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 Replies: 19 / Views: 3,423 |
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Valued Member
United States
438 Posts |
Hi Everybody! I promised to give results of my Coin World website advertising campaign, so here we go. The ad ran for 3 months, from mid-October through mid-January. It was a banner ad that ran across the top of their website. The Coin World designers did a great job of making an attractive and attention getting ad for me. The cost was $500 per month, for a total of $1500 invested. The results were that I only received one direct click on the ad each day on average. In addition, looking at my website statistics, I found that the searches on Google and other search engines for my company name increased by about 120 per month, or four per day on average. So the total daily activity appears to be about five new visitors, one clicking on the ad and four searching for the company by name. That would be a cost of about $3 per visitor, which seems pretty steep to me. Next I may try running a banner ad on Numismatic News, but that is not definite yet. Any suggestions where else I should be looking at advertising? ACE Mike |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
Really a tuff question with so many web sites, magazines, books, newsletters, TV adds and on and on and on. Many people go to Google and type in Coin shows, Coin forums, Coin dealers and they get virtually millions of places to go. You could try contacting Whitman and see if you could get an add in the next Red Book which is supposed to be coming out in April. Go to every coin show you can find and leave flyers all over the place. That is done by me all the time. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5823 Posts |
Facebook.
Twitter.
LinkedIn.
Create introductory pages there with link to your site. Did you gain enough customers to garner the cost from the ad?
Edited by macmercury
02/01/2011 10:11 pm
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Valued Member
 United States
438 Posts |
I certainly was hoping for more. I am pretty certain that the $1500 investment was not nearly recovered. That's kind of why I am looking for alternatives.
I have heard of the facebook, twitter, and linkedin, but was under the impression that unless you spend a lot of time on those sites you will not get any action.
ACE Mike
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
Quote:
Posted Yesterday 10:21 pm
I have heard of the facebook, twitter, and linkedin, but was under the impression that unless you spend a lot of time on those sites you will not get any action.
ACE Mike
And that is really true also. Those sites are becoming like Google where so many people are on them, you could just be wasting your time. Lost in the millions of posters, cranks, kids, etc. Your in a really tuff situation since your trying to jump in on something that many, many others are also trying to jump in on and all at the same time. Good luck anyway. |
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Moderator
 United States
187834 Posts |
Quote:
I have heard of the facebook, twitter, and linkedin... They definitely have the traffic, but is it the right audience? Probably not. Their ads are targeted based on the members' profiles, their discussion with friends, and other activity on the site (including searches). I have never seen anyone on those social networking sites openly declare or discuss coin collecting; of course, I have never searched for such activity their either. |
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Valued Member
United States
438 Posts |
Thanks for the input! I figured that my time and $$ were best used on a website populated by collectors, or at least those with some interest in coins. That is why I kind of focused on Coin World and Numismatic News. As jbuck mentioned, it would potentially be difficult to connect with collectors on the social networks. I had sort ot considered trying twitter, simply offering an occasional special deal. I could tweet: 1919-S Lincoln Cent ICG MS-63 RB Greysheet = $130 Sale = $120 or something like that for example. I don't know how well that would work, but I suppose it would not cost much of anything other than a bit of time. Of course then the problem is finding people who would be interested in receiving such tweets. ACE Mike |
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Moderator
United States
187834 Posts |
With Twitter, you would just post on your website to "Follow us on Twitter!"
Then tweet those specials to them; like an e-mail blast, but quicker and more direct. This would probably apply to Facebook as well (Like us on Facebook!) but I doubt you will attract as many followers there.
Basically, it would only benefit those that already know who you are (that have visited your site already).
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2669 Posts |
You could write articles in a blog on your site. This takes a time investment, as they really should be done on an ongoing basis, but your articles could be picked up by other sites and linked back to that way. It takes time to build incoming links, but it's worth it if you keep it up. You can also post links to the articles to Digg and other sharing sites to give them more exposure. Blogs can be subscribed to with an RSS reader, and you could always put your latest deal in your post then tweet "check out xx article for this week's special". Both the blog subscribers and those following on twitter would get the news. Google ads can be targeted locally and/or only for certain keywords. You're able to set a maximum daily/monthly cost for the ads and run a few test campaigns to see if that would work for you. You could ask sites that have local or national dealer lists to add you. Other sites might be willing to link to you if you link to them. Also.. if you allow your site images to be used under a Creative Commons Attribution license (allows others to use your images *if* proper attribution on where it came from is made), you could get incoming links from sites using your images. This runs the risk of bandwidth hogs, though, as some people don't know they should upload the image to their own server instead of linking directly to the one on yours. Giving directions on how and why to copy to their own site would help alleviate that. Just a few ideas  |
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Valued Member
United States
438 Posts |
Wow, lots of good stuff! I actually already have about 50 articles on my website that I have written, as well as the contents of the last 15 years of our local coin club's newsletter (over 1000 pages total) located there. As for images, I have over 40,000 coin images on the site now, with a notation that others are free to use them with a link back. Bandwidth is not much of an issue as my website host gives a fairly generous monthly allocation. I do use google adwords, which runs about $150 per month, and I think is worth that amount. Unfortunately most of the people who do a google search are simply trying to figure out if they are going to retire in Florida or Hawaii when they sell the 1921 Morgan dollar that they inherited from their grandfather. However, google provides a lot of exposure, so again I feel it is worth the roughly $150 I spend there each month. I have the account geographically limited to the USA only as I do not ship internationally. One are that xshift mentions that I really need to work on is getting listed on more dealer lists. That usually works well for me as my company name begins with an A, which usually places me near the top. Thanks again for all of the ideas about how to proceed. ACE Mike |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
958 Posts |
Start a ebay store, List a few coins with 30 day buy it now to get some cheap advertising and also some 10 day auctions. Each page should be a advertisement for your ebay store and website . Throw on some common silver auctions , lots of people buying silver so when they click your auction they can see your store and website with you other listings. Have auctions for old,new,errors,rare, what every stuff you have to get a wide array of customers. This will be some cheap eazy advertising |
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Valued Member
United States
438 Posts |
Coppertop, I thought about ebay, of course, but was always turned off by the high fees and expenses. The way to go, as you mention, is to basically list one item in each of several categories, just to try to get noticed. I would imagine that I would probably have to list at least $50 to $100 or so items to even be noticed. Another listing for a 1907 Indian cent in VG is never going to show up on anybody's search. Thanks, ACE Mike |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4000 Posts |
Quote:
I figured that my time and $$ were best used on a website populated by collectors, or at least those with some interest in coins. Like here? Why don't you put a link to your website in your signature line like macmercury has done.  I'd like to visit your store. |
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Valued Member
United States
438 Posts |
Working on that... I still need a few more posts.
If you meant actually advertising on this forum - I tried. I clicked on the links on the page that gives advertising info for Coin Community, but always came up to dead ends or 'contact us' buttons that lead nowhere.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2669 Posts |
Might want to post in the support section, I'm sure they'd like to know that!
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Pillar of the Community
United States
592 Posts |
Coins are my hobby, but as far as business advertising My face book page has been a winner, big time.
It's cheap(Free) & easy to use. Of course My daughter set it all up for me but I was very surprised by the results.
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Replies: 19 / Views: 3,423 |
Posted 02/01/2011 10:10 pm
