Christian ministries have a hard time getting noticed. How do you know what services to use to get your message in front of people that want to see it? As someone that has been in the internet marketing game for over 10yrs now, I believe I have some relevent insight. There are many services out there and one of them that is very popular is the eblast services. Let me tell you how these work.

Most eblast services use a service like contant contact to send out emailis. They get email addresses either by paying for them or they use an opt in service on their websites. I have use an opt in service and I have paid for emails. The thing about this is do people really read your email blasts. I could have 10,000 email address in my list. If only 1/2 of them are good (Im being generous) then I am down to 5000.

If only 25% of those get opened then I have at least touched 1250 people then if 50% of those people click on my link in the email I have only 625 people that actually looked at what I wanted them too. If you goal is to sell something, maybe 5% of those people will buy. That is only 31 people. Now ask yourself this question. How much did I just pay to reach 31 people? Most services range from $100 to $600. Is it worth it?

Eblast services will boast about how many people they can expose you to. Ask them the tough questions. How many email addresses do you have. What is you open percentage? What is your click through percentage? If they do not want to talk about those numbers, walk away. You also have to wonder if the email addresses are targeted for your specific offer, event, or service. Just because someone has a lot of email addresses does not mean that they will be good contacts for you and your offering.

Well what is the best way to market online and not have to pay so much money? What do I do? When you market online it is all about consistent effort over time. You will have to put in a lot of work and develop a network of supporters that you support as well I wouldnt do much with link services that make you a part of a group. The best networking that you can get is talking to the actual website owners. There is no better marketing than this.

When you develop relationships with site owners and cross promote, you will get a lot of miles out of that. If you develop a network of 5-10 site owners, you all will be dedicated to the growth and development of each other. This is much better than joining a banner share program or link share. Developing relationships is the best way to go.

If you can write articles and press relases related to your services you can really drive some great traffic to your site. Your news articles and press releases will not only drive traffic to your site today, but next year as well. How to do this is a seemingly well guarded secret that I want to be able to expose to as many ministries as possible. Even this article that I am writing now will drive traffic to my site for years to come.

What writting an article that solves a problem or answers a question will do for you is great. One article can have hundreds of links back to your site in a matter of a few days. Your article will be rated very high in search engines for months just because publications pick up your article. This way of advertising is great and is so inexpensive it is rediculous. All it takes is time. There are services out there that will do it for you, but they cost an arm and a leg too.

Stop throwing money down the drain and start really maximizing your marketing efforts. Do you want to eblast? Then do it yourself. Spend the next 4-6 months developing your product and your marketing plan with some great tools and you will be successful. Want to do it overnight, then you will continue to keep being scammed and throwing your money down the drain. The only way to be successful is consistant effort over time.