Participating in forums and discussion boards on the Internet is a great way to market your Info products. Forum marketing certainly gets overlooked a lot online but you can really use it to increase the amount of traffic you get to your website and ultimately the amount of money that flows into your bank account.
Did you know that visitors to your web site by way of forums are worth two to six times more than the average visitor? This is because forum users are proactive information seekers,community-minded participants,and engaged users.
When you are working on the forum marketing campaign,you need to keep it in mind that the forums are actually created for the readers and not for the marketers. If you can understand this one fact,you will be able to make a strategy which will help you to use the forums to market your products and reach a historical sales figure for your company.
The forums are created because the creator wants the people to share information on certain topics. The forums are great for discussions and the people going to the forums expect to get quality information. The people will also participate in the forums and will exchange their ideas with you.
This does not mean that the forums are not good for the information marketers. Information marketers can use forums to promote and sell their products. All you will have to do is to act like a forum reader and contributor and not like a marketer. This means that you will have to participate in the discussions and you will have to contribute to the forums positively. You will have to make sure that you are giving the people something to read. The information which you are posting should be interesting and should be really informative and helpful to the ongoing discussion. If this is the case,then people will follow your recommendations and will click the links which you want them to. They will come to your landing page and will see your products.
But before you post on a forum,check these 10 Golden Rules out!
The Ten Golden Rules For Using Forums
1. Read and follow the Rules
Read the rules of the forum and follow them! Don’t violate any forum rules,take the time to read through the discussions to get an idea of how people converse.
2. Start by Responding
People give advice free of charge in forums,but at the cost of their time and energy. They rightfully expect that the favor will be returned,so they shun people who take without anything to give.
3. Give Your Expertise
Don’t give a half-baked reply telling the member they can learn more if they follow the link to your page. Don’t hold back! If you have an expert opinion,show it!
4. Don’t Be a “Me Too” Poster
That’s not to say you shouldn’t state your agreement with someone else,but make sure you provide additional support to their argument.
5. Don’t Promote
Don’t post about your own web site and products,unless it’s in direct response to a request for information. If you want to promote yourself,use your signature!
6. Explain Yourself in Brief
Make your point straight away,then back it up with support. People who are interested in your initial thought will read more;those who aren’t will skip your comment and move on to the next thread. Keep sentences and paragraphs short,with plenty of white space. Less is more.
7. If You’re Wrong,Say So
It’s an attention-grabbing when a poster on an internet forum admitting that he/she was wrong!
8. Write Cleverly and Correctly
Everything you say,every single post,every nugget of wisdom,is a representation of your personal brand. If you don’t pay any attention to it,it can undermine everything else you do.
9. Negativity is a Big No-no
If someone disagrees with you,respond with a thoughtful disproof,or thank them for their opinion. If someone attacks you,either thank them as if they’d simply disagreed,or ignore them entirely.
10. Use of signature
The main instrument for driving traffic to your site from forums to your site and increase sales is in the use of your signature. Your forum signature is a space for you to put some text and links at the bottom of your post. You only need to set it up once. And each time you post,it appears at the bottom of your post. To set up your forum signature,first of all login to the forum,locate the Profile tab [usually at the top of the page]. Locate the ‘Forum Profile Information’ and click on it. This will bring up the form where you can locate the signature space close to the bottom of the form page. Enter a short introductory text,and your website into the signature space e.g.
Get useful tips from your role models
www.rolemodel.com
Click on the Change Profile tab at the bottom of the page to finish.
That’s it. Now you have a forum signature. Congratulations! If you do same on all other forums where you’re a member and post intelligently and actively for a few months,you will be amazed by the amount of traffic those signatures will be sending back to your site.
Here Are Top Nigerian Forums To Participate On Daily:
1. www.nairaland.com – Owned by Seun Osewa
2. www.cyberbreakthroughs.com/forum – Owned by Fisayo
3. www.secnig.com – Owned by Success Digest
4. www.theexperthost.com/forum – Owned by Dennis Isong
5. www.igoldforum.com – Owned by Toye Oyeleke
7. www.abujacityforum.com - Owned Olu Joseph
8. www.naijanetwarriors.com- Owned by Iyabo Oyawale
9. www.alabiforum.com – Owned by Akin Alabi
12. www.nigeriacommunityforum.com - Owned by Henry Omenogor
If you can diligently apply the 10 golden rules for using forums in at least 10 of the forums given above,the traffic generated will be so much that the resulting money you’ll make from sales will be as if some people have conspired to turn your bank account into cash dumping ground.
If others can do it,you too can!