Info-Profits Talk - Free-For-All pages...Good or Bad?

dmgammage

Hi all!

I get conflicting reports in my day-to-day research about FFA (Free-for-all) pages.

I've had people tell me that they get good hit counts from them, yet it is not targeted at all, and conversion is low.

I've also heard stories about incredible traffic, and pretty good sales, and some about very little traffic but a TON of Spam.

So, my friends - what are your thoughts on FFA's?:confused:

Thanks!

jason_ga

I've never tried them myself. But everything I've read about them says that they once worked (reasonably well), but stopped working many years ago.

Cheers,
Jason

Kennon

Dave,

I once used an ad blaster to post to a bunch of FFAs... after I hit
the send button I realized I was going to get bombarded with
offers coming back to me. I still get these to the same main email
address every so often. So, be careful HOW you use it...

I will say that you may want to use my "Double Reverse"
Marketing method. FFA's are typically a "reverse marketing"
method where the FFA site owners use these sites and pages to
generate leads for themselves. So, "allow" yourself to become
their lead. But instead of simply looking at their offer, you look to
have them become partners with you to offer your product/service
as your affiliate. Since you know they're generating leads thru
their "reverse marketing," you just now "double reverse" to get
them aligned and partnered with you! This can especially be
effective with those who use their phone numbers in their emails
to you. Call them up and introduce yourself and explore how you
can help each other.

Kennon :)

John Glube

Hi Dave,

Once upon a time, before the development of automatic submission services and everyone being hyper sensitive about spam, Free For All Link pages were great.

However in the present marketing environment their usefulness is limited.

* You can use submissions to FFA pages to gain a short term boost in your search engine listings. This in turn may generate more traffic.

* You can collect "leads" from those who post to your FFA page and then reverse market or even double reverse market.

However a couple of comments about this process:

* The rules e-mail marketing have changed, especially with laws being passed to regulate e-mail marketing.

* Most list servers and auto responder services will not allow you to import e-mail leads generated from FFA pages because of the high prevalence of spam complaints.

* To do it properly, you need to use a closed loop process. In response to the posting you want to send out a message asking for consent before you send out your marketing message.

Why do I say this? If you do an analysis of the site disclaimers on most automatic submission services, you will find the disclaimer are not up to snuff.

Even where the directory requires the individual to do a manual submission, again most forms need to be changed.

(On this point, I recently published an article titled The Guys And Gals In Blue Have Arrived (http://www.learnsteps4profit.com/antispamga). This article is an indepth analysis of the Can Spam Act of 2003. One of the issues I go through is the FFA confirmation message. You may not agree with my analysis, but for those who are going to market to FFA leads, at least you need to be aware of the issues.)

The response rates are fairly low for the effort and with the market being hyper sensitive about spam complaints you have to be extra careful.

(As an aside, I have put together a 5 part series titled "Goldbars or Dogfood" for the benefit of subscribers to my e-zine Head's Up, A Copywriter's Journal (http://www.learnsteps4profit.com/list.html).)

Perhaps the best use of an FFA page? Set up one so subscribers to your e-zine, etc. as a benefit of subscribing can post an add with a link to his or her site. Depending on how you set up the page, the subscriber's ad will last for quite some time and so aid your subscriber with his or her search engine listings, etc.

(I learned this tactic from Paul Barrs of Home Business Gold (http://www.paulbarrs.com/).)

If you are looking for ways to generate more potential customers, three resources which you will find handy:

* 7 Secrets To Unlimited Traffic by Allen Says. Although the e-book was written a number of years ago, the principles Allen writes about are valid to this day. (If you don't have a copy, send me a note via the forum and I will send you a copy as an e-mail attachment.)

* Paul Myers of TalkBiz News has put together an excellent resource titled The Amazing List Machine (http://tinyurl.com/2yvd9). A must have for anyone serious about building a mailing list.

* Ed Thorpe of Home Grown Business Advocate has recently published an exellent resource focusing on co-registration strategies. He shows people how to generate a significant number of leads through the use of some excellent strategies and how to market properly to these leads.

(By way of brief bio, Ed has been marketing online now for about 2 years and one of his specialities is the use of co-registration services to build his mailing list. Ed is quite knowledgeable in this area and tells all in his material.)

I acknowledge having a self interest as one of my publications is included as a bonus. But even without the bonus, Ed's material alone is well worth it. To find out more Use This (http://tinyurl.com/2s7xj).

Trusting these comments are of some value.

Kind regards,

John Glube
Toronto, Canada

SykkBoy

I, personally, find they are more a waste of time than anything.

It's just not worth the DELUGE of email that arrives afterwards...all for the sake of couple hits....I have better things to spend my time on, like a more direct marketing approach.