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 spammy, 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.