Category: Marketing

Bathroom Advertising Forgot the Girls

Hong Kong Museum of Art - Chinglish I noticed something odd the other day. You know how some unisex cafe and restaurant restrooms have ads hanging in them?

Usually, the ads are right above the toilet bowl. This means a guy going Number One will see the ad nice and clear.

However, there are rarely any ads on the opposite wall. Meaning a guy going Number Two – or a girl going Number One – doesn’t get to see an ad.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying everyone needs to have a face full of ad while doing one of life’s most basic necessities. Definitely not saying that.

I just couldn’t help but wonder why these cafe and restaurant proprietors thought enough to put ads for guys to see, but no ads for the girls.

Yes, it is frightening where my mind can wander if I let it.

Photo by: srbyug

The New Amazon Kindle 2

Amazon Kindle 2 I’m salivating right now. Could be because someone’s eating a plate of French fries next to me. Or could be because Amazon (AMZN) just released the new Kindle 2. Either way, both are equally scrumptious.

A ton has been written about the Kindle already, so I’m not going to copy-and-paste everything. What I’ll say instead is that I’m particularly excited about:

Author Spencer Ante also made an interesting comment about the Kindle today:

I am in talks with my publisher Harvard Business School Press to create a Kindle version of my book. The main challenge is over the rights issue. Depending on what rights you have negotiated, authors and publishers may need to renegotiate permissions to receive rights to publish certain photos and text for the digital world.

So here’s the deal. Thanks to Amazon and the Kindle, e-books have gone from the “can afford to ignore” category to the “I am looking into it” category, and now are entering “I have to have it” bucket.

I think this should be good for readers and the publishing industry as a whole because it represents another outlet and market. But the transition may be a little bumpy as business models could be disrupted, and publishers become concerned that they are getting dis-intermediated out of their core business by technology companies.

I think it’s a positive sign that some authors and publishers are buying into the idea of e-books. Not all authors are sold though. Stephen King cautions that, “yes, MP3s and iTunes destroyed the CD industry. Nobody’s going to buy the whole if you can just buy a slice. But that doesn’t apply to books.”

His thoughts echo what many others have said, making for an interesting debate.

Ultimately, it will have to be the readers who decide if e-book devices are worth having. So far, I think there’s a definite niche market here. I’m craving one and lots of people already love it. That doesn’t mean there’s a mass market for e-books though; it just means there’s a niche for them.

Personally, I still think this device will be a success – provided that Bezos and team can properly market this. And I’m rootin’ for them!

How to Find Writing Jobs

Tokyo Shopping This is the last post in a series on How to Make Money as a Freelance Blogger:

  1. How to Write for the Web and Search Engines
  2. How to Market Yourself
  3. How to Find Writing Jobs

Finally, you will need to find a way to make money as a freelance blogger. No duh. This is going to require a decision:

  • Do you want to make money from your own blog?
  • Or do you want to make money writing for other blogs?
  • Or both?

Making Money From Your Own Blog

Now that you’ve set up your own blog and have been blogging for some time, how do you monetize it? Is it even possible? Yes, it is, but it is extremely difficult to make a living off your blog alone. You’ll have to do a lot more than one blog – perhaps have several.

But never say never, right? Here are some ways to at least pay half of your rent per month. (This list expands on what I’ve written about monetizing blogs before.)

  • Advertising
  • Sponsorships
  • Affiliate programs
  • Digital products
  • Merchandising
  • Donations

Blog Advertising

You have many advertising options for your blog. There’s a whole art & science to optimizing ad payouts, but basically the more in-your-face and relevant the ads, the more likely they will be clicked. As a blogger, you are paid each time a user clicks on an ad. But don’t click on them yourself, or else you will be committing click-fraud and will be banned from that ad network.

Blog Sponsorships

This is only possible with a fairly popular blog and a loyal following. Once you reach that level, you may be able to find advertisers interested in sponsoring some of your content for a set period of time. All you’ll need to do is provide proof of your traffic levels and audience demographics.

Affiliate Programs

Using an affiliate program is sort of like earning a commission each time you sell another company’s products. For instance, you could join Amazon.com’s affiliate program and link to various books (which I do fairly frequently). Every time a customer clicks on a link and purchases a book, you will earn a commission.

