Module 14 - Forum Marketing

Module 14 – Forum Marketing

Important Learning Advisory:

To experience better learning, it is recommended that you print and follow this transcript
while listening to the MP3 audio. There is ample space at the bottom of every page for
you to write your own notes and jolt down ideas. Happy learning!

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Hello and welcome to Forum Marketing. In this course, you will learn how to build a
powerful online presence with Forum Marketing. If you‟ve been thinking about branding
yourself as the expert in your niche and you want to promote your website to a targeted
audience, then going via forums is one of the most ideal way to do this. So without
further ado, let‟s begin!

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Let‟s start by explaining what is forum marketing. Forums are social networking centers,
where topics are discussed and information is exchanged. Forums hold a wealth of
information and are accessible to anyone.

Due to the nature of forums being a storehouse of information in specialized markets,

people who participate in forums are very likely to be interested in finding or providing
solutions in a specific niche. So that means, if you were to focus a forum where
discussions are relevant to your niche, you will very likely get your website and name
noticed and popularized.

The concept behind forum marketing is to show your expertise and build a reputation.
The focus is to establish your identity as an information provider and someone who

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genuinely wants to contribute to the community. Learn by heart that the emphasis is to
be genuine. In forums, it is best to express yourself sincerely and not come across as
someone who is desperate to market. The approach of over eagerness are often be
frowned upon in forums and might even get you banned with the allegation of spamming.

Therefore, it is best to practice and participate frequently by leaving modest comments

or posts that you feel would help the community. This way, traffic will naturally come in
from your signature box as a result of your contribution.

Forums are the best way to build online presence and credibility as an expert. This is
because it is an interactive platform where you can build customers‟ trust by expressing
yourself to be an expert who is helpful and genuine. Once you‟ve built a rapport and

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earned their trust, all you have to do is subtly lead them to your website where you can
make your offer.

Furthermore, targeting and building a niche clientele is very easy because in forums, you
are accessible to thousands of targeted members who are very likely to be interested in
your offer. For example some Internet Marketing forums have over 50,000 members
who participates actively and are regularly visiting forums. Can you imagine the amount
of potential traffic that you can drive to your website and the amount of sales you can
generate from this one strategy alone?

However when you make your offers, be sure that they are relevant and make your
offers subtly and casually. Also, follow up with your audience to enquire about whether
they have found your information helpful or not.

This is also a great way to receive feedbacks which will help you improve your website
and offer, build customer base and get new prospects towards your website by
expressing your attentiveness to their likes and dislikes.

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One of the reasons why forum marketing is so effective is because it has a „give and you
shall receive‟ model. If you are a believer of this law then by providing value first, you will
naturally get traffic and have people responding to you. Furthermore, when you are
providing valuable and information posts, you are helping someone out. It is a great
feeling to be a marketer who gets rewarded for lending a hand to someone else.

Forum marketing is also a free form of indirect advertising and traffic from your signature
box. As you frequent in forums and make more posts, people will naturally notice your
signature profile and click through to the link of your website. This method of getting
traffic is absolutely free and will certainly help boost your sales and income because it is
also targeted.

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Forum marketing is also a strategy used for one-way backlinks to your website. Search
engines will especially give you credit for a backlink where the keyword is hyperlinked.
The beauty about this one-way backlink strategy is that it is fast to execute and the
backlinks are permanent as long as the forum exist.

Forums are also a great and amazing place to gather market feedback and insights.
These information are invaluable for your market research in product creation, website
improvements and sales conversions and will help you become a better marketer.

Now let‟s talk about how you can leverage your business with forums.

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With forums, you can use them to personally brand yourself as the expert in your niche.
You can provide valuable information to the community and gain their trust and likings
that way.

As a result, you are indirectly promoting yourself and your business and this will help you
build an amazing client rapport with members. As soon as they start to respect and like
you, you can then lead them towards your product or offer.

Forums are also a great way to gather market research. As we‟ve talked about earlier,
you can gather amazing market insights that can be helpful to your future product
creation, launches or promotions.

With market research, you can gain information to find out what the market is thinking,
how they are behaving and exactly what their needs and wants are. Also, you will be
able to observe trends to detect who are the key players in the industry and how you can
innovate from them to become a better, smarter and faster marketer.

With forum marketing, you can also leverage on it to build your own list. As we have
heard many times in the Internet marketing industry, “The Money is In The List”. This is
certainly true and how you can achieve this is to frequently make posts and leave your
website link in your signature box. When a forum member clicks through to your website,
they should be sent to a squeeze page or an opt-in form where you invite the directed
prospect to sign up by giving away a free report or using any other compelling reasons
for them to sign up to your list.

