Effective Viral Marketing For Your Business

In marketing, we all dream about achieving viral success and receiving an exponential amount of “buzz” for our individual campaigns. From time to time we hear about creative successes, such as the Moonfruit “win a MacBook” campaign on Twitter. What does it take to go viral and is it even something you can plan for, or does it just happen?

Fundamentally you need to be able to create a passion, a reaction or a significant feeling in your target audience to act as a catalyst. This means that you have to create anger, laughter, concern, surprise, need or a combination of these to ensure that your couple of seconds of product fame will turn into a focus of attention. Remember that it has to be all about arousing emotions.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make, however, is to start off by coming up with a weird and wacky idea and by focusing too much on the bizarre or the extreme. It is important to focus on emotions, but not fundamentally good for long-term image to shock, scare, repel or repulse potential clients! It is true to say that “shocking” almost always means viral exposure, as in the “guy who miraculously avoided being squashed by the out-of-control bus” video, but you want to be able to portray your business in an always powerful and positive light.

Remember that viral campaigns need not be restricted to one medium. Indeed as we know, social marketing is most effective when several different platforms are interconnected. While you may be focusing on social marketing to get your ball rolling, don’t be afraid to plan press release campaigns or other off-line initiatives to enhance and to back up.

If you believe that you have come up with a neat angle for your product, service or brand, don’t be ready to rush it out to the waiting world. Ask yourself the question – are you really ready for a viral explosion. You must prepare as if this campaign will really take off. The very objective is to make sure that you get a lasting benefit from what will effectively be a shorter term spike. As such, will you be able to capture the contact details for everyone who visits your primary website or social media sites as a consequence of this buzz? Moonfruit estimated that their US traffic (they are a UK based company) increased over 1000% as a result of their viral campaign success.

How do you plan to “go viral?”

Matthew Toren

2009 TRAFFIC New York Domain Auction Results

Here are the RickLatona.com live auction results from the TRAFFIC show in New York with an impressive total of $1,295,000 in sales with Rio.com, as expected leading the list of sales at $450,000.

As you can see, there were some that were extremely good deals!

Here is the complete, unofficial list of the domains that sold:

Rio.com $450,000
Whiskey.com $185,000
SchoolLoans.com $137,500
iAuction.com $50,000
Boy.com $45,000
Porn.co.za $45,000
Megan.com $42,500
900.com $40,000
Kasino.com $35,000
Hookahs.com $26,000
PapuaNewGuinea.com $25,000
PopStars.com $21,000
PinkDiamond.com $18,000
Hackensack.com $17,500

Z6.com, Z6.net &
Z6.org $15,000

ChildPsychologists.com $11,500
247Live.com $10,000
Schizophrenic.com $10,000
UTN.com $10,000
Stimulant.com $9,000
QDC.com $7,000
ChargingStations.com $6,000
Bulldoze.com $5,000
TheBronx.net $5,000
UZS.com $5,000
DumbAsses.com $3,500
SandyBeaches.com $2,600
FiletMignons.com $2,500
minister.net $2,500
Nudged.com $2,500
OutOfState.com $2,500
ExecutiveSalesJobs.com $2,100
Altercation.com $2,000
AntiDepressants.net $2,000
Collapsed.com $2,000
Cultivating.com $2,000
DrugMoney.com $2,000
Frustrate.com $2,000
Halp.com $2,000
Odes.com $2,000
SaddamHussein.com $2,000
SenseOfHumor.com $2,000
Ciders.com $1,750
AntiWrinkleLotion.com $1,500
Infringing.com $1,500

Skidders.com &
Skidders.net $1,500

Pears.net $1,300
Carts.net $1,100
DryMartinis.com $1,100
WrinkleLotion.com $1,100
Dabbled.com $1,000

Ignoring.com $1,000

Overridden.com $1,000

Overtaking.com $900
Aunt.net $800
Figuratively.com $750
Disappointments.com $700
Satisfier.com $700
UsedSmartPhones.com $650
BackInjuryAttorneys.com $600
HairStudios.com $600
Laggard.com $600
LasikSurgeons.net $600
PreownedExoticCars.com $600
Clemson.net $500
Decorators.us $500
CommercialBonds.com $400
HeavyweightBoxer.com $400
StockInvestments.net $360
AortaSurgery.com $300
BusinessNetbooks.com $300
CommemorativePlate.com $300
DearbornHeights.net $300
NeckInjuryAttorneys.com $300
ProductCycles.com $300
WeddingProverbs.com $300

List courtesy of TheDomains.com

Do any of you buy/sell domains? What have been some of your latest domain purchases or sales?

