Shane, I like your way of thinking. I had been thinking about the whole forum posting idea, my website will be beauty industy mainly, so this option is good. I could then target any fashion, beauty/hair or womens blogs out there. I'm still learing a lot about this industry but found your advice very helpful. I have started a social media campaign, which seems to be working well as I am offering free advice to people and doing product reviews. I am starting to get a following and lots of posts from people asking questions/ wanting advice. I hope to then link this to my site when it is up and running.
This is just a start, but as you said it will all take time, I look forward to trying out all of your ideas! On May 27, 4:00 am, Shane Greenup <s...@1d4.com.au> wrote: > While the advice already given should be very useful and, as described, > 'provide the most bang for buck', I am a big fan of what I consider > "guerrilla marketing" - taking advantage of every form of free exposure you > can get your hands on. One of the most effective in my experience, is forum > posting - not spam advertising your business, but making productive, > contributing posts in forums related to the subject matter of your business. > With a signature link to your business, you are providing a direct link to > your business, while presenting a helpful face to public in need. I have > found this can be useful for not only getting direct referal traffic (for > free!) but also can be the beginning of your growing number of website > backlinks. > > Then there are all of the other standard internet marketing basics, and a > few things which I just consider standard: > > - Write articles on the general topic of your business (or pay someone > else to write them for you) and submit them to various article websites > (Buzzle and ezinearticles are the first two which come to mind). With an > imbedded link to your website, sometimes these articles will be indexed > faster and higher than the articles on your own site, and be a way for that > search traffic to be redirected to your store. More importantly though, it > provides more backlinks to your website, which eventually add up and help > make your website top ranker for those key words. > - Aboutus.org - make a page for your website here. Add enough > information, verify yourself and get the page set to "follow" > - Every article you write in your blog should be shared on facebook, > bookmakers in Delicious, submitted to Stumble Upon, submitted to Digg etc. > Everyone of those services not only provides a chance of making that > article > viral in one way or another, but it at least creates another backlink to > that specific article, and every little bit counts. > - Find blog articles on subjects related to your topic, and comment on > them (meaningfully again!). This won't help the backlink count as blog > comments are nearly always "NoFollow" - but if people find your comment > useful enough, they might click through to see your website. > - Better still, contact the owner of that blog, and ask if they would be > willing to post an article you have written. They get free content - you > get > free publicity. Do this to every blog you can find which is related to your > area. > - Submit link to DMOZ. And maybe some other directories too. Try googling > "<mytopic> Directory" and any which come up, submit to them if you can. A > lot of my early traffic came from a website which just provided a directory > listing of websites related to my area - so while there are a Billion > directory websites out there which are worthless, if you can find some > which > come up on Google when searched for in relation to your topic - they have > already demonstrated their value in your niche. > > That's all I can think of for the moment. These require a lot more work than > paying CPC, advertising, or mailing out to email lists (for a fee), but that > is usually the case with free vs paid. If you lack money, but have some > time, then these techniques definitely work. > > And if anyone else knows any more cool guerrilla marketing tricks, I'd love > to hear them :) > > Shane > > -------------------------http://www.sportarbitrageguide.com/http://www.tdmskp.com.auhttp://www.shanegreenup.comhttp://www.surebetbookies.com/http://www.comparebookmakers.com > > On 26 May 2011 06:05, Beck Rands <beckra...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > wow! thanks Mat, that is brilliant and helpful, and thanks to Jeromy for > > piping in too, thats very useful stuff > > > Beck > > > On 26 May 2011 15:01, Mathew French > > <mathew.fre...@subscribe-hr.com.au>wrote: > > >> Hi Bec. > > >> Yes, I have come accross that with Mail Chimp and Also VR. When you set > >> your website up, make sure you have facilities on your site to capture > >> e-mail, as well as options to sign in for News. This is what they will look > >> at when authorising your account. > > >> In terms of Mailing list, it is a little bit of a grey area. You can go to > >> providers and ask them for what they call opt-in lists. Some providers will > >> give you the list to send, or, they will ask you for your template and send > >> on your behalf. If they give you the list they will "seed" it to make sure > >> you are only using it once. You then get the enquiries based on the blast > >> for your database (or Sales Made). This is what you would call renting a > >> "once only" list. which costs about 1/3 of purchasing the list outright. > > >> I can vouch for companies like incnet and contactability. Have used them > >> and their lists are great. > > >> When you do the blast, What you can do here is get some Help Desk > >> Software, and insert