Forum Secrets Mini Course

My good friend Michael Rasmussen, CEO of FreeAdForum.com, recently sent out an excellent mini course on tips, tricks & secrets that will make your forum posts MUCH more powerful. I wanted to post all 5 lessons in their entirety so that you could take advantage of this valuable information and put it to use in your forum posting.

Enjoy.

The Power P.S. Technique

Have you noticed that you barely even SEE banner ads these days? Even if a site has a well placed banner ad, your eyes are trained to ignore it,because you've seen so many of them, and you know that they're generally not worth looking at.Well guess what, the same thing is happening on discussion forums!

More and more people are completely ignoring thesignatures at the bottom of each post. Although some people ARE making money with their signatures, I've discovered a much more powerfulway to get people to click on your link.

It's called the Power P.S. Here's how it works...At the bottom of your posts, you add a little P.S. that increases the URGENCY of your message.

That way, people click your link immediately, instead of ignoring it.The P.S. cannot be a "canned" message that youslip into every post. It should be different eachtime, so that people don't get trained to ignore your PS's. Look out for part 2 of this mini-course tomorrow, because I'm going to give you a powerful REAL LIFE example of one of my most successful PS's of all time, and then I'll reveal how you can"ethically steal" my secret to make drive tons of traffic to YOUR web site.

I have two great forum posting techniques to share with you in this lesson. The first one is going to be an example of the technique I mentioned in part 1 of this mini-course... the Power P.S. technique.The second one is actually a little-known "trick" that a lot of forum posting experts use to get up to 3 times as many views to their post. Once you learn this, you'll immediately realize how much MORE mileage you can get from your posts.

SIDENOTE: By the way, I have a surprise for you in this part of the course, so make sure you read the entire thing. I'm not going to tell you what it is, but you'll know it when you see it.

Okay, back to the Power P.S. technique. It's important to remember that your P.S. shouldn't be a blatant promotion. You want to create it so that it comes across as a "personal note". Here's a post I made a couple weeks ago. Pay particular attention to the P.S. at the end...

Howdy...Is anyone here experienced in putting together a really "tasty" resale rights package? I've been brainstorming all the different elements of what I want to include, and here's what I've come up with so far:* resale rights to the eBooks (obviously)* use of my professionally created sales letters (I paid a fortune to have these killer sales letters written... should I include them, or let people create their own?)* I'll also give them my thank you pages, and download instructions email to make things easy for them.Here's my main question...I have a few other things that I can throw in, but I'm not sure if it would be too much. The other possibilities are... * the professional header graphic* the complete set of eBook graphics* and this is the one that I'm wrestling with... should I offer ALL of them in a bundle package? (meaning, they can buy all 10 products with resale rights for one low cost... or should I sell them individually?).

Because these eBooks have sold a ton of copies, I don't want to devalue them by offering a ton of cheap, low level packages. I expect to charge around 150 dollars for the cheapest package, and even with that... if the person has a list, they could make their money back on the first day. Would it be a mistake to offer this as a bundle package, and give people all of these products that are already developed and ready-to-sell? I'm ready to launch this offer, so I'd really appreciate hearing from some of the more experienced marketers on this forum.

Warmly,
Michael Rasmussen

P.S. - Here's the URL of the products that I'm offering the rights for. IF anyone here has an email list that would be interested in this kind of deal, I'm willing to give you 50% of what I make (50% of a high end sale like this is a pretty good chunk).
http://www.FreeAdvertisingForum.com/special.php

Do you see how I structured my post as a request for help? What you may not realize is that what I was REALLY trying to do was get the attention of people who have good sized opt-in email lists, so they can promote my resale rights offer to their list. Pretty clever, huh? Go ahead and give it a try. The Power P.S. technique is a proven winner. By the way, I received a lot of helpful replies to this original post, and as a result, I came up with a much more compelling resale rights offer. If you want to see it for yourself, go here, but make sure you keep reading...http://www.FreeAdvertisingForum.com/special.php

Onward... it's time for the next technique of this series. This is a little known trick that experts use to make sure their posts get seen by nearly EVERYBODY.

I call this one...

The Slingshot Method

Why do I call it The Slingshot Method? Well what happens when you pull a sling shot back further and further? Eventually it comes exploding back to where it was originally... almost instantly.When you think about that in terms of forum posts, that means that you take your post, and get it to come rocketing back to the top of the list of available posts to read.

