Off-line Hubpages promotion. What's your experience?

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   stuff4kidsposted 9 years ago

   
   I've recently started an off-line promotion drive for my 'stuff4kids' hubpages subdomain. It is a bit soon to say but I think I am seeing an upturn in traffic from this. The photo shows one of the cards I'm using. Also thinking of producing leaflets, t-shirts and such.
   
   Has anyone tried this? What results did you see? What methods did you try?

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      stuff4kidsposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks everyone for your input. Food for thought, certainly.
      
      

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         Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         The biggest message I hope you get from this is - you haven't created a coherent website on HubPages, you've created a bunch of articles in a topic on a much larger site, so if you're trying to build a brand it won't work.

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            stuff4kidsposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            Hi Marisa,
            
            Yes, understood. Thank you.
            
            Fortunately, the cards were free apart from p & p so no great investment wasted!

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2. 86

   Marisa Wrightposted 9 years ago

   You sound as if you're serious about making money, so I wonder why you've decided to create Hubs rather than creating your own website or blog?
   
   I don't think offsite promotions are worthwhile for a Hubpages account, for so many reasons.
   
   The main one is that you're spending money to promote other people's Hubs more than your own.  That's because there is no way to keep readers within your sub-domain.
   
   Take a look at a Hub.  Sure, a reader will visit the profile link on your card, but once they've clicked on a Hub and have read it, what will they do next?  As far s they're concerned, all those "related Hubs" look like part of Stuff4Kids, so they'll click on the one that takes their fancy and off they go - possibly never to come back to one of your articles at all. 
   
   When you promote a website or blog, the reader arrives at the blog and then, no matter how much they browse around, they're still on your website - or on an affiliate site which you can earn money from.  So with one card, you're getting a reader for several pages on your site.   With HubPages, one card gets one reader to one Hub.
   
   Next problem - you can't build a readership.   Readers can't sign up to be notified when you write a new article.  Nor can they sign up to be on an email list (e.g. for a newsletter or special offers).   People don't generally become members on HP to read - your followers are other writers, not customers.
   
   Because readers can't sign up for your feed or enrol for a newsletter, you can't build an email list.  You need an email list so you can form relationships with suppliers:  if you can prove the size of your readership, suppliers will pay to advertise on your site or in your newsletter, or you can set up relationships with suppliers to sell on commission.  All of those options pay much better than Adsense or affiliate links. 
   
   I'm not saying you can't make money onHP - of course you can.  But you have to look at the cost/benefit of everything you do.   I don't think spending money on cards, leaflets etc will give you enough payoff to be worthwhile.

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3. 87

   WryLiltposted 9 years ago

   I work the other way around. I have a main card linking to my website and contact details. Then on that site I mention other sites I own and also that I write on Hubpages.
   
   However MOST of my traffic comes from Hubpages TO my other websites. What happens if Hubpages gets sold like Squidoo, or changes the rules drastically or your accounts gets banned? In that case you've done heaps of hard work and you'll have nothing to show for it but promotion for a blank page!
   
   I average 3,000 views per day on this account and I redirect many of those views to other sites I own. Works well!
   
   Plus, let's face it, a dot com looks way more professional than a subdomain.
   
   

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4. 94

   jansharesposted 9 years ago

   I've been thinking about this on and off, stuff4kids, for some time. I think Marisa and WryLilt bring up excellent points, makes tons of sense.
   
   Instead of having a separate card for HP, I plan to add my subdomain to my business card which advertises my counseling practice and website the next time I reorder a batch. I'll probably put it on the back. There are also links to my subdomain on my website.
   
   I use email to promote my articles and have a very loyal following of friends and colleagues. I hear Marisa's argument about cost-effectiveness, but it depends on the company you use. VistaPrint does very professional, clean work for amazingly low prices (which is where I created my website). And once you have an account, you get discounts and free stuff. So I think having an off-line promotion plan can be worth it if you play your cards right.

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      Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      It's nice to know you have a loyal following of people you already know, but that is not going to get you the thousands of followers you need to make real money online.

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         jansharesposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Noted Marisa. I'm not even near trying. Between my private practice and other commitments, I don't have time to do what needs to be done to make real money online. I would have to work my website blog and my blogspot on Google, and HP fulltime. I am not interested in that at this time, content with online writing as a side gig.

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5. 73

   relacheposted 9 years ago

   On this site you will earn whatever happens to be clicked on or bought during a randomized 60% impression timeshare.  If nothing happens during your impression times, you earn nothing.
   
   How are your promotions efforts actually benefitting you, and not HubPages?  How can you even tell if anything you drive to HubPages winds up going to you?

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