Digital Products

You could write a useful how-to guide in the form of a PDF ebook and sell that. Or record a song in the form of an MP3 and sell that. Or create an instructional video in the form of a streaming video and sell that. These are all examples of digital products. You don’t need a fancy shopping cart system to sell them either. There are a few ecommerce engines that will handle that for you, though they require some technical knowledge to set up.

Blog Merchandising

If you’ve branded yourself well, or have fictional characters that may look good on a t-shirt or coffee mug, consider merchandising. Blogs with cult followings tend to do well with branded products. And if you have a web comic, even better.

Blog Donations

If you can manage to get a cult following, not only could you consider merchandising, but donations as well. Some talented starving artists can get by on donations alone, though it is extremely difficult. I’ve gotten a coffee or three myself, but that’s about it.

Must-Read Articles

Here are some must-read articles and resources on making money from your blog:

ShoeMoney

ShoeMoney is a well-known professional blogger and internet marketer whose blog occasionally contains tips on internet marketing and profitability.

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com is another well-known professional blogger and internet marketer with tips on internet entrepreneurship.

ProBlogger

Making Money From Writing for Other Blogs

Some freelance bloggers could probably make more money writing for other blogs than trying to monetize their own blog, mostly because they don’t have the skills, experience, or desire to put a lot of effort into monetization techniques. They would rather be writing. If that’s the case with you, then it’s time to hunt for some blogging gigs using these methods:

  • Word of Mouth
  • Blogging Job Boards

Word of Mouth

This is where your brand, reputation, networking abilities, and social media marketing efforts can pay off. Having a strong network can generate significant returns. If you’re not as comfortable doing the shmoozing thing at parties, do the shmoozing thing on social media sites. But in either case, make sure you always carry business cards – you never know when you’ll run into someone who’s interested in your services.

Blogging Job Boards

There are a ton of sources of freelance writer and blogging jobs out there. If you have your blog and writing samples prepared, start going through these sites. You’ll find that writing gigs can vary from writing blog entries to copywriting to email newsletters to ebooks to standard articles.

Now for a list of must-read articles and resources:

I hope this series has been helpful to you. Yea, I know it’s a ton of stuff to read. Just imagine how many worthless articles I had to read to distill these lists. Whew.

If I’ve missed any important articles, please let me know. I’m sure there’s more great stuff out there.

And finally, good luck with your new career as a freelance blogger! Let me know how it goes!

The How to Make Money as a Freelance Blogger series:

  1. How to Write for the Web and Search Engines
  2. How to Market Yourself
  3. How to Find Writing Jobs

How to Market Yourself

Tokyo Shopping This is the second post in a series on How to Make Money as a Freelance Blogger:

  1. How to Write for the Web and Search Engines
  2. How to Market Yourself
  3. How to Find Writing Jobs

Next, you will need to market yourself and promote your services. This will require a portfolio of published writing samples. To be taken seriously as a professional freelance blogger, you will definitely need a well-marketed blog – which can provide as a source of fresh writing samples too.

This step is pretty involved, however. You will need a good domain name, a web host, some blogging software and some technical knowledge. If you don’t have any technical knowledge (or a technical friend who can help you), there are free blogging services you can use. Blogging services don’t require any technical know-how, but you won’t look as professional when using one.

Also, you will need a presence on social media sites to help extend your reach and brand. Having a presence can educate you about the social media world as well, where potential gigs could arise. Social media sites are sites like MySpace (NWSA), Facebook, Yelp, Twitter, Digg, Newsvine, NowPublic, etc.

How to Set Up Your Blog

You have two choices here:

  1. Set up a blog with your own domain name
  2. Set up a blog on a blogging service

Set up a blog with your own domain name

  1. First, pick and register a domain name. A good domain name is:

    • Short
    • Memorable
    • Easy to say
    • Easy to type

    You can verify whether or not the domain name is available on a domain registrar. If it is available, you can register it through the registrars for a yearly fee.

    Since most of the good ones have already been taken, you can consider using a domain name suggestion service to help you along. Some allow you to register the domain name too.

  2. Second, sign up with a web host. A web host is where you’ll actually place your website’s blogging software. The two registrars above (Namecheap.com and Go Daddy) also provide web hosting.

