So I have been experimenting with different marketing avenues for this blog and a few other websites of mine. So far the results seems quite weak.
Facebook PPC
It is important to A/B split test multiple versions of an AD and knowing this fact, I created at least 5 different variations when I started the first Facebook PPC campaign. I decided that I was not going to spend more than $100 total with Facebook. There are two primary reasons for this:
1.) My blog is brand new and there’s very little content.
2.) You cannot “buy” your readers if you want to retain them long-term, no matter how much you spend.
When it was all said and done, I spent a grand total of $78.81. I got a total of 75 clicks and very few subscribers from the entire campaign.
Lesson Learned.
I can come to the conclusion that the reason I got only very few subscribers from 75 new visitors was due to lack of content. I targeted 18-30 year old males that are interested in : marketing, blogging, affiliate marketing in the United States, Australia and United Kingdom. In the future when I run another Facebook PPC campaign, I will be sure to have at least 20 blog posts.
OnlyWire
I was quite impressed by the results of OnlyWire compared to Facebook PPC.
Here’s why:
1.) OnlyWire is free (The basic version)
2.) OnlyWire automatically posts your blog post/article to over 50+ social networking sites, which saves TONS of time.
3.) OnlyWire helps with building back-links, generate traffic, spark conversation and potentially gaining new subscribers.
I signed up for a account with OnlyWire and setup 31 services. Then, I posted one blog post from my blog and after just 15 minutes there was a conversation started on yelp.com (who knew yelp would generate traffic!) about my post with over 10+ comments in the first hour! I also got a little bit of traffic from Digg, Reddit & Stumbleupon as well.
Final Thoughts
Do not assume that paid campaigns can be more effective than free services out there. Creativity can be the only factor that depends on how you market your blog. Also, do not do any paid marketing for your blog when it is brand new. Wait until it has at least 10-20 quality posts. This will help you save money in the long-term and help you focus your energy on building a quality archive of helpful posts.
