There is nothing like the great insight that forum marketing can give you as an online business owner. Not just for sales but also as regards exposure and promotion. Free too, since participating in forums about your niche can provide you with very important information about building a strong targeted profile, that can make your forum marketing easy for fast results.

First of all, when you join forums about your niche, always adhere to the rules of the particular forum you want to explore and participate. Strictly following their guidelines, will set you safe to contribute in the right way, by always being helpful and providing good value. You want to just contribute and help others in the forum, to build your profile as someone who really is keen on listening and of being constructive, giving great value as well.

This behaviour will be very well received and will enhance your reputation and expertise in your niche. After this phase, when your relationship is well established in the forum, if the rules allow, you can begin living links to your sites, or to your squeeze pages so that you build a list of subscribers in the forum to whom you can market to later on.

When your contributions are perceived of great value by forum members, your reputation is enhanced considerably, and you do not need to repeatedly hint at your links for visits to your sites, letting instead the forum members themselves seeking you out for more information and recommendations about the product or services that you want to promote.

This behaviour has to be subtle, not pushy, and never too obvious. You just keep giving out helpful information and your posts will be very welcomed and easily acted upon, when recommendations are given about their needs and desires. This way you are the one they turn to when they need problems solved, and when this happens you are definitely on to a winning mode in that forum. Forum marketing now seems easy for fast results and earnings are escalating.

The name you use in the forums, use it as well in every project or product that you make or promote, so that people in the forums, seek you out easily in the search engines as well as your promotions of course.

If your status rises in the forum, who knows, may be even a JV with the owner of the forum is possible or you could ask other people participating, to be your affiliates. You could offer them special deals, discounts or may be higher percentages of commissions. The possibilities are enormous when your authority in the forum, as the expert giving out good recommendations, answering participant's questions etc. is well established.

Continue keeping the proper boundaries of the forum and don't promote directly your products or services until someone asks you for recommendations to your products or services. Only then, it is ok to give directions to your websites' order pages or to the relevant links that gives them what they are after.

If you remember that is never your intention to push for direct sales to the members, you are only going to concentrate on their interests and wants. Only when the participants approach you directly to a specific product or service, will you then oblige by dropping a link or send them to your squeeze pages. That is it, and don't self promote in forums ever or you risk getting banned.

So, because you are doing the correct forum marketing in your niches, according to their rules and terms, your online marketing in forums is such a great resource that is pushing your credibility and expertise sky high among the niche forum communities.

Coke and Pepsi spend millions each month to promote their brands. Ford, GM and Toyota would never think twice about tracking their advertising and marketing for greater success. LiveAdPost.com and MetroCityAd.com are pretty convinced that affiliate marketing works. Why do most of the small businesses I talk to seem to think that they can be successful spending one dollar to make 100 dollars?

There is a level of unrealistic expectation out in the small business community in regards to advertising and marketing that still amazes me after all these years. Most small business owners are often focused on the day to day issues of business and so find little time to prepare for long term marketing.

Here's a way to develop a solid long term marketing strategy without breaking your bank account. Build a classified ad marketing  program. You're probably looking at the words and scratching your head right now. That's correct; a marketing program supported by classified advertising.

Use classified ads online or in print to gather prospective customers and marketing information. These small ads come in a variety of sizes, costs, and appear everywhere from neighborhood newsletters to big national magazines to websites on the Internet. They will be your testing ground for larger promotional ventures as well as sources for new product and service ideas.

Here are three simple things you can do today to make your classified ads sell:

1. Place your ads where your prospects are likely to see it.

Magazines and Internet advertising are segmented by markets and interests. Identify your target audience and run a series of ads with a free offer in return for their email address and other information you may need for marketing purposes.

It is vital that you have a profile of the market you wish to sell to because of the wide range of media. You want to stay narrow in your focus for both economic reasons as well as ease of maintenance.

