How forum marketing can grow your Business....

Bjr,

Overall, I've found it a little more difficult and a little less productive than it was when I started, in 2008.

I think there are two main reasons for this ...

(i) There are far more marketers around now, and perhaps collectively of a lower standard, and forum owners are accordingly more sensitive to what they're doing and quicker to take action against "trespassing" on their virtual property;

(ii) There are also more marketers (like myself ) who run their own forums, partly/primarily for their own marketing purposes, and don't want anyone else doing any marketing there at all.

Yes, it can definitely still work, and it can work well, if you approach it (as one should with so many issues in internet marketing) from a qualitative perspective, and take care always to add value.

Yes, definitely - if you approach it the right way, so that forum owners/managers are always pleased to have your contributions on their boards. The positive relationship-building effects of that can also sometimes have very favorable longer-term developments, too.

I'm an affiliate marketer, so my purpose with it is to add enough value for people to visit my sites and subscribe to my lists. It's exactly the same principle as "article marketing", of course: one puts valuable content (albeit typically of shorter than "article length") in front of targeted readers who are already there, trying to interest/attract them with the (often implicit) promise of "more of the same", if they follow the link.


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I believe it is not the same as it was before, but still giving results.
now getting traffic from forums can be difficult as alexa said
I think if you have some good traffic (quality) you can offer selling ads on your forum, that's what a lot of forum owners doing and also you may try adsenses (not good option) or some Other ecpm, BUT, I don't expect someone to click on those ads ( your visitors knows about adsense) and that's the bad thing about having a marketing forum.

I think you can make forum marketing work for some niches (and it's your job to figure out which ones) and depending on what you are promoting. But, only if you are willing to offer value to the forum you are on.

There are a number of stumbling blocks now, one of which is how you can't directly link to an affiliate site as you could before. That was a common technique some years back. There are some 'make money online' forums that allow an affiliate link via signature line, but then again everyone on the forum has a signature line with affiliate links and you end up competing against others who are promoting the same thing as you are.

As for the very popular niches such as health related, diet/weight loss/beauty etc, those forums are harder to market on, as the forum owners don't allow links to commercial sites via signature line.

Before you start Forum Marketing, you need to make a few considerations. First, you need a reputable company or know how to set one up that is easy for you to access and use. Try to find an online service that makes it that way for you if you can. I'm sure there are people on here that can direct you to one.

The other consideration is maintenance of the forum. You want a system that is easy for you to delete messages and block certain kinds of users. You'll get all sorts of spammers in no time. So make sure that whoever you get as a forum service makes it very easy to eliminate spammers and block them. Otherwise you'll get thousands and thousands of them.

A good forum system will make it easy for you to eliminate loads of messages at once, rather than eliminating them one at a time.

I hope this helps.

God Bless,

ELMO

I would like to know! If you are a forum owner. Would it be best to charge a small fee to let others market there stuff?

Forum Marketing is one of the BEST most underutilized ways to reach your target audience if used correctly. Don't get it confused and think it's easy though, forum marketing takes work! However , eventually if you work everyday on it , it will build momentum! The trick is to provide value within the forum, genuinely help people out because you are knowledgable about a specific subject. If you go into a forum with the intentions on spamming and offering no value at all, you will lose credibility, and you may lose your opportunity to use forums to grow you business. Lastly a forum isn't just a place to show expertise, you can also meet people, and even ask yourself, forums will never die.

I have to agree with Matthew. When you are around a group of people that are interacting and have a common goal, it is always fertile ground to be able to help people.

Thanks to all of you for your replies, that's my goal, to create a useful debate about forum marketing, because as mentioned above, it's one of the most underutilised methods when it comes to internet marketing.
Thank you very much guys for your interactions with the subject.
Cheers.

Promoting CPA in forums may get you banned .. read their TOS

Good question,

Forum marketing has been and always will be a low cost strategy, and yes, it still works, but as we have all seen, forums are drying up, traffic is shrinking on most of the forums I have been on for years. I would bet the traffic is half what it was even three years ago from my observations.

No doubt with social-media-income picking up with PPC on Facebook and all the Youtube videos, which are far more producting than forums these days, it is all about change. What use to work yesterday does not mean it will work today, never mind tomorrow.

Success to all,

Here's what I do:

A. (the better option) Find someone knowledgeable on your forum and pay them to place your site's link in their sig

B. Hire someone knowledgeable and have them contribute to a forum 1 hour per day, with your link in their sig

Forum marketing is still a good method for driving traffic to your website. Self promotion may be prohibited on most of the forums but you can promote your website through signature and forum marketplace.

The main reason is with online forums Its an online destination used to meet, share ideas and ask questions to people who have a shared interests, their very nature provides for access to communities of people interested in something very specific, It also helps To build contacts..

Of course, there is no doubt about it. I think it is still working good. Both Forum Marketing & Social Networks working good. You can use both of these. I have been using both of these strategy.

^ I agree. Forum marketing still works, so definitely don't underestimate it, but you'd have to invest a lot of time and effort into it, as you said, social media is a lot more popular than forums these days.

Everything that brings traffic to a webpage has potential.

And forum marketing works..

If you post useful information and engage with the forum, you can get traffic, and build your list.

Plus, it's a great place to learn, and help other marketers,,

Forum marketing is great as it allows you to get targeted traffic back to your site, participate with a community in your same niche, and learn a great deal of knowledge yourself.

One great site for forum marketing is Reddit ; it includes hundreds of sub-reddits which discuss a particular topic and it is easty to find your niche and get exposure. One thing to note is that you have to participate in the community and let your account age a bit before posting your link as it may be marked as spam.

The reason forum marketing may be under utilized is the fact that you have to put lots of work into writing quality content and contributing to the community; this may seem daunting to beginner's who are not so knowledgeable in their niche yet and have to spend time researching, to be able top participate. But it is indeed a very powerful tool both for your business and for yourself.

Well lets see - I posted on the forum a few times this week and had 30 people click through to my site - so there is some traction.

Why not take a month - get a notebook - and provide some useful responses everyday for a month - say 5 posts a day, that's doable. Track the links in your signature and put a pixel tracker on your after sales page to see if you get any conversions..

You'll find out pretty quick whether it's worth your time - as well you'll have a great secondary bonus of making contacts and having to think yourself about what you can offer.

It's better than just being distracted by all the noise and it develops a lot of skills.

And generates ideas you can use yourself. For example:

If you keep a good record of it you can bundle it up and give it away as a WSO

Regards
Phil

Forum marketing is better than social networking personally. Not only do you get to plug your sales pitch into the "sig area" of your post, but you get to remain updated in the latest trends that's going on in your industry. Social marketing is very broad - but i believe forum marketing can bring you more quality clicks... and eventual sales.

With forum marketing you are in a targeted area where those that are there are interested in this topic. By "playing nice" and adding value to the conversation and interacting with the other members it can be quite profitable.

But don't think that you can make a signature link, random comment a few times have success. Those days are long gone.

It works for a couple of our niches so we keep at it.

Yes, forum marketing still works well if done correctly. But in my opinion the paid methods like banner ads are more effective.

I think it differs after the Social networks appeared , they took many traffic from forum and also because many marketer began to use this method in making money

forum marketing is a very good tool to expand its reach, .in the more you can stay up to date, and you can help others .. all things that will help build your list, but also the social are really useful , especially at this time, exploit them both would be ideal