Content Crooner

photo credit: Ajda Gregorčič

Attract and magnetize new clients instead of constantly chasing after new business. Here’s a guide on how to structure an online forum for your prospects and clients. While this venture will require some steady effort from you, if you take the right steps now you will succeed in eventually creating a self-sufficient forum. It will essentially feed on itself without you having to inject much effort. And when it finally builds a large enough number of users your forum will turn into a money making perpetual-motion machine.

What gets people talking?

Boring material never gets people to buy. You’ll need to execute some initial brainstorming and make a spreadsheet of bird’s-eye-view topics. Generate these topics by taking a careful look at your products or services. Regardless of what you’re offering, there are always multiple categories that can be discussed. Many forums wither up and die because they were forced into an extremely limiting field of categories. Unless, you’re a black-hole physicist (owners of the infinite-conversation title…get it…infinite…black hole…never mind), there’s a good chance you’ll need to eventually expand your conversation topics or you’ll lose your forum members from repeatedly discussing the same material.

Consider topics such as the technology behind the design, special manufacturing processes, unique applications and so on. And for the truly bold forum builders, finding a way to tie in politics, sports or celebrities has always proven to be an immediate pot-stirring, conversation-starting virtual rocket fuel for forums.

It also helps to conduct some research on the Web. You can do some basic queries in the search engines to check for keyword strings related to your business. It’s also quite helpful to look into websites that serve the specific function of providing search and popularity information regarding specific topics and websites. A prime example of this is Alexa, which is a free resource and is quite easy to use.

Get Your Friends and Family Involved

What do successful network marketing companies tell their members? Go get your friends and family involved! They’re your initial support network for any venture you do. You’re sure to be able to find at least a few friends or family members who will pitch in and start some topics and participate in your forum discussions. Having trouble finding willing participants? First, try reminding people of how much time they apparently have to send you 10 e-mail forwards a day with pictures of cute cats in boxes and you might successfully guilt them into it. Second, you can try some simple bartering.

Keep It Legit

If you’ve been working hard enough at your business to garner some wiggle room with your budget then you may consider opting for hired guns. And you won’t necessarily have to pay standard copywriter rates since forums are naturally more relaxed and don’t necessarily require top-notch writing.

Warning! Achtung! Attention!

Never take the intelligence of your audience for granted. If you’re not careful with whom you have submit content to your forums then you could risk its integrity. Today’s Internet users are a savvy bunch—thanks to hours and hours of everyday Internet browsing and online applications, we’ve all been put through the ringer of spam, phishing (unlawfully attempting to capture sensitive information), identity fraud, hacking, and viruses. This has made Internet users much more aware of possible scams and online threats. If your content smells phishy then they’ll not only stop using your forum, they’ll also tell their friends and family that your forum is bad news—word-of-mouth goes both ways!

360 Degrees of Business

To help motivate you through this forum venture, you should remind yourself that this forum does more than help drive people to your website or get them to contact you. A successful forum will help round out your business portfolio. If a prospect needs to spend a significant amount of money, then you can be sure that they are doing a background check on you via the Web before they write you a check. You’ll look like a true expert in your field when your forum pops in their search. This is an excellent way to promote a positive image online. And you can also feel good about providing both entertaining and useful information to others!

To your success,

Andrew Rossillo

Andrew Rossillo is Content Crooner’s Marketing Blogger and Staff Writer. He’s ready to put his years of copywriting and online marketing experience to work for your business—he’ll help you get noticed!