Best way to do nation wide marketing?

What has been the most effective way of testing new marketing channels for you? i.e. email marketing, SEO, PPC, Direct etc.? and why?

• We provide many traditional and non traditional marketing services to entrepreneurs and small businesses. I am interested in understanding what has worked for other entrepreneurs in the past. What are some of the most effective ways you have tested new marketing channels? Why was it effective? How much did you spend? What was your ROI?

• Answer:

  There is no way of knowing this with out testing it or having previous experience. I have done digital strategy for a wide number of well known enterprise companies, and unless you have previous experience in that vertical, the only way to know is test budgets. Test all channels with a test budget. The results are quite different, and can change over time. Think about the marketing campaigns as car and the channels as tuning the car... the only way to really test and tune the car is by adding gas and pushing the pedal. Money to campaigns is that gas, the more of it you have the stronger data you will have after running the campaign. Each campaign per channel should reach at min 100k impressions if not 100s of thousands.  The more impressions you have, the more confident you can be that your data is correct. In some businesses I have killed it with Facebook buying targeted fans using ads for less than 10 cents a fan, and blowing up email lists and enrolling tickets for events. Other industries have failed horribly using facebook tho, so it really depends. Always take a data driven approach. You dont need to know everything as long as you can test it and make informed decisions on that data. It is possible to use certain marketing techniques to boost the results once you have the campaigns flowing. One of my favorite methods to use with clients is video advertising, using an "Explainer Video". It grabs peoples eyes, connects with them and allows them to understand your brand in seconds. I have found the best ROI with http://www.firestartervideos.com.