Three Crucial Steps To Beginning Your Internet Advertising Campaign

Internet advertising is like most other things in life. It has to start somewhere. For example, you learn to walk by taking first steps and you learn to ride a bike by taking that first ride. There are also other complex, and specialized, tasks that also have to start at some point. Again, for example, you wouldn't jump out of a plane unless you had some specific training. A first step. You wouldn't fly a plane without being qualified to do so. You need a beginning step. Likewise, there are certain, crucial steps to beginning an internet advertising campaign. Beginning steps that can make or break your business. Step 1: Know The Product You're Advertising Well Profitable internet advertising begins with actually using, or being well versed, in the product you are selling or are an affiliate of. Online advertising is still an information medium. You need information for the search engines to rank you higher. You need information in order to keep people coming back to your site. And you need information to Pre-sell your visitors into buying the product. In order to do this, it is essential that you know something about what you're selling. If you're an affiliate of an ebook, then read it and write content accordingly. If you're an affiliate for weightlifting equipment, then use it and the ads are much easier to write. If you're selling a product you invented, then be enthusiastic about it and write your web copy to reflect it. Step 2: Before writing any ad or web content, know your target Or in other words, you are you trying to sell your product too? Housewives, busy commuters, computer experts, female fitness buffs, northern lakes fishermen, desert hikers... whoever, you must know who you're going to advertise to. See, the common misconception about advertising is that one ad will appeal to all. That's just not true. One ad will appeal to one target. Your job, or your ad writer's job is to find out which target is the most lucrative to start with. This is an incredibly crucial step. Let's use an example from a recent client. I was working with someone who is an affiliate for several weightlifting products. In order to get the initial advertising campaign underway, we had to decide which target was going to be the most responsive to the ads. It doesn't do any good to send an ad to an audience that is not willing to respond to it. So, we did some research on keywords, what was being searched for the most on Google, MSN, Yahoo!, and other search engines. We came up with a target of stay at home women who wanted to stay in shape. Luckily, there were several great products that we could design a great ad campaign around for this target. The results were great, and started to steamroll the way for other advertising materials for different targets. While this is the second step, it really is the most crucial. If you do not advertise to the most responive target market you're going to see dismal returns on your investment. Step 3: Before releasing any advertising materials, make sure they flow together Let's put it this way. When designing the ad campaign and materials for the weightlifting site, I had to create a most wanted response (the response I wanted the reader to take) for each ad that led to another most wanted response. The "hard sell" approach, or direct sell, is not a very effective internet advertising strategy. But, a "relational" or trust building, strategy is where you lead the reader along to more and more information about a particular topic. The first ad I wrote for the site wasn't for the site. It was for a web page where a small report on exercise tips for stay at home moms was being given away for free. The response I wanted from the ad was for the reader to visit the site. The response I wanted from the site was for the reader to sign up for the newsletter and download the free report. Of course, once the sign up process was complete the visitor was then re-directed to the main site. The report in turn, did more advertising for an ebook that was written with that target in mind, a collection of articles on the site, and specific products that would appeal to that target of stay at home moms. Each advertising material worked together to create an uninterrupted flow. Before starting any kind of advertising, make sure there is a most wanted reponse that is led to another response. These beginning steps to internet advertising will lead to long term success. Internet advertising is a very complex and, at times, difficult endeavor. And it's made all the worse by not setting the groundwork first. If you follow these beginning steps you'll see a much more receptive reader, and a pathway to longterm success.