    After you sign up with a web host, they will give you directions on how to associate your domain name with your new web host account. Contact their customer support if you need help doing this.

  3. Third, pick your blogging software. Fortunately, this is free.

    This is where you’ll need some technical knowledge. You will have to download the blogging software, then upload it to your web host and install it. After playing with some settings, you can choose a theme to make your blog look nicer.

Here are some must-read articles on setting up your own domain name, web host, and blogging software:

Set up a blog on a blogging service

This one is easier than setting up a blog with your own domain name. A blogging service will give you everything you need right away. The drawback is that your domain name will be a mix of yours and theres: e.g. yourblogsname.blogger.com. This doesn’t look as professional has yourblogname.com. But hey, it’s easy and it’s free.

Just sign up and you’re done!

How to Promote Your Blog

Now for a list of must-read articles and resources:

How to Use Social Media to Promote Yourself

And more must-read articles and resources:

Here is one last resource. It is a massive list of 40+ sites for writers. Truly massive list. If you think I’ve already given you too much to read, then you may not want to click on this link. But please do at some point. It also offers a great deal of useful information.

More tomorrow!

The How to Make Money as a Freelance Blogger series:

  1. How to Write for the Web and Search Engines
  2. How to Market Yourself
  3. How to Find Writing Jobs

Posterous’ Annoying Comment Subscriptions

Okay, I’m beyond annoyed right now.

I recently made a comment on Guy Kawasaki’s Posterous blog Holy Kaw. The entry, “This is why Richard Branson is so successful“, shows billionaire Richard Branson on his knees, shining Kawasaki’s shoes. Pretty hilarious stuff. I couldn’t help making a comment. And to follow the discussion, I opted to receive email updates as new comments are added.

55+ comments later, I’m trying desperately to find a way to cancel those email subscriptions. Like, wow, this is annoying.

Posterous is a new blogging platform created by two CompSci Stanford grads. They’re backed by Y Combinator and are noted to be easy to use.

Which is why I’m confounded by the lack of thought in this supposedly easy and useful feature. What a horrible social media device. Allowing commenters to subscribe to future comments is a great way to bring them back to your site and continue with the discussion – otherwise, they forget about your blog entry and move on. It’s social media marketing magic.

But when an entry becomes really popular and gets 150+ comments, then that magic becomes an annoying parlor trick real quickly. Already, I’ve seen a few others getting irked by this. Some of the comments I’ve seen so far:

  • “Wish I would unchecked the box to e-mail me with the default check. now I am trying to turn it off.”
  • “Too many comments”
  • “Stop”

I just emailed Posterous. I really hope they respond soon and turn these damn subscriptions off.

How to Pitch to a Top Blogger

A down-trodden economy is no time to pull your marketing muscle. If anything, it’s a time to keep flexing it.

Though some cost-effective (read: cheap) marketing methods surely wouldn’t hurt. Million-dollar Super Bowl ads are nice and all, but cheap marketing tactics are totally the way to go.

With that said, I found a few blog entries around pitching your web start-up to influential bloggers like Michael Arrington, Pete Cashmore, Robert Scoble, and the ilk. There are already tons of tips on pitching to VCs. So it’s refreshing to see so many posts on pitching to bloggers. (There are actually way more than I’ve listed here, wow!)

There are a ton of great tips here. A few notable ones are:

  • Build a great product
  • Start a buzz on smaller blogs first
  • Perfect your elevator pitch (helps with VCs and bloggers, apparently)
  • Make your pitch relevant & timely to the blogger

I hope this helps. Good luck pitching your business!

How Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Got Published

Call it Harry Potter with vampires. Call it a sappy supernatural teenage love story. Call it an annoying chick book.

Whatever you want to call it, you can’t deny that it’s gotten damn popular. I have friends who can’t put the book down, dying to absorb every word, every sentence, every drop of blood in the entire Twilight series.

While talking about it one day, I was pointed to the origins of Twilight and how author Stephenie Meyer came to publish these books. Although I haven’t read the books (and don’t intend to), the description of Meyer’s painful publishing process is really interesting.

Warning: There are plot spoilers in the above link. If you want to read the books but haven’t yet, don’t click on the above link.

