Brandon Koon Blog

If you’ve ever wondered how some people really make money from their blog, it takes a little more legwork on your part.

Yes, there are the affiliate programs as well as online marketing companies that pay you to blog about different products and services.

Then again, you can eliminate the middle man and keep the profit for yourself.  Yes, there is one online marketing company that takes 50% of what an advertiser pays to have a link and relevant text (sometimes up to 400 words) placed on YOUR blog.

And unlike some content management services (CMS), you get no byline or residual, just a one-time payment that could be as little as $5 per blog post.

Some of these marketing companies may even pressure you to place ads that have nothing to do with your brand that you have worked hard to create and maintain.

While you may see this as a cup of coffee at your favorite franchise, you are actually killing your brand by accepting all of these ads.

Oh yeah, the best part is that you may have to wait at least a month to receive your money, depending on who is remitting payments.  I’ve even had to remind people that they forgot to pay me.

Taking Control

Now if you have decent traffic or a good number of social media followers, you can solicit prospects with a simple letter.  O,r if there is a product that you already use and have reviewed it a few times, then you can reach out to the marketing contact of the company and negotiate a deal on your own terms.

Some may want for you to keep the post up for as long as 30 days or on the main page for a certain number of days.  If you’re a daily blogger, one solution would be to increase the number of visible entries per page.

The First Contact

Before sending an email to the owner of the site, you want to gather data about your brand.  The purpose is to present to them what it is you can offer them.  Does your site have a lot of visitors?  If so, how many? How many Twitter followers do you have?  What is your Alexa page rank?  What associations do you belong to? Every little bit of information you can present helps a great deal.

When you have all of this together, you can do one of two things.  If your data exceeds one letter-size page, then list everything but keep it separate from the initial letter.

In the letter, you want to get the name of the site owner or person in their marketing department. After the salutation, you want to describe who you are, what your brand is about and that you are interested in having them buy space on your site in exchange for more exposure.  You can include about 3-4 of the benefits or if you have a separate sheet, offer to send this data in a follow-up email.

The Response

There is a chance that your letter and information may be forwarded to an outside marketing company and they could be a little discriminating when it comes to compensation or whether your brand would be compatible.

Don’t fear as some companies may offer freebies in lieu of monetary compensation.  You may be asked to participate in a campaign for a product that is not yet on the market.  If your brand is new or rebounding, then don’t be too eager to negotiate for money.  This could also be a test to see how well you deliver first.

You also may need to adjust your approach but keep it simple and without buzzwords as this can be a little too aggressive or come off as spam.

Growing up, you probably knew of someone that had a “reputation”.  Why?  Because they were usually quiet, mysterious and probably new to the neighborhood. Yet, when you got to know them, they were probably one of the coolest people you’ve ever met.

Working online is somewhat similar.  Unless your brand is already known within a particular industry, then getting people on board can be a little tricky at first.

Creating a Level of Engagement

As a business owner, you’re responsible for the creation, distribution and marketing of your product.  You may even take on accounting duties as well.

While this is common with most small businesses, you also have to be your own PR (public relations) person.

Though you can hire a blogger that’s experienced in marketing and communications, you may want to take a stab at the process before you begin to go through portfolios.

In the meantime, if you don’t have a basic analysis of your customer base needs, now’s the time to find out what type of content you can place on your site that they will find entertaining or useful.

Whether or not you use a blogger/ghostwriter, you should find a voice that will convey best who you are and one that represents the product or service.

Also, don’t be afraid to develop a rapport with your viewers.  Answer their inquiries, if you have additional information or resources to share, provide a link.

Keep communication open and positive as often as possible, especially when you are in the beginning stages.

When Bad Things Happen

A customer says they ordered 12 of an item but only received 10 or half of what they ordered was damaged or inoperable.  They’re hot and you have to fix it, even if it cost you your inventory, shipping expenses and time you may not have.

In business, it happens and the best way to ensure that a bad transaction doesn’t ruin your reputation is excellent communication from the start.

If you’re not in the habit of thanking customers for their purchase, then you may want to start.  This way you can leave your contact information, should they need to reach the person who’s responsible for sending out the order.

Keep detailed records of each action taken to remedy the situation, including dates, confirmation number and their response.  This way, if they post a negative online review, you will have arsenal to defend yourself.

Be Your Own Cheerleader!

When someone says something nice or positive online, post a link on your blog or website.  Even if it’s in print, scan and post as a low-res JPEG so that it can easily be read online.  If you sell through e-merchants like Amazon or Etsy, keep open communication with your customers so that they will feel confident buying from you again.

Even if you operate your own shopping cart through your internet service provider or host, you can create your own short forms where customers can describe their experience.  This will also help you in creating your next promotional campaign or better target your services.

