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Advertising is the lifeblood of any business. If you do not
learn how to advertise your products and services both
efficiently and effectively, you won’t be in business long.
While the Internet has lessened or eliminated many of the
costs normally associated with starting and running a small
business, and it’s now easier than ever, you’ll never
realize significant profits if you don’t grow your business
through effective marketing.

There are really just two kinds of advertising - that which
you pay for and that which you get for free. And both
should have their place in your overall marketing strategy.
The problem arises when one does not understand how or when
to use each.

Everywhere we look it seems that someone is claiming you
can get rich online by taking advantage of the free
advertising the Internet offers.

While it’s a true statement, the misleading part is that
it’s almost always followed by something like, “We’ll give
you a list of over 984324874984 places to advertise for
free!” They normally go on to explain how anyone can get
rich on the Internet because all of the advertising is
free, and if you just send them $29.95 … well you know
how it goes.

Unfortunately, as anyone who has tried posting zillions of
free ads on the Internet will tell you it just doesn’t work
that way. What you really need to know about posting free
ads online is that for the most part it’s a waste of time -
unless you’re targeting other marketers - because an
overwhelming majority of people who visit free ad sites are
other online marketers like you who are trying to promote
their own business.

Effective “free advertising” strategies do exist, but they
aren’t what the average online marketer thinks of when
hearing this often hyped-up phrase.

Are you ready for the one concept that separates the men
from the boys, so to speak, online? Here it is:

Free advertising is the laziest way to promote your site!

You don’t really think that Yahoo became the most popular
web site on the Internet, getting millions of visitors per
day, by using free advertising strategies do you? Heck no.
Among other things, they spend millions of dollars per year
on things like buying advertising on other big sites and
advertising on both radio and television.

Now before you say you don’t have millions per year to
spend on advertising, allow me to show you how you can
apply these concepts to your business on a smaller scale.
The good news is that if you use the right approach you can
start with a few dollars. It doesn’t really matter what
you’re marketing, but let’s assume that you sell artwork at
your web site. How could you utilize paid advertising
profitably?

Now before I scare you off with the thought of having to
spend lots and lots of money on advertising, there’s
something that you need to realize. And it’s a basic
concept you should be able to immediately agree with:

If you spend $50 on advertising and it generates more than
$50 in net profits, that’s a good investment.

Simple right? Well, through the use of proper testing and a
“scientific” approach to advertising, there’s no reason you
can’t turn your original $50 ad into millions of dollars in
profits. It’s just a matter of developing a system that
creates a profit, and then reinvesting your initial profits
back into your business in order to further expand your
advertising.

Remember the artwork? Assume that through proper tracking
of your website you’re able to determine that 1 out of
every 100 visitors to your site buys artwork. Let’s also
assume that on the sale of every artwork you make a $50
profit. Do you see that any ad you buy which delivers more
than 100 visitors to your site per $50 spent is a
profitable investment?

Promoting a site should be approached with this type of a
scientific or mathematical attitude. Any advertising you do
is either profitable or not, and you need to know which it
is so you don’t waste time and money.

Here’s a somewhat simplistic strategy that you could use to
get started:

Use a combination of free or low-cost strategies to promote
your web site, generating initial traffic which will serve
as a starting point. Through proper tracking of your site,
determine the exact “value” of a visitor in terms of
dollars and sense. This is absolutely critical. Utilize
paid advertising that proves to be profitable according to
step 2, based on the value of a visitor and the number of
visitors generated. Through ongoing testing, tracking, and
tweaking, try to increase the value of a web site visitor
as well as response to your advertising. Repeat steps 2-4
as necessary - or forever. The power of this scientific or
mathematical approach to web site promotion is that once
you have completed the steps you will have an almost
automated advertising campaign that can literally send you
all the traffic you need. Rather than spending hours and
hours each day promoting your site, you simply buy more
advertising.

The bottom line is that there are only 24 hours in a day
and there’s only so much you can do during that time. Free
advertising strategies can be effective, but normally,
anything that’s “free” is going to “cost” you time.

On the other hand, if you could spend $1,000 a day on
advertising to make $1,000 a day in profits — without
spending hours doing it — why wouldn’t you just do that?
It’s not hard at all. Consider Overture.com for example,
where you can buy click-thrus for as little as 1-25 cents.

