# General Business Category > Marketing Forum >  Powerful, Affordable Advertising...

## Norri

Used properly, these advertising resources can REALLY help a small business or entrepreneur catapult an idea into mass-acceptance / -usage.

Of course, used improperly, they'll just be expensive  :Big Grin: 

*1.  Google AdWords* - This one almost doesn't count anymore.  It's very expensive for a "beginner" and you're likely to lose a coupla R1,000 here before you figure out the right keywords, right ad, the right offer, etc.  But this is the grandaddy of "Powerful, Affordable Advertising".  These dudes were the first guys to make it possible for a small business to advertise for R100-R500 a month and ACTUALLY make some sales / money.  I love Google but I won't play here until I've figured out an ad, keywords and offer that already works.

(Realistically, upward of R2 per visitor)

*2.  Facebook CPM Advertising* - Awesome if you have an idea of what demographics you want to market to.  Their CPC turns out to be a tad expensive so, unless you have a product and sales-process that works well, I wouldn't experiment there.  Once you do, it could turn out much cheaper than CPM.  Depends on your industry, product, etc.

(As little as $0.10 per 1,000 ad-views)

*3.  StumbleUpon* - You fund your account, you pay for visits.  That's it.  If your site turns out to be popular (many thumbs-up, good reviews, etc), then the viral aspect of this baby kicks in and then you KAK yourself :P  Most sales-sites won't work well here but forums, image galleries, article sites, etc can do quite well.  CAPTURE the visitor by offering a newsletter / RSS feed to keep 'em coming back!

($0.05 per visitor. Period.)

*Definitions*

CPC - Cost per click.  Someone clicks on your ad, you pay.
CPM - Cost per 1,000 views.  1,000 people view your ad, you pay.  Clicks or no clicks.
Daily Budget - Self explanatory but CRUCIAL to succeeding in online advertising _without_ breaking the bank  :Big Grin: 

Add your suggestions / definitions / experiences below!

PS:  Complain about _bad_ advertising experiences in a separate thread!

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Superscenic (20-Nov-08)

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## Norri

Does no one here advertise?

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## Dave A

> Does no one here advertise?


Yes.

The only question now is, is that yes - they advertise or yes, no-one here advertises  :Stick Out Tongue: 

I know this much, everyone here tends to take their weekends seriously (which I kinda enjoy nowadays  :Cool:  ).

 :Offtopic:   :Chair:   :Devil2: 

OK then. Maybe I'd better get back on topic. 

Norri, you've covered major online methods - can I include offline?

Some of this is affected by exactly what line of business you are in. For example, if you are a wholesaler, direct marketing to retailers via sales reps and catalogues would probably be the most cost effective.

It is when you are trying to reach the general public that things start to really get interesting. To my mind the most cost effective method of marketing in the service industry is vehicle signage. Retail - shop signage. 

But there is also an issue of scale. If you are big enough, TV adverts must surely work, otherwise washing powder, soft drink etc. manufacturers wouldn't be spending their money this way.

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## Norri

Thanks Dave  :Smile: 

I'd actually love to hear more about offline methods.  I know a few people who have had decent success with dustbin ads.  They plastered them all over the city and kept them running for 2 years or something.  Got plenty of business through that.  I reckon if you choose your bins well, it's a worthwhile strategy.

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## Ryan S

At the moment almost my whole blog is on this topic. Traditional advertising has never been less effective in history! The new consumer is becoming more and more immune to TV ads, magazine ads etc. More and more big companies are moving their advertising budget online. I have pages on this topic on my blog. go check it out http://digi-business.blogspot.com. On the recommended reads section there is a book called Doing Business Digitally by Godfrey Parkin. It is a great book and will really change the way you think about business.

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## Dave A

> The new consumer is becoming more and more immune to TV ads, magazine ads etc.


Is it really that different online? Ad blindness is a known phenomenon amongst online publishers.



> More and more big companies are moving their advertising budget online.


