If I Gave You a Marketing Budget of $10k, How Would You Spend It?

[Ron Douglas]

Marketing Challenge:

If I Gave You a Marketing Budget of $10k, How Would You Spend It?

Additional Details:
- The product converts at 3.4% and works out to about $85 for every 100 visitors.
- You have to spend the full $10,000 in a month.
- Article marketing may not be an option because you need to see a positive ROI in the same month.

What would be your plan, step by step?

[steveweber]

If the market is big enough, then most of it should go toward PPC....IMO.

[Desmond Ong]

Hey Ron,

I will spend $2,000 in PPC, $3,000 in PPV to build my list.

Then I will spent the rest of the money reproducing my site into other languages (assuming that you are selling a product on your site).

[Scott Murdaugh]

Depending on the product using the $10k to get it on a CPA network and starting a lead generation campaign may not be a bad way to go.

Hard to say without knowing what the product is.

-Scott

[JayXtreme]

I was sat here...

Itching to respond... but I just knew the answer of PPC would come flying in from somewhere.

PPC isn't a plan... it's one facet of the potential promotions...

@ Ron... you've given us very little to work with here details-wise.

Peace

Jay

Ron,
While I could very well give you a full step by step plan the problem would be I would be giving away a million dollar idea.

I could easily take $10,000 and spend it in one month and turn a profit of $10,000 a month and all without using PPC, Article Marketing, Social Network Marketing, and etc..

James

[nicholasb]

here is what I would do.


First I would compile a huge keyword list 2k plus

then I would run ppc campaing in yahoo msn and bing to get the lowest cpc.

I would set the max cpc at around .47 to get a good amount of clicks.

then I would use tracking 202 to see what keywords were converting I would then stop bidding on the keywords that didnt convert and then ramp up the ones that did.

I would then see what keywords were converting then start the seo plan.

some o these keywords will probably need 2k back links or more so I would then outsource a team of people to focus on each keyword until they were ranked, so about 1-2 keywords per week

depending on how many people we hired.

of course we would have hosting and would focus on ranking each page of a wordpress blog on the site.


we would then hyper link only to a squeeze page.

we would then take all of out converting keywords and test if it is more viable to send all this traffic to a squeeze page to increase conversions through email.

The bulk of the traffic would be through seo while finding out all the converting keywords and making sales with yahoo and mas ppc.

we would then survey this list to see exactly what they want.

we would also focus on recruiting affiliates from other top authority sites in the niche.

try to schedule interviews mail swaps and that sort of thing.

I would also hire a pr agent to try and get us local news coverage, and then hopefully national.

I would then add many expensive upsells to the product including video, mp3'a, and maybe even dvd's

I would try to maximize the overall value of our customers with high converting backend offers and some type of continuity.

I would then relaunch the product using jeff walkers product launch formula method.

after we had a good idea of the conversion rate and value of each customer, I would structure the launch at a little higher price. calling it a 2.0 version which would be just a better version of the first.

we would then contact all of our affiliates and let them know we were relaunching.

I would make an affiliate page offering some kick ass prizes and also a section on affiliate marketing. A full training portal for affiliates, not just swipe files.


I would then have some banners created and advertise in all the top forums related to the product, I would also check the content sites that accept banner ads.

I would also seek out the best damn copywriter I could find for the 2.0 launch using most of the profits from the first months profit campaign.

I would also try to add some type of monthly continuity program.

[Steven Wagenheim]

Okay Ron, I'll bite.

First, I had to do a little math. According to your figures, that means it's a
$25 commission and I'm making 3.4 sales for every 100 visitors.

For the sake of simplicity, let's just say I make 3 sales for every 100
visitors and that comes out to $75. So in order to just break even, having
to spend $10,000 a month, I'd have to make 400 sales a month. To do
that, I'd need about 13,000 visitors a month or 450 visitors a day.

I would probably break up my promotion into 4 parts, thus making it easy
for each part to generate the required number of visitors, or about 120
visitors for each segment of promotion. I would then only need 4 sales
per day, roughly, for each part.

The 4 parts would be as follows:

1. PPC
2. Article Marketing
3. Solo Ads (through Ezines, private sites, etc.)
4. Lead Generation Programs

PPC

I obviously can't spend more than 75 cents per click or I don't break even.

Let's assume I can get a 4th position for the main keywords for 50 cents
per click. 100 clicks will bring me in 3 sales for $75 and cost me $50.

So let's make my budget, for now anyway, $100 per day.

