Effective Free Marketing

Marketing Tactics #37: Before you dive into PPC advertising and blow all or most of your advertising budget, try Facebook advertising. Create a custom Facebook Fan Page Landing Page and drive your traffic from the Facebook ad to the Fan Page and you will save about 30% on your CCP or CPM. Use FanPageEngine.com to customize and brand your Facebook Fan Page.

Working on a marketing and a launch plan for my new digital product… Advice: don’t launch your product before creating a plan first!

Online marketing has become one of the most ubiquitous money makers in this generation.  Be it regarded as a part time or a full time job, many have tried to make online marketing a profitable business.

Hence, because of the need for it, many have also started raking in money by “teaching” beginning online marketers about the skills they would need in order to become successful at their marketing career.  The trouble is that, while some are legitimate and can really help; there are others who just scam novice marketers with useless information.

It is therefore necessary that before you begin buying into all these tips and tactics that are offered at “discount prices,” that you learn what is necessary for you to start your online marketing career. There are fundamental skills that you will need from the start; afterwards, you can deal with all the software and other trimmings of online marketing strategies.

First off, you need to have the following values:

1.       Patience – online marketing is definitely not the fastest way of earning money.  You will need to work for it if you really want to earn an amount that would matter.  Usually, people who are impatient get drawn into millions of Ponzi scams, promising definite and immediate pay out.

2.       Work ethics – even if you are doing this part time, you nee to make sure that you can follow through on all your projects until the end.

3.       Honesty – no matter what people say about marketing being all about advertising half-truths, the one thing that can solidify your reputation is being truthful to your clients.  When your clients trust you, you get their loyalty, plus their priceless help in promoting your business via word of mouth.

Next are the skills:

1.       You will need the skill to choose your product or concept well.  Sellable products are the ones that people will always need. However, if the product is already selling off-line, more people will choose to buy it off the shelves of the grocery than online with which they will have to wait for delivery.  Nevertheless, if you are able to repackage the product in a better manner – meaning more value for money for the consumer- then you can sell these products, as they say, like hot pancakes.

2.       You will need the skill to create demand. In cases where your product is new but you know that it does have a niche in the market, you need to create hype.

3.       You need to learn how to self-promote. Whether or not yours is already an established sellable product or concept, self-promotion is a must.  You are not the only one who will be selling that idea or merchandise, and you need to be one of the power players in order to earn the big bucks. In effectively promoting you need to know how to tap into your target markets.  One of the best ways is to learn how to use the different marketing tools available to you.  Some of these would be tools in building affiliate programs, building an e-mail list, and to use common internet technologies such as video and audio presentations for your website.

These are your basic needs in building a career in online marketing.  If you have most of the values and skills that were mentioned above, it will be a bit easier to mark your place in the online marketing industry.

Forums are one of the most popular ways of communicating online, especially with people who are miles away from each other, have not met, and have common interests.  Forums are sough after since boards are topic-specific and usually yield valuable resources for online information.

Typical forums are the ones that answer queries from anyone, or have particular threads for various topics.  Since this medium of communication is very flexible, a lot of people – potential leads or clients or even business associates for you and resources- are drawn to become subscribers or regular readers.

In using forums as a way of marketing, the usual strategy is to leave a post or a comment and then attaching a back link to a particular site.  But first, you should know that there are different types of forums.  These are:

1.       Forums that do not allow promotion by posters

2.       Forums that allow any promotion by the posters

3.       Forums that allow for self-promotion in a limited yet productive enough manner

You may join in any of these three types because you do have different needs as an online marketer.

1.       In forums that do not allow any type of advertising, you can get useful information on your particular niche, trends and new marketing ideas that you can integrate into your own strategy.  You may have use for the knowledge that you get from these forums in writing articles for submission or for posting in your own web blog or web pages.

2.       In forums that allow any type of advertising, you can get valuable resource people or business contacts that have already succeeded in the business that you are engaging in.

3.       In forums that fall somewhere in between, you get everything that you might require – ideas about the field you are in, possible business associates and clients, plus a site where you can promote your own page.