live chat on your site, This was you can see in real > >> time who is visiting (Track IP Addresses). Now, this may not be of use if > >> your are sellinf B to C as Consumers don't have IP addresses you can easily > >> track, but for B to B, you can. This will really help you get some runs on > >> the board early. > > >> You may also like to approach Industry Associations that have Lists of > >> their members that they will let you market to. Once again, they will ask > >> you for your content (Mail Template) and send on your behalf. > > >> When you do this you need to be quite clear about what the purpose of the > >> campaign is. Is it to generate leads (Prospect Names) that you can then > >> continue to market to, or is it to make sales. THis will allow you to > >> define > >> the message in the blast. Remember, in e-marketing, the message needs to be > >> short and simple. Otherwise you will not get the best results. For example, > >> we do e-marketing based on Generating Leads to then use to build our > >> database and then continue to work the list. (You will have about 5 Seconds > >> to Engage). You need to write the message in your Tampate so that in the > >> first 2-3 Sentences, you have convinved the reader about what you are > >> promoting so that want to then click the Call To Action. > > >> You can also think about bolting your CRM system onto your website to > >> automatically send templates to businesses or people based on Ket stages of > >> the sales process. This is not easy to do and takes time and technical > >> expertise, but is a good phase 2-3 when you are up and running. > > >> Hope this helps. > > >> Mat > > >> On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 9:57 AM, Beck Rands <beckra...@gmail.com> wrote: > > >>> Hi Matthew > > >>> All the stuff you say here is good and I had not heard of Vertical > >>> Response so thanks for that. > > >>> I just need to ask about purchased lists here. > > >>> The reason being I did some marketing for a friends' business a few weeks > >>> ago who had very little idea about the internet and marketing. So I went > >>> the easiest route, through mailchimp.com (who I can highly highly highly > >>> recommend, they are fabulous in every way and I will certainly use them > >>> for > >>> my business) with a list of 750 email addresses that my friend had > >>> provided. > >>> As well as FB Twitter, bugging them to start a blog etc > > >>> She had gathered these email addresses by what she saw as legitimate > >>> means over a period of a number of years. Unfortunately because these > >>> people > >>> hadn't signed up for this specific newsletter we were branded spammers and > >>> the account was suspended, which took a fair bit of wiggling and > >>> explaining > >>> to get out of. So being classed as a spammer (using purchased lists or > >>> lists > >>> that were not obtained legally) can throw a spanner in the works, and > >>> untangling the mess can take time and be quite disheartening to the new > >>> business owner. > > >>> I thought I would just throw that out there as an experience that I had > >>> the misfortune to encounter and I have learned that it can end up being > >>> more > >>> of a pain in the arse than a benefit. > > >>> Has anyone else had a similar experience with being branded a spammer? > > >>> How did others build their email lists? > > >>> Beck > > >>> On 26 May 2011 09:18, Mathew French > >>> <mathew.fre...@subscribe-hr.com.au>wrote: > > >>>> Get Your SEO Right. > >>>> Learn about CPC advertising and how you can reduce your cost through > >>>> have good web and good content. > > >>>> Get a Blog up and Running. I am not technical but am OK at Writing and > >>>> we are getting good exposure through key words from our blog. Word Press > >>>> is > >>>> optimised well out of the box. > >>>> Remember to make the content meaningful and place key words in it for > >>>> maximum effect. > > >>>> Also, try to look at purchasing some lists. Not sure what you target > >>>> market is but this is a good effective way to start driving traffic. Use > >>>> an > >>>> e-mail tool like vertical response. > > >>>> These types of things are going to get you out these in the shortest > >>>> possible time and with the best bang for you buck. > > >>>> YOu need to track things to make sure your campaigns are working well. > > >>>> Put your website on some sort of CMS so you can make changes to content > >>>> easily. > > >>>> Use Viral Sharing through Social Media to try and also get know in > >>>> specific groups. > > >>>> Hope this makes sense. > > >>>> These things take your time to work through and put together. Most these > >>>> things relate to Owned Content rather than purchased Content. In the long > >>>> run, will be very powerful for you. > > >>>> Mathew > > >>>> On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 9:19 PM, doogirl <oliviamel...@hotmail.com>wrote: > > >>>>> Hi all, > > >>>>> Let me introduce myself, my name is Olivia, I am totally new to SB. I > >>>>> am about to embark in possibly the scariest and most exciting thing I > >>>>> have ever done. I am starting an online business (retail), it's still > >>>>> early days for me. I have had this niggiling idea for years and > >>>>> decided to finally take the punt into the online world, problem is I > >>>>> am not a technical person! I am > > ... > > read more »- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Silicon Beach Australia mailing list. Guidelines on discussion: http://groups.google.com/group/silicon-beach-australia/msg/351e183e1303508d?hl=en%3Fhl%3Den No lurkers! It is expected that you introduce yourself. 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