Sunday, November 30, 2008

How To Decide Between Or Paid Online Advertising

By Kylon Trower

You understand that advertising is the key to building a successful online business so you are light years ahead of many of your competitors. Most of your time should be spent (I'd say up to seventy percent) promoting and marketing your business. In the paragraphs that follow, we'll be looking at which type of advertising is better for you.

Just so that we are clear, I don't believe in free advertising. It's not that you can't advertise your business without pulling out your credit card but you can't advertise without paying a price. It's either time or money and ultimately both have a price you'll have to pay.

Now that you understand that there is no free lunch you must make careful decisions as to how you will either spend you time or your money. The first question is how much is your time worth. The next question is how comfortable are you with doing certain things on your own.

There are upsides and downsides to any form of advertising that you do which is why your main focus should be on effectiveness. By this I mean it must work and produce the desired result. Advertising for advertising sake is a recipe for disaster and will leave you burned out and broke.

The advantages of manual (free) advertising based on my experience is it allows you to test your marketing strategies without losing your shirt. There are also many free advertising sources that provide a long term effect like article and video marketing. When considering free methods I would strongly recommend opportunities that are leveraged and provide long term benefits like viral or search engine marketing.

With paid advertising on the other hand, there are also some strong arguments as well. Typically with a paid advertising you can consult with vendors to determine the
expected outcome based on their experience. It is leveraged so it saves you time that can be used building your business in other ways.

Whether paid or free the ideal solution for determining which methods to use is to track your results. Using an online tracking system will allow you to monitor your results which will save you time and money in the short and long run. Knowing which ads are working and which aren't allows you to make quick decisions when it comes to how you'll expend your resources.

At the end of the day you must determine which method (paid or free) is right for you. I recommend trying out a few types of both advertising methods and master them before moving on. Spreading yourself too thin will ultimately have an impact on your results as well. Find an advertising method you feel comfortable pursuing and become very proficient is the best way to move forward.

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