There are literally hundreds of ways to get a return on investment from online marketing. What really matters is that you choose the best methods that will work for your specific product or website. The first thing you will want to think about is whether you will be investing your own time or leveraging other people’s time and expertise. Hold up, though. Before you consider either option, remember to set up your tracking.
If you’re not tracking where your sales come from, how do you know which methods of online marketing are working and which ones are not? When it comes to getting ROI on anything, it is essential to know what investments yield a return. All forms of marketing have a certain element of trial and error. The real mistake comes from repeating these errors as a result of not tracking your success…or lack thereof. Whatever you do, be sure to use tracking URLS and set up your Google Analytics.
Now, for those who do not have a lot of cash to spend but have all the time in the world, consider investing ‘time’ by doing simple forms of SEO work for yourself. Write articles with back links to your website. Participate in relevant forums to your industry with back links. Answer questions on YahooAnswers or AnswerBag – again, be sure to embed your back link. Remember, every back link should be done with tracking URLS.
Tracking URLS such as bit.ly provide customized links that give you the stats on where and how often your links are clicked. Of course, while all of this will eventually yield a return on your time invested, it will take much time and effort before you will see the results. The best way to get ROI from online marketing is to leverage other peoples’ time and expertise.
I’m talking about outsourcing. Outsource the services of those who are good at writing unique, search engine optimized articles. Outsource the services of professional online marketers who know the ins and outs of pay-per-click and pay-per-view advertising. Trying to figure out these methods by yourself will end up costing far more time and money in the long run. Focus instead on leveraging other peoples’ efforts into local online marketing options for your company. When you invest in leveraging other people’s time and expertise while making sure to track what works and what doesn’t, you will undoubtedly get a return on investment.
Contributed by Ryan Chaffin, currently a college student majoring in Business Marketing. He loves anything technology, internet, and social media related along with sports and health & wellness. You can find Ryan on Twitter (@ryanchaffin).
