10 Tips to a Successful Comment Marketing Campaign

By Jimmy Rodela

While comment marketing is a marketing strategy that anyone can use, only a few are doing it right. It’s no wonder comment marketing has a bad reputation on the web.

Because it’s free and it’s such a cut-and-dried process, many marketers think that it’s too good to be true and probably doesn’t work. And then when you add the "too good to be true" logic to the negative feedback from those who've tried it in the past (and failed), what you end up getting is just that: a bad reputation.

Despite it’s bad reputation, many people are still itching to find out whether or not comment marketing really works. After all, if it does, or if they find a way to make it work, they’ll have gained a marketing method in their arsenal that's not only free, but really simple to implement.

If you haven’t given up on comment marketing and are trying to muster up a strategy to make your comment marketing campaigns successful, then allow me to share with you some proven and tested comment marketing tips:

1. Determine your goals.

There are a few reasons why business owners run comment marketing campaigns. They are either (a) looking for more traffic, (b) wanting to build relationships with webmasters, (c) spreading the word about their brands, etc. You have to determine what your goals are for running a campaign because it has a huge bearing on how you’ll add your comments.

To solidify this point, allow me to give you an example. Suppose you’re goal is to drive traffic on one of your pages. You’ll probably add valuable comments to the post and mention how there's a post on your own website that can provide additional ideas to help readers learn more about the topic. You will then add your URL for readers to click on.

But, if what your goal is to establish a relationship with a webmaster or author? Then aside from adding valuable comments, you will need to specifically call out the webmaster or the author to get their attention --  and you’ll probably have to do this a couple of times too!

2. Provide value.

This point is jaded and plastered all over the web because it’s true, and it’s something that cannot be compromised -- so you ought to live and breathe it in your marketing campaigns. The idea is to solve people’s problems; if you’re crafting your comments to do just that, then you’re definitely on the right track.

3. Be consistent.

While quality plays a huge role in comment marketing, the numbers are also important. Rather than thinking about setting a fixed number of minutes to conduct comment marketing, I suggest you set a fix number of comments that you will be making instead. In this way, you will know you’re being consistent with the number of comments that you produce. That said, it’s a numbers game with quality at it’s core.

You can craft a decent comment that provides value just by spending 3 to 6 minutes per comment. If you go with these numbers, you should be able to write five or so comments in 30 minutes. Generating five comments daily is a good number for a comment marketing campaign; however, the success of your comments are dependent on what you’re trying to accomplish and how fast you want to accomplish your goals.

4. Comment on posts that are in Google’s top 10 search results.

While you will need to determine which posts are the most relevant for you to comment on, commenting on posts/articles that appear in Google’s top 10 results for keywords that are relevant to your website is definitely one of the best decisions you’ll ever make. The idea is to leverage on other people’s rankings. If someone's post comes up in the first 10 results, you can almost bet it has a decent flow of readers to its page. And the more readers there are on a page, the greater the chance of your comments being read and ultimately your link being clicked.

5. Leave a signature.

What do you think is going to happen if someone reads one of your comments, finds value in it, and wants to contact you for more information or perhaps to collaborate with you? They’ll be looking for your contact info, of course! Adding a signature that includes your name, title, and web address makes it VERY EASY for people to contact you.

A benefit of including your title in your signature is that it shows what you’re all about and gives people a good idea of what to expect if they connect with you. For example, if  you are a freelance writer and you write a valuable comment about business and finance but fail to mention in your signature that you're a writer, potential clients won't know that you're available for freelance writing work -- you could be a CEO of a company, a secretary, or someone working on the HR dept for all they know. Adding this essential information in your signature will allow people to know who you are in a whim.

6. Add a sense of mystery to your comments.

This can DRASTICALLY increase the chances of people clicking on your URL. So how do you add a sense of mystery to your comments, you might ask? Here’s an example. If the article you’re commenting on is about, well … comment marketing, then you can add a comment that says something like “... I’m currently running a comment marketing campaign with my team. We’ve been getting really good results because of this ONE technique that we used, blah blah blah…"

If you don’t tell share what that “one technique” is in your comment, then people probably won’t be able to sleep at night unless they click on your link to find out what it actually is. And this makes your comment marketing a bit more effective.

7. Make sure that the sites you comment on have a decent amount of monthly traffic.

I usually only comment on sites with estimated monthly traffic of 10,000 or more. Anything lower than that, I ignore. Note: A site’s monthly traffic is not the only thing worth looking at. There are other things that you can look into like the site’s social shares, whether or not the readers are engaging the writers by adding comments, etc. These other qualifying details, though, may take quite a while to determine, so I just stick with the site’s monthly traffic.

8. Subscribe to the site’s email list.

A benefit that I love most about subscribing to a site's email list is that you get notified if there are new articles/posts published on the site -- immediately! And if you get notified, this increases your chance of being able to comment first on the post (or at least almost first). When you’re the first to comment, chances are good that a lot of people will read and ACTUALLY digest what you’ve commented on.

9. Look for comments that are outright obnoxious (probably from haters) and comment on them.

It’s a fact that a lot of people react to comments that are obnoxious. I’m wondering if it’s because everyone wants to sound like an expert, or a lot of people just want to prove others wrong, or maybe people just want to elevate themselves. Whatever the reason, you can use these comments to your advantage.

Before people react to obnoxious comments, they tend to look at other people’s comments about a topic to make sure that a large number of people share the same sentiment. And this is what increases the chance of your comments being read. Make sure that apart from providing value to readers, you're adding compelling ideas that will allow your comments to stick out. It doesn’t matter whether you agree with a commenters' opinions or not; just make sure that your comments are professional, solve problems, and are compelling.

10. Be a regular commenter on your target blog.

I mentioned earlier how you first need to determine your goals, right? If your goal is to get the webmaster’s attention, then commenting regularly on his/her post will surely help. Once the webmaster notices you, you can then take the relationship to the next level by collaborating on a project.

About the Author

Post by : Jimmy Rodela

Jimmy Rodela is the founder of the GuildofBloggers.com. He is a freelance writer, professional blogger, and a content marketer. He has worked with reputable companies like Pronto Marketing, OMD (Outlier Marketing & Design), and Inbound Junction. He also helps small businesses market themselves online through written content. Whether you're needing help with ghostwriting, your website's blog posts, or even guest posts, he'll surely be able to help. Contact him for more tips on how to improve your comment marketing campaign’s results.

Company: GuildofBloggers

Website: www.GuildofBloggers.com

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