Yahoo! Groups

Despite their no-marketing policies on many of the boards

there, many have found an effective way to market through

Yahoo! Groups that doesn’t seem spammy.

They simply network. It’s a little more time-consuming than posting an Ad and

moving on, but it has worked since the dawn of Commerce and works here in

online channels too.

Since there are uncountable thousands of groups to choose from, you’re sure to

find one on your niche topic to join and participate in. The majority of Yahoo!

Groups out there are open to any new members who simply confirm their email

addresses. Once in, all you really have to do to take advantage of all these

prospects is to talk about your shared interest with them. Don’t tell everyone what

you do up front unless you’ve found one of those rare few groups that are just for

networking businesspeople. (Those will have hundreds of posts a day though,

operating much like a Safelist. No one reads all of that stuff!)

There are some groups that let you just post your ads as long as you put some

thought into it, not simply pasting a link and moving on. Other groups are more

restrictive, it’s up to the group owners to set those preferences.

The problem with the less restrictive groups is of course that fewer people

actually read the posts, so what you want is to find the happy medium boards,

halfway between “all postings ok” and “restrictive.” Inside any group you would

want to join, you will do best to try and answer the question someone else asks

with your business being part of the solution.

In case this sounds familiar, it’s exactly like Forum marketing. Never sound

spam y, offer help and advice, and only market when it’s part of a solution to

someone else’s question.

Go to

http://groups.yahoo.com

to get started. It’s a huge place but well worth

the effort in any niche where people want to get familiar with other people before

buying from them.

captchas