That fits the formula quite nicely. Overture alone won’t
send you enough traffic to make you rich, but it’s a good
example of effectively promoting your site without spending
much time doing it. There are lots of others.

Give this 2-step scientific approach a try. If you find you
just can’t seem to make the formula work, there can only be
a few reasons for it - either you’re not advertising in the
right places, your web site isn’t doing its job, your
profit margins are too low, or your product or service
itself is the problem. Figure out which it is and you can’t
fail.

Steven Boaze, Chairman, is The Owner of Boaze.com
Corporate Web Solutions Which houses Web Development
services. Steven is also the author of two successful
Books along with numerous articles on Marketing and
Advertising published by Boaze Publishing.
http://www.boazepublishing.biz
Copyright © 1998-2004 Boaze.com

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Launching a new product or service is an exciting time and it is possible to overlook something in the rush to get that product or service to market. I developed the following checklist to make certain that I didn’t make the same mistake twice. Hopefully it will keep you from making a mistake the first time.

1. Target the Audience

Over my 30+ years of experience, I have been involved in lots of new product introductions and have witnessed even more. Failing to target the market is the most common mistake I see in new product introductions. If you haven’t adequately defined the market, how can you be sure of what they want or need? Furthermore, how can you develop a plan to reach them? If you only get one thing from this article, make sure that you target your market.

2. Train and Focus the Sales Force

If you want your sales force to sell the new product, then you better make sure that they know and are comfortable with this product. Practice, role play, make calls with the sales force, but make sure they understand and can sell the product.

It is also important to make sure that selling the new product is their focus and that you have not confused them with multiple initiatives in the same or relatively close time frame. Clear the decks and make the new product launch their only focus.

3. Samples and Demos are ready and in place

New products generally need to be explained and samples and demos provide some of the best ways to do this. If you are going to use either, it is going to be critical to your success to insure that they are ready and in place prior to the launch.

4. Pricing is set

Your launch will not be a success if you don’t sell your product or service and you will not be able to do that unless you have completed your pricing and terms. If you are selling through distribution, it will be important to provide them with guidelines as well.

5. Promotions are in place

Frequently new products are introduced with promotions, so making sure the details of that promotion are clear will be critical. It is also possible that there may be programs like co-op advertising or volume rebates that will be affected and making sure those bases are covered should not be overlooked.

6. Displays are ready

Merchandisers and displays can be very effective in a new product launch. First you must decide if that is a part of your plan and if it is, then to make sure that they are in the right place at the right time to make your launch a success. Nobody needs a merchandiser or display after the promotion and the product is taking up regular shelf sapce.

7. Distribution is ready

Make certain that your means of getting the product or service to the end user is in place and ready to go before your press releases and advertising kick in or you will have wasted your budget. Promotion without product doesn’t serve you or the prospective customer or client.

8. Inventory is in stock

It isn’t enough to have product in the channel of distribution. If your estimates are wrong or your sales exceed expectations, your future success will depend on being able to react to that customer demand. Make sure you have inventory on the shelf or coming off the production line in time to replenish your supplies.

9. Advertising is set

Making people aware of your new product is going to be an important part of your launch. Most media have a lead time that has to be a part of your consideration. Print publications can run several months. Getting your website listed in Google or some of the other search engines can take even longer. Production for websites and broadcast commercials take time as well. Don’t wait till the last minute to begin this process.

10. Press Releases are timed

Just like with advertising, press releases need to be timed to the introduction. Lead times are long and talking to the outlets for your releases will be important in making sure that their timing and your timing work together to benefit the launch.

Different products in different markets will have variations on this checklist. Use this not as the end of your checklist, but rather as the base and build additional issues as required for your product or market.

Copyright Bob Cannon/The Cannon Advantage, 2005. All rights reserved.

Bob Cannon helps inventors, imagineers, importers and manufacturers successfully introduce new products to the Hardware / Hardlines Marketplace. Check out his blog at http:http://www.takingaim.blogspot.com Bob can be reached at (216) 408-9495 or mailto: bob@marketingnewproduct.com

This article courtesy of http://www.marketingnewproduct.com You may freely reprint this article on your website or in your newsletter provided this courtesy notice and the author name and URL remain intact.