That's $3,000 per month and that will bring me 6 sales per day through
PPC. That's 180 sales for the month.

Only 220 sales left to go.

Article Marketing

To generate enough traffic, I wouldn't be able to write the articles myself
so I would have to outsource.

Now, my normal CTR on my resource box is about 20%. So, if I am going
to get my 120 visitors for the day out of article marketing, I"m going to
need 600 views per day.

Now, let's assume this is a highly competitive niche where I know that
upon initial submission, I'm only going to get about 25 views for each
article on the first day and then nothing after that.

That means I will need 24 articles submitted each day. Let's say I outsource
at a cost of $3 per article. That's a total expense of $72 per day to make
my $75 for my 3 sales. And that assumes that these articles get no more
views in their lifetime after day 1, which we know is unlikely.

My total cost is $2,160 for the articles for the month.

That brings my total cost up to $5,160

That gives me another 120 sales added to the 180 I have for PPC which
gives me 300 sales for the month.

Only 100 more sales to go divided between solo ads and lead generation
programs.

Solo Ads

I am going to assume this is a product in the MMO niche. That makes
this very easy. There are some excellent safelists online with great
memberships that offer solo ads to the contact (not list) email addresses.

The solo ads usually run about $30 a piece and go out to an average
of about 5,000 to 10,000 people per mailing. Let's assume a 2% CTR, which
is about what it is.

That means 100 to 200 people will be clicking on each solo ad we run.

So let's for argument sake asy it's only 100 clicks per day. That's 3 sales
per day for each solo ad.

Let's do the math.

$30 x 30 solo ads = $900 expenses

Add that to our previous total and we have $6,060 expenses.

Our 3 sales per day gives us another 90 sales.

Add that to the 300 sales I have so far and we're now up to 390 sales
for the month. We have almost reached out quota through just the
first three methods. Only 10 sales left to get through lead generation
programs.

Lead Generation Programs

There are about 5 good lead generation programs online that, between
the 5 of them are good for about 1 sale every other day or 15 sales a
month. that comes out to 75 sales per month for the 5 programs.

** NOTE ** Don't even think of PMing me for these sites. I don't
have the time to answer 200 PMs that I know are coming. If
you PM me about this, you will NOT be answered.

The 5 programs will cost me $150 per month. So my expenses are now
up to $6,210.

That means I have to spend $3,790 more dollars each month. I now have
to figure where that's going. I'll show you how I do that in a minute.

In the meantime, I now have 465 sales for the month, or a gross income
of $11,625.

I have spent $6,210 to make this.

My net profit is $5,415 or 46.58%

That's not too bad.

But...I still have to shell out $3,790 more dollars or I don't qualify.

So...I have to look at each form of promotion to see where I can easily
spend more money.

PPC

Forget it. I'm just about getting all the traffic I'm going to get spending
50 cents per click. I don't want to spend more per click unless I have to.
So spending more for PPC (really out of my hands) is not an option.

Article Marketing

This is where I can EASILY spend more money.

At $3 per article, I can get 1,263 more articles each month.

Let's now do some math as to the return.

1263 x 25 = 31,575 views per month

31,575 x .20 = 6,315 clicks per month

6,315 x .034 = 215 sales per month.

That's an extra $5,375 per month in sales.

Add that to the $11,625 so far and I'm up to $17,000 in sales for the
month.

I've spent $10,000.

My net profit is $7,000.

That's $84,000 a year net profit and all I've done is:

1. Set up a PPC campaign
2. Outsourced articles
3. Run a solo ad each day
4. Let lead generation programs autorun for me each day.

My total daily workload in hours is probably about 1 hour per day.

And this doesn't take into account any of the articles that MIGHT get
some views and clicks in subsequent months.

There you have it Ron.

That's what I'd do.

PS - I would, if it were MY product, build a backend product into
it at about $97 per sale.

Do the math on 2% conversion of previous customers.

[Martin Luxton]

Do a competition.

Every entrant has to do a video with a link to your site in the "about" and upload it to the top 10 video sharing sites (using Tubemogul). They also have to post a link to your site and the video on their own Word Press blog.

100 prizes of $100.

Should get a few hundred videos and one way links with that many prizes on offer.

Martin

[freudianslip27]

If this is your own product (if not, then this advice won't help, sorry!), one option on spending some of the money, would be to pay someone to research potential jv partnerships for the product you are selling.

You could then get the physical addresses of these people, and send them a package in the mail (not a run of the mill letter, but something that would get their attention) explaining the benefits of jv'ing with you and how you can help them.