Here's how to pull this off...Most forums are designed so that the newer posts are at the top of the list, and they get pushed down as more and more new posts get added. But guess what... it's not ONLY new posts that make it to the top. The ones who get replied to also get pushed to the top! Let me explain that in plain English. If you made a post last week about something, and nobody replied, it would keep going further and further down the list, until it made it to (gasp) page 2,which nobody looks at. Here's how to keep your post at the top of the list... simply REPLY TO IT.

That's right, simply reply to your own post, and add some extra information that you "forgot" to put in your original post. Think about it, if there's a reply to your post every day for an entire week... your post will NOT get pushed to the bottom, and most of the "regulars" will get to read it. I actually have a very powerful example of how to use the Slingshot Method. I used it to keep one of my own posts "stuck" at the top of the list for an entire MONTH! While everyone else was getting 2-300 people reading their post, I got nearly 2,500 views!

That post brought me a lot of traffic, and a lot of extra sales. The good news it that you can model my post to create your own traffic producing monster. Be sure to read the next part of this course, because I'm going to share with you this "Golden Post" that got the attention of thousands of Internet Marketers, and teach you how you can create one just like it for your business.

Part 3's forum posting secret is all about how to get maximum exposure for each of your posts.

This is going to be a quick lesson, so you can easily read the whole thing right now. Let's talk about food for a minute...If you came up with a recipe for a really tasty meal, and you were interested in selling it to as many people as possible... would you only go to ONE restaurant and make your offer? Of course not! If you're smart, you'll go to as many restaurants as possible, so that you can put your recipe in front of as many prospects. The same is true with posting on discussion forums.

You've got to get maximum use out of your efforts. I can sum up this secret in 3 words - Paste Your Post Here's how it works. First, you choose the forums that you really like visiting. Personally, I only have time to look at 4 or 5 forums, but they are all really big ones such as my own at http://www.freeadvertisingforum.com/index.php?referrerid=198579 Then you construct your post in Windows Notepad (or a similar text editing program), and save it. Next, you visit each one of the forums and paste your discussion post into each one of the forums. Simple. Here's why this is important..Most people spend a lot of time writing a really amazing forum post, but they only put it up on ONE website.

That's a huge waste, because you can post it to other forums for free. The only costs is 5 extra minutes of your time. So the next time you want to get some really great traffic from your forum posts... be sure to place them in multiple forums... not just one.You'll get a LOT more traffic (and sales) from your efforts than you ever imagined.

NOTE: You can do the same thing in less time using "Forum Fortunes" ;-)

Part 4

Are you ready to learn how to make forum posts that get lots of attention? If you remember, in the previous lesson you learned the secret of the Slingshot Technique for keeping your posts at the top of the list. You learned that by replying to your own post, it will immediately get sent back up to the top of the charts. And here's more good news... it doesn't just have to be YOU that replies to your post. If you craft your post so that other people want to add their own input, then that makes your job much easier. That's what today's lesson is all about. The main thing you want to learn how to do is create OPEN ENDED POSTS. Let me explain.

If I asked you the following question, what would be your response..."Do you enjoy learning about Internet Marketing?" Chances are, your answer would be a simple "Yes", right? This is an example of a closed ended question. That's the kind of posts that a lot of people make, and those posts don't get read anywhere near as much as open ended posts do. Here's an example of a closed ended forum post..."Has anyone else tried this method of emailing their customers? I read somewhere in an eBook that if you put a descriptive, and enticing subject line in your email, more people will open it (as opposed to just saying XYZ Newsletter Is Here)."

This kind of post will usually generate very lame responses that sound like this..."Nah, I simply use the same subject line eachtime, so that they'll recognize my emailnewsletter."

Open Ended Posts

Here's an example of an open ended question..."Why do you like Internet Marketing over regularDirect Mail marketing?" Do you see how there's more room to give a personal, creative answer? Here's how this looks in a post...

"I've been learning all about subject lines this past week, and I was just wondering if you folks could share your favorite subject line strategy for sending out email newsletters. I've heard that some people disguise their content by using vague subject lines (does this personally annoy you?). I've also heard that sometimes it's a good idea to use the same subject line every time. For example, XYZ Newsletter, Issue 11... where only the issue number changes each time you send out a new email .With all you experts in here, there's gotta be some really good secrets behind using subject lines to your advantage. So come on... let's show off a little :)"

Now that you know how this works, let me show you an example of a post that I made, which got me nice little boost of traffic.

