Many of you know that I am definitely a proponent of free traffic. I love working with my blog, writing articles, prospecting on Facebook, and even making videos from time to time.
But, sometimes you just have a pressing need to get some traffic!
For example, how do you know if your funnel is working if you only have 3-4 people visiting it a day? You'd have to wait 30-45 days before you have enough data to make any sort of judgment on the effectiveness of your marketing plan. That's not an efficient way to run your business.
Or, maybe you need to build a "seed" list of a couple hundred subscribers so that you have some people to market products to. A "seed" list also allows you to participate with other marketers in list swaps and webinar swaps and things like that.
Or you simply just want to supplement your current lead flow by paying a little bit here and there for something extra.
However, there is a serious myth out there that needs dispelling.
A lot of people believe that paid advertising has to be really expensive. Of course it can be, but spending under $100 on advertising can still give you some fantastic, immediate results.
If you can send a few hundred visitors to your site in less than a day, it makes split-testing and tweaking much easier.
Plus, you don't have to just sit around and wait for enough people to stumble across your page. You can take control now of the leads and sales you generate by paying for it.
Now, I know that a lot of big-time marketers pay thousands upon thousands of dollars every single month on advertising, and that is how they are able to earn millions of dollars per year.
Here, I'm just going to assume that you have a very small budget, and show you the absolute, most useful places you can spend a few bucks to generate leads.
Let's say you find a spot for $40 that generates around 80 leads every time you spend the money. $40 is an amount that almost everyone can come up with, but if you did this once a week, you've got 320 leads a month. I'd say that's a significant boost to your business!
So here are my 4 favorite places to do some inexpensive advertising...
1. Ezine Solo Ads
This strategy will work for you because most other people fail completely at it!
For that reason alone, it's a very under-used strategy, but can be your most effective one if you know how to use it.
What is involved in this strategy?
Basically, there are a lot of marketers out there that run their entire businesses by generating very large subscriber bases and then sending out a steady newsletter. They charge other marketers to place ads in these outgoing newsletters.
Now, if you can find a newsletter where the target audience are all people in your industry, you'll know that you'll get a killer response with an ad.
Everyone on the list is interested in the topic because they had to subscribe to the newsletter in the first place. They've already requested more info about your industry.
However, I highly recommend only buying solo ads.
Most newsletters offer solo ads, top sponsor, middle sponsor, and bottom sponsor ads. The top, middle, and bottom ads refer to the placement of the ad inside the newsletter itself. With a solo ad, a separate email is sent out to the list, so you get to control the subject line as well.
One of my favorite marketers, Daegan Smith, showed a test result where he bought a solo ad, and top, middle, and bottom sponsor ads in the same newsletter. The solo ad pulled better than all the other ads combined... hmmmm...
The very first time that I ever bought a solo ad, I paid $50 and got 57 leads from it. I liked it because it was immediate, and right away I knew that I had a pretty good capture page.
Like I said above, most people stink at ezine advertising, so how can you succeed where others fail?
The ultimate key to success with advertising is to be very, very picky about where you place ads.
I only place ads in ezines where the home website is very professional looking. Also, the subscriber base must be growing. Sometimes, a marketer will have a list sitting there for 5 years and then, out of the blue, decide to send out a newsletter. The problem is that the list is very stagnant and the subscribers won't even remember who the newsletter is from or why they're getting it.
Most serious ezine publishers will say on their site how many subscribers they are adding per week or month. This will give you an immediate indication if the list is stagnant, or being filled constantly with hungry, interested marketers.
Next, I always get in contact with the publisher. I ask a few questions about the newsletter, like if other people have promoted an offer similar to mine and what kind of response they received. I ask how fast their subscriber base is growing, and I also send them a copy of my ad to get a second opinion on it from a real pro.
I know it's a bit of a process to go through, but in the end it will be well worth it because your results will be so much better than the average marketer's results.
Most people aren't willing to pay the price to do the homework, and that's why you'll succeed where others haven't!
Now, your ad should promote a capture page with a free offer on it. Another reason that marketers are unsuccessful with advertising is they try to outright promote their MLM. Doing that is the fastest way to go broke in advertising.
Use a headline that generates curiosity and hints at giving free value.
Then, give some specific numbers or results in the body of the ad. Your entire ad needs to be only about 4 lines or so, but pack it with curiosity, secrets, and value.
"Generate 39 leads a day completely free
with these 8 hidden lead strategies
that will have you dominating the competition
in 30 days or less! Free report inside:
"http://www.YourCapturePage.com"
This type of ad is very up front about the benefits anyone will get by clicking on the link. They'll get more leads, they'll beat the competition, and they can do it in 30 days.
Plus, the words "these 8 hidden lead strategies" builds up a TON of curiosity for any online marketer. It will be really hard to resist knowing what those 8 strategies are.
