Struggling? The 7-day marketing plan

8 replies
With so many marketing strategies and tactics, i get lost. I've tried a number of them, but, alone and with little money, the results are hardly worth a woohoo!

Like so many here, I believe I have a great idea. I've spent hours perfecting it. And I believe in it. But then...there's no money to promote it and little time to successfully promote it - 24 hours a day is just not enough, and, at the end of the month there's bills to pay!

So, how do I get my new site out there with no money and on my own?

I need people-power, but a new site always suffers the same problem - it's new. Few are willing to give it a chance. Fact is, people will only take you seriously if you're already established. Just look at this forum - you may have a great WSO, but if you've only got 10 posts to your name, few will buy from you! Another guy with 1000s of posts and a useless WSO will get tons of business. Fact of life, my friends!!

So if people-power is the key, what we need is to get our site noticed across the web. Get people sharing it in relevant pages of Facebook, get people tweeting about it, get people to comment in our blog, comment our YouTube videos - that's what builds credibility. And credibility is what will bring in the clients.

But everyone knows that already. That's why social networks are teeming with fake accounts and tons of spam. And this is the problem. A real business, a good idea, simply drowns in the crap!

Without money, I can post incessantly on forums like this and hope a few will notice my sig-link. Or I can click like a twit on those free traffic sites. I can submit my site to tons of directories. I can do quite a bit to get a trickle of visitors.

But the fact is, the internet is saturated with millions and millions of sites per niche. I can't hope for more than a few dollars here and there. But I have a good site, damn it! Am I really destined to drown in the crowd of spammy, useless, automated sites??

Somebody recently wrote here, "If you don't have money to spend, get out of the IM business" - I disagree profoundly with these words.

So the question arises again - Is there a way to market a product/idea effectively with NO money and within a specific time-frame?
I believe there is. In fact, I'm convinced it's possible. Not only that, but I believe it is the most effective marketing strategy there is - community work targeting niche markets.

If i could convince 100 webmasters in my niche to give me a backlink, promote my published articles, give me a 'Like' on Facebook, retweet my tweets or vote up one of my videos, I'd be on my way!

But with no money, how could i convince even 10 people to promote my site for me for free?
Well, simple - I could, in exchange, do the same for them!!

Imagine you have a site about Sports. On your own, you struggle to get noticed among the 100's of 1000's of sports sites. But now imagine you are working with another 100 sports sites. Together!

Example - If my Sports site receives 100 unique visitors and your Sports site receives another 100, together we're sharing 200 potential clients. If 100 people join our team, we're each getting a share of 10,000 potential clients. 100 0r 1000 Sports sites working together will gradually engulf the others and start taking a bigger and bigger share of that niche market.

It makes sense doesn't it?
Why don't webmasters work together?

So I thought up a simple marketing exercise to test my theory.
The plan is to try it for 7 days.
For 7 days, we build a team of struggling webmasters, and we do small marketing work for eachother. No money involved.

PLAN
1. Build a team. Call it "Webmasters United"
2. Divide that team into niche groups - health, sports, entertainment, shopping...the usual.
3. Decide on a working space for the team - I suggest a Facebook Page but other suggestions are welcome.
4. Start working together.

GOAL
Can we, over 7 days, create a team of marketers and make a difference in eachother's life simply by working together? Why not?
We can make it a serious marketing exercise by deciding on an attainable target - to raise $10 every day for 7 days each! Simply by marketing eachother's sites.

WHAT YOU NEED TO JOIN
- New site.
- Zero money.
- A few hours of your time.
- Dedication and a serious approach to the idea.
- Generosity - You only get what you give!

WHAT TYPE OF WORK IS COMMUNITY WORK
Shares on facebook, retweeting tweets, comment/vote a video, swap a link...that kind of thing.
But this type of exposure is only worthwhile for us all if we work within our niche markets. It's hardly worth it for a Health site to be promoting a site about Vintage Cars, is it?


RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
Join if you're serious only.

How about it?
Who's up for the challenge?
#7day #marketing #plan #struggling
  • Profile picture of the author JamesColin
    Banned
    I'm in for the health niche.
    But would try only the 7 days and a limited number of sites/webmasters to promote, 10 maximum.
    I count on you for organisation / management.
    If those few lines are not convincing you for the type of people/motivation you seek, then don't take me in.
    Thanks for the offer, it is a good idea if there's a leader to follow.
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  • Profile picture of the author vndnbrgj
    It looks like a link network.
    Not sure if that would work well for rankings.
    Signature
    Life Begins At The End Of Your Comfort Zone
    - Neale Donald Wilson -
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  • Profile picture of the author crissie
    A link network?
    NO it is NOT a link network!

    It's a way for people to interact and help eachother.
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  • Profile picture of the author JamesColin
    Banned
    No need to post to say that you're not interested, honestly those who are interested don't care about the 99.9999% who are not. The point is to find people interested enough to do a mere 7 days challenge, not to discuss anything else or convince anyone.
    It's certainly not a link network because that would be so weak.. It's just to put our resources toogether including time to promote on social networks, combine them for 7 days and analyse the results and then choose to continue or go back to whatever we were doing before. We'll know the results very quickly, and 7 days is enough to see results, with links network that would take weeks and would be hard to see if it brings in results.
    Of course for results to show so quickly it needs motivated people who can commit fully for 7 days. I can, for trying. But after that I don't know, I'll analyse results on the one site I want to participate with very carefully to decide.

    And also we don't need to read the 100 reasons why this will not work or could not work, it's easy to find reasons for not trying it, I'm sure I can find more reasons than anyone, so it's pointless to post them here.
    Also for those who get the point because they thought about it themselves before but couldn't be bothered to spend the time to take the role of leader/organizers, well let's rely on crissie and see what job he/she does at it, at least he/she started the thread, so that's more than what we did about this idea ourselves.
    And finally let's not get into the fear of competition, because FOR SURE in a group of webmasters wanting to promote a health site, we will nearly all be promoting the same affiliate offers from clickbank and whatnot (list building) on our sites, so let's get over it and try the idea, there's enough fish in the sea, let's not worry about this little detail just now.
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  • Profile picture of the author Shubh Ashish
    I totally support Crissie's new Innovative Experiment.Lets get united and help each other to become highly successful.I am In.

    Shubhahish
    Signature
    Sell Dreams, Not Products
    - Steve Jobs
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  • Profile picture of the author JamesColin
    Banned
    ok, more than 7 days have passed with nothing new, neither on the facebook page, nor by PM nor here, nothing, you know what? I'm out even before anything began.
    I'll save myself the trouble of yet another project without strong & clear leadership.
    Sorry to state the obvious but this is a big fail.
    Good luck.
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  • Profile picture of the author nitroy2k
    good post.. i have to say
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    Publitio - Video and Image API
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  • Profile picture of the author manhtung27m
    really useful post, thanks to this that I found
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