The YES Movie Review

As someone who has both lived the life of a young entrepreneur and strives to encourage the world’s youth to forge their own entrepreneurial path—not only to success, but also to the point of making a profound difference in the world around them—I found The YES Movie to be an important tool for upcoming generations. I really enjoyed the movie from start to finish. I feel it already has and will continue to empower thousands of aspiring entrepreneurs, as well as even motivate the more seasoned entrepreneurs.

Louis Lautman’s Young Entrepreneur Society and The YES Movie project resonate with me and my experiences. My brother and I created YoungEntrepreneur.com to foster the burgeoning ideas of young entrepreneurs, and recently published Kidpreneurs, a book on entrepreneurship written specifically for children. My brother and I have been starting up, buying, improving, and selling businesses since childhood, and this movie sheds light on some of the common misconceptions about life and success that I have discovered along the way, but which many people discover too late or never discover at all. Hard work is key to getting places in life, but it needs to be directed toward a goal and by creativity and perseverance. Lautman’s film does more than address these issues—it demonstrates time and again through a number of prime examples how life can be more than a seemingly mandatory round of education followed by a paltry 9-to-5 and a threadbare, late-life retirement. It also reflects upon one of America’s prominent and too-oft-forgotten foundations: capitalism. Capitalism in the purest form, and where money is not the sole source of or measure for profit. That entrepreneurship takes a blend of personal and professional effort and way of of life is evident in the lives of the featured brilliant young successes.

In the spirit of other projects it aligns itself with, such as The Secret and What the Bleep, it is a thought-provoking yet entertaining look at the world of business, which is far from the boring or, particularly in present times, greedy machine it is sometimes called. Furthermore, the film focuses on “rebel” entrepreneurs on the front lines of a variety of industries, from retailers and advertisers to authors and designers. Men and women pursuing advancements in a number of exciting fields spill their secrets to success, show that the possibilities are endless, and prove that the youth can be far from ignorant and should be taken seriously.

Ambition is a key ingredient to the advancement of society and is present in each and every person. Suppressed for too long, it can begin to fade. It shouldn’t. The YES Movie showcases the ways in which ambition can be channeled into positive, creative works while making real, hardworking young minds millions along the way. The more than thirty actual young millionaire entrepreneurs Lautman assembled along his cross-country trip divulge unprecedented and priceless details on their ventures, and will inspire others to follow in their footsteps—or, rather, to start making some footprints of their own.

All the Latest Tools to Improve Your Website

While you may sometimes feel that the world of Internet marketing is reaching a saturation point, there is a lot to be said for this explosive growth. It is not likely that the market will be saturated any time soon given the ratio of people who are just discovering the media on a daily basis, but the pressure to produce meaningful and productive websites and pages has led to the creation of a huge number of interesting and useful tools. Designed to streamline and make your job as a webmaster a whole lot easier, these tools can save you a lot of anguish!

Feedback is so important and while there is nothing like the process of trial and error to achieve the perfect solution, in an ideal world you would not want to be using potential clients in this way. A number of options have arisen to help you link with independent users. For example, usertesting.com maintains an army of independent reviewers who could be used for a relatively small fee to provide you with targeted feedback. Each reviewer has been pre screened and is rated by service buyers for you, so you can be pretty confident that you will be getting an objective analysis.

If you want to automate the process of website analysis, consider clicktale.com, where you can receive an image of your screen detailing users’ mouse movements, keystrokes and general interaction. This is enabled through the placement of special JavaScript on your page and will enable you to see how users interact and how the general flow of your site works. This can be particularly useful in helping you to optimize forms and other interactive requirements and the service is free for a limited number of page views, with an increasing payment structure for a more enhanced experience.

A number of tools are available that you can use to provide feedback on the composition and technical efficiency of your site. For example websitegrader.com will give your site the once over and may well come up with something glaring that you have missed.

Google is a provider of many free tools, which should be in every webmaster’s arsenal. Google Analytics will provide even the most demanding analyst with a comprehensive breakdown of user experience, Google’s Website Optimizer gives you options for A/B and multivariate testing, and Google Webmaster Tools exposes your best keywords, the efficiencies of your linking strategy and any crawl errors that they detect.

