“A guide to understanding different sales techniques and methods of marketing on Hackforums"



This is a guide to understanding what sales are based around, and more specifically to analyze potential sales tactics and how they can be implemented appropriately to suite your service, product or whatever it may be on Hackforums or any other marketplace on the internet.

Before jumping into potential sales tactics to be used on whatever it may be, you must first understand and realize what a customer expects in a sales thread:

The first thing your buyer wants to know is “what exactly are you offering to me?”. Your buyer wants to know EXACTLY what your product is and how it’s going to benefit their needs as the consumer. Obviously, the title of your thread should be a dead giveaway, but we’ll discuss that in just a moment.

So A, a clear message is expected of you, and it’s your job to make sure that it’s delivered clearly and concisely starting off with your thread title.
The first and foremost thing you should aim to achieve is a clear message, this is very important as it allows members who you are marketing toward to spot your thread and click it, once you’ve earned their click you can sitback and let your highly-converting thread do all the work for you (will get to that in a second). Most will think otherwise, however I believe that the more basic and straightforward your thread title is, the more clicks you will earn this is because it serves as a more self-explanatory message toward your potential customer and allows them to spot your thread amongst the many other “fancy” titles there may be. Another reason is due to language barriers, HF members come from all corners of the world and you’ll find yourself working with lots of foreigners who have broken English, basic titles with a straightforward message will lead them to your thread as it communicates to them and makes them feel like they’re connected in one way or another.

You should always try to break your product’s idea to its most basic form. For a monetizing ebook it would be ideal to use basic key-words affiliated with monetization such as money making, earn, profit or cash rather than complicating your title with more complex words like monetize, capital, revenue. If you think what I’ve just said is totally impractical, just test it out for a day or two and track the amount of clicks you’ve earned and compare it to clicks earned with other titles, I’m sure you’ll see some positive results.

The next step to making a clickable title is to highlight the most KEY aspects or features of the product you’re marketing. Highlighting the 2-3 main features of your product, business or service intrigues the member you are marketing to, making them want to click your thread and find what you have to offer them.

Here’s an example;

Jim’s looking to make some money online and has found himself lurking Hackforums for some help to kickstart his online money making career. Dozens of threads lie infront of him however 1 thread in specific has caught his eye:

“Earn your way to success & start making money (Refunds) (Mentoring) (100% Success)”

He’s just hit a goldmine, this product offers him refunds, mentoring and claims to have 100% success, obviously Jim’s quite excited at this point, he’s realized that even if he doesn’t manage to make any money, and ends up failing, he’ll still be able to claim his funds and spend it somewhere else. Something as simple as just mentioning the key features of your product has just gotten yourself a potential customer who will go on to read your infographic and hopefully purchase whatever you find yourself marketing. That’s just one example and can be applied to absolutely everything sold on HF such as Programs, Books, Graphics, Video Editing services, Homework services and even Exchange threads, the possibilities are endless!

Other smaller things that customers spot when browsing the forum and the threads in specific are replies and thread ratings. Most are aware that these are of little meaning, however, it get’s into the customers head and puts an idea into their heads.

A mass amount of replies on a thread gives off the impression that there is lots of activity and that they should check out what all the “commotion” is about, this is obviously a great thing as it will lead the potential buyer to clicking your thread and start checking what you’ve got to offer to them. Dont take this the wrong way, don’t start bumping your threads unnecessarily to increase the thread post count, this gives off the impression of unprofessionalism and will probably run into some trouble with Staff etc…

Thread ratings on the other hand are seen as a much larger psychological influence as “Newer Members” often think that a thread’s rating is seen as a feedback entry used by customers, however that’s completely untrue. All UB3R’s can use this feature, its built in with the rank itself and can be abused, most sellers or competitors will often enter a 1 star on your thread in hopes to tarnish your thread image and inevitably steal your customers and your sales. Try and keep your thread rating as high as you can, as it really does play a psychological role when it comes to marketing your product.

Now that you’ve gotten your potential customer onto your thread, you’ll need a thread to go along with it. Most members on HF have lots of trouble designing their threads (not GFX wise) and usually end up writing whatever comes to mind. The thing is, you’re thread shouldn’t impress yourself, it should impress your customer, and for that, you’re going to have to stand in their shoes. Most are unable to copy write and even I am quite bad when it comes to this. However, extensive research has helped me develop a greater understanding of marketing and the art of perfecting psychological marketing strategies and that’s what I’ll be sharing here.