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.
2/14/08
$12 Market Research - That Works for Bloggers
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.
2/9/08
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.
2/6/08
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.
1/30/08
Is Work-At-Home Work A Real Job?
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In many cases one person decided to leave their job and start a family business. The rest of the family is feeling alienated. They are either forced to 'get on board.' Or, they feel that the one family member is coping out, quitting, and leaving the rest of the family to suffer.
Many work at home business owners lament that their spouses and children tell them to stop playing on the computer, or 'get a job.' The perception that a work at home business is 'not a real job' has nothing to do with the amount of revenue earned, or the hours worked. I've consulted work at home business owners who made more 'at home' than they did before, but their families still asked when they were 'going back to work.'
In this situation the rest of the family may decide that the stay at home person can take responsibility for the house, household chores, and children - as they are not doing anything else anyway.
This problem must be addressed with finesse. If handled properly the problem can be overcome and quickly managed. One way to overcome it is to deposit a set amount of money into the bank account every week. This does not need to reflect the real income of the business. If the family is happy to see $300 go into the bank account each week, they don't need to know that the business made $5000 this month. The rest of the money can be reinvested into the business.
The chore problem can be harder to manage. One way is to hire lawn care, housekeeping, and laundry service. In most cases, the business owner can generate $30 a hour when they are working, and pay a service $20 an hour.
There is also the possibility of renting a space in an office outsourcing company. Many businesses are being established that lease a desk, or small office, to small business owners for $100 a month. A small business owner may not be earning more money as they leave the family each morning, but they are 'going to work' so the stress is off.
Another problem arises when the home based business tries to conduct business without an office. Children run in to tell the business owner what happened to them at school, the spouse comes in asking about dinner, someone yells for the business person to answer the phone. Very little work is completed in this environment.
Self esteem issues can also come into play. No one think anything if a person invests their life savings into a franchise, and take four years until their business starts earning a profit. But, when the home based worker goes month after month without earning money, people lose faith in them. A business person needs to create benchmarks to measure their successes.
There are resources for small business owners. Most communities have networking groups. The internet is full of online communities that are worth their nominal membership fee, if only to reveal that 'everyone' in a work at home business is facing the same problems.
New ideas are often hard to accept, especially for people who went to university and spent 10 years trying to do things 'the right way.' They can feel threatened when someone steps 'out of the box' and succeeds by following their dreams. It can be a hard fact to accept that their method is not the only method, or even the best method.
A Work at home venture is a real job. Work at home businesses are as viable as brick-and-mortar companies. And, never let anyone tell you different.
Mark Walters is a third generation entrepreneur and author. He offers free training and investing videos designed to speed you towards financial independence at http://www.cashflowinstitute1.com/Articles.html
Some Work at Home Scams to Avoid
There are currently hundreds, if not thousands, of work-at-home (WAH) opportunities floating around on the internet, in magazines, newspapers, and on TV commercials. With so much information and opportunities floating around, how do you weed out the real ones and/or identify the scams?
Currently, the most popular methods of working from home being advertised usually fall into one of these 3 categories (in my opinion): SCAM, Telecommuting (or other usually REAL, Legitimate) Positions, or Business Opportunities.
Most of the ads you will see circling the net are either SCAMS or for Business Opportunities. I hate to even put those two words next to each other because most Business Opportunities are not scams. Nine (9) times out of Ten (10) the reason that you are seeing these ads are because of the keywords you are searching for (whether online or in the paper/magazine). I will go into detail about this a bit more shortly. For now, I would like to share with you what some of the most common scams are and, hopefully, teach you how to identify them and then avoid them like the plague (or Bird Flu)!
When trying to decide if an ad you are reading about working from home is legitimate, some of the following rules apply:
1. First: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
2. Second: Check to see if the company has contact information. And check to see if the contact info actually works - send an email with a bogus message or call the phone number (if listed). Then, check to see if the company is listed with the Better Business Bureau (not always necessary). You can also look to see if the company or product you are interested in has any comments on Rip-Off Report.
The two biggest Scams I think you should stay away from.
1. Envelope Stuffing: There are many different companies and ads all over the place for this type of scam. [Please note: I have attempted envelope stuffing once in the past. I cannot say they are all scams because I haven't tried them all.]
The ad: Stuff envelopes from home and make xx amount of money per envelope.
The Skinny: I sent in my processing fee (which usually is in the $30-$50 range). A few weeks later, I received a letter from some company that basically wanted me to sell canvas paintings. The way I would get paid for stuffing the envelope is for commission on a sale.
Lost: $30
2. Data Entry: These ads are everywhere! Luckily, I did my research and got a response from an honest lady, so I didn't actually lose any money on this one. (Please note: There are legit data entry J.O.B.s which you will be able to find, see below).
The ad: Get paid for doing data entry from home. You will be paid xx (usually $15-$30) for each application that you process.
The Skinny: I replied to this ad and asked the lady how exactly we got paid. She was kind enough to explain (before I sent money) that once you paid your processing fee, you were to place ads on as many sites as possible (similar to the one above). This was the data entry part. Then you would get paid (usually $15-$30) for each person that signs up to do data entry. They also tell you this is 100% legal!
