Marketing your new Tarot business

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 19 Jul 2004, and now archived in the Forum Library.

Mimers	19 Jul 2004
I have found the most optimum way to market your new Tarot business and all it cost is a $30 haircut! Tell your hairdresser! I emailed my hairdresser, Heidi, and told her about my new website. I am offering free 3 card readings as a promotion, and I am being swamped with email requests for the free reading. About 90% of them begin with "Hi, I heard about your site from Heidi...." I am SWAMPED!!!! I think I may have bit off more than I can chew! What should I do? Signed, Desperate

Dark Inquisitor	19 Jul 2004
Ooops! Perhaps you need to make up a reply email saying that you have received their request , state the number of freebies you can do in a day , a thanks for responding , description of all your services with pricing , and something along the lines of : "Due to overwhelming response I am forced to put a time limit on the free reading offer. Any readings requested prior to this time will be fulfilled as quickly as possible - thank you for your patience and understanding . " Tell your hairdresser that the free offer is now over ! Maybe next time , make up an amount of numbered coupons to give her . That way you know exactly how many readings you may be in store for and it will be limited. And be sure to add it is for new customers only if that is what you are seeking. Darn- I don't have a hairdresser. (No, I am not bald. )

Mimers	19 Jul 2004
Very good idea Dark Inquisitor. What I am thinking of doing is something like the first 5 readings each day will be free. First come first serve. sigh, I have emailed most of them back telling them of my dilema and they are being quite understanding, but they still expect their free reading. and rightfully so. I also got my first, "Will I marry my current boyfriend and if so, how many kids will we have" question. I emailed her back telling her that I can not fortell the future and to please read my code of ethics. Her responce was, "oh, never mind" thanks for the great suggestion. Mimi

ros	19 Jul 2004
Have you seen the commercial about some kind of shampoo? "You tell two friends and they tell two friends and they tell two friends..." The screen fills up with faces that has told two people about the shampoo. When I read this thread that's what I thought of. Do what you can. Best of luck to you. Word of mouth is the best advertisement!

Mimers	19 Jul 2004
exactly. Live and learn! :|

Aun	19 Jul 2004
Hi Mimers, As an experienced "tarot reading site" webmaster, I think I can give you some good advice when it comes to do online readings. When I first launched my site, I was offering free 3 card readings and also several paid spreads - cheap - from 7.95 to 14.95 depending on the amount of cards. I promoted the heck out of the site ( i actually work together with an internet marketing team, but I am a web developer ) and got lots of traffic to the site. To make a long story short, I was starting to get flooded with free reading requests - on weekends I was getting 50 - 60 requests per day, and obviously i wasn't able to handle it. Now you ask me how many paid reading requests I got in 2 months? ZERO I got frustrated, and put the site offline. After a while, i decided to put the site back up, doing only free readings, but with a difference: When I reply to the querent with the answer, I put at the bottom of the message a PAYPAL "MAKE A DONATION" button along with some words about the costs to maintain the site etc, and the results are being great so far. If you'd like to have some tips on how to push more traffic to your site, please contact me. Good luck on your venture...

Mimers	19 Jul 2004
Thank you Aun. I am going to take your suggestion to heart. That might be the way I should go. I am not getting 50 requests, but I am getting about 10 a day. That adds up. I still have 4 more left to do today. I am going to take away the free offer temporarily in a few days until I decide what to do. Thanks for the tips. Mimi

tmgrl2	19 Jul 2004
OHMYGOODNESS! I see websites that offer free readings, as you did, and I wonder if they just use software. I am glad you were inundated. The website is awesome. You've already had good suggestions about it...going offline, catching up and then a restart. I think the donation by Paypal, though, doesn't give you what you deserve. You have layed out in a very lovely format, the spreads and the costs. I would stick with that... Once you get out of the "free reading" cycle, maybe someone to help market as was suggested. It's great of you to share this. Many others have or are thinking of setting up a website. Also, I did a search for "tarot readings." All the ones offering "free readings" came up first witht the "free" being an important part. Also, I think some align themselves with a search engine...like Google. I wonder if you could get into their search banks somehow. You have the word "tarot" in your title. Good luck. No wonder you are tired and busy! terri

