Article #7

629 words

This is the #1 success ingredient in forum marketing

Ive been promoting Clickbank products for many years now. Ive seen a lot of affiliate marketers come and go in this business. A lot of them come in, talking a big game. In fact, a lot of them make a lot of noise. Its very easy to fall for the hype. Its very easy to think that a lot of these people know exactly what theyre talking about. After all, theyre talking about making a lot of money. 

But just as day follow night, a lot of these marketers all too predictably fail. They become quiet sooner rather than later. The reason for this, of course, is that they look to get traffic from all the wrong places. Once they do get access to potentially lucrative traffic, they end up dropping the ball. One good example of this is forum marketing. 

Make no mistake, it would be great to put your product information in front of the eyeballs of people who have demonstrated in no uncertain terms that they are interested in the solutions your products bring to the table. You may be thinking that this is a slam-dunk. You might be under the impression that this is like shooting fish in a barrel. 

I cant blame you for thinking that way. It seems so easy. But somewhere along the line, they drop the ball. How come? Well, this is very easy to do with forum marketing because when you go on a forum, it seems that everybody there is already talking about a fairly narrow set of problems. Its very tempting to just put your link in front of these eyeballs and call it a day. 

Thats precisely what too many marketers do. Heres the problem, what theyre doing is spam. Nothing more, nothing less. This is why its really important to understand the #1 success ingredient in forum marketing. It doesnt matter whether youre promoting Clickbank or not. It doesnt matter whether youre promoting products or services. 

If you understand this key success ingredient in forum marketing, you will win consistently. What am I talking about? What is the #1 success ingredient in forum marketing? Its credibility. Thats all it is. 

You have to market on forums using your credibility. How do you build credibility? Again, its very simple. You just post and interact and engage. Thats what forums are for. These are like online watering holes. People show up to these places, partly to share information, and party to socialize. 

If you engage in those behaviors an you give people information that they can see is legit and trustworthy, you become authoritative. People, sooner or later, start giving you the benefit of the doubt. Once you reach that point, you can then start marketing your own stuff. 

Since they are giving you the benefit of the doubt, a lot of the traffic you get from your forum marketing efforts are more likely to convert. Unfortunately, a lot of people dont think they have all the time and patience to do this. So, what do they do? They find all sorts of forums and look for related discussions and they just drop a link. 

Maybe they put a little bit of content around it or maybe they would come up with an original comment, but ultimately, it boils down to the link that they are dropping. It is no surprise that the vast majority of people who market on forums this way fail. If you think about it hard enough, theyre not really marketing. Theyre just basically throwing their links all over the place. Talk about a waste of time. 

Focus on building credibility and building real online relationships and reputations and you will find yourself handsomely rewarded.
