Pay-per-Click Advertising
Pay-per-Click advertising or PPC is an approach that involves paying for ads that appear on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERP’s) when search engine user keys-in a search term or keyword. Advertisers are charged each time an ad is clicked by a search engine user, hence the name pay-per-click advertising.
Pros: This technique is a fantastic approach to drive targeted traffic to a website in a matter of minutes.
Cons: Utilizing PPC can be a costly affair, and if you are inexperienced in this arena you will lose money rather than realizing a profit.
Initiating An Affiliate Program
By offering an affiliate program you effectively employ the services of affiliate marketers to promote your product on your behalf. For every sale an affiliate marketer generates you pay him/her a commission.
Pros: Initiating an affiliate program is fairly cheap, and you only pay the affiliates when they drive traffic that is converted into sales. You also have the luxury of employing thousands of affiliate marketers to promote your product at no cost to you.
Cons: Depending on the size of your company and the demand for your product you will have to set-up a separate business function to support and manage your affiliates. Unscrupulous affiliate marketer could also damage the image of your company and your product.
Organic Search Engine Marketing
This technique involves optimizing your site to target certain keywords and thereafter engaging in Search Engine Optimization techniques to increase your rankings in the search engines for your targeted keywords.
Pros: Traffic generated from the organic results does not cost you a cent and depending on your rankings you could earn a passive income for years to come.
Cons: Top rankings are never guaranteed and you could needlessly invest a large amount of money attempting to increase your rankings.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is the process of communicating with your subscribers via email through a series of follow-up messages.
Pros: This approach is relatively inexpensive, and if it is done right, this medium can turn subscribers into buyers, and buyers into repeat buyers.
Cons: Online consumers are becoming immune to email messages that are too “salesy”. There is no guarantee that your email message or newsletter will actually be read by your subscriber.
Social Media Platforms
Social media sites like Facebook are thriving hives of activity where people of diverse needs, cultures and ethnicity connect. With such diversity and the sheer measure of traffic within these platforms the potential to build a brand or sell a product is endless.
Pros: Your product or brand can spread virally on these platforms which is similar to an online word-of-mouth type of advertising.
Cons: Positive word-of-mouth advertising can also turn into a viral smear campaign which could damage a company’s image, product or brand. The views or traffic generated from these platforms isn’t always targeted.