List building is a great way to build relationships with your prospects because when they
are in your list they are within your platform of reach. Furthermore, if you provide good
content, your subscribers will constantly be looking forward to your e-mails. They will
definitely be attracted by your promise of good quality and valuable content. So be sure
you keep your promise as well and serve them with updates and good advice as
frequent as possible.

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Forums are also a great place to meet prospects and customers and it is a great
platform to breech your way to get testimonials for your product. In the world we live in,
advertising is effective but when it comes to word of mouth, testimonials are far more
powerful than any written text or reviews on the product. This is why testimonials are
priceless and they should be a part of your marketing campaign for your product
launches.

So how you get testimonials through forum is simply by making a free trial or an
irresistibly low price offer for your pre-launch. Let them know that you will be pricing your
product at a much higher price at X amount for your actual launch later and in return,
you would like to request for a testimonial. It is as simple as that and many top
marketers are using this exact same strategy to gather testimonials to help increase their

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website conversions.

Through forums, you can also find a list of potential JV partners. Forums are great social
networking platforms where you can meet all buyers, sellers and also partners for your
business.

You can easily find JVs by browsing through forum posts and observe who are the
people who are providing solutions to the community. They are normally marketers like
you, who also leave website links that leads prospects to an offer or a lead capture page.
Once you identify these people, you can network with them by dropping a personal
message and inquire them for a possible JV partnership in the future.

Alternatively, you can do a forum search on familiar names that you have heard of in
your industry. Once you have made your first contact and you have managed to create a
good impression of yourself and the product that you will be launching, there will be a
higher chance of getting these JV partners onboard. But remember, the focus with JV
partnership is to build credibility and a good online presence for yourself so that they
would want to partner up and work with you.

Additionally, when you contact these JV partners, approach them by offering something
first before requesting for a favor. This way, it will be much easier and the chances of
them coming onboard to your launches would be higher.

Finally, how you can also leverage your business via forums is to create a buzz for a big
launch that you are planning. Since you already have your testimonials in place and you
have potential JV partners onboard, it is time to create a buzz and a word out to your
forum. You can do this by blasting out a post about your product under the „What‟s
New?‟ section or even create a limited time offer to get everyone excited about it.

Such offers could be, for example, to give away the first 100 copies at the price of X
amount. After the first 24 hours of the launch, there may subsequently be a price hike.
You could also bait them to subscribe to your list beforehand so that they will be
informed of the exact and precise time of the launch date. This way they will be able to
be the first to grab the amazing limited time offer and bonuses.

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Subsequently, this is not only a great way to build a buzz for your launch; it is also a
great way to build your list.

Now that you are convinced of all the benefits and potential that forums can do for your
business, let‟s discuss in detail how it works. There are only 4 simple steps to forum
marketing and it‟s a rather straightforward strategy actually:

Register with a Forum – Here you should register with forums that have related topics
and discussions to your niche

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Create a Profile - Remember, you should be spending some time over here because
the idea is to dress it up so that people will pay attention to you

Signature Box – The is the most important step in your forum marketing strategy
because this is the part where you would want to grab attention and also, lead people to
click to your website.

Participate and Make Posts – regularly in the forum.

When getting started on how to find niche forums, all you have to do is to go over to
Google Search Engine and type in „XYZ‟ forum, where XYZ is your niche.

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For example if your niche was „Wedding Speeches‟, what you should type in the Google
Search Engine would be „Wedding Forum‟. It‟s as simple as that and you would then see
a list of wedding related forums in the Google search results.

Once you have done that with Google Search Engine, choose a set of 2 – 5 forums to
concentrate on. Before you spend any of your efforts into any of these forums, there
should be a checklist that you should make note of. Make sure that the forum has at
least 10,000 posts or more, at least 1,000 members and at least 10 – 15 new posts on a
daily basis.

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Once you‟ve found a forum that fits these criteria, go through the forum posts and read
through the rules and regulations. Make sure the forum allows you to include your links
into your posts and also allow you to promote your businesses.

Hence, before you sign up or register for any forums, be sure to go through this checklist
so that you will be focusing your time and marketing effort on an active and worthwhile
forum.

At the end of the day with forum marketing, your objective is to build credibility and your
online presence. So you‟d want to make sure that you know the rules beforehand so that
you do not do anything that may go against the forum‟s system that may possibly even
get you banned.

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Once you have registered with a forum, it is time to create your profile. Spending some
time on creating your profile is important because you would want to project yourself as
a highly interesting person, which would lure people to want to get to know you more.

A good profile will help you establish credibility. So be sure to include a description of
your experiences and your expertise. Include any interesting stats or results that you
have achieved before. Elaborate on this if you can because people would want to follow
someone that is admirable and news worthy.

So for example, if you are in the weight loss niche and you have helped more than 100
people lose say 30 pounds or more in a span of 4 weeks, include that in your profile.
Every little detail such as statistics or achievements that you think will add to your

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credibility must be added in the profile.

