How to advertise your online business

So you have an online business, problem is you not getting anyone to visit your site or join maybe. Some people have gone broke trying to advertise their online business online. Let me help you think outside the net.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• computer
• enternet access
• a phone
• a phone book

1. First step, forget about google adwords and yahoo sponsored links and about paid advertising online all together. Think like the big guys. Your best and most effective advertising is off line.
2. Look around your community and see what is available for advertising. Radio is still a very affordable advertising venue if you get your message out at the right time. For a radio spot your best time is between 5:00 and 5:45 PM. Why because most people are in their cars driving home at this time. Second best is between 3:00 and 4:00. Prices will very from station to station, so call around for pricing. And don't forget the AM stations. Many people listen to radio talk.
3. Call local cable company for pricing, There are lots of homes with cable now days. And one good commercial on cable might be exactly what your online business needs. Think Overstock.com. You never saw them in "sponsored links, you saw a short commercial with a catchy jingle. Think about your sites strongest points and how you would put it in a thirty second spot.
4. Print is still a very effective form of advertisement. Determine why and who would be interested in your site. Is it a site that sales a product, or a site for people looking to work from home? When you know who your potential customer is you can then determine what type of print ads you need. Different types of print can be the local news papers classifieds, bi-weekly free papers, there are also advertisement companies that will print your ads for mass mailing, these are good because you can determine how many people you want to try and get your ad in front of, or even target the ads to a certain economic group by zip codes. The king of advertising print is the yellow pages. I have had success with this by havening two extra phone lines installed, one a local number and one an 800 number. These phones are for business only and I deduct the advertising and phone lines as a business expense. I use and answering machine to answer the phones and direct them to my website. If your voice is enthusiastic it will help, or ask a friend or family member to do the recording for you.
5. Another great way to advertise your online business is to advertise it as an "get free info about" ad. The way you set this up is to create a page with a web form. When the person goes to this page they are enticed to give you their email address and name and even phone number if you like to you and give you permission to respond to them with the info about what ever it is you are promoting. The "Landing Page or capture Page" needs to be written in a way not to give the whole store away, but to make them want to know more about this "awesome" product or service you are promoting. They then sign up with their name and email address, you then tell them they will get a conformation email with a link that they must click to get the info. This is set up with an auto responder with a link to your next email auto responder. When they push the submit button, it auto send your conformation email with a link back to a different auto responder, when they click the link it goes to another form page that says click here to confirm, when they click it the form sends another auto response email to them with your "sales" email describing in great detail the opportunity or promotion with the link now to your online business site. Why go through all this? The money is in "THE LIST", They can not accuse you of spam now, they have double opted in to receive email from you. When they request the info that is one opt in, when they confirm that makes two, their email and i. p. address is now stored in the inbox of your auto responder. and now you have an email address for future advertising emails. Just be sure to put in a disclaimer at the bottom of the email saying that "this is not spam, you have requested email from me about .....what ever" and then ad one more link at the bottom of the email to another auto responder for REMOVEL of their email from your list. This link when pressed goes to an auto responder that sends them a message that their email has been removed, it also send you a notice to do so. Now you are building a list of people who want to get emails from you on just about anything you want, You can even set up more auto responders that will send out emails every week or every other day if you like. Or create a news letter, If you get a very large list you can even make money by letting your readers post ads on your news letter. So there you have it, think out side the net.

Tips & Warnings

• think about off line advertising, even hanging posters and fliers (with permission where needed), there are many opportunities to get your site seen. Be inventive.
• Start with moderation, no need to spend hundreds of dollars, see what works best and concentrate on what works for you.