Hi Guys,
I have one question about web site promotion with money.
Let's say that i have 1000USD in my budget to promote web site. What is the best option to do it?
I mean what percent of money i have to spend to:
1) Paid web directories
2) Newsletters promotion
3) Banner promotion
4) newspapers/flyers/businesscards (in case of local business)
......

I want to hear opinion of person who did it before and could say how effectively money were spend.

Let's say that i spend 100% to include web site in paid directories - will it be more effective then include ad in 3rd party newsletter? Some newsletter publishers have more then 500000 subscribers (120$ - 500$ for issue). What is statistic of visitors for each method.

ittower,

First off you have to remember that one form of advertising may be successful for one company and a total flop for another. So it is difficult to answer your question directly as to what would be best for you.

Also depends on how far you want to go with your website.

I am no marketing expert, but I will tell you what I have done for my local business and related website.

I used paid inclusion for directories that had relevant categories.
Found niche specific directories some paid some free.

Paid for a press release in the local paper introducing the website.

I have the web address on all of our promotional and printed materials.

Have the web address on all company vehicles.

There are days where we get more e-mails for information than we do phone calls.

Treat the web address as you would your business name. You wouldn't give out a business card without having the business name on it. So why not give them your web address as well.

Hope this helps.
CE

I wouldnt spend a thousand dollars on internet marketing if i were you, rather spend that money on physical advertising and promote your website yourself, its not all that hard, if you have a decent article you can send in once a month they will add you for free.

Of course it depends on your business, personally i flat out ignore all newsletters except for two, site reference is one of em. If i see something advertised... i ignore. So i wouldnt put my money into something that i wouldnt look twice at personally. But flyers and business cards etc stick around, you dont pay a monthly fee for em. My website actually generates roughly the same amount of customers from the website as it does from plain old word of mouth.

As colo said though, every business is for its own, nobody can really tell which is the right route to take because they are all different, unless you find someone with the same business as yours with the same market in mind (i doubt he would want to share his tricks though). If you are really hardset on the idea try getting one company (a legit one) to market your site for you, it will cost less than a thousant dollars and you can blame someone when it goes wrong.

changing servers if I had to, to make sure I could use things like
.htaccess
php/mysql for wordpress

(I'm on a wordpress role at the moment, sorry!)

press release through pr web direct ($200 - $300) - we're sending ours out next week

could the initial $1000 go towards perceived lost profits by running an affiliate scheme? I would (and do) run one anyway

I would not pay for inclusion in directories; even the most expensive, yahoo at $299, doesn't guarantee traffic, indexing or rankings.

if you're in a competitive market then maybe buy AdWords accelerator - finds the lowest bidding, highest searched keywords for your business; then run an AdWords campaign ($100 / month, for 2 or 3 months - just to see what happens).

lets put a bit of order on to this

1 - server
2 - self promotion (eg wordpress)
3 - affiliate networking
4 - press releases
5 - advertising

Adding to the conversation:

I am in process of formal launch for my auction website for Indian online community for now. What I have focussed on at the moment for a launch is:
1. To get good page rank form Google and did succeed by getting PR3 with some articles on auction prior to my launch.
2. Print media coverage by getting my website launched from a celebrity.
3. Offline advertisement in local newspapers & TV channels.
4. Logo stickers for friends/relatives vehicles.


Am i on the right track?? any suggestions people?

The most cost effective (and cheapest) form of promotion we use is to attach a business card to absolutely everything we send out by snail mail.  We send snail mail copies of stuff we fulfilled by email to get those business cards to everybody we deal with, everytime we deal with them.  The cards we use are slightly thicker card and laminated on the face side which makes them durable and most importantly, they have the name of the person who dealt with the enquiry, booking, order, whatever, to personalise the transaction.

The cost is insignificant compared to the number of emails and phone calls which start " I got your business card from X".  So, you have the credibilty of a referral at low cost and we regularly get clients asking us to send them a handful to give out to friends and family.

Best use of time and money we have ever made bar none.

Try it, the results might surprise you.


Graham

That is very true... no form of marketing can compete with the solid clientel you can get from a human referal (word of mouth) Many of my visotors (to my website) Actually type in www[dot]lalibela.co.za and when they actually come to SA they talk of friends that were here a few months ago. At least this is the case with quite a few of Lalibela's guests. So dont put all of your money into the net... spend money, definately get your site out there but dont rely on it for the organic visits that will actually increase your sales.

I like that business card idea.

I talked to my boss, and we decided to ramp that idea up a notch, and buy some refrigerator magnets

Thoughts? Good/bad?

This is a good thing,

When marketing your business the best thing you can do is keep the name/web address in front of people.

I like that idea, but you should make it useful. Make it a picture frame, not a big thing, just a fridge magnet with a mini picture frame attached. KODAK down here does that a lot.

Yeah... I talked to the boss, and we're going to go for a business card size magnet.

Looking on the net, I see some pretty good prices for a 1000. (about $160)

We have a printing company do our catalog every year, including the mailer we're doing.... so I'm going to talk to them and see if we can get a deal.

Maybe I'll put some text on there as well... Like 'use voucher code xxxx to get 10% off your next order'

think ID photo size frames... still have all your stuff written on it... and they can put a pic of a loved one in it... then they wont throw it away or forget about it when it falls off. Unless they break up... and set it on fire...