That's all there is to it! Just make sure to do your homework, and the rest is a piece of cake.
2. Facebook Pay-Per-Click
I know that normally PPC carries a reputation that it is ridiculously expensive and you shouldn't even try it unless you have thousands of dollars you don't mind taking a match to.
But, with Facebook, that is no longer true.
With our premise of spending under $100 for a strategy, even Facebook PPC is within reach because of their extremely efficient targeting and keywords aren't all that expensive.
I've been able to have some very good results for spending just $5 a day. In fact, in one day I once signed up 4 people into my marketing system for $10.
I like Facebook PPC because it becomes obvious after just a few dollars if the campaign is going to work or not. You don't have to burn through money to know if an ad is going to pull.
For example, any ad you run should have a CTR (click through rate) of.1 or better. Sometimes, I'll check back after a day, and I'll have 6,000 impressions and two clicks. Obviously, something isn't going right, but I've only been charged for 2 clicks to find that out.
Most of the time, my clicks are around $.30 or even less.
Here are just a few tips about PPC:
- Target specific MLM companies (if you're in network marketing)
- Send to a capture page with a free offer (just like ezine advertising)
- Write ads basically the same way you would with ezine advertising, except make sure to mention the name of the company that you are targeting in your ads. For example, "Hey Nu Skin Reps!" as the title of your ad.
- Find engaging, bright pictures. That is the key to making your ad stand out in the crowd
- Rotate through several ads in the same campaign. It happens very often that an ad will run successfully for 3 or 4 days, but then fall below.1 CTR. Just pause it, run a different ad, and then you can run it again a week or two later with great results again.
3. Warrior Special Offers (WSO)
The Warrior Forum is the world's largest forum strictly for internet marketers, and they put special emphasis on network marketing. There are always thousands of people on there.
It's a great place to do some free marketing because you can respond to questions and post your own helpful tips, while indirectly marketing with your signature line.
However, the WSO's are an amazing way to market. Basically, they are offers that are placed in a special forum within the Warrior Forum, and they have to be approved before they are displayed. It costs $40 to place one.
Now, because everyone here offers products that cost money, if you offer a FREE WSO, it will stand out like crazy. You can garner more than your fair share of attention.
Of course, you have to construct a well thought out ad. Basically, a headline that you would use would be put in the subject, along with the words FREE WSO.
Then, you can construct an ad just like the others we've talked about. The Warrior Forum will even let you spice it up with fonts, pictures, and different colors to help make you stand out a bit.
And, of course, you're sending people to a capture page that offers the free WSO you were promoting.
These ads are great because they're cheap, and you can get immediate traffic. Once you've written a successful WSO, you can submit it every couple of weeks or so and know how many leads you'll get.
It's really not uncommon to generate 80-100 leads using this strategy effectively. Spending $40 for 80 targeted leads will definitely get the job done for you!
4. Warrior Forum Banners
Obviously, this is another marketing strategy within the Warrior Forum itself. If you head on over to the Warrior Forum, there are huge banners that are the first thing you see.
Because there are so many network marketers surfing the site, buying that banner space can be a very effective use of money.
It does cost $100 for one day of advertising, but imagine the exposure you're getting straight to other network marketers!
And, like the WSO's, you can put in images, change the fonts, use colors, and basically anything you can do in Photoshop. You're not stuck with black and white like ezines and PPC.
With a banner, all you have to do is come up with a headline or two that creates curiosity and hints at extreme value. Adding an image and some different colors will go a long way to setting your ad apart from others.
The best way to get some ideas is to head on over to http://WarriorForum.com and check out the banners that other marketers have put up there.
In fact, if you can find a banner that's been posted on different days, you know they're getting some good results. Otherwise they wouldn't be spending $100 a pop.
Each of these 4 strategies is powerful enough that you could build your entire business with it.
My favorite use of these strategies is to get immediate results on whether my capture pages are working. Then, I know I can direct my free traffic there as well and know I'm going to get good results.
And that's the real key: test everything. If you're going to spend money, you better know exactly what results you're getting. You have to track your conversions and your sales in order to know if you should use that strategy again and if you need to tweak your page.
Now, these strategies I've shown are so inexpensive that you can drive hundreds of visitors to your site in a single day without breaking the bank.
And, if you completely bomb and don't get any results, at least you know what doesn't work and you have to change something. That's better than spending $500 on Google PPC or sending free traffic for two months before you know it doesn't work.
And finally, don't shy away from paid strategies because others have told you it's too expensive. While trying to build a large, successful online business, you need to explore several options for generating leads. Plus, with these strategies, you can give yourself a pretty good head start without spending very much money
I hope these strategies help you to incorporate a few paid strategies into your marketing plan!
