Search Results for ‘advertise free’
Quirks Marketing Research Review recently wrote an article about how to increase survey respondents satisfaction. Surveys can help to give the smart marketer a heads up on what your client and prospect really want and need. Surveys can be used to gather all sorts of market data such as customer demographics, likes and dislikes, customer satisfaction and much more. I highly recommend that if you are not using surveys in some form or another (digital, hand-written or by phone) you are missing out on information that can take your business to a new level fo success.
Here are the 10 tips Quirks shared:
1. Make surveys engaging and convenient
2. Avoid complex questions
3. Limit questions to 50 words or less
4. Avoid long lists of rating questions
5, Avoid open-ended questions
6. Avoid repetitive questions
7. Advertise accurate survey times
8. pay incentives (prizes) promptly
10. Pre-test surveys thoroughly
11. Get feedback on surveys
I would only disagree with number 5. Sometimes a person needs the option to expand on a response and having an open ended question makes that possible. You might have an open ended question but make it an option to reply thereby not annoying those really want to offer feedback but who don’t have or want to spend a long time doing so.
About accurate survey times, the article states that respondents don’t mind taking longer surveys as long as they know how much time they will take. This is good to know when you need more in-depth replies.
You can read this and other articles online at http://www.quirks.com/. While there, you can also request a FREE subscription (if you qualify).
While you’re at it you can grab a FREE copy of eMarketing ~ 300 page textbook aimed at tertiary education students, business owners and marketers who want to get ahead in online marketing. It has everything from the facts to case studies and study questions around each eMarketing tactic. Go to http://www.quirk.biz/emarketingtextbook/download.
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September 17th, 2009
The whole point of advertising is to get noticed. With all the noise these days both online and off, it is difficult at best to get seen…
That’s why I recommend publicity over advertising. Do things like createingan event or a stunt that will get you noticed in your niche. Get busy on social networking sites where your customers and clients hang out, including the top 3 Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Having said that, there are reasons and places to advertise online that will pay off without spending a fortune.
Here are some tips to “advertise”:
List your online business in free directories such as Google (http://www.google.com/local/add), Yahoo (http://www.listings.local.yahoo.com) and Bing (http://ssl.bing.com/listings), DMOZ, The Open Directory Project (http://www.dmoz.org/) and ZoomInfo (http://www.zoominfo.com/). By the way, if you do list your site in these directories be sure and only list once because you could get banned for multiple listings of the same company. You can also show videos and photos which can be added to your listings.
In addition, list your business in LOCAL Directories such as YellowPages http://listings.yellowpages.com, City Search http://myaccount.citiysearch.com, AOL Local Search http://localsearch.aol.com, Local.com at http://register.local.com and Merchant Circle at http://merchantcircle.com.
When you list your business above, use keywords to describe what you do using benefit words (eg. “24 hour turnaround” or “loose weight or you don’t pay”) rather than vanity words (like BEST, AWARD WINNING) – people don’t believe that anymore and they don’t search for businesses that way.
This will take you less than an hour to set up and about 10-15 minutes a month to maintain.
Find sites that sell to your audience that compliment what you do and see if they will either sell you space on their site, list you in their links or if they have a newsletter that goes out to your target audience see if they do ads. Most of the time these ads are innexpensive and you can test for very little money. BTW, one insert is not a test. You need to create a campaign and keep your ad in for a minimum of 5-6 issues to see if it is going to work. Remember that it takes that many impressions before people begin to recongize your company. It also builds credibitly.
And remember to add social networking to your marketing plan. I know so many people who just hang out on SN Sites but don’t really know how to effectively use them to get attention for their businesses. Before you waste a lot time check out what those you admire are doing and model them. Don’t copy them, learn from them. See what they are doing and what is working for them. See how you can adapt to your own situation.
As you can see, I could go on and on about this topic. Let’s just say there are many ways to advertise without breaking the bank and many of them are FREE. The price you pay is TIME which by the way IS NOT FREE. Once its spent you NEVER GET IT BACK. So use it wisely.
September 12th, 2009
Need some ideas to advertise your website in the coming months? Here are twelve tips to get you started:
Tip #1
Put your URL on every piece of advertising you use to promote your company, your business card, letterhead, bills, checks, invoices, delivery vehicles, personal vehicles, magnets, yellow pages, newspapers, notecards, etc.
Tip #2
Partner with vendors, and suppliers to offer giveaways or freebies to your customers.
