A must place to advertise for new stores

[mythandmagic]

After launching a new store whats your experience on "must advertise" places

Im talking about paid places like Yell

[Mike Hughes]

The only place I ever 'look' for stuff is Google and my favourite stores (amazon, ebay, sometimes ebuyer, etc).

You'd need to find a pretty good reason to advertise somewhere else. Particularly if they want flat fee payments (i.e. aren't offering PPC or PPA).

Mike

[TraceyHand]

I agree.
If you're not using Amazon or Ebay marketplaces, then the place to BE is Google.
SEO should be top priority in order to be effective.

Personally, unless very targetted, I don't find online advertising (Yell, for example) much help. It's not where people go first!

Sometimes busy forums can be worth advertising on (such as parenting communities for baby/childrens items. Motorcycle club sites for motorcycle stuff etc)
Definitely worth finding out if there are any ACTIVE communities in the field.

[Darren B]

dont bother with printed media, i guess your talkign about a B & M shop aswell as an ecommerce as you mentioned yell. Most people search online these days.

Dont forget to use google base and similar

[TraceyHand]

Yell isn't necessarily the printed media version. It could just be Yell.com (and they are VERY pushy and annoying at times!)

I don't think it's well known enough or used enough to bother with really.
If you are B&M, however, Yellow Pages itself might be worthwhile, depending on your field.

[Darren B]

Yell isn't necessarily the printed media version. It could just be Yell.com (and they are VERY pushy and annoying at times!)

Sorry i ment yell.com is fine but i would not worry about the printed book, we have never found this to be of any use, we monitor new callers and i think in 10 years i could count on one hand how many people say they found us in the yellow pages.

Best get a bt business line and then your be listed in their phone book for free, you can then use the front section ify ou want a yell type ad. I only ever use the bt book when im looking for the number for the chinese e.t.c but the rest i probably use google or yell.com for those that might not have a site

[chickenhouseman]

Google adwords is the only cost effective paid online advertising unless you're on big mark ups. Shopzilla, kelkoo etc are about twice as much / click. Yahoo ppc just doesn't seem to generate traffic. PPC is good for new ranges etc and whilst you work on the SEO but you really need natural rankings. It's very easy to get into paying for someone to click on the paid ad when your natural listing is on the same page.

Amazon and ebay generate good sales and are fairly cheap ways to buy the customer in the first place when compared to other advertising.

There's facebook, twitter and youtube that are all free so worth looking at - I don't get how you generate much business from twitter but that could just be me or the business i'm in.

Yell keep telling me how good they are but I just don't see it. It could be industry specific. They're index has improved but they still only work if you know what product you want and which town. Nationally it seems a bit random.

Forums are good if you're using them anyway. If you can offer impartial advice and have the website in the signature it all helps spread the word.