$12 Market Research - That Works for Bloggers

Have you ever wished there was a cheap form of market research that would let you try new things? For example, would you like to test different templates on 2000 – 5000 website visitors? Try different affiliate programs on 10 000 visitors? In a relatively short time?

Well, there is a way to do this. I buy traffic. I can buy 10 000 untargeted hits for $12 or targeted for $19. I can try different layouts, different ads, different colors, even different article topics.

I take a look at my stats to compare:

-Click through rates
-Repeat visitors
-Number of page views
-Number of people who left the site
-And, how many people are really interested in a specific topic

Of course, there are intangibles. For example, the time of year, the quality of visitor, etc. However, this form of internet marketing is perfect for bloggers. As ‘hit and miss’ as it is, it gives great information in a relatively short time, as well as increase a blog’s page rank.

It also lets bloggers figure out which blog topics are hot, and which are not. They can test the success of certain topics. This is vital. I post to my blogs once every 4 or 5 days. When I find a ‘hot topic’ I will leave the blog with that topic as the top post. This way, the site always has a large quantity of hot topic posts- as well as a ‘hook’ for new readers.

I’ve even used this method of marketing to test affiliate programs, by sending the traffic to a specific article. I’ve used this method to test books, courses, and affiliate programs. I haven’t used it yet to test embedded Google ads, but that is on my to-do list.

Why Buy Web Traffic?

If you want to make money, you need to buy traffic. I operated websites that earned millions of hits a year, and earned less than $500 from those sites. That was because my traffic was not ‘pre sold.’

I didn’t start making money until I started buying traffic. However, you cannot buy any traffic, and it won’t work for any product, blog, or website. You need to find the right company to work with the right campaign.

That said, don’t expect your first traffic selling company to be your best. The company I use sells me 10 000 hits for $12.00. This earns about $50 - $70 per campaign. I do this on 10 blogs, earning $28 - $58 each, $280 - $580 a month.

This is one of the best passive income streams I have created. I can put 3 different campaigns on a single blog, at the same time.

I run Adsense ads on some blogs, and others have a combination of Adbrite.com and commissionjunction.com ads. The traffic I buy is ‘international untargeted’ but it works because people click to my site to read information, then click on to a ‘service provider.’

I also have a good level of users subscribing to my feed. This is increasing the PR rate of my site. I’ve also found that the extra traffic is increasing my RealRate and my Google Page Rank.
The objective is to start small and build slow. This isn’t a scam, or a secret. All the big SEO marketers buy traffic.

The problem is, there is no ‘one solution for all.’ My company is helping me earn lots of money from my health blogs, but it performs poorly on my business sites. This doesn’t mean that the program doesn’t work on small business websites. It may mean that my set up is wrong for the target audience, it may mean that my articles are not relevant. The fault is not always the service providers.

Three Time Management Methods

The biggest misunderstanding about time management is the concept of managing time. Time passes, whether it is managed or not. There are people who can write all day and finish one page and others who write all day and finish three.

The results of poor time management on a writer can be devastating. The causes of poor time management are not found in a person’s organization skills, but in their attitude toward life. It is easy for a councilor or coach to say ‘prioritize.’ It is much harder to prioritize in an effective manner.

Two Methods

Work First

When prioritizing effectively determine what is the most important task, by the consequences of neglect. Start keeping a journal. Chart the amount of time spent on tasks that do not generate an income and those that do. A productive writer sits down and writes for a pre-determined length of time. They trained themselves to do this. It doesn’t come easy. At first, a writer will sit and stare at a blank screen, doing creative writing exercises in an attempt to fill the time. In the short term, this solution can be justified.

A better solution is to pick a subject and start writing. It doesn’t matter if there is a market for the article. A professional writer knows that every article and short story can be rewritten and resold a hundred times. The first attempt is never the last. This in this case the writer is putting the need to be productive ahead of their personal need to feel comfortable and satisfied with their writing.

However, this method is not the best one for all writers.

Self Actualization First

The writer who puts their own needs first, the job next, and the success third is not always counter productive. If satisfying their needs is important to their self-actualizing, the person should set aside time aside to focus on each task, preventing their personal needs from overriding their goal of publication.

The danger for this writer is that they will never write anything unless they receive what they consider fair compensation, or the affirmation of a large publisher. The likelihood of this writer ever reaching their goals without a schedule is slim.

Once you pick a method of managing your day, stick to it at least three months before making any dramatic changes.



Prioritizing for Procrastinators

Many people waste more time managing and organizing their time than they would loose if they just took each day as it came.

List your tasks in order of the consequences if the task is not completed, not the greatest importance. Starting a list with the tasks that bear the greatest consequences, if not finished, causes a dramatic paradigm shift. The tasks you thought were most important, probably because they represented a personal need or goal are near the bottom. The tasks near the top, earning an income, become the focus of the day.

