You planned a fabulous, cost-effective, viral-in-nature advertising campaign. Now it’s time to act. What will you do?
Options may seem obvious at first glance: start from your landing page, then post promotional messages on Social networks and social bookmarking services; then, if you wish, you can purchase links and blog posts and write high quality, SE-optimized content for article directories and guest posts.
Sounds all good, doesn’t it?
Oh– you won’t imagine how much good you’re missing! There is a whole world out there beside the regular, above-mentioned advertising media. Let’s find out!
The ‘Other Strategies’ In The Art of Ad Placement
You know how to choose the best media for your advertising campaign. You know the techniques and your strategies are long proven. But there’s more to it: the number of media you can supplement your campaign with is as unlimited as your imagination and you can easily take advantage of any other media with a good audience to run your campaign.
What’s there for you beyond regular ad placement?
1. E-coupons. Aren’t people so fond of discount codes? We can’t blame them: we’d feel exactly like them if we were given the chance. The point is that people are so fond of their coupons that they won’t skip reading anything on them: rest assured that your promotional link won’t get overlooked, especially when it’s directly correlated to the coupon offer. Tip: Add your link offer right under the e-coupon code for higher results.
2. E-books. Niche bloggers, writers and e-marketers aren’t stupid: they know very well how powerful e-books can get in promoting knowledge of your service and to help spread the word about it. As an advertiser, you have two options to chose from: 1) write your own e-book and link to your services into its pages (see HubSpot’s guides); 2) collaborate with a writer to add your links into their e-book. The latter will cost you more money, as you need to pay the writer, but you’ll earn greater results in the long run.
3. Tagboards. Personal blogs and websites are covered with these — often called “chatboxes” too. If you happen to stumble upon a personal blog in your niche and it has a tagboard, you can advertise your product in a short message. Tip: handle this media with care: only share links to products that you think the blog/site owner and their readership may need, and be a little personal, as a common reader of the site would be; personal site owners DO ban spammers, heavily and often.
4. MySpace Profiles. Among the currently active Social Networks, MySpace has lost most of its authority over the years, but it’s still widely used, with over 30 million members, so advertising on MySpace profiles can still profit your business. Tip: target the ‘interests’ about ‘about me’ sections of profiles for a wider exposure. Also, remember that MySpace links are not direct, therefore your PageRank won’t benefit from them. Your traffic will.
5. E-courses. If your advertising campaign involves products that benefit students and teachers, e-courses can be a good media pick. As with e-books, you can choose between the setup of your own e-course or the collaboration with an existing e-course website. Tip: discuss the ad placement with the e-course webmaster. The closer to the contents, the better.
6. College Blogs. Many students are bloggers too, so you can contact them about advertising on their college-related blogs if you have products that can be of interest to them.
7. Blogging Contests. They’re a special kind of contests: a contest host, in this case, is a blogger that offers a series of prizes in exchange of exposure from other bloggers (usually among their readership). As an advertiser, you can offer a freebie to gain exposure for your website or products. An example: “2nd Prize: 1 FREE e-book download from our sponsor AdvertiserName, maker of the fabulous ProductName” — this is what a contest host could write about you on the contest page. Tip: offer something relevant to the blogger’s contest and their readership; that will up you chances of being accepted as a contest sponsor.
8. Tutorials. If your products is closely related to a certain activity, a good idea is to advertise your links within a tutorial article. You will certainly gain exposure and clicks, and conversions if your offer is really, really good. Tip: discuss the benefits of advertising your ad with the tutorial or site owner. Not everyone allows sponsored links within their content.
9. Printables. An almost-FREE strategy contemplates distributing printables on your website, Social Networks and Peer-to-Peer networks (BitTorrent, eMule, etc.). Each printable will contain links to your website and/or products on the bottom border, which will be printed together with the freebie content. The strategy is meant to work the same way as e-coupons do.
Do you have more strategies to add to this list? Your advice can help other advertisers and small businesses setup successful campaigns.
About Luana Spinetti
