Crowd marketing, a strategy for engaging with a target audience online, aims to increase interest in a specific product or brand. The main idea behind this method is to create a positive impression of a company by posting subtle reviews, recommendations, and mentions on platforms where the target audience spends their time.
Examples of crowd marketing include:
Social media reviews and recommendations: Companies can actively engage with users by responding to comments, asking questions, and offering helpful information about their products or services.
Mentions on blogs and forums: Participating in discussions and debates on blogs and forums where your target audience hangs out can help increase awareness of your brand or product.
Reviews on review sites: Posting positive reviews on popular review sites helps establish brand trust and attract new customers.
Mentions in industry-relevant communities: Active participation in online communities related to your industry helps create a positive impression of your brand among community members.
Answering questions on online services: Helping users ask questions about a company's products or services on various online services helps improve reputation and build trust.
Crowd marketing, based on creating a positive online experience with your target audience, is an effective tool for attracting brand attention and increasing the trust of potential customers.
Key Benefits of Crowdfunding Marketing
Diversifying your anchor text: Diversifying your link texts helps search engines perceive your site more naturally and avoid suspicions of artificial promotion.
Increased brand awareness and recognition: Active participation in various online platforms allows you to attract the attention of your target audience and strengthen your company's image.
Increasing website traffic: Posting reviews, mentions, and recommendations about your company on various platforms attracts the interest of your target audience, leading to increased website traffic.
Increased product sales: Positive reviews and recommendations about the company's products help increase the trust of potential customers and, as a result, increase sales.
Improving reputation: Actively participating in discussions and providing useful information on various platforms helps strengthen a company's reputation as an expert in its field.
Improving search engine rankings: High-quality crowd marketing can improve a company's ranking in search results, as positive mentions of the company can influence its relevance to search queries.
To evaluate the effectiveness of a crowdfunding campaign, it's recommended to wait at least two to three months for results. It's also important to consider not only the quality but also the quantity of links placed. For example, in a niche related to pink elephant sales, 30 high-quality links may be enough to achieve the desired results, while in the more competitive mobile space, at least 200 links may be needed to noticeably impact campaign performance.
The crowd marketing process includes the following steps:
Finding relevant online discussions or articles: This step involves analyzing various online platforms, forums, social media, and blogs where topics related to the company's products or services are actively discussed. By identifying such platforms, you can determine where your target audience is located.
Creating Natural Content: Once you've identified suitable platforms, you need to create content that will be interesting and useful to your target audience. This could include informative articles, reviews, recommendations, or Q&A content that maintains interest in your product or brand.
Publishing content with a link on a selected platform: After content is created, it is published on selected platforms with an emphasis on naturalness and organicity. Links embedded in the content should be natural and contextually relevant to the information presented in the article or comment.
Search engine verification and indexing of posted links: After publishing content, it's important to monitor the indexing of posted links by search engines. This allows you to evaluate the effectiveness of your campaign and its impact on search rankings.
Example: Let's say a sportswear company decides to conduct a crowd-sourced marketing campaign. They search for forums and blogs where athletes and active lifestyle enthusiasts actively discuss their achievements and challenges. The company then creates content, such as articles on proper nutrition before training or choosing the best sportswear. This content is published on selected platforms with links to the company's website. Search engines then index the links to evaluate the campaign's results.
The main objectives of crowd marketing
Increasing brand or product awareness: Crowdsourcing marketing helps make a brand or product more recognizable and memorable to the target audience. By posting positive reviews, recommendations, and product mentions on various online platforms, a positive brand perception is created.
Attracting more potential customers: Crowdsourcing marketing helps increase the flow of potential customers to a company's websites. This is achieved through the brand's active presence on various online platforms where the target audience resides.
Improving website behavioral metrics: Crowdsourcing marketing also helps improve website behavioral metrics, such as user dwell time, page views, and bounce rate. This is achieved by increasing interest in the content provided on the website through crowdsourcing efforts.
Link profile diversity: Crowdfunding marketing helps diversify a company's link profile, which impacts its search engine rankings. Posting links on various platforms and forums promotes organic link growth and strengthens the website's authority in the eyes of search engines.
Example: Let's say a startup that has developed a new type of sportswear wants to attract the attention of its target audience and increase sales. They use crowd marketing to publish positive reviews and recommendations on sports forums, blogs, and social media. This helps increase brand awareness and interest, attract new customers, and improve website traffic.
There are several types of crowd marketing
Mentions in relevant communities: The company actively participates in discussions and debates on various online platforms relevant to its industry. For example, a sports equipment manufacturer might actively comment on posts about sports and fitness in specialized communities.
Blog mentions: Company representatives can leave valuable comments on blog posts related to their product or service. For example, an organic cosmetics manufacturer might leave expert comments on blogs about natural beauty and skincare.
Forum Mentions: The company actively participates in forum discussions where users seek advice and recommendations on products or services similar to those offered by the company. For example, a home appliance manufacturer might answer user questions about choosing and using appliances on relevant forums.
These methods allow companies to not only create mentions of their products or services, but also to establish closer connections with their target audience, which helps increase trust and interest in the brand.
There are several types of platforms where you can use crowd marketing without active links.
Online stores and marketplaces: Users can leave reviews and comments on products and share their experiences using them. For example, a user can write a review about the quality and functionality of a purchased smartphone on the product page in an online store.
Industry portals and online magazines: In article comments and discussions, you can mention your company or product in the context of the article's topic. For example, a sportswear manufacturer might leave a comment under an article about healthy lifestyle and fitness on a specialized portal.
Question and Answer (Q&A) platforms: In addition to well-known platforms like Quora or Yahoo Answers, many industry communities have their own Q&A sections where users seek advice and recommendations. For example, a representative of a tech company might help a user choose the right software by answering a question on the relevant platform.
Video hosting and streaming platforms: Comments and discussions on videos and streams can also be an effective crowd-marketing tool. For example, a gaming accessory manufacturer could actively participate in discussions on videos about new games on popular gaming channels on YouTube.
These types of platforms provide ample opportunities to engage with your target audience and promote your brand or product without using active links.
To conduct crowd marketing without active links, you can choose one of the following methods
Independent: This approach allows you to better understand your target audience's needs because you directly interact with communities and understand their dynamics. For example, you can actively participate in forum discussions or blog commentary, introducing your company or product.
Freelancing: Outsourcing posting to a freelancer can be an effective solution if you lack the time to do it yourself. However, it's important to carefully select the freelancer and monitor the quality of the content.
Hiring a specialist: Hiring an in-house crowd marketing specialist ensures constant oversight and high focus. This specialist can develop and implement crowd marketing strategies tailored to your brand and target audience. Crowd marketing without active links requires a proper strategy and a careful approach to selecting platforms for engaging with potential customers. Diversity in platform selection and content helps convey information about your brand or product to a wide audience, attracting attention and creating a positive impression of the company.