So don’t get caught in the trap of being stuck behind a monitor for hours.  Take the time to get to know your customers and prospects as it will be one of the best investments you will make in business.

If you’re still using offline marketing tactics to market your business, I got some news for you.

Because many post offices across the U.S. are cutting back on staff and slowly removing postal boxes from the streets, your flyers, self-mailers and other promotional materials may not reach your customers.  Or worse, they could reach them at a much later date.

And when it comes to clearance sales or any opportunity for a shopper to save money, there is nothing more disappointing than knowing that they missed out on a great buy.

So what’s a business to do? Get a new direct marketing campaign, of course.  One promotional strategy that can’t be over looked by an overworked and under-appreciated postal employee is the one that should be figured into your marketing plan upgrade.

But before you invest money on a new mailing list, here are some things you can do that will actually save you money first.

• Update current list by making note of any returned mailings or people you know who have moved out of the area.  It is tedious and maybe you can get a friend or associate to help you, cutting the time by as much as half.
• Renovate your flyer by using these guidelines.

1. Make sure your headline is in bold letters and has some level of engagement.  This may be in the form of a question your customers can relate to.
2. The body copy is to the point with the proposition or answer to the customer’s possible problem.
3. A graphic or photo may be used but not at the top of flyer
4. Add coupons to the bottom along with your contact information.  If your business accepts mail orders, include mailing address along with the forms of payment accepted.

• If your list is more than a couple of years old, then you can contact customers by phone, possibly during the day with a brief greeting and the reason for your call. Since you may be speaking to an answering machine, make it brief or less than 30 seconds, if possible.  You can also ask if they could leave …an email address.  Yes! No postal stamps needed!

However, due to people leaving their jobs for various reasons, try getting a personal email address instead of one belonging to a company.  Though your mailings may be harmless, they may be blocked by the company before reaching recipient just because they are not related to work.

Using Microsoft Office or similar office suite software is also helpful in this process.  If you get the professional version that contains Access, you can enter information and send to Outlook for emailing or import to Word for the Mail Merge function (which is excellent for large groups of addresses).  If not, you can use Excel or similar spreadsheet that can be updated and sorted as needed.  For instance, you may want to separate frequent or steady customers from prospective customers or those who seldom buy.  Once you get the information entered, sorted and grouped on the spreadsheet, you can copy and paste to a label print application.

Once you gauge the response, you can decide whether it is wise to buy a mailing list.

If your jewelry, crafts or marketing online businesses could use a boost in sales, then consider downsizing to something more narrow that is not likely to get lost in a search.

Many new online business owners enter the market with the thought that everybody can use what they have to offer.  Even if this is actually true, it may not be practical.

For instance, you may go with an angle that your mobile maid service is not just for the rich as everyone needs to have a clean home.  While this may be true, many are downsizing their home in this economy.  So if the prospect resides in something smaller than a one-bedroom apartment, it may not be practical for them to have a professional cleaning service.  And you may even lose money trying to accommodate this person’s anticipated “needs”.

However, all hope is not lost.  Let’s say you live in an area where there are a lot of multi-unit buildings and the majority of the tenants are working long days to stay ahead financially.  There are two opportunities here.

1. Many people that are fortunate to be employed are either working longer hours or telecommuting to another area (sometimes a different county).  This can take a physical toll on them and housework can be their last priority.  If you think about some of the things that the average person would do that can be time-consuming, such as walking the dog, shopping or laundry duties, you may want to add this to your online promotion.
2. The second is the fact that not everyone can work overtime or commute long distances for a period of time so they may relocate to another area, leaving an empty unit.  In some areas, this happens so rapidly that landlords have a time keeping up if they were responsible for post-move cleaning prior.  By finding out what other tasks are common so that the unit is ready to be leased or rented, you can also add and advertise to landlords owners who want clean units soon.

With the above scenario, it may be beneficial to this business person to add light carpentry to their services, or green cleaning as industrial-strength fumes are dangerous to inhale and it takes time for it to leave a home.

Now, if you feel this may limit your services, not necessarily so.  Not only will it grow your business in time but it can help to make you an expert in the field.

Two people have same amount of basic financial knowledge when it comes to filing taxes, budgeting and keeping banking transaction records.  However, one may have affiliations with local non-profits and church groups in the area. These places are looking to start programs to help people get back on their feet.  Instead of just telling prospective clients that they possess certain knowledge to keep accurate financial records, they could target individuals looking to re-establish credit and pay off past-due debts.  With the right presentation, this could make for a wonderful union and help those affected by the recession.

Also, if your recall how content articles can help generate passive income, having a specialty can make your words stand out more.