The next step is to start – and finish – each job in order. For some, this may mean allowing the answering machine to pick up the phone. For others it may mean viewing your writing job as if it were a position with an employer. You could not stop work in an office to do laundry, run errands, or catch your favorite show. Why stop writing to answer the phone?

Finish One Job Before Starting the Next

“A job worth doing is one worth doing well.” Many people are confused by the concept of finishing a job. A job is not finished until it can be put away, or delivered, without needing to rework the task. The household laundry is a good example. People drag all the laundry to the basement and sort it, then go do something else. Then, they return to wash a couple loads, and then leave the clean laundry in baskets. Eliminating the interruptions, and finishing one task before starting another, is more productive. After a routine is established, the familiarity will reduce the time needed to finish the task.

Smart Marketing in a Rural Setting Can Double Sales

Suzanne at Grace Publishing, an online and print magazine company, likes to say there are three keys to creating unstoppable momentum for your business:

- Clarity
- Congruency
- Consistency

Clarity means discovering what you are designed to do. We can help
you do that by identifying your greatest strengths and advantages.

Clarity gives you realistic expectations for business, which are often much higher than you presently expect. For example, a Jeep and an Indy racer are both cars, but
designed to do very different things. You wouldn't expect a Jeep to be
competitive in the Indianapolis 500. Nor would you expect the Indy racer
to negotiate a logging trail. They are designed for different purposes.
So too it is with businesses. Clarity allows you to have realistic expectations
of what you can and can not do. This is the same concept that drives advertising. You wouldn’t expect a coupon clipper, or local newspaper ad, to build your business’s image, and attract people who are not looking for bargains. Nor would you expect a newspaper to have the ability to reach the number of people that an online ezine has the ability to attract.

CeramicFreinds in Gorrie took advantage of our expertise and allowed us to put their business on the web. Before her web site was even published, two months ago, as an they had more than 300 hits and 3 contacts for wholesale sales. They had the product. They had the supply. They just didn’t realize their potential.

It's one thing to know what you are designed to do. It's another to do it.
The only thing that stops people from pursuing their full potential is lack of knowledge:.

FACT:

• 60% of all people who are linked to the Internet buy from the Internet
• Almost 100% of all educated, established professionals and business people, (with disposable income) consider a computer as a necessity – even those who do not own a television.
• The shopping trend of people using the net to shop and compare products is doubling every few months.
• Online regional magazines like www.shop-huron.com have already proven they are powerful advertising tools for small businesses with low advertising budgets.

The simplistic definition of congruency; How things relate to each other, interact to each other, and are dependent on each other. When it comes to congruency, you may need to make some adjustments. Most will be incremental, but some may be radical, such as changing the way you advertise and the type of people (demographic) your advertising targets. The goal is to spend more time and money attracting the right type of customers. Many small business owners are caught up in the numbers of people who will see an ad, not whether those people are actually shopping for their product, can afford their product, or are even shoppers at the moment they see the ad. Maximizing the number of shoppers who have money that see your ad, and minimizing the cost of attracting those people is where performance and satisfaction both peak. This is the secret of magazine and ezine advertising – the customer asks for the magazine or ezine, eliminating the ‘intrusive factor’ in the publication’s advertising. Or, to put it in publisher terms; The ads become the content of the publication, not an add on.

Consistency means staying with it. Have you ever been caught in traffic in a
large city? You accelerate as the light turns green, only to stop at the red
light on the next corner. This pattern of starting and stopping repeats itself
over and over as you make your way to your destination. It's impossible to
gain any momentum, which results in both lost sales, and higher expenses. The problem most small business owners have falls in their choice of advertising. Many small business owners choose their advertising based on three beliefs:

• It worked for my competition so it will work for me.
• It has worked this way for years.
• The most expensive method works the best.

This combination can be deadly for a business’s long term growth. The problem with this type of limited thinking is that it binds the business owner’s creativity, rendering them unable to look toward future shopping trends in the local economy.

Businesses have momentum which is achieved by practicing Clarity and Congruency over a long period of time.

Smart choices enable a business to grow.
Having a definite plan will help you pick the best choice for YOUR business.
Focus will enable you to explore different methods of marketing.

This is why we created www.shop-huron.com

Grace Publishing is a magazine publisher. As such, we keep a sharp eye on mundane topics like buyer’s trends. One thing we see in this area is a very sharply changing, and quickly growing, consumer base. As wealthy people move out of the city, small family farms are growing into large ventures, and as the population grows, we are noticing a sharp increase in the number of sales local businesses are attracting. Combine this with the fact that gas prices are expected to double, and the statistics we are collecting prove that the trend to ‘shop in the city’ will quickly give way to shopping locally – if the businesses have the product.

Unfortunately, it is hard to reach the educated professional families. They do not use coupon clippers, hate junk mail, and rarely listen to local radio unless they are in the car, preferring to have their favourite music streamlined through their computers.

What have we learned as a magazine publishing company?

