Marketing Q&A

Hi John, thanks for the question. Thought I'll re-post the answer to your question via PM again here for the benefit of other members too.

• The number of views on promotional articles vary a lot depending on the article's title, content, relevance, etc so there is no guarantee.
• Most promotional articles get an average of 400-500 views but we have seen ones that received over 3000 views in a period of a month.
• Promotional articles are shared across our broader networks too, and if it has good content, members tend to share it in theirs too. Good content tends to be more educational with a few helpful links (not too many I might add) to where they can get more help from you.
• Promotional articles are also shared in email digests and alongside relevant content, so it's a great way to get attention from those who are already interested in the subject.
• The best way to get maximum value on this platform is to demonstrate thought leadership by being helpful i.e. by blogging and answering questions genuinely without being seen as "spammy" or desperate for new business.
• We find that self-promotion is turning people off quickly, which doesn't help our experts at all.
• Our Q&A is designed for business owners to get good expert advice, and self-promotional questions, answers or comments are deleted immediately. In fact, good answers give you long tail exposure from organic search.

Hope this helps.

It depends how scalable and what type of niche your product is in. If you are a specialised b2b company you are only going to have a specific number of customers, for example if its a niche product with 1000 customers. If you are a main stream market like a mobile phone or a supermarket you can spend 150 million a year on advertising in Australia, yet the b2b might only spend $10,000. So my answer is it depends on the company.

Glen, so is branding a sub-section of marketing or vice versa? And is active promotion simply a form of advertising?

You can download at https://play.google.com/store Then simply type in SALES ANALYZER in the search facility - my colleague is Michael Tregonning (it is his IP) and was developed by the University of Ballarat Greg

What's important is to look at the Market, Message and Media triangle. Research your market to find out what they read, view, watch or listen to. Also find out what kind of message will appeal to them and what's the best media to convey the message. For example video is great for product demonstrations. In this case YouTube is a great choice. Marketing is all about testing, so it always pays to do do a small test first. What's also important is to use more than one medium. The most dangerous number in marketing is 1. As Dan Kennedy would say, "The question is not whether you can afford to use multiple media but how you can afford to use the media you need to get the results you desire."

Yes please. Thanks Wendy :-)

Interesting question - what's your experience @Eric Sutfin @Laura Tien ?