The Barter System
- Overlooked and Underrated
© Copyright 2003 Critique My Site
The barter system is one of the most overlooked and underrated forms
of site promotion available today. Bartering is one of the fastest ways
to increase your traffic almost overnight. I am not referring to bogus
traffic that looks great on your web site statistics but doesn’t
actually return any orders, subscribers or anything of use. I mean actual
legitimate traffic that will increase your exposure and sales.
For the purpose of this article we are referring to the barter system
as an agreement between business owners to give something in exchange
for receiving something else. For example: One business owner may sale
ebook creation software and another may own a start page exchange. Now
you may think these businesses are so vast and so different they have
nothing in common. However, in taking a closer look we see they have a
very important element in common; they are both in need of exposure. What
business isn’t? From the Microsoft’s or McDonald’s of
the world to the small Mom and Pop stores, exposure is the difference
between success and failure.
There are many business owners who are adamantly against bartering. They
will tell you that it’s a waste of time. These are the business
owners who already make enough money, don’t need any more traffic
and aren’t willing to work together in order to get ahead. If these
things apply to you stop reading now. However, if you want to increase
the amount of money you’re currently making, increase your traffic
and wouldn’t mind helping someone else out in order to improve your
own status, bartering is definitely the way to go.
What are the benefits of bartering?
No out of pocket cost to you
Increased exposure
Increased name recognition
Increased name recognition by association
What do we mean by increased name recognition and increased name recognition
by association? Once you barter with a high profile business your name
is going to be seen more, remembered more and as a result recognized more
by your target audience. The key to effective bartering is bartering with
a company that is comparable with yours. If you own a shoe store bartering
or doing a joint venture with a sock store would be the ultimate barter.
You would recommend the sock store’s services in return for them
recommending yours. I mean after all if you need socks, you’re going
to need shoes. A Win/Win situation for everyone involved.
You also have increased name recognition by association because as the
sock store is recommending your services the customers realize that if
the sock store is willing to associate with your company you must be a
wonderful company. Here’s another example. You have two newsletters
with 5,000 subscribers each. Each newsletter agrees to barter with the
other newsletter by sending an email to their subscriber list recommending
the other newsletter. Each newsletter would send out an email stating, “If
you love our XYZ newsletter, you’re going to love this newsletter
full of Visit this address to subscribe.” It’s that simple,
now both newsletters have increased their subscriber list almost instantly
and the subscribers of each newsletter now have more useful information
than before. Again, a Win/Win situation for everyone involved.
Now we know you’re asking; “How do I find business owners
willing to barter with me?
A few suggestions:
Contact business owners you are already in contact with, your current
pool
Think of business types that are comparable to yours and search for them
in a search engine such as Google. Then visit the web site and contact
the web site owner with an offer. Be very careful to make the offer personalized
and specific to them. You don’t want to be accused of spam.
List on your web site you’re interested in barters
All of these techniques and more will work tremendously well if you keep
in mind that every business owner is just like you in that they are looking
to expand their exposure. If you can answer the all time, number one,
most important question for a business owner, “What’s in it
for me?” the likelihood of the business owner agreeing to barter
with you increases tremendously. What do you have to lose but a little
time and effort? The yes’s you receive will be worth the no’s.
Just keep it up and remember those yes’s are exposure you would
not have had. So get out there and ask for it.
This article was written by
CritiqueMySite.com
Professional marketing
and web site critics
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