Is there any quantative evidence that big business is actually spending *less* on offline advertising?
My feeling is that, just like any new medium, it is attracting a budget, but has it really taken away from the old medium spend, or is it just attracting some new money?

For example, what is Coke's budget for online advertising? I can't recall seeing any paid Coke ads online - but maybe I've been looking in the wrong places.

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## duncan drennan

> Ad blindness is a known phenomenon amongst online publishers.


Or even better, just get Adblock Plus along with a suitable filter (such as Easylist) for Firefox and then you really are blind to the ads.

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## Ryan S

you are thinking of traditional advertising, just online. That isn't what I'm talking about at all. I'm talking about interactive marketing. 'marketing 2.0'. Things like social networks like facebook or my space, competitions, youtube, google, del.icio.us, digg. things like that. Ill give you an example. I'm actually stealing this from a book I just read  :Smile: 

Honda was one of the first companies to use social marketing. Car companies try to capture the youth because they believe the first car you own will very likely establish you as a brand loyal customer for at least a couple more purchases in your life. So the aim for all car manufactures is for their entry level cars to be desired by the youth. In the US Honda's entry level car the Honda CRV wasn't popular at all. So, after a lot of research, they changed the name of the car from CRV to Crave and created a microsite to host a competition that challenged people to submit a picture of their 'favorite crave' along with a few lines about why they craved it. The top half of the page was filled with thumbnails of the entries. viewers could mouse over the image and vote on how good the entry was. Now the cool thing was people that submitted an entry told their friends and family to go to the site and vote for their entry. When they did they were inspired to upload their own entry and tell everyone they know to go and vote for it. They wrote about it in their blogs and on their myspace page, they put links to the site and tagged in on digg and del.icio.us and the site got top ranking with goggle. The traditional media found is very interesting and wrote stories about the site (not adverts). it was even talked about on TV. The micro site cost Honda a few thousand $ but brought millions in free publicity. Over a very short period the CRV went from nowhere to one of the top 10 selling cars in the us.

Thats the power of web 2.0. 'Marketing 2.0' is basically a way to tap into the the best form of advertising. Word of mouth.

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## Norri

Ryan, that's exactly the kind of stuff I'm talking about.  Far too many people in SA are still doing things "the traditional way".  Which is fine for big companies but has never been a good idea for small businesses.  It's the very reason guerilla marketing was "invented".  Coz small businesses need low-cost, high-return advertising.  It usually means paying in TIME instead of MONEY.

Checking out your blog now.

Won't you post a few more examples here and link back to your blog?  I'd really like to see this thread becoming an important resource on the forum.

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## Dave A

Are we going to differentiate in this thread between *advertising* and *marketing*?

There is a substantial difference.

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## Norri

> Are we going to differentiate in this thread between *advertising* and *marketing*?
> 
> There is a substantial difference.


Hmmm, too right, Dave!  Let's keep it for Advertising.  Marketing would require an entire forum dedicated to it  :Big Grin:

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## Dave A

> Marketing would require an entire forum dedicated to it


That was the idea  :Stupid:   :Big Grin: 

Ryan, I think that is the challenge here. Clearly, Web 2.0 fits into marketing, but let's focus on advertising spend.

Consider this for a moment:

Vernon Koekemoer is essentially a Web 2.0 phenomenon. But look at where he is popping up in *paid advertising* - offline media! So what does that tell us?

To me the signs are clear - You can become a personality online nowadays, but when commercial advertising starts grinding its wheels to use that star value - look at where they are running the ads.

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## duncan drennan

> To me the signs are clear - You can become a personality online nowadays, but when commercial advertising starts grinding its wheels to use that star value - look at where they are running the ads.


Do you think most people possibly eat in front of a TV, and therefore advertising food (grilled chicken in this case) on TV at appropriate times is possibly a good way of priming people to substitute their current meal for grilled chicken?

