Using the E-Commerce Internet ...making money NEWSGROUP ADVERTISING With everything one hears, after a while you start to think that news groups are just for posting porno pictures. Not true. news groups almost define the niche market. There are over 40,000 newsgroup categories on just about every subject you can imagine. THE BASICS Think of news groups as public e-mail because this is what they are. You may have an e-mail client configured as mail.some_domain.com to go to a mail server. In the same way, the newsgroup client is configured to go to a news server as something like news.some_domain.com. Naturally here, we're talking about the public news groups. There are also private groups that will require special knowledge to read the mail, such as a password. News group servers (the computers) are often maintained by an independent news service provider which your Internet service provider subscribes to as a value added service for you. You may need a password to get through your ISP to the news server but, that isn't the same as requiring a password to enter a particular news group. As we said, there are over 40,000 public news group categories. How many categories you have access to will depend on how many categories reside on your ISP's news provider, often most of them. There are also independent news servers that you can subscribe to for a small monthly fee. An Internet search for news servers will turn up many. USEAGE As well as reading messages posted to the news servers, you can also post your own messages for everyone else to read ....Ah ha! Advertising. Errrr, don't be so quick. You're not the first to think of this. Many news groups are overwhelmed with advertising. It's called, you guessed it, just like e-mail, it's spamming. News groups were intended for like minded people to exchange information. Unfortunately, a lot of these groups have been rendered almost useless because of the amount of advertising, often unrelated to the group's subject, making it almost impossible to sort through to the useful messages. So, don't be a spammer. You'll be wasting your time. People reading a group will spot you comming from a mile away. As a niche marketer, you're an expert in your field. Be an information provider and sneak in the advertising. In fact, as well as corresponding with individuals within your particular news group, think about publishing a newsletter to the group. If it's informative, it'll be well received. This can be a good way of having a mailing list when you don't have one. Anyone that reads the group is a potential recipient of your newsletter. Remember, you're preaching to the choir so keep your newsletter on topic. TOOLS and TIPS News reader and posting clients come in a wide variety of sizes, shapes, and capabilities. Some plain vanilla and some with more bells and whistles than you can imagine. Some are dedicated to specific reading/posting tasks like image posting or mp3 reading. Others are just made for spamming. For specific newsletter and correspondence posting and reading, the news reader built into your web browser (We know IE, NN, and Opera all have them.) should do the trick. If you want more, search the Internet. There are zillions of them; most are fairly inexpensive. Now to the tricks. Actually just one. How to stay off a hundred different mailing lists when posting to a newsgroup. Oh yes, just like there are e-mail harvesters that scan websites looking for e-mail addresses, there are harvesters that scan the news groups looking for reply addresses, including looking in the body of the message. Remember, newsgroup posting is the sending of an e-mail like message and making it available to the public. It has a "reply to" field. If your news client won't let you use a bogus return address, find one that will. You'll thank us for this. So how do you let legitimate real people readers know how to get in touch with you? One trick we've seen is to provide your real e-mail address in the body of the message but messed up slightly with instructions for correcting. IE: me@home_x.com Remove the "_x" to reply. In our next issue of E-ComTips well talk more about niche market opportunities and provide another example of successful niche marketing from our client list. The Staff Team ....ImagineNation FURTHER READING: Don't overlook our LINKS page for information sources. Did you know you can take credit cards at your Internet store without a merchant account. Learn more about our IAMS  Merchant services There are lots of advantages to subscribing to an IAMS account and a couple of compelling reasons:   Everything you'll need is in one easy to use location, including free use of our award winning PeddleGold storefront. Take a look at the advantages of subscribed services. View a demonstration IAMS order management console. Recent     Changes    Improvements    Upgrades    Stories Jabali Entertainment Want to hear some great music? Visit the site of Lorna Vallings and check out the MP3 samples. These folks are professional music makers. Even if the music isn't your style, you'll appreciate the clarity and crispness of the sample recordings. On the other hand, if a romantic ballard and the acoustic guitar are, you won't want to miss out on Lorna's singing and songwriting. Want to bet you end up ordering a CD or two; we did! Ms. Charmian L. Zoll provides public relations services for the Lorna Vallings group. Here are some excerpts from what she had to say about their business model: > Typically, independent musicians start with a local fan-base and gradually > expand outwards into new territories. By contrast, our primary artist, > Lorna Vallings, has a global fan-base -- from Denmark to Australia and Los > Angeles to Lebanon -- and we have to try to bring it together cohesively. > Since local sales represent only a tiny fraction of our business, we do > not run a brick and mortar retail operation because it wouldn't reach our > customer base. Our offices provide services locally to musicians, but > since our retail sales are worldwide, the sales business is run in a > similar fashion as a mail-order business. We do also enter into > consignment arrangements with retail stores who are indie artist-friendly. > However, most people *initially* search for Lorna Vallings on-line and > the website has become the single most direct tool for purchasing her > music -- no matter where you are in the world. The internet is now the > first place they look for her music. > Ms. Vallings's music is most often and effectively promoted through > "product placement" of sorts: Licencing to film and television. When a > movie is released in threatres, then on video, then broadcast on > television we will have corresponding flurries of activity on her website. > We also use direct marketing through a newsletter and postcard promotions > that offer discounts, we keep in touch with our previous buyers and music > fans. When new CD releases are imminent (a new product), we spend a lot > of time preparing press releases and the occasional print advertisement. > (Note: So far, the print ads have had a very sad ROI for us. They > generate a lot of traffic to the site, but few sales. We're not sure why.) > The challenge remains in the fact that Lorna Vallings's fan base is > worldwide. Where in the *world* do we send our press releases? Currently > all press materials are available in English, French and German. > In order to strengthen our on-line presence, we also network with other > on-line musician sites and provide useful *content* in the form of > information and resources for independent musicians. It is geared more > towards musicians in our region, but we received general questions daily > from artists all over the world and lately a lot from French regions -- > Belgium, Mauritius, and Rwanda for example. That aspect of our website we > are currently expanding and we are cultivating brand recognition through > it. > Since we've started to provide useful content, we've been getting a lot > more attention for the services we provide rather than just the products > that we sell. A website that is *useful* for people has return visitors > and that is something we like to see. Not only is the content useful but, the website has one great look! Check it out. That's Lorna Vallings and the WebMonkies with Jabali Entertainment at the URL http://http://www.lornavallings.com or the link Lorna Vallings Team ....ImagineNation ImagineNation © 1996 - 2002  Products of ImagineNation!    Providing on-line stores for small and mid-size Internet businesses since 1996,   Imaginenation is a full service company meeting all of your e-commerce needs:    Storefronts     Credit Card Processing     Back Office Utilities     Merchant Accounts DO YOU NEED HELP WITH OUR PRODUCTS OR HAVE A GENERAL QUESTION? Please E-Mail specific product questions using the mail form at  ImagineNation.com For general information questions, visit our moderated public Q&A   FORUM For back issues of E-ComTips visit the   ARCHIVE Suffering from overload?  List Removal E-ComTips is brought to you by ImagineNation because you are listed as a user of one of our storefront products or have subscribed to receive the Newsletter itself. 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