Tip #3
Make your website part of your overall marketing efforts including networking, print, radio, etc.
Tip #4
Create a registration page on your website and offer something for free to encourage them to leave you their contact information. It could be a register to win something just for stopping by, or something they can download when they register. Be sure to track where the leads are coming from.
Tip #5
Offer a “hidden prize” on your site such as a dinner for two or free product. This will encourage people to visit other pages to find the prize. It is a great way to force people to read all the pages on your site, so they learn more about your company in the process.
Tip #6
Design and write a newsletter or ezine about your area of expertise, industry news, tips, answers to difficult questions, and ideas about how to make the most of your products and services. Create a sign up box for people to subscribe (I use Aweber).
Tip #7
Place banner adds on local sites such as city/town/municipal sites and radio stations. If these are your customers you can probably “trade” links. On radio stations, you can offer to provide a giveaway to the listeners for visiting the website.
Tip #8
Cross promote your newsletter with other complimentary companies or companies and individuals who target your audience.
Tip #9
Create a postcard campaign announcing your website and send to everyone in your current database or at least those who would benefit from visiting your site.
Tip #10
Include a voice message for your phone system (or cell phone) inviting callers to stop by your website – be sure and include your website address and spell out anything that would be difficult for someone to understand or has an unusual spelling.
Tip #11
Try a classified ad campaign with an incentive to get people to stop by and take advantage of your special offer.
Tip #12
Ask other complimentary website owners to “trade Links with your site. Start with those you visit and shop and then expand to others that serve your client base.
And be sure to check out the Internet Business Success Report for the 21st Century for more ideas to Start and Grow and Online Business.
December 18th, 2008
Longing to increase your traffic for the holidays and turn those prospects into buyers? Here are eight sure-fire ways to do so.
1. Links, Links, Links - Links are the “currency” of search engines. When you have high quality relevant inbound links the search become more “attracted” to your site – and increase your rankings. What are considered quality inbound links? A link that has a high page rank (according to PageRank the tool Google uses to evaluate the links scores from 0 to 10 – An 8 or above are considered very high ranks. You might be able to get these high-ranking sites to link to you if you advertise on their sites, sponsor their events.
2. Start a Blog – having an online journal is a good start as long as you are committed to keeping the content fresh and relevant. Posting a minimum of once a week is a must – daily is best. Spiders crawl the web looking for fresh content and because a blog is an online journal it was designed to have the latest content posted or seen first.
3. Encourage bloggers to “blog” (write about) your company. You can do that by sending them your stuff such as product samples, books you have written, etc. If they like your “stuff” they may write about it and link to you. Make sure the “gift” is of value – a keychain is just an advertising tool unless someone needs a keychain so sending a blogger a keychain (unless it lights up, writes, send messages, stores data) probably won’t go over big and will undoubtedly just get tossed aside.
4. Get involved in a social network or two. Toyota has done this by targeting younger customers using digital entertainment and online community to launch it’s new Yaris. Yaris has its own Web site with free music downloads, games, and wireless mini-episodes of “Prison Break.” It has tapped into the generation by advertising on MySpace, Youtube and several blogs that are highly trafficked by their target audience.
5. Optimize your website with “gift ideas” pages. Place them one or at the most 2 clicks away from your home pages for greatest effectiveness. Offer gift certificates and make them prominently displayed on your website homepage.
6. Showcase your Free Stuff – if you offer free delivery, free gift wrapping or a free gift with purchase make sure it is listed on the homepage – create a visual (with the words imbedded in the image) so that when the visitor scrolls over it, they know the “click here” and go to the page that explains the offer. Consider putting the offer in your title tag (using a minimum number of words – less than 12 is ideal)
7. Rearrange your site to fit the seasons. for instance, Christmas ideas should be most prominent during the holiday shopping season and everyday items should take a less prominent position. Make the holiday shopping area just one click away from the homepage. Remember you have only about 5 seconds to “grab” and “keep” their attention. Help prospects make the best use of their time and turn into customers.
8. Update your site map to include any new pages you create for the holidays.
NOTE: We just updated our retail florist website, Eden Florist & Gift Baskets. It now has a built-in Site map that updates itself (that and so much more). I invite you to check it out and see what Laura Wheeler and her staff at Firelight Web Studio did for us. It is amazing! For a view of our “old” website visit the Wayback Machine and see what we started with.