Almost lost: $15
Belief Redding is a work at home mom who has fond a way to legitimately make money from home online with real jobs. She is sharing her reserach with others so that they can do the same.Tired of being scammed? Find Real Legit Work at Home Jobs today!http://wahanthology.info/recommends/RealLegitTelecommuteWorkAtHomePositions
Ebay Business: 10 Steps to Successful Selling on Ebay
So you want to be a successful seller with your own eBay business, do you? Here's a simple, ten-step path to eBay enlightenment.
Step 1: Identify your market. Take a while to sit and watch for what sells and what doesn't out of the items you're interested in. Any market research data you can collect will be very useful to you later on. You'll probably see the 'sweet spots' quite quickly - those one or two items that always seem to sell for a good price.
Step 2: Watch the competition. Before you invest any money, see what the other sellers in your category are up to, and what their strategies are. Pay special attention to any flaws their auctions might have, because this is where you can move in and beat them at their own game.
Step 3: Find a product: Get hold of a supplier for whatever it is you want to sell, and see what the best rates you can get are - don't be afraid to ring round quite a few to get the best deal. If the eBay prices you've seen are higher than the supplier's, then you're set.
Step 4: Start small: Don't throw thousands at your idea straight away - get started slowly, see what works and what doesn't, and learn as you go. Remember that it's very cheap to try out even the craziest ideas on eBay, and who knows, they might just work!
Step 5: Test and repeat. Keep trying different strategies until you find something that works, and then don't be ashamed to keep doing it, again and again. The chances are that you've just found a good niche.
Step 6: Work out a business plan: A business plan doesn't need to be anything formal, just a few pages that outline the market opportunity you've spotted, your strategy, strengths and weaknesses of the plan and a brief budget. This is more for you than it is for anyone else.
Step 7: Invest and expand: This is the time to throw money at the problem. Buy inventory, and start spending more time on your business. Set a goal number of sales each week, increasing it each time.
Step 8: Make it official: Once you've made a few thousand dollars worth of sales, you should really register yourself as a business. Don't worry, it's not expensive or hard to do - a lawyer is the best person to help you through the process.
Step 9: Automate: You'll probably find that you're writing the same things again and again in emails or item descriptions. This is the time to give up on the manual method and turn to automated software that can create listings for you, and respond to completed auctions and payments with whatever message you provide.
Step 10: Never give up: Even when it looks like it's all going wrong, don't stop trying until you succeed. If you keep working at it then you'll almost always find that you make a real breakthrough just when things are starting to look desperate.
Once you get into the swing of things, you might start thinking that you should quit your job and take up eBay selling part time. But it's not always as easy as that - there are all sorts of factors that you need to consider. The next email will weigh up the case for and against taking up eBay full-time.
Please take the time to visit my website www.manomanju.com to Learn how to start your home based online jobs.
Work at Home Data Entry Job: 5 Secrets To Know Before Starting!
It is predicted that the number of data entry jobs available online will decline over 2014. This is making it increasingly more difficult for start-up workers to find legitimate work at home data entry jobs to become employed in.
While a lot of data entry jobs are scams, there are still many that are legitimate. The problem is that demand for these legitimate, well paying positions is so high that it is becoming harder and harder to get into them.
From the outside, this may seem backwards. More and more companies are looking to outsource their employees online, and data entry is a position thats easy enough for anybody to get into.
Well yes, there are still plenty of positions available, and anyone with the right education can find one.
The difficulty is in finding a legitimate company that will pay you a fair wage and value your skills.
Most of the work at home data entry jobs involve ad typing work. This basically involves writing small ads and distributing them around the internet.
Dont get me wrong, this is a perfectly legitimate job and there are numerous companies that need people to do this. However, be aware that for many of these positions you do not get paid unless someone buys the product from your ad. So unless you have exceptional marketing skills or 20 hours a day to commit to distributing ads, most of the ad typing jobs will not yield you an income.
So the search begins for something slightly more professional such as virtual clerical duties. This involves typing data into forms, proofreading and formatting documents and writing letters for the company that employs you. Most of these positions are legitimate, but even if you are more then qualified, you will still find yourself up against a lot of competition.
A great place to start looking for these types of positions is at sites like craigslist.org and Indeed.com
There are still problems though. Many times there will be hundreds of people looking at and applying for the same jobs as you. Thus you need to search everyday for jobs that are suitable to your needs, and hope that you land one. You also need to create a resume and cover letter that is top class.
As you can see, getting a work at home data entry job can be tough, and its only going to get tougher. But the reason why so many people are interested is because it can be an extremely satisfying career. If you are even the slightest bit interested, theres no better time to look into data entry jobs than now.
Here some final tips to help you find a legitimate company to work for:
-- Print out business cards and flyers notifying people about the service you offer... and hand them out at any chance you get.
-- Avoid free listing sites if possible when searching for jobs, as most will be scams. Invest in a website like craigslist.org or indeed.com
-- Be wary of doing business with a company that uses a free email service (such as hotmail, yahoo or msn).
-- If the company asks for a fee before answering any questions, walk away immediately.
-- Research, research and research to find out all you can about the company and to make sure they are legitimate.
Finally, do not be afraid of competition. If you find a posting for a work at home data entry job that you would love to do, then go for it. Too many people sit back waiting for an opportunity to come to them, but they miss out on all the best ones that pass them by. Once you find a company that works for you, do all you can to work for them.
Jeff Casmer is an internet marketing consultant and work at home business owner. For more information on work at home data entry please visit his "Top Ranked" Work at Home Data Entry Directory which gives you all the information you need to Work at Home in the 21st century.