safe list"members" have agreed to be on the safe lists, most neveractually read messages or buy anything.

Rating: Poor

4. Banner Advertising

This is an "old school" advertising strategy that I havebeen testing again now that prices are lower. And earlyindications are that there is a solid reason for thestill-declining prices of banner advertising. My ownclick-through rates been less that 1% so far, with a fewexceptions. But I do have some decent size banner ad runsplanned for the coming months at some busy, targeted sites.Time will tell if I'll continue with this strategy. If youDO want to try banner advertising, ask the site you plan toadvertise at what the average click-through rates are andwhat banners perform best. That may get you up to two orthree percent. If that will take you into profit, give it awhirl. But most small and home businesses may be betterserved using one of the five advertising methods remaining.

Rating: Fair

5. Opt-in list rental

There are plenty of companies that will rent you emailaddresses that have opted in to receive commercial email.And if the recipients are not being paid to read themessages, that is they are genuinely interested in theoffers they signed up to receive, this strategy can beprofitable. The problem is you'll pay from ten to twentycents per address and mailing to a list large enough to getresults from can be quite expensive. But if your budget canhandle it, you can generate some great trageted traffic.

Rating: Good

6. Paid Search Engines Submissions

While I highly suggest submitting to all the major searchengines 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 engineservices I have had very good luck with...

a. Inktomi's Search/Submit at $30 a year, which gets yourURL into AOL, iWon, MSN and the Looksmart directory within48 hours.

b. Yahoo! Business Express and sponsored site listings. Thebusiness express service costs $199 for non-adult sites, and gets you Yahoo!consideration. While $199 is a little pricey for somesmall business owners, a good listing at Yahoo! brings quitea bit of extra traffic. Once you are listed, consider takingadvantage of the "sponsored site" offering for an additionalmonthly fee. I am sampling this currently and it paid foritself within the first few weeks. My results may decline asmore sites are added into the sponsored sites area but I'llkeep an eye on things.

Rating: Good

7. Pay per click search engines

This advertising model offers a way for you to bid on searchterms and pay only when someone clicks through to your site.I've been advertising with www.goto.com and findwhat.comusing this method and have had decent results. It's easy tocontrol costs and your visitors are targeted precisely.

If you are not in a super-competitive keyword arena you cando well with pay per click engines. For example, if you sellweb hosting, good luck getting traffic for less than a fewbucks a click. But if you have a smaller niche, thisstrategy represents a great opportunity and is worth trying.

And if you DO find that this model works well for you, morethan 75 additional "Pay per Click" search engines can befound at Alan Gardyne's super-duper directory...http://www.payperclicksearchengines.com

Rating: Good

8. Personalized Email Series

Here's one that many marketers don't talk about much. It'sactually a secret weapon among many of the big namemarketers. You offer a freebie at your site and when yourvisitors claim it you are not only added to your opt-in listthey are added to a series of personalized follow-upmessages that you pre-program. If you write a powerful andeffective series this marketing strategy can be one of yourtop sales producers.

Rating: Excellent

9. Ezine Advertising

Still the one. Some people think I recommend ezineadvertising because I have an ezine and I'm trying to sellmy own ad space. On the contrary, I've been trying NOT tosell my ad space for the last few years. That's why my ownrates are so high! I can run my own offers or affiliateoffers and make much more than I can selling the ad space.Many other ezine editors are finding the same thing. Whilethis has resulted in rising ezine ad costs over the last fewyears, one fact remains... ezine advertising is still one ofthe most effective ways to get targeted traffic -- cheap.Just visit an ezine directory and search for ezines in yourniche market. Subscribe to a bunch and start reading them.Look for larger circulation ezines that have a goodfollowing. If you like the content then the thousands ofother readers probably do too. Place an ad and you'll make aprofit, nearly every time. Top sponsorships work best if youcan swing it.

Rating: Excellent

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