It occurs to me that targeting seasonal niches might be an interesting long haul strategy. I’m curious how much optimization effort would be needed when you ramp up again the following year. I can see where simply dusting off a campaign could be a really fun way to keep it interesting while at the same time having campaigns in your back pocket once you’ve been through a year. Plus, year after year you would simply be tweaking and improving campaigns that are, for the most part, already in the can.
Here’s one strategy that I could see working. Ramp up Valentine’s Day first thing in January. Then roll right into tax preparation software and services from February to the beginning of April. Next, it’s Mother’s Day in May, and Father’s Day in June. Take the summer off (j/k) and pick up again with Halloween followed by Christmas. Rinse and repeat. The only real problem here is that we’re talking about managing five separate niches and marketing to a variety of consumers. Optimizing could be tricky and the time commitment would be fairly big the first time around. And, your campaigns could completely bomb.
Personally, I’m sticking to a couple relatively small niches that are not affected a great deal by seasonality. Since I’m a small fish, this is letting me experiment and grow incrementally without having to factor in seasonal sales swings. That said, look at some of the bonuses we saw for tax time. It’s a fact that some affiliates were killing it in order to warrant those numbers.
If you’re running seasonal campaigns, hit me up and let me know how it’s worked out for you and what factors one needs to consider when going this route. Drop a comment or shoot me a note!
I’ve had a bunch of great business ideas. Or maybe they were great ideas. In most cases, I’ll never know because I could never get them off the ground. Why? Because they were very complicated.
Building a complicated business isn’t a bad thing at all. For one, complexity means you are benefiting by creating a barrier to entry into your product, service or market. On the other hand, ideas like these tend to require substantial initial capital. That’s why I’m such a big fan of bootstrapping. You preserve equity and force yourself to keep things simple and inexpensive. As you move your idea forward and pull in some revenue, you can reinvest and make your business as complex as you like.
The point of this post is to remind us all that sometimes the easy ideas are some of the best. Take Todd Davis of LifeLock for example. Sure, they raised a bunch of money, but the business itself is so simple it’s genius. A little technology here, a little automation there and marketing that takes advantage of everyone’s media-induced fear of identity theft and you have the perfect money making storm. All of this because they do something that everyone can do for themselves at nearly no cost. But, it’s a pain in the ass so why not pay $10/month or $110/year and let them do it for you? Believe me, lots of people do. LifeLock is a money making machine and now they have lots of copycats.
I used to see businesses like this and think I’m doing something wrong. These ideas would really get me down. Now, I look at them as educational and inspirational. Most important, it reminds me to keep things simple.
Joel Comm’s Adsense Secrets 4 is an impressive piece of work. While I’m not new to AdSense, I found tons of helpful advice in this eBook. His original books, New York Times bestsellers were priced at $97. For anyone that is starting out, $97 might seem like a bunch of loot, but the reality is that using his advice you’d easily earn the purchase price back.
Now, after a two year hiatus, Adsense Secrets 4 returns. For the most part fully updated to reflect the many changes to the AdSense program over the past few years. What’s more, since this is being released as an eBook, Joel’s made it available for only $9.95! That’s a fantastic deal to get you started in maximizing your AdSense revenue. Google just announced its earning and blew away the Street’s expectations. Now is a great time to get your feet wet and one of the first stops is monetizing your assets with AdSense. I highly recommend Joel Comm’s Adsense Secrets 4.
Watch this space. I’ll have a lot more to add after reading Adsense Secrets 4 especially as it relates to how thoroughly Joel is killing it monetizing his very specialized area of expertise.
I’ve been a card member for twelve years or so and I’ve always appreciated Amex’s customer service and card offerings. A couple years ago, I switched to One from American Express for my personal expenses. The rewards are straight-forward. One percent of your purchases will be deposited to a high yield savings account at the end of your billing cycle. Last year that amounted to a few thousand dollars in savings on purchases plus the interest earned on those savings. High yield in 2007 meant 5% for most of the year. Unfortunately, it’s only 2.75% now. Another great feature is interest protection. You only pay interest if you carry a balance. Pay your balance in full and you do not incur any interest charges.
The only downside to American Express is that there are still quite a few businesses that don’t take it. The good news is that it’s mainly small retailers. American Express has been quick to remind merchants that on average, card members spend much more than their Visa or MasterCard carrying equivalents and thus, more and more merchants have offered Amex as a payment option over the past couple of years.
For business, I use the Simply Cash Business Card. The card features 5% cash back on gas, office supplies and wireless and 1% on everything else. The cash back is credited to your statement at the end of each month.
