Archive for 'Creative Business Online'
10 Tips for Avoiding Financial Failure in Business
Posted on 11. Dec, 2008 by Trond.
If your new online business can make it through the first three years, the chances are pretty high that you will survive long term. The question becomes how do you properly avoid financial failure during those critical years, and beyond? (more…)
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eBook Riches – 5 Creative Business Online Steps
Posted on 12. Nov, 2008 by Trond.
Why Write eBooks? Become an Expert!
Why write eBooks? There are countless reasons to write and self publish an eBook. There are some obvious reasons, and then some not so obvious. EBook profits come from 5 creative business steps. This is the first.
Why Write
Writing is an art form that will be profitable to just about any business, and this isn’t just the writer profiting. Ever get junk mail? Notice that the writing usually tries to pull you in with a powerful offer or a unique picture. There is a copywriter behind that, and he’s making money not only for himself but namely for the business he (or she) is writing for. Writing forms of the core of all we see and hear. It’s essential in the online business market to stand out with good writing. EBooks are the solution, and getting a ghost writer for an eBook to feature on your site often turns quick profits … and turns you into an expert.
Expert!
By writing an eBook, you immediately become an expert in the field. For instance, I wrote an eBook some time ago on creative writing, and therefore became an expert on the field. It helps your image, makes buyers trust you more, and of course makes you more knowledgeable. Whether you write the eBook or not, you will gain a working knowledge of online media that before you didn’t have. For now, let’s say you’re going to write the eBook or at least do some editing.
You’re informing with an eBook, selling with a product page. Two different strategies that work in vastly different ways. However, both can be profitable.
Online Profits
Becoming an expert immediately turns into online profit. Write an eBook on marketing, and you’re a direct mail marketer, you can not only note this on resumes but offer services as a writer or editor for certain media venues, especially online venues. You could ghostwrite articles or pen press releases, for one. But, you write your own eBook and you will get true profit.
Here is the big story. Why are so many businesses opting for eBooks? Shorter, more to the point and useful, and never sell out. Sound good? Welcome to the vast world of online media, where you can write an eBook of 50 pages and make more money than the traditional book writer. It doesn’t happen every time, but it can and does happen.
The next step , now that we know why so many businesses are selling eBooks, is how to write them!
Step 2 – How do you write an ebook?
Table of Contents
Part 1: Why write an ebook – Become an expert!
Part 2: How do you write an ebook?
Part 3: How do you make money off an ebook?
Part 4: Rules of the ebook – Creative Offers, Creative Business Profits
Part 5: Creating more than One ebook – Finale!
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10 Reasons to Start a Creative Online Business
Posted on 08. Nov, 2008 by Trond.
So you’ve decided to make the business jump. Maybe you are starting a whole new career … or building a new highly profitable business … or you’ve got this work from home job assignment coming in, accounting perhaps or graphic design. You are closing in putting this business to word, to developing a “brand” and setting prices. You know of the online world. What you don’t know is aplenty. (more…)
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Career Blogging
Posted on 08. Nov, 2008 by Trond.
Making money online from day one is hard, however, earning blogging cash on day 30 is a distinct possibility. This is because you have the chance to gain repeat visitors. It’s simple: the more repeat visitors you get the higher your income in this online career will be. This guide provides the path toward the riches of the blogging world, focusing on earning an income from day 30 onward.
Use a Google or Other Counter:
There are countless free services out there to check and see what pages are popular. What you want to know is which posts you are getting the most hits on. Maybe you have a jewelry blog, and a certain bestselling brand gets almost half of your site’s visitors. That means you want to cash in on this, writing as many posts as possible. This is the perfect step toward blogging cash and a blogging career. All you need to do is sign up for Google or another free counter service. Just make sure they have a page by page breakdown, which sites like StatsCounter.com and Google.com have.
Don’t cash in too early:
Paid posting is one of the most lucrative ways to make money online. However, you don’t want to fill your blog with ads, especially in the beginning. You want readers to keep coming back. If they see ten new paid ads on your blog and little new content, you lose more than you gain. Use a strategy of never having more than a third of your posts as ads or paid posts. You will be making more money online if you do.
Show Emails:
I will show you how to be more personable very soon. But first you must see this blog as something with you tied directly to it. After all, you’re the one who will make it a success. Even if you don’t write the articles, you will be choosing what to post. Showing your email address shows a more personable way to blog. Be careful not to place the complete email—instead use Writer AT BestBlog101 Dot Com. That may be obvious, but it’s important, lest you get loads of junk email.
The main point here is, when you show your email, you offer the reader a good chance to encourage or perhaps tell you a topic he/she wants covered. It happens to most bloggers who offer an email.
Ask for Emails:
Ask for your readers to send you emails in as many posts as possible. This gets them involved, and it can be encouraging for you. Maybe your blog is getting barely any hits, and you decide to start asking for reader articles on topics they want. Presto, you get writers interested in your blog and more interesting topics.
Be Personable:
Don’t always treat this like a business of only making money online. Yes, you do want the online career, but you can make due in the beginning as long as you have readers. In many fields, using “I” is a negative, but with a blog you are showing them how it works. “I built the house in 10 days and saved on contractors.” That brings you into the story, which in affect, allows your readers to look at the blog as someplace to visit again and again. It also leads into using personal experience.
