Why Forum Marketing Is A Good Idea To Get Leads

Forum MarketingThere are forums for any kind of niche out there, and if you are not taking advantage of them as a marketing tool then you are missing out on potential customers. Forum marketing when done effectively can bring in very targeted leads that allow for high conversions, and the preselling that you can do on the forums can go a long way towards improving the quality of the leads that you get.

Build a Reputation

In order to get anywhere with forum marketing you must first build a reputation as a valuable member of the community that can be trusted with the information that you put out. If you expect to gain the trust of forum members quickly then you will only push them further away. Only after establishing yourself as an expert can you begin to market products to them in a way that will not make you look like just a salesman.

To build a good reputation you must answer questions that other members of the community have in a very useful and extensive way, and from time to time create threads where you share very good tips on overcoming some common problems that are related to your niche.

Make Sure You Find the Best Forums Out There

You will be unsuccessful in your forum marketing pursuit if you fail to find a great forum, you must find one that is specific to your niche and has many active forum members. If a forum is popular in your community it shouldn’t be too hard to find, and an expert from About.com suggests how you can do it:

Look for popular forums that cover your niche topic. Start by asking your employees, suppliers, and customers which online communities they hang out in. Also try searching forum hub sites such as Board Reader, Big Boards, and Board Tracker using niche-specific keywords.

However, don’t participate on too many forums as you will be spreading yourself to thin, try out one to begin with and once you are successful with it then move onto the next one. Furthermore, make sure your forum does not have any limitations that will prevent you from marketing your services. For example, if live links aren’t allowed in the signature portion of the posts then you will have a hard time marketing anything. Also, some forums do not allow anything of a commercial nature to be present in the signatures, and if this is the case then you can avoid the forum altogether.

Professional Username and Avatar

One thing that you do have control over right away is your username and avatar when you sign up. This can be used to your advantage by coming up with a username that hints at your business. For example, the username could be your business domain name and the image could be your company logo; this will get some branding in without breaking any forum rules. Your domain name must be short and catchy for this very reason, because if it is long and hard to remember then it will look awkward in the eyes of the other forum members.

Don’t Make Empty Posts

Some people make posts that basically add no value to the forum, they only exists for the purpose of the signature that advertises what they have to offer. These types of posts are very clear to a lot of people and it will work against you if you do this. An expert from Famous Bloggers suggests that forum posting for the wrong reasons is not worthwhile:

One of the worst mistakes that you can make is to think that forum marketing has anything to do with link building. This might be the most common reason why people fail at it.

Also make sure that your posts have no spelling or grammatical mistakes, this would go down very badly with your potential leads, and it could be the cause of less people clicking on your promotional links.

It Will Take a Long Time

The saying that “Rome wasn’t built in a day” applies here because it will take time to get a good enough reputation to get the trust of the forum members. When forum members evaluate the trustworthiness of a fellow member they look at the join date and the number of posts made. Relying on these two pieces of information to trust someone might seem a bit extreme but that’s how it is. An expert from Valued Marketer explains the importance of trust:

The more you give to other people, the more credibility you get from them. Your goal is to nurture relationships and gain the trust of members of the forum. Then they will check out your signature and website.

Therefore, forum marketing is not a short term strategy, but a long term one, in fact it might be that it will take you months or even a year to get any traction, but once you do the results can be quite phenomenal.

Create a Great Signature

Even after all the great posting that you do and the trust that you get from the community you still need to come up with a very good signature that will get a lot of people clicking your links to your website and landing page. If you aren’t a copywriter then perhaps it would be a good idea to hire the services of one, because the difference between a well written signature and a poor one can be the difference between a successful forum marketing campaign and a woeful one. An expert from Tips Make Money explains why signatures are important:

This is where you can link to your opportunity, your website or blog. The only place where you can toot your own horn. So make it interesting for people wanting to know more about you or your business.

Look at the signatures of your competitors to get an idea of what a catchy signature looks like. Don’t copy because that will not go do well with the community, simply get some ideas and create your own spin on them.

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