Did you ever wonder how to market yourself without really marketing yourself? I know the question sounds a bit confusing, but did you? Let me explain what I am asking. Well you know most businesses just buy ads on the websites to market themselves, but there is a way around that which is called Indirect Marketing. Atleast that is what I call it.

I really learnt this idea from Market Leverage. Every blog that I check on daily/weekly basis, I see the staff of Market Leverage there. Photos of their staff in the brand T-Shirt. I checked their webstie multiple times. Finally have decided to sign up with them today.

What this company has been doing is buying shirts of that particular site such as Shoemoney, ZacJohnson, and many other blogs and just wearing it and taking a picture and send it to the blogger, so they can post it. Pretty smart. Not just that, but they have taken it to the next level by making personal relationships with the bloggers by giving gifts to them. What else would you want in an affiliate company? Props to Market Leverage.

But what do you learn from this? Well I learn that sometimes you have to drive the audience from your competitor in a nicer way by offering them gifts and making personal relations with them. Also you can network with your audience. As my audience is bloggers, I try to network as much as I can on the IMs through facebook and others. I will be attending a few conferences as well. But most importantly, I have been making some traditions on the blog such as Pimp my Blog. With things like this I can attract more visitors, and I have noticed after the first blog I pimped, the number of subscribers have increased, and I am certain it will increase as I pimp more and more blogs.

I have been trying to find local online businesses who are located near where I live, so I can go meet them and make connections. As I already have mentioned that I will try my best to visit Microsoft’s headquarters on my trip to Seattle. I have also realized that Market Leverage is based in Florida, so I might visit them also because they are only 2 hours of a drive away. Hoping it will be ok with them. (I will contact ahead of time), or maybe one of them will find this post and reply here.

Sending business gifts is another way to make more connections, and do you know Business Gifts are exempted from taxes. Well, as you guys already know I promote all the companies who send me free gifts. Many other blogs do the same as well. I have alot of Balkhis shirts laying around, so if anyone of you are interested in buying one, the price is $25 / shirt. If you get this shirt and take a picture in it. I will post it on Balkhis and give your site a mention

So the key point of Indirect Marketing is networking and making more friends so you get more promotion through them. Eventhough I haven’t recieved anything from Market Leverage, they have already got me on their side. You can also do the same by using the techniques used by this company. Even a simplest act of linking to another site and giving them a mention if you like them can come in handy in a long run because webmasters do check who is linking to them and who is not.

Let me know what you guys think about this topic…