I hope this note finds you in the best of health and spirits.

The site looks great, full of information and a good resource for people needing assistance in the areas you cover.

<snip> Do you think I should add some free stuff like, income and expense forms used for budgeting and other free stuff before marketing the site?

Towards the goal of becoming the premier site for online credit information, I would add any and all things that you feel would serve your visitors. Each new thing you add will give me additional marketing ammo. For example I can now feature

"Click here to order your credit report online." as pretext to visit our site.

<snip> Should I do the free stuff as download files or html?

I think that downloadable word files would work.

I would also suggest offering people a chance to sign up for the "Good Credit" newsletter so that you could gather the email addresses of your visitors and have a pretext for getting back to them on a somewhat regular basis.

You could publish a monthly newsletter filled with interesting facts, new developments, and general information. ( In October I started publishing my weekly newsletter, Cool Tricks and Trinkets and now have over 5000 subscribers who are a constant source of new business and referrals not to mention a potential future source of sponsorship income.)

The following is an outline of a proposed proactive online marketing plan designed to create a greater awareness of your book, bring more visitors to your site and extend our visibility to aligned sites.

I would suggest a balanced campaign made up of the following online marketing techniques.

1. Posting to Newsgroups

2. Affinity Link creation

3. Exchanging content with Ezines/sites and moderated discussion groups for links to our site ( or specific sections of our site)

You are fortunate that your target audience is broad and easy to locate online. However considerable thought must be put into the quality and form of contacting them. I will briefly give an overview of the above mentioned techniques and conclude with a proposed plan of attack.

1. Newsgroup posting. The following is a PARTIAL list of newsgroups where your target audience resides. Each newsgroup would require thorough investigation to determine posting procedures and acceptable content to effectively bring visitors to your site.

Some examples of the subjects we might post

"Get your credit report online in 30 seconds"

"Online credit repair resource"

"Does bankruptcy make sense for you?

......to the following groups ( partial list)

alt.building.finance

alt.business

alt.business

alt.business.consulting

alt.business.home

alt.business.home

alt.business.home.pc

alt.business.import-export

alt.business.international

alt.business.international

alt.business.misc

alt.business.multilevel

alt.consumers

alt.consumers.free-stuff

alt.how-to

alt.invest

alt.make.money

alt.misc.entrepreneur

misc.consumers

misc.entrepreneurs

misc.legal

misc.taxes

misc.taxes.moderated

soc.college.financial

us.legal

2. Affinity Link creation

This would consist of contacting the following sites and telling them about our resource as value added information for their visitors

Small business sites

Entrepreneurial sites

Woman in business sites

Home businesses sites

Business/Marketing sites

3. Exchanging content with Ezines/ WWW sites and moderated discussion groups for links to our site ( or specific sections of our site)

There are thousands of the above mentioned entities, in need of new and refreshing content, who would accept submissions from your book (what we already have online, "Legal And Illegal Techniques Of Credit Clinics") or new articles that you would write in exchange for the mention of our site.

In some cases, one interesting article can find its way into numerous publications read by many potentially interested persons.

Since more and more women are going into business, an original piece discussing your resource from a women's perspective would be a excellent marketing tool.

I would suggest an initial outbound campaign using the above mentioned activities, of 15 hours (over a one month period of time) for evaluating the cost effectiveness of using online marketing in getting the word out and creating sales for the book.

I would maintain a work flow document containing the names, and email addresses of all contacts, which I would forward to you at the end of the project.

My rates are $80/hour, the total for the initial phase of the project, $1200. Terms are 50% down, and the remainder upon completion.

I will gladly provide references of clients who can attest to the quality and results of my work if you require them.

Please contact me with any questions or comments.

Best regards,

Charles Kessler