2. The power of your classified is in your headline. With classified ads, the headline makes or breaks the ad. The headline gets their attention and also even qualifies them at the same time. Your goal here is not to sell them anything. Your main goal is to qualify them for future sales and marketing.

Use the power words to entice them go to your website. The goal is to get them to do what you want them to do. If you want their phone number and shoe size, let them. The classifieds will send them to a sales page on your website. Let the sales page do the selling.

3. Your ad should be brief and concise. Let the headline deliver your offer and pull them in then the two to three extra lines will explain your offer and take them to the website for full details.

Try these words in your classified ads: free, new, new and improved, discover, great new method, plan, reveals, simple, advanced, amazing, now, how to, and easy.

4. Don't forget to track your ads. Remember that giant corporations pay a lot of money to track their results. They know that everything depends on the numbers.

I recommend that you make a separate squeeze page or sales page for each classified . That will allow you to track them in you autoresponder (which should also be associated to each unique sales page.)

Once you have a growing list of prospects, you can email them regularly and get their opinion on products and services. There is an online printer YistaPrint.com that emails me every week. They always have something on special or free. I'm a customer of theirs so I'll always check and see what they are up to. You'll find that during a slow season, you can press a button and make unexpected sales happen.

The question is…DO FREE CLASSIFIED AD SITES REALLY WORK? The answer is yes and no. I know that is not the answer you wanted to hear, but it is the truth.

Let me try to explain further. All marketing is numbers! The more advertising methods you are using in the market place, ultimately the more website visitors you will have and the more sales you will make.

With that said, a few years ago when we rolled out our web cash leads program we had associates using every method possible to drive traffic to their affiliate sites. There is no question that the best 2 ways to drive traffic to any website is with Pay Per Click Search engines such as Google and Overture along with solo ads in marketing ezines.

However FREE classified ad sites will work, provided that you are promoting a product or service that ADVERTISER can benefit from. Please re-read that statement. You must promote a product or services that A D V E R T I S E R S want!

What I am really saying is that not that many consumers actually visit a lot of the FREE advertising sites on the web, but a TON of Website owners see ads while searching to make sure their personal ad appears on the site. Does that make sense?

So if you can promote a product or service that website owners can use your chances for clicks and sales increase dramatically. I can tell you dozens of success stories from marketers that have used FREE classified sites to market their products and services. I can also share with you dozens of horror stories from associates who have wasted hours posting to FREE Classified Ad sites with little or no results.

So should you use FREE Advertising Sites are not? After all it can be very time consuming to post to these sites? We personally post to FREE advertising sites every week, and we make sales weekly. However we have a secret to our success.

We use a completely automated Classified Ad Blaster that allows us to submit unlimited free ads to over 50,000 classified ads sites with just a couple of clicks of the mouse! That is right we can submit our ad to over FIFTY THOUSAND free classified ad sites in less than 5 minutes!

With those kinds of “numbers” no wonder we get a lot of website traffic and sales weekly from FREE Classified Ad sites. You can work hard, or you can work smart. In all businesses time is money and marketing comes down to numbers. Our submitter allow us to go post on huge numbers of boards in less than 5 minutes, we think it makes much more sense to approach marketing with FREE classified ad sites this way, than trying to submit our ads 1 by 1, what about you? You can get all the details about the classified ad submitter we use, along with several other great promotional products.

Forum marketing or Social Marketing can truly be another great hidden source to add to you're over all Internet marketing. It is a place were people with similar interest gather to discuss all types of topics for that subject.

How affective is it for your Internet Marketing and generating website traffic?

Forum Marketing can help in many different ways when it comes to marketing your website, here is how:

First you want to find a discussion board or forum that is targeted to your website theme. Think of it like this would you market your website about jewelry to a forum about cooking? The answer is no.

Participating in forums can help you and your website build an expert status online by posting answers to questions others have in a specific topic.

Never posted in forums before?

First thing you should do before just jumping in and posting wildly, take a look around and see what other are posting about, view the set up and feel the mood of the forum.

