New Marketing Web Site Says No Advertising

A new marketing site, emarketideas.info, says it will not accept advertising. Instead contributers to its on-line message board, chat room, and newletter may include a link to their web site and contact information.

A new web site designed to help small businesses take advantage of the marketing opportunities of the Internet has announced that it will not accept paid advertising. Instead, emarketideas.info will allow members to include a link and contact information any time they ask a question, provide an answer or otherwise contribute to on-line conversations.

E-Market Ideas offers a mailing list, a message board, and a chat room. Mailing lists are a way for all members of a group to exchange e-mail by sending it to only one e-mail address. To prevent this capability from being used to send spam, E-Market Ideas will be moderated, allowing the staff to prevent messages from being delivered. Message boards allow members to leave messages for others to respond to at their convenience. This too will be moderated by staff members. The chat room lets members talk in real time similar to chat rooms provided by services such as AOL and MSN. There are also plans to use the chat room to hold virtual seminars, where experts will be available for questions.

The site is centered however, around its free newsletter. Each issue of the newsletter (also know as an e-zine) features an article by an expert in the field of Internet Marketing. The premier issue features Herschell Gordon Lewis, author of over two dozen books including On The Art of Writing Copy and The Complete Advertising and Marketing Handbook. His latest book, Effective E-Mail Marketing (Amacom, 2002), covers all aspects of building an e-mail marketing campaign.

The second issue is due out early April and will feature an article by Mary Lou Roberts, Professor of Marketing at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and author of Internet Marketing: Integrating Online and Offline Strategies (McGraw-Hill, 2003).

The creators of E-Market Ideas, Jason and Sharon Conley of Fort Meade, Maryland, grew frustrated while looking for low-cost ways to market their e-business selling domain names and web hosting. They found many get rich quick" ideas and plenty of advertising for other peoples businesses, but very little useful information. So they devised a way to get information from the experts and share that information with others in their position. By refusing advertising, they avoid having the content obscured by banners, and ensure all opinions are objective. Membership is free and you can join at http://emarketideas.info.