Using Personal Experience:
Personal experience articles are perhaps the best kind of posts you will write. You can write an infinite number and, in my experience, they will keep coming back for more. It can be anything: how you bought a diamond worth $1,000 retail at a garage sale; how you defeated breast cancer by chewing on rare herbs; or even how you found your faith through a trying time with addiction. Remember: this is a personal place in the beginning and the end. Once you figure that out, repeat visitors will be coming in by the thousands.
You can’t write only personal experience articles, but even bringing in your experience occasionally can help readers relate to you. When they relate to you, it equals blogging success and blogging cash.
Keeping Readers—the Endgame:
Following this guide, you are very close to getting return visitors. Treat this like a personal domain where you can be as creative as you want; most people like a touch of creativity on any day. By keeping readers, your blog will be making you money online. In the beginning stages, focus on gaining readers for one blog. Then, to really make the blogging cash, create new blogs and start the process over again. The difference? The readers from your original blog will come searching for more of your stories. It’s a fast way to make this online career successful.
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Sunday Blogger: Planning A Blogging Week
Posted on 08. Nov, 2008 by Trond.
It doesn’t have to be Sunday, but what other day to choose than the one you aren’t supposed to work? That’s right: bloggers looking to make money online typically, at least in the beginning, work weekends to earn blogging cash. It’s about earning in the end. Again, it doesn’t have to be Sunday, but having a planning day for a blog leads to success—and success leads to pay. Let’s see if we can work out an entire blogging week.
Looking to Readers:
Your first responsibility is to your readers. Now, as will be laid out in the final step, you don’t have to write anything on Sunday, but you do need to plan the week out. It usually takes 1-3 hours, depending on how many blogs you have. Look to your readers first, as they’re how you earn blogging cash. If you get emails asking for a certain topic, explore it, and see if it’s popular. If one blog is failing and another succeeding, plan a week to rework the failed one using the principles of the successful blog.
Priority List:
This is perhaps the most important step. You can put together a priority list on a computer (easy) or even on paper (less easy, but still works). This means you write down all the articles you want to post for the week. Certain articles will appeal to you; and certain articles will appeal to readers. Think in terms of money: blogging cash comes when you focus on the high keyword/keyword phrase posts. A personal experience article on faith may not be as popular as one that involves a major religious leader. It depends. This will come in time. Your priority list is like checking boxes off, putting the articles with more income possibilities first, then the ones you think might work under it (if you have time), and then going downwards into the articles you are still forming in your head.
Paid Blogging Opportunities—When and Where:
Much of your income may come from paid blogging opportunities. It’s good to fit your posts in with your paid blog posts. However, often you won’t even know how many paid posts you have. You can develop an average for the week, or a goal of how many you want to post. You don’t want to have five paid posts in a row; you always need to keep your readers in mind.
Making Money Online — The Search:
Sunday is also the perfect day to search for new paid blogging opportunities. Maybe one site isn’t giving you much blogging cash, so you take an hour or two combing the net for newer sites (which rise up every week) where you can do paid posting. It’s the perfect way to make money online.
Finish Strong, Take the Weekend Off:
Still, this is Sunday. Try to take at least a few days off from writing and posting. A “Sunday Plan” shouldn’t take you more than an hour or two, and you won’t have to search for new blogging opportunities every week (maybe twice a month). So take Sunday off after this brainstorming session. You will be ready on Monday to make money online.
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5 Tips for a Failed Blog
Posted on 01. Nov, 2008 by Trond.
No one is coming to your blog. Since day 1 you’ve reached a few hundred readers, getting no loyal return visitors. You are ready to quit on your blog, but wait, there it is, the idea of reworking the blog. It won’t work … it can’t work … it takes too much time.
Not so. A failed blog isn’t a failed attempt at writing. The market is still growing, but already somewhat bloated. You just need to stand out. In ten minutes, I explain how to rework a failed blog, to make it stand out and start earning you online revenue.
Hit the Keyword, Use Social Media:
If you believed the work from home myth that you could make $$$ just by writing what you wanted, not utilizing things like keywords, or for that matter hard work … welcome to the new reality. Your blog can still work! It takes a lot of keywords and social media tools, both intertwined. It would take more than one article to explain all the benefits of keywords and social media, but for now let’s keep it simple. What keywords are people hitting on more than others? It may be a topic you have no experience in, or on the other hand, one you don’t care to write about. You may have to bite the bullet.
By social media I mean using the true power of the internet. If you are not posting your blog posts to sites like Digg and Stumble Upon, that’s a problem. If you are but it’s almost a waste of time, consider studying the hottest topics on the front page of those sites.
Who are Your Readers?
Next, you want to find out just who your readers are. Even a failed blog will get hits, but often will not get the golden repeat visitor. Writing well is the obvious solution, but writing “series” or “columns” on your most popular topic works too. If they like the first piece of the column, they just may come back to read the second . You need to make sure it is there when they come back.
