Best/Cheapest Way to Advertise Small E-Shop
Discussion
johnvthe2nd said:
klootzak said:
What sort of products are you selling and do you have any customers yet?
k
http://www.veetwelve.co.uk/k
I'm just guessing, mind
I'm in advertising don't you know. None of that working stuff for us. No sir.
k
johnvthe2nd said:
klootzak said:
What sort of products are you selling and do you have any customers yet?
k
http://www.veetwelve.co.uk/k
I'm just guessing, mind
As for customers, a few here and there from group buys on other forums, but nothing serious. I like the creative side of it all, I'm just useless at the marketing!
Dupont666 said:
so you go on forums and ask and hope people buy and do that as free advertising?
You what? The only ones I've sold via forums were at cost and with permission. They were site specific designs too.I'm assuming that you were having a dig.
One second.
Yep, this is PH; you were having a dig, weren't you?
On the basis that you are, in fact, selling tee-shirts here are some options.
Cheap, haphazard and slow ...
Start a Twitter feed for the business and follow some likely people (existing customers and friends will do to start). Tweet some links to specific designs.
Add "Follow us on twitter" and other tags to your home page, add "Share" links for twitter, facebook etc on every product page.
Get the sites and forums that you've done group buys for to carry links to your website (give them a commission/margin for promoting to their members)
Give your existing customers an incentive for referrals.
Make sure your site is optimised for Google (and that the tee-shirt images are hosted and described in a way that will show up on Google's image search.
More expensive, still slow and haphazard, but more effective ...
Send some tee-shirt samples (and photos of the whole range) to various car magazines. Get someone to write a half-decent press release for you (ie one that can be used without being re-written by the mag). If only one mag gives you a mention, it'll probably be worth the cost.
You could offer some tee-shirts up as a prize for some kind of magazine competition. You'll probably have to work out the competition mechanics though.
Even more expensive ...
Buy some advertising. Start with enthusiast run websites (the media costs are usually far lower than commercially run sites). You could probably get a bare-bones schedule together for a couple of grand. You will need to develop some creative for this, a Flash banner or maybe just a GIF tile, that would add some cost.
Perhaps put a couple of ads in relevant magazines would be useful, but they can be incredibly hit and miss and you won't see a lot of change from 5 grand, even for a very limited campaign (think 30k or more to make some impact) .
Very expensive ...
Big TV campaign, international shoot, location catering, runner to supply "fruit and flowers" throughout the day (100k to however many million you feel like spending).
Personally, I favour the last approach.
k
EBay is probably the answer. Yes, it's expensive. Yes it has significant shortcomings. But, it has a huge amount of footfall and is the best way to get some critical mass. Most of the fees are linked to the actual sale too, so you don't have to write huge advertising cheques.
I would suggest it should be your first port of call.
I would suggest it should be your first port of call.
When you are sending T-shirts to magazines and places also send them to the owners of any well known blogs and enthusiast websites that serve your target market. Any places that have a large following for things car based (e.g. PH) as not only might you get some advertising but they may also place a link to your website which will help push you up the Google rankings.
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