Best way to advertise?

[Azure]

Say you got a great product, but nobody knows about it. Now you gotta go out there and advertise it to the world, or to YOUR market.

How do you do it?

[SeeBass]

first question-what is your target audience?

[Oil Stain]

Spray paint dogs/ homeless people.

[Northendzone]

old people rapping your jingle.........

[KTrain]

Tell CP what your product is. They'll either buy it or spread the word about it.

It worked great for Own This World.

[wpgflamesfan]

Originally Posted by KTrain

Tell CP what your product is. They'll either buy it or spread the word about it.

It worked great for Own This World.

I agree. Word of mouth is one of the most powerful marketing channel. However it can be both positive and negative depending on peoples opinions of your product.

[Azure]

I'm not really talking about any specific product.

Own This World did so well because CP might be the perfect place to market it. But the truth is nobody really uses a forum for 'advertising'...at least not to get the response you've gotten KTrain.

I'm looking for a more generic response. Radio, magazines, go to a show, newspaper, stuff like that.

For the sake or argument I'll say the product has something to do with the internet. Web 2.0 actually.

Perhaps a website even, like Facebook as an example.

Hell, lets just take Facebook. Great product, great idea, but how do you promote it? Assuming of course that you created Facebook, exactly like it is right now, but nobody knows about it. What steps do you take to start marketing it.

[JiriHrdina]

Really this question can't be answered without a detailed description of the product and target audience. There is no "best way" - it depends on each situation.

And of course money.

What's the budget? Endless?

[Regulator75]

Everyone loves internet adds that play LOUD sounds when you scroll your mouse over them...

Hellllllllllloooooooooooooooo!

[Tyler]

Go viral.

Post about it on well trafficked internet boards. Create a twitter account, follow as many people and get as many RT and followers as you can. Set up a facebook page, add all of your friends. Create a youtube channel demonstrating your project and encourage people to subscribe to your feed.

[Shazam]

Hot chicks in bikinis. Or even without.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Tyler

Go viral.

Post about it on well trafficked internet boards. Create a twitter account, follow as many people and get as many RT and followers as you can. Set up a facebook page, add all of your friends. Create a youtube channel demonstrating your project and encourage people to subscribe to your feed.

I've read, and heard about this many times, and I wonder if it actually works.

Twitter, Facebook, a blog, etc, etc.....stuff like that seems to work really well ONCE your product is established, and people come look YOU up, instead of you going on a mass spree of adding anyone and everyone and spamming them with messages.

Maybe its just me, but I have a Twitter account that I prefer to only use for hockey insiders and certain other people I want to follow. And yet people from who knows where add me, and I often check out their stuff and I realize what they're trying to do, but I hardly show interest.

Same thing with Facebook. My friends aren't exactly a market I would try to get into, so why should I go on a mass adding spree and spam their pages with messages about what I have to offer?

Unless it does work. I don't know.

[Reggie Dunlop]

You and a buddy get dressed up in matching white shirts and dark ties and go door to door holding pamphlets.

[Flames0910]

There is no one best way. In fact, often the best way is a combination of a whole bunch of different ways. Google "Integrated Marketing Communications" and something might come up (idk, never searched it)

People talk about using Twitter and Facebook because they're big right now and it "doesn't cost anything" but its a lot of work and isn't for everybody. It can pay off if it's a good fit but that's what your looking at for a lot of different mediums - do they fit with your brand/strategy/product? And secondly, will they help to reach your desired audience?

If you have something specific in mind or want to talk about this more, I just graduated with a Marketing degree from UofC. Send me a PM.

[zamler]

Originally Posted by Reggie Dunlop

You and a buddy get dressed up in matching white shirts and dark ties and go door to door holding pamphlets.

Win. Or you get the guy that goes door to door selling Filter Queen vacuum cleaners. That guy can sell anything.

Seriously though, without knowing specifically what your product or service is, can't give a good answer.

[KTrain]

Facebook used the idea of scarcity to market their product. They started the website as exclusive to select Harvard students. Then expanded slowly within the school. Then it was exclusive to people with .edu emails. That it was an exclusive site made people want to join. It's stupid, but it worked. Once they had a bunch of users it just snowballed.

Have a great product, treat your customers awesome and word of mouth will take care of the rest. Don't over extend yourself or the product more than you handle.

Twitter has had a bunch of issues with servers not being able to handle the amount of users they had during their boom. It could have hampered their product more than it did.

The producer of the DoDo case for the iPad is in this predicament. They handmake all their cases and kept taking orders even though they couldn't keep up with production and couldn't receive their money from Google checkout without the customers receiving their products. I'm not sure if they've resolved it yet or not.

Slow and steady growth isn't necessarily a bad thing when starting a business. It gives you a chance to sort out the bugs and get your systems and procedures in order.

Like I said before: Have a great product, treat your customers awesome and word of mouth will take care of the rest.

[Incogneto]

I work in radio, and I find it to be an AWESOME place to advertise...IF you are hitting the right target. The good thing about the Calgary radio market is that you can basically figure out your demographic, and match that with the correct station.

If you want to know more, PM me and I'd be more than willing to sit down with you to tell you more about advertising on radio.

[Pinner]

Wow, I thought radio salesmen were a stereotype from the 70's,

[Iceman90]

I work for an advertising and marketing agency. I can tell you that there is no "best way" to advertise. It'll all depend on your product, target audience, geographic targets, timelines, budget, etc.

With Facebook, they initially marketed it at college students. The creator of Facebook (Mark Zuckerberg) saw it as a great way to pick up chicks. They had one college (the school Mark attended) to start with, and then as the word spread, they started letting more colleges join, until pretty much any post secondary student could join. Once the demand soared, they opened the service to everyone.

Facebook doesn't do much marketing these days. They let their users be their endorsements, and bring in other users. Facebook makes money by selling ads to their users.

[bcb]

The side of a bus works great, if you're selling Atheism.