Guest Contributor
There are various online marketing strategies in existence, and new approaches are introduced at an ever increasing rate. Some of these tactics are more effective than others, but there are a handful of strategies that have stood the test of time. Your chosen online promotional methods will be influenced to a great degree by the type of online business you pursue, the demographic of your audience, and your marketing budget.
Let us look at the most widely used promotional strategies and their respective advantages and disadvantages:
1. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising
PPC advertising is a strategy that involves the placement of ads on search engines to drive targeted traffic to your site. Google Adwords is the most commonly used form of PPC advertising.
Advantages:
• Results can be achieved in mere seconds
• New sites can build email lists and increase awareness fairly rapidly
• Costs are incurred only when someone clicks on your ad
Disadvantages:
• Costs-per-click are high in competitive industries
• Campaigns that are not optimized can result in high costs without many conversions
2. Organic Search Engine Marketing
Organic search engine marketing is an approach that involves ranking your website in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERP’s) to gain traffic directly from the search engines.
Advantages:
• There are no costs associated to traffic that is received from the search engines
• Traffic is laser targeted
• Can provide a form of residual income
Disadvantages:
• Ranking your site is time sensitive, and it can become a costly affair
• Results are relative to the industry and ranking on the first page is not guaranteed
3. Article Marketing
Article Marketing involves submitting articles relevant to your niche to popular article directories that are traffic intensive.
Advantages:
• You receive targeted traffic from within the article directories and the search engines
• Articles are often syndicated which brings you an increased amount of traffic from diverse sources
• You get backlinks to your site which aids in off-page search engine optimization
Disadvantages:
• Writing articles, researching topics, and submitting to the directories can become time-consuming
• Outsourcing this task can also become expensive over the long-term
This method involves using specialist internet marketers to help sell your product and in return you pay the marketer a commission for every sale or lead that is generated.
Advantages:
• You only pay the affiliate marketer for confirmed sales
• Affiliate Marketers assume the costs of promoting your product
Disadvantages:
• Unscrupulous marketers can use underhanded tactics to promote your product which can damage your company’s image
• The amount of sales you generate is dependent on the skill of the affiliate marketer
• Setting-up an affiliate marketing program and supporting your affiliates requires a large investment
Email marketing is a strategy that involves the use of emails that are sent directly to the client who opted-in to your email list to promote your company and your products.
Advantages:
• Automation software has significantly reduced the time and costs associated with email marketing
• Email communication provides the platform for you to build a lasting relationship with your client
Disadvantages:
• Conspicuous sales copy within an email can offend clients
• It can become time-consuming to respond to clients who have replied to the emails you send out
Formulating a specific marketing strategy that is suitable to your online business is critical in order to extract the highest ROI. Weighing-up the advantages and disadvantages of each method and choosing the methods with the least risk is a good starting point. However you must realize that the progressive nature of the internet calls for diverse sources of traffic.
[This is a guest post by Alex Papa of Business Opportunities Expo!]
I have found that sometimes I end up farming out some articles and that has helped me quite a bit. This is a great resource though.
Article marketing is a good method. The advantages of this method is twofold:
1. A good article can drive direct traffic to your site,
2. An article can be a source of backlinks to your site. Search engines may value backlinks from article directories with a high PR.
Article Marketing is the part of Organic search marketing and that all 5 factors comes in internet marketing, internet marketing covers all online marketing techniques…it’s very vast and big field for exposure…
Jacob Lee
Indeed it is really huge and usually it takes time to learn each one. Most successful internet marketers specialize in just one or two of the above methods.
Where exactly does setting up an affiliate program require a large investment?
Hi Dennis, you must understand that Alex is writing from the perspective of the affiliate programs owner and not those promoting the affiliate program. If you want to run your own affiliate program you definitely need some investment to do that. However, as an affiliate promoting affiliate programs you could get set in a matter of minutes!
Thanks for stopping by.
Thanks Chadrack. This is exactly what I mean. Signing up to become an affiliate is easy and does not cost anything. However, to set up your own affiliate program requires additional work to your site, such as, programming and designing the back end support, and the entire software that manages sales and commissions. Alternatively, somebody can use an Affiliate network and have their products promoted through the affiliates members of the scheme, example: Commission Junction and Clickbank. However, in this case the affiliate network take out their own commission for every sale made.
@Alex Papa,
I understand perfectly the difference between affiliate networks and marketers. I wasn’t sure you meant your OWN program though.
Nowadays, why would you though…a few dollars?
Is cell phone spy software a real thing or just a bluff in online marketing to cheat people and take money ?
I’m afraid I do not really know about this. Maybe somebody else here can offer an answer…
You are right Alex , if you want expertise in all field that is not so easy so maximum marketers get expertise in 2 to 3 field …
Well, it is difficult to become an expert in more than 3 areas. However, you can leverage the knowledge of others. For example, if you are an expert in affiliate marketing you can work together with an expert in Search Engine Marketing. Each is a science on it own!
Let’s combine between PPC and Organic search engines traffic, you will getting a good money.
Hi Alex,
You left off social media marketing, which is quickly becoming quite popular. It’s got it’s own pros and cons, but I think can compete in popularity with your other categories.
Oh, very true Richard. Social Media marketing is a huge way to market. It was deliberately left out, because the post was too big already. We can write a separate post for this. Good to see you here.
I currently work in online marketing covering Search and Affiliates. I would like an event that will both educate me and build new contacts in the US as I am currently UK based. I am swaying towards Adtech San Francisco or possibly an event in New York.
Hi Alex!
Nice hot list! 🙂 Article marketing is an evergreen marketing strategy isn’t? Even though consume more of our time and brain 🙂 but it is still the best strategy for target market, building backlinks and get listed on SERP. Thank you for sharing….. Have a great day everyone.
These are great tips. I hard time trying to delegate what I should prioritize and this has helped me understand what I should focus on.
I suppose what you need to prioritize depends on:
1. what you promote and your time to market. For example, if you are selling something that needs to reach the market immediately, then there is no point using Search Engine Marketing, because that usually takes longer.
2. what your competition is. For example, if you are targeting a small geographical area, i.e. your own town, with a particular product that applies only to your own town, then your competition may be low. In that case you can use SEM or paid traffic at low cost.
3. your budget. If you have a product that appeals to a global market and you are going against an army of competitors, but have no money to promote it then a good, cost effective start would be article marketing.
You need to educate your self in each method and know exactly what you are doing before you get started.