I remember during the 2002-2005 internet marketing era, forums were a must have to create a “buzz” and keep your visitors coming back for more and more. However end 2005 blogs came in and good old days of forums took a back seat. But the fact is even today forums are not dead. Some websites still have it. Some examples:

Search Engine Watch Forums

Digital Point Forums

SEO Chat Forums

Web Master World Forums

It is evident that forums are not dead, though they are not so popular as they were a few years back.

Just for your information, the big hit today in internet marketing is Social Networking. Though in my experience social networking is good for branding but not for direct sales.

Anyways coming back to forums.

The battle for eyeballs is indeed a very big challenge when it comes to websites. When you have a website, it’s quite understandable that you would like to reach out to the maximum number of people in the online world with news and views that could interest them. Unless you have an extremely topical or interest specific portal, the general idea is to make your portal or blog so attractive that it generates fairly high traffic. You could feel that you have the best portal but if it’s not getting any hits, the whole purpose of the website would be defeated immediately.

Among others, forums can be a useful and effective way of directing traffic to your site or blog. Forums are generally an online community of users who log into or are registered with a website and then choose to subscribe to the online forum or discussion board as it is sometimes also known by. Forums could be quite topical, or interest and hobby based. For instance, if you are on a church portal, you could have forums dedicated to charity, online counseling, and matrimonial forums to name a few.

Once you are listed on a forum, the idea is to gain the confidence of the existing forum members and establish yourself as a credible member. Knowledge is power and if you take the trouble to make your knowledge known to others, people will be interested in interacting with you. This in turn will increase the chances of their visiting your website. For instance, if you are on a forum of mushroom growers, you can answer forum member’s queries on mushrooms and gain the respect of listed members. In time, you could guide them to your website or blog on mushroom cultivation, thereby increasing the traffic to your site.

If you start a Yahoo Group, you have the option of placing the URL link of your site at the end so that interested members can visit your site. As the moderator of a forum, you have some unique privileges as it gives you a head start in terms of your credibility and acceptance by other forum members. Your opinion carries weight and you do wield some power over the proceedings and direction of the forum. This always increases the chances of forum members looking up to you and referring to your website for details. Obviously, this also depends on the level of skill and dexterity with which you can do the job of forum moderation.

Another technique is to drum up interest and enliven the proceedings on the forum by starting debates, posing questions and increasing interaction. Debates need not be acrimonious or nasty. If you can maintain a healthy and knowledge based debate, it would increase your online stature and prompt more people to use the link to your website, thereby increasing site traffic. Sometimes, webmasters can also include links to your site, which in turn will increase its online reach and popularity.

You can even drop links to your website in some forum interactions. For instance, when you are answering some member’s query, you can include a line, “For more details, please visit www.xyz.com” where you can place the link of your website. Based on the interest and the credibility you inspire, you can expect increased traffic to your site.

Don’t forget the free valuable content you get on your website. Members ask questions and members reply them. This is indexed by the search engines. Then when someone asks the same or similar questions the search engines direct the visitors to these pages. Thus creating more visitors, more members and in turn more free content.

In other words, forums can be a useful ally in helping your website win the online battle for eyeballs.

Does your website have forums? If yes what benefits you got from it?

We live in a heavily wired and connected world today. With the spread of the Internet, a majority of businesses have moved to the online world. Gone are the days of the purely brick and mortar based business models. As the online medium grows and more people conduct business online, there are opportunities galore for marketing specialists to come up with new techniques and strategies to reach out to consumers. Opt-in mails represent one such new initiative or means that marketers can use to communicate with their target consumers online.
 
Opt-in mail is also known as permission marketing, where marketers ask e-mail of the visitors to their site to have the permission to send them information of products and services that are on offer. In opt-in mailing system, the company forms mailing lists of those who agree to or opt in favor of receiving e-mails from corporate entities. It is quite necessary for companies to gain specific permission from the recipient/s or else the mail is considered to be a spam*. When people permit marketers to send opt-in mails, they acknowledge the fact that the company could send updates, newsletters, e-mails and notifications about product or service offerings.

*SPAM: They are unsolicited emails that are being sent to many email address mostly using a software (an automated process) to market a product or service online. Please note that SPAM is illegal. You can read more about the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/business/ecommerce/bus61.shtm

However, an opt-in email is perfectly legal, as the subscriber has given permission to receive the mail in his/her inbox as per the terms when they signed up. Also they can unsubscribe at any time they wish to.

If you are a marketer, you can effectively use opt-in mail as a strategy to spread the word about your brand, your products or services, thereby giving a boost to your sales. For instance, if you want to build your company brand, you can send specific and well packaged e-mails about your brand values and core company philosophy as part of your brand building efforts. You can also promote some contests and brand promotion activities via opt-in mails that can attract new and repeat customers to your business. One of the smart ways to attract a loyal set of customers is to offer significant discounts to those on your opt-in mailing list. This has been very effectively employed by various media and magazine companies that offer huge discounts to those who opt to get such mails.

The advantage of opt-in mail list participants is that these people already have some brand loyalty and identification with the company as they have agreed to be a part of the list. After all, people would not want unwanted mails or spam from companies they do not believe in, would they? So opt-in mail lists represent an almost ready set of consumers who can be persuaded with some effort, to take a look and try out goods or services that you are marketing. This is what repeat purchase and ‘up-selling’* is all about where the consumer either purchases more of the same product or buys units of other products that you have on offer.

*Up-selling is selling two or more products to the same customer(s) again and again. In fact up-selling is one of the most important factors why marketers try to get a subscriber base. Lets take an example. You have a product and you have sold it to thousands of people and most of them are in your opt-in list. Now if you want to launch a new product it’s easy. Just inform the thousands in your list and with a click of a button they know about your new product without even reaching your site. Since they are already interested in receiving mails and know more about your company it is possible that a percentage of them might buy your product. This way you not only make money but also know the first reviews about your product from your existing customers. You can use these as testimonials and sell even more products. Up-selling is easy if you have an opt-in list, else how do you inform most of your existing customers?

Opt-in mails are also very cost effective and you can easily maintain them. This does not need hugely expensive marketing campaigns and advertisement as you are just sending e-mails. Opt-in mailing list also gives you the opportunity to reach out to focused or targeted audiences, especially for products that are more specific by nature (like industrial marketing or specific interest products). When you send such mails, consumers can spread the word around to friends and relatives.

In brief, opt-in mailing list is the brand new and exciting facet of Internet marketing that you can capitalize on to promote your brand and achieve significant sales volumes.

Do you have an opt-in list? How do you use it?