Once you have a good understanding of the forum then you can start participating in this targeted marketing platform.

Note: There is a sign up process for most good forums. Process is simple and only takes a few minutes. Forums normally use sign in to help better monitor the forum and protect it from spamming.

Keep in mind that most forums do not allow advertising in their post and the regular participants of these forums can smell an ad from a mile away. This way of using the forums will not make you any friends so keep your content exactly that content. Add value to the forum by providing your own unique quality copy.

Forums allow a signature line were you can place a small description about your business along with a link to your website. Here is where your link popularity can climb and climb steadily as new post creates new fresh content that the search engines love.

Search engines pick up and index forum posts high so be sure to include important keyword rich topics and content in every forum posts so they will attract targeted traffic for your website through your popular keywords.

Consider Forum Marketing as part of you Internet marketing strategies, it can have many benefits for your website and business that you may not have thought about.

Classified advertising is a form of marketing that can immediately let you know if yours is working. One of the fastest ways to run a classified ad is via your local newspaper. You can use it to test a new headline that you want to put on a sales letter. If your "headline ad" gets response, then you know that it's a clear choice for the headline that you want to use.

In the past, all I used to do was run classified ads. I used to get a trickle of response from here and a trickle of response from over there, but I realized that if I wanted to have the most success with classified ads, I would have to run 100's of them just to see the results that I was looking for.

But I have let classified advertising for a far more profitable source of getting customers - but I can still give you classified advertising advice that can make you profitable. Are you ready for those tips? Then great! Here's the first piece of advice that I can give to you.

1) Run them everywhere

Like I said to make classified advertising work, you have to have 100's of them to run. And as a small business owner, I doubt if you have time and money to run 100's of classified ads. So my suggestion is to test in a few small markets first, and if you make money with those campaigns, use the earnings to run more. Here's another tip for making classified advertising work.

2) Lead with a free offer

By offering something for free in your classified ad, you make it easy for people to say "yes" to you. After they've received their free offer, follow up on these leads for maximum exposure.

At this stage they have no idea what they will receive next, so it makes sense for these people.

In your free offer, explain the cause of their issue, and how your product can help them to solve it. You want to make everything within your sales package and turn it into a magnet that will help you too get more new sales.

These 2 tips are for classified success. Make sure that you "bold" your headline so that people can get a chance to clearly see your ad. Describe your free report in as little words as possible so that people can easily take advantage of it when they see your ad. This is the fastest way to business success.

Classified advertising is good for a number of reasons, but the most important reason is to have success in you business. If you're motivation for classified ads isn't to make money, then what is it for? I've heard of a guy who make 1 million dollars doing nothing except classified advertising, so the possibility of using classified ads isn't the question. It's the answer.

Find your self some good classified advertising out there, and put it into use today in your business. Trust me, it will be more than worth it.

Classified ads can be very effective in online marketing. Free classified ads fit into every budget. It all comes down to how much time you are willing to spend creating, posting, updating and deleting ads. Depending on your particular product or service, it can be time-consuming to respond to interested parties, deliver goods or services and maintain a high level of customer service.

Selling through free classified ads can help you promote your business. Include your company's name, product information and a website link in your ads to gain more attention. Include pictures whenever possible to give customers a better idea of what they can expect if they make a purchase from you.

The Benefits of Promoting on Classified Ad Sites

Aside from saving you money in advertising costs, placing ads on free classified sites has many other benefits. These include:

* Targeted traffic directed to your website.

* Instant posting.

* Few rules regarding what can be posted.

* The opportunity to test your ad copy at no cost before placing ads on websites that draw more traffic but charge a fee.

* The ability to track your visitors and gauge how successful each ad is.

* The ability to build your opt-in list and follow up with potential customers.

Tips for Promoting Your Business Using Free Classified Ads

Promoting your business with free classified ads is relatively easy. Still, there are some steps that can make your campaign more successful. Keep these tips in mind:

* Familiarize yourself with the terms of the classified ad site before posting. This will help you avoid having your ads deleted.