The Benefits of a Fresh Look:
Sometimes blogs are hard to read, or just don’t look the way you wanted. “But it’s a failed blog anyway …” It may be a successful blog if its look is original, if the posts are easy to find, if the pictures stand out, and if it’s all formatted correctly. This is simple blogging 101. Eye candy works online.
Less Paid Posting:
Paid posting can spell the end of a successful blog. Some failed bloggers just fill their pages with paid posts, thinking it won’t even matter anymore. This isn’t entirely wrong, but eventually those paid blogging assignments will stop coming in. What then? Be frugal with your paid posts. For each paid post on a blog you are serious about reviving, create 1-2 original pieces of content. You’re still getting paid, but you’re also offering fresh content.
Be Less Personal, Be More Personal:
I say both because some blogs take each to an extreme. In some cases, there is no reason to bring yourself into a blog post. In other cases, it’s almost required. Some bloggers just write business like copy nonstop, while others explain their dog is sick. A little of both is the best option. For example, when writing a blog post on faith, you can bring yourself in because you’re expressing your beliefs. On the other side, explaining how much you like a novelist all through the text of a book review is pointless and frustrating to read.
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5 Ways to Improve Creative Business Reader Response
Posted on 31. Oct, 2008 by Trond.
If you want to keep your business in the black, and continue to improve revenue over time, the online world is the perfect market to do so. If you already have an online site, this guide will explain the core rules of gaining more reader response on your pages. Whatever you offer, a true creative business always seeks out new ways for profit. And in the online world, this means making your customers trust you more by getting to know you. A customer relating to you begins with the charismatic sales approach.
The Charismatic Sales Approach
Why bring yourself into anything? Because it means buyers/readers seeing you as more than another of the millions of other businesses in the online world. For example, by bringing yourself into the copy of your site, not too much or too little, you immediately get interest from readers. Again, it’s a fine art to make readers care more about you, perhaps hoping to buy from a small business in a niche field and with a more personal touch.
To do this, you don’t litter your personal life story into the copy. You use personal examples that relate to the product, interesting points which show value of the product or service to the reader. This means sticking to the benefits.
Emails
On another angle, emails aren’t always spam, but customers online more or less know spam from legitimate offers. Often a good deal can be found if the site is trustworthy. Email campaigns may sound too “big” for you today, but by tomorrow, with a double in sales, it could be the reader response avenue your company needs to really grow. There are many successful email campaign brands out there. If you have a web designer, he/she can help with this. If not, many web servers like Microsoft Office Live charge small fees to create email campaigns. It’s a simple, but incredibly powerful way to keep explaining your products/services to buyers.
Sales
Now we go from the complicated online world to basic business sense. Constant sales mean constant profit. Companies that consistently offer sales corner the market in the online world. One such example is Amazon.com, where books, movies, and thousands of other products come marked down from the outset. Sales get you attention, and if you handle the order correctly, it means the golden repeat customer even when you don’t have ongoing sales campaigns.
Free Shipping
Speaking of Amazon, if you order over a certain amount, you get free shipping. It’s not original; a few million copies use the same approach. Copy this! Not only will customers gain the advantage of not going to the store, they might get an item not only for cheaper but with shipping to their door for free! It’s simple, and many successful businesses online use it. If you have a service company, obviously free shipping means nothing. That’s where bonuses come in.
Bonus Items
Ever notice in the junk mail you get … or the TV infomercial … there is almost always a bonus item tagged on to increase the value of the product? Once again, copy this basic tool of marketing. If you have a service based field, say web design, consider doing 10 pages for your regular price and making the 11th page free. If you sell books, consider half off a second book.
Finale
These points are all very basic, but some of the best in the creative business world are. They lead you down the path of a creative business getting more reader response. If you can keep offering deals, better deals than other companies, your market share grows. If you offer higher priced items with no bonuses, your online business may falter. Yet with a strong charismatic approach or a strong email campaign, you can still succeed. Following all these strategies in conjunction will no doubt improve reader response. Try one out.
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How to Boost Your Blogging Profit
Posted on 31. Oct, 2008 by Trond.
To make money online with your blog, you need not spend hours spamming countless friends and family, telling them to spam even more people. You can boost your blogging cash income on your own. All you need is a few steps toward the blogging cash riches, that place where you can make upwards of $500 a week, even in the beginning.
Set Career Goals:
You really should look at blogging as a possible career, as a reality for turning your words into money. Blogging cash will follow if you set the right kind of goals. Making $500 on your first week is an ambitious goal, and sometimes you can even do that, however, it’s rare. Maybe in a few months you can make that much money online. Maybe in a year you can double it. Those are the type of goals you should set. It depends on how rich your keyword density is, for starters, but also if you’re an established blogger. So let’s work on those keywords.
Work on Your Keywords:
Choosing keywords and keyword phrases is something that sounds easy, but isn’t. First you need more than a few keywords to get your blog off the ground and make money online. You need to check out other, similar blogs and see what keywords and phrases they use. Typically, people want to make money, escape, part, and make more money. A fun blog sometimes can do all those things. Even a book review blog could highlight how to make money online, how to escape into reading, save money, or give gifts. That’s why it can be important to have a broad range of topics for your blog: it turns more than a profit, it gives you freedom and easy access to profitable keywords.
