Hot answers tagged internet-marketing
10
There are lots of factors and ways to advertise for beta testers, have you thought about the following questions:
On-page
Do you have a landing page?
Do you have the option to join the mailing list if you don't have an invite?
Does your landing page have a clear call to action?
Does your landing page have a clear explanation as to what your platform ...
8
The model of the partner takes all the risk and pays all the money, whereas you get paid for development time, take no risk and take all the reward for selling the licenses is simply wrong, there is no way around this conclusion.
You must perform at least some part of the initial development at your own cost. At that point, you could try to pre-sell beta ...
6
Newsletter as an email is still a very powerful tool. Have a listen to Jason Calacanis (This Week In Startups) on this topic, he runs both and has his highest hit rates from email.
This is because most business people still look at their email as one of their primary applications that they return to many times a day. The message appearing in here is more ...
5
Honestly, so many people ask this here, that we should set up a "cooperative" where we agree to join each others sites - and maybe provide feedback and ideas - so that we all can get that critical initial user base. Also, I'm not sure if you will get anywhere with Google ads. One thing I just tried with my sitte was to buy some StumbleUpon traffic - that is ...
4
Robin, if your product is applicable to different industries, from a strategic/marketing point of view, I would go with a microsite for each industry.
The reason is that the buyers in each industry will have different pain points and different compelling needs to buy as well as different value that they get from the product. Also, each industry will ...
4
Should you look for analytical skills above all others? No. That's a great way to get a trial-and-error approach that comes up with a lot of errors before anything actually worth trying.
Good marketing exists at the intersection of awareness, analysis, and creativity.
Awareness: Of the market, of how it will perceive different messages, of what others are ...
4
This is called "affiliate marketing". You can have a look at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affiliate_marketing.
The most common is to pay your affiliates a certain percentage of what you earned thanks to their recommendations.
Depending on where you live there are different legal methods to pay your affiliates. In Poland for example, where I ...
4
Advertising is a complicated field. There is no simple answer to what advertising will work for you as there are so many unique factors that effect it.
I would just suggest experimentation. Spend a small amount of time and/or money in each area and measure the results. You can then increase whichever is working best for you. You will really never know ...
3
A lot depends on the service you render and the type of customers you want to attract.
I find that adword offers more flexibility; it offers search advertising as well as the ability to target specific local websites that may better address the market you are targeting. Facebook is yet to start its own ad network so you are limited to facebook.
3
I've actually done this. More than once. We had ideas that we wanted to build as B2B SaaS/PaaS solutions and expanded to a good concepts. We didn't want to bring in external investment. We found a niche market, and made a list of target clients.
We went to those clients and spent time understanding their problems, until we were sure we knew them better than ...
3
I don't see anything wrong with that, as long as you are clear in your answer about it. There's nothing wrong with promoting your own business, but you can simply say something like:
Have a look at someshopsite.com, it has a large selection of ... and a
large community of users... Full disclosure: I am the owner of
someshopsite.com
3
I believe you are approaching this wrong. Just like customer service, I don't think this should just be something you view as a black box. "Like, oh I know very little about online marketing I better hire someone else to do that." Screw hiring some new team. Do it yourself(ves). At least until you understand what works and what you like doing. Then ...
3
If its either one of newsletter or blog, go for blog.
Newsletter is still an effective tool, however in this socially connected world blog is becoming more powerful & effective everyday and certainly this is the future. With blog posts, your ideas reachability increases many-folds as blog posts can reach readers through facebook, twitter, rss feed, ...
2
Do you have enough cash flow to hire a person(s) just for marketing?
Would you have enough time to do this yourself? Marketing is not as simple as most people think, but it's certainly not rocket science. It's definitely something you can learn, although it will take time and some effort.
If you think you might want to try adwords, an inexpensive and ...
2
Communicate with your stakeholders in the way they prefer. With today's integrated publish platforms it is possible to match your content by how an individual wants to receive the information. Blogs, RSS feed, Twitter, SMS, Email, eBlast, eNewsletter -- different platforms for different messages for different content for different targeted audiences.
I ...
