Hi friends,
Being a freelance web copywriter I have to keep an eye on the changes that abound on the Internet. I need to know what area of marketing will work for my clients and what doesn't, and the only way I can know is to try various aspects of advertising. The long web page sales letter is still by far the frontrunner when it comes to selling individual products, but all that could soon change. And instead of writing sales copy, I could soon be writing scripts and screenplays.
I'm talking about the rising popularity of video. There's no doubt, Internet advertising is evolving. Who will continue to use PPC and other traditional means of advertising, when video is streaming onto computer monitors all around the world?
Keeping with Tradition or Moving with the Times?
When any new business is first launched on the Internet, priority must be given to acquiring customers. Many webmasters spend far too much time concentrating on search engine optimization, and although this is valuable, it should be considered as a long-term tactic. What’s more important is, without a solid advertising and marketing strategy a new Internet business will never get off the ground.
Every single website owner operating any kind of business on the Internet faces the same single challenge. How to drive traffic to their websites? Without traffic there are no customers and without customers there will be no sales. The answer is to advertise, but what is the most effective means and more importantly what is the most cost-effective means?
Let’s consider the options. Pay Per Click on any search engine is effective but as Google is the top dog, then it stands to reason that if Google attracts more users then this is where you’ll find more prospects and potential customers. But, as many online marketers have discovered to their detriment, PPC advertising can be the quickest road to going broke. The advantage is, almost instant traffic. The same effect, although to a lesser degree can be experienced with Yahoo and MSN.
So what else can you do? There’s email marketing, but beware scamsters and shisters and just about every other rip-off merchant are operating unhindered in this field. Anyone can build an email list very quickly by using ‘email harvesting’ software, then rent or sell the list to unsuspecting marketers. Desperate for traffic many marketers will gladly hand over their cash for these lists only to find their websites have been taken down or banned for spamming.
Email marketing can be a very useful marketing tool but it’s highly advisable to always use a reputable list broker. Choose one that guarantees delivery of your email and offers some way of tracking results.
Another method of getting your message out there is article marketing. It runs in close parallel with press releases for getting results but costs nothing, other than a little time. Basically, you write an interesting article about a subject similar to the product or service you want to promote. You can’t blatantly advertise, so the article has to be skillfully crafted to include benefits and features of your product or service without actually mentioning it.
You are allowed to include a resource box at the end of your article, which will include your name, bio and a link back to your website. You then submit your article free, to the main directories such as, Article City or Ezine Articles and wait. The idea is that people looking for free and relevant content for their websites will download your article in its entirety and feature it on their website. Hence you get free promotion. Press releases do very much the same thing.
One of the most effective methods of advertising online today is to find someone who is promoting a similar product or service to yours and who has a large list of subscribers to their newsletter or ezine. Simply contact the webmaster or business owner and ask if you can place an ad in their publication. Most will be happy to accommodate and even recommend your product or service to their list, for a fee of course. They might even offer to promote your products to their list and to other similar lists for a percentage of the profits. This is generally known as a joint venture and works well for both parties.
Next, you might consider setting up an affiliate program. The idea is to get as many people as possible promoting your products all over the Internet. Think of it as building a sales team. Each member of your team will make sales for you in return for a percentage of the sale. To see how this works, visit Clickbank.com or Commission Junction.com.
All the methods mentioned have been tried and tested and are effective in producing varying degrees of success, but the Internet is evolving. As more and more people access the Internet via a broadband connection, video advertising is set to explode.
Time to Put on Your Make-Up and Get Ready for the Curtain Call
Currently online video advertising represents a tiny fraction of the overall advertising market with a total spend of just $121 million last year compared with $9.5 billion for all other online media, according to Jupiter Research.
And according to ‘The Online Publishers Association’, 25% of all Internet users now watch video online at least weekly. Because of these statistics, it is predicted that there will be a 70 percent increase in online video advertising spend next year. The top video aggregators have reported daily video streams in the millions, which goes to prove that the audience is there.
All this adds up to the prospect of the Internet heading for direct ad competition with television. New technical capabilities include adding an interactive Flash layer to streaming video. At the forefront of this emerging rich media technology are companies like Klipmart, Eyewonder, United Virtualities, Eyeblaster and Viewpoint.
So, where can marketers place their ads? The media buyers ClickZ highly ranked MSN in terms of service, implementation and original video content. Also, Yahoo, via its Yahoo Music audio and video destination (formerly LAUNCH), is primed for a big video roll-out.
As video begins to impact on the online advertising scene, we’re also likely to see an upsurge in multimedia search engines. And the most exciting part about video advertising is that anyone can produce their own visual ad, just as they now compete with others for their share of the market via traditional means.
It’s time to put on your make-up, write a convincing advertising script and become star of your own marketing show.
Anyone need a script writer?
Till next time.
Bill
www.knight-writer.co.uk
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