If you are willing to invest a little bit, there are some great comprehensive tools such as SiteRay by Silktide, which goes into great detail about your overall site structure, correct linking, appropriate keyword usage, originality, popularity, technical strength and general usability.

Go to The Scrutinizer for a comprehensive list of hundreds of available web tools to be used for URLs, keyword and IP issues.

One of the best tools that we have found is a Firefox plug-in called Firebug. You can highlight and make changes to HTML and CSS from within your browser, making changes on the fly and see the immediate result. This is great for debugging problems, but remember that you have to make alterations manually elsewhere to be permanent.

For bloggers, check out SEO Blogger, which is a Firefox plug-in to help you optimize your posts as you write them. Go up a notch by choosing Lotus Jump, which will give you a task list of what you need to achieve to improve your rankings according to a handy little manageable timetable.

What tools have you recently used to improve your website?

Adam Toren

Secrets of Successful Selling on Ebay

Ebay has expanded from a humble start up to a company that boasts revenues of over $7.7 billion and a staff of some 15,000 people. People have just fallen in love with the concept of buying and selling and good old-fashioned auction tactics, around the clock and around the world. Many people have made small fortunes using eBay, which is one of the most visited sites on the Internet and have learned that there are several tips to help you succeed.

If you’re going to try and engage in a process of successful selling through eBay, you have to understand how the system works. Fundamentally, it is like a giant search engine of sorts where people can enter terminology describing what they are looking to buy and find matching listings accordingly. As such, you must make sure that your listing is correctly optimized initially and is presented in such a manner as to make the purchase enticing.

If you’re looking for ideas to start off, check out pulse.ebay.com, which is something similar to Google’s Hot Trends and can show you what people are looking for and what is currently selling well within the large variety of category and niche areas available.

You should always know your product and your customer. Whatever you are selling, take time to look at past results and search for similar items. The information that you discover should enable you to see where you have a reasonable chance of selling at the price that you have in mind and whether there is a fairly good turnover, which will reflect the overall interest.

When setting up to describe your product, think carefully about your keywords. Do not include only the obvious words, but also secondary keywords or words that people might use when searching for similar products or when using synonyms to search for your exact product. This will help to ensure that many more “pairs of eyes” find your listings and even though they may not have been specifically looking for your product, they may have a general interest and be persuaded to buy.

Never be tempted to try and sell anything on eBay without attaching pictures. It is true that they tell a thousand words and people always want to see something before they buy it. Again, you can never underestimate the power of visuals and so you should pay attention to making high quality, well defined and professionally presented photographs.

To match your first class photograph, your description must be enticing. If you are not particularly good at putting together the written word, then you should consider outsourcing this part to professional copywriters. At the very least, if you get some of your postings professionally written then you will pick up good pointers to help you develop your skill over time. Conversely, look at successful eBay sellers and see how they put together their presentations. Remember, just as you would if you were writing an article for publication on the Internet, the description post should be search engine friendly, including the relevant keywords appropriately.

Always try and give as much information as you can within the description without going overboard. List the origins, the dimensions, your value proposition and even a couple of ideas describing how your product could be used, as a gift, as something which you just cannot do without, etc.

For those who are serious about selling on eBay, an eBay store is a must. These are very cost effective and will enable you to contain all your products in one place. You will have the additional bonus of increasing your credibility, appearing more professional.

As people are looking for a comfort factor when they buy online, they tend to look for social proof. This is especially true when it comes to auctions on eBay. You have to earn your reputation, but you should be particularly careful when you start out that you do not attract any negative feedback in any way. Each well handled sale and happy buyer will add exponentially to your reputation and credibility. Avoid even one negative response like the plague and go out of your way to pacify, no matter what the reason.

While not all buyers and sellers on eBay are looking to create a serious source of income by any means, you can set yourself ahead of many by simply acting in a totally professional manner at all times. Respond to questions promptly, within the same day and make sure that you dispatch your products on time. Be as transparent as possible about shipping, as this can be one of the biggest deal breakers on eBay. Some power sellers advocate trying to include the cost of shipping within your chosen item cost, thereby suggesting that shipping has been included “or is free.” Otherwise, use the most cost effective method that you can, while ensuring prompt and efficient service. When all is said and done, remember to include a thank you note, personalized and genuine, with your shipment. This will go a long way to help you receive those glowing testimonials and build your credibility.

Are you an eBay power seller?

Adam Toren

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