ADVERTISING

Advertising will be the lifeblood of your business, so this is where the

majority of your time, money, and effort will be spent. Your goal is to build a

database (list) of prospects and customers you can sell to time and time again.



In the ever-changing (and challenging) world of online advertising, there

are two primary categories:
Free and Paid
. The basic rule of thumb is that if you
are two primary categories:
Free and Paid
. The basic rule of thumb is that if you
have much more time than money, Free advertising may be your most logical

choice. However, if you have even just a little room in your budget for

advertising, Paid advertising, combined with effective free methods, will save you

bundles of time and is the most direct route to success.



The entire goal of your advertising efforts should be to drive targeted

traffic to your website, where visitors are encouraged to add their name and email

address to your database. Plain and simple. Database Marketing 101.



Free online advertising methods include (but are not limited to) posting to

free safelists, engaging in message board discussions and including your tagline

on each post, posting to free classified ad sites, using traffic generators

(surfing/clicking for credits), submitting your website to search engines, banner

exchanges, reciprocal linking with similar sites, submitting free ezine ads, writing

articles and including your byline at the end, and writing a press release about the

launch of your site or a new product and submitting to online news media.



These methods can be tedious and frustrating, but when you’re starting

off, with no extra funds, if you can choose two and stick with them religiously,

you will most likely generate enough profit to form a Paid advertising plan.

Empowerism can help you get started with any of these, as well as teach you how

to test and track your results, which is vitally important to your sanity!



Paid advertising methods are virtually endless. Some of the most popular

include renting opt-in lists, buying opt-in leads, placing ads in reputable ezines,

using pay-per-click search engines, buying banner ad space, and buying targeted