Develop Back Links:
Back links are rather simple. You exchange links with other bloggers, hoping to get a few more steady readers, which can lead to more blogging cash. You know a friend who has a blog-that’s one back link. You exchange emails with someone in New York, who has a popular blog-two. You work with people who run various websites-three. It isn’t always that simple, and this isn’t the most profitable path towards blogging cash. If you really want more readers, you create back links by using submission sites like “Digg” and “Stumble” to promote every post you publish on your blog. I will tell you how.
Using Digg and Stumble:
Digg and Stumble are just site submission networks. You publish a post on the Iraq War, go to the site Digg.com, use the link from that post, and write a short synopsis of the story. It is now live on Digg, and almost always you will at least get a few readers, hopefully return readers. Now, right after you submit to Digg, use Stumble to submit your post too. It’s a bit more complicated to explain in words, but it’s about as simple as Digg. You install a Stumble bar on your browser, go to your link you want to promote, click the “Thumbs Up” and write a short description. Again, it sounds complicated but in practice is rather simple. Once you do it once, presto, you can do it the second time in 30 seconds.
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Creative Business Online: When You Succeed – Online Wealth!
Posted on 30. Oct, 2008 by Trond.
A creative business online … a work from home reality … developing an online presence—these are all positives which inevitably lead to incredible success for some entrepreneurs. This is still about capital, but when you are earning enough to put your children through college or just to pay all your bills, it comes down to seeing this creative business as a sign you’ve done something right. So how do you know when the online creative business is successful? Will you receive a letter in the mail telling you a good job … or a pat on the back from Warren Buffett? No. Here is what you do get.
To Work Less
There is a moment in the very beginning where 80 hour weeks are not uncommon. When you work 80 hours on this creative business, something is bound to change. This is not philosophy, because if you follow the basic presets outlined in this creative business set of guides, you know more than most of the competition. Some companies offer no online presence whatsoever. Other companies have one but hire out cheaply to get it done and over with. Presto, a website. Some, however, follow you toward the huge market online for creative businesses. They see all the benefits, like working less and creating outside streams of income (maybe even passive income!). So do you.
To Make More
If you are working 80 hours a week to get this business rolling, it comes down to a matter of physics. Something has “gotta” break through. You will be learning, in essence, the fundamentals of successful online business, from the sales call to developing leads, from finding freelance work to outsourcing your own projects. You will make more if you work more. Then there is the whole thing about happiness.
Happiness?
Say you were making $30,000 a year as a restaurant manager, working 12 hour shifts regularly. You jump on board another market by setting up your own business. You will feel more fulfilled by building a business that’s more yours than the “Day Job.” It’s you on the line. You can gain happiness, and who isn’t happy about working less hours and getting paid more? It happens all the time; it just takes spirit.
Profit
Profit will mean something to you. The opportunity for advance is powerful in any market economy. It’s those of us who took advantage of online wealth building that see this whole online creative business as a dream come true. Work from home? Do what you want? Maybe not always, but it can be done.
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Working More Hours? Work Less Hours Online
Posted on 30. Oct, 2008 by Trond.
The online creative business truly goes from niches to riches, from marketing toward the right kind of potential buyer, and often just as much about working lots of hours. Meaning: sometimes you have to work double shifts to really see this creative business take off. There is a whole strategy at play by successful entrepreneurs; not the kinds carrying suitcases of money in movies, nor the ones selling the latest cleaning supply for incredible prices. No, this is simply about managing your time as an owner of a creative business, starting with the freelance.
What is Freelance?
When you’re making $100 an hour, not an unrealistic figure down the line for some entrepreneurs, you truly have to know how do manage your time. This piece will detail that more, but first a few words on freelancing. It’s a side income, a work from home opportunity, and can get your foot in the door in many service fields. Whatever your position, you likely have the opportunity to freelance on the side for some added income, working less hours than your normal business operations, and getting a high hourly rate (like that $100/hour!). Freelance means delegating, then saving. One way often misunderstood is the work from home opportunity.
What is Work from Home?
It’s not an infomercial; work from home has plenty of benefits. You work at home and keep an eye on the kids. You are free to do what you want, more or less, when you want. There is another side to this whole enterprise. Savings. Savings from working from home shouldn’t be discounted. If you run a creative business from home, working the hours you want, not driving the 45 minute trek both ways back from home to work, you save money. When you can build your office into your home instead of renting a suite, you save money. Work from home is more about savings than anything else.
Then it’s about saving time, which in facts makes you work less hours. Just saving on the drive into town has its benefits beyond gas. When you’re making more money, your time is more valuable. This means you can outsource.
Outsourcing
Working from home or not, freelancing or not, it’s good to gain an understanding of both these pursuits in the creative business field. That means you know a good work from home contact from a bad one, a freelancer living locally in town you can trust, and use these types to save you money.
Famous consultant and business entrepreneur Robert Bly noted how, when he’s making far upwards of $100/hour, it costs him too much money to mow the lawn or to stop by the post office. He outsources all this work, actually saving more money than spending. If you are charging $50/hour, spending two hours on your lawn or making a one hour stop at the post office is costing you money. Outsource, because your time will be saved. You will work less and make more.
