Online marketing

[Entity]

What is a really good way of doing online marketing/Advertinsing to attract interested people(more S.A. people) for an online business?

Thanks
Dominic

[Dave A]

There is a chap that cruises past these pages from time to time that could help you. Maybe now he'll take the time to register.

Tony - you out there?

[Txico]

Thanks for the plug Dave.

I run workshops on Internet Marketing all over the show. Basically a 3 hour crash course on setting up a business online and getting customers. I'm currently in Johannesburg running a workshop tomorrow morning.

Online Marketing is a bit of an Art Skill, especially since the laws in SA are completely different to the laws in the US or EU - so I'd rather not venture into posting stuff here that could be badly extrapolated. Perhaps if you have some specific questions I could answer?

Also, are you selling a product or service online? Who is your target market? Are you geographically bound in your business? What is your online marketing budget?

T

[Snoopy_inc]

How can one get revenue out of your website/forum. And what is the best way to go about it txico?

What are the usual costs for a banner on a main page? Are they diff costs and how much diff if they are on a seperate page?
How many visitors do you need to get to price your advertising right to the advertisors etc.

Thanks

[Txico]

Hi Snoopy

This is a tough one ... mainly because it's difficult to prove the number of visitors to your page - and the truth is that people will ALWAYS complain about the number of visitors coming through your site - or lack of visitors. You need to have a good amount of traffic flow coming through.

Price is totally up to you. If your advertiser goes for it, then great. The truth is that it's all relative. Perceived value is often more important than real value. And are you going to charge a flat monthly fee? Or Pay per click? Monthly fee is better, I think, because the advertiser doesn't feel like he's being ripped off - and it makes budgeting a whole lot better.

If you've got about 1000 unique visitors traipsing through your site, then I suspect about R100pm would be a good value. It's not much, but the truth is I don't place much value in banner adverts.

Personally, I'd rather use the space myself to advertise an affiliate product, I'll in all likelihood make more money out of it.

Tony

[Dave A]

I was reading something the other day (of course I can't find it right now ) that was talking about trends with fixed rate advertising on web sites.

At first it used to be based on hits, then page views. Nowadays the trend seems to be towards unique visitors.

An interesting comment on affiliate programs, Tony. The little bit I did with this did not go well. I was getting click throughs - I was seeing referrals signing up down the line, but I was not getting credited with sales. In this modern era of cookie cleaning, it seems oftentimes if your referral does not sign up for the program with the first visit, you don't get credited with the "sale". In this case I think people were signing up for the newsletter for a while and only joining the program later.

I suppose it depends on the nature of the affiliate program. But it seems a leaky ship.

My thoughts here is that one day it might prove worthwhile to introduce brand building banner advertising - something like "Standard Bank supports small business in South Africa" Or industry specific advertising for the industry specific categories. Income would go first to site expenses, then the costs of the representative function we hope to establish one day.

The goals here are essentially not for commercial gain, but if it does get huge, we're tracking referrals and the reputation function is up. We could reward contributions in those two areas.

If anyone wants to start bidding, we're at an average of 1264 pages per day and 3189 unique visitors per month What I like about that is an average of about 12 pages per visit! And we only really just started.

[Snoopy_inc]

Hrm.... I have found out about email marketing and come to the conclusion that it does work well.

For those of you wishing to boost your business and gain back the old clients you havent called in a while this might be for you.

Our company deals specifically with Mdaemon. Its a Brilliant product that is basically a mail server. The extra features on the other hand are awesome.... comes with a list server that allows you to send marketing mails to all your people you know by means of an email send. (1 send to 1 mail address)
It has digest mode, personalised mode, etc.

Lots of features include automanagement whereby if the person doesnt want the email anymore they dont phone you they just reply to email with special subject and they off the list after it notifies you.

Anyway just a heads up we have done this for a while now and normally a business gets about a 20% increase in work after email send.

If you want more details contact me direct

[Dave A]

I've been tinkering with a PHP powered mailing list program. It seems pretty powerful, but does need some understanding of cascading style Sheets and is not that user-friendly for the novice. Still haven't got it totally right yet but it looks like it will do the job.

So many things on the to-do list and so little time. But we'll get there eventually.

[Snoopy_inc]

Ye they should invent 28 hour days for us

[bullfrog]

The best online marketing depends a lot on what it is that you're selling and who you're targeting. You will have to figure out what type of sites your target market visits, what they search for etc. The best way to do this is to join in communities of people who make up your target market. That way you will learn about your target market and learn to think like they do. You could even set up a survey for current clients to learn more about how they found you and why they chose you. Then focus on those points and build on them.

Another thing that is often overlooked is service. The best advertising is word of mouth. If you give great service to your current client base, they will tell their friends and those friends will tell their friends etc. Some businesses have grown by not spending a cent on advertising and focusing more on great service. At a certain point sign ups will start getting more as more people tell their friends and colleagues. The only problem is that you will really have to work hard for the first few sign ups.

[Snoopy_inc]

I would agree but what people dont really get is that email marketing doesnt normally attract new clients... it resecures your old ones that you havent heard from in a while... alot of the time a client base is about 40-70 % active if that. The rest of the base are people that have either lost your card or there has been a change in management or something of the sort.

By emailing your marketing stuff to them you not only make them aware of your numbers etc but also catch them by surprise. Trust me you usually get some decent calls from it. And remember all it really takes is 2 or 3 good call backs for you to have profited off of the email send.

Major benefits of the Mdaemon software is that you pay once off there after you dont pay for any more sends

[Candy Bouwer]

keeping in touch is the key...i know and you are very right..out of site is out of mind so this approach reminds them without being to abrasive.

[Snoopy_inc]

Yip... Works like a charm... i would say its a must if you want your service to be up there with the best of the industry. Even if you dont phone or get the time to phone a personalised email makes them feel special

[bullfrog]

Yeah I agree about emailing clients to let them know you still exist. My post was aimed more for the people starting out with marketing their online business. It's always easier to get a current client to sign up for more services from a trusted company than trying to convince a new client that you're reliable and that he/she should sign up.

[Snoopy_inc]

Best way i find to get new clients is to ask your normal clients to refer you...... takes balls i admit that but if you have a good working relationship you can get work easy.