This is a follow-on from a post I recently made about blog commenting. Today we are looking at Effective Forum Marketing. You can watch an intro to this post: http://viralnetworks.com/view/rVIwm
Forums are a great way to get in touch with potential customers. There are various forums all across the internet that are devoted to an incredible range of topics. That means that regardless of the type of product you are working with, there is likely a forum somewhere that is devoted to that field. The people who frequent that forum are a highly targeted demographic – they are ‘warm’ prospects, with high conversion potential.
Establish a Presence
But you need to work at establishing a presence. Forum marketing is not about just posting a couple links and watching the sales come rolling in. Forums have moderators and administrators who look out for marketing scams and immediately delete those posts and ban the user who posted them.
So how can you use forum marketing effectively?
Trading value for value. The value that the forum users offer is their attention to your product and possibly buying it. The value you provide is determined by the nature of the forum.
For example, if you are selling a how-to product that teaches people how to use Photoshop software, then look for forums for beginners to the software. They will ask questions about how to do certain things, you find the answer and post it. That is the value you give them. When you post in a forum, you are usually allowed to have a link to a website either in your user profile or as a “signature” – text or images that appear automatically at the bottom of each of your posts.
Don’t Blatantly Sell
As long as you provide value to the other forum users and don’t blatantly try to sell your product, you will be allowed to stay. And the people that you advise will often follow your link out of curiosity, or the need for more information. If they see that you have a product that solves their problem or enhances the reason they are in the forum, they are more likely to buy that product.
Forum marketing is being used more and more by internet marketers, and while it does take time to establish a credible preference in the forum, the benefits are great if it is one that is very finely targeted to your niche.
Have You Tried This Yet
Have You Used a Technique like this before or during your product launch? Maybe you have used it as an affiliate for other products… What Results have you seen from Forum traffic?
I'm an avid fan of your blog, and the content is always top notch - great reading. I'm always impressed with the variety of content and the way you get all the important steps outlined for processes, but still manage to keep it short and simple - few people do that quite as well.
Mike Purvis
Andy Fletcher
Todd Gross
I recently joined an Internet Marketing Forum. Someone asked for tips on driving traffic to a website and I had recently done a traffic test on my site and compiled some data. I posted a link to my blog in that forum topic, is that wrong? Should I have copied my data to the forum instead?
I did get one forum reader who liked my site enough to say that they would visit often.
Peter
Hi Peter,
It depends on the forum rules, but seeing as it was relevent to the thread and you were pointing to researched and compiled data, if it was my forum i’d have no problem with it at all.
The biggest thing is to not promote programs directly in threads, but to point to a post that has data answering a question is adding great value to the conversation. Well done 🙂
Very informative post.
Forum marketing is such a powerful method of driving traffic, generating leads, and establishing yourself as an expert in your chosen field, but it must be done correctly.
I see so many people jump into the forums post spammy links and get banned instantly. As long as you follow the tips above you should stay within the forum guidelines.
Thanks for sharing,
Karl
Fantastic post on Internet marketing. I am running a blog on internet Marketing. So this post will help me expand my blog. Thanks