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## Alta Murray

I whole-heartedly agree with you Dave, I think that is indicative of the most effective medium for advertising,where you get through to the people.  Too expensive for us though  :Frown:   I do like watching the market leaders as opposed to the second's as a market leader has to fight very hard to stay number 1, and they are doing 'defensive advertising' which is different from aggressive marketing.  

I don't think flyers and posters do the job, not from what I have seen, even billboards failed with one client, so I am dubious at best as we humans have filtered out almost all of the noise.

You might tend to find the young bloods on-line a lot, so that's cool, but the majority of them will not exactly be rolling in money, so I am still not sure about going that route.

The best, best way of advertising is socializing, though we don't want to know it, my experience bears that out.  We have one client that is absolutely fantastic at generating sales in this way, and I have actually calculated his return on expenditure, and you can see it paying off on sales, and it became a way to predict sales for that company :Smile:   I would not recommend this route if you are not a social animal ( and I don't mean slogging back the drinks) or if you are not a 'finished product' as an individual.

Every business usually have what I call a 'face man', someone who can fill that function.
Best advertising I have seen.  Sorry Norri, I am terribly old school when it comes to this :Smile: 

For ex. microsoft is the begin all end all and their new accounting 2008 download site looks horrible,and every time I try to download a demo version i seem to hit a loop, or my line dips as it takes 1 hour 30 odd minutes to download.  that after 1 bil dollars and 30 people on the project?  Won't hurt them, but it would hurt me a great deal, so i am cautious.

With my new marketing idea, I find it hard to differentiate betwix marketing and avertising, so I might be making an elementary mistake and fall flat on my face....or I am just blending the two.  It will be one hell of an expensive mistake, and I have actually saved up for it!

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## Dave A

> Do you think most people possibly eat in front of a TV, and therefore advertising food (grilled chicken in this case) on TV at appropriate times is possibly a good way of priming people to substitute their current meal for grilled chicken?


Good point (although I have been known to eat and cruise the internet at the same time, doing it right now actually  :Big Grin:  ) - but what about the Vodacom ads? They tapped into Vernon too and again, offline. In fact, best I can tell, they were the first.



> You might tend to find the young bloods on-line a lot, so that's cool, but the majority of them will not exactly be rolling in money, so I am still not sure about going that route.


The idea is to get them young. Their spend improves and people don't change brands that easily when the decision is fairly subjective. 

I also recall some uproar about marketing to juveniles resulting in harrassed parents somewhere along the line. Little diddums would bug mom and pops dilly to buy some doll/sweet/whatever because of the cute kid addiction generating ad. A good example - who is Ronald McDonald appealing to? If the kid isn't affecting the buying decision, why bother with something like Ronald McDonald?

Marketing to youth should not be underestimated.



> I find it hard to differentiate betwix marketing and avertising,


That might not be such a bad thing. If you just think advertising you narrow your thinking. Advertising is only part of a marketing strategy. Back to Coke - why is the bottle shaped that way? That isn't about advertising, but it *is* part of marketing.

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Alta Murray (30-Jul-08)

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## Alta Murray

Oi, sounds like marketing ala Micheal Jackson  :Smile:  I do wonder about brand loyalty though, I can not think of a single thing that I loved when I was young, that I appreciate now, and okay I now  *am* older than Clicks, but give me an example of a brand that you are still loyal to.  Lee jeans still get a vote from me, but only if there is nothing to compete with it, I used to love a Chopper bicycle, but they are not around anymore, so I think I might still have latent loyalty lingering on that score.  Will get one if I can.

The bottle is brilliant  :Smile:  but please let me know what brands you still are loyal to, perhaps I'm missing out on something. And just remember, it will be the same for the young ones, by the time they are a force to be reckoned with, they will have more choices too. 

My first bike was a Honda, loved it to bits, and I was in St.5, but I am not a Honda fan today. I am a staunch Audi fan, but that is because of the image and the people that drive the cars, as opposed to merc and bmw, and I do hope I am stepping on some toes here  :Smile:   but it came later in life, not when I was young.

