Why Use The Service When You Can Be The Service?
| Category: Online Promotion | Date: 2001-04-02 |
Lets take a look at a fictional pair of internet marketers: John & Suzie. John & Suzie are new to internet marketing and like a lot of newbies, they follow the usual progression of marketing steps:
1. Get a website
2. Join some affiliate programs
3. Submit to the search engines
4. Submit to FFAs
5. Submit to Directories/Portals
6. Post Classified ads
7. Join a service like Clickthru.net or a banner exchange
8. See limited results at start at 1 all over again
In the midst of this vicious cycle something is happening to John & Suzies inboxes: they are becoming stuffed to capacity with email from marketers who know that they are trying to promote their businesses.
How did they find me, our intrepid heroes wonder. Why are they harassing me? Time to start the mass deleting project. Oh wait, that subject looks interesting, whats this all about: open, read, clickthru to a HOT sales letter and BUY!
John & Suzie got caught in the flypaper of some smart sticky marketers who used a very simple process to attract large numbers of people into their marketing nets. John & Suzie tried to take advantage of "Free" internet marketing techniques but instead of receiving massive traffic resulting in tons of affiliate commissions, they became someone elses customer.
What could our heroes have done differently? They started out wanting to gain sales not give someone else some money, what happened? For starters they made the mistake of using the service instead of owning it.
You see, the real power of FFA sites, small search engines, targeted portals and directories comes not from posting to them (that may get you some traffic) the real power comes from owning the service and having others post to your sites. As we have been known to say repeatedly: Your marketing firepower comes from building a list of email addresses and mailing quality information to them using either sequential followup autoresponders or through newsletters and site updates.
It is neither expensive nor complicated to set up these types of services on your site, on the contrary, it is rather simple and affordable and something that you should all be doing ASAP.
When you host these services, you attract traffic to your site from both automated as well as manual sources. Each visitor, whether automated or manual, must give you their email address in order to use your service. Only fair right? You can then add them to your automated email marketing system and walk away.
We know some optin email fanatics would scream and say that you must implement double opt-in measures to prevent being accused of unsolicited email. While we dont completely agree with that point of view, you should provide notice to people who use your services that they are agreeing to receive mail from you and you must provide them with an EASY way to opt out (ie unsubscribe) from your marketing methods.
Once you set this up, you can now utilize these services to not only attract first time visitors to your site, and also you will now have an automated system in place that brings back repeat visitors as well.
How do you do it? Here is an easy 5 step plan:
1. Decide on the services you wish to offer (ie a search engine, FFA page, portal or directory)
2. Find software that lets you do this and install it on your site (or use a remote solution like the Ultimate Marketers Resource.)
3. Prepare your automated followup messages in advance.
4. Study headlines and copywriting so that you can prepare to send responses and followups that stand out from the crowd. People will be bombarded with other email messages and you should consider that when you send out your messages. We recommend that you send out useful, targeted information instead of sales material and we also recommend that you wait a few days before sending your first email message to the users of your service.
5. Focus on building trust and credibility with your audience and you will achieve a much better, long term response than simply going after a one time sale with cheesy, over used ad copy.
Remember, while it may bring you some minor traffic, submitting and posting to sites, ffas, search engines and the like is not the real powerful marketing machine you need. Instead of using the services provided by others, become an owner of your own service and continue to reclaim your online destiny!
Success.
About the Author
Marc Goldman
To contact see details below
webmaster@goldbar.net
http://www.goldbar.net
1. Get a website
2. Join some affiliate programs
3. Submit to the search engines
4. Submit to FFAs
5. Submit to Directories/Portals
6. Post Classified ads
7. Join a service like Clickthru.net or a banner exchange
8. See limited results at start at 1 all over again
In the midst of this vicious cycle something is happening to John & Suzies inboxes: they are becoming stuffed to capacity with email from marketers who know that they are trying to promote their businesses.
How did they find me, our intrepid heroes wonder. Why are they harassing me? Time to start the mass deleting project. Oh wait, that subject looks interesting, whats this all about: open, read, clickthru to a HOT sales letter and BUY!
John & Suzie got caught in the flypaper of some smart sticky marketers who used a very simple process to attract large numbers of people into their marketing nets. John & Suzie tried to take advantage of "Free" internet marketing techniques but instead of receiving massive traffic resulting in tons of affiliate commissions, they became someone elses customer.
What could our heroes have done differently? They started out wanting to gain sales not give someone else some money, what happened? For starters they made the mistake of using the service instead of owning it.
You see, the real power of FFA sites, small search engines, targeted portals and directories comes not from posting to them (that may get you some traffic) the real power comes from owning the service and having others post to your sites. As we have been known to say repeatedly: Your marketing firepower comes from building a list of email addresses and mailing quality information to them using either sequential followup autoresponders or through newsletters and site updates.
It is neither expensive nor complicated to set up these types of services on your site, on the contrary, it is rather simple and affordable and something that you should all be doing ASAP.
When you host these services, you attract traffic to your site from both automated as well as manual sources. Each visitor, whether automated or manual, must give you their email address in order to use your service. Only fair right? You can then add them to your automated email marketing system and walk away.
We know some optin email fanatics would scream and say that you must implement double opt-in measures to prevent being accused of unsolicited email. While we dont completely agree with that point of view, you should provide notice to people who use your services that they are agreeing to receive mail from you and you must provide them with an EASY way to opt out (ie unsubscribe) from your marketing methods.
Once you set this up, you can now utilize these services to not only attract first time visitors to your site, and also you will now have an automated system in place that brings back repeat visitors as well.
How do you do it? Here is an easy 5 step plan:
1. Decide on the services you wish to offer (ie a search engine, FFA page, portal or directory)
2. Find software that lets you do this and install it on your site (or use a remote solution like the Ultimate Marketers Resource.)
3. Prepare your automated followup messages in advance.
4. Study headlines and copywriting so that you can prepare to send responses and followups that stand out from the crowd. People will be bombarded with other email messages and you should consider that when you send out your messages. We recommend that you send out useful, targeted information instead of sales material and we also recommend that you wait a few days before sending your first email message to the users of your service.
5. Focus on building trust and credibility with your audience and you will achieve a much better, long term response than simply going after a one time sale with cheesy, over used ad copy.
Remember, while it may bring you some minor traffic, submitting and posting to sites, ffas, search engines and the like is not the real powerful marketing machine you need. Instead of using the services provided by others, become an owner of your own service and continue to reclaim your online destiny!
Success.
About the Author
Marc Goldman
To contact see details below
webmaster@goldbar.net
http://www.goldbar.net
Copyright © 2005-2006 Powered by Custom PHP Programming