Forum Marketplace - What's Missing?

Discussion in 'General Marketing' started by jhmattern, Apr 15, 2007.

  1. #1
    I'm going to start pushing on marketing the small business forums attached to BizAmmo.com again soon... it's been sitting unused for a few months. I have a few questions for you first though:

    1. If you take a look at the marketplace area, can you think of anything that would be helpful to business owners or providers that I haven't included yet? I really want to push the marketplace area, especially once I build some traffic there again, so I want to make sure it's covering everything people might be looking for so I don't have to majorly alter things later.

    2. How do you think I should market the forum? I have a few basic ideas that I'll be using, but any other ideas are welcome. Here's what I'm thinking so far:

    - Press Release
    - Adding a link to the forum below every post on www.BizAmmo.com
    - Adding a link to forum sigs
    - Possibly article marketing, but I'm not a fan of it, and I think I'll reach a more relevant audience through links and posts on my own biz-related sites.

    There are a few things I definitely don't want to do:

    - Paid forum posters - I just don't believe in this. I'd rather avoid reciprocal posting as well, simply b/c I want legitimate members who are likely to stick around without conditions.
    - Contests - I have no problem with contests, but I find them pretty useless until there's already an active community.

    Any thoughts?

    Thanks. :)

    Jenn
     
    jhmattern, Apr 15, 2007 IP