As with newsletters there are a couple of ways of getting subscribers using forums too.

1. Post on forums leaving a link in your ‘signature’ (if allowed) to your opt-in page.

2. Set up your own forum (easier than it sounds) and let the members know that if they join they’re agreeing to join your mailing list too.

Membership forums are popping up all over the Web and offer a unique and often subliminal method of marketing your business and creating a list. The “Gurus” are jumping all over this lucrative stream of income and charging a monthly membership fee that gives them a residual income.

The obvious benefits of belonging to a membership forum include:

• Getting answers to your questions by someone who “has been there and done that”

• Gathering resources for your own use

• Developing relationships with other marketers

• Belonging to a virtual community to create a sense of belonging

If you are focusing your marketing efforts on a specific niche, other than Internet Marketing, like stamp collecting, for example, search for forums focused on your topic and join a few that seem interesting to you. But, before you join anything, take some precautions.

Remember that your underlying purpose in joining a forum, besides the sense of community and access to resources, is to build your credibility, market your products and increase your list of interested customers.

One of your preliminary tasks is to read the forum guidelines, if you can access them before joining, to see if you can add a link to your signature that points to your capture page or other venture you are building. If you cannot, consider finding another forum to join.

Sometimes, you can browse the forum’s categories before joining. If so, scan several postings and notice if there’s any linked sigs at the end of their comments. Don’t just join any forum. Most will have a monthly membership fee that will be a waste of your money if you cannot use a sig to increase your traffic and, as a result, your list.

Better yet, if you can find a free membership forum focused on your niche, join it and test the waters to see if membership will fulfill your needs. You can always unsubscribe if it isn’t what you needed. If you find one to join for free, just be ready to be exposed to aggressive marketing and do not be offended.

Back to your purpose for joining a forum. This signature link is your subliminal marketing tool for advertising your products and will be visible at the end of every posting you make. Those who are curious will click on it just to see what you are doing. Believe me when I say that the only entity more curious than another Internet Marketer is your family’s pet cat.

Don’t make your signature link boring. Read the sigs other members are using and notice which ones make you want to click on the link. That curiosity is what you need to copy. Most ask some short question that attracts your attention and makes you wonder what the answer is. Gotcha!

Once you have your sig the way you want it, add it to every email you send, even to your mother. Everyone you send an email to is a potential customer and member of your list. Just make a sig file in your Internet browser and let it do your work for you. If you add another product or web page, just edit your sig file, adding a link to your new venture.

There’s a few unspoken “rules” of conduct you have to follow when you are

growing your list from a forum membership. The first thing you have to do is introduce yourself to the rest of the community. Most forums have an “Introduce Yourself” category that you can use to announce your arrival and what you are interested in.

This would be a good time to list the major points of your experience and mention your current projects or websites. Just mention them here. Don’t go into an elaborate sales spiel. That would be a breach of forum manners and mark you as rude.

After you’ve posted your Intro, browse the different categories and read the questions and the answers that get posted in response. Make a note of who is providing the most insightful or useful solutions and advice. Also notice those who are negative or on the edge of abusive in their answers, so you can stay away from them.

In the appropriate category, ask questions you have and provide answers to questions from others, if you have the answer. Make sure your question or answer to a posted question is pertinent and written in a friendly manner. You are slowly building your reputation and credibility with the forum members.

Do not forget to edit your Profile and add your signature link back to your website so that it will be added to the bottom of your comments automatically.

So, how do you specifically use forum postings to build your list? Let’s find out.

The obvious answer is through your signature link and that has been covered already.

After you’ve been a forum member for a time, you can offer something free to the forum members…an ebook or piece of software. Send them to your capture page or to the opt-in form to get the download link. They will have to give you their email address and verify their opt-in before they can download your gift. Your offer will have increased value if you include Private Label Rights or Master Resale Rights along with the download. Don’t know what those rights are?

Private Label Rights (PLR) give the person who downloads your free gift the right to do anything they want to do with it…claim authorship, reformat it, break it up into short reports, edit the software code, sell it themselves.

Master Resell Rights (MRR) allows you to sell your product to your customers and allows your customers to sell it, too.

If you are on a forum with a focus on marketing, your fellow members will either be seasoned Internet Marketers or trying to be. Giving them a new product to send out to their list is a valuable move on your part. It gets you the email opt-in and they get to surprise their list members with something new.

You can find PLR products you can use on any facet of marketing on the Web all over the Internet. You probably have 25 or more on your hard drive right now. Rewrite them, combine them, put a cover on them and you have a brand-new free product to offer.

If your niche and your forum are not Internet Marketing focused, but dedicated to a different niche, the same principles apply. The only difference is the free download. Make sure it has some relationship to your niche and a lot of value to offer your list members. I say it again, do not send worthless products to your members. Test it yourself before sending it to anyone.

One word of caution here, though…do not give away rights you do not have with the product you are offering to the forum members. If you created the product yourself, or bought the rights when you got it, you are safe.

That whole process can be set up to operate automatically with a good autoresponder. We will cover managing your list with an autoresponder shortly.

Another list-building technique for forums is to develop important relationships with other members of the forum that could eventually lead to joint ventures that increase your income, along with your list, of course. If your forum has a category for advertising your products or services (most do), read it daily, looking for a request for JV partners. If it sounds like something you are interested in, go for it and increase your list.

Here’s a quick list of forum tips to help you build your “good neighbor” reputation:

• Make sure your forum memberships are related to your niche, or your participation will fall on deaf ears and you will not gain any knowledge.

• Ask for help and provide helpful advice whenever you can. People love to help others and marketers are no exception.

• Be selective when promoting affiliate links. You are a member of your forum to build relationships and create your reputation, not to overtly sell products. Never recommend a product you haven’t used yourself.

• Use the link in your signature to attract traffic from the forum. Make your tag line interesting enough to create curiosity and get a click on your link. It works!

The next wildly popular and successful way to get hundreds of links in a few days or a couple of weeks is to participate in giveaways. Let’s see why.

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