Aun	19 Jul 2004
Nowadays its getting hard to rank on the first pages of the main search engines, unless you target specific keyword phrases. The competition for traffic is fierce, and google keeps changing the algorythms that evaluate the submitted sites for ranking. In other works, meta tags and keywords are losing relevance, and the usage of text-rich content is becoming the key. Sites that have large amounts of webpages with keywords spread around the actual content are naturally ranking higher in the large engines, as long as you instruct the spiders to follow your index page down the navigation tree. However there are other avenues to get traffic, like the creation of a large link directory for instance. The amount of reciprocal links back to your site is also very important for google. There are programs designed just for link directory creation, I use ARELIS. One other easy way to get traffic is to join webrings, its free. You can try banner exchange programs too, but most of them are scams. Hope this helps...

Aun	19 Jul 2004
By the way, for those who are interested, I am putting together a thread with some guidelines and tips for internet marketing... soon...

Mimers	23 Jul 2004
Aun, Thank you so much for all your helpful advise. I put a deadline on the free readings. Hopefully, I have reached enough people to get some people interested. What I really want is to get some Tarot Parties going in my area. I will have incentives for others to have parties, so hopefully, it will grow into more parties. I called Heidi and told her to stop forwarding and we had a good laugh when I told her what happened. She has already scheduled a Tarot party for her big customers. Hopefully I will get more clients and parties from that. Thanks again. Looking forward to seeing your thread on internet marketing. I found out that most search engines want you to pay to include their site. How else are we supposed to get exposure? Mimi

tmgrl2	23 Jul 2004
Aun....you have so much to offer re website set-up. I really look forward to a thread with tips. Thanks to Mimirs for starting this. You have both helped many people. I have thought of setting up a site down the road after I retire. I would never have thought that the donation idea would work. That is actually an excellent way to handle it, too. terri

Aun	23 Jul 2004
Mimers, Word of mouth is, in fact, a very powerful marketing tool. I think you're on the right track. Regarding the other avenues of marketing, I'll put them all on my thread, when ready. And its not necessary to pay to get good rankings on the engines if you do the right thing - a lot of HTML work though... I forgot to mention one very interesting point when it comes to online businesses. We have tested different options with an e-commerce site we used to market, and here is the final conclusion: whenever you offer somthing for free on the same area that you offer a paid service or product, your audience will always stick with the free option. However, if you remove that free option, you should get almost the same amount of sales with the paid option. Bottomline is, if your audience really wants your product (or service) they will purchase it anyways, as long as you don't go way off on prices etc. However, it is an excellent idea to invest in free readings to build the traffic. Aside of that, its an excellent opportunity to practice and meet new friends, etc. tmgrl2, I'll be more than happy to provide you with any kind of help should you decide to go ahead with your website. I can help from domain registration to final marketing. Talk to you guys soon... best wishes

tmgrl2	23 Jul 2004
Your knowledge, Aun, is such a gift May you be rewarded tenfold! If I move forward with a website, it will be a year or more down the road. I am quite new to Tarot still. What is so special about your sharing, Aun, is that you don't feel "depleted" by sharing what you know and have learned. That in itself is such a wonderful trait. Thank you... Best of fortune with your website, Mimers. Keep us posted. terri

Aun	23 Jul 2004
Thank you for your kind words Terri. I have no problem in sharing my knowledge with the community... It is the least I can do, and its really nothing compared to what I've learned about Tarot here. best wishes

The Marketing your new Tarot business thread was originally posted on 19 Jul 2004 in the Talking Tarot board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Talking Tarot, or read more archived threads.