Having success marketing your business online can be a lot easier than you might think. Here are five of my favorite home business marketing tools that will help you grow your business faster. With the number of people who are looking to work from home online these days the internet is the best place to market your home based business hands down. There are a lot more than 5 tools, but these are some of the easiest and more effective.
Free Home Business Marketing Tool #1 - Home Business Blogs
Every single home based business owner on the planet needs to have a blog of their own. However, what I'm going to talk about in this article is using other people's blogs to your advantage. There are about a million and one home based business blogs online.
Go to several home business blogs every day, read the most recent post, and write a comment about it. Make sure your comment is actually about their blog and not just an ad for your business. Leave your blog or website in the comment as well because that's how you'll end up getting more traffic.
Commenting on other home business blogs is simple, easy and you will not believe the traffic you can generate using this simple concept.
Free Home Business Marketing Tool #2 - Home Business Forums
Home based business forums are everywhere. Some of them have a lot of traffic and some of them don't, but a great way to get the word out about your website, articles, videos and blogs is to post on at least one forum regularly. Again, don't be a spammer. Contribute something in every post you make and it's another simple and easy way to get more highly targeted traffic to your website.
Free Home Business Marketing Tool #3 - Free Classified Ad Sites
While a classified ad in the local paper can get really expensive there are some online classified ad sites that are free to use and extremely popular. The biggest free classified ad site is Craigslist but it's not the only game in town. It doesn't take long to post an ad on a website like Craigslist and when you use these sites consistently they can be really effective.
Free Home Business Marketing Tool #4 - Social Bookmarking Sites
Social bookmarking sites like Digg and many others are really beneficial for getting more attention to articles, blogs, videos, and websites that you've already posted. It's just a good way to get more bang for your buck. Or in this case, since it's free, more bang for your time.
You've already done the work to write your articles or post to your blog so doesn't it make sense to get more traffic to the marketing tools you're already using?
Free Home Business Marketing Tool #5 - Social Networking Sites
Want to be successful in a home based business? You have to talk to a lot of people right? Sites like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace already have MILLIONS of people. These sites are a great way to talk to a lot of people in a short period of time. Marketing your business on social networking sites isn't a one time thing, to be effective you'll need to use them almost every day.
If you want to work from home online and have more success in your home based business use all five of these free home business marketing tools. They've worked for me and countless others and I know they'll work for you.
In a carvertising campaign from Singapore shopping magazine Chic and Chevron's Caltex gas brand, drivers get gasoline worth SGD 50 in exchange for having an advertising decal affixed to their cars.
Just Us Hens is a Portland-based venture dedicated to tending local hens when their owners go away on holiday. The service includes twice daily visits to feed the birds and let them out and in.
Globetrooper lets world travellers find like-minded companions to share a jointly planned group trip. Trip ideas on the site can be ranked according to difficulty, culture shock, remoteness and risk.
Inspired by the Hurricane Katrina disaster five years ago, detergent brand Tide's Loads of Hope program is a mobile laundry service that provides clothes-washing facilities to families affected by disaster.
Wix Lounge in Manhattan is a being space for creative professionals. It's equipped with workstations, wifi and comfy seating. Software developer Wix will host events there such as web design workshops.
WiTHiNTENT in the UK salvages the fabric from tents abandoned at music festivals and uses it to create rainproof hoodies, ponchos, pac-a-macs and bags for the festival market.
The US Department of Agriculture has challenged game designers and other software developers to come up with applications that deliver nutrition and health concepts in a fun and engaging way.
Crowdsourced business names, a news site where readers pick the stories, decision advice via social networks, crowdcasting tools for radio, and a TV show where viewers decide what happens next.
Stadscamping Zwolle is launching a sustainable urban campground that will be funded and managed by members. A EUR 35 fee covers two nights stay plus voting rights on how the camp should be run.
Consumers wishing to monitor their electricity use plug an appliance into a Belkin Conserve Insight and use it as normal for a while. Belkin's device will detail the running cost in watts, money and CO2.
Sports brand Adidas has a store in Tokyo that doubles as an urban running club. There are shower cubicles and lockers for rent, plus expert advisers who will provide tips and lend out shoes and clothing.
The Crop Mob is a US organisation through which volunteers descend on one lucky sustainable farm each month, and set about tasks it would take the farmers months to complete alone.
The DeskMate from New York-based Compactix can be used to burn calories, decrease fatigue, flex muscles and relieve stress, even while simultaneously typing, reading or talking on the phone.
Name Your Number works with mobile operators internationally to provide custom numbers based on existing numbers, dates, lucky numbers or alphanumeric matches to a significant word.
