I want to discuss something that is rarely covered in traditional Internet Marketing. This is a law and a principle called, “Karmic Marketing” also referred to as the “Law of Reciprocity.”

First, what exactly is reciprocity?

A simple explanation would be, you do something nice for somebody, and in return, they feel almost obligated to do something nice for you. It doesn’t have to be stated. It doesn’t have to be in writing or even mentioned or even outwardly discussed. It’s just one of those universal laws, just like gravity.

You may beg to differ on how the “Law of Reciprocity” in theory and concept woks in marketing, but try Karmic Marketing and I’m willing to bet money that it’ll work for your business too.

So how do we use Karmic Marketing?

I find through consistent communication and email with your list, you want to sprinkle in a little karmic marketing dust now and then to keep people guessing…
You can do this by rotating gifts, bonuses, free reports or other valuable content. This makes people think, “Wow! So and so’s really giving me something great.

It builds credibility for you as the marketer, while doing them a favor by helping them out. In return, your prospects and subscribers are going to buy more of your products and become repeat customers because you are generally a good person by providing free gifs and special unannounced bonuses.

Alex Mandossian and I both do this in our individual businesses, however we almost go overboard with the Marketing Minute eGram series.

In this $20 monthly subscription, we give away special bonuses, tools and resources at a rate of 1 to 3. This means that for every week we produce content (it’s a 52 week series of Marketing tips and strategies), we give away some extra bonus gift ever 2 to 3 weeks.

Most of these items are valued at between $67 and $197, which if you know any of either of our content, is a steal of a deal in itself.

So they end up paying around $240 for an annual subscription, and walk away with several thousand ($2,138 to be exact) worth of free bonus items they can immediately put to use in their business.

Karmic Marketing has another spin to giving away gifts and bonuses that can make a huge impact on any business.

You see, when people get something on a regular basis, something they know that will be coming to their mailbox every week or month, you’ll start to find that certain people just gaze over. It’s inevitable, we all do it, including myself.

They begin to just stop listening. They won’t open or read your stuff anymore.

However, when you send stuff, and once in a while throw in a free gift, special bonus, or limited time offer, people are unable to predict what you’re going to do next.

So when an email comes in, the customer doesn’t think, “I’ll get to it later.” Instead, they will open it right away because of their curiosity.

A great example of this is John Reese, I consider him one of my secret weapons. John’s the kind of guy would you won’t hear from for a month or two… then one day he’ll send you an email and BANG! out of now where, he’s got some juicy information or resource for you.

On the other hand, there are other marketers (who I’ll leave un-named) who send you the same thing day in and day out. You don’t even need to open the email, you already know what’s inside it. (Yup, another sales pitch!)

You want your audience to be waiting for your next email. As long as you’re providing value, they’re going to open it. You, as a marketer (and this works for any and every niche market), need to make sure that your customers and subscribers are reading the emails you send out.

The fastest and easiest way to do this is by giving those free, unexpected bonus offers every once in a while.

If you need a quick jump start to get your Karmic Marketing campaign off the ground, here are some ideas you can use.

If you belong to any affiliate programs, you can use their free bonuses and opt-in offers to gift to your list. (Just be sure they are quality and not just a bunch of sales fluff.)

You can also give away special bonuses. For example, you can offer a limited audio teleseminar. Send an email to your list saying, “I just got back from a seminar and I’m going to interview one of the top speakers for a special one time call that’s not going to be recorded. Show up to the call or miss the boat.” This way, people start to read your emails more often.

When they know that you often have specials and limited time offers, they will begin to get a sense of urgency when they receive your emails, causing them to open them right away.

Because, truthfully, in the world of Email Marketing, you’re not just competing against your top ten competitors, you are competing against their boss, co-workers, family and friends on top of all the other marketers and web sites they have ever purchased from or subscribed to.

I find another great bonus that’s really effective is to offer free online video tutorials. You can make a quick little video presentation (even 5 minutes is enough in most cases).

No, you do not need to use actual video footage; you don’t need a digital camera or even a web cam. You simply use a software program to create a tutorial walk-through of how to do something online, or with your software, or even just how to use your web site.

Get creative on how you can use video tutorials and how you can incorporate them into your next karmic marketing strategy.

Then send an email to your list or build it into your autoresponder series (which is what I recommend).

This is the basic overall view of Karmic Marketing and how the Laws of Reciprocity play into the world of online business.

We’ve only touched on some of the basic concepts of how this strategy can help your business. There are literally dozens more ideas out there to be explored.

Karmic Marketing sounds a little far fetched, but when you put it to use, I assure you that it will completely revolutionize the way your customers look at you as well as improve your credibility as a business owner.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 14th, 2007 at 11:00 pm and is filed under Info Marketing, Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.