Direct Marketing to drive traffic to your site

Just as there are two types of web site (direct response website and traditional websites), there are two types of website marketing: direct marketing and indirect marketing.

Direct marketing is the most simple: to make your link available to as many people as possible. The easiest way to do this is only to distribute your link to one of your contacts online. This has some advantages: no one is likely to be angry with you for marketing, and will probably get a few sales only on the strength of personal ties. The disadvantage, however, is enormous: no matter how many people stay in touch with on a daily basis, you always have a much, much larger group of people who might buy the product - if only they knew. Then, based on your contacts alone is obviously not a good strategy overall.

A more effective way is to post your link on various forums, blogs, websites. This reaches a large number of people and allows direct marketing to the people most likely to buy the product: a forum for graphics, for example, would be a good place to promote your graphics software package. A blog of crafts would be a good place to promote your wood carvings. A website dedicated to literary magazines would be a good place to promote your book. Any number of options exist, depending on the product and the people most likely to buy it.

The disadvantage of this type of direct marketing, however, is the issue of reputation. Directly place the link in as many places as possible can make a much larger pool of potential customers, but if done correctly, you can easily give you and your business a bad name. At best, this makes it impossible to promote a unique forum. In the worst cases, people will start actively disparaging you, your business, and the product on other forums - giving a bad name before people even see your link.

The solution to this problem is to follow the general rules of conduct online. This means that:

or do not post your links in places foreign to the product.

o Do not interrupt conversations in progress at the end of the forum to promote your product.

Ø Be careful when you promote your product in the forums that you visit regularly. Read the policy of the forum and act accordingly.

o Do not react negatively if someone discredit you or your product after making your link available. Talk to the person - publicly if possible - and respond to their criticisms. This not only denies that there is no ill will towards you, but actually gives something of a positive reputation as a reasonable person - that makes the inhabitants of the forum most likely to buy the product.

A simple solution to the problems of etiquette is to passively promote your product, simply participating in a forum or discussion. Most forums or blogs, have an option "signature" that is attached to all your posts on this forum or comment on this blog. Just include links to your website in this signature and comment generally on the forum, referring to the product when it is appropriate to do so. You are not calling attention to your link in this way - but we are making available online, and that is going to cause some traffic site and a few purchases ....