Now that you have an idea of the different forums that you will encounter, you need to know the fundamentals of posting in a forum.

1.       Searching for a forum to post in is easy enough.  You just need to use a search engine.  To reach far and wide, use search words that are generic but still very connected to your subject (the niche that you are in). For instance, if you are selling pet products such as dog collars, travel cages, and the like, type in “forums about pets” and you are on your way.

2.       If you want to be more specific, you can use long tail keywords like “dog collars for various breeds.”

3.       Carefully read through the topics that have been posted, the comments that have followed, and create a post that is relevant to what the focus of the online discussion is.  The most annoying posts are the ones that seem to have been submitted just for the fun of it – useless information would just be shunned by readers.

4.       Practice “netiquette.”  This is to say that you always need to be polite, careful not to offend other poster’s senses, and respect the administrator/ moderators of the forum.

5.       Make your posts count.  Writing anything down just for the sake of, without regard to the way the discussion is being handled will only make you look like a desperate marketer who cannot get business elsewhere.

Forums may be your way of getting most of what you need when honing a career in online marketing.  Just make sure to follow the rules and the fundamental tips that you have read above.

Your website is an important part of your online marketing business.  In a way, this is your office – what you present to guests that can potentially become loyal clients in the long run. Therefore, you need to make sure that these possible customers do not only like what they see, but like it enough to keep on coming back, and even bring their friends along on the next visit.

If a visitor enjoys his or her first foray into your pages, s/he will most likely bookmark it, which means that your page will be visited time and time again.  How do you persuade these guests to return?  By following the steps outlined below:

1.       Know your target audience by heart.  If you define what your target market is, you can assume how they would react to different types of advertising and promotion. This is essential before you even start thinking of what to put in your site.  The contents of your site, be it short texts, answer to queries, images, e-books, audio-visual presentations or teleseminars, should be guided by what your audience wants and needs. You may think that presenting general topics can be more productive, seeing that you can encompass more people, but the thing to look at here is whether your visitors relate to your site’s content.  If they cannot relate, they will not become interested and they will not be encouraged to come back.

2.       Focus on your own objectives for your site.  What do you want to accomplish in building a site anyway? We cannot deny that in this world of e-commerce, a big part of your advertising and sales may come from the internet.  However, you will need to mold your site around the objectives that you set.  If you want your site to become an informative page so that your clients can associate you with valuable knowledge on a particular subject, then that is a clear goal.  You can also set your sights on making your web page the most trusted when it comes to answering queries about a specific topic.  The objectives you set will be dependent on what you think your target market would appreciate.

3.       Create a reliable webpage.  Your content needs to be of great value to the market you are targeting.  Additionally, the way you present your content should also be a format that your audience can easily relate to – or expect.

It may be that some clients or potential customers want fast and easy access to your site.  These types of clients are looking for a page that is easy to decipher and transmits faster.

Some clients in the meantime want not only a site that is easily accessible, they also want to see a page that has some form of entertainment.  This holds their interest and they stay longer.

There should be no confusion in this area however, if you know your target niche.

4.       Your web page should mirror your sales goals.  Of course your main sales goal would be to have more sales, but how do you get there?  A website can do a lot of things.  For instance, you may use your site to explain what your product is, say why it is good and why it would be an advantage for people to purchase it, etc.  Or, you can also create a site that is an active conversion page – one that instantly turns visits into sales.

Of the four tips mentioned above, the most crucial is the first.  Everything else depends on how well you know what your target market needs, wants, and expects.

Marketing is indeed a complicated task; there are so many things that you can do to make your business move forward yet so little time in which you can use them.  That is why it is crucial to know how to choose which tools are the most effective and at what time you can employ them.

If you are doing online marketing as a part-time job, the task of advertising may be too stressful to handle.  This is the reason why only about 10 % of internet marketers succeed. Some who suffer losses early on in the game just choose to let go and focus on their day jobs; others wait until they have lost more than they can expend before succumbing to defeat.

But, the way to online marketing success is simpler than most people would expect.  Organization is key; in this you need to know how to manage your time well, and which of the myriad marketing tools would be the more efficient in leading to conversions.

