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The Add Me! Newsletter *** ISSUE #46 ***
"Free tips for promoting your website and business"
Add Me, Inc http://www.addme.com
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...THIS WEEK'S ARTICLE...
>> Creating A Buzz <<
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July 16th, 1999 *** ISSUE #46 ***
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.....THIS WEEK'S ARTICLE.....
Creating A Buzz
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by Matt Mickiewicz
Submitting to search engines, tweaking pages, submitting
articles to ezines, trading links, and publishing your
own ezine or discussion list are all very good methods
of traffic building. In fact I only used techniques like
the ones above to build Webmaster Resources and The
Webmaster Tribune to what it is today. BUT (you knew this
was coming) nothing can compare to the traffic that can
be generated by a good marketing gimmick.
Marketing Gimmick? What the heck is he talking about?
Perhaps it's best that I start off with two examples to
explain exactly what I mean.
EXAMPLE #1
Microsoft, in an effort to increase the membership of
its Gaming Zone, is holding a game. Not just any game
mind you. They are holding a YOU vs. Garry Kasparov
match (Kasparov is the world chess champion). The game
works by having registered members of The Zone vote on
the next move of "Team World". An excellent way to boost
membership, to say the least. The game will be running
all summer long, and will require a daily visit to the
Zone web site -- thereby building an enormous repeat
visitor base.
You can take a look at the Kasparov vs The World site at:
http://www.zone.com/promo/kasparov/KasparovWelcome.asp
EXAMPLE #2
Joe Boxer has an interesting Gimmick on their site,
The World's Largest E-mail. This is how it works, you
send an e-mail that's listed on the Joe Boxer site,
and the contents of your message will be displayed on
a huge billboard in Times Square. This is a fabulous
way for them to attract visitors, visitors who will
most likely also explore the rest of the Joe Boxer
web site. You can take a look at the "World's Largest
E-mail!" page at:
http://www.joeboxer.com/Joeboxer2/timessquare/timessquare.html
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APPLY IT TO YOURSELF
There are no rules in Internet Marketing/Promotion.
Do WHATEVER it takes to grab your audience's attention,
to make them remember you, to get them to visit your
site.
A few things that you could do:
1. Vandalize your own site -- This was done by quite
a few sites on April Fools day. If you do it at another
time of the year you'll definitely grab peoples attention.
2. Live Video Feeds -- There's plenty of these around,
be ORIGINAL.
3. Contests -- These are used quite frequently online,
and hence do not generate a 'buzz' unless you give away
something very unique, like a trip to outer space.
4. Stunts -- Use your imagination here. The goal is
to do something that will generate a ton of media
publicity. This requires quite a bit of planning and
skill to successfully pull off.
5. Challenge Another Site -- Challenge a competitor's
site to a contest. Set up Forums on your site to let
your visitors collaborate. Having a newsletter with a
large subscriber base also helps here.
6. Exponential Marketing -- This is perhaps the most
difficult of all. It takes a fabulous idea, and a
great amount of skill to successfully launch something
that will exponentially promote itself. Two famous
examples are ICQ and Hotmail; both of which were sold
for hundreds of millions of dollars within a few years
of their inception.
Another example: A while back a company announced it
was going to be offering IPO stock of their Internet
company to a couple of contest winners. This in itself
generated quite a buzz. Everyone wishes they had
invested in Yahoo and eBay when they just started.
This was their chance to get their hands on stock of
another potentially big Internet start-up.
They added another twist to it: you got an extra
chance to win for every person that put your email
address down as their referrer. Entering the contest
was simple; all you had to do was type in your email
address. Of course as soon as the company's site
launched you got an email announcing it.
This promotion turned out to be enormously successful
with the site being bogged down within a day of the
announcement.
7. Capitalize on something Popular -- The best example
that I can think of here is something that occurred
a few months ago during the pre-Star Wars launch. A
site announced they were going to post a Star Wars
related video later in the day. This news made its
way to Slashdot.org (an extremely popular site). As
a result, the site got so much traffic that it was
barely accessible for almost a day. The video was a
South Park Parody of the original Star Wars trailer.
USE THE MEDIA
Some of the ideas above are marketed by word-of-mouth,
others are spread through the Media. If it spreads
through the Media, be prepared to spend a few hundred
bucks to send a well-written Press Release to the
media.
If it spreads through word of mouth, you have very
little to do. ICQ merely provided a feature that
lets you tell a friend about ICQ. Of course the
entire concept of ICQ is to talk to friends, and
the only way to do that is to have your friends
install it. Hotmail merely inserted a two line ad
at the bottom of every e-mail sent out.
BE PREPARED
If your idea succeeds you will be literally flooded
with traffic in a short amount of time. Make sure
your server can handle it, and that you have backup
plans. This includes setting up mirrors of the
content, if necessary, on servers that can handle
the traffic.
SOME FINAL WORDS
These type of promotions are not suitable for every
site. In fact, very few sites could successfully
pull of something like this. However for those who
can the payoff will be very big. The reason I wrote
this article is to get you thinking 'out of the box'
about ways to market your site. Keep the ideas I
presented above in mind. Someday a fabulous idea
may just pop into your head making you the next
Hotmail.com.
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Article by Matt Mickiewicz. Take the 10 Sites That Bite! Tour
to make sure that YOU are not making FATAL web design mistakes
on your site. The tour includes tips on formatting, titling
your site's pages, making your site user friendly, and more.
Visit 10 Sites That Bite now at:
http://webmaster-resources.com/special/
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