Internet marketing...

[Boerseun]

So... asking all the wise hypogralytes for some sagely insight and advice:

I've got a new line going in my business, but I need to sell it specifically to the European and American markets. Obviously, the internet's the way to go.

But here's the rub:

What marketing approach would be the best?

Myself, I'm blind to adverts on the 'net. I don't see it at all. It must be a mental thing, but where there's a banner or whatever, it just simply appears blank in my view. I know that it's not part of the site, so I just ignore it.

Is this the average response to web ads, or am I just a cynical freak?

What would be the best way of promoting a product/service mix on the web?

Any ideas, or links to good online resources on this?

[Buffy]

Baaaa...um, dot depends on what yer marketing pal. If you've got something really oddball and you can come up with keywords that no one else wants, then Google ad words can be quite effective. If you've got a website and some smart webrank folks you can up your ranking without spending the money though. Basically, if you can figure out what your target market asks for and you know where they go to find it, you can get them to come to you. If you don't have much competition, you can do it cheaply; if you do have lots of competition (and I mean "sorta-kinda" competition: anyone who's competing for attention with anything related to what you've got), then the adverbannerword stuff can get quite expensive.

Do not spam: its a waste of time unless you're selling viagra or unbelievably cheap mortgage rates or handing out "stock tips". You can buy ad space in newsletters if you find them.

Hit rates? Unbelievably low. For all the concern advertisers have for ad-skipping in Tivo, people's brains do a better job of filtering than any technology. BUT, you will get hits if you do enough: just don't expect you'll get more than a percent or two of views-to-clicks nor clicks-to-buys.

PR is overpriced but underrated: its incredibly effective if you know the venues to go after and if they exist for your target market.

Best trick in the book--even if you don't have much competition, but especially if you do--be outrageous.

Where's the Beef?
Buffy

[Boerseun]

Thanks, Buffy!

Yeah - I suppose the hit rates does suck. Like I said, I'm completely blind to banners, and spam leaves me pissed off with the company even before I've dealt with them. You won't respect someone who don't respect your privacy, would you?

The product is extremely quirky, and novel. There's absolutely zero competition. So I think the best thing would be to finish the site, and then send an email off to a few newspapers or something and get them to run a news article on it. Free! Whoooot!

Hey - might even get CNN or someone to do a clip!

[wrings hands]Yesssssssss..... whooooohaaahahaha![/wrings hands]

[Buffy]

...and if you want hints on how to up your google ranking, ask Tormod and the boys on the dev team: I just googled "unitary executive theory" and there I am, ranked number *four*...sheesh...

Good job T!

Popularly,
Buffy

[Boerseun]

Impressive!

[Tormod]

TBH, SEO has been a primary focus for years. We had major problems when Google booted us last May and we lost 75% of the traffic. It seems it was due to at least two factors (and possible 41279312 subfactors): Duplicate content (two domains with the same content) and a young domain (scienceforums.com). When we reverted to hypography.com it took about 2 weeks before we started to rocket up the google ranks again.

Boerseun, I'd be happy to give you any advice but if you like we can do it via PM unless you want to share your info openly.

In my experience Google Adsense is actually quite effective. But it does in fact help to learn a bit from what other people do - like the SEO experts. There are good ones and there are bad ones (the bad tend to be the ones who charge money for teaching you the "secrets", which mostly imply taking your money for nothing). The good ones will teach you some clever tricks.

However it is also my experience that if you're busy with your business stuff and want to focus on it, it might pay off to get some external help, at least to put some initial plans together. Is there any way you can get any funding from a local business council or something? For Hypography it's never been a necessity since it's always a labor of love anyway, but if I had to rely on income from this site I might have wanted to actually talk to someone who knows a thing or two about turning web marketing into sales for your company.

[Boerseun]

Thanks for the advice, T. I reckon I should just finish the site first, get the thing up and running, and then worry about marketing it. I'll probably get help from outside - I'm waaaaay too dumb to try doing the whole thing myself.

But I'll PM you later when everything's sorted out. I might even be able to pass some business to you!

Thanks!

[Tormod]

Sure, no problem. I'll be happy to help!