Even if you sell chocolate-covered gourmet pickles, books about being bored or diamond tiaras for cats online, you do have competition. They may not be visible and they may not have gotten their operation off the ground yet but you still need to treat all of your customers like they are your last customers.

Saying Thank You
If you have PayPal or other e-merchant to process your payments, leave a note on the e-receipt thanking them for their purchase, even it’s a digital and not physical item. When sending a physical item, it adds a personal touch to sign the invoice/receipt with a short thank you note.

Giving Away Freebies
Hopefully, you have enough promotional materials to spare for networking events and other occasions where the opportunity may lie to generate business. Many people this may stop at business cards but with the use of any office suite or publishing application you can easily create the following –

• Bookmarks
• Calendars
• Magnets (or better, business card magnets which can be found at most office supply stores)
• Newsletter

Or, if you’re not confident about your skills in this area, do a mock-up of what you want to reflect your business and give to a local printer to duplicate. Both way, these promotional materials cost little and you can have the finished product in your hands in a matter of hours or a couple of days. This way, if you hear about an event on Monday that is taking place on Thursday, you will be prepared.
Rewarding the Loyal Customers
Even if you work with an e-merchant like eBay or Etsy to sell your wares, they both have marketing tools that will let you create coupons. While you may have one coupon for half-off a future purchase, you can create one that gives a better reward to those who buy consistently. Or just give away an item to the persons that have brought you the best sales.
This method, however, should be done with caution. While everyone loves the convenience of digital documents, physical items can be a challenge. For one, you don’t want to spend profits or a lot of time in packing and shipping, which can get expensive for fragile or heavy items. By gauging items that can handle being shipped via the U.S. Post Office by media, parcel or the least expensive method, you can save yourself some headache.
Using Buying Habits to Your Advantage
If you are not doing a simple research of your customers’ buying habits, now is the time to start. Many brands love SurveyMonkey for creating and  submitting questionnaires to customers, you can create a data sheet that records what items your customers buy the most often. Not only will this help in choosing a free gift they can use but it will help in creating an effective online marketing campaign.

While many online business uncomfortable inundating their customers with excessive communication, you want to make sure that 1) It’s something they can use; and 2)That your communication does not contain verbiage and gets to the point.

Running a business effectively can force you think in ways that your employer may have never challenged you to do.  While thinking outside of the box may be great for promotional materials or in writing articles to market your brand, you also have to think about what to do when you come from behind the computer.

How you treat networking opportunities will reflect on your brand greatly.  Think in terms of getting their attention in 30 seconds or less.  While you don’t want to bombard anyone with materials or by shooting off your pitch after saying hello, you don’t want for too much dead space to take place before they move on physically or mentally.

Before you head to the event, go over this checklist to make sure that your online reputation can hold up during the process.

• If you have a way to show educational or entertaining videos, take the time to set up a spare laptop, television with DVD player.  This is much more effective than telling people where they can find your video online.  For one, when traffic stops and you have their attention, you can promote your online wares or give out your business card.

• Make sure that your business card describes your service or product.  I have seen many cards with intricate or clever artwork or text and not known what the business was about.  Though I like nice visuals, others will just bury and discard whenever they get around to cleaning.  If there are many services to name, then invest in folding business cards.  This will stand out and if you use the extra space to list a discount on your product or services, you are more likely to get positive feedback.

• Create a promotional newsletter.  These days, all types of businesses are getting extra-competitive and the one that shines the brightest is the one that gets the call.  You can create newsletters easily on any word processing program.  If you have a blog, copy and paste your most popular posts.  Supplement this with interesting artwork, resources or trivia that relate to your industry that consumers may find interesting.  You can either design these as a self-mailer (tri-fold), magazine style or flat using fairly sturdy paper (40-60 weight as 20-weight may be flimsy on its own).

• Practice your presentation.  While it may not be effective to shake the hand of each attendee, it helps to have a strategy beyond hello.  Keeping your presentation short at first meeting is best.  Only if there is an interest should you give the entire history of your business or go into detail as to what you can do for a prospect.  Once, I had a small business finance networking session to attend and I found a way to give the details of my business in less than 10 seconds.  The template I followed was name, purpose of business, how long in business and reason for my attendance.  From there, I was able to answer questions from loan officers and account specialists that had the resources to help me grow.  Even if your reason is to just mingle, it’s better than having people ask you.

The purpose of getting from behind the computer is to meet others, look into ways to expand your audience and learn about new ways to make your online business better.

There are no secrets. You don’t have to pay some company you know nothing about. There are no tricks.
Every year many people start an online business with a good idea as to what type of product or service they represent, who their target audience is and where they want to be seen. How they will go about that may be a work in progress as well as why getting a high Google ranking is important.
And very necessary.