Also, share your adventures or any other interesting profile information that will trigger
curiosity in the users. You‟d want to network with as many people as possible and get
them to actually send you personal messages to build a relationship with you.

Remember that this is also an important section whereby you can potentially attract JV
partners who wants to work with you. So be sure to list down also your work etiquettes
and also the people you have worked with.

As a result of an interesting and highly credible profile created, you become the magnet
that attracts people to you instead of having you to go to them.

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Now, we are going to move on to forum marketing etiquettes where we will discuss the
guidelines as to what can or cannot be done in forums to help you draw the limits as to
how aggressive your marketing can be. Overlooking this carelessly may lead to
unnecessary bans and unnecessary scarring of your username so be sure to listen
through carefully.

As we‟ve discussed in the earlier slides, prior to registering for an account in any forums,
you should read the forum rules beforehand. This is absolutely crucial so that you are
aware of the degree of strictness of the site.

As a forum member, remember that you joined because you enjoy sharing and
discussing topics. So what you should do is to follow the threads and focus on providing

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value. You are not supposed to be a part of a forum to aggressively promote yourself or
your product but rather to contribute to the community.

Go through the forum and read what‟s being discussed. See how formal or informal the
members are and try to follow along and respond to it. Get to know some of the people
in the forum by dropping them a personal message. Build a rapport with the community
and then only subtly lead them to your site that‟s related to the discussion. This will not
only get you traffic but also help you create your reputation. In time, your credibility will
increase and people will flock to your site to get help, or buy your product increasing
your sales and profits.

Finally, the last forum marketing etiquette discussion is to never ever bombard your links.
Bombarding your links also means spamming and this could possibly get you banned
from the forum. To add on, never ever overdo your enthusiasm or get desperate to
market and sell your product. Remember that this platform is not for you to sell your
product at all. This platform is only for you to build an online presence and to indirectly
promote your product.

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The next step is to create your signature box. Your signature box is the most important
section of forum marketing as this is the area that will attract people to go into your
website. This is the place where you embed your link inside the forum so that people can
click through and go over to your website to get help by opting into your list or to buy a
product from you.

How you create your signature box is to go over to your profile settings. Under your
profile settings there should be something called „Signature‟ or „Signature Box‟ that
allows you to edit from.

When preparing your signature, you need to create a good signature that is catchy and
contains a subtle message that you want to get across.

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The formula for your signature box is:

“Who are you and why click through?”

For the „Who are you?‟ section, you should utilize it to the fullest for branding yourself as
the expert. For example if you are a weight loss expert or a nutritionist expert, state it in
your signature box. Top it up by stating how many people you‟ve helped or how many
lives you have saved.

The next part of your signature box is „Why click through‟. This is where you provide a
reason for people to need to click through to your website. For example it could be a free
limited report that you are giving away on fat burning food or it could be a special
promotion that you are offering.

Overall your signature box should be short, concise and attention grabbing. An example
of a signature box is:

“Jodie Watson is a certified nutritionist expert who has saved over 325 people from
obesity. If you want to lose weight today, claim your FREE report on 5 Top Fat Burning
Foods (valued at $67). For a limited time only.”

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After you find your niche forum, register your username, create your profile, understand
what can or cannot be done and have an attractive signature box, the final step is to
participate and make posts to your community. So how do you do this?

The very first step is to introduce yourself to the community. Do so by going into the
general discussion or chat room and share with them about who you are, the reason that
you join and why you are here.

Once you‟ve done that, you need to focus on regular postings in forums. Most people
think that after joining a forum and participating for a few days, they will get a surge of
traffic to their website. Unfortunately, that is not how forum marketing works. You need
to post a lot before anybody will notice and check you out.

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For maximum results, here is what you should do. Try to reply to at least 5 posts or more
per day on the forums you‟ve signed up for. This should take no more than 10 – 15
minutes of your time per day. However remember to only post high quality content. This
means that you should contribute posts that are informative, relevant and offers benefits
to the members. Also share with the community genuinely and make posts that are
based on your experience. So don‟t go make up something that you have not
experienced before because it may back fire on you. Only contribute to topics that you
are familiar with and that you know of.

If you do this on a regular basis, traffic will start to surge after a period of 2 weeks. Traffic
does not come overnight with forum marketing. It takes time to build and it only takes as
little as 2 weeks. The key to forum marketing is to also be consistent and be an active
member who provides value to the community.

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You will be surprised that controversy is a great strategy to grab a lot of attention to
yourself and also to your business. However, you should do this carefully and also very
wisely.

It is a fact that some of the best and most successful business ideas come from
controversial debates and controversies are very interesting to talk about and it can
create a surge of hot replies, posts and threads. However, you should do this prudently
and never ever lead your discussion towards a criticism.