In it, she describes everything from how the idea popped into her head (literally, in a dream) to how she used Google (GOOG) to do background research to how she finally found an agent.

To put it mildly, I was naive about publishing. I thought it worked like this: you printed a copy of your novel, wrapped it up in brown paper, and sent it off to a publishing house. Ho ho ho, that’s a good one. I started googling (naturally) and began to discover that this was not the way it is done. (Movies lie to us! Why?! A side note: you will not be able to enjoy the new Steve Martin version of Cheaper by the Dozen when you know how insanely impossible the publishing scenario it contains is.)

Pretty informative, especially if you’re interested in publishing a book.

How Small Businesses Can Save Money in a Recession

Newstand Speaking of saving & making money in a recession, entrepreneurs can do it too. It requires some financial discipline, but it’s certainly possible. Countless businesses and smart entrepreneurs have done it. You can too.

Here’s how:

  1. Buy Cheap

    Prices fall in recessions. That means it’s a great time to go shopping for cheap supplies, raw materials, and services. Outsourcing sites like Elance and oDesk can help you find lots of affordable contractors. A year ago, I saw software developers on Elance going for $40/hr. Now, the cheapest ones are $12/hr. The downside is that quality can vary significantly. So caveat emptor.

  2. Renegotiate Your Vendor Contracts

    This is a good time to renegotiate all of your vendor contracts for lower prices. Chances are, many of them will be willing and able to lower their prices to keep you as a customer. Try to lock in these prices with long-term contracts too (assuming you’ve got enough in the bank), so you can benefit from these lowered prices when the economy improves.

  3. Hire the Best

    It’s layoff season. That means there will be a lot of good talent on the streets. Look for them and woo them. Do everything you can to keep those smart individuals around, so that they’ll continue being there after the recession. It’s a great time to find great talent.

  4. Learn Financial Discipline

    Tough times call for strict discipline. This is what separates the script kiddies from true programmers, the boys from the men, the girls from the women. Learn how to bootstrap, trim the fat, and make smart choices. Ask yourself how each decision will benefit your business. Don’t just focus on the short-term either, tempting as that will be. The financial discipline you’ll learn now will benefit you when the economy rebounds.

  5. Impatient for Profits, Patient for Growth

    Though this is very counter-intuitive to many Web 2.0 companies, the book The Innovator’s Solution advises entrepreneurs to be impatient for profits and patient for growth. This, in my humble opinion, is great advice. If you don’t have a real business model, you don’t have a real business. At best, you have an “Acquire Me!” business, which is a horrible model, especially in a recession.

  6. Negotiate Your Credit Card Rates

    This tip works for both personal and business credit cards. Lots of credit card companies will give you a lower interest rate if you just ask. So ask! Every little bit of savings can help.

  7. Look Into Recession-Proof Businesses

    Some industries aren’t as affected by recessions as others, such as health care, funeral parlor, debt collection, and repair services. Repair services are good because people want to maintain what they have instead of buying something new. If your existing business can be extended into any of these areas, give it some consideration.

  8. Be Creative

    Be creative about your marketing, your products, and your services. Think outside the box for new customer solutions. As you increase your financial discpline, you should also increase your creative solutions. Perhaps it’s engaging in a catchy PR campaign or creating a viral marketing piece. Or a streamlined development process or distribution channel.

  9. Treat Your Customers Very Well

    If you aren’t getting any new customers, treat your existing customers really well. (Honestly, you should be doing this already.) Any practices you start here could be the start of new customer service practices later. Customer loyalty will come in very handy at a time like this.

  10. Prioritize, Prioritize, Prioritize

    Finally, be strict about your true priorities. What is absolutely critical to you? Every decision you make has trade-offs. If you really want those product features or direct mailers, think long and hard about the trade-offs you’ll be making – more design & development time in creating the feature or more design & supply cost in creating the direct mailers. Make a strict priority list and stick to it.

Another benefit of a recession is seeing weaker competitors drop out of the race. Businesses who don’t learn financial discipline won’t survive. So if you have a spend-happy competitor who’s been creeping into your market, don’t worry – they’ll soon be gone.

Do you have any other money-saving tips for entrepreneurs?