How To Break Into Any Niche Part 2: Relationship Building
Once you get in the habit of setting up a list for every product you create, the way to get people to remember you is by showing your personality.
I build relationships through forum marketing.
- You could post special offers every now and then by giving visitors of a certain forum a huge discount compared to the general public. I do this with WSOs.
- You could add video responses to posts every now and then and send traffic there so people see your face instead of the words you type. I did this with a YouTube video but I'm not sure if I'm going to post to YouTube on a regular basis because I felt like I was talking about myself too much.
- You could do a low tech link exchange. If someone posts a comment on your blog with their URL, visit their blog and leave a thoughtful comment with your URL.
Use your real name. Any time you join a forum, use your real first and last name. If you plan on pumping out lots of small products you are going to have lots of small web sites and almost never one big web site. The exception could be if you register YourName.com and stick a blog on there with a link to all your products.
Find a forum in your niche that ranks high on the search engines, and make that the only forum you visit for a month. I don't care if there is some forum you are addicted to and have to check every 5 minutes. Take a vacation from that forum and build a reputation on that forum.
I want you to make 50 posts over time on this new forum. They need to be real quality replies that use your expertise on the subject. They need to be answers that could only have come from you.
Never make a "me too" post. Never mention your web site in any reply. Don't start any new topics, just reply to existing ones. Many forums have a link to find posts with no responses... you can reply to these but stay away from any more than a month old.
Once you have these 50 posts, edit your forum profile and add a signature with a link to your web site. Many message boards will require a certain number of posts before you can add a signature anyway.
Only put one link there. Make the text on the link a headline, not just the name of your site. Don't make the text any fancy size or colors, just center if it possible.
Then leave the forum and forget about it. Search engines like Google will pick it up. Now if someone is looking for the solution to one of those specific problems you solved on the forum, they'll find that thread and if you were helpful, might click your signature link and end up on your site. This is in addition to all the members of the forum who visit it on a regular basis.
I have done this with nearly a dozen message boards in my niche. What got me started doing this was checking my referrer logs. Your referrer logs in your control panel will tell you what sites send traffic your way. So someone might ask for help in getting a freebie script of mine customized, or ask if a product I offer is really legit. I register on the forum using my real name, answer the question, then poke around a little while after.
I have even signed up to a $60/month private forum to build relationships based on my referrer logs... but that's just because I'm crazy.
I consider using referrer logs to decide which forums to hit a better indicator than Google search results, because you're already certain traffic is going to flow in your direction.
Filed in: Niche Selection
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- Youtube » How To Break Into Any Niche Part 2: Relationship Building | January 28, 2008
Hi Robert
Once again, clear for all to see, you have presented yet another of the very effective tools many of us began using when we learned the tricks.
I don’t mind your sharing all of this because there is truly an entire universe out there, ready to be plucked.
What bugs me is that people don’t believe just how EFFECTIVE it truly is…
PS: I couldn’t help myself from giving you a pubic thumbs up on one of my blogs: http://www.ad4life.eu/
Hey Robert,
Most people underestimate the power of forum marketing, most give up easily because they cant make those 50 posts. And most take a shortcut method of spamming the forum or hiring someone to post for them. Thing is – these do not work. They end up getting banned on the respective forum.
If people can really follow what you mentioned in your post they can see the results for themselves. Its all about patience and consistency.
There are some good ways to use forums to get yourself known in a niche and also finding customers if you go about it the right way.
Many of the ideas you write about are just plain common sense. The great thing though is having all these ideas in one place. Keep up the good work.
No question about this working Robert.
A few months ago I joined a Forum and responded to questions and after so many posts the Forum owner approached me to be a moderator on the Forum. That status only enhanced my reputation and gained a lot of traffic back to my site.
Cheers,
Hi Robert,
I’ve never been one to spend much time in forems (Except for one’s related to products I’ve purchased.)
Reading your post, I’m strongly re-thinking my stance. You laid out good ground work for me to follow, especially the one related to not making your signature anything fancy. Good stuff.
Your blog is really becoming a good source of information and I thank you for that.
There you go Ari. I know, as far as outsourcing forum posts I keep thinking back to Brausch.
With his intern program, he pretty much invaded the top 5 most trafficked internet marketing forums for about a week. These forums usually get 1 new topic per minute, at least. For that week, any time you posted something, you would get a response from 3-4 people almost immediately, the only problem was they were usually crap posts and had one of Brausch’s URLs at the bottom.
As a result, I know that the Warrior Forum and the Tony Blake forum automatically deleted any post even mentioning Brausch. He really screwed up on that one. If he had used forum marketing to build credibility instead of as a spam tool he would probably be making $1k-$2k every DAY from WSOs alone.
You can use forms to spam, to goof off and waste time OR you can do the right thing and use forums to make yourself useful and show that you are an authority on some subject.
Hi Robert,
I must say this is opening my eyes a bit. I have only ever posted ontwo forums and then only a couple of times … yours is one of them. What puts me off is the time taken to look at forums and then post on something that I know about. Some other foms of marketing take less time and produce me quite good results. One example is I use TrafficSwarm a lot. I do switch in and out of being a paid though depending on howmy finances are going!