2
I'd suggest you (meaning together with the marketeer) define a set of Key Performance Indicators (e.g. sales leads, conversion ratio, etc) and use this as the basis for a commission plan for the marketeer.
Once the ball gets rolling, have frequent site performance reviews, adding or tweaking the KPI's, thereby installing a cycle of continuous optimization. ...
2
SEO is a big topic on its own and something that should be done on ongoing basis, regardless of what phase your business/product is in. Seeing results take time, so you can't really plan on getting SEO changes out in time for when you need/want traffic.
Run your site through SEO tools listed in this post and follow recommendations:
Looking for SEO testing ...
2
By multiple micro-sites I take it to mean multiple domain names. This can be costly (domain names are not free), but more importantly are potentially problematic from the standpoint of search engines.
What is a good practice and which is perfectly OK with search engines is to have many landing pages each targeted to a different audience. This kind of ...
2
If I understand your question correctly, what you're asking is to find a client who will pay your costs for you to develop an internet marketing platform. In exchange, you will give them a license to use the software.
Disadvantages for your potential business partner:
Your technology is unproven and they don't know whether or how fast you will be able to ...
2
Personally I still sign up for newsletters if I am really interested in the company or its offering. However I am now starting to unsubscribe from these newsletters and subscribe to their RSS feeds.
I dislike getting 50 newsletters a day in my inbox, it takes time to filter and creates a lot of clutter, which reduces my productivity. Now with Google ...
2
Social media is the best way to promote your business today.
First you need to know your market. If you know your product, you should be able to figure out your market yourself. Once you have a thorough profile of your customer, determining how and where to reach them is much easier.
Then set your goals. Determine what you are looking to gain from online ...
2
The internet is only about "NYC" (or any other specific locale) if you're selling NYC goods. If you're a business and you run on the internet and you happen to be in New York and your products or services don't have anything to do with NYC -- why bother with adding "NYC" to your domain name?
Wendy's was founded in Columbus, OH. But it website isn't ...
2
"We're just trying to show people awesome events from a bunch of different sources sortable by time and location."
Have you tried going to some of those events that you speak of and do some networking, I know this will not get you the first 1,000 sign ups but it will definitely get you on track. For example, in Austin I organize a meetup where people come ...
1
Apply SEO, start and maintain a blog that relates to your e-commerce website, post on forums related to your e-commerce website, add your website to the business directories, use social media and PPC. Check other websites related to your e-commerce site. Ask the owners to link to your website. If they agree, do the same in return. Ask your existing customers ...
1
If you are in the US, and if you want to comply with FTC guidelines concerning endorsements and testimonials, you should clearly and conspicuously disclose that the site is yours.
Please see Educate Employees about Online Endorsements – the FTC is Watching! (a blog post that I wrote 2+ years ago).
Disclaimer: This information does not constitute legal ...
1
A simpler first step might be to sell some advertising space on your site to Universities or Colleges.
This would have a couple of advantages:
You don't have to bother about privacy issues at this stage
You would meet the relevant contacts at the Universities and find out what their needs are
You get immediate (and re-occuring) income (when you have made ...
1
It really depends on the user. I personally like to get newsletters on start-ups. I have a newsletter that gives buys people information related to staying health while working.
For my readers, getting a weekly e-mail on a topic like: standing desks,which running shoes to buy or productivity tips is helpful. Think about your audience and the content your ...
1
Hosting is difficult because it's not only over saturated - it's over saturated by extremely cheap and good options.
To be successful you have to do something different (it's unlikely you can compete with GoDaddy and friends on price).
You can go after small niches (for example - hosting for furniture stores*), by creating offers that are specifically ...
1
What Rui is true but there are other ways to look at it as well.
While this isn't the only way to do it, a way that I've seen work (well I presume it worked) is running an affiliate program. Giving people an incentive to promote you, along with great customer service at great prices (hell, we know there is a lot of margin in hosting so long as you do it ...
1
In my opinion, the hosting business is all about service/support. We all know that servers crash, in all hosting companies, that there are datacenter and network problems with all hosting companies. What makes them different is the action/reaction to those situations.
A really important thing to me is the "proactivity" of a hosting company, i mean, are they ...
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