
Ask HN: What is the best online marketing strategy you found? - rokhayakebe
Ask HN: What is the best online marketing strategy you found?
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fallentimes
I know everyone is going to describe building something people want or
building something that is easy to use or excellent. And this, of course, is
the best strategy as it encourages word of mouth marketing (free and
effective) and has a wonderful product to fall back on (i.e. it isn't
vaporware).

However, something else you should really focus on is bloggers. I don't me
spamming them or anything like that. I mean determining exactly what benefits
your product offers and who would care about it. Chances are there's a lot of
good blogs and bloggers out there that will. Way before launching you should
contact them. If they are writing about something that interests you or you
think you have something to offer email them or comment. Build a relationship,
just make sure it's not forced - anyone can tell if you're being fake. Make
sure you're providing value of some sort to them. Then when you have your
product or site or whatever run it by them. Even if they don't end up writing
about it the fact that they have a decent blog is indicative of their
willingness to express their opinion and offer articulate feedback.

~~~
hs
I read an article saying that links from bloggers are less effective

Search engine and news aggregrator are better

~~~
fallentimes
As I mentioned in my post, it's not just about getting linked. It's about
receiving articulate feedback and/or spreading the word spread. If a blogger
in your industry writes about you, you're directly reaching out to your target
audience. Emailing bloggers is free and quick. Showing up high in a search
engine or building huge news aggregator following normally takes lots of time
or money.

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breck
In my experience, from best to ok:

1\. AdWords. AdWords is a no brainer. Find out the average revenue per visitor
from AdWords and set your CPC below this. Instant profits(after some trial and
error). The great thing about AdWords is you can get visitors and feedback
within hours. You can launch a site in a day and get a sample of how well it
will work.

2\. Organic Link Building. This is the creme de le creme. 2a. Getting a
blogger to write about you. New blog posts get picked up in search engines
pretty quick, which will improve your SER. Also initial visits from a well
read blog can be substantial. 2b. Social news sites(Digg, Reddit, Twitter,
etc.). I haven't mastered these yet, but are pretty effective even when you're
just starting out. Not only do they drive some traffic, some of them help with
SER. 2c. Commenting on blogs. This seems to also drive some initial traffic
and improve SER.

3\. Yahoo Search Marketing and Microsoft AdCenter. Same as AdWords except less
traffic. However, often the visitors from these sites will earn you more/sign
up more often.

4\. Viral strategies. Email campaigns, referrals, making silly YouTube clips.

5\. Main stream media. Gives you a short burst and then improved SER.

------
brm
Build something exceptional and be authentic while telling everyone you can
find about it.

~~~
rokhayakebe
That is right, but most of the time what is being built is really not anything
revolutionary. Then you end up being stuck trying to sell the same idea 50
other people are selling. I guess that is where creativity comes to play.

~~~
brm
There is a difference between exceptional and revolutionary. You don't have to
change the game you just have to build something that's better that what is
out there, look at google and search or flickr and photos. Neither of those
were revolutionary by any means but they were exceptional examples of what
they did.

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zacharye
That question is way too broad. What are you selling and to whom? What are
your goals - brand awareness, memebership boost, etc?

There is no one solution for every company and every product; web-based or
otherwise. [oversimplified:] I wouldn't recommend a racy viral YouTube
campaign to a company selling a revolutionary denture adhesive but it may work
wonders for a dating site...

~~~
auston
Funny that the only person who actually says something even semi-relevant is
downmodded.

Like Zacharye says, it's about your target. Are you selling something? are you
trying to attract advertisers? are you trying to drive signups?

I've found that, for some reason, driving user signups is HARDER than selling
something.

With selling, adwords, ysm and adcenter work very well!

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prateekdayal
I have found for my kind of business (www.Muziboo.com in music space) that
widgets that users put on their blogs drives good traffic back to the website.
In some ways widgets is like WOM .. if your friend puts one, you get a feeling
that he/she would have done some research abt the site

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pierrefar
The one routed in perseverance to serve your users the best. Serve them, and
they'll tell everyone else and do the marketing for you.

If you think about it, it's actually easier to reach and convince your users
than to get new users...

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vaksel
build something that your users will tell all their friends about

