The current Internet Marketing Landscape can be a challenging one. There are many internet marketing companies making cold calls to businesses and selling, selling, selling their products! Many of them have charisma and charm, and promise leads and new clients like there is no tomorrow…
Will most of them deliver? The answer is a resounding NO.
Their ideas are nice, but the problem is the number of people in your area using any one of the Directory Sites (Yellowpages.com, SuperPages.com, Citysearch.com, etc) is limited – often especially relative to the price of their services.
How do you navigate the minefield? Follow these four steps:The Truth: The best uniting ROI factors right now are Google, Yahoo and Craigslist.
#1. Utilize the free listing services available.
– Google Maps, Yahoo Local, Yellowbook.com, Yellowpages.com, Magicyellow.com, Insiderpages.com and more all have FREE listings available that link to your website and usually allow custom text for your profile to help you stand out. Some allow pictures and videos, Google allows for both.
– NWeSource can provide a links to utilize these free listings – or we can place your company information ourselves with our Internet Directory Site Listing Service
– NWeSource provides a free Craigslist ad with most websites and we run your ad on Craigslist and Willamette Week (Backpage.com – Oregon residents) for two months!
#2. Don’t get sold!
– The price of online Yellow Pages can be prohibitive in many cases, and their salespeople are VERY SKILLED at promising lots of ‘business’ and great ‘position’ but the results vary across all forms of online advertising. What works for one company in one location may not work at all for a similar company in a different location depending on the town size and/or their population’s internet penetration.
#3. Don’t Over Commit
– One of the major ways these companies take advantage of their clients is with long term commitments, but then when the promised results don’t arrive, there is no getting out of the contract. NWeSource has negotiated these contracts successfully FOR OUR CLIENTS in every one of these situations – so if there is a company you want to try, ask us what kind of deal we have negotiated for you. We also negotiate thecontract down so you can TEST YOUR RESULTS with each individual company and not be over committed.
#4. Plan!
– Each client has a different potential expenditure and planning to utilize it in the most effective places can be the difference between breaking even on your advertising, or earning a 1000% ROI. If you don’t know what ROI is, educate. The planning phase includes mapping out opportunities and a timeframe for trials, with steps to create effective metrics so YOU KNOW WHAT WORKS. And if it sounds complicated just understand that it isn’t!
– NWeSource can help you map out an EFFECTIVE, MEASURABLE advertising campaign through consultation. Then we’ll help you execute and measure your results.
