Reverse Marketing

Reverse marketing is the concept of making potential customers seek you out instead of the other way around. There are many approaches to this and the best would be with examples.

Traditionally marketing involves things like TV spots, print ads, or other methods companies actively do to attract customers for their product or service. An example of reverse marketing would be a company that sells water purifiers, and adds to their web site a long E-book or essay about subjects that potential customers are searching for on search engines.

Also they might post helpful answers on the Usenet newsgroup message boards, with their tag line at the end of each message. A strength of this type of reverse marketing is that customers searching the topic can find someone who first demonstrates their knowledge on a topic with helpful information and links at the bottom to check out their online store.

Compared to just putting a banner ad up on a web site, reverse marketing can attract very high quality customers who are ready to buy, especially after seeing that a company is knowledgeable and helpful about a product they wish to buy. A similar example of reverse marketing would be to put up an unbiased review site, with links to your web page for more information or a similar product to those you're reviewing.

The main idea of reverse marketing is to put useful content out there where people will find it when they are researching a product. Paid links often return poorer results in this case, as the search engines display them separately. People respond much better to content when it's main purpose is not an actual advertisement, and it gives you a chance to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise first.

Don't be worried about putting in a plug or two for your company, but it would be best to put a disclaimer up front telling them that you run a business that sells these types of products, and to be an unbiased as possible. If it's just a thinly veiled promotional letter instead of a truly useful guide to buying the types of products you sell, people won't get far into it. Balance it well with useful information not only to build up confidence of the customer with your firm, but also to keep it from looking like a blatant advertisement. Reverse marketing techniques of often the most powerful when done well, as people really let their guard down when they are getting the information they need, and often this is what gets them to buy on the spot when they have a great deal of confidence in the company they are purchasing from. Obviously I'm a big fan of reverse marketing and I highly recommend you use it.

Since I review business opportunities and internet gurus all day for a living, you can guess I know which ones work and which ones don't. Click here to see how I make my money.

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