A Funny Thing Happened While I Was In The Forum

By: Donovan Baldwin
Submitted: 2007-01-17 13:20:51
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Yeah, I know. The title's not that original, but maybe it made somebody click thru and read at least this far.

That's the idea, isn't it? To get somebody interested enough to wander in and look around?

What this is really about is the value of forums to the internet marketing process.

You see, internet marketing CAN be what Ford, or GE, or Verizon does. They have a lot of money and build these big, beeeeooootiful webpages, as Trader Jon would have said. However, I'm talking about you and me. Our budgets are a little bit smaller. Some of us have actually had to go to the extremes of learning a little basic html coding so that we could build our first webpages ourselves because we didn't have the money to hire somebody to do it for us.

How could somebody like that compete against major corporations?

Obvious answer....They (we) can't.

There are, however, ways to make your product or service of interest to a large enough audience so as to generate some sales. Using forums is one of these ways. Not only is it an effective way of attracting interested visitors to your website, it falls under the heading of network marketing (here I suggest reading my article, "Network Marketing In Its Purest Form"), which, lo and behold is essentially the easiest way for most of us common internet marketers to attract potential customers. Notice how I snuck that plug in for my other article? That's actually something you might be able to do in a forum.

In the other article, by the way, I hinted that one of the benefits of network marketing was that you got to make friends. Well, that's what often happens in forums. You meet people who share your interests. While those interests can be as serious as you want them to be, many forums also give you the opportunity to have a little fun. As I write this article, a forum I belong to has a story being written three words at a time by members who wander by and feel the urge to be creative. I have copied a list of one-liners from one post and sent them to my sister-in-law who cracked up when she read them. From the same forum, I have gathered information on how to use traffic exchanges to generate traffic to my website, I have learned how to use RSS feeds to enhance the value of my website to my visitors, and how to create splash pages to build my email list, just to name a few topics.

I have corresponded with members from Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, and Malyasia. I have watched as other forum members jumped in, one after the other, to explain and clarify a point which confused a member who was having trouble getting a web page set up properly.

I have had the pleasure of seeing articles, comments, jokes, and encouraging remarks of mine appear on the forums I am a member of, as well as reading the articles of others, their comments, jokes, and encouraging remarks as well.

I have gained a lot from being a member of these forums, both as an internet marketer, and as an idividual.

And you know what else? At the bottom of every comment, article, or joke I post, there are links to my websites. That's another great thing about forums. No matter whether I post a joke, a serious comment, or a thoughtfully crafted and written work of art such as this article, there will be links to one or more of my websites either in the article itself, or in a signature which the moderators of the forum allow me to add to my comments. The search engines pick up these links and follow them back to my website(s). The readers of the comments follow them back to my website.

Talk about free traffic! I get to interact with friends, maybe offer something of value to them, get something of value from them, learn some new techniques, and maybe a few new jokes. Can't beat that!

The author is retired from the Army after 21 years of service. He has worked as an accountant, purchasing agent, optical lab manager, restaurant manager, instructor and long-haul, over-the-road truck driver. He has been a member of Mensa for several years, and has written and published poetry, essays, and articles on various subjects for the last 40 years. He has been an active internet marketer since 2000, and now makes his living online. To learn more about improving your marketing performance, please visit http://marketingsecrets.xtramoney4me.net You may read "Network Marketing In Its Purest Form" at http://xtramoney4me.net/internet_marketing_links/articles/network_marketing.html

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