Working Less Hours with Higher Pay
This all leads to the final point, where you think in terms of money first, calculating what’s profitable and what’s a waste of time and money. You can work less, make more. This means tapping into the huge work from home field, the freelancing market in dozens of fields like accounting, web design, and copywriting, and then valuing your time from the outset. The creative business also allows plenty of opportunity for passive income, income which has you less directly involved in the sale. Once you start a business, or expand one, these are lessons it’s best to know ASAP. It’s the KISS principle in action, so keep it simple and about saving time and money.
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Creative Business Online – If it Fails: Your Customer Didn’t Buy
Posted on 30. Oct, 2008 by Trond.
You’ve brought the customer to the threshold, and for some reason he/she isn’t buying. You offer a report on a popular field of business … you market yourself as an expert in the field … you build testimonials for advance readers (or buyers) of your work … yet the sale isn’t converted. What went wrong ? Many things may have gone wrong, but let’s find out what’s working, first, and then what isn’t. Then, this piece highlights ways to improve sales as an online creative business.
Rework The Business Plan
All creative businesses need a business plan, no matter how big or small they are. You are a work from home mother selling fine jewelry at discount rates. Discount rates, you think, are the main sell point. That goes back to business copy and selling 101: you need to talk about benefits. The #1 aspect of your business plan is getting buyers to see all the benefits of buying the product.
Now, after incorporating benefits, you need some new strategies. Luckily, the online world is full of hundreds of methods of reworking this simple business plan. The #2 is finding your typical customer. Say you are selling health products designed to help middle aged women with wrinkles. Design a complete business plan about all the benefits of this product and how you will point that out. Next, write a buyer profile.
You can do this several ways:
- Offer a free product if they fill out a questionnaire or survey.
- Get an email list where you can contact online buyers and see exactly what they are interested in.
- Lastly, go via print methods if you get a mailing address: send free materials and offer special products only with print direct mail letters.
You must go beyond the fact this creative business is online. It’s still run like a regular business, but often you have more options.
Rework Landing Pages
If you have an ad campaign, and with it a landing page, obviously note the sites where conversions are higher. Also note the places where you received more unique visitors, then repeat visitors. Many online sites incorporate both: unique visitors and repeat visitors. It allows you to see exactly what is getting lots of hits but isn’t selling, what isn’t getting many hits but sells better than the rest. This method is rather simple, but as landing pages are so important, it’s best to ask for professional help on the matter, even if it means sending out a couple questions to friends in the business. Or you can study competitors landing pages, and see what they are sticking to in terms of copy.
Offers, Offers, Offers, Free, Free, Free
Now let’s get down to the core of this problem. You need to offer buyers more. More! That means free stuff: free shipping … buy one get one free … free report with the ebook … free jewelry case with a new diamond. Free is the keyword here. Ever notice how infomercials always offer “bonus” items? That’s what you’re doing.
Here are two more ideas: Raise prices, lower prices. Certain products, you will note, just keep selling and offer a unique experience or benefit. Other products are easy to produce or come as passive income, so you can lower the prices. It sounds simply, but many creative businesses forget raising prices can benefit as much as lowering them.
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Finding the Right Customer, Thinking Like that Customer
Posted on 30. Oct, 2008 by Trond.
The end game is sales. Yet how do we, beyond the three tier emotion to desire to action levels, find the right customer and then think like that customer? More customers means more profits, right? Actually, you want the right kind of customers, the word much more apt to turn you big profits. Repeat customers. First, let’s find the right customer.
Finding the Right Customer
This means going into a field knowing you will reach an audience and therefore a buyer. Everything is show until the buyer actually decides to buy the ticket. There are several methods for getting this right customer:
- Be charismatic, sell personally to them via emails.
- Be formal and businesslike, which works well for B2B creative businesses.
- Set high prices for products true values to you.
Now let’s go into more detail on each of these facets of the online creative business. Being charismatic simply means appealing to the customer as a person. You send an email with company letterhead, but the first story you tell is the one you hope will make the buyer relate to you. You can be formal and businesslike, forming a different kind of bond with the buyer. This shows professionalism: you get right down to business. Then, interestingly enough, you see who your TRUE big buyers are. You sell an ebook or report of 20 pages not for a few dollars, not even $10; you sell it for $30. This is useful, because you see the demand for your products on the one hand, while also seeing who the big spenders are.
Gaining Repeat Customers
If you are selling that report for high margins, it better be good. This is the art of the repeat customer, the one client who can and will push your creative business far into the black. This means sending out free emails occasionally, offering special online coupons, and more than anything, informing this buyer on the market itself. If it’s a B2B market, a free report every few months makes sure the buyer remembers you. In this day and age of billions of items being bought, and millions offered for free, it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle. Be constant in explaining you still exist, still are the expert, and want this customer’s business.
Thinking like the Customers
The end of all this is to think like the right customer, the repeat customer. It means valuing what he/she values. If you’re selling a product families are apt to buy, think like a family man. Sound simple? Creating a buyer profile is square one, whether you decide on hiring out for marketing purposes or not. This is why an email campaign often works well, because you get to see who’s truly interested in your services.
