Tips Promotion Techniques II

November 16, 2005

Continued from: Tips Promotion Techniques I

11. I produce niche electronic music, and I’d decided I wanted to let the world hear my work, so I posted 4 Mp3s on a page,
they were available for free, I was subcribed to a couple of list discussions specialising in this music and I had built a mailing list of clubber who dance to this kind of music on a weekend.
I sent an email to everyone saying free unreleased psytrance mp3s for download
if you enjoy this music, please keep this album zen as fu^& by forwarding this email to all your friends.
I included a link and gave away the reproduction, remix, broadcasting, resell and distribution rights away.
the result. over 1500 downloads in 4 days, the files were between 6 and 14 Meg each…not a search engine listing in sight.
the 4 day period also included making the page to put the mp3s on.
The big mistake I made was that I should have collected the email addresses of everyone who downloaded the music…Doh!
But you live an learn, this was some 2 years ago.
My first successful viral marketing experience… now I’m obsessed….erm…pass it on!
Paul

12. The thing that has worked best for me is offering former clients (actually friends, family, anyone!) a 10% commission for any client they refer to me who signs a contract. I get clients on my own too, of course, but I no longer bother paying for advertising or spending my time out there hustling clients. They come to me.

One former client has sent me two new clients in the last 90 days. I’m presented as an affiliate of his company. Typically he knows the people he refers to me quite well. It’s a win-win deal. The clients I get this way are wonderful to work with and are already inclined to hire me before we even speak because of the recommendation they’ve received. Love it!

13. Many things I have tried have been successful (searchengines, e-mailing magazines…) but there is one promotion method that has been superior to the others.

When I started www.liscreensavers.com a couple of months ago I released 10 free screensavers and two screensavers that you could order. I didn´t know where to start the promotion of my new site (SE, link-exchange…). Finally I decided to send the free screensavers to download sites. At some download-places I was added directly (one was 3dfiles.com). The next day I visited 3dfiles to see if i had any downloads…

The two screensavers I had submitted the day before had now been downloaded 10000 times over one night.

I recived many vistors from that since my url is in the logo that appears when you start the screensaver.

My latest screensaver (MIR Reentry) was downloaded 20000 times the first day at 3dfiles. (Download.com has also given a huge amounts of downloads.) In MIR Reentry a text appears in the screensavers telling the users about the screensavers they can order from my site. This is working very well.

14. The trick is figuring out what happened. Daily traffic increased from just over 600 to 4500 visitors last friday. Not showing up on search engines yet so that wasn’t it. Didn’t all come from one place/country so can only guess that someone recommended it in a newsletter or forum of some kind. Newsletter subscriptions increased also, from 12 total before to +35 that day.

15. I used the Google Ad Words and are not very satisfied. Targeted to the German market with keywords specificied for my site. Click-through rate was under 1%. I adjusted the keywords to get more impressions but also had to look for the dime to not burn my money so fast. In my eyes it is not a good advertisement tool if you do not have a big budget. If you have big budget you wouldn’t use Google Ad Words - I guess. I spent $50 but decided to stop my ads now because of low success.

Christoph

16. My best traffic building technique invloves creating multiple domains with keyword rich names (i.e. www.keyword-phrase.com). I build these sites with a different look, never a copycat of the original. After those domains are created, I submit them through the usual channels, Yahoo, LookSmart, DMOZ, Inktomi, Altavista, then the free engines. Now I have 5 sites with great keyword rich domain names that are listed in al the directories and search engines. I’ve doubled my traffic in one month’s time. I’ve done this without using GoTo or other PPC engines to promote these sites.

As far as the single most effective tool, I would have to say Inktomi, hands down. They have such a wide exposure AOL, GoTo, MSN, LookSmart, etc. plus they index your site very quickly so that optimization efforts are quickly rewarded. For $30 (then $15 for the additional domains), it is definitely worth the money.

17. Link popularity helps alot in many search engines, especially google. I like to go looking for various related directories and sites that already have links to sites in my market. I then submit a link to them and move on. You can find alot of these by doing a reverse link lookup on your competitors in google. Also a listing in DMOZ and Yahoo counts for alot for google rankings. DMOZ results can pop you straight to the top on AOL as well.

Get a description and title with lots of keywords in yahoo and it will bring in good solid targetted traffic. If they dont give you a good listing with the business express submit, send in a reply and tell them why your description would benefit their users more. I’ve had AWESOME results with this second round submission.

Goto.com can be expensive, but there are some good alternatives. Sprinks has a wide reach, but doesn’t generally come in a SE format, so your results are a bit less targetted. FindWhat has been great for me, delivering a good number of results in the 10c range. The key with buying traffic like this is knowing how much a targetted visitor(not a hit) is worth(including repeat visits). You need good tracking software in place for this.

Dynamic personalization is always important for repeat visitors. If you have a mailing list database, request their first name too and put in the email you send out to them. I’ve also been using geobutton.com and put text on my main page that looks something like “We welcome our visitors from |their city|, |their state/region|.”. I hide the link it creates with some fancy CSS.
One more idea. If you are thinking about the inktomi quick spider deal, go through networksolutions.com. The trick is that you can change the url every 2 days(without paying extra) and have them spider something else. Even if it is on a different domain. Works really well.

18. (a) Targeted ezine advertising. Find common points of interest similar to your site. Finding an ezine with a topic unrelated to your site may increase your hits but your sales will virtually not go up.
(b) Search engine placement of course is critical in the main ones.
(c) Signatures are very good such as in these discussion forums.
(d) Targeted banner advertising on sites that are not competitive but compliment your product line.
(e) Develop an article and submit to targeted ezines and include your URL signature.
(f) Put articles on your site to develop greater search engine presence and keep visitors on your site.
(g) Offer FREE things on your site.

19. Tell-a-friend: The 3 reasons why they work
a. Your site is simply spectacular. Breathtaking graphics, perfect colors, unique and exclusive content, loads in milliseconds etc. etc. If you have such a site, GREAT! You’ll get tons of referrals every day (unless your visitors want to keep your incredible site a secret)

b. You are maximizing the referrals of every visitor which is willing to tell-a-friend link by making it easy for them to refer as many friends as possible. This can be achieved by inserting a simple JavaScript which launches the visitor’s own email program (not web based). Opening the visitor’s default email program will give him access to their address book and therefore allow him to easily select several friends’ emails by simply clicking on them. The JavaScript can be customized to insert a pre-defined subject title and message in the email message, making it even easier for your visitors. Unfortunately, you cannot measure your success or keep a log of referrals.

c. Your tell-a-friend program is based on incentives or contests. Every time they refer someone they are entered in a contest… the more they refer the greater their chances. This method is extremely effective especially when you give your visitor a chance to see how many visitors they’ve referred.

20.
- Exchange ezine ads with eachother
- Get downloadable wallpapers which state your URL
- Get in dmoz.org
- Swap links with fellow webmasters
- Write articles and post them everywhere
- Have your own ezine or newsletter
- Make your site stand out
- Get a robots.txt file(on my webtoolcentral.com you
can make one yourself)
- Measure your hits and where they came from,
and use that to target your audience.