Marketing your offers on forums is a terrific method for sending highly qualified and targeted traffic to your sites. If you are not afraid of putting effort and work into your business, then this will work out just fine for you.
When you “do” forum marketing, what you are really doing is building relationships and establishing trust and credibility. The worst thing you can do is blow into a new forum and start pitching right away. But instead post comments on and off, so that your activity on the forum appears natural. Just be your normal and genuine self, and hopefully that includes being genuine and sincere. Another important aspect is you do need to present yourself as knowing what you are talking about. You can develop a positive reputation in any forum when you first work to be accepted and fit in – at least to some degree. Your success will depend on how well you do with relationship marketing. Forum marketing is all about building relationships, so that should give you a big clue about how you want to behave. Don’t try to be too mysterious or put up a front; being transparent on a forum pays in a big way. The other members will be curious about you, so be who you are, instead of someone that’s trying to hide behind an avatar. Your reputation can get destroyed in a forum in one quick conversation, and yes it really can happen that fast. The more you can help others and join in with the conversation, then that is what you should do and it will pay off. If you are allowed to have your own link in your signature, then that is a good way to get exposure to your product/service.
Ask other forum members analytical questions. These questions don’t focus on a single problem, you ask them so that you’ll have the opportunity to get a feel for public opinion on some of the hot topics in your industry.
Asking these questions can brand you as an expert, because it just goes on to show that you have knowledge about that topic and you are just looking for an insight from the others.