Increase On-line Traffic - List Building - Sales

Over the years, the Internet has become the primary means of trying to sell products, services, or information for many marketers and businesses. However, as popular as the Internet is, it still may not be the most profitable way to advertise or sell.

In our modern day of high-speed technology, many seem to forget that the tried and true method of direct sales marketing through print advertising can still prove to be the most profitable way to go.

Why is this you say? It’s because basic human nature has not changed, nor have human buying triggers. Having something tangible in hand that can be touched is still trusted more than words or images thrown up on a computer screen. In spite of the Internet’s capability of reaching out to multi-millions of email addresses or viewers in a matter of minutes… a printed circular or flyer in hand still holds more credibility.

Think about it. When you get a printed circular or flyer that you can hold in your hand… you tend to look at it as something real that is produced by a real person whom you can identify with. You don’t generally look at it as some unknown face or entity hiding behind a computer screen trying to scam you.

It seems illogical that so many marketers and businesses are unaware of, or have forgotten this old proven method of advertising and selling. Printed forms of advertising and direct sale pieces have stood the test of time, and have proven itself over and over again against everything that has come and gone.

Here’s something else to think about. Most people go online looking for information, not sales offers. So the chance of them running across your online offer is slim to none. However, when a printed direct sales offer is physically placed in the hands of people, they will put forth the effort to seek out the source of the offer. It doesn’t matter if it’s right up the street from them or online… the printed direct sales piece established a certain form of credibility.

With direct sales, you don’t have to worry about getting traffic to a web site, search engine optimization, black hat, white hat, or any of the other online techniques you see touted. People coming online to your web site after reading your printed direct sales piece are generally looking to buy the product or service offered.

The World Wide Web, or Internet should wisely be used in combination with direct sales as an extension of your advertising and sales efforts… not as your primary medium. More people who are ready to buy will find you through direct sales than they would just surfing the internet to see what’s available amid the billions of web pages.

A printed advertising or direct sales piece is really much easier to produce than a web site… wouldn’t you agree? All it has to do is make people aware of what is available, the cost, and where to get it. If the offer is located in a physical building, then give the address and times of operation. If it is located online, the give the web site addresses. It’s just that simple.

Most internet exclusive advertisers will likely see their sales efforts pay off in a much greater way by combining print advertising and direct sales with their online methods. Once a printed direct sales piece establishes credibility, a web site would only need to highlight benefits and give access to the offer.

Now that you realize the benefits and advantages… do yourself and your business a favor, and make print advertising direct sales an important part of your financial well being.

NOTE:

This is a rewrite of my article previously published at: http://tmdassc.qassia.com/

There is an adage in Internet Marketing: The money is in the list. For that reason, it is very important to grow your list as large as possible. In fact, it should be an ongoing and never ending project for your business, since you will doubtless encounter attrition as you lose subscribers. There are many ways to build your list. Article marketing, blogging and pay-per-click advertising are all examples of effective list building methods. Those methods are beyond the scope of this article, however. Instead, this article is about using eBay as a resource to tap into to grow your list, naturally and inexpensively. With about 8 million visitors per day and over 200 million registered users, eBay is a great potential source for traffic that can help you grow your list.

There are two methods eBay can be used to grow your list. The first is to create and sell small reports or ebooks using the buy it now auction format. The minimum price you can set and still sell multiple items is $.99, so you are practically giving away these reports or ebooks that contain useful information. In these ebooks or reports you can place your links to a squeeze page for your list. The information in these reports should be informative, but should also entice the reader into wanting more and sign up for your list. You can specify that the purchaser can give away the report or ebook, but they can not alter the content. This may result in getting more sign ups in the long term. The point of selling your report is not to make money, but to grow your list. Since the insertion and selling fees on eBay are relatively low, this can be a very cost effective way to get sign ups to your list and if you sell enough reports or ebooks, you may turn a small profit while simultaneously growing your list.

The second way eBay can help grow you list is through the use the classified ad format. This ad format is often overlooked by many on eBay, but it is a simple and very cost effective method you can use to grow your list. The classified ad is set up similarly to a standard auction. The major difference is the ad will run for 30 days instead of the 3, 7 and 10 days that standard auctions run. The title is subject to the eBay search engine just like auctions, so it’s very important to optimize your ad title. Since HTML can be used here , you can paste a squeeze page that contains a opt-in form in your ad. The insertion fee for a classified ad is $9.95 for 30 days. If you purchase a Pro Pack for your classified ad, it will cost more, but it works out to a little over a dollar a day. By comparison, buying a Pro Pack for a 7 day auction would be about 4 dollars a day. Using the classified ad format can be a very cost effective method to grow your list.

There are doubtless other ways to use eBay as a list building tool, but these two methods are effective and far less expensive that using par-per-click advertising or purchasing leads and may result in a small profit or enough income to cover your eBay fees.

Are you chasing search engine traffic and pondering your options? Almost anyone on the internet these days would love to increase traffic to their website regardless of their "niche".

Clearly search engines have the potential to deliver a steady flow of targeted traffic to your website. Listed below are several suggestions for efficient use of your money when it comes to getting traffic to your website.

Here are 3 basic areas to consider:

1. Placing some key targeted pages on the internet that are SEO optimized to draw traffic back to your primary website.

2. Using Google "pay per click" campaigns with your favorite suite of targeted keywords.

3. Placing carefully targeted content on your website homepage.

If you are working on a limited budget it may be best to consider Options #1 and #3 as your first choices. The pay per click traffic generators can get to be very expensive in a short time, and these will continue to cost you money while each campaign is active.

If your focus is on pay per click, be sure to spend adequate time and effort to research and generate a list of relevant and effective keywords. There are many tools for helping with this task available on the internet and once your campaign is launched you can start to monitor and test your conversions. If you are promoting your own product you can always reinvest your earnings to continue your campaign and grow your income.

Another option for drawing traffic to your website is based on the use of custom written articles and other targeted content. You can use your budget to have some unique articles written on your favorite key topics, but this can be very expensive and time consuming. Articles such as these can be submitted to article directories and published on other content hungry websites.

The best alternative for content may be that of Private Label website resources such Infogoround.com. Using PL content services, even on a limited budget, can easily provide thousands of articles that can be put to good work in drawing targeted traffic to your website. Imagine hundreds of new articles each month on a topic of your choice…articles that you can use just as if you had written them yourself! And of course PL content can be added directly to your own website or used in a variety of other ways for drawing traffic (blogs, newsletters, etc.).

This is just a glimpse of the power of content and other ways that can be used to draw traffic to your website. Be sure to explore your options and use your time and money wisely in the process.