http://www.wpdfd.com/forums/wpdfd/promotion/paid_website_promotion_that_works/ A Promotion forum thread at WPDFD.com en-us 07/26/04, 208 21 2004 2004:%i:1090876887 16:21:27 07/20/08, 202 46 2008 2008:%i:1216565170 09:46:10 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss NineLabs Framework Feed Generator sitemaster@wpdfd.com sitemaster@wpdfd.com http://www.wpdfd.com/forums/wpdfd/promotion/paid_website_promotion_that_works/#p1151
I have a client who wants to invest in some paid advertising of his website. I've always optimised my clients sites following the generally accepted standards of good behaviour and used free registered for these sites. I've never been given a (small) budget for advertising a site.

So my question is, what paid advertising works? What is the best value for money? I know there are paid placements on most of the search engines, pay per click, banner ads on other sites etc etc etc. I can't recommend them all and I have a responsibility to try and get the best return on my clients investment.

Any ideas most welcome.]]> 07/26/04, 208 21 2004 2004:%i:1090876887 16:21:27 http://www.wpdfd.com/forums/wpdfd/promotion/paid_website_promotion_that_works/#p1151 http://www.wpdfd.com/forums/wpdfd/promotion/paid_website_promotion_that_works/#p1152 07/26/04, 208 26 2004 2004:%i:1090880801 17:26:41 http://www.wpdfd.com/forums/wpdfd/promotion/paid_website_promotion_that_works/#p1152 http://www.wpdfd.com/forums/wpdfd/promotion/paid_website_promotion_that_works/#p1153 07/26/04, 208 22 2004 2004:%i:1090884162 18:22:42 http://www.wpdfd.com/forums/wpdfd/promotion/paid_website_promotion_that_works/#p1153 http://www.wpdfd.com/forums/wpdfd/promotion/paid_website_promotion_that_works/#p1154
The target audience is pretty well defined - people looking for extreme sports clothing and equipment (eg jackets that'll keep you warm at the top of Everest).

So I guess the question is, do I find online and/or printed magazines dealing with extreme sports and place ads in these magazines. Do I carefully choose some relevant keywords and pay for Adwords (?) in Google etc?

I just want to know what is generally offers the best return on the investment given that the target audience is very specific.]]> 07/26/04, 208 41 2004 2004:%i:1090885272 18:41:12 http://www.wpdfd.com/forums/wpdfd/promotion/paid_website_promotion_that_works/#p1154 http://www.wpdfd.com/forums/wpdfd/promotion/paid_website_promotion_that_works/#p1155
Advertising rates in specialist publications (or web sites) will be considerably lower than in general circulation ones. The math is quite simple if you know the circulation figures and the cost per square inch. You can work out the dollar cost of reaching 1000 potential customers and therefore you can plan the campaign efficency.

When you get to general publications, you have a much bigger audience, but much of the effort (and cost) will be wasted because the readers will not be interested. 'Seeds falling on stoney ground' and all that!

With Google Adwords, it's very hard to know how good the targetting is for something like this. It might well be that mountain climbers would rather be in the great outdoors than inside surfing the net so you need to try it and measure the effectiveness compared to a highly targetted regular ad. You need to look ahead a little and accept that you might not get it right first time. No media buying agency does.

Then...when you've worked out the best media plan, you still have the competition to worry about. They are likely to be there too. I always paper the walls with competitive ads, current and past. That establishes 'the language of the marketplace'. You might try hard to fit-in there, or you might want to do the very opposite to be different and stand out. I prefer to stand out rather than blend-in, but that's a 'confidence' thing and depends very much on the client's attitude. There are no benefits in being invisible (in advertising) unless you are very clever indeed.

Anyway, you have to convince the punters that your products have something to offer that the others don't - style, technical benefits, cost, whatever. It's not just a matter of sticking a logo on a page - that is 'brand building', which is a longer term strategy and only works if the company is still in business. What you have to get across is the USP - Unique Selling Proposition - that separates your procuct from all others. If it doesn't have one, then you have to invent one!

There is no 'instant answer' to your question. It needs groundwork and I'm afraid that there's no shortcut.

PS. Have you considered branding the URL on a herd of mountain goats?
]]> 07/27/04, 209 15 2004 2004:%i:1090919714 04:15:14 http://www.wpdfd.com/forums/wpdfd/promotion/paid_website_promotion_that_works/#p1155 http://www.wpdfd.com/forums/wpdfd/promotion/paid_website_promotion_that_works/#p1156
Seriously, thanks for the advice. I understand what you're saying, just go to get stuck in now. Lucky I budgeted plenty of time for client meetings and research!]]> 07/27/04, 209 04 2004 2004:%i:1090929841 07:04:01 http://www.wpdfd.com/forums/wpdfd/promotion/paid_website_promotion_that_works/#p1156