It depends on what you're promoting (plus different methods work better for different niches) and what your goals are...but in general what has worked best for me:
Long Term:
SEO
- Website with 10-20 'Pillar Articles' 500-600 words focused on keywords I want to target (but don't overdo the keyword density). Publish the articles as Pages (for some reason I get better SEO results instead of using blog posts), with just a few blog posts. Include Social Media buttons on all your content to encourage sharing with a call to action for your readers to share.
- Syndicate and re-purpose all your content and post on web 2.0 sites and SM sites
- Use a reputable SEO service to work on your rankings if you have a budget
Guest Posting
- Do a couple of guest posts on some high PR, high traffic sites in your niche to get some high quality backlinks and traffic (this works better than getting dozens of low quality backlinks)
Banner Advertising on popular websites, blogs and forums in your niche.
Forum Marketing & Classified Ads
- Find forums in your niche, participate and put your link to your site in your signature.
- Usually forums have a Marketplace or Classified ads section where you can list your product, freebie or service either for free or for a fee. This is a great way to get traffic fast. I suggest offering something of value for free and sending the traffic to your squeeze page so you can build your list.
Short Term:
Solo Ads
- There's plenty you can find in the IM niche on Safeswaps, on Forums etc, just make sure you send them to a squeeze page first to build your list then send them to your offer or website.
- Outside of the IM niche search Google for sites and blogs that get a lot of traffic and rank high for your keywords, see if they have an opt in box or a newsletter and contact the owner and offer to pay for a solo ad or newsletter sponsorship. This is probably the fastest way to get hundreds of visitors to whatever you are promoting.
There is a lot of more, but those are a few of my favs.
When spending money just make sure you know your 'dollar per lead' aka how much money you earn for every subscriber you get. This depends on how well you've built out your backend funnel and what your conversion rates are. But if you know this, then you know how much you can afford to spend when doing things that involve 'cost per click', so it helps take some of the risk out.