I know I may have gotten ahead of myself here so I will backtrack and give you a breakdown of the possible strategies you yourself feel most comfortable using. This will depend on your level of time you have to invest as well as money.
First the list:
1) My Space Marketing: This form of marketing requires time and is of course free, unless you decide to use one of their advertising avenues. It's pay per click and can be effective if you have a well designed ad. OK, now in order to best take advantage of this social networking site you must first make friends. There is a couple of different ways to go about this.
A) Search through the friend selector and look for people listing your niche i.e. networking. Alot of times people don't really know what that means, believing it's looking for friendships or whatever, but over time you will develop a large group of friends that you can market to. But don't make the mistake of coming on too strong and trying to sell your business. NOBODY CARES! There are hundreds, even thousands of business opportunities out there and the majority of people are just sick of hearing about them. So what you need to do is market yourself as a leader. Hey fake it until you make it right? That will work I promise you. Tell them something of yourself. Make them interested in you and then and only then make your approach, but do it casually.
B) The other way to gather friends on MySpace is to use a friend blaster. This is much faster and relatively cheap software that could generate 25-100 new friends a day for you. Depending on how fast you choose to move forward.
2)Facebook Marketing: This is a great place to meet like minded individuals. I would advise setting up a Facebook profile straight away and make as many friends as possible. If you don't have a clue about how to market they're more than enough people readily available who are more than willing to show you how.
3)Free Classified: This can be a very effective form of advertising if you used correctly. Practice writing ads and get some advice from friends and family about what they think. Does it interest them? If not try again and until you find something that will. I will recommend a few classified ad services that I have used and had success with in the past. They are USFreeAds and BOConline. Craigslist is another, but I wouldn't advise using this service at least not initially. It is difficult to use, being there is alot to it. Try the others first.
4)Content/Article Marketing: This is one of my favorites because I love to write, it is my passion. It is also an excellent way of driving traffic to your site and in getting name recognition. It normally takes anywhere between 6 to 8 weeks before you start seeing some results, but if you keep at it and post anywhere in the neighborhood of 3 to 5 articles per week I can almost guarantee you will definitely see your visitor rate go up dramatically. The key though is in content, do not dive right into any business that you are selling. I REPEAT DO NOT DO THIS! People will read a sentence or two then see ya! Write about things that you know and can benefit others. This is key, you need to come off as someone who knows what they are talking about. If you believe in yourself then others will follow.
5)Forum Marketing: This is another social media site where people congragate to ask questions and give optimum insight into marketing techniques, lead generation, what businesses are doing well, who's doing what and when, well you get the idea. This can also be effective. Build relationships, build trust and build your business.
6)Ezine/Solo Ads: This is a very useful and effective form of marketing. It is not free. It could run you anywhere between 25 to 100 dollars an ad depending on which company you use. The upside is your ad will be made viewable on hundreds of different websites which can only lead to more leads for your business. Like I mentioned before, try your ad out on some of your friends and family first and let them give you their opinion. If they like it, then go with it, but track it using an AD Tracker. Here is an important tip, track all of your marketing efforts, that way you can judge which ones are effective and which ones may need changing.
7)Listbuilders: These are sights like Viral Url and LIST JOE. They'll run you a few hundred dollars a year if you opt in immediately, otherwise you'll end up paying monthly and that can get expensive if you don't have the funds. What they will accomplish for you is they will send out your message to thousands of their members every 3 days or more depending on your level of membership, in turn driving potential prospects to your site. This once again comes down to the content of your message, do it right and you will have results.
8)Video Marketing: Here is a great free source for getting name and face recognition. It is quickly becoming one of the most popular forms of marketing on the internet. Google loves You Tube, Met Cafe and all the other WEB 2.0 sites. So if you post a video your rankings will be high, maybe first page. So your chances of being seen are great. It is also an awesome opportunity to brand yourself as a leader and someone people can trust. That is what people are looking for when trying to find that business to join. It's that question! Who can I trust that can help me become successful? Over the internet people join people not businesses. REMEMBER THAT! Another thing is a good idea to post an article along with your video, that'll help with the rankings.
9)And lastly but not least, pay per click marketing. This is basically the monster of all advertising sources if done correctly. Training is required. Don't dive right into it, you will just lose your money with very little return. I guarantee it! Google, Yahoo/Overture they come fully equipped with all the training resources you need to have effective advertising. Just make sure you read and learn, otherwise you'll be screaming at yourself like I did about what a complete waste of money that campaign was. Don't make the same mistake I did, gather the knowledge first then apply what you learned and you will be rewarded.
That about sums up the different types of marketing techniques. If I missed anything I apologize, I am not perfect.
IMPORTANT: Please do not try doing all these things at once. Try one at a time and as soon as you become comfortable with it move onto something else. Remember success doesn't happen overnight. It takes patience and alot of hard work. So if you stick to your goals and believe in yourself, the sky is the limit.
Thank you for taking the time to read my article.
To your success,James Craven
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