Greetings,

If you've ever wondered just how you can follow the advice of the experts to "specialise, specialise, specialise" then this week's article by Ryan Thompson has some practical tips on what to do. (If the spelling of "specialise" worried you, please read this.)

Are you putting off getting your own website because you don't have the time to learn how to create a site or because you can't afford the high cost of web hosting? Then this will interest you. When you arrive at the site, click on Products to see how easy and economical it really is to set up your Internet presence.

And don't skip over the little item in this week's newsletter called The Plan - it explains a lot!

Here's a proven formula for creating Internet profits with a tiny classified ad and a simple 3-page mini web site…even if you hate computers. Don't believe me? Click here.

Regards,

Jennifer 

~ * ~

Community Websites Mean Big Business for You
By: Ryan Thompson 

Lets face it. Marketing is a challenge. You wouldn't be
reading this article if promoting your business online was
just an easy walk in the park under a warm afternoon sun.
The reality of it is that marketing could be called a walk
in the park, but the sky is filled with nasty looking storm
clouds. While there are millions of "marketing methods,"
only a few work. Of those few, one of the least known is
the concept of seeking customers where they congregate. And
customers congregate at Community Websites.

What are Community Websites?

Now, if you have been marketing online very long, one of
the things you have most likely heard a lot about is
Targeted Marketing, right? You must target to your desired
audience on Search Engines and Directories, you must have a
targeted banner campaign, etc. What you may not have heard,
however, is that an elite group of "small" websites have
already taken care of all the hard work of attracting and
building a base of targeted customers. They are "community
websites".

Sometimes called "niche sites" or "fan sites," community
websites are small gathering places for people who have a
passion for a specific topic and they are often maintained
by a webmaster who has an obsession with that topic. From
webmaster resources at AskTheRabbit.com to music rumors at
BritneySpears.org, these sites exist to serve a niche
(highly targeted) market. And these niche markets exist to
buy your products or services.

How can Community Websites benefit you?

Imagine that you live in Los Angeles and you want to go to
New York. You could build your own road from the east coast
of North America to the west coast. Or you could optionally
use one of the roads that have already been built; made, I
might add, by experts. Now imagine that you run an
eBusiness and want to attract customers. You could work
very hard to bring together a targeted visitor base and
market to those visitors. Or you could optionally use a
visitor base that has already been developed; created, I
might add, by community experts.

Community Websites won't get you out of the hard work of
attracting customers, but they do present you with a
readership of interested surfers to market to. These sites
may look simple on the outside, but with dependable
updates, excellent content, and active visitor interaction,
you can be assured of hip, excited, and passionate
customers waiting to click on your advertisement.

How do you determine which Community Websites to market
through?

There are millions of Community Websites online and more
are launched each day. Yahoo, LookSmart, the Open Directory
Project, and many others have made an exhaustive effort to
index the bigger and more popular of these websites. Your
goal must be to find the select few websites that fit
nicely with your products. To do this, I suggest you create
an,action file like the one below. For this example I have
used Two-Way Radios as my product.

My Product--
Multi-Channel Two-Way Radios with a 2-Mile Range.

Product Price--
$50 a pair

Possible Community Markets--
-Fishing
-Camping
-Hiking
-Child-Care
-Travelers

Customers I hope to Target--
-Recreationists that need to communicate
-Parents looking for something to do with their kids
-Laborers in need of short-range communication
 
Look at this action file closely. Almost everything I need
to market Two-Way radios on Community Websites is contained
above. I lay out the details on what I am selling, what it
costs, to what kind of market I wish appeal, and what kind
of customer I plan to target. You can make your own action
files as general or specific as you like, but remember to
keep things simple so you can start moving quickly.

Once you have a list of Community Markets you want to
appeal to, you must spend some time surfing the 'net. Look
at major Internet directories to begin with, but keep an
eye open for Link Pages and Web Rings to find more websites
related to a subject. Create a list of five or six websites
for each of the Markets you listed.

How do you approach Community Websites with Marketing
ideas?

Community Websites Mean Big Business for You.