Only make a comment when you feel that you can sincerely help someone with a
problem otherwise, you should just sit back and observe. Remember that the common
goal in forums is to help one and other so if you feel that your comment might be

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controversial but it would be of help to someone anyway, then go for it.

So now let‟s talk about some steps to successful forum marketing. First thing is to
introduce yourself as mentioned earlier. Always approach in a point of view of telling the
community who you are and why you‟ve joined. The reason why you‟ve joined should be
to provide and add value to the community. Never ever take the approach of selling your
products in here because that would be highly frowned upon.

Spend time going through the archives and figure out which topics are favorable and
which members are the active ones. When you get an idea of what‟s favorable to the
community then start to make your first informative post on the forum.

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However, be sure to spend time only on postings that are recent and active. You would
not want to approach postings that are idle and old because that would just be wasting
your time and effort. Also each time you see a question that falls within your area of
expertise, answer them to the best of your ability.

When you make contributions to the community, always try to backup your answers by
providing links to trusted sources. So if you‟ve got a particular source that can backup
your comment, then very well link your post to the source as well. If you prove yourself to
be a helpful and resourceful member, you‟re more likely to be paid attention to in a short
period of time.

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Next, try not to get involved in heated discussions. Avoid sensitive topics such as race,
religion and politics. Keep reminding yourself that you are here to build your credibility
and build a positive online presence. Don‟t immediately respond to criticism as it may
possibly backfire on you. Also, remember to leave discussions that becomes out of hand.

Finally, once you‟re an acknowledged and respected user, only then start marketing your
products. Focus on making offers that are beneficial to the community as a whole. Offer
them free trials or discounts. However, to make sure everything goes smoothly, it would
be wise to take the extra effort to obtain permission from the forum‟s moderator before
making any special offers in the forum.

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You may also market your products via the Special Offers section in forums. Some
forums have a special offers section, which allow members to post their ads related to
their product or service for free. However there are many forums such as Warrior Forum
that ask for a small fee of $20 to post an ad.

Making your special offer on a forum can be highly effective if done correctly and if the
forum has thousands of regular and active participants. When doing this, you may want
to consider charging at a special prelaunch price, as this will definitely attract more
customers towards your product.

Always aim to over deliver and make irresistible offers. This way you will have a higher
chance of making lots of sales. A good technique to over deliver is to offer a “Buy 1 Free
1” to attract more customers.

Another tip is to make limited time offers. You can do so by restricting the number of
clients or restricting the period of the offer. As a result, this creates a sense of urgency
for customers to act quickly due to the scarcity.

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One of the advantages of posting offers on forums is that you can use it for price testing
before the main launch of your product. For example, if you were to make an offer for
your product in a forum market place at $20 and you have gathered an extremely
positive response of selling over 500 copies of it, then what you can do is to bump up the
price to perhaps $30 for your actual launch.

You can also test out to see what type of response you get if you were to put a limited
time offer or add bonuses to your offer. Since it is very important to set the right price of
a product as it plays a major role to your sales and marketing, making your special offer
at a forum will definitely help you price your products effectively and suitably. As such
you will be able to create a balance between your target audience along with your profit

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margin.

The next advantage of posting offers on forums is for product improvement. How you
can do this is to have a first release of your product to gather customer‟s feedback and
evaluate from there. More over, you can also take the opportunity to get a review or a
testimonial from these customers to find out how you can further improve on them.

Take notes of the pros and cons of what your customers say about your product in the
forum threads.

Alternatively, you can approach this by sending an e-mail out to your customers list.
Whatever feedback you gather, be open about them even though some may be from
unsatisfied customers. In the real world of marketing, they will always be a small
percentage of unsatisfied customers. So, take these criticisms with a pinch of salt use
them constructively as this will help you create a better product and become a better
marketer.

The reason for product improvement is to find the demand and also suit the model
accordingly. Once you find that balance between a perfect product and your audience,
you can then plan towards a real and big launch for your product.

The final advantage of posting offers on forums is to gather market insights. You can
gain competitive intelligence by observing who are the key players in the market and
what the market is saying about them. Furthermore you can also gather insights about
what are the existing problems of your niche and from there you can brainstorm by
developing possible solutions or creating back end products for them.

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Last but not least, we‟re approaching the end of the course. Forum marketing is really
one of the most effective ways to build online presence in your niche for your business.
This is because a forum is a platform, which helps you get in touch with people who are
already interested in what your business is about.

To generate traffic efficiently from forum marketing, the key is consistency and becoming
a part of a community where you provide value first before promoting your product. By
making regular posts and helping people whenever you can, you will be able to achieve
your goal of consistent and targeted traffic very easily.

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