A few words about CDs

If your reseller has a storefront, try to get your CDs placed in a visible location where the company's customers can readily pick one up to take home. Ideally, you would package the CD with other software/shareware that customers would want, further inducing them to pick up the CD—or even buy it. Be sure to mark the CDs with a special code for tracking where the customer picked it up.

You can also, optionally, co-brand and co-market the CDs and service. Joint advertising is a good way to work together with your referral companies. You can advertise specials and do other promotions together. In this situation the better established company also lends some creditability to the partner.

Tip: With both reseller and affinity programs, you will keep companies involved and gain more users by working with the group or company to provide seminars. Seminars work well for such things as setting up and orienting newbie users.

Many ISPs cite word of mouth as their largest source of new users. Referral programs are designed to help cultivate and increase the volume of your word-of-mouth sales.

The principles behind a successful referral program are similar to reseller programs. The key again is in keeping with the program.

Contests work well with users. People are competitive by nature. Offer a large prize for the subscriber who brings in the most new customers in a given time period.

Free months are another inducement, but cash is more tangible and tends to elicit a better response. Similarly, tangible prizes tend to work well—assuming it's something your customers are likely to covet. (Think Palm Pilot or the like.)

This marketing technique takes a bit more care. Start by working with                       nonprofit organizations and computer groups. Typically, such group will not want the revenue from the users you sign up, but they do like to be able to pass on some savings.

Seminars work well with affinity groups, and you can usually present your service to a 'captive' audience at their meetings. You also want to be in their newsletter if they have one.

Something you may want to look at doing is putting all of the sign-ups for that affinity group at [affinitygroup].com. In offering e-mail at the association's domain name, you will get a better response, and this will function as a retention tool.

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