As a woman I didn't even stay loyal to one beauty house, nor perfume, I don't get it, please explain. I get the micky dees and toys, but if you are not in those kiddy related industries, what's the point then?

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## Dave A

The question probably should be - why did you change brands?

But for now (and let's see what everyone comes up with). My list of things I've stuck with for ages:
Bank
Deodorant (possibly my wife's decision though)
Cigs
Pen

There are probably more... but thinking about it, a lot of brand choices are made by my wife.

Oops! Add coffee. That's mine too. Although if she insisted on something else, I'd probably cave  :Embarrassment: 
EDIT: Add service LDV - although I did change brands 3 years ago that was a 12 year run with one model, let alone brand.

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## Yvonne

CC Africa (luxury travel safaris), have a brilliant marketing campaign -  Competition with a one week vacation for winner plus 7 friends, enter contact details of said chosen friends, they receive an automated e-mail advising that you chose them to accompany you - should you win!, and asking if they accept the invitation? (Entry naturally has some qualifying questions!) Then your friends enter and list their friends etc.  Some duplications, but think of the eventual database of "qualified" clients!  Wow! costs restricted to just the prize of 7 people one week vacation! and good software?

Yvonne

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## Norri

I must tell you guys, I've been playing with Facebook Ads a lot these past 2 weeks and the results have been nothing short of inspiring!

Their CPM ads give you serious value for money.  I set up an ad over the weekend and got 20-something _targeted_ clicks to my guitar forum at about $0.01 a click!

The CPC model is much pricier though.

Just remember, when you set up an ad there, to be as specific with your demographics as possible.  It means paying _less_ for better qualified leads!

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## Dave A

Maybe something for another thread, but Norri, have you got any tips to share on ad targetting for Adwords, Facebook etc. ?

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## kernel32

Hi guys.  Excuse me if this has been mentioned before...




> Visa business network is giving away $100 in Facebook advertising credit to 20,000 small businesses.  Thatâs right, $100 for free!  All you have to do is install the âVisa Business Networkâ application on your Facebook profile. Go to http://apps.facebook.com/visabusiness/sign_up to add the application.


FROM Coolz

I'm not sure if this will be helpful to everyone, but for those registered on Facebook currently paying for advertising it will most definitely be.  I urge you to do this without delay, as there are a limited number of coupons.

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## Norri

Cool question, Dave  :Smile: 

I'm no guru (especially in AdWords) but I've learned a bit about Facebook recently.  Here are my tips...

Rather advertise to 50 well-targeted people than 50,000 random peopleAlways start SMALL while you're finding the ad-copy that works, this will save you moneyBid the absolute least you can.  Facebook might recommend $0.40 per CPM, still only bid $0.10.  It's their JOB to sell you advertising.  They're not your friends  :Wink: Do a little lateral thinking on your keywords.  Forex, forex signals, etc is all good (for spotonforex.com) but investing, investment opportunities & work from home could also help you target the right people.Demographic advertising is about hitting the RIGHT people with the same ad many times.  Don't worry if you have dips in your click-thru rate.  They'll pick up again.If you're advertising on Facebook, it's easier to reach younger people than people over 35.  Keep that in mind when advertising your ad.MOST IMPORTANT TIP:  Only ever send people to a page that delivers EXACTLY what your ad promises.  NOT your home-page, NOT your about-us page but preferrably a short page that continues where the ad left off and asks for something.  (Money, email address, whatever)  You're stupid if you don't do this!  (sorry)Use a picture that will ATTRACT your target person.  Pretty girls work but rather be relevant.  If the pretty girl isn't holding your product, use something else that relates to your product instead.

That's it for now.  Hope this helps someone else out there.

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## Norri

Nice one, kernel32, I'm checking it out now.

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## IanF

Norio
Is facebook working for you, I have just hooked up with a lot old school friends on it so us older people are starting to use it.  :Slap:

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## Norri

Yup, it's working incredibly well!

I've used it for promoting things to CEOs, learner-drivers, guitarists and more.

