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Where Should We Advertise?

by tpw
4 replies
The point of advertising is to get your marketing message in front of the people most likely to buy/use your products or services.

So, where should we advertise?

We should advertise in those places where "the people most likely to buy/use your products or services" are hanging out.

Most people suggest we should only focus our advertising on Google, FaceBook and YouTube, BECAUSE that is where the majority of people go...

Okay, let's say that is true for the sake of argument...

According to most sites that track this kind of information, the three most visited sites are: 1. Google; 2. FaceBook; and 3. YouTube -- in this order.

According to FaceBook's internal data, they have "more than 800 million active users."

But if you throw a stat counter on YOUR FaceBook page, how many of "the people most likely to buy/use your products or services" are visiting your FaceBook page?

I know in my case, the number is really, really small. Most people who visit my FaceBook page are friends and family. Those folks ARE NOT in my target audience.

To really make a splash on FaceBook, I would need to buy advertising.

And when I buy advertising, I am limited by my ability to figure out how to reach my target audience AND how much money I can afford to spend on advertising.

The same applies to YouTube. Now granted, I don't do much video marketing myself, and my YouTube account has about 1100 views on it. My friend, Sam England has about 20,000 views on his YouTube account, and since he puts up a lot of funny videos, I have to wonder how many of his visitors are in his target audience.

On the #2 and #3 most visited websites, most of us simply are not reaching "the people most likely to buy/use our products or services"!!

The reality is that people HOPE to get traffic at the same level of Google, FaceBook and YouTube. But as they say in Oklahoma, "you can 'hope' in one hand and 'poop' in the other... Then look to see which hand fills the fastest..."

I hate to break this news to you, but just because Google, FaceBook and YouTube have loads of traffic DOES NOT mean that "we" as users of those sites can actually use them to reach "the people most likely to buy/use our products or services" by advertising on those websites!!

Warrior Forum is one of those sites only where there is a lot of traffic, and I can get my free and paid advertising seen by "the people most likely to buy/use my products or services". In fact, even though the traffic at the Warrior Forum is considerably less than the traffic at Google, FaceBook and YouTube, the likelihood of getting my advertising seen by "the people most likely to buy/use our products or services" is greatly increased, since the people who go to the Warrior Forum are much more likely to be in my target market!!

Think about that for a second...

There are fewer people going to the Warrior Forum than go to the Big 3 websites, but my likelihood of reaching more people in my target audience is substantially increased!!

And if you agree this is true, you have to stop and ask yourself if perhaps there are other websites, with much less traffic that could potentially help you get your advertising message in front of more "people who are most likely to buy/use your products or services."

Is it starting to sink in yet?

Sometimes, the best places for us to advertise are on off-the-beaten path websites, where traffic is less and advertising rates are much smaller than the rates we have to pay the bigger websites for advertising...

High value, low-cost advertising exists in most every niche... And yet, those places will continue to remain low-cost because everyone else is so busy chasing customers on the biggest-trafficked websites -- sites that often offer the lowest returns on our investment...

If you want to know where to advertise online, make a committed effort to find where your target audience hangs out online, and find out what it is going to take for you to get your marketing message in front of them.

If you take this message to heart, you will be thankful later, when you start noticing the volume of new sales coming in...

In this context, let me ask my original question again: Where Should We Advertise?

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#advertise #advertising #facebook #google #youtube
  • Profile picture of the author Mary Wilhite
    Where Should We Advertise?
    Like what you said in your post, here!

    In this thread particularly : Warrior Special Offers Forum

    I've had excellent results in there
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  • Profile picture of the author Nichefly
    Well said! Really liked this part - "Sometimes, the best places for us to advertise are on off-the-beaten path websites, where traffic is less and advertising rates are much smaller than the rates we have to pay the bigger websites for advertising..." Thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author art72
    I agree, many are dillusioned by the 'numbers' as opposed to providing a laser targeted audience with the information they seek.

    Being fairly new to the IM world, I made the very mistakes you discussed above, and believed my only chance to succeed online was to look to the "Big 3" and now, I believe otherwise.

    I think it was myob that mentioned in a post, (and I am paraphrasing here...) he would much rather have his efforts viewed by 100 interested people within a specific topic, as opposed to reaching 10,000 people in a more broad less targeted audience.

    While, I am learning from those like yourself, it appears there is a huge "misconception" that going after the "low hanging fruit is the path to success."

    The reality is, if one goes after a "HUGE" competitive niche, and fuels the focus on getting the ads or the message out to that specific audience in a laser targeted marketing approach, there's a good chance those sources will be lessor in volume, lower in ranking, but greater in conversion rates.

    I am still in the working stages of proving this true for myself, but having heard it from several marketers... I stopped being so narrow-minded in the placement of my information, and the false interpretation that 'broad views' on a less targeted audience is somehow better.

    One can easily dominate the SERP's for a 'low competition' keyword for say 1,000 monthly views, and get some targeted traffic with SEO alone, but I think the real rewards are found in 'higher competition markets' with a greater focus on 'filtering' the audience's interest in a specific product, niche, or service, through savvy marketing to the smaller venues.

    Ah, WTH do I know, I'm still roughly 6 months away from reaching my 5 figure a month goal!

    Great post!

    All the Best,

    Art
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    Atop a tree with Buddha ain't a bad place to take rest!
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    • Profile picture of the author sylviad
      It's an age old expression that goes something like this...

      There's no point trying to sell a house to a hobo - or apples to someone who prefers oranges - or a kid's trike to families with no kids. (or something to that effect, but I think you get the point)

      It all comes down to market research and knowing exactly who is your end user. If you do not know this, then you will waste your marketing efforts. Directing your promotions to general audiences just because of the huge numbers is wasteful. Not only because the majority of those seeing your ad are just not interested, but because you'll have to battle millions of other advertisers to reach those who are interested. The odds of being seen are phenomenal.

      Sylvia
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