Marketing To Forums: Part 1

Forums are a great way to advertise just about anything
without any cost at all. *Lots* of people will read what
you write there. And they're exactly your target
audience. Or are they?

First of all, you can't just assume that people will read
what you post. And second, they aren't necessarily the
people you want reading your advertisement. Here's what
you can do to make sure the *right* people are actually
*reading* your post.

The first thing you need to do is get people to open your
message. Until they open it, all they know about it is
what the title says. The title has to draw them in.

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Let me pause for a moment to clarify a couple of things.
There are typically two types of forums. Some will list
every person's message in a list on the page. And the
messages will be grouped together as threads (a thread is
a topic). In this case, each person can put a unique
title on their message. An example of this is at
http://www.dave-brown.com/howtoforum.html

The second type of forum you'll see will only list the
different threads, but not the individual messages within
each thread. In this case, whoever started the thread
decided on the title, and that's what everyone sees. An
example of this is any of the forums listed at
http://associateprograms.com/discus

What I'm about to say regarding titles is only relevant
to the first type of forum.
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Make sure that the title of your message is going to make
people want to read it. The default title is usually
just the original title preceded by "Re:". Don't use
that. Give your message an original title.

But just using an original title is not enough. It needs
to make people want more. You don't need to hype it up.
You just need to make it interesting. Here are some
examples:

The best one I've found
Just be careful about...
Two things you should know

These are examples of titles you might use if you were
responding to someone else's post. Your message would
then make a comment on the original post. So the title of
the original message would lead into yours.

If you're starting a brand new thread, then you would
need a different kind of title. Some examples:

Great new resource I found
Important information about Google
Any cheap web hosts?

All of these titles give you a clue as to what the
message is about. If it's too generic, then people may
not be intrigued enough to read the message.

But once someone opens your message, you still have work
to do if you're going to get them click on your ad.

Most importantly, only put an ad in your signature. Don't
make your whole message an ad. That will be frowned
upon.

So if the ad is only in your signature, then you're once
again in a position where you need a title that will get
people to click. The same rules that apply to the title
of your post apply to the signature.

But let's get back to a point I mentioned above. You need
to make sure that the people that see your ad are the
right people. The kind of people that buy whatever you're
advertising. The way to do this is to advertise
something that is relevant to the topic of your message.

For example, when I respond to a question about web
hosting, I include an ad for my web host guide.

At the very least, make sure that whatever you're
advertising is something that the people on the forum are
likely to be interested in. A lot of people make the
mistake of advertising something completely off topic.

If you're posting a message to one of the two forums I
mentioned above, then you know the people there are
generally interested in the internet and ways to make
some cash.

So if you include an ad for an online pharmacy or health
supplements, you're targeting the wrong audience. There
*might* be some people there who are interested in those
things. But there are probably a lot *more* people there
who are interested in things like list building and
getting traffic to their web sites.

You're more likely to get clicks if you target the ad to
the audience.

Just common sense advice. But sometimes common sense gets
lost when we think too much.

If you'd like more tips on posting to forums, then Harvey
Segal has a great ebook you can download (no charge) at
http://www.supertips.com/forums

P.S. Forums can be a great place to learn, and they only
cost you your time.