Actually even with a website, there is no other more effective way of sustaining high traffic than by harvesting email addresses. This is done by offering and email newsletter or an email course of sorts. This builds up a valuable opt-in email list that you can use again and again to direct traffic to your site. You can even sell them something. As internet marketing experts often point out, money is in list.

This is reason why experts advice affiliates to set up their own sites or blogs to play a key role in their efforts to market their affiliate site. This is simply because it is a huge waste to drive so much traffic to your affiliate site and end up having only a tiny fraction signing up for your affiliate program. By driving traffic through your own site, you have an opportunity to harvest emails and build up a huge, valuable targeted opt-in email list that you can still market very same affiliate program to, later. In fact research has clearly shown that most people buy only after several repeated encounters of same product or service.

Even with introduction of extremely useful blogging tool and change of business models by many online publishers, opt-in email lists still remain most valuable online marketing tool.

Simply put: if you’re a watchmaker, put a watch in your logo, and word “watch” in your name and your tagline or slogan. When you’re selling services picking a logo can be trickier, but it can be done. UpMarket Content’s logo is a scroll and pen. Just make sure your logo communicates what you do, rather than something foolish like a black rocket for an advertising agency.

Yet while branding usually enhances direct response, you should not hesitate to sacrifice branding if it hurts your response. If you find that a different tagline or font does significantly better in getting responses, run with them.

2. When you actually do have opportunity to impress your brand on same person dozens of times over course of an average month.

For branding to work, you don’t just have to maximize total exposures, but exposures to unique individuals. Let’s be absolutely clear: in terms of branding, exposing 1,000,000 people to your brand once each is infinitely less valuable than exposing 1,000 people to your brand 1,000 times each. You have to maximize exposures to same individuals. Aim for a hundred exposures per individual if you want to really enter people’s consciousnesses.

Of course, it may take far fewer than a thousand individual exposures. If someone is sitting in front of your branding advertisement for more than a few minutes, they may in fact be exposed to it dozens of times, each time their line of sight crosses it. But this kind of long-term exposure is likely going to cost you more.

How can you ensure that your brand advertising will maximize your brand exposure per unique individual? Place your brand advertising where users will come back often to see it. For instance, a banner on a website that has a strong following of returning users, or an advertisement on local diner's placemat.

Even when branding does make sense, direct response will often also make sense, so you should combine two if possible. For instance, at bottom of a banner advertisement with your logo and tagline looming large, put a button labeled “get more information.” Or, underneath your businesses sign, put a telephone number with an offer to get more information.

Because if they never visit or call, who cares if they have your logo burnt onto their retinas?