How Can You “Snakes on a Plane” Your Business?

Having been reading Adam Gilbert’s blog for quite some time now, I always thought he would make an awesome guest post for Blogtrepreneur. Last night Adam sent me this article through, and he hasn’t failed to disappoint. Hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did.

The other night I happened to be flipping though the channels and stumbled on Snakes On A Plane. I had never seen it and who can resist hearing Samuel Jackson yell, “I have HAD it with these mothaf%$&*#g snakes on this motha%$%#*g plane!”

I never saw this movie, yet I immediately knew what it was going to be about. You know it’s going to be a thriller type movie that entails getting the mothaf*&^%ing snakes off the plane.

I knew what I was getting into. And that’s the idea.

Without anyone telling me anything they made a promise to me. It just so happens that the title was good enough to be able to do that.

When it comes to your business, usually you need more then your name (and tag line) to tell people what you do. You might have website copy or a pamphlet or a business card or all of the above.

In this day and age, sadly when a business keeps their promise it’s shocking. However, some people do expect a company to keep their promises. After all, why assume the worst?

But most people never say anything if they like something (because they expect a certain something – as they should). Think about it. You definitely are a customer of many places because they do something a certain way.

If they changed that certain something you might stop going. For example, when I used to go to the diner under my old building where I lived and I’d order my grilled chicken sandwich or turkey burger, every single time, my man Sammy would bring me like 10 pickles. He knew I loved pickles and I didn’t have to ask him for extra pickles.

Maybe it’s the way you joke around with your clients. Maybe it’s because your clients can relate to you with the stories you tell them. Maybe it’s because you treat them like family. Maybe it’s because you want the best for them…and they know it. Whatever it is.

Most people are too busy to say something nice though.

But if you believe in what you’re doing, and people are coming back and referring clients to you, don’t stop what you are doing!

It could be the smallest thing that people really enjoy…like free pickles. But the idea here is that I grew to expect those pickles.

The idea here is not revolutionary. It’s extremely simple.

Keep doing exactly what you do if people are coming back and referring customers to you. It could be the smallest thing that people love.

And the most important of all:

Keep your mothaf%$&*!g promises!

Adam Gilbert helps people stay consistent when it comes to their health and fitness like no other company in the world. For more information about his company please visit MyBodyTutor.com. He also writes a popular blog at GuruGilbert.com.

How to Attract Advertisers to Your Blog

If you’re a blogger who is trying to make money by selling ad space, chances are you have read some tips from others about how to attract and retain advertisers. I currently have two blogs. One is about a year old and the other is about four months old. One always takes priority over the other. One has no problem keeping ad slots filled, and even generates more interest than I can accommodate. The other has struggled to attract advertisers.

Rather than just writing generic advice about selling ad space, I thought I would share some of the things I’ve learned through my own blogging experience. Because the two blogs are run much differently and because the results are about as opposite as they can be, I think it’s a great learning experience of what sells ad space in real world scenarios.

First to keep things from being confusing throughout the article I’ll give a brief intro to the blogs that will be referenced throughout this post. First, my primary blog that was started about a year ago is Vandelay Website Design. That blog had no advertising for about the first six months, and has sold out all ads spots for the past six months. Traffikd was launched in February with some affiliate ads, but has drawn very little interest from paid advertisers.

1. Earn Respect in Your Niche/Industry

One of the biggest differences between my two blogs is that Vandelay is fairly well-established in its niche, while Traffikd is still a relative unknown. Advertisers are most likely familiar with the top blogs in the industry that they target, but they’re not going to know the smaller ones. Advertisers make an effort to attach themselves to blogs that have earned the respect of their readers and are seen as leaders in the niche.

It sounds somewhat obvious that being a respected source of information will lead advertisers towards your blog, but it’s often kind of an afterthought when you’re reading advice about selling ads. From my experience, this is one of the major factors. Advertisers are willing to pay to be seen on leading blogs, but they’re unlikely to want to spend the time to set up an ad campaign with a smaller blog, even at a low price.

At Vandelay I’ve put in the effort to earn some respect, and the result is ads that sell. On the other hand, Traffikd has only gotten a smaller amount of time invested in it, and the result is that most people still don’t know about it, and ads that are harder to sell.

2. Get Visitors

Advertisers are drawn to those blogs that have impressive stats. I get asked about traffic levels all the time from advertisers. It’s usually the first thing they want to know, even before price. As the number of visitors to Vandelay has increased each month, the ad prices have also increased, and advertisers have continued to come in steadily.

Traffikd on the other hand is currently drawing around 8,000 unique visitors per month, which is not enough to bring consideration from many advertisers. Sure, some individual bloggers and small companies may be interested in advertising to an audience of this size, but other companies that do a lot of advertising online simply won’t feel that it’s worth their time.