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Be Different: Marketing Plan
Posted on 30. Oct, 2008 by Trond.
You’ve got them to your site. But often you’re getting the kinds of buyers who simply don’t want to purchase anything for your price. Your copywriter, or you, keeps them reading. Either (1) there isn’t a strong conversion selling the crucial benefits and using a strong call to action or (2) you need to tap into other forms of online marketing and profit.
What you really need is a new, expanding marketing strategy. This goes beyond social marketing and PPC ads; you are directly engaging the interest of readers, keeping them curious. That means you can profit in another way.
Start as the Expert
You don’t have to have a degree in physics to write about physics, and you don’t need a billion dollar business to market yourself as the top company in your field. You just need to offer useful knowledge again and again. This is all leading to a sell, but a different kind of sale. You will be using this online creative business knowledge to profit. If you sell rare books, even write a small article for book publishers or newspapers occasionally, you don’t need the million dollar book deal to get noticed. You have experience, more than the reader, and that makes you an expert. Now let’s tap into that with some more passive income.
Passive Income, Be Different
They don’t want to buy your $1,000 rare first edition Ernest Hemingway novels … they just like reading your pieces on the great writer, or looking at the pictures. This is a very specific example, but the point is you are informing. It doesn’t even have to be in SEO form with keywords and keyphrases. What you can do is create passive income again by being different, forging out into other marketing fields. Start a group of book fans. I know of one famous writer who started a major group on Yahoo! Groups, then expanded this single group into another successful newsletter. With the fans of the old group, he created a demand for advertising in his newsletter. He’s now charging high rates for small ads, all because he took a creative business to the next level. That is one strategy, a small plan used successfully to expand. It’s all marketing. Whether it’s a free ezine which leads to a paid ezine, the possibilities for marketing the online creative business are limitless.
Broadening Your Niche
If you become an expert in one field, why not expand into another? You’re an accounting firms selling online software for the B2B market. Do you see where this is going? Now, niches start you as the expert, but there are ways around this. Start a B2C site utilizing similar software, but on a separate site with a separate domain. You can still link to each site, but by using two separate sites the passing customer may see you as an expert in one, while in fact you’re an expert in both.
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Social Media Advertising & Web 2.0 – Online Creative Business
Posted on 30. Oct, 2008 by Trond.
Social media is the true growth cycle for the online creative business, and proof that the online marketing world, that online profit from strong copy and conversions, is here to stay. The online world evolves more and more. In ten years, something may trump social media. But what is social media?
Social Media Defined
Social media is the new form of internet communication. It’s not always about profiting from it, but this article will focus clearly on that aspect, bringing more profit to your online creative business by tapping into the world of social news, bookmarking, network, and even photo and video sharing.
Gregory Go of About.com called it an umbrella term for a host of Web 2.0 forms. Remember, Web 2.0 and social media are the same, it’s just the term “social media” is more common today. There are several forms of social media, and many ways to profit from each.
Social News
Ever heard of Digg or Stumble Upon? These are two of the hotter social news forms. It’s all about user friendliness with social media, and social news is the perfect example of this. For example, you run an online creative business specializing in say rare jewelry or some other tangible item. You decide you need some extra marketing, or want to inform readers more on why your products are the best. You start a blog, maybe hire a writer to edit and/or write the content. But there are no hits on the blog, no one is reading, no one is following links from the blog to your main site. Meaning: no sales are coming from it.
Enter social news, where you can submit your posts to certain sections of each site. For example, on Digg.com you will enter the web address of a blog post, pick a category, write a brief description of your post, and publish it online. This links to your blogging article. You can do the same with Stumble Upon or other media sites like Reddit. One useful strategy is to write one description and use it for as many social news sites as possible. This speeds up the process: write one description, upload it to many social news sites. Try it out; social news is the best way to market your online creative business with blogging.
Social Bookmarking
Similar in scope to social news, social bookmarking is all about sharing bookmarks of recommended sites. The biggest of these services is Delicious, where bookmarked pages are shared on a massive site. This is a less direct way than social news, and is still a growing field. It may not work better than social news, but social bookmarking can work for the right businesses. It depends on where you value your time, as this could be a shot in the dark at getting serious buyers and constant readership.
Social Networking
Social networking does work for businesses and in many ways more than social bookmarking. Though not as powerful for businesses, there are millions of people on social networking sites. You know them as Facebook and Myspace. Many businesses upload pictures and or content. It’s all free, a useful way to meet buyers and readers on a more informal level.
Other Forms
The three mentioned are best for businesses to explore, with the best being social news, social networking as a close second. The next forms of social media are photo and video sharing, microblogging, and social reviews. These sites offer a more personal touch, but are rarely used in terms of profit.
Final Say:
Social media is here to stay, rising up as blogs are becoming more and more popular. Perhaps the easiest method to get some bonus/free advertising and readers is via social news. Start a blog to promote your business. It’s as simple as writing a weekly article, submitting it to Digg, and waiting. It’s truly the fastest way to get buyers, but you have lots of competition. So be different, employing key marketing strengths online.
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Business Copy 101
Posted on 30. Oct, 2008 by Trond.
