8 Advertising Techniques that Work

Whether your business is new, or it’s 10 years old, you’re always going to want to find new customers. We all know that word of mouth is going to be your best bet when it comes down to retaining previous, as well as new clients.

Now, you’re probably wondering what kind of advertising methods work in today’s technological era. I wanted to share 8 ways on how I advertise and how they have worked for me. I run a few online properties and have found that these techniques have always drawn in new business for me. In fact, sometimes, it’s too much! Do a good enough job and you won’t have to worry about finding new customers.

1 Get on Google Maps: People love to search for businesses on the web. With Google maps, you can verify your company. I would advise that you do so. Let’s say that you have a deck building company and someone searches for Atlanta, GA decks. You’re going to want to be there, right? The best thing is that it’s free!

2 Use PPC: PPC (pay per click) is one of my favorites when it comes down to advertising. I can target exactly who I want and the only time that I have to pay is when they click on my ads. All major search engines such as Google, Bing, as well as smaller ones such as Ask offer these services.

3 Brand yourself on Facebook: I love Facebook when it comes down to advertising. Not only does it work great for branding, it can draw a lot of awareness to your company. Create a fan page and either advertise that, or send them directly to your website. The coolest thing about this is that you can target specific audiences.

4 Craigslist: Be careful with Craigslist because you don’t want to spam here, but put up an ad every 3 weeks or so. Don’t make it look like spam and just explain what you can do. Always make sure that the title is catchy enough for people to click on it. Add pictures as well, because people love pictures!

5 Contribute on forums: No matter what industry you’re in, you’re going to find that there are message boards that cater to you. Join these forums and make it a habit to contribute at least 1 time a day. Don’t go there for the sole purpose of advertising, but rather, give information. Since many forum owners allow you to put a signature at the end of your post, take advantage of this!

6 Write for other bloggers: Find other bloggers that are in your niche. Let’s again say that you do decks. Well, it’s important that you have some sort of blog to keep your site fresh. Find other bloggers and write a little piece for them. In return, ask for a link back to your site.

7 Use old media ways: Google Adwords has a cool feature where you can advertise on TV, the radio, and more. All of these advertising platforms are still around. You will want to consider them, if your budget is big enough.

8 Send out press releases: Let’s say that you’re launching something cool and unique. Spend a few hundred on a good press release. This is going to be blasted out to many media outlets. If they like your story, you can get interviews galore!

Advertising, as well as branding takes some work. If you do a good job, people are going to keep coming back. This is why you’re always going to want to consider quality as well. Test out a few of these 8 tips and see how they work for you!

source: niceblogger

Twitter Decides it Will Be the Only One Offering Ads in the Timeline

Twitter announced today that it will not allow any advertising from third parties in its timeline or any service that leverages the Twitter API. The company is updating its terms of service to reflect its new policy.

The reasoning for this is basically described as a way to "meter the impact" of Twitter's ownPromoted Tweets (launched at the company's developer conference last month), and ensure the long-term success of advertisers.

Of course there are already a number of services out there offering their own forms of Twitter advertising, and have been doing so for quite some time (before Twitter announced its own version). It is unclear just what will happen to such services, but they will likely find ways around it. For instance, there are already some, like TweetUp, whose ads don't actually appear in the timeline.


"Why are we prohibiting these kinds of ads? First, third party ad networks are not necessarily looking to preserve the unique user experience Twitter has created," says Twitter COO Dick Costolo. "They may optimize for either market share or short-term revenue at the expense of the long-term health of the Twitter platform. For example, a third party ad network may seek to maximize ad impressions and click through rates even if it leads to a net decrease in Twitter use due to user dissatisfaction."

"Secondly, the basis for building a lasting advertising network that benefits users should be innovation, not near-term monetization," adds Costolo. "Twitter is uniquely dependent on and responsible for the long-term health and value of the platform. Accordingly, a necessary focus of Promoted Tweets is to explore ways to create value for our users. Third party ad networks may be optimized for near-term monetization at the expense of innovating or creating the best user experience. We believe it is our responsibility to encourage creative product development and to curb practices that compromise innovation."

Twitter says when its Annotations feature comes out, there will be more opportunities for businesses on the Twitter platform. The company says it will move as quickly as possible to deliver Annotations so businesses who have invested resources in areas affected by the change in terms of service, will be able to create new solutions.

source: webpronews.