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Before you start selling any product, you need to think about a few things.

1st - who is your target market? Many people fail because they don't ever define a target market. If you don't know exactly who it is your going to sell to.

then you'll never make it in direct response marketing.

You see - with big companies, (think McDonalds or coke) they rely on brand marketing. Where you throw something out and hope that a little of it sticks in their customers mind when they are hungry or thirsty.

As direct response internet marketers, we aren't going after everyone. We don't want to rely on brand marketing.

We want to know who our target market it, and then figure out ways to get our messages directly to them.

2nd - After you've identified who is your target market - it's time to figure out where you can find cluster of those type of people.

Offline, the best way is to rent a mailing list of people w/ the same characteristics of the person who is your target or to find a JV with someone who has the same target as you.

Online - there are a few ways. One of my favorite is to find a community of my target market.

When I was wrestling, I used to spend hours every day in all the popular wrestling forums talking about wrestling with people all over the world!

All of the wrestlers were targeted onto one forum. Now, if you were selling a product to wrestlers, where would your target market be?

Yup - in that forum. Now the question is how can you mine those names out of the forum and get them onto your own lists?

Most forums and communities won't allow you to post blatant ads, but you can become part of their communities. Post useful messages, and use a "signature" file in each of your posts that gives people a free report or something else that would get someone to go to your website and fill out your autoresponder form.

Also - this IS the best place to network with people in your niche. The big list owners generally are in the forums posting messages. Become friends with them there, and do a joint venture with them later. :)

Learning to tap into online communities is very important. I know the power of them because this is how I started my online business AND how I start when I go into any niche.

Because I know the power of online communities, I've build one that was focused on internet marketers.

I'd love to invite you to become part of my community. I put in quite a few incentives to make it worthwhile for you to post messages and be an active member.

I had a few people laugh at the fact that I wrote a sales page for a free forum, but I wanted it to stick out in your mind. :)

You can see my sales page and create your free account here: www.ConquerYourNiche.com

I look forward to having you as an active member in our community. Also - look for those communities in your niche that you can use to network and build your lists.

To add your comments to this article please go to:

http://www.dotcomsecrets.com/blog/2006/11/community_marketing.html#more