- Nov 8, 2005
- 158
- 683
I often get asked by members about how they can advertise their Marketplace thread. At this point in time, BHW does not have any kind of Marketplace consultancy service and one-on-one consulting is not something I personally do for BHW members as I do not offer my services here. So instead, I figured I'd write up a bit about what I know about advertising in the Marketplace.
Contrary to the beliefs of some people, creating a Marketplace thread is not a one-and-done process. Similarly to creating a website, people need to be able to find your service, whether it's through word-of-mouth or through a link. Advertising your sales thread in a way that works for you is imperative to the success you experience in the Marketplace
1. Responding To Your Sales Thread
This one is pretty basic, but you're permitted to respond to your buyers directly in your sales thread. Bear in mind that this may bump your sales thread (but just once, more on thread bumping below), but rather it's a great opportunity to answer any questions your potentials buyers may have and demonstrate your professionalism all at the same time.
If you're finding that you're answering the exact same questions over and over again, consider creating an FAQ section in your opening post. Whilst this is more in the realm of creating a sales thread that sells (which I'll probably be writing another thread up for at some point), a meaningful FAQ section with questions you do get asked frequently can and does help guide prospective buyers toward your order form faster.
2. 24 Hour Promotional Thread Bumps
Once every 24 hours, you can post promotional content in your sales thread. Some people go over-board with this by posting a hundred reviews (an issue that will soon be taken care of), "buy now" buttons, etc; but consider the perspective of your prospective customers. Often times, your customers do not have hours in the day to scroll through your single Marketplace listing. Creating shorter, more engaging 24-hour promotional posts will go further than inundating your customers with hundreds of page-sized screenshots of your reviews.
Those of you in the conversion rate optimisation industry will probably already know to multivariate or A/B split test different ad copies used in your sales thread as well. In layman's terms, create two versions of your ad and test to see which one performs better. Pit that ad against another more optimised version of it, pick the one that performs better, rinse and repeat.
3. BHW Advertising
Some of you have asked how you can get a sticky thread in the Marketplace. This is how. If being at the top of a Marketplace subforum is an important part of your advertising strategy, you can contact our advertising team using the link here: https://www.blackhatworld.com/pages/advertising/
The "Advertise" link can also be found at the top of every page on the forum.
4. Engaging On The Forum
I have no idea why more sellers aren't doing this. For those of you who remember, I used to have a Marketplace thread here on BHW back when I was a regular member. I never actually promoted it in the conventional sense (outside of a giveaway, that is) as I preferred my primary business model outside of BHW, yet I received a fair number of sales regardless because I was so active on the forum. Sometimes, simply having an account that's active and engages with the community is enough to draw attention to your services. However, many of my own sales came from the fact that I spent a lot of time helping members on the forum. These members would become interested in my services as they could see I was not just here to sell and they could see that I displayed a competent level of knowledge in the industry.
5. Beta-Testing
You should never stop finding ways to improve your services. You can post in our Service Reviews & Beta Testers.
But if you don't feel like creating a beta testing thread, you can also ask your buyers to test new versions of your services and ask them for their feedback. The data you receive from your current customers who are likely to already be happy with your service can help you improve the service further for any future customers you receive.
6. Host A Giveaway In The Freebies Section
You can't actually advertise your services in the freebies section, but you can host a giveaway and give back to the community. I will say that with my own business outside of BHW, I've not had great luck converting freebie-seekers into paying customers as, through my own experience, they're usually only looking for free services. This happens in the freebies section here on BHW as well, but there are many members who will genuinely visit your BST after receiving a freebie.
7. Giveaways & Review Copies In Your BSTs
Some sellers opt to do giveaways and offer review copies in their BSTs. Doing either of these in your BST can be a great way to get prospective buyers to post in your sales thread and potentially bump it to the homepage and to the top of the subforum. As long as you honor the giveaway or the review copy, there's no issue with this.
8. Use Signature Spaces
Many of you are aware of this already, but the number of sellers who aren't using their signatures spaces is astounding. With an eye-catching banner or lines of text, it's an easy way to promote your service around the forum. As long as you aren't spamming the forum or trying to draw attention to your signature space in a thinly-veiled attempt to advertise, then there are no issues with this.
But why stop at just using only your own signature space? Did you know that you could rent out the signature spaces of other members on the forum? If there's a member who actively posts in a subforum related to your services, then paying them to advertise your banner in their signature space each month is a sound investment.
At the moment, I only have a guide that goes over renting out your own signature, but I do have plans to create a guide that goes over optimising ad banners as a seller for signature spaces.
Update January 3, 2023: bear in mind that if you choose to use signatures for the sake of advertising your Marketplace thread, your signature will only show up in the first post of every thread you post in. More information about this can be found here.
9. Start A Hot Deals Thread
Offering discounts to prospective buyers who are feeling intimidated by or dubious about your regular pricing is a great way to give them a taste of your service and show them that it's worth every penny. Whilst creating multiple threads for the same service is prohibited, you can have a second sales thread (or a "Hot Deals" thread) in which you can offer a discount to your customers for the main sales thread.
Additionally, one benefit of a hot deals that is that they do not need to be reviewed again. They're only checked for compliance with the Marketplace Rules and Hot Deals Section Rules, so there's no need to go through the review process again.
If you're interested in this, visit the Hot Deals section using this link.
10. Ask Buyers To Comment In Your Thread
This is in that auto-generated "your thread is live" message everyone receives, but I figured it was worth posting in here as I know some people skip over this.