How do you become a more organized and more effective online marketer?

1.       Stop trying to learn anything and everything that is related to effective online marketing. If you do this, you will get tired faster.  Having to ingest all of that information, plus the fact that some of them will be contradicting would lead to your mind virtually stalling.

2.       The research that you do before starting your online marketing would be enough for the first few months of your career.  Focus on those and become an expert before you start looking for additional tools.

3.       Keep in mind that engaging in research (reading e-books, watching videos, etc) takes up a lot of time – time that you can use instead to make profits. Spend only a couple of hours each week to study.

4.       Look for patterns in the marketing tools that you will be employing.  Most of these involve: knowing which field or niche you will be focusing on, having a product that is sellable, creating an attractive website, leading traffic to your site, having a basic customer follow up system, and expanding your network to other businesses in the same field as yours.

5.       The above tip is fundamental and the steps are arranged in the order that you should execute them.  Once you have done all of them, you have the capacity to add on more marketing tools later on.

6.       In the beginning, focus your energy on one project at a time.  Each project will have its own time requirement.  While you become adept at marketing and using the tools, you spend shorter time on each project and you can finish more projects.

7.       Online marketing “gurus” are there to be an inspiration, not a god. You do not need to follow in their footsteps, just be inspired by what you can achieve.

With the simple yet effective marketing tips that you have read, you will have vey little chance of not succeeding.  The difference would be for how long you would be willing to practice this trade to become really good.  Having the right tools is not enough, employing them at the right time would pull you nowhere but up.

Part of the marketing strategy that you have planned is to direct traffic to the site you are promoting.  It may be your own site, or it may be an affiliate site that you get commissions from sales. Inevitably, the most effective at the shortest time is paid traffic.  However, if you are just starting, your most valued investment would be time and not money.

Free traffic can be had, but the disadvantage is that you will need to spend a lot of time building it. If you have decided to use this tool, here are some tips that you can use:

1.       Research on all the free advertising that you can use.  Do not start with the unknown sites; start with the big ones, like Google, Yahoo, and MSN.  One way of making sure that your site can be found is to register with these giants as these search engines are the most known.

2.       Once you have registered your site with the major search engines, you can start looking for other smaller yet upcoming search engines.

3.       Look for a free finding the best blogs tool online and use it to your advantage.  The use of this type of tool is simple, you just need to key in related words to your site and visit the web blogs that come up on the list.  Fin a topic in the blog – hopefully the most recent ones – and post a comment with a back link to your site.  Keep in mind though, that some blogs have a strict policy on advertising in their sites; when this happens, you will not be able to post a web address but your name only.  Additionally, some web blog administrators choose to filter the comments their blogs get s make sure that what you are posting is valuable information.

4.       Join forums whose topics are connected to the site you are promoting.  Being an active member of forums can lead you to create valuable relationships with the people who subscribe to that forum.  Again, you will need to leave a signature after every post.

5.       Getting into blog sites and forums has another advantage; that is, you can find out what kind of information your target market wants to read about or ask about.  What do you do with this information? Write full articles about them and put them on your page.  You can also submit articles to free article directories.  You would not be paid for this but since these articles are re-posted all over the internet to various sites that are most likely related to your site’s contents, you get free and wide-reaching advertising.

There are other ways to direct traffic to your site; the five tips defined above are just some that you can start doing all at once.  You can add more to the list such ass creating your own blog, writing press releases, exchanging links, submission of videos, etc.  However, it is best that you start piecemeal rather than trying to juggle so many marketing tools all together.

Many online business owners have already realized the importance of having continuous communication with clients and possible customers.  One of the best ways is through sending regular e-mails that help in keeping clients in the loop while creating more progressive relationships with new customers.

However, e-mail marketing may not be as effective as is expected; but this is only because some business owners may not be employing the correct approach.  With e-mail marketing, it is crucial to realize that getting messages into the inbox of clients is not the end of this tool. You have to make sure that your messages get read.  It is important to make the right impression not only with the subject line but with the body of the message itself.

