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| 12 MILLION USERS, 140,000 COMMUNITIES, AND GROWING... |
| JANUARY 2008 |
| It's all about promoting your toolbar |
| First of all, a quick reminder: |
| We're still giving away free gear |
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| To keep up with the demand, we ordered more stuff to give away from Amazon gift certificates to coasters and t-shirts, and we just need a reason to send it your way. |
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| So let us know if you have interesting ideas to share with us about: |
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- New ways to promote your toolbar.
- Cool gadgets you have on your toolbar.
- Business referrals to websites that could really use a community tooolbar.
- Suggestion for toolbar translation in different languages.
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| Announcing our new banners! |
| Get a new set of banners to promote your toolbar |
| We are proud to announce a whole new set of banners ready for you to copy and paste into different sections of your website. All banners are dynamic and will automatically include the updated links to your toolbar's download file. |
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Download Button
Offer your users a direct download of your toolbar with information about system requirements and toolbar privacy.
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Flyover
This amazing banner will float all over the page to inform your users about your toolbar.
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Top slider
Create constant awareness to your toolbar with this always on-top customizable banner.
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Download counter
Leverage current toolbar stats to generate more downloads using an updated download counter.
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| All banners are available from the toolbar control panel. Just visit the new banners section, pick your favorite banner, and add it to your site. |
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| Here's a tip: use more than one banner to support your toolbar. Engage your users with banners that fit different pages and sections of your site. |
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| Great ways to promote your toolbar |
| Smart ideas from skilled publishers |
| Support the Marines toolbar, publisher: Elle Robertson |
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ToolbarforMarines.com was created by two Internet entrepreneurs who wanted to make the upcoming deployment of their US Marine friends less stressful and more interactive. The toolbar is used to support the US Marines and their families, and to raise donations to organizations that support the Marine Corps.
Elle Robertson, the publisher behind the toolbar, is doing a wonderful job in promoting her toolbar in different places. First, she created a designated website with useful information including testimonials, FAQ, discussion boards, and other ways to keep community members interested and attract new ones.
Second, Elle published a press release that was distributed across media wires and was picked up by Forbes, Reuters, and others (for example here , and here). The release announced the launch of the toolbar and included important links to the site and download page. Issuing a press release is a great way to reach new media outlets and to get more referrals to your site and toolbar.
Third, Elle created a new blog where she promotes her toolbar and discusses her campaign from a personal angle. Using an integrated marketing campaign, Elle has managed to attract many new users and create a brand new community around her toolbar.
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| Streaming Internet Radio Toolbar, publisher: Sean Duffy |
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A great way to get your community toolbar noticed and boost your daily downloads is by submitting it to download directories. Some of these directories also publish reviews about your toolbar from professional experts or peers.
Sean Duffy, publisher of the Streaming Internet Radio Toolbar has been generating a lot of traffic this way. Among the many websites who reviewed the Streaming Internet Radio Toolbar are: download.com, pcauthority.com, techrepublic.com, and vnunet.com.
The web pages created in each online directory also link back to Sean's website and to the Streaming Internet Radio Toolbar download page, helping Sean promote his site and toolbar in search engines. To see this in action, simply search Google or Yahoo for the Streaming Internet Radio Toolbar.
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| Customized promotional pages |
| Keep it real, use the right appeal |
| When you ask your visitors to download and install your community toolbar, keep this in mind: communicate with them using the look and feel of your website. |
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| Meteo Belgique is doing just that in the designated toolbar page it has created. The page includes explanations and materials that best appeal to the Belgian users. The same spirit can be found in this localized page by the Chinese portal MACD with detailed screenshots and explanations in Chinese. |
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| Sometimes all it takes to convince your users to download is a good explanation of what the toolbar is all about. That's what the publisher of the Ham Radio toolbar gives his users with simple screenshots and descriptions of toolbar benefits and immediate reasons to download. |
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| Some publishers are using the power of the Web to promote their toolbar in other websites and generate more traffic. ACIM offers customized ACIM toolbar banners and links to other websites or Blogs who may want to promote its toolbar. |
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| We hope you feel inspired to get out there and promote your community toolbar! We've got lots more great promotional ideas to share - many of them, as you've seen, from all of you - so you'll be seeing promotion as a recurring theme in the ConduiTimes in 2008. |
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| And as always, we look forward to hearing from you in the Conduit Community Forum. |
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| The Conduit team |
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