Lets face
it. Marketing is a challenge. You wouldn't be reading this article if
promoting your business online was just an easy walk in the park under
a warm afternoon sun. The reality of it is that marketing could be called
a walk in the park, but the sky is filled with nasty looking storm clouds.
While there are millions of "marketing methods," only a few
work. Of those few, one of the least known is the concept of seeking
customers where they congregate. And customers congregate at Community
Websites.
What are
Community Websites?
Now, if
you have been marketing online very long, one of the things you have
most likely heard a lot about is
Targeted Marketing, right? You must target to your desired audience
on Search Engines and Directories, you must have a targeted banner campaign,
etc. What you may not have heard, however, is that an elite group of
"small" websites have already taken care of all the hard work
of attracting and building a base of targeted customers. They are "community
websites".
Sometimes
called "niche sites" or "fan sites," community websites
are small gathering places for people who have a passion for a specific
topic and they are often maintained by a webmaster who has an obsession
with that topic. From webmaster resources at AskTheRabbit.com to music
rumors at BritneySpears.org, these sites exist to serve a niche (highly
targeted) market. And these niche markets exist to buy your products
or services.
How can
Community Websites benefit you?
Imagine
that you live in Los Angeles and you want to go to New York. You could
build your own road from the east coast of North America to the west
coast. Or you could optionally use one of the roads that have already
been built; made, Imight add, by experts. Now imagine that you run an
eBusiness and want to attract customers. You could work very hard to
bring together a targeted visitor base and market to those visitors.
Or you could optionally use a visitor base that has already been developed;
created, I might add, by community experts.
Community
Websites won't get you out of the hard work of attracting customers,
but they do present you with a readership of interested surfers to market
to. These sites may look simple on the outside, but with dependable
updates, excellent content, and active visitor interaction, you can
be assured of hip, excited, and passionate customers waiting to click
on your advertisement.
How do
you determine which Community Websites to market through?
There are
millions of Community Websites online and more are launched each day.
Yahoo, LookSmart, the Open Directory Project, and many others have made
an exhaustive effort to index the bigger and more popular of these websites.
Your goal must be to find the select few websites that fit nicely with
your products. To do this, I suggest you create an,action file like
the one below. For this example I have used Two-Way Radios as my product.
My Product--
Multi-Channel Two-Way Radios with a 2-Mile Range.
Product
Price--
$50 a pair
Possible
Community Markets--
-Fishing
-Camping
-Hiking
-Child-Care
-Travelers
Customers
I hope to Target--
-Recreationists that need to communicate
-Parents looking for something to do with their kids
-Laborers in need of short-range communication
Look at this action file closely. Almost everything I need to market
Two-Way radios on Community Websites is contained above. I lay out the
details on what I am selling, what it costs, to what kind of market
I wish appeal, and what kind of customer I plan to target. You can make
your own action files as general or specific as you like, but remember
to keep things simple so you can start moving quickly.
Once you
have a list of Community Markets you want to appeal to, you must spend
some time surfing the 'net. Look at major Internet directories to begin
with, but keep an eye open for Link Pages and Web Rings to find more
websites related to a subject. Create a list of five or six websites
for each of the Markets you listed.
How do
you approach Community Websites with Marketing ideas?
Community
Websites Mean Big Business for You.
Continuing
with my example above, I select "fishing" as the first market
on the list and I quickly put together a short sales e-mail to send
to my list of Fishing Websites. I want to make the webmaster feel that
I am a fan of his website (which I am if I plan on marketing with him)
and I also want to sell him on the whole marketing idea. Here is an
example e-mail:
"Greetings,
I visited
your website and was excited by its excellent
coverage of fishing and the fishing industry. I made up my mind right
then to approach you about helping to market a product which I sell
and which I feel would be useful to the anglers who visit your website.
The product is a set of Two-Way Radios for the discounted price of $50.
Having tossed my line in the water a few times, I know that anglers
like to go to the river or lake in groups, but they will quickly spread
out once the fishing starts. The problem is that, when in need of another
night crawler or a new hook, each fisherman must leave his fishing spot
and search for his companions. He wastes valuable fishing time
that could have been saved if the fisherman had a set of Two-Way Radios
and, therefore, better communication. With these Two-Way Radios you
can easily discuss fishing conditions, meetings places, lunch times,
or anything else that comes to mind.
If you
would be at all interested in discussing a possible advertising and
marketing arrangement between yourself and me, then please e-mail me
at..."
Once my
e-mails have been sent out, I sit back and wait for the interested parties
to respond. Before I begin any marketing partnership, I carefully look
at the traffic, newsletter subscriptions, and general respect that a
website carries. My goal would be to market my Two-Way Radios through
one or two Community Websites in each of my chosen markets.
Here are
a few good ways to nurture a relationship with a Community Website:
1. Offer
a contest. Webmasters are always on the lookout for ways to boost their
visitor return frequency and a contest, where you provide the item to
be given away and they provide the promotion, is a cheap way to start
working with a Community Site. Webmasters love this type of thing because
they can often get exposure on similar websites as those webmasters
notify their visitors that something is being given away.
2. Try
to get constant presence. Instead of just adding
your banner to their advertising rotation, try to negotiate a deal where
a small affiliate ad is included on all the Community Website's pages.
This placement will lead to brand recognition for your company and prompt
users to come back later and make a purchase even if they are not interested
at the moment.
3. Listen
to the webmaster. Make the webmaster aware that you are willing to try
different things. Come up with your own ideas for marketing and ask
for suggestions from him. Act quickly if there ever is a problem or
issue that needs to be resolved.
So what's
the conclusion?
Enlisting
the help of Community Websites is a very
important aspect of online Marketing. These websites have attracted
the same audience you are interested in, but they have done it with
free news, reviews, photos, and message boards where you have done it
with sales pitches. The visitors to these Community Websites are open
and receptive and, as long as you can get the webmaster on your side,
willing to try almost anything.
______________________________________________
Ryan Thompson
is the owner and editor of the
Advertisement Express E-zine, a daily free
newsletter that specializes in free web site
and e-zine promotion.
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