The Power of Positive {Advertising} Thinking

If you're a small business with a website, you have probably wondered "How can I ever afford advertising on the internet?" and "How can I drive more traffic to my website?"

I understand. I've pondered pay per click, search engine optimization programs, and buying keywords for my vacation rental property in Montana as ways to drive traffic to my website but always found it too expensive. But I have a success story to tell!

About six months ago, as a volunteer helping our Chamber market its charming mountain hamlet in Montana and advertise its website, I had the pleasure of working with Vertical Media, a publisher of travel-related web sites in the Rockies. Six month's later, the analytics speak for themselves. The advertising we placed delivered 4,033 referrals (compared to the projected 2,136) and nearly 139,000 impressions!

In my opinion, this success started with the Chamber's ability to recognize the potential rewards -- the Board had the power of positive advertising thinking. Mike Banville of Vertical Media and I thoroughly analyzed Cooke City's target markets , and Mike executed the plan to perfection. And lastly, website analytics, the powerful tool that it is, told us that 5 million people use VM's websites to plan their vacations, and it told us we would get a piece of that pie!

Note: In every website built by DianeDesignIt!, Google Analytics is installed FREE!

(Pictured below: Chamber Director Donna Rowland and I at the annual Montana Governor's Conference on Tourism in West Yellowstone this year... our focus: how to better utilize internet marketing and public relations in the travel business.)