Twitter Advertising for a Brick and Mortar

[JEL0221]

Little background...I have been a warrior member for quite a while, mainly doing affiliate advertising on and off, but still am a regular reader at the forum.

I have recently graduated college and started my career as a futures and options broker. We are fairly small right now(3 people). My boss mentioned to me this morning that he wanted to try to do some advertising on twitter and/or facebook and I jumped on it because I knew where I could research for the information

What I essentially want to do is drive traders and aspiring traders/investors to our company website(duh), which provides a free e-book on futures and options trading and provides a free trading platform demo(when people sign up for either of these two that is how we get our prospect information.)

When advertising on twitter/facebook, should I be driving traffic directly to our company website, or should I drive them to a "squeeze" page, where we can generate another free e-book or something of that nature to generate a mailing list/prospect list.

Thanks a lot everyone for your replies. I really appreciate your help on this one.....and if anyone knows of a good ebook or something on twitter that would be awesome lol

[mla16]

I would just drive direct to your company site..... no point complicating things with any sort of squeeze page which seems to me just like adding an un-necessary middleman

[JEL0221]

Thanks mla.

That is what I was thinking, making a profile that would be just the company name, very professional look to it, and post daily tweets on market information, special promotional information, etc.

At the same time, when browsing and taking a look at other marketer's twitter setups they seem to usually go to a squeeze page in order to build up mailing lists.

If there are any critiques/comments please add. Thanks!

[JEL0221]

bump.......

[FaJeeb]

Assuming you already have a website, I would create an additional page with a link from your main page to your squeeze page offering a new, free, up to date, amazing eBook about how someone could profit using your brokerage service. Create a SIMPLE eBook, offer your services, discuss what you can do, the relationship you plan to build with the customer, tips on investing, etc. (not in the order of course) make it look as professional and personal as possible.

Go on Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, creating nice page, offer your free eBook to investors. Have them go to that squeeze page to get their contact information and allow them to download that eBook. You will be able to capture their name and e-mail, allowing you to build a list.

Using this list, re-promote Twitter, Facebook, Myspace (most for people you have on Myspace and Facebook that aren't aware that you are on Twitter) - make it so they just have to click something to add you, don't make it so they have to search for you. Also use your list to repromote that ebook, or future ones, great articles you've found online that you can use to promote your business, and you will slowly build up a relationship with your new/future possible traders/investors, who will be aware of your presence on Twitter.

[JEL0221]

That is great feedback FaJeeb! I think my approach for this will be to write a 15-20 page ebook on very basic information on futures markets/basic trading language/broker-client relationship...etc and send them to the website through that.

My only problem is the landing page....I have absolutely no experience designing a landing page.....anyone have ideas of where I could possibly learn/ outsource this task?

[FaJeeb]

Originally Posted by JEL0221

That is great feedback FaJeeb! I think my approach for this will be to write a 15-20 page ebook on very basic information on futures markets/basic trading language/broker-client relationship...etc and send them to the website through that.

My only problem is the landing page....I have absolutely no experience designing a landing page.....anyone have ideas of where I could possibly learn/ outsource this task?

Warriors For Hire section of this forum is great.

[MikeFriedman]

Yeah I agree with FaJeeb and completely disagree with the first response. You're wasting your time without a squeeze page.

Most people are not going to buy from you the first time they visit your webpage. You need to gather their contact info and stay in touch with them through some kind of email marketing campaign. The free eBook is a great idea to get them wanting more from you or your company.

[MichaelHiles]

I've seen it used effectively by local companies to drive traffic to their local sites when they are using hashtag identifiers to specifiy a locale... like #cincinnati

But even then, it's more effective to drive someone to a specific offer to opt them in to an email or even an SMS opt-in marketing page. Trying to promote direct deals on twitter in real time is like spitting into the ocean.