Table of Contents
The Good (Cheap & Effective)
This is the holy grail. The end-all-be-all. The one thing you can do for FREE to guarantee that your target demographic comes directly to you, already believing that you have the answers.
So, what is it?
It’s ranking your site #1 in search engines. (Or at least being on the front page.)
And that’s exactly what SEO is:
Search Engine Optimization
SEO is building and streamlining your website so that all text, links, and images are geared toward climbing the ranks of Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, etc.
Why is this so important?
Because people your target audience implicitly trusts Google to provide them with THE BEST answer for what they’re looking for.
In fact, more than 81% of online purchases start through a search engine like Google. If your business isn’t seen in the results, you’re losing customers. Plain and simple.
Look at these numbers: In a Google search, the first result gets clicked on 20.5% of the time. The second gets 13.3%. Third gets 13.1%. And these numbers drop off a cliff when you get to the second page.
SEO optimizes your website to use certain words and phrases that your target demographic is searching for, making your website the one they’re looking for.
In addition, it’s having other websites link to yours, and vice versa. It’s providing real, useful information about your niche. To receive the customers, you must provide the value. But trust us, it’s worth it.
Check out our point-and-click cheap SEO Tool, which will skyrocket you up the Google rankings.
Email Marketing
“It’s easier to retain a customer than to get a new one.”
It’s an old axiom, but it’s true – it takes much less work to sell to your current customer base than to sell cold.
And there’s no better way to sell to your current customers than Email Marketing. The power of sending a mass email blast packed with valuable information (and promotions) to thousands of your customers is just a keystroke away.
Now, there are a few ways to do it.
Promotion. The promotion is just what it sounds like: You inform your customers of a sale or a timely product so they can check it out. It’s straightforward and to the point.
Newsletter. The newsletter is a consistent (monthly, weekly, daily, etc.) email that you send to your subscribers in which you talk about your niche. This can be news, ideas, suggestions, etc., so long as it’s related to your store in some way.
The newsletter is an undervalued and underused tool in marketing. But the benefits are rewarding.
First of all, it builds trust, which is the only reason a customer will buy from you. (They’re not going to buy from you if they don’t trust you. Makes sense, doesn’t it?)
The way it builds trust is twofold:
You’re giving valuable information to your customers for FREE. (And asking only that they visit your store.)
You’re seen as more of an expert because you always provide valuable information they might not have known about.
With a newsletter, you and your brand are constantly in the back of your customer’s head. As they become more and more familiar with you, they become more and more willing to buy from you.
Cart abandonment follow-ups. Now this one is really underused in ecommerce, but it can make a world of difference.
Studies show that almost 70% of carts are abandoned before the sale.
With a simple email reminder, you can get the customer to return to their cart and complete the purchase, drastically improve your conversions. We’d say it’s found money, but we both know you worked for it.
Check out our Email Marketing, which will keep your customers coming back for more.
The Bad (Cheap & Ineffective)
Spamming
Some people refer to what they do as “email marketing,” when in reality, it’s spam.
What’s the difference?
I’ll give you an example.
A long time ago, before joining Cheap-Domain Registration, I registered my domain with another hosting website. Soon after, emails with titles ranging from “Do you need a web designer” to simply “Hi.” I’d get similar emails from the same people over and over again.
What had happened, was that the domain registration company had sold my info to “marketers,” and they were now spamming me in hopes of getting business.
This, my friends, is NOT the way to go about getting business. It’s spamming – or sending out as many emails as you can to as many people as you can in hopes of getting a sale.
This is NOT to be confused with email marketing, where you send value-filled emails to people who have willingly subscribed to you.
Spamming is not only incredibly annoying, it’s also incredibly ineffective. Don’t do it. Please.
The Ugly (Expensive)
Ugly, here, doesn’t mean bad. In fact, the following methods of marketing your products can be a great way to expose people to your brand and convert them into customers.
But it ain’t cheap. And that’s ugly.
Google Ads
Google Ads (formerly Google Adwords) is Google’s advertising system.
Google has auctions in which you can bid on certain keywords and phrases, relative to your business/website.
If you win, whenever someone types in those words or phrases, they’ll see your ad at the top of the search. It looks like a regular Google result, except it has the word “Ad” on the left. You’ve probably seen these yourself.
But the problem is, the top of Google is prime real estate. Auctions can get quite expensive. And it’s not the only factor.
You can bid highest and still not be seen first, as Google takes something called your Quality Score into account, too.
Your Quality Score includes things like your CTR (click-through rate), landing page quality, keyword relevance, ad text relevance, and your Google Ads account’s history.
On top of all that, you still need to be outbidding the competition while simultaneously ensuring you’re selecting the right keywords and phrases for maximum effectiveness.
It’s a lot. But it can be worth it.
On the other hand, you can organically rise to the top of Google by using our easy-to-use, low-priced SEO Tool.
Facebook Ads
Advertising on Facebook (and Instagram) is another great way to get your product/business seen by a target market.
You can use image or video ads to show up in users’ feeds, arousing their curiosity and inspiring them to click.
But how are you supposed to target your desired audience?
Simple. With Facebook advertising, your ads can appear to as wide or as narrow an audience as you like.
You have options to select for age, sex, income, and more.
But the true power comes from selecting “Likes.”
You can choose to target people who have “Liked” certain pages. For example, if you’re in the hunting niche, you can target people who like “Hunting,” or “Cabela’s.”
But you can get way more specific.
If your product is an attractant for, say, white-tailed bucks, you can choose to advertise in areas that have white-tailed bucks, target people who’ve liked “Deer Hunting,” or “Monster Racks,” and only advertise to those who make over 50k a year.
Facebook advertising truly lets you hone in on your desired market. Really, finding a winning formula is all about time and creativity …and money.
Luckily, you can run an ad for as little as $5. So you can test 2 target markets against each other for $10. Whichever performs better, test it against a new one, until you find a winner.
If you’re patient and you see the advertising as an investment, you can do well for your business.
And once you get a solid customer base, engage them with newsletter email marketing to ensure they return to your store for more purchases.
