a forum isn’t active-it’s the same as dead.
Moderation-forum should be strictly moderated by an administrator to keep it clean of SPAM and useless entries. That way the content stays fresh and has a higher perceived value by the crowd.
Use your signature file to drive traffic to your capture page, where you offer some incentive for signing up. Provide quality content, helpful answers and link to your blog once in a while with a helpful article that is related to the discussed topic. Don’t SPAM!
Your forum profile is extremely important. Fill in all the necessary information and add as much descriptive details as possible. Post links to your social profiles on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc and don’t forget to leave a link back to your blog for the curious once.
Did I mention that you shouldn’t SPAM?
7. Social Media
It’s no secret that Social Media is on the rise. Twitter is spreading faster than news about the swine flu. Facebook has grown twice the size of MySpace and has no intention to stop. Use them to grow your business.
8. Guest Blogging
Guest Blogging is arguably the best way to generate new leads. By guest blogging on other blogs that are equal or greater in size you increase your marketing reach tremendously.
Guest blogging traffic is more likely to subscribe because these people conditioned to trust you more than a regular visitor who is defensive about your marketing.
9. Reciprocal Link Building
Reciprocal link building is similar to Ad Swaps only instead of email newsletter the parties exchange links on their site.
Party A links to Party B and Party B links to Party A. That way both parties receive an incoming link and traffic which they can convert into leads.
This strategy is extremely popular amongst bloggers, however it is also useful for Thank You and Download pages.
10. Banner Ads
In his book “Purple Cow” famous Marketer and Author Seth Godin says that banner ads aren’t effective. On the other hand, Internet Marketing Guru Frank Kern believes in the total opposite.
My experience proves that banner ads aren’t as effective as we want them to be but they generate leads never the less-otherwise you wouldn’t see so many of them …everywhere!
Banner ads are also effective (and cheap) because they are placed outside the content area of the website. Usually it’s either the sidebar or header-either way, no matter where the visitor lands-he can see them and there’s a chance he’ll click on them.
If you’re going to use banners (chances are that you are already), make sure to set up some kind of tracking software that will help you in identifying which banners work best, where’s the highest click through rate and how many leads were generated of each specific unit.
11. PPC For Search
Pay Per Click is known to be the fastest way for driving targeted traffic to a page if you have the money to invest.
PPC has evolved far beyond Google, Yahoo