Diary of a Market Hacker

On-line branding ….the wrong way

It’s been said before. “Banners don’t work anymore”

I partially agree. Banners don’t work effectively enough for most e-com companies to make them profitable. As a sole means of creating product awareness they may be a waste of time. Right now, the most effective means of building lasting product awareness on-line is through content. If you have a product that is worthy of review and you’re confident that it will generate positive feedback, send it out the top review sites in your niche. Request a link back with the terms that you want rank for in the anchor text. Guide the reviewer in understanding the value proposition of your product and ask them to write about it. You can usually get the product back so all you’ll be out is shipping. Following this up with text and banner ads will help reinforce what the customer has already read from a third party. You’ll also have lasting effects from the third party content and back links that bring in traffic and build organic rank. Both of which are “free” traffic sources that can convert well. You don’t have that with banners and PPC ads if you stop buying them.

Understand that people trust others to give opinion about your product, not you. By beating the bushes for content and reviews, you’ll leverage the content writers to build brand, trust and rank even without continuing to pay for it.