Could any bum off the street really make decent money using the bum marketing method (a spin on article marketing)? That’s what Travis Sago says. Let’s discuss the merits and / or downsides of bum marketing, and see whether bum marketing is just another Internet marketing fad, or a fab marketing technique with long term potential:

How it Works:

I’m going to oversimplify: You write articles and submit them to sites such as article directories and Squidoo. Within those articles, you include affiliate links or links to your site where you then promote affiliate products. You drive traffic to those articles through search engines (which in turn hopefully leads to affiliate sales). In order to maximize traffic, you look for keyword phrases that have high advertiser competition, very little article competition in search results, and at least a decent search volume.

Fad or Fab?

FAB – Here’s why – This is another of those marketing tactics that I’m slightly torn over. I’m not a fan of article marketing, because it tends to litter the Web, and search results, with a bunch of crap quality content that’s useless to most readers looking for legitimate and authoritative information. That said, if you target your keywords well, the method does what it says, and that probably won’t change. There will always be changing search trends, and therefore more long tail search terms to target. There will also always be new informational products and their corresponding affiliate programs to make money.

Bum marketing is far from new. It’s just a spin on more traditional article marketing (publishing articles for backlinks and exposure), but with a monetization strategy tied directly into it. You can learn about the bum marketing method for free at the link above. Even if you’re not interested in pursuing bum marketing as an income stream, you can learn a few things about targeted search terms, which can help you to drive traffic to your sites.