The Perfect Campaign

Online advertising is accomplished using just a few essential tools that I want to tell you about today. But first, a brief update on the state of my PTC business following the “Rise and Fall of NerdBux.”

This is DAY 232 of “The Amazing Tale.” You recall I’ve talked about maintaining a “portfolio” of PTCs as a way to spread risk across multiple income streams. (See “What’s in YOUR Portfolio.”) NerdBux was the gem in my portfolio, earning about as much as all the other PTCs combined. Half my earnings were coming from that one PTC.

Consequently my PTC business has taken a hit.

I fully expect it will recover, but it will take significantly longer to reach the profit point than I was anticipating prior to the NerdBux sale. Compare the numbers today with how I was doing back on Day 211.

NerdBux is not dead — I continue to log in every day and it looks like the new owner, Jeffrey Johnson, is doing everything that needs to be done to save the site, unpopular as some of his moves have been.

At the same time, I’ve noticed that other sites are rising — most notably Ojooo and ProBux. There are lots of ads and everybody is clicking. I can’t tell if it’s just coincidence or if there’s been a mass migration of PTCers from NerdBux to these other sites, but they are now my top performers. If these two are not yet in your PTC portfolio, add them today.

So that’s what’s happening in PTCs. Now on to the topic for today: essentials for online advertising.

ESSENTIAL TOOLS

There are only four essential tools you need for online marketing. I’ll show you what they are and how to put them together to create “The Perfect Campaign.” Regardless of the business opportunity you are promoting or the products you are selling, you will use these four essential tools to make your online marketing come alive and build your business.

These tools are not free. You will need to budget and pay for them monthly or yearly, so your business will have expenses. That is normal, and it is near impossible to build a profitable income-earning business without some ongoing expenses. (Reread “Spending Money to Make Money” and “Simple Business” if you still think you can earn without spending.)

What are the four core advertising tools used to create and run successful online marketing campaigns?

1. Website – A WordPress blog for communicating your story to your followers. Also home for all your ad pages.
2. Creative – Art/Photo/Text creation and processing tools for designing and building ad pages and illustrating blog posts.
3. Autoresponder – For sequencing a series of emails with links back to your blog; and for sending out “broadcast” messages to all your subscribers.
4. Tracking – Counting the “hits” (page views) and “conversions” (clicks and form submissions) your ad pages achieve, and where the traffic is coming from.

FIRST, A RANT

Your online business starts with web hosting. You will need a place on the internet to present your business, connect with prospects, publish your ad pages, and make sales.

I will tell you right up front that cheap or free web hosting simply doesn’t qualify — you won’t be able to build a business on lousy web hosting. I’ve seen so much money wasted on poor web hosting — slow or fragmented page delivery, domain name screw-ups, hacked sites, complex backends, no customer support, frequent and extended downtime — I just shake my head in disbelief.

If you think $2.50 or $5.00 per month is “good enough” then please, don’t even bother. Go look for a job and be an employee. Ok, that’s my rant — now more about excellent web hosting and WordPress.

“Get a Webmaster with Your WordPress”

I am the owner and webmaster at Oakley Studio, LLC a web site design and hosting firm located in Goshen, Indiana. If you want quick load times, reliable delivery, great customer support, and a webmaster you can call any time day or night, please contact me right now: 574-707-0194 (or email peteo@oakleystudio.com)

I started my business way back in 1996, as the internet and the world wide web were just ramping up. Back then I was doing contract technical work for America Online, the largest commercial online service at the time. When the web came along, I learned how to design and build web sites. I learned programming to connect web sites to databases, and developed one of the first ecommerce systems on the internet. My very first client was my sister, who operates a home-based business selling Christmas Stockings. Today I provide domain name management, web site hosting, site design and programming, technical support, and training for about a dozen other small business clients.

These days custom web site design is a very expensive proposition. It can cost $5,000 or more to design and build a new custom web site. Fortunately WordPress has come along in recent years to address the needs of home-based entrepreneurs. WordPress is a web site blogging platform that is customizable, extensible, and will grow as your business grows.

I love WordPress! And I’d love to show you how to make WordPress the marketing hub for your online business. I offer an unbeatable WordPress Package that includes your domain name registration, site setup, and five hours of one-on-one personalized tutorials with your webmaster (me!) to get you up and running fast. Normally $298 for these services, this package saves you $74. It’s just $224 complete.

Once your site goes live you will pay $10 per month for ongoing web hosting, domain name email service, traffic analysis, secure backup, and more. To see everything else that is included free with your monthly hosting, see our Oakley Studio Pricing Page.

YOUR ADVERTISING

Your web hosting is also where you will publish your stand-alone ad pages. In a “Perfect Ad Campaign,” your advertising pages will invite people to subscribe to your email list, and then you can follow up with an autoresponder series of email messages that all include links back to your WordPress web site.

In upcoming blog posts, I’ll go into more detail about how to create those ad pages; how an autoresponder works, and why it is such a powerful tool for online marketing. And we’ll explore tracking — how to monitor your ad campaigns and figure out what’s working (and what’s not) to drive customers to your business and make money.