From my experience, even low pricing does not make up for a lack of impressive stats. I know from my experience trying to sell ads at Traffikd and from seeing countless other bloggers running huge discounts and special on ads that attract only meager interest. Dropping prices can often show advertisers that something’s not right or you wouldn’t have to drop the price.

If you want to be able to sell ad space and charge a premium, do what it takes to build up some stats that will generate serious interest from potential advertisers.

3. Be Proactive

Selling ads isn’t all about putting up a page with your stats and prices and watching the inquiries and sales as they come flooding in. At first it’s likely that you’ll need to reach out to some potential advertisers to see if they have an interest. The first few months that I sold ads on Vandelay I generated about 40% of the ad sales from proactively contacting those that I thought might be interested. All I did was visit some other blogs in my niche with about the same size audience, click-through on their ads and found some contact information. At first I thought this might not produce results, but about half of those I contacted wound up buying an ad.

The key is to have reasonable prices (not necessarily bargain basement prices) and give them the details of your audience. If it’s a goof fit, there’s a chance they’ll buy. If I had sat back and waited only for advertisers who contact me, I would have had some empty ad spots for a few months.

With Traffikd, I’ve hardly been proactive at all. I haven’t had the time to contact advertisers (even though it only takes a few minutes) and I think the results are there to be seen. When you’re approaching potential advertisers keep your email very brief, but be sure to give relevant details. Quickly explain your audience, list some stats, and give them your various ad options with prices and payment information. I’ve never had anyone object to being approached for this reason.

Those who are running advertising campaigns are frequently searching around the internet for good places to advertisers, so you could actually be saving them some time. Also, be professional. A respectable company will not want to attach themselves to someone who is not professional.

4. Have an Identifiable Market

If you haven’t launched your blog yet, give some consideration to your target audience. If you have already started your blog but you’re having problems selling ads, you may be able to make some small adjustments to your approach that can help you to have a more distinct and discernable audience.
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5 Alternatives to Social Media Marketing

Social Media Optimization is one of the most common methods for getting significant exposure for bloggers. Sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, and Delicious are constantly sending large volumes of traffic to submissions that are the most popular with users.

An effective Social Media Marketing plan can help to take a blog from nowhere to being well-known in a short amount of time. However, social media isn’t a good fit for every blog, and not all bloggers choose to participate. For those who would rather draw traffic in other ways, there are some traffic sources that are capable of giving you the same type of exposure as a front page appearance on a major social media site.

In this post we’ll look at five ways that bloggers can quickly gain tremendous exposure without social media, and without paying for any advertising. Just like social media, these methods won’t be for everyone either, but you may find something that fits very well for your niche and for your audience.

1 - Get Mentioned by Google News

Google News obviously reaches an astronomical number of visitors each month. And as a result, the stories that are mentioned there and the sites that are linked receive a surge of traffic similar to what you might experience from social media. In fact, the audience that reads Google News is a much more diverse, well-rounded audience than that of most social media sites.

Getting mentioned in Google News is not easy, as you may have imagined, however, plenty of bloggers and website owners have been able to do so. Google News only indexes sites that are news-focused, so this will exclude a number of blogs. If you think your blog would be a good fit, they provide some advice and instructions for getting listed.

2 - Submit a Press Release

An effective press release with a significant story to share can also create a large number of visitors to your site and plenty of valuable exposure. In order for a press release to work for you there will need to be something truly newsworthy in the release. Modern online resources make submitting press releases so easy that most editors are flooded with them everyday. Those that have nothing exceptional to say will simply be ignored.

If your press release is able to catch the attention of some editors you could receive outstanding exposure from various types of media and you could get plenty of inbound links as a result. There are a number of services out there that will help you to create an optimized press release and submit it online for you. If you’re interested in writing your own press release, see How to Write a Great Press Release: A Sample Press Release Template.
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Will You Create The Next Facebook?

Jason Pereira blogs at The University Kid and is currently running a gigantic contest for what he hopes will be the next big thing. Check it out!

Hello all, and thanks to Adnan for allowing me to guest post on this kick ass blog.

Today I thought I’d talk about a topic that most entrepreneurs are interested in - launching the next big thing. Everyone wishes that they had been the brains behind Facebook, behind Twitter, behind Wordpress…websites that fulfill simple needs but are amongst the most popular websites out there.

You see, as entrepreneurs we strive to be better than everyone else – in very few other industries in the world can you have your name known by millions in less than a few short years. You will constantly hear stories about entrepreneurs launching ideas that sound like they can really kick off. How can you launch your huge project, one that you will want to develop into one of the largest online?

Do Not Rush

I have this problem when getting together a new project – I get all excited about it and want to get things done instantly, even though that is usually not possible. I used to end up rushing and the whole project suffers as a result.