How does Amex fit into all this? Well, I bring it up because their rewards are one small way to slightly enhance your ROI for the better on both the advertising and publishing sides of your Internet marketing endeavors. The success of many campaigns hinges on small margins. For a contemporary analog, think of black jack. If you play it perfectly, you can attain a 1% advantage over the house. Credit card rewards that are cash-based offer a similar edge and if you don’t play it perfect, you’ll lose your advantage. I know it’s small, but in the world of analysis even the fractions count.
While credit cards can be a great way to help fund your marketing campaigns, you have to take cash flow into consideration. If you carry a balance, you have to factor the interest you pay into your ROI. This is especially true where you might have as much as a sixty day wait for payments. If you look at the super affiliates, they are able to leverage more frequent payments because of the size of the commissions they earn on a monthly basis. If you’re starting out, you don’t have any leverage at all. Be sure to understand exactly when you can expect to be paid for your PPC/PPA campaigns and manage your cash in such a way that you pay your card balances in full each month.
On the marketing side, it’s also important to remember that if you’re running PPC/PPA ads, you’re likely funding your account based on your future spending. Commission Junction is one example. They require you to maintain a balance equal to what they project you will spend in the next 30 days. They even provide you with monthly report that tells you exactly where your prepaid-paid balance needs to be. For PPC campaigns, expect many frequent charges and monitor your spending closely. This is especially true for any new campaigns that you’ve launched.
As you track your campaigns’ ROI, you have to factor in how much your advertising actually costs — including interest charges and any cash back rewards you may earn. My advice is to carefully consider which rewards your credit card offers and lean towards cash rewards.
Here’s a quick and dirty example for illustration:
You spend $1,000 to earn $2,000 on your current campaign. You receive a 1% discount on your spend making your actual spend $990. Instead of a 100% return, you yield a 102% return. Now, what happens if you have to pay interest? At 12%, that would precisely offset your cash back. At 14%, you’d pay $1,001.67 to earn $2k and your return would be 99.67%. Pay the minimum and continue to carry your balance forward and you can easily see how doing so will erode your ROI.
Pretty neat huh? While I know few people enjoy math, I do know that we all want to maximize our returns. Considering every factor including your actual cost of capital in your campaigns can really pay off in the long term.
What rewards card do you use and why? Have you seen any similar advice as the above? Share your experiences in the comments below!
Speaking of hedging, I just read an article in The Washington Post that revealed the massive incomes generated by several hedge fund managers that bet big on subprime mortgage securities going south.
John Pualson personally earned $3.7 BILLION with a capital “B” last year. Now if that isn’t absolutely killing it, I don’t know what is. He’s not alone either. Quite a number of other fund managers completely cleaned up betting on everything from the subprime mortgage collapse to the rising cost of commodities. These guys made billions.
The Post goes on to quote Daniel Strachman, a former hedge fund manager and author:
“It’s clear somebody has to win and somebody has to lose,” he said. “It’s not pretty at all because people say, ‘Oh my God. Look how much money these guys are making while people are losing their homes and are complaining about the cost of eggs and sugar.’ But so what? We don’t live in a society that is pretty all the time. That’s why it’s capitalism.”
You know, as much as I hate seeing the little guy (that’s you and me) lose as a result of the current economy, I have to agree with Strachman. Not everybody wins. That’s life and that, indeed, is capitalism.
Wise investors know full well that it’s best to hedge their investment risk. The same should be true for you as you evaluate your personal financial situation.
Most of us have one job. We go to work each day and diligently perform the duties before us. If we’re smart, we participate in our employer’s 401(k), contribute to an IRA and save at least three month’s salary. That is the most common strategy work-a-day slaves guard against loss of income and plan for retirement. And, that’s fine for most folks. However, it’s a position I find to be untenable in my situation for the short and long term.
There is no guarantee if you lose your job you’ll be able to find a new job that matches your skills, interests or even expected income level within your three month cushion. Sure, you can take a penalty a draw against your 401(k) or IRA, but you pay a steep penalty for doing so and it probably won’t buy you a lot of time anyway. Take my wife for example. She left a job nearly six months ago and has not found a suitable place to land since. Granted, she has had the advantage of my income to cover her expenses, but imagine if that were not the case. What would she have needed to do in order to meet her monthly outlay? Anything from working a couple part-time jobs to temping to taking a lower paying full-time job are all options she might have needed to exercise. That just sucks and it happens to lots of people every day.
If you are an executive, three months’ salary won’t cut it. You need to have a six to twelve month reserve. The higher you soar, the harder you fall and the more difficult it becomes to find the right fit as well as adequate compensation. That’s me in a nutshell. As I mentioned in my post on transitioning, if you are forced to move on, you have to have a game plan to replace your current income. In my case, it’s my start-up. What if you knew that you wouldn’t have a job in six months? What would you do?
