Are your internet marketing efforts shedding light or are they getting swallowed up by all the competition? Want some secret sauce to go with your marketing meat?
Internet marketing is competitive by nature. You fish where the fish are at and so does everyone else. The same message is being pitched to the same people at all the same places and chances are, you're being out fished by the competition.
Rather than fighting the competition with heavier marketing tactics, try some light marketing in less competitive areas. Sprinkle a little secret sauce into the dark corners of the web and your marketing budget will reach farther and your efforts will yield long-term results.
What is light marketing? What is this secret sauce?
Simply put, it is a light weight marketing campaign with a very broad focus targeting lower traffic areas of your desired audience with permanent or semi-permanent material. Traditional internet marketing focuses on getting a specific message in-front of as many eyes as possible. This message is usually repeated over and over ad nauseam in the hopes of getting the message to stick. Light marketing focuses on less visibility and more permanence.
What most marketers already know is that search engines usually play the largest role in traffic generation, which is why AdSense earns Google billion$ every year. So if search engines play such a big role in traffic generation, why not put more effort into attracting search traffic? That question was for you.
Light marketing is content based using relevant content and anchor text links in lower traffic areas of the internet. We do this by capitalizing on the desire of popularity because online popularity equals traffic and for internet marketers traffic equals money. Lower trafficked websites and profiles that desire more traffic are the target. These websites and profiles need to offer search engines and potential visitors useful content, information, and links if they want to build their popularity which will increase their traffic. This is where you come in as the hero, the mentor, the upperclassman, and the associate.
Get Your Content On
If you have any hopes in making it online, you should already know the value of quality, unique, and relevant content. It is the fuel of the internet. It creates links, interest, conversation, search, and is the very foundation of the web. You need to get your content on. Start creating a stockpile of quality, unique, and relevant content because it is the cornerstone of light marketing. You should be writing content of varying length including short informative guides. Your subjects should be relevant but flexible so that you can tie them to other subjects.
Example
Your subject is outdoor recreation
Other subject on target site is DYI home improvement.
These two subjects are seemingly unrelated but you can tie the two subjects together with an article on The Ultimate Backyard Project for At Home Recreation. The article would explain how to turn your backyard into your very own private outdoor recreation getaway.
With a little creativity, many unrelated subjects can be tied together with relevant articles targeting long tail phrases. Your light marketing campaign will be broad in subject, but your content will tie them together shedding new light for human visitors and search engines.
It's Search Time
Light marketing is a three-step process.
Create content
Search outlets
Make connections
Use your favorite search engine to start searching for websites in your industry and industries that you can tie too. Remember, you are looking for sites that need your help. They are in the SERPs, but they are not getting server crushing traffic either. There are a some free tools you can use to help you judge the sites you are targeting.
- Just enter the domain name and get some useful results including the Alexa Rank
WebRank Toolbar - I use this on Mozilla Firefox for gauging the popularity of websites.
Using these tools in tandem with the search results should help to find the target sites you are after. Most sites that turn up in the SERPs are fair game, but since you are trying to get your content on their sites you will want to limit your search efforts to sites that accept guest posts or content networks that allow free registration and posting. Google can help with this by using a formatted search phrase like one of the following.
{subject or phrase} + submit guest post
{subject or phrase} + guest blogger needed
{subject or phrase} + submit article
{subject or phrase} + contribute
{subject or phrase} + article submission
{subject or phrase} + guest blogging
{subject or phrase} + write for us
{subject or phrase} + submit post
Replace "subject or phrase" with your target subject or industry.
Don't forget connecting with people on the social networks like Twitter, FaceBook, Linkedin, MySpace, and Google Plus+. Of course hooking up with the popular crowd is the thing to do, but we are walking a different path. Look for profiles with similar interests but small followings. Most of these people will be eager to increase their following and connecting with you is mutually beneficial.
Twitter Warning
Watch out for profiles that are following way more people than are following them, they will get you nowhere fast.
You have your content, you have done the searching, and your making connections. Do not expect a windfall of traffic directly from these sources, that is not the point of Light Marketing anyways. There is a secondary effect which can be astronomical. It is the search engines that will deliver your reward because you have tapped into something everyone else is ignoring. In the beginning there is a trickle of traffic, but as the search engines update, your efforts will pay off. Bamidele Onibalusi of used similar methods to increase traffic by 200% in 6 months.
Light Marketing can be scary the first time you do it because it is so far outside of the traditional marketing methods, but are you really willing to continue throwing time and money away fighting the competition just because that's what everyone else is doing?