Question

Topic: Advertising/PR

How Do You Advertise A Business In Forums?

Posted by oliverm1 on 9/19/2008 at 11:26 AM ET 50 Points
Our company sells various carving, cutting, sanding & grinding tools for non-metals. Our tools are viewed primarily as specialty items due to their price point, however with a lower price-point we believe there is a much broader market. We currently have a web store that sells our closeout items at highly discounted prices.

When we let people know of the store in certain niche forums, we find that it is very successful in driving traffic to the store, and that people are happy to have found out about it. We even try to sound informative rather than just blatant advertising. After a short amount of time however our posts usually get taken off the forums due to the advertising nature, or what they believe is a plug at the product line.

Our real question here is, since the forum drive so much traffic to our site and has been very successful at converting sales, how can we let people know about the store in these forums without causing ourselves to be kicked out? Or, how do we get the message across to these same viewers?
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RESPONSES

  • Posted on 9/19/2008 at 4:39 PM Accepted
    Each forum has its own rules on these things. Some allow a link signature, some a profile, others a full out promo.

    You have to tailor your messages to the rules of each. If they allow a link, send them to something that's HELPFUL. For example, on a discussion about targeting in another forum, I gave some information, and then offered a link to an article (not a sales page) on my Web site that had more information on the subject.

    If no links are allowed, offer to help. Answer questions and then offer to discuss in greater detail offline (from link to profile).

  • Posted by Mikee on 9/20/2008 at 10:03 AM Accepted
    I find topics or posts that are relevant to my market. I post a reply that is on topic. The trick is to make sure to stay on topic and address the question at hand. Be sure to offer useful advice and not just plug your product. The idea here is to get your name out but also demonstrate that you have knowledge that helps. If I am allowed a link I will write my name, my company name and include my link.

    Another place to do the same thing is on blogs. Use technocrati.com to search for relevant blogs. If you find one comment on it.

    Hope this helps,
    Mike
  • Posted by Mikee on 9/20/2008 at 10:05 AM Member
    One more thing. Encourage your clients to particpate on these forums. They can tell people that they use tool x to do this.

    Mike
  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 9/21/2008 at 9:40 AM Member
    Contact the forum administrators directly. Tell them about your dilemma and enlist their help for your business. Work with them, not against them. Perhaps they have a reviews section? A paid ad?
  • Posted by steven.alker on 9/22/2008 at 9:58 AM Accepted
    Jay’s idea chimes with me – were I to be the moderator of a forum I would tend to work with those who seek cooperation and against those who seek to use it for free advertising. Look at this one – we address about 340,000 marketers or people who need to know something about marketing. You will find that no one in the top 100 experts and few of the remaider ever solicit business without first declaring an interest.

    Declaring the same thing 50 times a week would soon expose such postings for what they were – boring, irrelevant and less than useful.

    On the other hand, if we have a project or a new service or want to open up some channels, the websites which host the best forums are usually content-hungry and this is an open opportunity to work with the moderator and editor to everyone’s benefit.

    Of course, MarketingProfs has to be the exception. We appear to editorially rich and just answering questions here seems to generate about a million a year from enquiries through our biographies.

    Sorry, I’m suffering from delusions after a trip to CERN and the LCH last week, where a black hole sucked up most of what was left of my intelligence!

    Steve Alker
    Xspirt or something like that
  • Posted by steven.alker on 9/22/2008 at 1:53 PM Member
    Whoops, nearly forgot: Sites such as LinkedIn and Ecademy are business networking spaces. That’s networking without the “Get-Rich-Quick” methods of the MLM idiots.

    In all their activities it is a given that you will attempt to promote your services. In fact if you attend one of their regional or national events in person, they email you with a list of all attendees and their on-site communication details.

    On these forums (Or is that fora?) you are expected to solicit others for business in an intelligent and non-spamming manner. That involves getting to know and building a relationship with the people you want to talk turkey with.

    Best Wishes

    Steve
  • Posted by flanger on 9/22/2008 at 3:42 PM Member
    this blog can help you, i guess - https://www.massmailsoftware.com/blog/ , I always check what's new there - good info on internet money, marketing, business, scams and so on :)) Hope it helps you :) bye bye
  • Posted by oliverm1 on 9/24/2008 at 1:18 PM Author
    Thank you everyone for their help. Marketing is really about educating the consumer and so it seems that just by building an honest repor with people and informing them about areas of the business it will lead to trust. This in turn will allow the the ability to make mention of your own interests such as the business.

    Sometimes it's hard to take off our sales hats and really look at it from the education & relationship standpoint which is what marketing is really about. Thanks again everyone.
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