Continuing with my example above, I select "fishing" as the
first market on the list and I quickly put together a short
sales e-mail to send to my list of Fishing Websites. I want
to make the webmaster feel that I am a fan of his website
(which I am if I plan on marketing with him) and I also
want to sell him on the whole marketing idea. Here is an
example e-mail:

"Greetings,

I visited your website and was excited by its excellent
coverage of fishing and the fishing industry. I made up my
mind right then to approach you about helping to market a
product which I sell and which I feel would be useful to
the anglers who visit your website. The product is a set of
Two-Way Radios for the discounted price of $50. Having
tossed my line in the water a few times, I know that
anglers like to go to the river or lake in groups, but
they will quickly spread out once the fishing starts. The
problem is that, when in need of another night crawler or a
new hook, each fisherman must leave his fishing spot and
search for his companions. He wastes valuable fishing time
that could have been saved if the fisherman had a set of
Two-Way Radios and, therefore, better communication. With
these Two-Way Radios you can easily discuss fishing
conditions, meetings places, lunch times, or anything else
that comes to mind.

If you would be at all interested in discussing a possible
advertising and marketing arrangement between yourself and
me, then please e-mail me at..."

Once my e-mails have been sent out, I sit back and wait for
the interested parties to respond. Before I begin any
marketing partnership, I carefully look at the traffic,
newsletter subscriptions, and general respect that a
website carries. My goal would be to market my Two-Way
Radios through one or two Community Websites in each of my
chosen markets.

Here are a few good ways to nurture a relationship with a
Community Website:

1. Offer a contest. Webmasters are always on the lookout
for ways to boost their visitor return frequency and a
contest, where you provide the item to be given away and
they provide the promotion, is a cheap way to start working
with a Community Site. Webmasters love this type of thing
because they can often get exposure on similar websites as
those webmasters notify their visitors that something is
being given away.

2. Try to get constant presence. Instead of just adding
your banner to their advertising rotation, try to negotiate
a deal where a small affiliate ad is included on all the
Community Website's pages. This placement will lead to
brand recognition for your company and prompt users to come
back later and make a purchase even if they are not
interested at the moment.

3. Listen to the webmaster. Make the webmaster aware that
you are willing to try different things. Come up with your
own ideas for marketing and ask for suggestions from him.
Act quickly if there ever is a problem or issue that needs
to be resolved.

So what's the conclusion?

Enlisting the help of Community Websites is a very
important aspect of online Marketing. These websites have
attracted the same audience you are interested in, but they
have done it with free news, reviews, photos, and message
boards where you have done it with sales pitches. The
visitors to these Community Websites are open and receptive
and, as long as you can get the webmaster on your side,
willing to try almost anything.



Ryan Thompson is the owner and editor of the
Advertisement Express E-zine, a daily free
newsletter that specializes in free web site
and e-zine promotion. (admin@businessvalues.net)

Own A Website? - You Need The Ad Express:
AdvertExpressEzine-subscribe@listbot.com
http://www.businessvalues.net

Confessions from a 27-year old Maryland man who has quietly built an automatic 6-figure income with a simple 2-page web site. Find out how you can copy his success!

The Plan

And the workers went unto their supervisors, and sayeth: "It is a pail of dung, and none can abide the odor thereof."

And the supervisors went unto their managers and sayeth unto them, "It is a container of excrement, and it is very strong, such that none can abide it."

And the managers went unto the directors and sayeth, "It is a vessel of fertilizer, and none can abide its strength," And the directors spoke amongst themselves, saying one to another: "It contains that which aids plant growth, and is very strong."

And the directors went unto the vice presidents and sayeth to them, "It promotes growth, and is very powerful."

And the vice presidents went unto the president, and sayeth unto him, "This new plan will actively promote growth and efficiency of this company, and certain areas in particular."

And the president looked upon the plan, and saw that it was good.
And the plan became policy.
And this is how sh_t happens.

(The Humor Archive)

Quick Tip

Here's some ammunition for those of us fighting to have the
web recognized as a branding vehicle. Advertising.com today
released the first results from their new Intellisource tool,
which lets marketers quantify campaign impact online, even
when consumers don't interact with the ads.

And, according to the results, logo placement has the
greatest effect on brand recall, with prominent and
persistently placed banner ads achieving a 400% higher recall
rate than logos without aggressive placement.

Ads with consistent and prominent placement of a product or
company name generated recall rates 20% higher than those
advertisements without such placement. In addition, ad
graphics and color played significant roles in establishing
brand recall, affecting consumer recognition with twice the
impact of other variables, such as call to action.

Finally, recall increased two to three times when ads were
shown to the target audience and geographic location.


Masha E. Geller http://www.mediapost.com

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