Tim Bossie.com

This incredibly awesome looking vehicle is what is known as the Mobility Weapon Mounted Installation Kit. It’s been used by U.S. troops in Afghanistan and looks, well… capable. It’s a three man attack vehicle that sports three main guns. I wouldn’t want to see it charging my way.

However, the vehicle isn’t the point of the post. It’s the example. Your advertising should be as lethal… as commanding as this vehicle. You need to launch a three pronged advertising attack.

Internet marketing is dependent upon your strategy. It’s not just a “build it and they will come” mentality. I like to think of advertising as a game. It’s you vs. them. The one who brings the most skills, firepower, determination, and will power is the one who wins. And just like in sports, or war, the way you play the game, or fight the war, changes. New technologies, new training, new strategies, new ways of doing things all play a part in the outcome.

Advertising is no different. As the years go by, the philosophy of internet advertising remains constant, but the means change. You employ new ways of marketing in order to get more people to your website. It’s the natural order of things. Things change.

In creating new marketing plans for clients, one of the things I pride myself on is being innovative, creative, an employing new strategies that others might not have thought of or fear trying. In doing so I have seen lots of different advertising tactics come and go. A few years ago you would do extremely well with buying guaranteed hits (website traffic), posting to a few forums, and blasting an email ad with an ezine co-op. Today… not so much.

Today you have to think different. You have to think relationships. More importantly, you have to think cultivating and growing healthy relationships in all parts of your marketing. It’s not just throw out an email ad and hope for the best. Now you have to compose an email ad that is more personal, more relational.

A Three Pronged Advertising Attack For More Web Traffic

Finally we get to the ‘meat’ of this post. With the new strategies of advertising firmly entrenched in this 2.0 world, here’s a no fail advertising attack that you can use to get more traffic when you are starting a new site, seeing numbers fall, want to push a new product, or service, or just want to add more to your advertising arsenal.

1.) Connect and Participate on Social Media Websites

You should have known this one was coming. You can’t deny that social media websites and networking on them is the new advertising phenomenon. Of course, these types of sites were not created as a tool for advertising purposes, but they have taken on that role regardless. Maki at doshdosh.com says, “Social media marketing is the process of promoting your site or business through social media channels and it is a powerful strategy that will get you links, attention and massive amounts of traffic.”

Social media marketing has it’s best impact when you connect and participate. You have to do both. You can’t just open an account with Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Plurk, LinkedIn, or any of the numerous others out there if you are not going to participate. Sure you might have friends or people following you, but it won’t amount to anything if you’re not active.

To find out how to do this the best way Michelle McPhearson has written an incredibly valuable resource called, “Social Media Daily” that goes into great detail about how to monetize your efforts in social media.

2.) Start A Blog or Two, or Three…

Ok. Stick with me here. What initially looks like a tremendous amount of work isn’t really that bad. Blogs have a very powerful hold on the search engines. Google, Yahoo and MSN love blogs because they are continually updated and people love to link to them. Your job as an advertiser is to leverage that love.

One blog is good. You get your feet wet by writing on a consistent basis. But, what happens if you join another marketing program, develop another product, offer another type of service, join a different affiliate niche, or can think of another more narrowly defined audience for your website?

Launch another one.

That isn’t as hard as it seems. If you’re already hosting a blog yourself, then adding a new domain and installing it again is no big deal. But, if you don’t want to go that route then you can always use a Blogger or Wordpress account. In fact, I would recommend that you do that anyway. Set up a free blog account with each one, either based on the same topic, or on a little wider or narrower topic, and start posting a few times a week.

The point is that you are getting more search engine exposure by continually adding new content, having backlinks to the main site, and getting people interested in what your service, product, or opportunity has to offer.

3.) Create new content for syndication through websites and email.

The use of the word content can take on several meanings today. And I am talking about all of them. Content in the form of articles, ebooks, audio .mp3s, and videos are the tools of the successful internet marketer. They keep your visitors engaged on all levels and are instrumental in making sure that your message gets out to the widest possible audience.

It might sound like a scary thing at first. But, once you get started you become addicted. Sounds crazy, almost impossible at first; however, the more you do it the easier it gets. For instance creating videos is as simple as filming yourself talking or doing a screen capture video with Camtasia. Creating audio .mp3s is easy with Audacity. Writing articles and ebooks can be done yourself or outsourced to a copywriter.

What Would This Advertising Attack Look Like In Action?

In order to show you what advertising looks like today I’m going to use an example to help put all this stuff in some sort of coherent order.

Let’s say you have a website on the topic of fishing. This would work with any topic or with any business opportunity or service, but I like to fish and I’m writing this post so I choose fishing.

Anyway, in using the Three Pronged Affiliate Attack this is what you would do.

Create profiles at several social media sites. Having a profile at one website like Facebook or Myspace isn’t as powerful as being connected in as many as you can. But, for starters get started with Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, and StumbleUpon to start with. Then start connecting with people. Send friend requests, follow people, digg websites, and stumble them.

Participation takes the form of keeping your status updated and letting people know what you’re doing. Twitter is great for this as you can “tweet” what you’re up to as well as what you have going on at your website. You can tweet about new blog posts, videos you’ve created, websites you’re looking at, and even new articles you’re written.

Here’s how this will work with a fishing website. (Keep in mind that you would just substitute your topic in place of fishing.)

1. Create profiles
2. Friend or follow people who would like to fish. (Typically men, athletes, campers, outdoor types)
3. Engage in conversations by tweeting on Twitter or writing on walls and sending messages in Facebook.
4. Every now and then place a link to your website or blog.

The key is participation. The more visible you are the better your “advertising” will work out.

Start blogs on Blogger, Wordpress, and/or on your own host.

The key here is to have one on the topic of fishing itself. From there you could start narrow focused blogs (fishing in the Northeast, flyfishing, fishing for bass in the Southeast, etc.) on Blogger and Wordpress. From there you just start posting new blog posts. You want to be consistent with this so choose a writing schedule that you could stick to.

As you post you’ll be linking to your main site, or even the merchant’s site you are affiliated with. If you’re selling a lure you invented, flies that you tie yourself, or ebooks you’ve written you would also be mentioning these in your posts.

Here’s how this would look.

1. Start main blog on fishing. Post all kinds of fishing posts at least every other day. More if you could.
2. Mention website with text links in posts.
3. Start two to three other blogs with a more narrow focus. Using both Blogger and Wordpress to host the new blogs.
4. Continue posting on a consistent basis.
5. Find other blogs on the same topic you can link to and leave comments on.

Create several types of content to engage visitors

This is where you put everything together. The content you create here can be also advertised on your social media websites and your blogs.

1. Create several articles on different fishing tips and product reviews on poles, reels, and fishing equipment.
2. Syndicate the articles on websites like EzineArticles.com and GoArticles.com.
3. Create a video on how to tie a certain type of fly and upload to YouTube. Then post to relevant blog. (You could pick whatever fishing topic you’d want as long as it can go on a relevant website.)
4. Create an ebook on a certain topic of fishing and give it away from free as an incentive to sign up for your RSS Feed, email list, or for buying your main product.
5. Create a few audio .mp3s with quick tips on some part of fishing. You would also turn this into a weekly podcast (audio show) to keep people coming back to your website.

Like the first two parts of this advertising plan the key to it’s success is that you actually do the work!

Try it out. Go step by step through it and apply it to whatever product, service, or opportunity you want to advertise. Then duplicate it over and over again.