It’s crazy not to diversify your income sources. It’s crazier still to accept your current income as sufficient. If I’m hiring a sales guy or business development guy, I always ask him what his income target is. If I get a response that isn’t titanic (better yet, infinite), it’s a real turnoff. Where is the hunger? You must be hungry to succeed and excel at whatever it is you do. It’s about passion.
Run through all the “what if” scenarios you can think of in your own life and start to consider how you can take active steps to mitigate risks. Think about it, it’s the very reason we buy insurance or extended warranties on big ticket items. Start working on an insurance plan for your income and do it today. The only thing that’s in your way is you. Find a few hours here and there and just get moving. Then, let that momentum carry you forward.
What are you doing to actively diversify your income? Tell me in the comments below!
Everybody and I mean everybody is talking (or tweeting) about Twitter. I swear, I just didn’t get it. But, the talkers kept on talking, the bloggers blogging and I finally gave in. I just Twittered my first tweet a few minutes ago.
At its most basic, Twitter just asks you to answer the simple question, “What are you doing now?”. When I first starting hearing about it in the mainstream media, Twitter was mostly brushed off as a casual curiosity without much use. Now that it’s on fire, answering that simple question really isn’t about answering that simple question. It’s about creating a way for you to tell others what you’re doing. Friends, family, colleagues and even strangers can follow you and respond to your tweets on Twitter. You can easily communicate with a group of your followers or even, say, just your family. What are you doing now? I’m writing a post about Twitter. What are you doing now? I’m picking up groceries, I’ll be home in 15 min.
So, it’s not so basic after all. I think that’s been the main problem with introducing newcomers to the service. It just isn’t easy to grasp without some real world examples of how people are using it. To that end, I’ll start tweeting away and see if I can help you understand it better. I do know that a lot of Internet marketers have picked up on the phenomenon and there have been some interesting findings about how Twitter accounts rank in the SERPs (um, search engine results pages for the uninitiated). If I get as addicted as everyone else, I’ll follow this up and let you know how it’s going. If I really adopt it, I’ll even add a widget to the blog so you can follow me right here.
Oh, and you can tweet in many ways and from many places. Here are some applications that work with Twitter to get you started.
If you’re using Twitter, let me know how you’re using it and whether you love it, hate it or are indifferent in the comments below. If you like you can follow me on Twitter. Follow me and I’ll follow you.
I wrote about the importance of a favicon for your blog or Website and how to get one, but left a crucial piece of the puzzle out. Want to use your own favicon on Blogger or another blog hosting service? If you have access to a server or image sharing account, it’s pretty easy.
Just edit the header of your theme/template and insert the following between the <head></head> tags:
<link rel=”favicon” type=”image/ico” href=”http://example.com/yourfolder/favicon.ico” />
Note, you’ll have to figure out how to edit the header with your particular blog host. For example, in Blogger, log in to your dashboard, choose layout, then choose the tab titled “Edit HTML”. Insert your relative link to your favicon then save your template changes.
Depending on how you upload files to your image host or server, you’ll either FTP in or upload to your directory. If you need some for favicon hosting, here is a short list of free image hosting for your favicons.
Once you’ve made the changes, you will likely need to clear your browser’s cache before you’ll see your custom favicon in the address bar.
Follow Google Trends and you’ll notice something interesting. The stuff people are Googling today is ripped from the headlines and enterprising bloggers are taking advantage of this by posting on the same subjects/keywords as they happen. The result? Instant, albeit short-lived, traffic.
As I continue to work on driving traffic to my various projects, sometimes I can’t help smiling when I see this crap. So much work for something that last for such a short amount of time. I’m wondering if any one out there can chime in and let me know if this has worked and, more important, is it sustainable? It would be an interesting experiment to try on a throw away domain for a week or two to see what happens. Load up the AdSense, read the news and Google Trends and post away (and profit?).
Sure, you can use Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail or whatever as your email provider and get good things like forwarding, your own domain, POP3 access, but if you want kick ass email you have to check out FuseMail. But, before you click, no it’s not free.
However, it is super affordable. At $0.99 per email account per month (minimum 10) and 1GB of storage, the price is looking right. But that’s not all. FuseMail has a ton of other sweet features. From a brand-able webmail client (that’s pretty slick I might add) to consolidating all of your other emails into one account to calendaring, contacts, notes, tasks, syncing — FuseMail has it all. Heck, I even use them as backup DNS for some of my sites. Their list of features is ridiculous. Heck, I even use them as backup DNS for some of my sites.
I’ve been using them for just over a year now and there service and support is hands down the absolute best. Disclaimer: I’m writing this because I love them. I don’t know anyone at the company and am not paid a cent by sending you their way.
If you are looking for a crazy, rock solid email provider, you can’t go wrong with FuseMail.
