Effective Strategies for Online Advertising for Small Businesses

Jan 2
13:44

2024

Jim Daniels

Jim Daniels

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In the digital age, online advertising is a crucial tool for small businesses. However, it's not enough to simply throw money at various advertising strategies. It's important to understand how to effectively utilize your budget to maximize your return on investment. This article will guide you through the process of determining the value of a website visitor, setting up an email capture strategy, and measuring your advertising results. It will also provide an evaluation of various online advertising strategies to help you decide where to invest your advertising dollars.

Understanding the Value of a Website Visitor

Before you start spending money on online advertising,Effective Strategies for Online Advertising for Small Businesses Articles it's important to understand how well your website is performing. This involves determining the value of a website visitor. To do this, you need to calculate your visitor to sales ratio. For example, if you get 1000 visitors a week and make 10 sales, your visitor to sales ratio is 100-1.

Once you know this ratio, you can calculate how much a visitor is worth to you. For instance, if you close 1 sale for every 50 visitors and your average sale is $50, you could pay up to a dollar per visitor and break even. Therefore, a good goal would be to pay less than a dollar per visitor.

Setting Up an Email Capture Strategy

The next step is to set up an email capture strategy. If your site is closing one sale for every 50 visitors, you may be satisfied. However, if you're not offering a way for the other 49 visitors to stay connected, you're missing out on potential sales.

One way to capture visitor information is by offering a free gift in exchange for their contact information. This could be a free ebook, an email course, or any other valuable resource. If done correctly, you could capture the contact information of up to 20% of your visitors.

Once you have these email addresses, it's important to treat them like gold. Regularly send out an email newsletter with valuable information and offers. This will help you build a community and generate long-term profits.

Measuring Your Advertising Results

The final step before you start spending money on advertising is to set up a way to measure your results. One simple way to do this is by creating a unique URL for each ad. This will allow you to track how many visitors came through that URL.

Evaluating Online Advertising Strategies

Once you've completed the steps above, you're ready to start investing in online advertising. Here are nine online advertising strategies, ranked from poor to excellent:

  • FFA Submissions (Free for all links pages): These are not worth your time or money.
  • Bulk Email: This can damage your business reputation and is not worth the risk.
  • Safe Lists: These are not effective as most members do not read messages or make purchases.
  • Banner Advertising: This can be worth trying, but results may vary.
  • Opt-in List Rental: This can be profitable if you have the budget for it.
  • Paid Search Engine Submissions: This can be effective, especially with Inktomi's Search/Submit and Yahoo! Business Express.
  • Pay Per Click Search Engines: This can be a great opportunity if you're not in a super-competitive keyword arena.
  • Personalized Email Series: This can be one of your top sales producers if done correctly.
  • Ezine Advertising: This is one of the most effective ways to get targeted traffic at a low cost.

By understanding the value of a website visitor, setting up an email capture strategy, and measuring your advertising results, you can make the most of your online advertising budget. Remember, the key to successful online advertising is not just spending money, but spending it wisely.