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Which method is best?

by geoweb
3 replies
Hi all, have been asking about Social Marketing methods on the Internet vs AdWords for market research.

If you are thinking of offering a new product or service and want to market it online, I was wondering what would be the best way to get an idea if this product is something people would like or be intersted in buying. I am looking at the one route of Social marketing (or social bookmarking sites) and/or blogs, or the other option I have seen people on this forum recommending is AdWords.
I am tempted to use the free method of social sites and also perhaps a blog -for example I can just ask in my blog if people would be interested in product I am potentially going to introduce, as opposed to AdWords where I would have to pay.
However my concern is that with the Social site route, how reliable would the traffic be, and how much work would it really take to get a "decent" amount of traffic built up from this method as opposed to AdWord traffic?
With AdWords at least you would get a pretty good flow of traffic for a specific keyword that to me would mean a more definite audience - although you would need to pay for it of course.
What methods do or have you used and how have the results been?
#method
  • Profile picture of the author bigbearmarketer
    Yes you are right about adwords costing some money and the key is if your traffic is converting or not, you can still target your audience with the free methods just remember one thing that time is money. The good thing about adwords and other pay per click is it runs on auto pilot so once you set up your campaign it gives you time to focus on the free methods. You will really never know until you test, so I would suggest at first maybe get some free traffic unless you do not want to wait because the free methods do take a little time to see some results. Maybe do a little campaign with a low budget and test it out to see what converts best for you.
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  • Profile picture of the author geolt7
    Using Adwords to test a product will definitely give you a better and faster result. This is provided you are ready to spend a sum of money without expecting any return (few people can do this, especially newbies). For the rest of us, instead of using just social bookmarking to promote your blog, go for article marketing as well. It will also give you traffic in a relatively shorter time compared to just using social bookmarking which can take months.
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  • Profile picture of the author Josh Semke
    Try building a list. Use social media to drive targeted traffic to a capture page, have them sign up, offer them some sort of incentive and then survey them. You can use a survey tool such as surveymonkey.com.

    The guys at Stompernet recently covered a great way to do this in a video...jump on their list and watch their videos.
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