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Tactical marketing processes are once again undergoing fundamental shifts from traditional to web-based processes. Many traditional marketing firms/agencies are still touting the tried and true to their clients; i.e. Tradeshow attendance, Print, Traditional PR, TV and Radio. However, these conventional marketing processes work best for broad market awareness and/or branding, especially for a Fortune 1K company with significant resources to spend on demographic analysis, test marketing and more test marketing. It’s much more difficult for a smaller company (startup to $50M per annum) to leverage the economies of scale that are typically available for a larger company for the media buy and operational efficiencies.

It’s obvious that lifestyle and business processes are shifting towards a much greater dependence on digital media - people are traveling less due to cost issues and the ever-increasing speed of business is underscoring the usage of the Internet for information and research. If you’re a small to medium sized business the chances are that you’ve probably cut your marketing budget significantly - by eliminating or scaling back tradeshow attendance, trade magazine advertising and/or direct mail in favor of response driven marketing on the web that can be deployed faster and more cost-effectively than traditional marketing methods.

Capturing leads from a web site generated by opt-in e-mail, newsletter inserts, text link advertising and/or other forms of pay per click marketing is still the absolute best way to generate leads that are quantifiable as soon as they are generated. You have the ability to easily track where the lead came from and via what interactive advertising process; assuming this has been setup for you by your interactive ad agency or with the online publisher. And, there are typically no lead times like more traditional marketing processes - we’ve created and deployed campaigns (creative, media buy, testing, ROI analysis, etc.) for our clients in 3-5 working days in some cases.

There are some pitfalls to web-based lead generation and follow through that you need to be aware of as you deploy an interactive campaign. Here are five of the most important “gotchas” that you need to think about as you build an interactive lead generation program around your web site:

1) Don’t make it difficult for people to contact your company - make sure your web site really communicates with your prospects - by “communicating” I mean by providing telephone contacts, e-mail address and/or a lead capture form that is short. Note: this form has to be supported by a published Privacy Policy (”we won’t divulge your info to a third party under any circumstances”) and it absolutely must be short; i.e. don’t request any more than baseline information, name, phone, e-mail and address, augmented with a comment box.

2) Your marketing objectives have to be supported by your sales team - the sales team has to be incentivized to respond to inbound e-mails and requests for information via a contact form in a timely manner, within 24 hours or sooner. If you have a geographically dispersed sales team then make this clear on the web site by providing specific contact points for states, regions and countries.

3) Make sure you IT person/department attends your marketing planning meetings with your sales team - your web site will need some type of a lead capture setup that redistributes leads based on function and/or geographical responsibility. Your IT staff has to create a database solution that captures, stores and distributes leads - this does not need to be done in-house, products like Act (the market leader in contact management software) are now web-enabled, you can capture leads via a web server and share leads with others via a browser and very inexpensively.

4) We don’t advocate popup advertising for most of our client’s advertising campaigns. But, we have “crossed over to the other side” and we do (highly) recommend using popups on our clients’ web sites to present opportunities that in turn capture leads. Studies have shown effective popup lead captures increase lead generation by 40-85% depending on the market segment. Popups can be set so they only launch on a frequency basis per session (visit to a web site) or a number of times for a specific visitor - they don’t have to setup so they are intrusive and annoying.

5) Last but not least (drum roll) - make the customer’s usability experience the most important aspect of your web site. Create a user interface (”experience”) that is pleasant for your visitors; i.e. use standard universal (top of page and local page left) menus, utilize 2-3 sentence paragraphs with lots of white space, don’t overload your pages with graphics that slow down load times and make sure your contact points (phone, e-mail) are readily available from every page.

So, to summarize; advertising is shifting from traditional to web-based or interactive if you will - so, to get on board this tsunami build a web site that communicates with your prospects/customers, provide contact points via telephone and e-mail via the site, involve your IT and Sales staff with the lead capture process so they are all stakeholders and utilize popups to accelerate your lead capturing.

About The Author

Philippa Gamse, CyberSpeaker, is an internationally recognized e-business strategist. Check out her free tipsheet “Beyond the Search Engines” for 17 ideas to promote your Website: http://www.CyberSpeaker.com/tipsheet.html Philippa can be reached at (831) 465-0317 or mailto:pgamse@CyberSpeaker.com.

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