December 7th, 2008
Six of a dozen marketing ideas professional speakers shared to gain visibility with our target audience.
To continue the discussion about how I gathered information to create a marketing plan for the Florida Speakers Association, I asked members how they would spread the word about FSA, who they suggest we connect with and contact (sharing their resources) and how they suggested we increase our membership base and meeting attendance. Here’s an exercise to use to spark marketing ideas for your small business: where ever the word member or membership is used, replace it with customer or customers.
Here are six more ideas the members shared with me (will post the final six tomorrow):
1. Web marketing, radio, and other technology related media. Web marketing, even though the web is convoluted with millions of sites, still provides an organization a vehicle for establishing name recognition. This is achieved by placing the right keywords at the right places, as well as paying minimal fees for dominant search placements.
2. Another way to spread the word about FSA would be to advertise in any magazine or publication that has to do with public speaking or presentation skills. Advertising at college campuses is another way especially for Communication Majors. Send a Press Release so that a story can be done about the organization and its benefits. Advertise in “self improvement/health” magazines. These magazines have everything from psychics to regression therapy.
3. We should utilize other “partners” such as all area Toastmaster clubs, MPI, ASTD, Marketing Association, etc. as well as communication departments in local companies and public speaking programs at local colleges and their graduate programs as well. FSA members should have a web link to FSA site on their individual web sites to get moor info on “becoming a world class speaker, trainer, etc.”
4. Also, if the local chapter were to create content segments (audio, visual, and type) and made them available free-of-charge from its website, and then submitted the site to various search engines, this would drum up “awareness”. Awareness of a site that provides good, free content, that is backed by a respectable organization, creates a tipping point via word of mouth advertising, the strongest marketing know to humankind.
5. Radio spots, even though not as effective as they were 50 years ago, still reach thousands of listeners daily (especially during driving times of working professionals that may need a speaker). The right genre station provides many opportunities. If the FSA is a nonprofit or not-for-profit affiliated with any philanthropic initiatives, PSA announcements may be available. A knowledgeable member from FSA could be a guest on a radio program
6. Finally, affiliations with universities and public events, again, drives awareness of a brand, in this case, the FSA. Awareness and being distinctly identifiable from other organizations are two of the key ingredients in any successful marketing initiative.
Stay tuned for the final six tomorrow….
October 17th, 2008
Get involved in Social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, RYZE, MySpace and Squidoo. Participate in blogs and forums related to your topic, expertise or areas of interest. “Lurk” for while so you can get a feel for the personality of the groups, then contribute to the conversations in the forums (a.k.a. bulletin boards). Social networking is a great way to make your business known to people you would otherwise be unable to contact. Although it is not generally acceptable to blatantly advertise your business on most forums, you can share your expertise. Once you have developed relationships with members of these sites you become a trusted resource, and members will often encourage you to promote your business.
Most forums allow you to use your signature file to “gently” let people know what you do professionally. StumbleUpon can help you find great websites, videos, photos and more based on your interests. StumbleUpon learns what you like and makes better recommendations. With Stumble Upon you can connect with friends and share your discoveries, meet people that have similar interests, and check out what other people are discovering. For more on Social networking, read my article “Virtual Networking – 7 Ideas for Making Connections Online and Developing a Loyal Following”
Want more ideas to promote your business on the WEB? Get a FREE copy of the 8-page Special Report Promoting Your Business on the WEB TODAY!
Check out the Women’s Media Summit Audio Program. I interviewed 16 experts over 5 days for a total of more than 15 hours of content! Click here to save $20 on the recordings, workbook and more! ~ When you order, you will be sent a link to download the workbook, recordings and any other resources shared during the Women’s Media Audio Program.
October 9th, 2008
Excerpt from Promoting Your Business on the WEB Special Report.
Start a Business Blog. Blogs are search engine friendly, which simply means the search engines index them almost instantly (as opposed to websites which can take weeks to get indexed). Blogging platforms such Wordpress, Typepad and Blogger, allow you to build a complete website by adding pages that contain links to your products, as well as other resources you recommend. I started out using Blogger and now use Wordpress (both the free and paid versions) for five of my seven blogs.
Blogs can be used to create multiple streams of passive income because they allow you to add all types of ads to your blog. You can use your blog posts to write product reviews such as the ones Café Mom does. You can review those affiliate products related to your services and products. You can also use your blog to disseminate information, such as articles, free reports, and other industry specific resources. With a blog you can establish your expertise in a particular genre, topic or industry.