They were all successful but the stuff focused to younger people got me better results.

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## nightcoder

Hi Norio.

I was just wondering if you have learned anything new with your campaigns on facebook. Your tips is very helpful but I was wondering if you have any new tips or experience to ad.

Thanks.

John

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## murdock

word of mouth is the only form of advertising for me and has been for more than 17 years now...it must be work.

it all depends on the product or service you are selling

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## Norri

> I was just wondering if you have learned anything new with your campaigns on facebook. Your tips is very helpful but I was wondering if you have any new tips or experience to ad.


Thanks for your question, nightcoder  :Smile: 

The main thing I've learned is that Facebook works _exceptionally_ well for hobby-focused products.  I co-own www.GuitarForum.co.za and that campaign brings me the most number of clicks for the LEAST amount of ad-spend.

That's because people will often list "guitar" as one of their interests.  Which means I can laser-target them.  Which means that a greater percentage of ad-viewers will click my ad and an even greater percentage of click-thrus will result in my most-desired-action (signing up).

Conversely, I run a campaign for a driving school in Gauteng and, although it performs well, that campaign eats up a lot of my ad-spend.  Why?  Because people don't tend to list "driving" as one of their interests when they haven't yet learned how :P

So the key, IMO, is to find something to promote that people ALREADY are passionate about and you should do really well.

Another example is Forex.  Few people even _know_ about forex-trading so in my campaign promoting our R10 trial, I target people who I _think_ may be interested (SMEs, entrepreneurs, etc) but they haven't listed forex as an interest of theirs, so I don't know for sure, so I don't get such great results!

Lesson at the end of all of this is:  

*The better you can target your advertising, the more money you will make AND the less money you will spend.*

With the driving school, I'm targeting people between 17 and 18 who live in South Africa.  That's a pretty huge demographic, which is why you also need to have a reasonable daily limit on your ad-spend.

Anyway, the client thinks I'm stupid.  He gets a lot of people between 19 and 25 who take lessons from him and he wants me to target them too.  The problem with that is that you're essentially INCREASING the number of people who will see your ad without clicking because the percentage of people between 17 and 25 who want driving lessons is less than the percentage of people between 17 and 18 who want driving lessons!  Which means you're paying more for your clicks and your money doesn't last as long.

Even for PPC (pay per click) advertising, that's not OK because you're _decreasing_ your CTR (click-through rate) which Google, for example, uses to gauge the quality of your ad and offering.  And, if your quality-score is low, your ad costs more for the same position!  So, once again, you're spending more bucks for (potentially) less results.

*Rather advertise to 10 people who already want what you have than try and reach 100 who don't.*

Out of the 10, your conversion can be anywhere between 3% and 7%, out of the 100, you'd be lucky to get 1%.

Hope this helps someone out there.  As always, I'm not professing to be a guru, this is just what has (or has not) worked for me.

*NB:* My forum has gotten 100 new members this month thanks to the above "strategy".  In previous months, with no advertising, we averaged 20-30.  That's a 500%+ increase in signups!

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## Norri

> word of mouth is the only form of advertising for me and has been for more than 17 years now...it must be work.
> 
> it all depends on the product or service you are selling


Nothing will ever beat word-of-mouth.  But if you have a new service or you're testing out the market before developing something WORTH talking about, you're better off paying for some exposure until you can tweak your offering to be something people will talk about.

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## nightcoder

Thanks Norio. Your experience and insight is indeed helpful. I am gonna give facebook a try and see how it compares to google ads.

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## murdock

i agree with you 100%...unfortunately for me i started my bussiness with no capital and no money in the bank so there was no advertising...yeah i know the bank manager told me the same thing..."idiot you cant run a bussiness without capital" 

i plan on expanding one of my operations in the near future and because of the specialised type of work...one of the important factors will be advertising and the type of customer i will need to target...so i will be reading all these type of threads to get some insight as to how to go about it.