So you now have the Dreamweaver 8 and you are just not quite sure whether your web design company is willing to shell out some more to upgrade to the latest CS3 version. This is actually a challenging decision to make for your web design company. As a web designer, you have to work with the software, so it is both your right and responsibility to decide whether the new version will help you come up with improved web design. This makes you wonder too: Now that Adobe has already bought Macromedia, what have they done to it? Have they ruined it, or have they made it so much better that you should already kick yourself now for not buying it earlier? Well, if I were to be asked, I stand somewhere in between these two.
Web design feature #1: Adobe and Dreamweaver Together
Your web design company may find it reason enough to buy the new Dreamweaver CS3 because of its full integration with Adobe graphics tools like those found in Photoshop. When you have an image, you can directly click on it and edit right away.
Web design feature #2: CSS Support Made Better
One of the best features found in the new Dreamweaver CS3 is the integration of better CSS layouts. These layouts are all well-commented in the code, so it can be pretty easy to start knowing how CSS layouts tend to work. They now have over 32 layouts that you can choose from in 1, 2 or 3-column formats, in fixed and liquid type web designs. You may also define the position where you want the CSS to be when creating a new page, not to mention how easy it is to move the CSS styles around. You can stat out by styling the tag directly into the HTML through a style attribute and move it to your style sheet. With Dreamweaver CS3, you will only have to right click on the tag and set it to "Convert Inline CSS to Rule" to build a custom class for that specific style or to create one full CSS selector.
Web design feature #3: Mobile Support
Your web design company will also be pleased to know about the mobile support integrated into the new CS3 version. Creating pages made especially for mobile devices have been popular in the recent years, but it can be difficult to design one which is compatible both on mobile and web browser platforms. However, with the integration of the Adobe Device Central into the CS3, Dreamweaver now makes it easy to view your pages in cell phones.
Web design feature #4: Ajax Implementation Now Made Possible
The Dreamweaver CS3 now has integrated the Spry framework so that it adding Ajax widgets and effects onto your pages have now been made possible. All you do is to drag and drop them and incorporate them into your dataset. Dreamweaver CS3 features Spry components which include: widgets for tables, lists and forms: transition effects such as growing, shrinking, highlighting and fading, and integration of data from XML feeds such as in database or RSS.
Web design feature #5: XLST Support
Another amazing feature about the CS3 that both you and your web design company will love is the extensive support it has for XLST through the use of XML files as database source. Through XSLT, it is easy to view the XML in a tree form and integrate it right into your HTML document. This simply means that if you have a number of XML files set in the same format; it is relatively simple to create one single template for all of them in the new CS3 using XLST.
Web design feature #6: Support for Mac Intel Processors
If your web design company works on an Intel-based Macintosh platform, you will be happy with the performance improvements of the CS3. It is now native to the platform and does not run on Rosetta so that it loads a lot quickly than before. In fact, CS3 claims that what loads in Dreamweaver 8 for 4 minutes can load in the CS3 in under one minute. You can do further testing to confirm this.
To Upgrade or Not to Upgrade
That is the question. In my case, I have upgraded and haven't regretted any of it. I appreciate the new CSS features, the XSLT support and the Device Central. However, your web design company may see one piece that is still missing, which is that of web design time and programming. As in the previous versions, the Dreamweaver CS3 is also still difficult to use in terms of live databases and server side scripts. However, there may be extensions to make things easier for you. On a general whole, go on and upgrade and you will most likely never have to look back.
Sex sells. But so do books, when you market yourself!
Ok that title sounds pretty academic if not banal. But damn if I don't get a lot of you fellow authors asking me to lend them tips on how to market your own books. Truth is, the whole idea of me giving an author...any author...advice, makes me laugh. Aside from a couple of major publishing successes right out of the MFA School gate, it's been a struggle for years and years. Until recently, that is.
But then, let's talk about recently. What's changed over the past six months that's made me go from thinking, Well, I can supplement my freelance journalism income by publishing a book here and there with a small press, to, Well, I can supplement my freelance journalism with my fiction?
What's changed is this: the new publishing model of Kindle and E-Books backed up by a great looking trade paperback and audio product. Having signed with a new publisher that has broken with the traditional New York publishing model has not only sparked a renewed interest in my books. It's made me a bestseller on not just one, but five Amazon lists, not to mention my novel The Remains being a hard boiled "Hot New Release" for eight weeks now and counting.
