It’s another Expert Briefs, where I ask really smart business owners to answer your burning questions.

If you've missed past Expert Briefs, you can click on the undies to see them all –>

The question for the experts this week is about going back to basics.

What's your favorite old school marketing technique…
stuff that's always worked and is still working.

I think you'll find the answers this week interesting and hopefully helpful to your online business.

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Ronnie Nijmeh of PLR.me (< -click for a special free offer from Ronnie) says:

My favorite “old school” marketing technique is email.

Yes, good ol' trusty email! It just works.

It's simple: Write an email, tell a story, share some advice, then send. And with each email I send, I not only help people, but I earn a living.

Far too many marketers I know abuse their email lists and just pump out one promo after another. Blech. Not cool.

But that just gives us all the more advantage to offer greater value content and connect with our prospects and clients on an intimate level.

Yes, it's not all shiny and new as social media, but it still works. 🙂

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Kristen Eckstein of Finish Writing Your Book Fast: Book Writing for Procrastinators says:

My favorite old-school marketing technique is simple: meet people! Networking, netweaving, social networking, whatever you call it, the important thing is to MEET people. And even more important than that is to make a good impression the first time you meet someone, and follow up with them later.

In my latest book (released July 2011) 21 Ways to Powerfully Network Your Business, I shared my favorite top strategies for making “meeting people” work for your business. In fact, I'm in Scotland right now on a research trip and meeting people all over the world! I'm not trying to sell them anything, though what we do for a living usually comes up after about 10 minutes of conversation. At breakfast in one of our B&Bs I sold a copy of the above-mentioned book. And several other people have taken my business cards. All because I showed an interest in them, their adventures, and their lives.

So my tip? Get out there and MEET people!🙂

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Shannon Cherry of The Business Building Live Intensive says:

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the old school technique that got me on the map: press releases. I still do at least 4 a month.

You see, there are a few reasons why this tactic (more than 100 years old) still has leverage in today's world.

1) It's one of the ONLY tactics that can be used online and offline for increased visibility. Use it online for increase search engine rankings and backlinks; use it offline to get media coverage and more credibility.

2) According to a recent iProspect survey, 68% of all searches on the Internet begin from an offline source, most likely a news story or a news story someone is talking about. So if you're not doing press releases, you may be missing out on a LOT of prospects!

3) News stories often beget more: more news coverage, more conversations online and more conversions because the news media is like a third party endorsement.

What would you write a press release about? Here are some ideas to get you thinking:

• How to make a living at home in a bad economy (This is a HOT topic right NOW!)
• A new product or service (When you offer something new, tell the world!)
• A new series of blog posts (Nicole should definitely announce the Expert Briefs series in a press release, don't you think?)
• A new partnership in your business (Yes, even if it is an affiliate partnership!)
• A free resource for a specific niche.

What every you do, don't leave out this unique marketing method that does double duty. After all, if you can write an article, you can do this too!

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Connie Ragen Green of Huge Profits Tiny List says:

My favorite ‘old school' techniques for marketing my business include writing articles and submitting them to the article directories and hosting teleseminars to connect with my audience.

Article marketing gets a bad rap from people who feel like it's too ‘last year' to be worthwhile, but when I look at the stats for my business overall I always see that more than 50% of my new clients originally found me by reading one of my articles. Since 2007 I have written more than 1,600 short articles – about 400 words in length – and then re-purposed then into short reports, eBooks, online courses, and more. On EzineArticles alone, almost 650,000 people have now read these articles!

Webinars are gaining in popularity, but teleseminars make sense for a number of reasons. The technology is simpler, so anyone can dial in or listen through the webcast on their computer. When people hear your voice you become three-dimensional, and this really helps you to stand out from the crowd. You can also offer a replay to those who could not attend live, and sell these recordings later on as a product.

I recommend incorporating article marketing and teleseminars into your marketing mix for the next three months to see how well it will work for you, and then come back to this post and let Nicole and all of us know what results you experienced.

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Mark Mason of MasonWorld.com says:

Forum signature marketing still works really well. If you are participating in forums in your niche with the idea of really helping people, you can build lots of backlinks and get clicks to your site through your signature from people who see that you are an authority with something to offer.

The great side benefit is that you can get lots of great ideas for blog posts by answering a question in detail in the forum and then recycling the answer for your audience on your blog.

Two killer tips for forum marketing:

1) Keep a swipe file containing answers to commonly answered questions. The same questions get asked over and over again in forums. Instead of being the jerk that says “use the search button”, just answer the question (and link to other threads where you have previously answered the same question in detail.”

2) Test a landing page with an offer specific to the forum in your signature. For example — “Learn The Five Critical Mistakes Every New Basket Weaver Makes and How To Avoid Them Like A Pro (secret link for BasketTalk forum subscribers).

3) Take killer content from your blog and re-purpose it for a forum post. Forums can rank well in the search engines, and that can be a good way to attack keywords in some cases.

The key to the whole thing is to remember that people in forums are generally there to get some help. To be effective, you need to be helping people there.

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Susanne Myers of AffiliateTreasureChest.com says:

My favorite “old-school” thing is something I picked up recently in an Internet Marketing Newsletter. It's creating email mini courses and is working incredibly well for me. I've set up two of these in the past month, and both lists are steadily growing.

In each case I've taken a simple “how to” topic and broken it down into 7 steps. Each step is a daily email which is nothing more than a short explanation of how to do the step. I'm monetizing these ecourses with a strong affiliate offer on the thank you page and throughout the course. After the last lesson, I also send my list a pdf version of the course (again with affiliate links included and a recommended resources section).

I registered a domain name for the ecourse and set up a simple little optin form. I'm driving traffic to it via email, cross promotions with my other lists, my blog, article marketing and asking my subscribers to recommend the course to others. Each ecourse is steadily growing by a few subscribers a day without too much work from me.

Here's an example of one of my Email Mini Courses – Affiliate Fast Track.

Of course I'm also able to share additional content and affiliate offers with those lists from here on out. In other words, there's no reason to stop after the original 7 day ecourse. I'm finding that it's a lot easier to set up these ecourses in niches that I already have a presence in. This allows me to send traffic to it and start growing the list without having to reinvent the wheel.

Give it a try, it doesn't take more than a few hours to set up and you'll have a nice little extra stream of income.

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Nicole Dean of .. here! .. says:

Well, heck. They all took my answers. That's what I get for going last. 😉

Let's see… the thing that I did years ago that still makes me money today would have to be ecourses and list building – as Ronnie and Susanne said.

Back in 2006, I set up this site: www.WebTrafficBasics.com. It still makes me money today.

And, the cool thing is that it's totally fluid. I can update the lessons and the messages whenever I want to promote new courses (or yank something if I find out that I no longer want to promote it). Plus it acts as a spider-web in that I can send people to any of my web properties each time a new lesson goes out. At this time, there are over 30 followup messages in that one sequence. I've done this in other niches — including my romance and cooking sites – with great success, as well. In fact, my romance list is bigger than my PLR list! If you can believe that. It blows my mind.

This is the reason why I sell PLR ecourses at EasyPLR.com.  Because they work! And, it's a set-it and forget-it type of income – which you've got to love!

I've been thinking of teaching this topic in one of my next courses. Any interest? Let me know!

Thanks for another great Expert Briefs, guys and gals!

Please let me know what your favorite “old school” method of marketing is. I'd love to hear what you think!

Warmly,
Nicole Dean