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## Ann Williams

Hi Murdoch

But you don't have to use paid for advertising to market yourself. I see that you have written more than 250 mails since you joined the forum. So how about using your signature here as a marketing opportunity?  :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic):

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## Norri

Ann is right and she's an expert at Guerilla Marketing - marketing for small businesses with no budget.

You basically use your brain and time to market yourself.  A forum is a GREAT way of doing exactly that.  Make good use of your signature and post interesting (short, punchy) articles and answers to things related to your industry.  TheForumSA.co.za is quite young so you might get a bit more exposure from MyGenius.co.za and forums related specifically to people who use whatever product you sell.

For practical hands-on advice, speak to Ann.  She's a boffin and likes consulting.  (Most boffins don't :P)

NB:  Facebook advertising is INCREDIBLY affordable.  I've spent maybe R200 to get over 80 members on my guitar forum!

NNB:  I 100% respect you for starting up with no capital.  I did the same thing and it's worked out fine.  Don't let anyone break your spirits!

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## Dave A

> TheForumSA.co.za is quite young so you might get a bit more exposure from MyGenius.co.za ...


I'm curious. How did you compare the two to arrive at that conclusion?

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## Norri

It's hardly scientific but I just compare the responses that new topics get on the 2 sites.  I get (and have seen) a much higher response-rate on MyGenius than I see here.

Does that help or did I not understand the question?

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## Dave A

I agree they're definitely far more "vocal" over there. I'd love a cheering section like that here.

But think it over - I suspect there are a few aspects you might not have considered.

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## Norri

Well it's not an either/or thing for me.  I like both communities  :Big Grin: 

Plus you have to pay (most times) to get full advantage of MyGenius which means I'm only there when it's convenient for me to pay to be there :P

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## Dave A

I'm not suggesting this is a choice (or even a contest)  :Wink: 
You *do* get good exposure. They're a pleasant crowd and really supportive. It's got a good community feel.

I was just surprised on the comparative *exposure* comment (which is something slightly different) and wanted to understand where it was coming from.

Your feedback really helps - it's got me thinking about perception issues.

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## murdock

i use to frequent various forums especially work related ones...but now stick to one fishing site...one work forum and this site...otherwise it takes takes up toooo much of my time.

thanks for the feedback...the reason i dont have a signature is because i havent wanted to advertise due to my work load...i cannot cope with any more work than i already have.

the reason i will need to advertise for my new venture is because the other bussiness is a specialised market and i need to target bigger companies than i already deal with so it is going to take some thought...the work includes load profiles...energy management...thermal imaging...classification of hazardous locations...just to mention a few.

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## Agelfreedom

I think the key point is $$$ - Cost. Online advertising for a start-up is very hard on the cash flow, especially if you want decent click through. It is a game of numbers, the more you are willing to spend on the advertising the better the return.

I have advertised on both Google and Facebook, and to be honest it was not that successful as my budget was to small.

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## wynn

Share Murdock, what is the address of the fishing site?

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## Norri

> I think the key point is $$$ - Cost. Online advertising for a start-up is very hard on the cash flow, especially if you want decent click through. It is a game of numbers, the more you are willing to spend on the advertising the better the return.
> 
> I have advertised on both Google and Facebook, and to be honest it was not that successful as my budget was to small.


The secret to success in any marketing is not budget but testing.  You need to test your offer, test your sales-copy, test your ad-copy and the list goes on forever.

The key point is _not_ $$$.  You can succeed with R100-R700.  I should know, I'm doing it.

Something you said is spot on, *The more you are willing to spend on the advertising, the better the return*.  But to get the full value out of that statement, you need to realise that you can spend TIME instead of money.  If you don't have time, you spend money.  If you don't have money, you spend time.

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Agelfreedom (05-Sep-08)

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## murdock

http://www.bassfishing.co.za

i enjoy all types of fishing but find bass fishing the most productive...and you dont have to clean all the salt water off everything when you get back after a long day on the water.

oooops sorry norri a bit off the subject.

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