You could hire someone to manage this for you fulltime, and bring yourself a ton of potential sales partners.

Matt

[TimCastleman]

$9000 on booze, the rest on phone calls and direct mail.

Tim

Originally Posted by TimCastleman

$9000 on booze, the rest on phone calls and direct mail.

Tim

Tim,
I assume you are going to outsource the phone calls and direct mail dude.. Because with that much booze you are not going to be able to do much..

James

[Ron Douglas]

Originally Posted by TimCastleman

$9000 on booze, the rest on phone calls and direct mail.

Tim

Tim, that hasn't worked too well for me in the past. My voice was slurring on the phone and handwriting was really shaky.

[Ron Douglas]

Originally Posted by TheRichJerksNet

Ron,
While I could very well give you a full step by step plan the problem would be I would be giving away a million dollar idea.

I could easily take $10,000 and spend it in one month and turn a profit of $10,000 a month and all without using PPC, Article Marketing, Social Network Marketing, and etc..

James

James, you can tell us here in this thread - nobody is even reading this stuff . Or at least shoot me a PM. Don't keep me hanging man.

[Brian Johnson]

Originally Posted by Ron Douglas

Marketing Challenge:

If I Gave You a Marketing Budget of $10k, How Would You Spend It?

Additional Details:
- The product converts at 3.4% and works out to about $85 for every 100 visitors.
- You have to spend the full $10,000 in a month.
- Article marketing may not be an option because you need to see a positive ROI in the same month.

What would be your plan, step by step?

I would start out by hiring a content writer in the
states that enjoys writing and I would pay him / her
well.

Content rules.

Best,

Ron,
Many lurkers back there just waiting for the next proven real idea ...lol I have no idea what type of site you have or your plans but I personally would not need $10,000 (although the extra money would come in handy for the project) to create something that I already know is in demand and needed by more than just marketers. Already researched, tested, and proven - Approx $5,000 and approx 30 days can have something ready that would in fact generate $10,000+ a month each and every month.

If you are serious would not mind shooting you a PM at all as long as you are also willing to sign a contract...

James

[Lance K]

In your case, I'd consider...

A)

Hiring someone to do some reverse engineering on which YouTube publishers get the most views to their videos, have the most channel subscribers, etc. Then I'd hire someone else on commission to contact them and sell them on your service.

B)

Putting it up as a cash prize (or prizes) in some sort of viral video publishing contest. Then work your PR magic.

C)

Advertising on Facebook.

[Brian McElroy]

Stuff the money in my pocket, re-write the copy to
improve conversions, and set JVs & affiliates loose

-Brian

[MichaelHiles]

I'd buy a mylar balloon kit and pretend my kid got stuck in the gondola before it took off for a national news camera ride.



I keeed... I keeed.....

[nicholasb]

Originally Posted by MichaelHiles

I'd buy a mylar balloon kit and pretend my kid got stuck in the gondola before it took off for a national news camera ride.



I keeed... I keeed.....

yeah all he was forgetting was his web url painted on the balloon

[Gene Pimentel]

I'd spend it all on Traffic Sage.


(do I win? )

[Brad Spencer]

Ron,

I like Brian McElroy's idea.

I'd spend the money getting a JV manager to promote to affiliates and spend it all on leveraging traffic.

Somehow, I'd create some viral stuff that spreads like a viral loop...so it constantly promotes your product like Hotmail did in the 90's...

Even if you could create a viral app for the Iphone to spread the product...that would be wise.

The money has to focus on leverage points and finding ways to consistently increase the volume of traffic...like converting to other languages as someone has suggested...

Cheers,

Brad

[Lance K]

Originally Posted by Brad Spencer

I'd spend the money getting a JV manager to promote to affiliates and spend it all on leveraging traffic.

I was going to suggest that as well, but Ron's already done that.

[Ron Douglas]

Originally Posted by Lance K

I was going to suggest that as well, but Ron's already done that.

I'm already doing or plan to do most of the things mentioned here (especially Traffic Sage ). I'm just trying to get some different ideas so that I'm not leaving any stone unturned. This thread has reminded me of a few things I should be doing, so thanks all.

[MichaelHiles]

Originally Posted by Ron Douglas

.... This thread has reminded me of a few things I should be doing, so thanks all.

No, seriously I was just kidding.

Don't make the kids hide in the attic....

[jacktackett]

Ron,
first, it was a pleasure to meet you in person in Raleigh last week- thanks for coming!