* Place ads frequently for better results. Update weekly to keep your posts at the top so you get more views.

* Remain professional, both in your classified ads and in dealings with potential customers.

* Make sure your ad shines and stands out from the crowd without being too loud or obnoxious.

* Include keywords to help targeted customers find your ads.

Classified Ads and Niche Marketing

One particularly effective way to get more targeted traffic from your free classified ads is to choose sites that are very specific in nature. For example, if you own a company that sells creative and unique baskets, then you can place your ad on a site for gifts. If you own a used car dealership, however, the gift site is not going to work for you. You can advertise in the automobile section of a general site, but you can also search for classified ad sites that are specifically geared toward car enthusiasts. The key is that visitors to these sites will already be interested in what you have to offer.

Traditional Advertising Versus Online Marketing

The advertising world has changed a lot over the last decade. Traditional print ads are not as effective as they once were. They also can be costly. Online marketing is the most effective way to promote a business, whether it is an online business or actually has a storefront. Free classified ads should certainly be included in your marketing strategy. Carefully track your website traffic to gauge how effective each ad is, and then make adjustments as needed. Online marketing is here to stay. Avoiding this valuable tool is like shutting the door on potential customers.

There are more and more online business opportunities open to all on the internet these days. And it is very easy to start one but the hardest part about online business is surviving and having longevity in the industry because this is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It takes time and effort to see the first positive results from your online business.

One should slowly develop and acquire online marketing techniques and strategy. One of the easiest ways to market your online business is forum marketing.

Most forum owners welcome people with businesses related to that involved in their forums. These people can bring a wealth of experience and tips that can benefit the entire community of the forum. The business owners or Internet marketers who post their comments, questions or advice really understand and respects the forum.

Once you are an active and respected member of the forum community, other members would tend to seek you out and learn more about you and your products and services. This is where your "signature" at the bottom of your messages comes into play. The most important thing is to make sure your signature stand out from the rest, so that people would take notice of your signature where you provide the links to your websites or blogs.

To add a forum signature you need simply go to the forum and sign in. Then proceed to the page where you can edit your profile. Just paste your signature code into the relevant area and save the changes you just made. Since there will be regulations on signature lengths you need to design your signature line carefully such that you could emphasize your business as much as possible within the number of words or characters allowed.

Also, usually you are given a choice to include your signature with every post whereby you add your signature manually. Needless to say, it is advisable to always include your signature in all your posts. Once the above steps are done, every time you respond to a post in the forum or start a new thread your signature would be seen by others. When you frequent forums with high traffic it can bring many visitors to your website.

However you need to observe some basic guidelines of forum marketing to improve your online business. The following are some of them:

1) Do not try to break the rules by posting content that is not allowed either in the post itself or in the signature line.

2) Information posted should provide a real benefit to forum members. This should be offered with no expectation simply because you are a member of the community.

3) Many Internet marketers join multiple forums where they will sign up, post links and disappear for a long time. This definitely will not work if you intend to use forum marketing as one of your strategies to market your business.

4) A good forum poster will seek to learn something about the regular posters and have an understanding of the forum community.

5) You need to become a community member on a long term basis. Usually after a short introduction, the poster would start discussing issues related to his online business and expertise. This is to gain an eventual trust from other members of the forum.

6) Do not pitch your business in your forum discussions. This should be left to your signature line. There are a lot of Internet marketers who get this step wrong and end up losing their membership of the forums.

If you adhere to these guidelines you will notice a steady flow of free traffic to your website and you will realise that forum marketing is one of the great marketing techniques to improve your online business.

Free classifieds are a good choice for marketing affiliate programs on the internet, especially if you are new. Everyone is familiar with classified advertising. It has been a staple of newspapers for hundreds of years.

The best part of using free online classified ads to promote is that you can see results in hours. With offline classified ads it make take days or even weeks to see results.