However, the model, as exciting as it is, isn't enough to make a book, E-Book or paper, sell. One must also market one's self like a pimp on crack. No one taught me how to market myself, I've just made it up as I've gone along. So, that in mind, here's just a few of my... ahemmmm...trade secrets:
First: Social marketing. Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Goodreads... you know the score here. We all have accounts at all of these sites and more. And anyone who knows me, knows full well that I'm not there necessarily here to make friends (although I have many, many friends on these social networking sites...You know who you are!!!). I'm there to network my work. While perhaps on average of once a month, I'll get a short email from someone who scolds me for promoting my books, I always respond the same way: How many ads for Budweiser, Pampers, and Playtex Tampons do you encounter on any given day or night on the TV? Simply said, if you the author don't create your own buzz and maintain it, you're dead in the water. While it's true, I've been published a couple of times with major publishing houses in New York, my audience is not necessary built in or a given. And when I signed with my new publisher I made it a goal to land new readers and hopefully fans, everyday. And I've accomplished that by connecting with like minded pros and readers on these social networks. It also gives you the opportunity to create book release events, sales pushes, giveaways, and more. A huge tool and you can't beat the price: free!
Second: The Virtual Tour. I can't say enough about investing in a virtual tour for your new or re-published novel (both my novels As Catch Can and Godchild are to be published by StoneGate Ink in the coming year). VTs allow you an opportunity to guest blog and be guests on blogtalk radio. They get you reviewed in high profile blogs and online newspapers including some major syndicated ones. They also create a buzz on the ever burgeoning and powerful "Mommy Blog" network.
Third: Cough up the dough and have a trailer teaser made of your book. Everyone is doing it, as they used to say in high school bathrooms. Simply put, with Kindles books about to outsell all forms of paper, trailer teasers are now a downloadable tasty treat for books lovers. Plus its cool seeing your name and your book on the big screen. Sort of.
Fourth: Blog your glutes off. I mean it. Create a FB page soley devoted to your blog and put up a new post every couple of days or so. What's that, you don't know what to write? Then hit up your competition for ideas. Example: the other day, my boy Aaron Patterson, a bestseller in his own right, wrote about "Sundays" on his popular blog, The Worst Books Ever. And I don't mean hot fudge Sundays (although he's probably scarfing one down right now!), but just your average any given Sunday. Not having anything to blog about that day, I completely and blatantly ripped him off and wrote about what else, Sunday. Turned out to be one of my more popular blogs and it resulted in selling some books. Now I can afford a few hot fudge Sundays of my own.
Fifth: You're gonna have to make time. All the above takes time. Gobs of it. I'm lucky in that I'm a full-time freelance journalist and I can take a lot of time out of my day to bother people enough that they say, Oh man, I'm gonna buy this guy's book just so he stops bugging me! Ha! Seriously though, consider the alternative. Day jobs eat up a lot of your time too. Your can either be a full-time writer or a full-time wannabe. Take your pick. Making time to market will assist you in fulfilling the former, and pasting the latter on your Been-there-done-that-crap bulletin board. How much time is enough time? My daily goal is to set aside a couple solid hours each day to market and perhaps a little more on the weekends when people are impulsively buying books.
Sixth: Invest in a website that allows you to update without being a computer geek. Enough said there.
Seventh: This is optional, but it doesn't hurt to invest in a local publicist. It can be a pricey investment and it just might cost you pretty much the profits on a year's worth of royalties for one whole book, but in the end, it's worth constructing a solid publicity platform that begins in your own backyard. My editor at Delacort once told me that you begin by selling books in your hometown and like the stone that makes the ripple in the pond, you work your way out from there. My local publicist, Megan Baker, at Baker Public Relations in Albany New York, has managed to do just that, getting me on TV, in magazines, and newspapers. Peopke know me around town as "that writer guy" now. And that's pretty cool. It sells books.
Eighth: Yah, it kinds sucks, but hit up the bookstores for signings. This is my least favorite activity granted, not because I dislike bookstores (I can get lost for an entire day in one!), but my experience is that these events can be hit and miss. However, despite the exploding popularity of E-Books and Kindles, paper books aren't going anywhere. And our indy bookstores need our support!
Nineth: Volunteer. Give away books. Give speeches at your local rotary or church or high school or where ever. Be public. You might also blurb other author's books. Or offer them a pro-bono manuscript critique now and again. The point is to give and in the giving you will get something back.
Well, I can bet I forgot a thing or two, but by all means chime in and perhaps offer up a marketing secret or suggestion or two. There's plenty of room on the shelves for all of us so better to help one another than compete. For now anyway, I'm going to check on my Amazon ranking under "Hot New Releases!"
If there's anything to be learned from all that internet marketing material out there is you need goals.
The marketer asks "What's the next action you want your reader to take?" and "Craft your text to move the reader through the shopping cart to a purchase (sign up for my newsletter and I'll show you how!)."
