Usenet

What the usenet is

The Usenet consists of two areas: newsgroups and chat-rooms, or online conversation areas. Newsgroups are not live conversation areas. You can go into a newsgroup, ask a question, and then check back the next day for the answer to the question. Chat-rooms are live conversation areas. You can talk one-on-one with people about many different subjects.

Newsgroups can be very profitable because they are demographically targeted (broken up into different interest groups), easy to access, and read by millions of users each day. There are a lot more people that read along and follow conversations in newsgroups and chat-rooms than the number of people that are actually talking on them, so this can be a very powerful marketing tool.

However, you cannot blatantly advertise in some newsgroups or chat-rooms. If you do, you may get "flamed," which means that a bunch of people will send you hate email telling you not to advertise in their newsgroup or chat-room. If you get flamed, don't ever respond; it will only encourage and agitate them further.

Therefore, you have to apply schizophrenic marketing tactics. This is essentially having conversations with yourself as people follow along and read. You will be asking and answering questions that would guide people to your website.

Steps to using the usenet to advertise

There are four steps to applying schizophrenic marketing to the usenet:
Set up 2-3 free email accounts
Find newsgroups that consist of people from your target market
Register your different email accounts under different names
Apply schizophrenic marketing techniques

1. Set up 2-3 free email accounts
To talk on the newsgroups, you must have an email address and a name. To find free email accounts, go to the search engines and type in "free email" and hundreds of sites will come up that offer free email services. Many of the major search engines, like yahoo and msn, offer free email. Some free email sites are the following:
www.hotmail.com
www.yahoo.com
www.juno.com

2. Find newsgroups that consist of people from your target market
There are newsgroup categories for just about every subject under the sun. Think about the characteristics of your potential customers. Then choose some categories that would have people with these characteristics discussing things in them.

A good place to start would be to go to www.google.com. Google has a directory of online newsgroups. Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) will also have newsgroups to register and talk on.

You can also find newsgroups through searching the Internet with the different search engines. Go to the different search engines and search for newsgroups in the category of your target market. Focus on the newsgroups at the top of the searches. You don't want to waste time talking in newsgroups that don't have many people talking on them.

3. Register your different email accounts under different names
Again, in order to talk on the newsgroups, you must have an email address and a name. Don't use your own name, or they will know that you are advertising. Therefore, make up different names for each email account so it looks like completely different people.

4. Apply schizophrenic marketing techniques
Before you begin guiding people to your site in the newsgroups, you'll want to build a rapport with the people out there. Spend 2-3 weeks asking and answering questions without referring to your site at all.

When your site is completed, begin asking and answering your own questions in the different newsgroup areas guiding people to your site. Ask a question with one email address and name, and then answer that question with your different email address and name by referring to your website. For example:
Q: I’m looking for a website that offers a great budgeting spreadsheet to help with doing a family budget.
A: I was just at www.myfinancialsoftware.com and they have a great Excel spreadsheet that can help with family budgeting.

Remember, there are a lot more people that are following along and reading in the newsgroups than those that actually talk on them; therefore, as you get your website address in front of people through schizophrenic marketing, they will visit your site.

Chat-rooms essentially work the same way. You cannot blatantly advertise here either; therefore, you must apply the same schizophrenic marketing tactics.

Online websites and resources

www.hotmail.com
www.yahoo.com
www.juno.com
www.google.com