Boosting ROI: Internet Marketing on a Shoestring

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This article was contributed by Michael Weinstein, a veteran entrepreneur and Internet marketer. For more information about how he can help you drive more traffic to your web site and increase your online revenue, contact him at mw@primarysystems.com or visit his site at www.PrimarySystems.com.

So now that you have a web site, how do you get people to find it? More importantly, how can you drive people to your site when you're on a budget?

Search engine marketing, email marketing, affiliate marketing and banner advertising all require long-term investment and planning. While we're all aware of the necessity to optimize our sites for the search engines, establish in-bound links, manage cost-per- click campaigns, send out press releases, acquire email addresses and join affiliate programs, these strategies, even when executed properly, can still take time to produce tangible results.

However, in my experience as an Internet marketer, I've discovered several cost-effective strategies that can help drive traffic to your site today.

Case in point: While working with a startup company that sells cosmetic products online, I took the liberty of mailing a letter along with some samples to a local doctor who is also a syndicated newspaper columnist in the hopes of helping the company gain exposure and possibly even an endorsement.

In my letter, I introduced the company while suggesting that the enclosed products might be a great help to readers who wanted to remove unwanted facial and body hair and prevent the hair from growing back. Of course, I made sure to mention where his readers could purchase the company's products for only $7.98 apiece should the doctor decide to mention them in his column.

Sure enough, a reader wrote to the doctor two weeks later asking him for his thoughts on popular hair removal products. In his response, the good doctor was kind enough to mention the company's web site and the products that I had sent him.

Within only a few days, CosmeticLabSales.com rang up over $250,000 in new business and, months later, the orders are still rolling in. As a result of the strategy's success, the company now has plenty of money to implement longer term and more sustainable online marketing strategies while continuing to develop its online presence.

Here are some other tips to help you drive free and low-cost traffic to your web site:

* Make sure you have plenty of relevant and "keyword dense" content on your web site

* Start your own blog and publish it in popular blog search engines like Technorati

* Post comments on other blogs regularly (without becoming a blog spammer!)

* Contact popular bloggers and ask them to mention your web site on their own blogs

* Contribute articles to article directories

* Participate in forums (online discussions)

While free traffic is great, it's also essential to conduct paid online marketing campaigns to take your company's efforts to the next level.

For example:

* SEO: Use link building to improve your organic (natural) search engine rankings. Although this can take months and cost as much as $10,000 a month to effectively improve your search engine rankings, most online consumers shop on web sites listed on the first page of Google or Yahoo. Your company needs to be there.

* Email Marketing: Build opt-in email lists and send out offers and/or newsletters on a regular basis. While email marketing services typically charge around $400 per month to send up to 100,000 monthly emails and can exceed $2,000 per month to target 1 million addresses, email marketing still continues to be one of the most cost-effective forms of online marketing there is.

* Affiliate Marketing: If you're looking for a way to test new products or services, consider joining an affiliate network where thousands of online resellers will gladly market your products on their own sites in return for a small commission. While some of the more popular affiliate networks like Commission Junction, Performics and Linkshare do charge significant upfront fees to join, there are also affiliate networks that require only a nominal setup charge such as AffiliateTraction and ShareAsale.

Remember: The key to any successful marketing campaign is to test, measure and test again. There's no better time to get started than now!