Take Darran Rowse as an example. Darran started a blog called ProBlogger as a way to catalog all the information he learned about blogging (while doing so) and others found it interesting. Because of Darran’s expertise, he has established himself as the go-to person on the topic of blogging and currently has more than 100,000 subscribers to his blog. When you establish your expertise as Darran has done, you are solving problems for your followers which helps you build your brand and sell more products and services.
Make the most of Technorati.com – (Currently tracking 98.4 million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media) and Digg.com (a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web). Build relationships with other bloggers by visiting and leaving comments. Try microblogging with Twitter.com and check out Entrecard (your business card 2.0). Entrecard is a 125×125 image which represents you and your blog. It’s part advertisement and part business card. It comes with a widget you place on your blog, so that others can leave their Entrecard for you. You can also use Entrecard to promote your blog and launch free advertising campaigns. Both FREE.
Want more ideas to promote your business on the WEB? Get a FREE copy of the 8-page Special Report Promoting Your Business on the WEB TODAY!
By the way, you can listen to an interview with Darran when you subscribe to our Blogging for Business Audio Program. More than 13 hours of content and you can Save $20 when you use this link to order!
September 5th, 2008
September is Shameless Self-promotion Month – “If you don’t’ toot your own horn, you can’t enjoy the music.” – Debbie Allen (Founder of Shameless Self-promotion Month).
How about trying your hand at Podcasting? In July, 2006 Speedo, (the swimwear brand) “dipped their toe into the social media water during their inaugural Podcast when they interviewed Olympic swimming champion Michael Phelps. Their Podcast “Speedo Make Waves” has featured Olympic and other champions from across the international swimming world. Each Podcast has been accompanied by awareness-raising web advertising as an integral part of the overall communication.
Interviewing experts in fields your target market is interested in is a great way to get media attention for you AND your guests. You can also submit your RSS Feeds to FeedBurner so that in a few weeks or months your site will be “on the radar” of advertisers and other content sites.
For more small business marketing ideas, get your FREE Copy of the 2008 Edition of Your Marketing Calendar TODAY!
September 3rd, 2008
DID YOU KNOW?
September is International Strategic Thinking Month
Here are my 5 strategic tips for success:
1. If your Advertising isn’t working – think about why it isn’t and change it.
2. Only use Direct Response Advertising – most small businesses cannot afford to launch a large branding campaign so be strategic in your marketing by maximizing all your advertising with direct response – get people to take action in every ad you run.
3. Advertise on the right hand side of a page – that’s where the eye goes first.
4. Stress the benefits of using your products and services. Brainstorm with others – ask your customers and clients what benefits they are looking for.
5. Advertising isn’t for every one or every business. Make sure it’s right for you before you spend tons of cash on a campaign.
September 1-7 is International Enthusiasm Week – Have a cheerleading contest or promote cheerleaders of local schools – maybe have a “Create a Cheer” contest and give prizes for the best, most unusual and most humorous CHEERS (complete with prizes).
You can get these and more ideas in the FREE 2008 Edition of YOUR Marketing Calendar eBook.
September 1st, 2008
How to Use CLASSIFIED Advertising to Sell Your Products and Services
The internet may be the dominant advertising medium these days, but newspaper and magazine classified advertising is still a very powerful advertising medium that can reap big rewards. Classified ads are much more cost effective than other forms of advertising, it is easy to target your niche, and the ads are simple to prepare and submit. Think about it. If someone picks up a paper or magazine or better yet has it delivered to them, the likelihood of them reading your ad has greatly increased. With online advertising it is much more challenging to pull them into the ad space. And those ads only get one shot if that, since most people click by the ad as opposed to clicking on the ad. If you are using any type of advertising campaign at all, consider classified advertisingI discovered classified advertising years ago when my first book Rose Marketing on a Daisy Budget came out. I was reading the latest issue of Flowers & Magazine and was perusing the classifieds when I noticed someone selling books! I thought here’s another great way to see how the potential for marketing Rose Marketing to a highly targeted industry ~ florists will pan out. So I called the advertising dept. to inquire about the cost (I think it was around $40 for a 3 line ad – which is higher today), designed the ad and sent it in. Two things you should know – the ad I created was not terribly impressive and I didn’t test more than one ad to compare results. I simply sent it in. From that ad I received 11 orders (at $19.95 each) and added another 40 + florists to our newsletter database. Had I done some of the things outlined below, I am sure that number would have been significantly higher.
