There can be many great forums on the internet which you can use for your online marketing efforts. And sometimes you may come across one of them which seems to be little used. This doesn’t automatically mean that you should reject it from your Forum Marketing efforts. You need to make a decision based on the factors.
In this article I’m going to suggest some ways you can go about seeing if it’s appropriate to advertise on that Forum for very little effort.
The first thing to do is to advertise subtlely. By subtlely, I mean you’re going to post a full blown advert. Instead you’re going to provide some good quality information, and just occasionally supplement it with links to your own product, which might be of extra value to people who need this information. That means, you don’t have to write your very best information on the Forum. You are going to provide enough good information that people know that whatever you’re offering will be of value to them. So keep your advertising subtle. If nobody objects, then you can take this to the next level.
Secondly you may post a thread simply asking if people are interested in knowing about your product. Before you do this, check with Forum Rules and see if this is allowed. After all, this type of advertising may be banned in some forums. But chances are if nobody has done this before, then this won’t be firmly written in the Rules anywhere. You may instead, be able to instigate a new trend and by being the first one to do that you have a huge competitive advantage in that forum marketplace in the long run. By asking if people want to know about your product, you’re bound to get somebody who will say, “Yes”, and ask for your URL. That’s how to get subtle traffic directly that way.
It may just be that the owners of the Forum have simply not thought about allowing advertising on it. And if you were to get directly in contact with them and ask them, this may be a good way of getting your foot in the door of the Forum. This is especially useful if you offer to pay for the Forum advertising. So many forums operate under extreme pressure to raise money to keep their hosting accounts going, which often doesn’t come from anywhere in its members. They’re run as labors of love by many forum administrators. That is, they’re not commercial concerns. The owners may well be happy for somebody to pay a small amount to advertise their product or service, which will keep their own site running. And you’d be surprised how small these rents can be. Start off by offering a lot less than you may otherwise pay to advertise. After all, you have this first person advantage, which is very useful in forum marketing.
It needn’t be the death of your forum marketing campaigns when you come across a forum which contains no advertising. You need to be the one to instigate it. There are some good ways of doing this. Subtlely advertise your products mixed in with good information. If you’re more brazen, you may directly ask people who want to hear about your product and don’t avoid the owners in this process. Go ahead and contact them and simply ask if you can advertise, either for nothing, or if money is involved, offer them an appropriate small amount. By doing so, you can soon get adverts shown on forums even where you may think that advertising would not be allowed.