Next, I've not seen anyone mention Press Releases and news stories. If appropriate in your niche a targeted press release can generate some traffic for very little investment/time. Getting a news story does require some connections etc so may not be appropriate or timely enough. I've had some pretty good luck with both PRWeb and webwire in generating traffic to my sites.

good luck!
--Jack

[MikeHumphreys]

Ron,

Without knowing the target market and the product, it's really tough to give you exact advice on what marketing you should be doing.

For some products (i.e. a new breakfast cereal), $10K would be a day's marketing budget because the market is so large. For others, $10K could be a year's worth of budget because the market is so small.

I'll partially agree with Brian... definitely look at the sales copy. Without seeing the copy, I can't say if you need a rewrite or if you need to do some multi-variate testing.

Just shooting blind here on the market and product... I'd suggest looking at both online and offline marketing weapons to hit your ideal prospects. There are still some niches that are easier to hit with offline marketing than online marketing because those prospects don't look online (yet).

If you want to shoot me a confidential PM with more specific details, then I can give you more specific advice.

Mike

[DogScout]

If spent all on SEO
That is the gift that keeps on giving

[khairulazan]

This is th good discussion to read on...

The $10k to marketing will result in various marketing technique...

For me I will spend some of the $10k to test first...

Which method convert well, then maximize the the $10k on that method..

[James Clark]

I’m assuming you have a Squeeze Page set-up along with a Sales Page, OTO, etc. In my own Marketing efforts, traffic centers are set-up, would use that method, but would place 100% effort on improving the copy writing at each step.

Second, build a “Product Ladder” and sell more to the customers that are during business with me now.


Jimmy.

[Ron Douglas]

Originally Posted by MikeHumphreys

Ron,

If you want to shoot me a confidential PM with more specific details, then I can give you more specific advice.

Mike

Mike the man - just sent you a PM

[Steve Powers]

wow,if I had that amount,I will invest it on the ppc to gain traffic as possible as I can.
Sometimes,the limitation of funds makes us dilemma.

[realoptions]

I would create an awesome product and spend the money that's left over on marketing.

I find it very interesting how some say they would spend that amount on PPC but no real plans... Ok you have a product but how do you build a recurring profit from that ?? PPC in my opinion is not going to really build that recurring income without other marketing methods in place.

Granted I do not really do PPC so I am by far no expert on that stuff but I just like to think outside the box and not put all my eggs into one basket.

James

[Slin]

Set up a site about a niche, buy my own product (or PLR to one)

Set up a squeeze page, then outsource article marketing and do PPC to gain traffic, build a huge list, then profit.

[USHwy129]

Originally Posted by nicholasb

yeah all he was forgetting was his web url painted on the balloon

that was my first thought too...he wanted publicity but what a waste, there were a lot of eyes on that balloon...he flunked out of marketing 101 I guess....

[Sylvia Meier]

Alright this is sooo off the normal responses you will get here on the WF, but it would get you so much better targeted traffic from a major source, now this also depends on your target niche, but could be used to work with pretty much anyone, just the timeframe would be the issue.

I would use 1k or so of the budget to leverage into 10k trade dollars with a barter exchange (I do this all the time), from that 10k of trade dollars I would do a media buy of a daily newspaper, could get quite a bit with the 10k and I would still have 9k cash in my pocket. I would then use the ad to direct people to my website, where they could purcahse the product and with only 1k in, and 10k worth of advertising, I would already be at a positive ROI (just made 9k in trade dollars), and any sales would be gravy.

Or if I have a niche it would work with I would use all 10k, leverage it into 100k trade dollars, use that 100k trade dollars to purchase a really big ad in a major paper like the washington times, and then I would sit back and watch the sales come in.

Just my spin on it.

Sylvia

[Bill Farnham]

Originally Posted by USHwy129

that was my first thought too...he wanted publicity but what a waste, there were a lot of eyes on that balloon...he flunked out of marketing 101 I guess....

Actually, he got his Masters in Disasters with that stunt.

He held the attention of every major news channel on TV so any additional exposure would have just been a waste of bandwith.

Now, if he had a sex tape on his website he was selling...

KJ

[ddistco]

Ron ,

First of all I think it is a great idea that you placed your brainstorming idea to the best brainstormers on the planet.

If I had the $10k I would find the niches that had the highest search results and is an increasing Google search trend. Next , I would seek out a good copywriter and graphics contact.

I would then create a video marketing series of teaser videos to point to the new niche website and hire a PPC expert to run my campaigns on Google. I would then hire proficient SEO company to optimize my website to the hilt and have my copywriter create a compelling AR Series of messages to send to my subscribers.

