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Ok, so now you’ve got a high conversion website, but without visitors it is nothing.   There are different ways of marketing on the web, each with its own advantages.  We will cover the main 4 types that are useful to the professional services.  To get the most out of your website, your marketing plan should contain some element for most, if not all of these.

Sponsored Search.
Search engines will allow you to pay to be listed alongside the ‘organic’ search results (it’s the top and right hand side of the search results normally).  This means within a couple of hours you can be right up there at the top of Google. As with anything in business it has downsides, but it also has upsides.

Advantages
Very adaptable – if something isn’t working you can change it
Quick to set up - the fastest way to start seeing results on the Internet
Easy to track – all the search engines now have comprehensive tools to analyse results

Disadvantages
Expensive – It is by far the most expensive way of marketing on the Internet
Easy to loose control of – The tools search engines provide leave a lot to be desired on some fronts.  You need to keep a close eye on what is working and what isn’t
Time consuming – It requires a lot of effort to make sure that all your profits don’t go on paying the search engines.

Sponsored search is useful if it is kept on a tight reign, and you make sure it doesn’t go over budget.  There can be a ‘bidding frenzy’ where businesses seem happy to pay almost anything just to appear top, without thinking if it’s profitable to do.

Search Engine Optimisation
Getting to the top of the search engines organic (or natural) listings is sadly overlooked.  Unlike a sponsored search, you don’t pay the search engines anything for putting you there.  For some reason it is overlooked by many businesses as a viable way to achieve results, strange but true.

Advantages
No payments to search engines!
Typically higher conversion rates.
Once in place, fairly slow to lose position

Disadvantages
Slow to get to the top
If you make a mistake it can be difficult to change
Requires time and effort to make it happen

Email Marketing
Spam mail has given email marketing a bad name.  In the right place though it is an extremely effective marketing tool.  The key to really good email marketing is to build your own list, it takes time, but it will reward you tenfold for the effort. 

Advantages
Cheap to run
Easy to track
Very high conversion rates (when it’s your own list)

Disadvantages
A tendency to be caught up in spam filters (there are ways round this)
Takes time to build up a reasonable list

Press Releases
These are not the press releases you are used to! 
It would be better if they were called information handouts or study notes. However, this is the phrase at the moment. 

For most professional services there are many miles between what the prospective client understands their situation to be, and how your services can solve their problem.  The practicality of the situation is that they won’t tend to go on your website in the first place, unless they think it will help solve their problem.

Press Releases are there to explain how to solve their problems with your service, it is an education process. The release itself goes on websites they read, and into publications they subscribe to.

Advantages
Very good at getting enquiries you wouldn’t normally see.
Where it appears lends credibility to it.
It is relatively low cost to do.

Disadvantages
They are difficult to track
Writing one is an art
It is difficult to know where it will appear.
The results tend to be over long periods.

 

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