You have to spend money to make money, or so they say. "They" must not have seen my bank balance. A lot of us are in the same boat. We want to make money so we can advertise more so that we can make more money. It is a never ending processes. One which you will have to eventually start if you want to be a successful business. Even companies like Coke and Pepsi spend millions and millions of dollars every year to advertise their products.
This blog has AdWords ads. Small ads appear on the page and if you click on them I make a few cents. Actually even if you do not click on some of the ads and enough people read my blog and have an ad in front of them I might make a few cents. There are two ways that AdWords work. Cost per view and cost per click.
Cost per view means that you pay a small amount for your ad to be shown. It could be clicked on many times but you still only pay a flat rate per impression. Usually you pay per 1000 impressions. The other way, your ad is placed as many times as it takes to get a click, and you only pay for the click, not the amount of times your ad shows up.
Facebook and Google AdWords both are very similar. You are generally bidding for the impression or the click based on the popularity of the key words. The really great thing about both of them is that you set your budget so that you do not go over a certain amount of money. The other great thing is that you can get very targeted in who you advertise to.
One person I know has his ads targeted to only show up on Facebook pages of people who like his competition. That is about as targeted as you can get. It really seems to work for him too. He started out with a $50 a month budget and he is up to a $200 a month budget because he is making back his advertising dollars in a big way. The more he spends the more he makes.
Google and Facebook are just a couple of ways to advertise. You can also buy impressions on blogs or on webzines. I could talk about the different ways to advertise until the cows come home but what it really boils down to is this:
1. Set a budget
2. Target your market
3. Track your progress
4. Rinse and repeat
My advertising campaign, when I can afford it, will consist of placing some ads on Facebook and in magazines that fall within my target market. There are several Renaissance themed magazines that I could advertise in and I will more than likely pick the ones that give you an ad on their website as well as in print.
I would like to hear what advertising has worked for you. Please feel free to leave a comment or send me an email to marketmyshop@gmail.com
I have advertised on facebook, but I must say it didn't bring me the results I expected (0 sales).
ReplyDeleteI have a full time job which is completely unrelated to arts and crafts so I have not yet produced too many items to feel comfortable with major advertising, but I'm working on it..
Thanks for the interesting post!
Carla
I have read it is better to advertise on Facebook AFTER you already have a base of at least a few hundred fans. I didn't know this at the time and purchased an ad when I had just started my fan page. It was only a $50 ad, but I don't think it helped me much but to add a few fans that may or may not have stayed over the long haul. It's better to tweak your fan page and make it they way you want ti first, filling it with interesting content, before trying to advertise it as a place for fun interaction.
ReplyDelete@Carla I'm like you. I have a day job and run a shop online. I advertised on both Google and Facebook before and that bought me no sales. Could it be because I didn't set a specific target audience? I found it just very financially draining when you don't have much to start with. I placed an ad on craftcult.com as well, that increase a lot of views and likes and no sales.
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