Traditional print publishing doesn't seem to have that same focus, especially for their online offerings. Why is that?
It doesn't make sense. They're commercial ventures, and they have a product they'd love to sell. In fact, they have two things to sell: a subscription (or membership as the marketers now call serialized content) to content, and an audience to advertisers.
This is most obvious when discussing an online or electronic project, like a daily news briefing that's tied to an email newsletter. Traditional publishing looks at:
finding a niche audience
gathering and editing content they think that audience will want
distributing that content to the chosen audience (either through paid or controlled circulation)
finding advertisers who want to reach the same audience
rake in the cash
Note how:
the goal is split into two: developthe audience and sell the audience
there is no follow-through: once a message is delivered (content or advertising) the publisher no longer cares what happens
That's so 20th Century!
Would publishers be more successful if they thought in terms of goals? If so, what would those goals look like, and how could they be achieved? How would this change what editorial looks like, and what advertising is?
Here are a few tentative notes on how a goals-oriented product would be structured:
Editorial is the hook, but there should be more available for sale, or in exchange for information. There should always be a hook or line encouraging subscribers or readers to explore these "enhanced" products (in-depth research, database information, etc). The idea is to eventually convince the reader to buy an enhancement;
The product has to assume that the 'content' will be distributed outside of it's original medium (ie, compiled via rss). All messages have to be contained within the text of the postings;
Advertising as a goal is suspect as a long-term success strategy because the goal then is to move the reader to the advertiser's website, ie away from the product. This might work for a coupon-clipper or catalogue-like product where the audience is interested in the collection of leads offered, but it's hard to see the value for subject-oriented content seekers (ie a traditional news or comment site);
Display advertising apparently is good for awareness, but we also know that eyes quickly skip over display advertising. Display advertising also distracts from whatever you're trying to do with the product (ie buy an enhanced product). Display ads will also disappear on emails that don't have "download pictures" turned on or through any rss sharing or reposting. The advertiser should be integrated into the message, but in a way that's (1) consistent with the tone and purpose of the product, (2) does not compromise the product. That won't be easy, since the advertiser is only interested in renting the medium to reach the audience.
Okay, so she's not a Dame yet. Shut up. It's only a matter of time!
Nanny McPhee costar Maggie Gyllenhaal at Emma's star ceremony for Hollywood's Walk of Fame earlier this month.
Nanny McPhee Returns is on 2000+ of the nation's screens but I probably won't be seeing it. Remember two days back when we discussed what we were always looking for in a movie? One of my answers should have been beauty. I am not a beauty fascist in real life but I suppose I am at the movie theaters. Hollywood's great actresses should be immortalized with key lights, flawless makeup and evening gowns. Movie stars are supposed to be fantasies... our idealized selves. That's why Old Hollywood still has so much appeal. The studio system understood this. I like beauty on my silver screens so I really don't want to see Emma Thompson -- who can be just ravishing (see Much Ado About Nothing. I mean, my god. She's breathtaking in that movie) -- made to look purposefully hideous.
Anyway... her career in posters.
The Tall Guy (89) | Henry V (89) | Impromptu (91)
Dead Again (91) | Peter's Friends (92) | Howard's End (92)
Much Ado..., Remains of the Day, In the Name of the Father (93)
Junior (94) | Carrington (95) | Sense & Sensibility (95)
Intermission. In early 1996 after five Oscar noms and two wins (acting & screenplay) and several arthouse hits, the screen career seems to slow down. She was only 36. It's difficult to say what caused this. A listers sometimes just volunteer for that and if so who could blame her? Her first six years of fame were crazy huge and chaotic.
<--- Emma with her husband Greg Wise at the premiere of his most recent movie in 2009
Consider... She was 30 when fame hit. The first six years of fame were bookended with her wedding and then divorce from Kenneth Branagh (also often her director and co-star) and the movies were iconic arthouse titles. And then there's that stellar 1993 wherein she won the Oscar in the spring then appeared in three more arthouse smashes, two of which she was Oscar nominated for. [Tangent: If you ask me I think Much Ado... is the best of those three '93 performances -- even if it's the least of the three films -- so it figures it's the one she was snubbed for.]
Or maybe it wasn't an intentional break but maybe the offers just started to dry up? The cinema is sometimes nonsensical like that. This is also the time period in which she and Greg Wise, the dangerously good-looking man who breaks her screen sister Kate Winslet's heart in Sense & Sensibility, fall in love. They've been together ever since and were married in 2003.
The Winter Guest (97) | Primary Colors (98) | Judas Kiss (98)
Wit (01) | Angels in America (03) | Love Actually (03)
Mike Nichols to the rescue with two acclaimed pay cable movies that reminded fans what a sensational screen presence she is.