Contrary to the beliefs of some people, creating a Marketplace thread is not a one-and-done process. Similarly to creating a website, people need to be able to find your service, whether it's through word-of-mouth or through a link. Advertising your sales thread in a way that works for you is imperative to the success you experience in the Marketplace
1. Responding To Your Sales Thread
This one is pretty basic, but you're permitted to respond to your buyers directly in your sales thread. Bear in mind that this may bump your sales thread (but just once, more on thread bumping below), but rather it's a great opportunity to answer any questions your potentials buyers may have and demonstrate your professionalism all at the same time.
If you're finding that you're answering the exact same questions over and over again, consider creating an FAQ section in your opening post. Whilst this is more in the realm of creating a sales thread that sells (which I'll probably be writing another thread up for at some point), a meaningful FAQ section with questions you do get asked frequently can and does help guide prospective buyers toward your order form faster.
2. 24 Hour Promotional Thread Bumps
Once every 24 hours, you can post promotional content in your sales thread. Some people go over-board with this by posting a hundred reviews (an issue that will soon be taken care of), "buy now" buttons, etc; but consider the perspective of your prospective customers. Often times, your customers do not have hours in the day to scroll through your single Marketplace listing. Creating shorter, more engaging 24-hour promotional posts will go further than inundating your customers with hundreds of page-sized screenshots of your reviews.
Those of you in the conversion rate optimisation industry will probably already know to multivariate or A/B split test different ad copies used in your sales thread as well. In layman's terms, create two versions of your ad and test to see which one performs better. Pit that ad against another more optimised version of it, pick the one that performs better, rinse and repeat.
3. BHW Advertising
Some of you have asked how you can get a sticky thread in the Marketplace. This is how. If being at the top of a Marketplace subforum is an important part of your advertising strategy, you can contact our advertising team using the link here: https://www.blackhatworld.com/pages/advertising/
The "Advertise" link can also be found at the top of every page on the forum.
4. Engaging On The Forum
I have no idea why more sellers aren't doing this. For those of you who remember, I used to have a Marketplace thread here on BHW back when I was a regular member. I never actually promoted it in the conventional sense (outside of a giveaway, that is) as I preferred my primary business model outside of BHW, yet I received a fair number of sales regardless because I was so active on the forum. Sometimes, simply having an account that's active and engages with the community is enough to draw attention to your services. However, many of my own sales came from the fact that I spent a lot of time helping members on the forum. These members would become interested in my services as they could see I was not just here to sell and they could see that I displayed a competent level of knowledge in the industry.
5. Beta-Testing
You should never stop finding ways to improve your services. You can post in our Service Reviews & Beta Testers.
But if you don't feel like creating a beta testing thread, you can also ask your buyers to test new versions of your services and ask them for their feedback. The data you receive from your current customers who are likely to already be happy with your service can help you improve the service further for any future customers you receive.
6. Host A Giveaway In The Freebies Section
You can't actually advertise your services in the freebies section, but you can host a giveaway and give back to the community. I will say that with my own business outside of BHW, I've not had great luck converting freebie-seekers into paying customers as, through my own experience, they're usually only looking for free services. This happens in the freebies section here on BHW as well, but there are many members who will genuinely visit your BST after receiving a freebie.
7. Giveaways & Review Copies In Your BSTs
Some sellers opt to do giveaways and offer review copies in their BSTs. Doing either of these in your BST can be a great way to get prospective buyers to post in your sales thread and potentially bump it to the homepage and to the top of the subforum. As long as you honor the giveaway or the review copy, there's no issue with this.
8. Use Signature Spaces
Many of you are aware of this already, but the number of sellers who aren't using their signatures spaces is astounding. With an eye-catching banner or lines of text, it's an easy way to promote your service around the forum. As long as you aren't spamming the forum or trying to draw attention to your signature space in a thinly-veiled attempt to advertise, then there are no issues with this.
But why stop at just using only your own signature space? Did you know that you could rent out the signature spaces of other members on the forum? If there's a member who actively posts in a subforum related to your services, then paying them to advertise your banner in their signature space each month is a sound investment.
At the moment, I only have a guide that goes over renting out your own signature, but I do have plans to create a guide that goes over optimising ad banners as a seller for signature spaces.
Update January 3, 2023: bear in mind that if you choose to use signatures for the sake of advertising your Marketplace thread, your signature will only show up in the first post of every thread you post in. More information about this can be found here.
9. Start A Hot Deals Thread
Offering discounts to prospective buyers who are feeling intimidated by or dubious about your regular pricing is a great way to give them a taste of your service and show them that it's worth every penny. Whilst creating multiple threads for the same service is prohibited, you can have a second sales thread (or a "Hot Deals" thread) in which you can offer a discount to your customers for the main sales thread.
Additionally, one benefit of a hot deals that is that they do not need to be reviewed again. They're only checked for compliance with the Marketplace Rules and Hot Deals Section Rules, so there's no need to go through the review process again.
If you're interested in this, visit the Hot Deals section using this link.
10. Ask Buyers To Comment In Your Thread
This is in that auto-generated "your thread is live" message everyone receives, but I figured it was worth posting in here as I know some people skip over this.
Conclusion
This is a guide I've been wanting to write up for ages as I receive so many questions from sellers wondering how they can promote their sales thread. I will try to come back and edit this when I can, but in the meantime, I hope this gives some of you a better idea of what you can do to promote your sales thread.
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