The second time I tried classified advertising was in 2003 for the launch of the Women’s eCommerce Association, International. I did several things such as pay for placement in online newsletters at $10 to $25 per issue (spending a total of about $200) and posted several ads on free advertising sites as well as surfed the net for free advertising in exchange for space in our newsletter. The results were better than expected. We received 537 leads from the ads, most of which joined at the BASIC level (which is FREE), and surprisingly 15 women and 1 man upgraded to paying members.
Since that time, I have traded advertising space with other non-competing women’s groups, online calendars and newsletter publishers who cater to women who do business on the WEB each with positive results. I have also posted classified ads in two smaller women’s magazines with moderate results. Sometimes the trade is a one-time deal and others it is ongoing. The point is – Classified Advertising WORKS and I recommend you research your market to see if it could work for you. The first place I would check out is Craig’s List.
I have also put together a small list of sites that accept FREE classified ads which will be in the resource section.
Keep two things in mind when putting classified advertising into your marketing mix. Writing a classified ad to sell your product begins with the copy. Effective copywriting strategies begin with research.
Here are a dozen more tips to get you started:
1 Start studying the classified ad sections in magazines and publications (online and offline) that reach your target audience – the more targeted the publication, website or ezine, the better.
2. Study how other advertisers are writing their ad copy. You can start with the ads in newspapers, magazines and newsletters to which you already subscribe.
3. Surf the WEB for free classified ad sites and study the ads listed on those sites. Respond to those ads to see what else they do to market their products. (Note: set up a free email account just for this purpose).
4. Use each of the above as “models” for designing your own ads. Test your ad in those same FREE Classified Ad Sites before placing paid ads in paid publications.
5. Find out which category fits your niche. Look for categories with lots of ads. When you see lots of ads selling the same kinds of products that generally means the ads are working and these kinds of products sell well.
6. Advertise in the right places. Before placing your ads, study the publications you have identified that reach your target market.
7. Use the two-step method to sell expensive items from a small classified ad. A two-step method could look like this: send the reader to your website for free information they must register for – when you have captured their info, begin an auto response campaign to send more details that includes longer ad copy to effectively sell your product/service. Keep in mind, the higher the ticket item, the more steps you may need to close the sale.
8. Cast a wide net – Place ads in more than one publication, each with either a unique phone number, URL or other identifying tracking device so you know which ones are getting the most action. Advertising is a numbers game and in order to see results, you must spread the word far and wide.
9. If the copy isn’t working, change it. Effective advertising is all about Testing. Testing headlines, length of ad, wording, and which details you focus on. For instance, in one ad you might focus on a number metric to get results such as 101 people Use ___________, or 2703 People Can’t be Wrong!” Numbers can be very effective in ad copy. Two words of advice here – BE Honest. Use real numbers not made-up ones. And don’t round out the numbers. It is much more effective to use 11193 than it is to say More than Eleven Thousand. The question readers will than ask is “how many more?”
10. Keep records of everyone who responds to your ads. This is where a good auto-respond program such as Constant Contact or aWeber comes in handy. You can then follow-up withappropriate messages about your product. The beauty is that these email management programs have opt-out options built in so you don’t have to manually remove anyone who makes that request.
11. Contact other ezine/newsletter publishers to arrange an ad swap. You run their ad in your ezine in exchange for them running your ad. You can find other publishers in Ezine directories such as http://www.myfavoriteezines.com, http://www.ezinelocater.com and http://www.amazines.com/
12. Read the fine-print. Some sites will require a link back so you must decide if the extra traffic is worth potentially loosing the traffic to other sites (and competition). Other require you to subscribe which can mean hundreds of newsletters in your inbox you don’t have time to read.
If your ads fail, don’t get discouraged and don’t give up. Sometimes all it takes is changing a few words in the copy, the headline or even the advertising medium. Classified ads are inexpensive and can be very effective. In order to really see results you have to keep at it awhile. Create a budget you can afford, in a medium that hits your target and run the ad for a minimum of 4 to 6 weeks. If using newspapers as your medium find out which days are considered prime and run your ad in those days only (for newspapers its generally Wednesdays and Sundays. You may pay a little more, but the results will be better because more people will see the ad, read it and if the copy is working will respond.
For more ideas read my daily tip – 5 Tips to Get the Most From Classifieds
July 22nd, 2008