Imagining Argentina (03) | Nanny McPhee (05) | Stranger Than Fiction (06)
Brideshead Revisited (08) | Last Chance Harvey (08) | An Education (09)
not pictured: Pirate Radio (09), two Harry Potter films(04/07) the current Nanny McPhee sequel and a few cameo partsor voice roles.
How many have you seen? Is it odd that she's not in the last two-part Harry Potter film (I can't remember if that character is in the last book)... or if she is, that they aren't crediting her since she's not listed as being part of the cast? And don't you wish she'd have more plum parts again? She was so moving in Last Chance Harvey but it was one of those sacrificial December lambs needlessly disposed of during the year's busiest month. When I rewatched Angels in America a few weeks ago, I was reminded what a glorious comic personality she has. She's the best of both worlds, really, able to wear both of those iconic thespian masks. She sells comedy and tragedy with equal inspiration. *
As international aid trickled into Pakistan to help flood victims, Mark Malloch Brown, a former deputy secretary general of the United Nations, criticized the country’s leader for failing to make the scope of the destruction and the urgency of the need clear to international donors.
In an interview on Tuesday, Mr. Brown told the BBC, “this is a very confusing crisis” and a visit by President Asif Ali Zardari to Europe – with a stop at his family’s chateau in France – while monsoon rains ravaged large portions of his country, had not been helpful:
The leadership of Pakistan on the civilian side has gotten off to a rather muddled and slow start. It’s very hard for donor governments — let alone donor public opinion — to be entirely convinced at the seriousness of a crisis when the country’s president is filmed at his own private chateau in France or continuing with government visits to the U.K.
Crises, it’s a terrible thing to say but, you know, they require disciplined marketing. There needs to be a clear message that lives are at stake and the whole of the domestic effort of the country is devoted to trying to save those lives.
Mr. Brown also said that Pakistan’s military leaders “were very effective in Kashmir a couple of years ago after the earthquake and again they seem to be sort of pushing the civilian leadership aside and taking control and frankly that’s probably good news.”
Her added that the relief effort was now a competition between “the efficiency of these two rival systems: Islamic relief agencies versus the one institution of the Pakistani state which works, the army.”
Are digital comics the next big thing in online advertising? According to the marketing website Clickz, major comics publishers and digital comics providers are currently exploring that possibility. But by "advertising" we don't just mean a pop-up ad for a dating site on your digital issue of Iron Man. The article "Digital Comics Show Potential As An Ad Platform" explores all the marketing possibilities, which include advertiser sponsorships for free first issues and custom comics like the recent Inception: The Cobol Job -- which was essentially a free advertisement for the movie.
Why would ads on digital comics potentially perform better than print? Well, if the same demographic & keyword targeting technology was used on the digital comics reader as is currently used on Google, Facebook, etc., ads specifically aimed at the user could flash at the bottom of their comic book. So instead of blindly advertising Yum Yum Bars to the average Superman comic reader, you could target that ad to the contingent most likely to enjoy Yum Yum Bars. Further, you could track user engagement by how many people clicked through to the Yum Yum Bars site.
Advertising on digital, from a marketing research standpoint, is a far more exact science than advertising in print.
Then there is the whole concept of integrated marketing, which is touched upon by the sponsorships & custom comics mentioned earlier.
SAMPLE INTEGRATED MARKETING CAMPAIGN FOR YUM YUM BARS 1. Three-way partnership between digital comics provider, comics publisher, and Yum Yum Bars. The digital comics provider furnishes the advertising platform, and the publisher furnishes the content.
2. Free digital download of "Strongman" #1 sponsored by Yum Yum Bars.
3. Ads promoting the free issue featured on "homepage" of digital comics store. Link to free comic.
4. Ads promoting Yum Yum Bars featured during the "Strongman #1" comic. This could be a physical ad worked into the "pages" of the digital comic -- but most likely a banner ad of some kind that is present via the digital comics reader. This ad could be clicked off, or collapsed into a one-line ad that is less intrusive. The ad would, of course, lead to the Yum Yum Bars site.
5. There could also be an interstitial ad for Yum Yum Bars flashing halfway through the comic -- similar to what Hulu does with their ads. You can't scroll past this ad.
6. Now, the comics publisher could also work with Yum Yum Bars to create a custom comic featuring Yum Yum Bars.
7. A digital comics provider could also offer free "comic bucks" for anyone who clicks on certain ads or downloads custom comics.
Really, the possibilities are endless here; it opens up a whole new realm of advertising & marketing via comic books.
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