So You Want To Advertise On The Net?

By Joe Reinbold

When you are new to the Internet, you are bombarded by email
after email, marketing every kind of product you can think
of and your first thought is ...What did I get myself into
here? You might think that there is no way I can market my
proposed product on the Net with all this other marketing
activity. What you are primarily seeing when you log on is
the result of mostly untargeted bulk emailing activities,
thousands of individuals and/or companies emailing to
millions of uninterested other individuals and/or companies.
Sure they make money doing it that way, but they also waste
a lot! They also aggravate many people and in some cases
the senders lose their Internet service provider because
many people complain about being "Spammed"!

So what is the new guy or gal on the block supposed to do
if they are thinking about marketing something on the Net?

First move slowly! Don't go out and purchase the first bulk
mail software program you see. Likewise, don't go out and
hire the first bulk mailer you see to advertise your
product. Evaluate the market first. Determine who your
target is. What type of offer do you have? If you are going
to sell a new pet shampoo, you might want to consider
targeting pet owners! Have a product that helps reduce
weight? Then you might want to target the diet crowd. Of
course if along with either product above you are also
marketing a dealership or network marketing plan with the
product, then you would also want to target people looking
for business opportunities and those interested in network
marketing.

Do a little research before you jump in with both feet and
your wallet! The search engines on the Web are great for
locating what you are interested in. Some of the major
ones are:

www.yahoo.com

webcrawler.com

www.infoseek.com

lycos.com

www.altavista.digital.com

Personally I like www.inference.com/infind since it checks
many of the others listed above for you. Just go to one of
the search engines and do a search for the item you are
interested in. For the example above, check out "pet
shampoo" and see how many hits you get and then sample some
of the sites to get some ideas. This might lead you to a
specific advertising vehicle such as a newsletter (ezine)
or newsgroup.

You can also do a search for newsletters or ezines if you
are looking for a targeted type advertising vehicle. If you
want a list of over 200 ezines just send an email to
ezines@homebizlink.com and you will receive it in a couple
of minutes. Sample some of the ezines on the list. Ezines
are a great advertising vehicle. They are subscriber based,
meaning that the people on the list are interested in the
newsletter topic. The circulation of ezines can range from
1,000 to 600,000. You are talking about pre-qualified,
interested prospects for your offer. Compare this with
sending your offer out to 10,000 unknowns when you use
untargeted bulk mail.

You also need to look at the cost for sending out your
offer. One of the general ways to look at it is the cost
per thousand. You should shop for the best advertising
rates. There are also Opt-in direct email lists such as
http://www.PostmasterDirect.com They have numerous lists
that you can choose from. Their rates per thousand vary
according to the type list you are looking for.

You can also consider free classified sites, we have a
list available, just freesite@homebizlink.com For free for
all link pages where you can list your page URL for free,
we also have a free list of over 450 free link pages
available - just advertise@homebizlink.com

There are many ways you can get the word out about your
product. Newsgroups, free and paid classifieds, ezines,
free link pages, ad exchanges, banners exchanges,
signature files on all your own email messages. When we
first signed on the Internet to do business we purchased a
book called "Insider Internet Marketing" by JDD Publishing.
It was a tremendous help and gave us some the insider
information we needed. It saved a lot of research time in
developing online strategies and resources. We still keep
it right next to the computer. You can get info about it
if you are interested at www.bizweb2000.com

In summary, if you need to market your product or service
on the Net, do a little research first, identify your
target market, and shop for the best prices. Be an educated
advertiser, it will pay you in the long run!

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Article by Joe Reinbold, Publisher of Home Income Quarterly
E-dition, a free weekly on line marketing newsletter. To
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