Industrial Strength Internet Marketing » advertising

What is the best way to advertise your service with a non-existent budget?

carmstrong — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 02:15:00 +0000

When it comes to advertising your service online there are two ways to make it happen. First is the quick and expensive way and needless to say, you would need a budget. The other, however, would be primarily free (no budget required) but it would need to be built over a longer period of time.

In a brief word, social media is one of the best ways to get started without a budget. It takes longer to build up a revenue because to advertise effectively on social media websites your advertising needs to be viral. That is to say, it needs to be memorable and has to have the appeal that your target audience will want to share it with others. If it is viral then fans of social media websites will ‘spread the word’ for you. So depending on what services you have to offer, I believe that through social media and creating a ‘viral’ ad is the way to go. I recommend that you focus your efforts on Facebook, StumbleUpon, YouTube, and Twitter. (Sorry Fast Pitch. You come if fifth though.) I am working on a social media viral ad for one of my online projects.

If you don’t yet, I also recommend having a blog and link your social media profiles to your blog. Blog about things related to your services but make your blog posts interesting. Perhaps with an interesting twist to the blog posts. Depending on the service that you have to offer, I recommend listing classified ads on free classified ad websites. Do this on a regular basis. It may not be the most effective but on occasion it will work even if it just sends web traffic back to your website or blog.

Another long term “budget-free” way to advertise is to ‘give away’ stuff whether it’s your services (depending on what they are) or something related to your services. Create “Raving Fans”, customers that are not only customers but your biggest fans. People that want to keep coming back for more. I think that giving away ‘free stuff’ to your customers and potential customers is a way to show them that you care. For example, you create a “Make Money Online” ebook and want to sell the ebook. In addition to the ebook, create a “Free Report” and give it away in exchange for your visitor’s name and email address. Build a permission-based email list and continue to show those people in your list that you care by asking them what they want then delivering it to them.

Once you start building some revenue from your services through these online advertising methods, I recommend that you create a budget for advertising. Then you can continue to use the above methods but also add paid advertising such as Google Adwords. Then you will be on your way to creating a regular stream of revenue through effective online advertising.

The Business of Love

carmstrong — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 20:59:01 +0000

Valentine’s Day is tomorrow and like any other holiday, long ago companies decided to capitalize on the great feelings that people like you and me have during such special holidays. What does this mean for us and internet business owners? As internet business owners, we can learn from how those companies market certain products during certain times of the year. Pay attention around the next holiday and notice how companies adjust their marketing strategies to adapt to that particular holiday.

As for those of you that are involved with affiliate marketing, during these holidays. Make sure that you anticipate and plan ahead to be prepared when the holiday arrives because it’s here today and gone tomorrow. If you sufficiently plan to take advantage of these special times then you will be able to skyrocket your affiliate commissions.

Have something to say? – Podcast it!

carmstrong — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 02:59:55 +0000

If you love to talk and are passionate about what you talk about then why not tell the world about it. The internet has come along way since the early days. We can thank Apple and their iconic iTunes that have popularized podcasting. For those of you that are newer to this concept, podcasting is a way to broadcast anything over the internet. Whether it’s audio or video, it will be heard by your subscribers. With that said there are websites and companies online that really simplify the process of podcasting and allow you to host your podcast on their servers saving you lots of headaches and sleepless nights trying to figure this “podcasting” mystery.

One podcasting service that I have experience with is MyPodcast.com. I like them because, first of all, you can use their services for free and it’s easy to use. In addition to allowing you to use their services for free, they give you the tools to generate an income from your podcast with advertising. Companies will pay to be able to insert a small 30 second advertisement into your podcast. You have the option of approving the company and advertisement so you remain in control of the content available in your podcast. The Industrial Strength Internet Marketing Podcast will begin soon and will be available directly through this website as well as on mypodcast.com at isim.mypodcast.com.