I am only part time and have not yet settled on something specific although I amgetting there. I will be advertising some CD’s with videos of 3 to 6 new areas of internet marketing which very few people know about. They are physical CD’s rather than downloads. They are on CD because of their size. Not sure yet when I will release them as it will take a while for me to build the websites and the automated fulfillment solution – probably Kunaki.
It will be a very low key launch to a couple of my lists in the first instance to test the response.
May even look at some JV although this is not something I have ever undertaken before.
Any thoughts on the type of marketing for a physical digital product?
Thanks for your tips and look forward to next installment of PHP Uncensored.
Chris
Robbie,
In your video you mention a forum that you pay $60 a month to access. You haven’t mentioned this before so I’m curious…WHAT IS IT?
Thanks, Robert.
Just going off now to modify my forum link in a forum i frequent to make it only one link, titled, and centered…
🙂
thanks for the great tip.
Chris, I am also working on a physical CD as well but because digital products are a lot less hassle, I keep delaying it. I am really dreading dealing with refunds with those or dealing with people who claim not to get the product.
I have the sales letter ready to go, the product is all finished, I was just having some issues uploading the bigass file to SwiftCD the last time I was working on it.
All I can say about my experiences buying physical digital products is make sure to have an immediate download PLUS ship the CD. If you think the videos are too large, size them down and create a low-bandwidth web version of them so your customers have something to keep the busy until the CD arrives in the mail.
Steven, the private forum was Scot Sandke’s Keyword Avalanche. It was one of those membership sites where they offered some monthly content, but what you were really paying for was access to a really really good forum.
Kind of like when the Warrior Forum cost money, you paid that $50 to get in and it was worth every penny and more, this forum was well worth the $60/month.
It was a forum about niche building, it really opened my eyes because it was in 2005 when most of us still didn’t have a clue about AdSense, there weren’t a ton of ebooks and home study courses on the subject like there are now.
I was stupidly using my PHP scripting skills to build huge sites that I wanted to earn $400/month while the people there were smart and setting up 10 sites per day, that each made $1 a day. In the end I realized site building wasn’t for me and now I’m stuck with a content site I can’t get rid of but that’s a whole other story.
Hi Robert, the way you do marketing is worth studying. Your use of forums is something that not a lot of people can do.
The main reason for this is, IMHO, that you can create product after product easily, which is one of your strengths.
Some high-profile marketers, like James D. Brausch, have opposite views on forums, simply because most people have a tendency to read forums instead of “creating products” or “marketing products”. They don’t spend their time wisely.
That is why I think YOU are one of those rare guys who really “got” forum marketing.
That’s exactly right about spending time wisely. You don’t go to a forum to make friends or waste time from doing any real work.
Sometimes when I go to a forum I can’t find anything relevant to reply to. I will admit there is a lot of crap to get through and maybe you only care about reading 5% of the content and you can only reply to 1% of it.
I only check forums 1-3 days per week on average, and my visits last less than 10 minutes. Usually I can’t find anything good to reply to. Sometimes I’ll reply to 10 threads in 10 minutes. Sometimes I’ll type a reply that’s SO good, I won’t waste it on a forum and stick it into an e-book.
Like you said, you have to keep creating a steady stream of new products for forum marketing to work.
“Sometimes I’ll type a reply that’s SO good, I won’t waste it on a forum and stick it into an e-book.”
and that nugget of gold, dear robert, should be a post of its own.
😀
HiRobert, Thanks for the detailed tips, I LOVE DETAIL. I have a problem though, I have looked at many forums in my niche and they have in their rules that you aren’t to mention any commercial, sales sites or the like anywhere so I am hesitant to bother with posting answers (ie build relationships/trust) then go back and ad a link to my site (even a cloaked one) only to have it all removed…big waste of time.
What would your recommendation be to build a list without forums? I have just completed my e-book (and it’s a damn good one I might ad:))but have not one name on a list…I was toying with the idea of paying for adwords to an opt in but after reading your list building response-ideas the pay per click subscribers were low converting…your thoughts?
Hi Robert,
Based on your experience
Which is better to put at your sig?
1. your blog url
2. your page url,
3. your freebie page, or
3. product url?
Sud.L
Robert,
Thanks for reminding me about forums. I have used them and I recommend using them but, I seemed to have stopped due to the time involved in waiting on results.
Forum marketing and article marketing fall into the same boat with me. Both are excellent ways to promote yourself and your products but they do not work fast. That means I get tired of messing with them.
Ok, you have slapped me in the face and woke me up once again. I am off to make some posts on the Warrior Forum and look for a new one.
Keep them cards and letter, I mean blog posts, coming.
Thanks,
Clyde
Hi Robert
This is great info thanks.
i did have issues with the time it takes to sift through the posts though and also finding forums in IM apart fro the Warrior Forum.
What’s a referrer log if you don’t mind me asking ?
cheers Carl
What are some examples of forums? I’m familiar with forums on FB, Google and Yahoo … are these private forums? Intriguing idea to focus on one.
I always tell my clients that having an Internet business is just like any other business – you have to work at it to make it successful. You can’t just magically appear on page one of Google and suddenly get rich.
The advice you provide here is spot on – you need to post to forums (or social media groups or blogs or anything else) a lot (50 times) before people start to resonate with you and recognize that you are offering something of value. Then and only then have you earned the right to start promoting your own stuff.
Thanks Robert.