Advertising And Marketing: Finally, A Plan!

First things first. Let's define the two. Advertising is theThis technique will also work in that forum. Simply alter
act of getting your message in front of an audience.your URL, as described above in each of your
There are any number of ways to do this, but that'sdifferent promo letters and you're able to track which
really not the theme of this message. Being able toones produce the most traffic. Then discard the ones
track a sale backwards to the advertising thatthat don't produce. Just as you will the e-zine,
produced it, is.newsletter, or banner campaign that's not paying its
Second, marketing is the overall process you use toway.
promote your products and services. This includesAs an added bonus, you can do exactly the same
advertising, but is in no way limited to that. Again, thetype of thing with e-mail responses, rather than having
idea here is not to talk about marketing techniques, but10 different response addresses.
the methods you can use to track their success.You place an ad with an e-mail link or have an e-mail
The very nature of the Internet provides you with alink rather than a URL attached to a banner or any
variety of unique tracking methods. At its very simplest,other response link. As in the URL example you vary
you can produce 10 separate web pages to advertisethe link according to where it will be seen.
in 10 different forums.EXAMPLE: Ad running in 4 E-Zines
Example: You have a page selling widgets, and you1st one has e-mail link here: 2nd one has e-mail link
want to do a banner campaign with 10 differenthere: 3rd one has e-mail link here: 4th one has e-mail
banners. You can create 10 mirror pages i.e.link here:
Widgets.html, Widgets1.html, Widgets2.html etc, etc.As you can, see the reply you receive has a different
In this way a different URL is associated with each oftext in the subject field. This allows you to track where
the different banners you send out, and your able toyour responses are coming from.
track which banner is producing the most traffic.No matter which way you choose to track your
There is a much simpler, and less time intensive waypromotional efforts, it's important that DO track them.
however, to achieve that same result.You can waste countless hours and dollars on a
You have your index page and rather than mirroring itstrategy that is actually producing no results. You may
10 times you simply add ?Widgets1 , ?Widgets2,well find that the less costly method works as well if
?Widgets3, etc, to the URL you add to the linknot better than the one that cost you an arm and a
associated with each banner.leg.
TEST IT HERE:Again, it matters not which method you choose, it only
Even though the same page is served up to yourmatters that you choose one and use it faithfully. You'll
visitors, your server logs treat it as 10 different pages!be surprised how much information you will have at
You can use this method to track any type ofyour disposal.
campaign, not just banners. If you were to advertise in"Your Success Is Our Success"jbp
a publication such as this one (HIGHLY[ jim Peters is Manager of NSI "SOLUTIONS". NSI
RECOMMENDED, by the way), as well as others,specializes in custom website design, promotion,
using the same URL in all of them, you would have nomaintenance, domain registration , site hosting , graphic
way of knowing that 80% of the traffic produceddesign, as well as e-commerce packages for small to
from those ads came from here. If however you usedmedium sized companies. In other words
a different URL ?index2, ?index3, etc., you would know"SOLUTIONS". Copyright © 2004 by NetServe
which ad drew how much traffic.International, Inc.
Do you use (LEGAL) e-mail methods to advertise?