Do not make the same mistakes! Make sure that you set yourself achievable goals, and stick to that time frame – make it challenging enough so that you’re not sitting on your behind all day, but make your time frame long enough so that you’re not cramming to get the job done.

Remember to take breaks during your work as taking just five minutes to clear your mind can bring you a lot more ideas than if you worked nonstop for ten hours.

Leverage The Skills Of Others

There are some things I’m just not very good at, no matter how hard I try – design and coding being two of them. Very few people are good at everything, and if you cannot do a task that you need, hire freelancers. Remember that in business, time is money and if you spend all day working on something that would take a freelancer twenty minutes to do, you are losing money.

Work on the things that you are strong at, and let someone do the others. If you are scared about people stealing your ideas, make sure you sign a non-disclosure agreement before hand and only use people that look trustable. You can get a good idea of the quality of a person by looking at his/her ratings on websites like Get A Freelancer and Digital Point.

If you want to create the next Facebook, Myspace or whatever, just remember you cannot do it all alone, especially if you want it to grow – you will need help at some point or another, so why not start getting it from the beginning?

Aim Big

Most projects you launch will fail. That is a fact – although you want every idea of yours to become big, very few of them will be.

However, do not get discouraged by this – remember, every learning experience adds to you as the web entrepreneur and even if you do not create the next big thing… so what? I’d be happy if one of my websites had just 0.0001% of what success Google has had.

If you aim big, wanting your website to be the best in the world but you fall short, you’ve still achieved a lot. If however, you start off your project with shaky ambitions, aiming low, you will only achieve low. Most famous entrepreneurs today had nothing before their one idea hit it off, and they’re no better than you. So if they can do it, why can’t you?

Do Not Be Scared of Competition

This is one of the biggest complaints I hear by entrepreneurs whenever I speak to them about projects their launching “I can’t compete“, “It’ll cost too much” or “My competition is far more established”.

Get rid of those excuses now. There are solutions to everything; if you do not have one, keep looking until you find it.

I love competition. It gives me something to aim at and measure my success by, and it also reminds me not to laze around and get into gear as soon as possible – if I don’t work hard today, someone will take my place tomorrow. Embrace your competitors – heck, you can even learn from them – and you will do far better than you think you will.

Be Organised

If you could see my work desk at the moment you’d accuse me of being a horrible hypocrite, however, one of the biggest things you need to do when attempting to launch a huge project is be organized. Haven’t I said that time is money? Well, if you’re not organized you are wasting time, and leaving money on the table.

Simple things like getting a notepad from your local grocery store to write things down; keeping a planner of events and even setting a timer on your desk to ensure that you do not waste time on things that are not helping you can give you a tremendous kick start in the business.

There are various programs online that can help you organize yourself more. One of the ones I use is Fruitful Time Task Manager and although it costs a little bit, it is worth it. However, there are plenty of free options available if you do a Google search.

Use these five tips and you will be well on your way to creating a killer project that will take off. No matter what your project is, as long as you are confident in the idea behind it and have the necessary tools, you will succeed. Remember that you can always look for funding if your idea is good enough – quite a few large projects in the blogosphere today (Entrecard for one) have gone down this route. Good luck!

Recommended: Finance your new project with a business loan from Rapid Advance.

7 Business Lessons You’ll Learn from Blogging

When it comes to blogging for money you’ll get a wide range of opinions on the subject of whether a blog is a business in itself. Personally, I feel that a blog can be a business on its own (without any other services or products being sold) because I see plenty of them every day that are making money. Of course, a blog can also be used very effectively to promote and improve an already existing business. Either way, running a blog with the intent to make money either directly or indirectly will help you to learn a number of valuable business lessons.

My blogging experience started with the intent to blog for the purpose of promoting a service (web design); however, over the past year I’ve taken an interest in learning more about blogging to earn a direct income as well. During that time I’ve learned more about business than I could have by reading or studying without actually putting anything into practice.

Blogging is an excellent proactive learning experience for anyone interested in business and entrepreneurship, and I’d like to take a look at 7 lessons that you’ll learn from blogging. While you may or may not have already had a textbook knowledge of these lessons, blogging will give you a first-hand, real-world knowledge that is always superior to anything you can read in a book.

1 - Networking is Critical

When I started blogging I had no idea how important a network is to a blogger (in fact, I didn’t know much or anything about blogging). I quickly realized that every successful blogger has a strong network of friends and colleagues online.

Building a popular and profitable blog without a network is just about impossible. Likewise, in the business world a network can be the difference between an average career and finding exciting and challenging opportunities.

For any entrepreneur, regardless of what type of business you are building, a strong network will be one of your most valuable assets. Take the time to meet others in your field and find some ways to work together or to help each other.
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