[Question] Ideas on cheap S.A. based advertising?

[HPretorius]

Hi Everyone,

My name is Hendrik Pretorius, I am an immigration attorney located in Los Angeles, California. Much of my time is spent assisting South Africans with their immigration processing to enter the U.S. I am hoping to get some ideas from you all on ways that I can advertise our immigration services to a wider audience in South Africa. Currently I receive a good number of inquiries from our S.A. based website, www.mjlaw.co.za, however I would like to expand our marketing reach.

One of the main target groups are South African entrepreneurs who already have a business established in South Africa. The reason for this is the availability of a specific type of visa that allows a person to enter the U.S. and establish a new business while keeping their S.A. business in operation. There are several benefits to this visa, one of which is that the investment into the U.S. company can be fairly minimal as compared to other visa types, depending of course on the type of business.

Any ideas on low cost advertising options to this target group and others would be very much appreciated. Thank you all for your time.

Regards,

Hendrik Pretorius

[Chatmaster]

I would think that the use press releases submitted to the several media houses would work well. Publishing of articles on the web informing the public about the real requirements and situation with regards to the US and its visa requirements. I for one, were under the impression that the US had very strict and expensive restrictions and I know for a fact that many people are under the same impression.

A further issue would be to look at the different issues that can affect the decision process. For example, how would schooling affect my kids if we go to the US for a certain time, how does housing and living costs differ from here, etc. There must be a heap of websites that can find these topics very interesting and wouldn't mind publishing information on this. All of the above are mostly free to do if you do not include time as cost.

[Dave A]

I've ducked this one so far because the temptation was to start firing off questions about special visas and the like. But perhaps that is a reality that needs to be taken into account.

I agree with Roeloef - I didn't know there were all types of visas for the USA. About all that I hear marketed is the green card lottery. So I think getting information out there onto the web and catering for a discussion on the subject would go a long way.

So, you've got a website. Tick off step one.
You're cruising the forums. Step 2 on its way.

Now for stuff I haven't seen yet (but you might be doing already):
A blog
A newsletter to subscribe to
Face book profile
You tube
Publishing free articles
Hoards of business networking sites

And then when it comes to spending money:
Google Adwords
Affiliate programs
Targeted advertising/marketing deals on sites where the creature you hunt lurks.
Buy a profiled mail list

And that is just the internet.

Traditional media advertising: Well there I see a problem. You're off-shore and on a totally different time zone, so whatever the cost of advertising, we're quite possibly back to relying on the internet for most of the communicating anyway.

In your case, the creature you hunt is almost certainly accessible via the internet. Seems the logical way to go.

[HPretorius]

Many Thanks

Thank you guys very much for your insight, it is very much appreciated. I do want to get the word out that there are other options available to South Africans apart from the green card lottery, especially for business owners.

In terms of the blog, does anyone have any suggestions on which site to create the blog and how to make it visible to SA viewers specifically? Is there a South African based blog site that anyone recommends?

Thank you all once again.

[Dave A]

You could use Wordpress and install it in a /blog folder on your mjlaw.co.za website.

Or you could use Blogger which is really user friendly.

[derrickm]

Here's a list of free blog hosts:

http://blogs.thetimes.co.za/moneyonline/2008/05/29/40-free-blog-hosts/

Blat.co.za and http://blogs.24.com/ are specifically South African.

However, the best idea is usually to host the blog on your own site, probably in a subdirectory ie. mjlaw.co.za/blog, as Dave suggested. If you blog consistently, and promote the blog effectively, you can build traffic to the blog which should improve the search engine ranking for your whole site.


WordPress is free blogging software which is widely used. You can create a free account at WordPress.com to see how it works.

Many of the free blogging sites listed above are frequently crawled by the search engines. Placing a well-written article or two on a couple of them with a link back to your 'real' blog is a great way to get free backlinks, and improve your search engine rankings.

[Norri]

Just PLEASE make sure your blog is well-designed (yes, hire a professional) and updated weekly at least. Those are the absolute basic rules for a good blog.

Here's some more:

http://www.seoptimise.com/blog/2007/11/10-ways-to-make-your-website-more.html

[andreakruck]

Hi Hendrik, if you need admin or business support here in SA then you can contact me: thevirtualassistant@telkomsa.net - Regards, Andrea

[Martinique Treadaway]

Hi Hendrik, I am a freelance art director / designer with 7 years experience in the advertising industry. Please contact me if you would be interested in my services, ie beautifully designed and written visual communication of what your business offers, which could then be applied to any type of media, in your case, targeted internet sites would probably be the best option.

Marty

[garthu]

Hey Hendrik,

Sounds really interesting and agreed, most SA don't think even try for States as it seems impossible!

As i'm in real estate, deal with alot of people that immigrate . I have a news letter out monthly to about 2800 subscribers, if you can provide a short article with a logo etc, i will see about getting it into next news (next week) as this sort of thing would make interesting reading for my readers. Put details, website, who to credit etc if interested.. Just contact me via pm and i will send mail details
Regards
Garth