Using the internet to spread the word

19/06/2007 by Tony Attwood.

For several years I have argued that the way to use the internet as a method of marketing is not to use Google’s Adwords and the like, but instead to put up lots of relevant content on the internet and so capture the passing reader.
 
As an example I have tried to do this myself by creating some 20 or more separate web sites to do with different aspects of direct mail, while running this blog, and the four newsgroups (Direct Mail Secrets and the like).
 
Now in one of the most excellent pieces of research I have ever seen relating to selling on the internet MarketingExperiments.com have compared the hiring an employee to blog, create content, and in general work to drive traffic to sites, with the much simpler approach of using Google Adwords to drive targeted traffic to the web site.
 
The research took place over 12 months and in summary the research showed that the blogs / text / discussion approach yielded more than 93,000 visits to the site.
 
This was compared with a 30-day test of Google Adwords, bidding up to 75 cents per click on a variety of keywords related to the test websites which drove 2,047 users to the site at a cost of $1,250 (£625). So this compares with the “word-of-mouth” efforts which yielded 93,207 unique visitors at a cost of $3600 (£1800).
 
Thus as Marketing Experiments.com points out, the word of mouth approach yielded a 1427% greater return on investment than the GoogleAd approach.
 
As the report says however, pay-per-click advertising was a much easier to run and was much quicker, but it was much more expensive and gave a much lower return on investment. It doesn’t say it, but in essence, all you need to do is hire someone to do the work - so its not that much harder. I personally think this is a really informative piece of research and I would urge everyone to look at it.
 
I am so grateful to Marketing Experiments Journal because at last we have some firm evidence for the notion that maximising content is the way forward.
 
Mailing Information Service (range of web sites created by Hamilton House Mailings plc): www.theory.bz - scroll down the home page.
 
Marketing  Experiments (who undertook this research)
 
http://www.MarketingExperiments.Com
 
MarketingExperiments.com
Digital Trust Inc. 412 First Street North Jacksonville Beach, FL 32250, USA

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