How To Use the Multiplier Effect in Web Marketing

by Michael Southon

One of the most exciting things about doing business online is the Multiplier Effect. It's the principal factor behind some of the fortunes that have been made on the Internet.

How does it work?

The Multiplier Effect occurs when your marketing technique either:

A) replicates itself over and over again, or
B) feeds into other marketing techniques

A classic example of the first kind of Multiplier Effect is the Free E-Book.

Ten people download your Free E-book and offer it from their websites. Those ten people each get downloads and it's now being offered on 100 websites, and so on.

The second type of Multiplier Effect occurs when one marketing technique results in benefits from another marketing technique.

A good example of this is Link Exchange.

Let's say you get links on 100 different websites. When the Search Engines spider those websites, they find your link. Your "link popularity" then increases and as a result, your ranking in the Search Engines goes up.

This kind of Multiplier Effect often results in a "feedback loop."

Because your website now ranks higher in the Search Engines, more people want to exchange links with you. You now have links on 300 different websites. This in turn gives you an even higher ranking in the Search Engines, and so on.

Some marketing techniques have no Multiplier Effect. For example, posting to FFA sites - after only a few hours your ad drops off the FFA site and you have to start again.

One of the most powerful Multiplier Effects I know of occurs when you write Ezine Articles.

The main purpose in writing Ezine Articles is to get them published in Ezines. And that on its own will bring you a lot of highly targeted traffic. But the benefits don't stop there.

When your Articles are posted on other people's websites you get free links (from your Resource Box) back to your website - more traffic. This increases your link popularity and so your ranking in the Search Engines goes up - more traffic. Eventually you'll find your Articles appearing in Free E-Books - even more traffic.

As you can see, this kind of Multiplier Effect rapidly builds up its own momentum - after a certain point it's virtually unstoppable.

Here are 2 ways you could start using the Multiplier Effect:

1) Launch a Free E-Book
Start collecting Ezine Articles on a particular topic. The topic could be "Search Engine Positioning," "Website Design," "Affiliate Programs," "Ad Writing," "Choosing a Web Host," or it could be on "Parenting," "Gardening" etc.

When you have about 25 good Articles on your chosen topic, contact the Authors and ask their permission to include their Articles in your Free E-Book (with the Author's Resource Box).

Make sure your free E-Book has plenty of links back to your website.

The secret to making this technique work is to ensure that your Free E-Book is closely related to the theme of your website. For example, if you market "Search Engine Submission" tools from your website, an excellent topic for your Free E-Book would be "Search Engine Positioning."

Here's a tip that will help you find out exactly how much traffic you're getting from your Free E-Book.

Make a copy of your index page and re-name it something else, such as:

http://www.yourdomain.com/free-ebook.html

In your Free E-Book, instead of linking to your home page (index.html), link to the duplicate home page (free-ebook.html). This way, you'll be able to check in your webstats exactly how many visitors are coming to your website from your Free E-Book.

Include a short note on the index page of your Free E-Book telling people that they are welcome to give away your E-Book from their website.

2) Write Ezine Articles
Whatever you do on the Web, you must have picked up dozens of tips along the way - tips that would be very useful to other people who are just starting out.

Turn those tips into a series of articles, give them catchy titles and submit them to article announcement lists.

Then put your articles on autoresponder and submit them to online article archives.

Think of your Articles and Free E-Books as seeds - scatter them around, then watch them bear fruit and multiply.