about the universe forum commander Shop Now Commanders Circle
Product List FAQs home Links Contact Us

Monday, December 11, 2006

E-Commerce and Web Marketing 101

MARKETING DIRECTOR VANESSA CLARK WRITES: Finding new ways to market is always a challenge. Common ways and inexpensive ways to market in today’s society are through E-Commerce and web marketing. Web banners are a great way to make the most of a small marketing budget provided you “shop” for ideal places to post the banners.

Some sites are outrageous in what they charge for advertising on their site when others are very reasonable. I’ve learned that cost sometimes has nothing to do with how much traffic there is, but mostly on the name, or more precisely, the “brand” of the site. Big name sites are more likely to cost more than something that may be popular but not necessarily a name brand.

When placing web banners it is also important to know basic terms like cost per image or cpi for short, whether or not the image is tif, jpeg, or a gif file and the sizes allowed. Something even more important is where the banner is pointing to. If it is a basic, more generic banner (for instance one of ours that just says “Federation Commander” and doesn’t specify Klingon Border or Romulan Border) would not necessarily go to our home page. A better place to point the “clicker” is to the “Federation Commander” game system’s page. If I were advertising the Star Fleet Universe, I would use our home page as a landing page, and if I were advertising Klingon Border, I would use the Klingon Border page as the landing page. This seems like basic common sense but it is a common error made by novice marketers.

Another great way to market a company and/or product is through Google AdWords and Yahoo Pay Per Click (essentially the same thing). This is where a company pays to be listed in the search engines and literally competes as to the position (found on the right side of the normal search results) of a particular search word or phrase. The key is not always being listed as the first, but in the top 3 for the least amount of money. What’s great about this type of advertising and exposure is that you are only charge IF the person searching “clicks” on your ad and you have the ability of setting a budget so that you don’t get a run-a-way train! You get exposure and name recognition with people who don't click on the ad but are interested in the general subject.

These are just a couple of helpful ways to market effectively on small budget!