There have been mentions of copy in the previous articles, so it’s best to provide a simple framework for what sells in terms of copy. Most businesses outsource their copy, mainly because of the time constraints. Even if you outsource, how do you know a good copywriter from a bad one? It can be embarrassing to publish material on your creative business site that is full of typos. That doesn’t mean you have to take a class or study ten books on the subjects, because in a few minutes I divulge secrets to business copy, namely SEO website copy that sells.
Start with Emotions
The copy can’t be bland, formulaic talk of all the features the product is. Say you are selling used books, so you explain how you have 30 years experience in book selling. What does that mean? Instead, you should build upon the emotions of the buyer, making them think your product is the right fit for them. You can do this charismatically, for example, telling a personal story of how a book changed your life. Even if someone else is writing the copy, this emotional resonance makes you stand out from 90 percent of the competition.
They show no emotion, you do, and therefore you get desire. How do you indentify these emotions within the buyer? Ask. If you’ve been in business and have some customers, find out those basic desires for your products. It will appeal to readers more than a simple sell page with a few sentences of description.
Engage Desire
Explain all the reasons the buyer needs this product. This is a fine line: few products are “must haves” so you need to somehow say it will improve their life. Even entertainment products will pull on the desires of the reader. The trick is to get into his/her head, to find out why they are shopping. Yet again, we are engaging emotions. One trick is to offer the “sale,” the deal where you offer something to sweeten the package. You’ve seen it before, on just about every infomercial ever created in past years. The sellers offer not only a special price but an additional item. Not only do you get a new knife, which will sell out within hours, but you get a free set of knife sharpeners … This works online too. People like free stuff, plain and simple.
Pull Toward Action
In the copy, you’ve mentioned the benefits of the item before the features. You appealed to the emotions, and engaged desire. This is a good deal, and you might get some buyers. However, you still need to convert the sale. Let’s call this the infomercial again: the item only comes with free shipping if you order in 10 minutes. This is much like a very important PS to a letter, stating what is really going on. Converting the sale in an online creative business isn’t all about sales either; some buyers will simply be surfing the net. That’s where adspace and special email newsletters come in. Branch out with this creative business why appealing to the new wave of social media, where you can not only sell products but more and more adspace as your site grows, informs, and finds a niche.
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Creative Business – Niches to Riches
Posted on 30. Oct, 2008 by Trond.
Popular marketer Karon Thackston (of MarketingWords.com) offers many strategies for businesses on her site. Two simple but ingenious ideas she has are on opposite sides of the creative business spectrum. (1) Increase your areas of expertise, and (2) specialize or narrow your niche. Two opposite strategies for creative business success. Increasing your areas of expertise means finding more niches to fill. You sell books; start selling movies. Specializing means, you sell all kinds of cars online, but since gas is high you decide to specialize in hybrid cars.
Two different strategies, both work. My personal opinion is to try out several different niches in the beginning, seeing the market for each. Here is a four step strategy for creating strong niche markets.
A Website?
Building a website puts you ahead of many other businesses from the beginning. Then, offering online services opens up doors to thousands of other markets. This puts you in a niche from the outset, but doesn’t show anything to the customer. There are millions of sites! So you need to stand out in some way, mainly by offering yourself as an expert in the field. For one, you can write and publish free articles on your site, informing your readers of latest trends in the market.
Get Emails
If you do use free articles to get some respect from readers, and good writing will do that, then you can also do what successful business writer and marketer Robert Bly noted in a business article: get email addresses! Getting emails, with the customer’s permission, is the perfect way to build upon a growing database of customers in your area of niche. If you can send them free press releases and articles, they will likely be interested in going ahead and signing you over their emails. This opens all kinds of doors for your online creative business, like with selling special services , offering coupons, or even telling them of sales and free shipping when sales are slow.
Get Noticed by The Informers
Even if you offer free articles, you need to get some respect from others in the field. This isn’t customer testimonials, the next step, but getting the best form of free press. You are selling business reports for stock holders, or perhaps ebooks. The first step is to make sure these reports are worthwhile, and then sending free materials out to websites in the same field. It sounds simple, but if you can get some “free” press on the net it goes a long way. This can all be done with an email and some careful research on what sites are most popular in the field. You can even go to a social marketing site and explore top blogs in your business field. If there is a business, there is not only a site but often a blog where buyers explore for reviews.
Customer Testimonials on the Niche
If they say you’re way better than the competition, you get trust from buyers. If you can promise them the goods, and deliver, it’s a sale. Yes, you need to really hook their emotions, lead them to action, and then actually convert the sale, but if 10 customers note how they loved the book, including maybe a famous name in your selling field, you’re a success.
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Passive Income – Defining Online Wealth
Posted on 30. Oct, 2008 by Trond.
Passive income allows you to build more with less. It sounds simple, but it’s a form of online income not entirely understood. You sell nothing but a service, like a program that keeps running on your computer.
Passive income is the perfect ingredient in any online business. It means working less while making more. Ever sell something on Ebay? Ebay makes money mainly through passive income, a stream of cash pouring into the site with every single sale that goes on. They don’t sell anything but a service, where millions of products are offered in stores and auctions on a daily basis. In many ways, Ebay is the most successful passive income company online. Sellers pay them small fees to post an auction, then Ebay gets another cut when the auction is over, a small percentage of the sale. It may be $1 or $50, and adds up with so many sales occurring on a daily basis.
