What are the free and paid methods to promote your product?

[Kay Huang]

Hi, I'm very new to affiliate marketing. I don't have any experience in promoting products yet. I want to know what are the common ways to do promotion, free and paid methods. And how do you decide which way is best for a certain product? Which way is better, free or paid promotions? Hope people can share their experiences. Thanks.

 

[Dr. Forum]

Hi @KayHuang. The best and free methods for you to promote the products you sell or manufacture are social media. That is facebook, instagram, twitter, YouTube among others. Try and take a study by logging into your facebook account and see how many people are currently online. The social media is a place where you will know the people and the needs they have based on what they post. In Facebook, you can market the product in the groups related to that product. For a start, I will recommend that you use free promoting methods.

 

[Kay Huang]

Thanks Dr.Forum. Are advertising on social media free methods? I thought you have to pay to place an ad on Facebook?

 

[azgold]

Thanks Dr.Forum. Are advertising on social media free methods? I thought you have to pay to place an ad on Facebook?

There are likely ways to promote a niche for free, without actual ads but I don't know much about FB, it would be best for you to search for FB threads and read some more.

I've personally....on occasion only....used a direct link on Twitter and YT without incident. Mostly though, I link to a specific post on my blog that has the direct links in it.

I think if you were to bombard any of the platforms with links, you'll get flagged or banned. Build relationships with your followers and they'll be more tolerant and trusting.

 

[affilirant]

If you want quick results paid is better, free will give you results but take longer to see the results.

Some free methods I have used or still use:
Youtube - With such a huge audience why not tap into it for free creating videos.
Twitter - Popular social media & when you start getting more followers it can be good way to get exposure.
SEO - Ranking high in Google takes time and effort but can be worth it as it has the majority market share as everyone uses the big G
Article Marketing - Creating articles and uploading them to article database is a good way to get visitors
Blog Commenting - Commenting on blogs related to your niche which will link back to your webpage/landing page
Forums - Add a signature link

Paid methods I use:
PPC - My favourite type of traffic at the moment because its so easy to scale up or down and have so much control over targeting etc.
PPV - Same as above that it can be easily scaled and targeted to your needs
Facebook Ads - Its also PPC but can be easier to test out campaigns, I have found that it all depends what you promote depends on how well they do.
Solo Ads -Depending on you niche this can be the quickest and easiest way to build an email list.
Banner Ads - Place your banners on websites related to you niche

I personally would recommend using both if you can as both work but I mostly use and prefer paid traffic because its easier to get instant results and easier to scale up or down depending on your budget.

I also find a lot of free methods to be mundane tasks as it takes more effort and time. You can always outsource many of the mundane tasks but then it stops being free traffic since your paying someone to do it for you.

 

[Kay Huang]

Thanks Rob Montgomery for the explanations. Is PPC & PPV place ads on Google or Bing? Most people would place Bing ads because Google ads are too expensive, is that right?

What about YouTube ads? Every time before we watch a video there would be an advertise video, that is a way to promote as well?

There are so many different types of way to promote. How do we know which is the best way to promote for a certian product? Do we test each way and then decide depend on which way gets the best result? Is tracking results an important part as well?

 

[affilirant]

Thanks Rob Montgomery for the explanations. Is PPC & PPV place ads on Google or Bing? Most people would place Bing ads because Google ads are too expensive, is that right?

What about YouTube ads? Every time before we watch a video there would be an advertise video, that is a way to promote as well?

There are so many different types of way to promote. How do we know which is the best way to promote for a certian product? Do we test each way and then decide depend on which way gets the best result? Is tracking results an important part as well?

PPC is ads such as Google or Bing, PPV is pop under or banner advertising. If your starting out in PPC then I wouldn't recommend going with Google Adwords as yes it can be expensive while testing to get a good working campaign, you can always transfer over your campaigns at a later stage this is just my opinion.

Kay there are many ways to get traffic and you could overwhelm yourself with information overload if you haven't already, sometimes its better to stop reading and instead take action, you will never know what works until you test it yourself this is the best way to understand for yourself by getting hands on.

I don't use all the traffic methods at once the ones that I mentioned are what I have used in the past, at the moment I am actually only using PPC and this is where all my budget currently goes.

 

[Prince.AdSenceMedia]

Hi, I'm very new to affiliate marketing. I don't have any experience in promoting products yet. I want to know what are the common ways to do promotion, free and paid methods. And how do you decide which way is best for a certain product? Which way is better, free or paid promotions? Hope people can share their experiences. Thanks.

You are welcome at AdSenceMedia.com a lot of offers with multiple verticals with high payout with great CR% - EPC.
thanks.

 

[Dr. Forum]

Hi, I'm very new to affiliate marketing. I don't have any experience in promoting products yet. I want to know what are the common ways to do promotion, free and paid methods. And how do you decide which way is best for a certain product? Which way is better, free or paid promotions? Hope people can share their experiences. Thanks.

Hi, the best free methods to be able to promote your products are the top social media platforms. They provide you with active users which you can easily convert into loyal customers. Making use of Youtube, facebook and instagram among other will be a great plus to you. There are times when you will consider either free or paid marketing platforms and at times employing both. It depends on several factors. But first it is better if you built your social network.

 

[JamesRyan]

I'm not a big fan of free methods because I like to focus on volume. I've been doing pretty well with Facebook Ads and email marketing.

 

[Red]

I'll give you my experience from marketing my businesses in the past and my experience thus far affiliate marketing.

On Facebook/Google Plus - join groups and "like" pages relevant to your niche. Join the conversations and become part of the community. In casual conversation bring up your products/services where it fits in the conversation and provide a link to the appropriate post/page on your website. If you want to post direct affiliate links, use bit.ly or goo.gl to shorten the links. Social media sites are cracking down on affiliate links.

On Twitter - find hashtags relevant to your niche and join the conversation, similar to facebook or google plus, if there is an active conversation. Where appropriate, provide a relevant link (again, use bit.ly or goo.gl for direct affiliate links). If there isn't a current conversation you can join, simply type out a tweet with relevant link and use the hashtags. But don't overdue the hashtags in a single tweet. On occasion your tweet will start a conversation. Try to respond as quickly as you can and be informative as possible (without being to pushy) of the product/service. Your tweets may also get ReTweeted. Retweets and conversations help build you as an authority, which in can help boost organic traffic.

I personally have the best results with twitter. But as has been stated, using this route alone works but it takes time. You need to build trust with the communities. As more people trust you, you'll become an authority in your niche; which will see an increase in traffic over time and an increase in conversions.

I do have a presence on other social media, but I'm not as active on them as I am on Facebook, G+, and Twitter. So I can only help with those three.

Please understand unless you already have an audience in your niche, this is going to take time to see results. Don't give up and try not to overwhelm yourself.