For one, you need to accept the fact that most people would not bother reading e-mails that always seem to be after their business.  So, instead of sending sales or promotional e-mails all the time, write articles that are helpful to the market you are targeting.

Not to say that you should not send promotional messages; these are also very useful to let your consumers know what discounts or new products they can avail. Nevertheless, receiving these messages all the time will only turn-off even the most patient of consumers and frankly, e-mails are very easy to ignore.

What exactly can you offer the consumers that they will most likely think they need?

Information. Whatever product and services you are selling, it is certain that you can create articles that can be considered useful information by your customers. If you have ever subscribed to astrology and horoscope sites for instance, you will understand what this means.  People who subscribe are already a captured market and making sure that this market always has a way to be reminded of your business is pretty effective advertising.

Sure, not all of the people in the list you have built will turn into sales immediately, but later on, you will notice that not only do you get more traffic in your site or that your list keeps on growing, but also that your sales are going up. All of these, because of something as dirt-cheap as e-mail marketing.

Why does this happen?

As you keep on sending information that is helpful and verifiable, you become a dependable source.  Clients get used to your messages in their inbox and they easily recognize that although you are unabashedly marketing, they are also aware that you have their interests in mind.  Your e-mails become synonymous to valuable information. Hence, your products and services, or the merchandise that you refer are also deemed trust worthy.

How can e-mail marketing be made more personal, especially for long time clients?

Easy.  All you need to do is to personalize your message by adding the first name of your client and then using your first name as well. Even with a technology as “remote” as online marketing, people still expect to be remembered so be extra conscious of your old clients – the ones that have already developed loyalty to you.

E-mail marketing is not only an inexpensive way of effective advertising for new and possible clientele, it is also a way of building lasting relationships with your customers.

Marketing tools are a dime a dozen in the world of online technology.  Nevertheless, in time you will find out which ones are the most effective for you.  Once you have, it is very easy to make the income that you need, and maybe even want.

The disadvantage would probably come later though.  See, as you grow accustomed to the ways you use as marketing, you oftentimes forget to think of new tactics that can help your business grow more.  Of course, your business is sure to already have its fair share of customers and the regular income is most welcome.  Still, after a time, you will realize that there is more potential- more room to grow and much more dollars to earn.

Some lucky online marketers make regular income by simply giving out small freebies and valuable information on their sites.  These tools have been proven to work – but only until a certain point.  The sales begin to slow down and then reach that inevitable impasse.  Those online marketers that have day jobs and just need to earn a little bit of extra may be satisfied with this and just let the business marketing work that way. Others however, are more driven and would want to keep their progress moving.

How do you get your sales moving up again when you have reached that stalemate?

1. Revitalize your site – looking at the same site over and over again gets boring even to your most loyal customers.  Keep in mid that your site is pretty much your headquarters; if guests stop staying on your pages for a long time, there is lesser chances that these visits turn into sales.  They need fresh pages to look at every once in a while.  So, update your site.
2. The many ways of reinvigorating your pages – get new software applications that can make your site look more attractive and well taken care of. Images are a plus, and if you make them 3-dimensional, the more interesting they will look.  For example, you can get more conversions by changing flat images of products into 3Ds.
3. Get affiliates- create a simple affiliate program for your loyal customers and even just those that love visiting your site.  Usually, affiliate programs just involve paying out commissions to those who can sell your products.  The easiest way to create an affiliate program is to get a software for it.
4. Associate yourself with a bigger company that takes care of affiliate programs – if you are not too crazy about the idea of building your own affiliate group, you can pay someone (or more appropriately – another online business) to do this for you. Sites like clickbank.com can assist you immensely.
5. Research on PPC – pay-per-click advertising is an inexpensive way of making your presence felt in the online community.  You can avail of this service through the 3 giants in the industry – Yahoo, Google, and MSN.

In making sure that your online business keeps on moving forward, you need to always be on the lookout for possible improvements.  While it is not necessary to win any races, you would want to make sure that you are still in the running.

Marketing Tactics #36: Most businesses will make 80% of their sales from 20% of their customers. Know exactly who your 20% are and focus your ad dollars on them.