Blog @ 103rd Avenue

Targeted Traffic Is The Key

The popularity of a website can be measured by the amount of targeted traffic it gets. There are hundreds of ways to attract traffic to a website  some extremely effective, some not so effective. Among these, viral marketing is one method no online marketer can do without. In fact, most Internet businesses use it in one form or another without conscious effort.

What Is Viral Marketing?

Put simply, viral marketing is just like word of mouth marketing. The marketing message is quickly spreads through everyone exposed to it just like a virus and soon everyone knows about it. When the intention is to make money online, careful thought goes into the kind of message that needs to be spread. It must be easily understood so that it can be passed on naturally. Some ingredients of a successful viral marketing strategy are:

• Has products to distribute for free
• Is easy to pass on
• Takes advantage of gregarious behavior of people
• Knows what triggers action in people
• Uses communication lines that are already there
• Makes use of resources available from others, etc

The great thing about viral marketing is that it can keep up a consistent flow of traffic long after the message is out. This is especially useful when a new product or service is being launched. Most Internet marketers use free stuff like ebooks, Ecourses, affiliate programs, free basic software, etc. in viral marketing to grab the attention of their target niche market. As these wares are sampled, it develops a thirst for more, pulling the traffic back to their website! Viral marketing is a great way to build email lists.

Viral Marketing Strategies:

There are many ways in which viral marketing can be used to multiply the number of people you want to reach effortlessly. The main idea is to bring these people back to your website. The following are some highly effective viral marketing strategies that every Internet Marketing E book will elaborate on:

Through your articles: by letting people to reprint your article on their websites, in their newsletters, ezines or ebooks. Your article includes an author bio or resource box with a link to the website and the message permitting the user to reprint the article in its entirety.

Resale rights: making a resale rights package comprising of an ebook, audio, etc. and including your website URL and name in it. When people buy your product and distribute it as their own, your URL will get a lot of visitors.

Resale rights: making a resale rights package comprising of an ebook, audio, etc. and including your website URL and name in it. When people buy your product and distribute it as their own, your URL will get a lot of visitors.

Ebooks: Niche market ebooks are very successful in viral marketing. Some viral marketers promote other products through their ebooks while letting their own affiliate links remain in the ebook.

Referrals: offer a download link as a freebie for visitors who recommend your site to three of their friends.

Newsletters: ask subscribers to send your newsletter to friends

There are hundreds more like these. Viral marketing cashes in on the speed at which the message is passed on  if a large number of people relay the message to an equal or more number of people, there is a snowballing effect. Of course, there are messages that fizzle off as well if they are not compelling enough.

How To Ensure That Viral Marketing Is Effective

As a very low cost method, viral marketing ranks among the most effective since it can use several channels at once. But to ensure that it is completely effective, the viral message must present an obvious benefit for it to be passed on. It must be easy to forward as well as easy for the marketer to track so that there is at least an approximate idea of its reach.

As far as limited period offers are concerned, viral marketing campaigns are not such a good idea simply because of the nature of viral marketing. Imagine having 50,000 items on offer, a 100,000 people getting the message; then the remaining 50,000 would probably set some negative viral marketing in motion!

That said, viral marketing has been around for a long time, and will definitely continue to be used. It is a question of finding new ways to get the best out of it. There are several ebooks like the Mike Filsaime Butterfly Marketing Manuscript manuscript that talk about it.

Online Joint Ventures – Partners In Success

Aim Is Mutual Benefit

The concept of joint ventures is a boon to any online marketer who wants a lot of targeted traffic and publicity without spending a dime or with a dismally low advertising budget. A joint venture or JV is where two or more people join hands for mutual benefit  in this instance, to make profits.

Why joint ventures are powerful

The biggest advantage of joint ventures is that you can take advantage of your partner’s most precious assets  namely his email lists and his website where he enjoys a flood of traffic. For those who also offer an affiliate program, JVs are the ideal way to promote them. Some of the best people who make profitable JV partners are those that have newsletters and websites that are similar to your niche market. It is quite common in the Internet marketing world to see JV partners with similar sites. They exchange links, share content and at times also sign up with each other’s affiliate programs.

Locating The Ideal JV Partner

About the only problem with JV partners are finding the right ones and having something relevant to offer them. Some Internet marketers try to find JV partners via the search engines with the help of their keywords. You can also locate JV partners at niche market Forums, newsletter directories and membership sites. Teaming up as a joint venture can bring in additional resources that both partners can use to their advantage to make money online.

Basically the JV partner must preferably be someone who runs a business that can complement yours. Someone you view as a competitor could also be a potential JV partner in certain cases. The traffic to your sites must find both the websites of value to them. It is important that a joint venture partner’s plus points add the right value to your own products or services.

Kinds of Joint Ventures

Joint ventures can be of different types. Ezine joint ventures involve a joint subscription. When someone signs up on your site for your ezine, you thank him or her via email and invite them to sign up with your Joint Venture partner’s ezine. Your JV partner does the same for you with the result that you promote each other. Your JV partner promotes their business on your site, while you promote yourself on theirs through messages targeted to your niche.

Some JV partners use the concept of exit pop ups on their site. If you use pay per click advertising, you end up paying for each click regardless of whether it results in a sale. To maximize the return on your PPC investment, for visitors who leave your site without buying, you use an exit pop up window that points them to another site.

Another way to benefit from a JV is to email your subscribers to inform them about special offers from your JV partner. Since they are your optin subscribers, they will take you seriously. The JV partner also promotes your offers to their email list. There are several Internet Marketing e books that talk about multiple ways to make joint ventures a totally symbiotic relationship.

Tracking Your JV Performance

While JVs have their advantages by being risk free, easy to use and easy to set up, it is important to monitor their effectiveness for your site. A JV works best when the both benefit through the alliance. There must be some kind of equality  for example, if you send 10000 visitors to your JV’s site, and get 100 in return, then its time to take a close look. A joint venture must begin to generate substantial traffic as well as profits almost immediately after you set it up and that is what makes this a preferred method for building lists.

Joint ventures can take online businesses to an entirely different level. Through experimentation, there are many creative ways to make JV’s work. Resources like the Mike Filsaime Butterfly Marketing Manuscript have substantial information on this concept. Many Internet marketers have made a fortune through joint ventures

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 at 9:28 am and is filed under Internet Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.