My Successful Post - SUBJECT LINE: Are YOU Giving 6 Dollar Haircuts? "I got myself all p*ssed off today over nothing.I must have wasted a good 2 hours of productivetime thinking about this, and I decided it's time to bring this up in the forum.Here's why I'm so mad... I'm starting to see 6 dollar haircuts EVERYWHERE! Oh wait, you don't know what I mean by 6 dollar haircuts, do you? Well listen to this story. I guarantee you'll never forget it.Once upon a time, there was a very successful barber who had a thriving business. He was well known in his city for giving top notch haircuts for only 10 dollars. His customers loved him, because he was giving extraordinary value for a fair price. He was truly giving people MORE than they paid for. One day, the barber got into a disagreement withone of his customers (who happened to be a wealthy, corporate executive). This customer was SO angry at the barber, that he decided to open up a brand new barber shop right next door, and make every attempt to put him out of business. He put up a HUGE sign in his window that said,"We Give 6 Dollar Haircuts". Within 2-3 weeks, almost all of the barber's customers were goin gto his competitor's place in order to save money. There was no way he could charge only 6 dollars and still stay in business, but he was determined not to go out of business. So he came up with a plan to fight back. He decided that he would also put a big sign in his window that would counter what his competitor was trying to do to him. Within ONE WEEK the barber had all of his business back, because of that sign. Can you guess what the sign said? We FIX 6 Dollar Haircuts! Here's how this relates to us as Internet Marketers. I see all sorts of websites popping up and selling cheap garbage products. It seems like just about anyone who has a thousand bucks in his pocket can hire a ghostwriter to create a mediocre "me too" product. Those products usually don't have any really valuable content.It's all just generic fluff. In fact, often it's just reworded forum posts that were transformed into an eBook.How can someone who's JUST getting started in this business teach you how to make money in this business? If you want to get into to Interne tMarketing business, then buy the reprint rights for a proven, high quality product that actually makes a difference in people's ability to make money .Don't just go out there and devalue the market by selling $9.95 "flea market quality" eBooks. I'm just wondering... how do YOU feel about"cookie cutter" cheapo products? Do you think they have any value? The only value that I can really see is that they make people who really DO pour themselves into their product... look much better. What are your thoughts?

Warmly,
Michael Rasmussen

P.S. - If you want to see an example of a high quality product on how to create your own eBookthat really teaches people something worth reading, then check out this site:http://www.Ebook-Marketing-Revealed.com/main.html

This post caused quite a bit of controversy onsome of the discussion forums that I belong to. People who hadn't posted for months suddenly came exploding out of the shadows to voice their opinion. The result? I got over a 800 visitors to my site for FREE, and quite a number of sales... all within 7 days. If you're new to marketing, let me just say that 800 highly targeted visitors is worth a lot of money. Do you see how I gave my opinion FIRST, and then gave people a chance to disagree or agree. Either way, it gets them participating, which keeps my post at the top of the list... which results in more views, and more traffic .Listen, since you're going to be posting anyway,why not spend a few extra minutes turning your post into something that really gets results?

Part 5

Did you know that you can actually rank higher in the search engines by making one simple change to your forum posts? In this final part of the Forum Posting Secrets mini-course, you'll learn one of the most powerful (and carefully hidden) secrets of using forums to generate a flood of hungry prospects to your website.

This is a pretty quick lesson, so go ahead and read the whole thing right now. I guarantee that 5 minutes from now, you'll be armed with a piece of knowledge that will put you WAY ahead of your competitors. Everyone knows that search engines find websites based on the keywords that are contained on their site, and particularly their title and headline.Well guess what, if you deliberately use search engine keywords in the SUBJECT line of your forum post, that post will get picked up by the search engines.

Forum posts actually get indexed, and are available for reference anytime thereafter. This is GREAT news for you, because you can easily use this to your advantage. First, you have to know what your most frequently searched keywords ARE (this tool works great)...and then, just use them in your subject line. Simple.

Here's a few examples:

KEYWORD: eBook software
SUBJECT: eBook software question - do you use this feature?

KEYWORD: SEO (short for search engine optimization)
SUBJECT: A cool SEO secret I just figured out...

KEYWORD: membership site
SUBJECT: How I set up my membership site in 1 day...

Okay, now it's your turn. Head on over to your favorite discussion forum, and be sure to use powerful keywords in your subject line. Again, this (like the other techniques) is a maximization strategy.

You're ALREADY posting to the forums, so let's do it smarter, and make more money.


Praveen Kumar is a retired Submarine Captain. He has a passion for real estate investing for capital growth and internet marketing for cash flow. He has been helping others, who share the same vision, to start their home businesses and become financially free. Please click here to learn more about what he has to offer.

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