Warren Contreras   Old Retired Guy
Since you asked, The only advertising I pay for is when it builds my own websites that give me FREE advertising from then on. I am learning that the best advertising is from your own websites, where you provide a free service to your prospects. The money I spend is to set up more websites.
Jan 18th 2013 23:41   

Terry B.   Burchtree Partners
I try to use free advertising
Jan 19th 2013 06:12   

Bruce Bates   Cooperative marketing
There are going to be a TON of various types of advice on this topic all over the net, and a vast majority of them will tell you what warren told you - however I don't agree.

Free advertising is flat out the best way to get started, however in my opinion its not the end all and treating it as such means it will take you vast amount of time longer than if you learn how to PROPERLY pay for advertising. Be forewarned however, paid advertising if done wrong can cause you to go broke.... fast.

I don't agree with Warren that the best traffic comes from ones own websites - 100%. However I am sure he has come to this conclusion because practically speaking, your own website is going to be extremely high targeted traffic - thus it will convert well.

That believe is not wrong, In fact, I will go so far as to say, given enough time what Warren says may very well be the best method.... but not everyone has time to wait while building a reputation and not everyone has time to successfully build traffic to their websites.

So lets look at another type of method. Imagine if you will that you have decided to sell an after hour stock trading robot software, Now you could build a website, and spend months or even a year or more building that website and your reputation to it, or you could set out for paid ads.

Chances say, running some ads in magazines like business investor daily, forbes magazine, and similar highly targeted magazines, is going to bring you some nice hefty sales. These are so incredibly targeted at investors that building a website and reputation while not making sales, seems kind of silly.

It doesn't end their either. Lets say you sell pet products - well pet magazines are VASTLY targeted towards pet owners.

Magazines are not the only way either. In fact one of the best investments I ever made was when i was selling sports goods. I decided to sponsor the nscaa (National Soccer Coaches Association of America) with $1500. That paid sponsorship got me an advertising banner in the national soccer championship playoffs as well as advertising on local radio stations who hosted the games live. Targeting couldn't have been better.

In my opinion, if you are going to do the paid advertising thing, you need to think outside the box and look for the ads other people overlook or don't think about. Most people think of paid advertising and think of pay per click social advertising and pay per click search advertising.... these are not end all methods.... and these are the very methods that cause people to go broke quick spending in all the wrong ways and targeting all the wrong people.

Hope this helps!
Jan 19th 2013 08:40 2 Likes   Edited in Jan 19th 2013 08:44

Chuck Bartok   Veteran Entrepreneur now Sharing
Brilliant and to the point Bruce.
"Most people think of paid advertising and think of pay per click social advertising and pay per click search advertising.... these are not end all methods.... and these are the very methods that cause people to go broke quick spending in all the wrong ways and targeting all the wrong people."
I personal have never bought into the Adwords concept, seemed like a self-defeating proposition the better the activity the more you spend...
Agree also with Warren. Our blog/websites are the ultimate HUBS for our on-line sales (a few of our companies do volumes Off-line also)
But we do optimize FREE system to drive interested targeted traffic to those sites.
I am sure every , by now, has dabbled with Facebook's PAID advertisements.
It has yielded very good ROI for certain of our niches and not applicable for others.
The key, as Bruce points out,is to learn to be a bit different and do not FOLLOW, be an innovator and do need be afraid to TESTm TEST and TEST some more.
That is easy to do with FREE venues
Jan 28th 2013 11:53