Getting Started Cause-related marketing yields mutual benefit. Look for partners with a similar agenda whose goals can be better achieved by partnering with your business. Take inventory of assets that make you an appealing partner in a cause-related venture. There are many types of mutually beneficial relationships you can form with your cause-related partner, including special events, sales promotions and collection plans. An easy way to embrace a cause is to team up with a charity. Whenever Johnny "Love" Metheny, a slightly famous nightclub owner in San Francisco, opens a new club, he shares limelight with a local charity. "I have a history of including Leukemia & Lymphoma Society in my grand openings," says Metheny, who was voted society's Man of Year in 1991. "It's not only something I feel good about, but it helps us market our businesses to community and media at same time." Volunteer with an organization. When Eunice Azzani, an executive recruiter, volunteered to serve on board of San Francisco AIDS Foundation, she didn't anticipate that it would connect her with executives from Mervyn's, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo Bank, all of who eventually hired her to work for them. "People don't hire a piece of paper or a process. They hire people they trust," Azzani says. "Volunteering for a position at a local organization makes you very trustworthy." She advises business owners to target causes they believe in. "If you're helping with a cause you believe in, people will see that you care. And they'll realize you will probably care as much about your work." As your partnership takes shape, become ambassadors for each other. Talk about charitable organization and have flyers available. Promote organization (and your partnership) on your website and in your newsletters. Ask your partner to extend same courtesies to you. Never lose marketing focus of your community partnership efforts. Even though work is philanthropy, your cause should generate interest in your company and motivate people to buy from it. Select a cause that is important to your target market, and make sure your target market sees that connection.

Is "Andy's Free For All Page" your first choice to find anything and everything you need online.

I bet not.

If my hunch is correct, you probably use something like Dogpile or Google or AltaVista. If you are like me, you might even have Yahoo! set as your browser home page.

The point here is that there are only a few dozen search engines that are worth your marketing time, effort, or money.

You'll either want to stick with big names that everyone uses, or search out those specialty search engines that cater to your business specialty or niche.

If you are focusing your marketing efforts on top 86,037 search engines out there, your marketing efforts are way too scattered. You need to narrow down your possibilities by 80,000 or so.

So, what is really being advertised in these marketing products?

These search engine submission programs are really focusing their efforts on something called free-for-all pages.

FFA PROGRAMS REVEALED

A free-for-all page is a page set up by someone to list links on their website. Most of them accept between 100 and 1000 links at a time. As new links are added, oldest links on page are dropped.

The problem with this is that there are thousands of services and software programs that submit to each of these FFA pages on a daily basis.

You link, once posted, has an average shelf life of about 4 minutes. After that, it's moved off page into Internet oblivion.

And remember that no one ever visits these pages, anyway, so even if your link lasted a very long time - say 8 minutes - chances are very good that no one will ever see it.

SO, HOW COME THERE ARE SO MANY FFA PAGES?

FFA pages are still a popular marketing method. But not for any reason you would think.

Website owners put up FFA pages because it's a way for them to collect names and email addresses of people for their own marketing.

When you use a software program or a submission service to submit your links, you will immediately be blasted with hundreds or thousands of emails containing offers to sell other products or services. Most come disguised with a subject that reads like this: "Please confirm your FFA submission."

Don't be fooled. You're link has probably already been displayed and removed by time you get to that message.

For host of an FFA page, anyone who submits their web page is a prospect. You can expect to receive email from that person from rest of your life or until you email provider shuts down your account because you haven't cleared out our inbox in three weeks.

BOTTOM LINE

FFA pages are a waste of time. So are services that promise to submit your website to thousands of search engines. Next time you're tempted by this kind of an offer, think about how many search engines you actually use yourself.

You'd be much more effetive if you focused on those dozen or so that are most popular. You may kill an hour or two of time writing search engine descriptions, but you'll still have your $34.95 and a nearly empty inbox.

SHIFT TO HIGH GEAR

You'll get nothing if you do nothing!

Here's are your Victory Lap action steps to help you shift your business into high gear . . .

DECIDE that you are never going to waste your time and money on FFA and search engine submission sites.

FOCUS your marketing efforts on dozen or so most popular search engines and any search engines that primarily focus on your niche or business specialty.

EMAIL ME to let me know you've done it! Let me know you're taking steps to kick your business into high gear. Maybe we can even talk about some joint ventures. mailto:victory-lap@rapidbizsuccess.com?subject=FFA-sucks

The Victory Lap Copyright 2003 Charles Davidson

Charles Davidson is a violence prevention educator and victim's rights advocate working in the field of sexual assault and domestic violence. He also runs an online publishing business. If you want to put your business into overdrive, then subscribe today to IMPACT: The Online Journal of Home Business Success. Send a blank email to: