Non search engine marketing

Is it worth it?

[coconubuck]

Hello. How important is promoting your website in ways other than using search engines? If you consider it important, how else would you promote a site? Please excuse me if I have added this in the wrong section or if this is something many people ask. Thanks!

[sullen]

One site I run has been involved in literally every marketing gimmick (sorry, important new development) going.

- Affiliate schemes work. definately.
- Local targeted marketing in magazines etc works, but is less easy to quantify (i.e. the person has to actually fill in a form before you know about it).
- Also not very easy to quantify is viral marketing - whereby you give away something good and encourage people to tell their friends about it.

And that's about it. The other schemes available are frankly, not really worth it.

[sem4u]

If you can get some free PR then all this takes is the effort to write a decent press release to send to targeted media outlets.

[coconubuck]

Thanks for the info sullen. What about tv, radio or billboard advertising? Do you think that works? I am definitely considering print advertising of some kind.

[edited by: coconubuck at 3:49 pm (utc) on April 24, 2003]

[martinibuster]

I tried some print advertising a couple years ago, and the response was pretty good. Surprising how much mileage you can get out of a one inch ad in a quarterly magazine.

I haven't tried it again because I have enough clients on my plate right now.

For my clients, print advertising goes hand in hand with internet advertising.

[Skier]

We have tied a variety of print alternatives, but not radio or TV. After a few years, we have dropped all print except newspaper classifieds. The magazines were too expensive. Our classifieds offer a toll-free phone number and also point to the website. Often, the best results from the newspapers are referrals from the papers' own websites, which usually offer links to their advertisers.

We had a try at doing direct mail and got zero results.

In a previous life I used to have national TV ads running constantly, so it's not that I haven't looked at that. The cost per thousand "in my target market" today, works out way too high. It all depends on your category of course. I notice that Orbitz and Expedia are both running TV campaigns and seem to be increasing their spending. I assume that means that is has been working for them (or else spring may be the season for them to ramp up) This is big budget stuff - not for the average webmaster.

Outdoor advertising, billboards, have been surprisingly effective for me in selling packaged goods, but I've never tried it for a website. As a medium that can carry only the simplest message, it could be good for establishing a website name. Location, location... (if you try this one I'd sure like to hear about the results)

[Oaf357]

It's very, very important. Some web sites get a "net effect" of popularity others never will. The offline, non SE marketing should be equal to the online, SEM (IMO).

[richardb]

martinibuster put's it very succinctly. I would add that off-line advertising brings in a different type of customer, so look at your target market and their means of reference.

If you are UK based, inclusion into The Thompson and Yellow Pages print directories is free so why not? Don't expect any traffic from their on-line directories though :(

Rich

[coconubuck]

I believe that using radio and billboards might work if you dont try to overdo it. Being that I worked in radio previously, I saw quite a few businesses that tried to oversaturate the airwaves with bad spots and bad time choices. It seems better to have a well produced spot played at times that fit your target audience better instead of blowing all your money on one medium. What do you think about using radio and billboards as well as non-traditional advertising?

[rcjordan]

>billboards as well as non-traditional advertising?

I can't speak for radio, but I have at last count 3 billboards (paid for by a local chamber of commerce) One of them has exceptional placement on the main highway for a regional resort area. The creative is good and legibility of the domain is great. But in 3 years, I can't say it's done anything. It's good for bragging rights, but that appears to be about all it's good for.

[coconubuck]

well.....bragging rights might be good enough :)

[webwoman]

I have had good success with one of my clients websites by writing an interesting article for a trade magazine, or contributing to one in some way. Then, we get exposure in print as well as in the online version of the trade mag. The link I get remains up for years, and the trade mag usually has a very good PR, so I get that mileage out of it as well. And the whole thing costs only my time!

[digitalghost]

Sponsorships seem to work quite well for some sites. One of the local custom bike shops sponsors every event they can attend and brand awareness for the shop has increased considerably. Now they're purchasing radio spots and it's all geared toward selling custom bike parts from the site.

Email inquiries are up nearly 40% and business is coming from all over the country. They aren't exactly as well known as Orange County Choppers in the motorcycle community but the website is doing serious business now and before it was just a brochure site with a contact address that made a few sales a month.

[jsbeads]

It depends on how well you can target your market. I sell Jewelry Finding, Beads and Beading Supplies.

There are only about 5 major magazines for this hobby / craft. So my print ads actually pull in more than my search engine ads.

[Marketing Guy]

Google / Yahoo / MSN are still our top refers, but recently we've seen decent traffic (ie the stuff that converts) from other sources.

One - a blog style site and the other a mid-west based news station.

Although the news leads come from their website, our site is listed in the "mentioned on air" section, so we may have had some type ins too (still need to find out what exactly was "mentioned on air" ;)).

My point is that current events / news items can be good PR (the non-Google kind) and generating quality leads.

It is all very much down to your industry though.

Scott