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100 ways to promote – Part 5
Contests
Become an Expert
Message Boards
Starting a Message Board
AutoResponders

100 ways to promote – Number 12 Contests

Promoting your site with Contests

Contests are a great way to promote your site. Almost everyone likes to win something.

--The Process –-

<> Pick your prize <>

First the prize you choose should relate to your site. For example, if your site sells jewelry your prize could be a piece of jewelry, gift certificates, jewelry cleaner, free appraisal, or something similar. Whatever you decide on make sure that you have the item in stock.

Decide how long you are going to run the contest and if it will be a recurring contest or not. Usually it is best if the contest runs for at least a month, the more entries to your contest the better it will be for you.

<> Promote your contest <>

You can promote your contest in all the ways we’ve mentioned thus far in 100 ways. In addition you can also post your contest to specific contest sites. Here are someto get you started.

http://www.redhotsweeps.com/
http://www.playhere.com
http://www.contestworld.com/
http://www.contestguide.com/
http://www.sweepstakesonline.com/
http://www.sweepsadvantage.com
http://contests.miningco.com/ http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Castle/8458/index.htm http://www.online-sweepstakes.com/ http://www.onlinesweeps.com/online.html

<> Pick the winner <>

At the appropriate date select the winner and send them the details of how to claim their prize.

<> Follow up <>

This is the most IMPORTANT aspect of the contest. Now take all of the folks that lost the contest and send them a note.

This note should:
Tell them who the winner was.
Thank them for entering the contest (if your contest is recurring tell them they can enter again).
Offer them a discount on your products and / or services as a runner-up prize.

100 ways to promote – Number 13–Become an Expert

You know a lot about your business. Why not share this wealth of information with others. There are several places on the net where you can become an expert. This will not only bring you some traffic but you can also get paid for the information that you provide.

Some of these services include:
http://www.experts.com/index.asp
http://www.askme.com/

A directory of ‘expert’ sites can be found here: http://www.refdesk.com/expert.html

100 ways to promote – Number 14– Message Boards

Following the theme for advice, another way you can promote your site is by using message boards.

Some things to remember –
-Follow the rules for the message board. Some allow you to post your signature file, others don’t.
-The best way to promote yourself and your site is to provide useful information or to answer questions that other folks have.
-Fame doesn’t come in a day, but consistent, useful information that you provide will help you much more than just a weekly or monthly attempt to post.

Finding the boards.

An easy way to find one is to search for a specific message board – i.e. web design message board Some directories for these boards can be found at the following web sites. Again don’t forget to bookmark the boards you find that you like.

http://directory.google.com/Top/Society/People/Message_Boards/Organized_by_Topic/ http://www.forumone.com/index/index.php

100 ways to promote – Number 15– Starting your own message board.

Bring the information close to home by starting a message board at your site. Be aware that this can be time consuming as you moderate the boards. Some free resources for starting a message board can be found at the following sites –

http://www.ezboard.com/
http://www.bravenet.com
and there are hundreds of others.

100 ways to promote – Number 16– AutoResponders

A POWER TECHNIQUE FOR BOOSTING SALES by David Alexander

So you've built your site and started to promote it. You're getting some sales, but you want to generate more. There is one simple sales technique that almost every Internet marketing expert agrees will DRAMATICALLY boost your sales every single day - follow up with your prospects.

The bottom line is this - if you want to vastly increase the number of your visitors who turn into valued customers, you need to contact them over and over. Through a series of messages, you need to convey the emotional and logical reasons why they MUST buy your product.

If you assume that your visitors are going to buy from you on their first and only visit to your site, you are mistaken. It just doesn't happen that quickly. Approximately 80% of sales are made AFTER the initial contact.

Do you see how many sales you could be losing if you don't initiate further contact? Consider your site's visitors perspective. Do you grab your credit card every time you pass through a store and see something you like? It doesn't mean you're going to buy it right then and there.

When you decide to buy it, do you go back to that same store? Maybe, maybe not! Would you be more inclined to buy from a particular store if the sales associate gave you a courtesy call? So how do you follow up for maximum effect and what tools and techniques should you use?

o The Tools
Begin by realizing that you can't do all this by yourself! Suppose you get 500 visitors a day to your site and one in fifty of them requests information. That's ten e-mails you're going to have to send manually for the next few days or weeks. And tomorrow you get another ten, and the next day another ten... can you imagine how complicated managing this process could be?

What is the best management tool available? Sequential or follow-up autoresponders. Autoresponders are the e-mail equivalent of "fax-on-demand" systems. Someone sends your autoresponder an e-mail or subscribes to it on your web site and the autoresponder sends the messages and manages the follow-up process from that point. It does the managing for you! A good autoresponder system will send out the right message on the right day, address your prospect by name, keep track of the follow-up sequence while automatically building you a database of interested contacts.

Most web site hosting packages come with autoresponders. Usually, however, these send out a single message and therefore can't be used for continually following up with prospects. Instead, you can pay monthly fees to an autoresponder service or install software on your site and run them directly from there.

o The Techniques

So what techniques can you employ in your follow-up messages to turn your prospect into a customer? -

Technique 1: Build Trust and Credibility
The more you contact your prospect with useful and relevant information, the more they will assume you can be trusted. By offering valuable credible information, you prove to your prospect that you know what you are talking about.

- Technique 2: Create the Emotional Reason to Buy
With each message you send, you can work on the need or desire that your product will satisfy. More money to pay for that holiday? More free time to spend with the family? Less stress? People buy because they WANT something, secondly because they NEED it.

- Technique 3: Increase the Offer
Gradually increase the perceived value of your offer until your prospect has to find reasons not to buy from you! You can do this by offering free bonuses, discounts, or free shipping. But here's the golden rule - all of them must be time-limited to push your prospect to make that final decision.

- Technique 4: Logical Justification People buy for emotional reasons, but they need that decision backed by solid logical reasons. Your follow-up plan should include logical reasons why your prospect should buy - reasons based on facts and figures, not on emotional desire alone.

- Technique 5: Avoid the After-Sale Blues
How many times have you bought something and then immediately regretted it? You can avoid this situation (and refunds) after the sale by reassuring your new customer their decision to purchase was a good one. You simply need to remind them that your product will save time, increase sales, boost site traffic, help them lose weight or whatever. They have already bought it - they just need reminding what it will do for them.

In summary, to dramatically increase your ratio of visitors to sales, you ABSOLUTELY MUST follow up with your prospects and site visitors. It works, it's proven, and it's easy if you use the right tools.
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David Alexander is Product Manager for AutoResponse Plus, the Internet's leading autoresponder software for web sites. http://www.autoresponseplus.com/hop.php?s=BL01

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