19 replies to this topic

[Randy]

Whoa ! A blast from the past !

Welcome sdumae !

[scouseflip]

I'd always have to put PPC at the top - it's the most easily controllable way of guarenting some sort of visabillity and if it's done well I think that even a limited budget can acheive fantastic results.

Depending on how much you spend on your SEO (I was once quoted around £50k for the SEO of a 3 page brochure request site!) I agree it can generate an unparralleled return, but you are living with the constant possibility that your positions/traffic could decline or dissappear as ultimatley you don't have control of it. (And I guess that is why we so often hear the moderators and members here advising people that relying only on SEO is a risky business model)

BTW I'm not suggesting you should just rely on PPC either! The company I work for did so sucessfuly for many years but:
1) the online marketplace has become a lot more competetive in that time
2) it won't nessecerily be the same for different businesses (ours is more of a niche industry and as such can be less competetive than many others)

[Sahara Reins]

Here's my 2 cents worth:

Email marketing
Information marketing (free Ebooks)
Blogs
Article submissions
Ezines
SEO
Press Release

Sahara

[mikenet]

Thats a good one sdumae, you did gather on a explanation there. Well, in my opinion PPC would be #1. There is nothing like a campaign on that.Well. press release and articles would also count....but not at the top....

[nethy]

I think we need to put these lists into contexts. And also have a look at what exactly we are ranking.
- Expenditure/Effort? (PPC #1 in most cases),
- ROI (email marketing #1 in most cases)
- Volume/Top Traffic Generator/Top (insert goal here): (SEO or PPC #1 in most cases)

But then some of these may not be applicable in many cases. Email marketing is one of the top ROI performers in many industries. But it just isn't always applicable.

I think one of the things about utilizing a lot of these methods is that the marketing needs to be much more integrated into the way the company/marketing strategy 'is.' "Search is great but you can't advertise Coke with search"