If you are marketing affiliate programs online, most free classified sites will accept affiliate links, so you don't have to worry about creating a website.

Below are five tips for getting the most from marketing affiliate programs on free classifieds:

1. Follow the rules.
Although most free classified ad sites allow you to use affiliate links, sites like LiveAdPost and MetroCityAd usually don't. The best way to get around this is to use a simple one page subscription site, or create a blog or Squidoo lens.

Use different titles, different links, and different cities.

2. Write a good ad.
The first thing your readers will see is the headline. This determines whether or not readers will read your ad. Write a title emphasizing the main benefit of your product.

In the ad body, show how your product solves a particular problem. Don't just tell your readers to take action. Tell them what they need to do, whether it's click a link, send an email for more information, or whatever you want them to do. Give them a reason to take action.

3. Take advantage of images.
Many ad sites will allow you to include images in your ads, and some of these sites will even allow you to do it for free.

A good image can increase the conversion of your ad because it allows readers to see what the product looks like.

If possible, include at least one image. If you have to pay to include the image, then make sure you test this part of the ad. Don't waste money on ads or added features if they don't help you increase your bottom line.

4. Post consistently.
If you post one ad to a site, or even several, and you don't get any traffic, it's easy to get discouraged. However, you won't get any traffic if you don't post any ads, or if you only post when you feel like it.

Bad marketing is better than no marketing at all. If you try marketing and fail at it, then you know what to change.

Set a schedule for your ad posting and stick to it. If you plan to post 10 ads a day, post that many. Renew ads that have expired. Keep posting. It's the major way to see results.

5. Test your ads.
Even if you are using free classified ad sites, it's still a good idea to test, especially if your ad isn't converting.

Start with the headline. The headline is the most important part of the ad because it's what gets readers to read the rest of the ad and take action. Rewrite it. Make sure you have chosen the right benefit to your product.

Test it. If changing the headline doesn't increase conversion, rewrite the ad. Change one thing at a time whether it's the headline, ad, category, or link. If you've tried everything, and you still can't make the product sell, then start over. Find a new product.

The real "secret" to making money using free classifieds is to build a portfolio of products. Have more than one product you are marketing. The more products you market, and the more ads you have, the more money you can make.

Want to know more about how to market using free classifieds? Then click for more information on marketing with free classifieds, specifically LiveAdPost and MetroCityAd. Get your free internet marketing membership.

Online free classifieds today provide a very easy, fast and free medium for sellers or new entrepreneurs to reach out customers. However while going classifieds way to advertise your products it is important for seller to focus on classifieds which are search engine optimized to achieve maximum result for its efforts. Search engine optimized classified site in simple language means that on such site your ad is easily identified and indexed by search engines like Google and appears in top links when product related search is made. This way a lot of free traffic is generated. In today's world most of the web traffic emerges from Google and other search engines and hence this is very important part of the classifieds marketing strategy. Few more key points that a seller should keep in mind while starting classifieds marketing efforts for maximum ROI are

1. Search for key words like "free classifieds" or "post free ads" on search engines, preferably the ones which are your target country specific. As a rule of thumb sites which would list on first 2-3 pages would be very good SEO friendly classified sites.

2. Visit these classifieds and shortlist the ones which offer categories where your products can fit in. Prepare this list for your campaign and keep updating it frequently as these rankings change very fast.

3. Submit a listing of your products under appropriate categories. Include price, quantity, condition, age, a picture and any other relevant details to make your ad complete and effective.

4. Provide adequate communication channels for buyers like phone, email, mobile etc to reach you.

5. Repost your ads before expiry. Some sites would send you an email reminder for this.

Always include a company logo/ website snapshot or a signature with url and punch line in your Ads. This helps in long term towards building a loyal customer base. So do not wait any more DreamLink Classifieds and Dreamway classifieds now and start selling / promoting your products and see the difference.

http://classifieds.dreamlink.in - Free Classifieds

http://classifieds.dreamway.co.in – Indian Classifieds