Can you tell I don't want to do any work. I believe in outsourcing to documented professionals who have a successful track record - LOL

[Black Hat Cat]

Originally Posted by TheRichJerksNet

Ron,
While I could very well give you a full step by step plan the problem would be I would be giving away a million dollar idea.

I could easily take $10,000 and spend it in one month and turn a profit of $10,000 a month and all without using PPC, Article Marketing, Social Network Marketing, and etc..

James

Then why can't you come up with $10,000 to pay a doctor bill?

Originally Posted by Black Hat Cat

Then why can't you come up with $10,000 to pay a doctor bill?

Not sure what that has to do with anything but ...

1. 1/3 of my bill is paid by me and I will pay the rest and all without starting a thread begging for money. The rest will be paid in the next few months, no big deal..

Why is this any of your concern anyways...

James

[Michael Mayo]

Originally Posted by Razer Rage

Easy.

I would run 500 WSO's.

In one month?

$100 says you can't.

Michael

PS, Allen, If he does then 10% affiliate commission will be fine!

[Master Blaster]

If you are talking about your own product I would simply recruit affiliates.

If you are talking about an IM product I would use some money to outsource a killer bonus to give with it.

If you are talking about anything else PPC on the best key words, and build list.

[James Schramko]

I wouldn't restrict myself to a 'budget' because budgets suck.

Budgets in business create capped opportunities.

I wouldn't 'spend it' because investing is better.

I would (and do) focus on how to make a return
on my investment then I throw as much at it until
I no longer make a return.

Think breakthroughs.

In terms of things that require an investment you could get these done for you:

- Paid press release
- Pay Per View Traffic
- Pay Per Click Traffic
- Traffic Geyser submissions
- Traffic Bug
- SE Nuke

[Lance K]

Originally Posted by James Schramko

I wouldn't 'spend it' because investing is better.

I've been wondering when somebody was going to bring that up.

I was going to, but I figured that most people here would be looking at it as an investment and think that I was just nitpicking. It's a good point to bring up though.

[James Schramko]

Originally Posted by Lance K

I've been wondering when somebody was going to bring that up.

I was going to, but I figured that most people here would be looking at it as an investment and think that I was just nitpicking. It's a good point to bring up though.

Words like Budget are incorrect in modern marketing. The 'budget' should be unlimited.

We all know how much the old corporate CYA (Cover your arse) mindset kicks in when we have budgets to spend.

Investing in marketing is the way to go. Track, Test and Measure and you can try out as many marketing channels as you want.

There are only a handful of traffic channels mentioned in this post so far.

[Daniel E Taylor]

Honestly I would spend most of it on Google Adwords sending traffic
to an opt-in page that converts around 23%-30% and when they opt in
send them to the sales page. (This will allow you to recoup and make some
extra cash during the process).

Before you know it you have a huge list and you can keep marketing
creating products, running sales, and just make money in your draws
by sending one email out per day.

And before anyone says anything realize this isn't a theory, this is
what I actually did...

Daniel

[Charann Miller]

Originally Posted by nicholasb

yeah all he was forgetting was his web url painted on the balloon

...and on your bright orange jumpsuit as they haul you into custody for wasting police time, your 15 minutes of fame right there. You can't buy publicity like that.

Kidding aside, I would outsource my traffic generation, the majority being keyword optimized articles, I could probably buy 2,000 decent quality articles which would continue to push traffic to my money sites for years to come.

[Folusho Orokunle]

I agree with Daniel's Idea.

But with one Caveat. I would also build an authority site in the niche. This is what I do in any market that I want to be a major player in.

A few months back I got GOOGLE SLAPPED after spending 100k in just one of my accounts with Google.

But since I had spent (about 10k) some money outsourcing the creation of an authority site in this niche, I was still get over 20,000 FREE visitors a month after the slap.

I subsequently CHEATED ON GOOGLE with Yahoo and Bing and still bank over $10k/month with the site because of all the FREE and low cost traffic I'm getting.

The best part about PPC is that you can get a lot of market analysis done very quickly so you know which keywords to target.

If you're in a niche that caters to the mass market, I would also consider doing a "refer a friend" viral campaign that you use to build your list and a community for your authority site.

Peace and God Bless.

[JeffH]

You already have data:

"Additional Details:
- The product converts at 3.4% and works out to about $85 for every 100 visitors."

I'd figure out where I'm already getting my best conversions and SPEND IT ALL ON THAT.

JeffH