The Right Tools for the Job
Internet Marketing can be a tricky business. When you devote a lot of your time to one thing, another may suffer. I feel that one way to avoid this complication is filtering out the noise of the industry.
One method that I have found works is making certain you are utilizing the right tools. Forums are an indispensible tool in Internet Marketing. Some forums have great information, while others lack information but provide other resources such as back links.
I am going to cover one of the forums that I find is the most useful. Please be aware that there will be no affiliate or referral links to this forum. You can do your own research to determine if this forum is good, bad, or ugly. This is just my personal and professional opinion of the forum.
Warrior Forum
This forum, if you are just starting out in Internet Marketing is an absolute must. It doesn't cost anything to join this forum and there are a lot of experienced marketers on this forum. Mike Filsaime is one that is on that forum from time to time.
It has the benefit of having very valuable information. It is about 5 to 10 years old. I don't its specific age, but in either case it is old enough to contain information on just about any product you can imagine. They are reviewed by a lot of the members of the forum. What makes it really great is the fact that it doesn't allow affiliate links or bashing of product owners. This keeps their reviews honest.
Thou Shall Not Bash Product Owners/Coveted Gurus
I had a tough time grasping this concept when I first started, because I for one could not stand Mike Filsaime or his marketing methods. He is what I like to call a "relentless marketer". I get an email from him every day, sometimes multiple times a day.
So when I first joined the forum, I had recently purchased his Instant Buzz product. It wouldn't work like I wanted and seemed to crash my browser a lot. I also nearly got ripped off on the ads I purchased. It took a while for me to get through to support on that site.
Naturally this made me very angry, so I resorted to bashing Filsaime on the Warrior Forum in the reviews section. Don't waste your time doing this. I had multiple posts deleted. At first I didn't understand this concept, but now that I am more serious about my Internet Marketing ventures, I do. Sometimes it is just best to state the facts and leave it at that.
Warrior Special Offers
One of the best things about the Warrior Forum is the WSO's (Warrior Special Offers). Basically you pay $20 to list whatever product you are selling in the WSO section and it has the potential to make you thousands of dollars if you have a great product. The only stipulation is that you make the offer only available to Warrior Forum members. You can sell the product elsewhere, but the Warrior Special Offer has to be something that only Warrior Forum members are entitled to, such as 20% discount or something to that effect.
You could come up with a video guide on Graphic Design and sell it for $30.00. It might get 100 views more or less per day. At a 1% average conversion rate you would make $900 in a month. Of course the more successful or popular your product is the higher it will rank in the list of WSO's for whichever category you choose.
No Affiliate Links Allowed
Although they don't allow affiliate links, you can put a link to a TLD in your signature. For example you could have a link to your website or blog even if it isn't on a private hosting account. This will drive traffic to your site.
Classified Advertisements
Like a lot of Internet Marketing forums, you have the typical sections for Copy Writing, Ad Networks, and Publisher Networks. Unlike a lot of forums though, this forum also offers an additional section or two, one of which is the Classified Ad section. Here you can advertise your product instead of offering it as a Warrior Special Offer. I don't know what the specific cost for a classified ad is though. This is more or less for anything that doesn't fit into a WSO.
Opportunities for Joint Ventures
The Warrior Forum has another section called "Warrior Joint Ventures". Here you can network with other members and team up for Joint Ventures. A lot of list sharing goes on here. Now they don't give away email addresses, but what happens is one person markets the other persons product to their list, and vice versa.
Article Marketing Tool
Another tool available on the site is their Article Marketing site. It is something like Ezine Articles, but is a database of articles for Warrior Forum members only. There are other resources on the site, that I haven't listed, but I feel I have given you enough information to make an educated guess as to whether this forum is good or not.
The Warrior Forum is an indispensible tool, and if you aren't already a member you should signup and start perusing the threads.