• Regional magazine advertising is 60% more effective than radio when it comes to building image and for consumer retention.
• Shoppers frequent stores that support their local magazines and online ezines because they see the advertiser as a concerned business who is giving something back to the community.
• Online advertising is effective because shoppers know where to look for the product when THEY are ready to buy. Unlike other types of advertising mediums that only put your business in the consumer’s eye when you have the money to advertise.
• Ezine advertising can have the same image building advantages as magazine advertising at a tenth of the cost.

You vs Them

Work at home opportunities offer business owners an advantage over the big companies. Here are 5 secrets to help work at home businesses gain the upper hand over the competition – every time.

It doesn’t matter what you sell, what market you are in, or how much you have to invest. Everyone has competition. Even the local farmer’s market must compete against the big box conglomerate which owns the local grocery store chain.

Any business who wants to survive and thrive in today’s market needs to manage the competition and outperform their competitors. You can get caught up in the scams, writing long pages of testimonials that are suppose to separate ‘fools from their money.’ Or, you can follow the tried and true, marketing strategies that were used to help the international franchises grow.

Building the X factor - You

Customers are always looking for something different. Shopping is just the primal urge to find items the ‘clan’ needs for survival, and look for something new and better that will give your family the edge.

Ebook marketers may all sell the same ebook as one thousand other resellers, but one will emerge and profit while 900 fail to make money, and quit. The successful retailers knew what made their customers buy. They were not interested in hits, they only wanted sales.

In most cases, they created a brand, an image for their company and promoted that – not the product. People are tired of having advertisements shove down the ‘over-inflated’ advantages of a product or service.

The first step is to create an image that will speak to your ‘target audience.’ Do they want professionalism, a helping hand, a friend, or to feel that they are receiving something for nothing?

Customer service is still the #1 sales tool. In fact, most companies are now branding the company owner – not the product. This is called the X factor. No competitor can undermined this, reproduce it, or steal it.

A marketer, John Colanzi, says "stop promoting products and start promoting you"

Become Friends

People buy from someone they trust. The #1 reason why those long pages of testimonials do not work is because there is no ‘face’ to attach to the product.

However, you can also form a Joint Venture with another company. Two companies can work together cheaper than one can. The important factor when hunting down a Joint Venture is to look for a company with the same target market, the same strengths.

A great principal is to find your closest competitor and learn to work together. Joint Ventures can be as simple as sharing links, content exchange, ezine swaps, affiliate selling, endorsements, interviews, joint authorship of books, sharing the cost of promotional products – the scope is limitless.

The ‘You and Them’ marketing principal can work in any market. The product is no longer important, because you are branding yourself, selling yourself, and then working with other like minded people so that you can both secure a larger segment of the market.

Are You Destined to Succeed in the Business World?

The work at home industry is comprised of two types of people.

The first group want to work at home so they can wake late, work in their PJs, and watch their favorite soap. These people may have succeeded in the corporate world, or in a regular job. They may be university graduates. They are just looking for an easier way to live their lives.

These are societies adventurers. They are separated from the ‘lazy’ segment of society by the fact that they work much harder at making their ‘get rich easily’ schemes work than most CEOs work at making corporate America work.

These people are often seen as dreamers. Their motivation may to stay at home and raise the children, get out of the rat race, build multiple streams of income, start building wealth by investing, or to do a better job than their boss did. However, their drive is to succeed.
The second group are innovators.

Innovators come from two places. They may be part of the newly defined Indigo personality type. These people may, or may not be geniuses. They help others, and often self destruct because they were forced to fit into the 4 main personality types, living in a cubical, and forced to maintain the status quo.

The second type of Innovator may, or may not, be a genius. In fact, they probably have never been tested. They just know that they are trapped in the corporate world. They probably have not reached a level of success that challenges their capabilities – but one, or more, managers have launched their careers by stealing this innovator’s ideas. When there is a deadline, or problem, this innovator is forced to solve it – and they do.

Where to You Fit?

Women have a harder time determining where they fit in this scheme then men. A man works from home and he is left alone for most of the day. However, women are often expected to take on the housework, run errands, and stop working when the family arrives home at night.
I am mentioning this because these things must be addressed before the woman leaves the workforce. Statistics have proven that even a simple task like ‘throwing a load of laundry in’ can substantially tip the balance between success and failure.

Men have their own problems to face. The number one mistake they make is asking their wives to work as secretaries. Wives rarely have the skills, or motivation, needed to succeed. If they did, they’d be in the workforce. Do yourself a favor and either do your own paperwork – or hire a ‘real’ secretary – a skilled worker.

The odds are, if you see yourself in one of the top categories then you will make an excellent, and successful entrepreneur.

If you fit into the first category, then you probably do not have the management skills needed to succeed, but now that you are aware of that drawback, you can remedy it easily.
People who fit into the second category can easily succeed, but they may find themselves trying to diversify too much.