Another strong passive income site Amazon, where sellers can offer items for sale, like used books or movies, for a price and Amazon gets a cut. Amazon is only selling a service, with little or no work on their own. They, however, go the more creative route than Ebay, and actually sell items while creating passive income.
For the creative business entrepreneur, doing exactly what Amazon does isn’t a bad idea, mainly because selling and informing are becoming popular trends in the online creative businesses. The more streams of income you build, the more profitable the online business is.
Also, Google Adsense is another form of passive income, where you’re simply getting paid for ads. The rates are much lower usually, and therefore the best online creative business not only sells adspace but products.
Passive Income – Services
In some ways you can still sell a simple programmable service. You can, for one, do what Amazon, Ebay, and Google do—take a small cut. This is an ambitious project, and usually involves some form of social marketing. Social marketing is one topic I will explore in detail with later articles. For now, remember that social marketing is the new term for Web 2.0, where you build a kind of community business where people share material, perhaps pictures or writings, and you sell adspace around it.
Adspace
Google is where passive income truly comes together. Often business will both sell services/products, while also informing customers of certain news items, using ads on these pages to gain a passive income. Some creative businesses actually do quite well with this, namely because they get 50,000 or more hits a day. Once a site gets enough hits, the passive income almost always grows. You will notice this on many sites across the net, and might be surprised how many of the biggest media sites also sell major adspace. People like to be informed, in general, prior to being sold. That’s why some bloggers are pulling in thousands of dollars a week, mostly from passive income.
Blogging
Blogging is not only a way to express yourself, but to get people to notice your business. One strategy is to use a blog to promote an online creative business. You sell unique jewelry, but are having trouble getting enough hits on your site, even though you’re getting some conversions (sales). The quick solution to this problem is a blog—and to then use social marketing to promote the blog. There is a market for just about anything on the net, and with social marketing you can get free advertisements for not only your blog but major products you offer.
Selling
When an inventor gets a royalty check for his new form of peanut butter/jam sandwich, that’s passive income. When a business begins selling eBook reports for small commissions that’s also passive income. You might sell the report through multiple sites, paying other online businesses commissions to sell your book. You’re not directly involved in the sale, making it passive income.
Or you can go the other route and sell products through your site from other businesses. This is a popular way to make passive income, and no matter what you sell, there’s usually a market for it.
Close
Passive income comes in many forms, but it’s rarely the final word on online profit. It’s a good sideline to pull in extra income, and some make quite a bit of money doing it. But, if you don’t have 50,000 hits on your site/blog daily, the income will be lower than your real sales. So, this means you really need to start hard-selling. One of the best ways is to become a major niche market in your field. That’s the topic of my next creative business online article.
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Understanding the Online Buying Market
Posted on 30. Oct, 2008 by Trond.
This guide gets your creative business a foot in the door of a trillion dollar market, gaining the kinds of profits and business credibility that not all online sites get. A creative business by definition seeks out all the ways to profit, and with trillions being spent across the world online, and only a few billion customers logging online to find the best deals, you’ve chosen well. In the beginning, I will offer the basics on understanding the online buying market.
Why people buy online
Deals! They find deals. Ever go to a store and see one item for twice what it is online? For example, go to a major video store, pick out a “cool” action movie, and then wait to buy it. Instead of buying it, I want you to go online and see the best deal on that movie. 9 times out of 10, you can find a far better deal for that movie, or whatever product, online. The competition is stiffer, but also the profit margin is higher. Online companies charge shipping, which is one reason they sell lower. One great example is buying from Amazon.com, a true social media/creative business site where products sometimes sell for pennies on the dollar. Better yet, Ebay offers used items usually for even less.
It’s the online revolution. There are other reasons people buy online: convenience … options … boredom. Just as infomercials stay in business, and have for decades, so will the creative online business.
Why you should sell online
The revolution is over. If you want to truly double or triple your profits, go online. It’s pretty simple. You may not double profits in the first year, but once you become a trusted seller of anything and get a reputation, whether it’s eBooks on business practices to Christian bibles with illustrations—profits will come. There is far less upkeep in keeping an online site, and it’s far easier to maintain an inventory. Brick and mortar stores are still popular, but they just can’t keep up. A buyer goes online knowing he can get just about anything he wants, without driving, spending less, and getting the product delivered to his doorstep.
What you need
The creative business online needs plenty of tools to really get going. Let’s look at the basics of an online business, with another example of the all-in-one seller Amazon.com. They posted losses their first couple years, but, like Ebay, are one of the hottest sites online. What they did was: (1) create all kinds of opportunities for others to make money through them—equaling passive income, (2) offered prices far lower than major stores, and (3) built a diverse inventory which couldn’t be matched.
I have brought up some key subjects, the first of which I will tackle in my next Creative Business Online article. Passive income is the way to avoid working 80 hours a week as an entrepreneur, which isn’t rare at all.
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Power Social Media Marketing!