According to search optimization expert Don Kaufmann, here are the top five ways for your blog or website to get a higher rank on the number one search engine.

1. Add fresh content often. This can be information about your industry, something entertaining that your audience can relate to or you can hire a ghost blogger to fill when you are unavailable. Even if all you can only post weekly, it is better than bi-weekly, monthly or whenever you feel like it.
2. Post videos. If you do not have a Google or YouTube account, get one now! YouTube is the number one video-sharing and it is for this reason they have been acquired by Google in recent. Though there are many uploaded videos, you can share videos that are related to your industry. Even if all you have is a short podcast, use Movie Maker to import some interesting visuals. Once you edit, upload and tag it with the appropriate search terms, link to your Google Adsense account and begin generating revenue.
3. Use longer copy. This can be debatable to some, especially if your blog or web page uses smaller (12 or less) fonts. You can either break long text (more than 400 words) into separate posts or use fonts larger than 14 and/or make your text bold.
4. List you blog or website with the top online directories and sub-directories in your industry. Though many experts stress submitting your site to the Open Directory Project as the first step in promoting it, there are still many directories that will be of use as well. Search engines like Yahoo and Google, as well as specialized search sites like Eco-living, sports or any niche industry.
5. Use badges and icons from credible organizations. Are you a member of a professional organization? Or a long-time member of the Better Business Bureau? Even if it’s a small online group, having an affiliation with a similar or known organization will get people more acquainted with what your brand is about.

So you see, this is nothing that some person overseas can do without knowing anything about your brand or what you’re about. While you can pay an outside contractor to do some of these tasks, you may find it easier to do this yourself and save a few dollars, especially if you’re just getting started or have limited resources.
Finally, being easily found and high ranking will also make it easier to participate in revenue marketing campaigns. Once you find a couple of companies to work with, then you can have an easy side income.

If you’ve ever heard the expression, ‘Keep your friends close but your enemies closer’, that holds true, even if the competition are your actual friends.
It happens and many who have been in business for a while find ways to remain successful while maintaining healthy relationships with others in a similar business.
Find Them and Memorize Them
Some new online business owners may feel that their concept is really unique and stands out from the competition, especially those businesses that deal with visuals as their product. Chances are very strong that they are more wrong that leather in the summer.

One popular online business is retail, and yes, there is competition. In some cases, heavy competition as getting the initial inventory and necessary paperwork may cost little to nothing and unlike real estate; there is no required license to start a legitimate business.

So while it takes a special person to successfully sell a property, setting up an online shop can be done in as little as half an hour. While you may have an excellent promotional strategy, visitors may know about someone that offers the same thing but with perks.

Here are some places you can locate the competition –

• Better Business Bureau
• Clients
• Industry periodicals
• Libraries
• Networking
• Online forums
• Search engines
• Trade shows
• Websites
• Yellow pages

Staying Ahead of the Enemy
Not quite like the schoolyard bully as you don’t want to avoid the competition entirely. Here’s a great example below –
Sarah and Kelsey have been best friends since grade school. They both went to fashion design school in hopes of opening a boutique in an industrial district (cheap rent and this area was slowly becoming the “in” place for their target). Once they graduated, they found that their styles were like oil and water, so they opened smaller e-stores that were similar in design and selection.
Though the individual stores made decent sales on their own, the truth was that they sold the same items – only the colors may have been different. They even noticed newer grads from their alma mater as well as career-changers that were getting in the boutique biz. Sarah had an idea.
She would contact a DJ friend of hers to come in during peak periods to spin a few records and sell his mixtape, which sold fairly well. On the website, she set up a music player that would play samples of the mixtape. After a couple of requests from out-of-town clients, she placed it on the shopping cart page. After a while, she was able to make this arrangement for aspiring DJs in the area and she was able to hold fashion and art show.
Two years after their separation, Sarah was able to buy Kelsey’s shop as a second store. And though some of the newer stores tried the same idea, their execution was not as cost-effective as they did not use a barter system and used strangers that demanded pay.

___

Once you note what the competition does – that you could possibly do better without losing money – or, does not do that may be an added feature, find the least expensive ways to make this part of your image.

Slander in the Name of Love
In all communication, keep things professional. Never speak ill of the competition (though it’s more than OK to emphasize what you DON’T do) unless you know for sure that they are retiring from e-commerce altogether in the near future.

One person who started a successful blog some years ago, found herself in pretty hot water as she described, in great detail, the inner workings of the publishing industry. She had no shame in naming names and describing incidents in full detail. Even those who could care less about the industry, loved to hear the dirt. While she used a pseudonym, it was still easy for others to find her via IP address. So when it came time to lay off staff, she was one of the first to go and there were initially no job prospects in the industry.

Surprisingly, she promoted her blog, networked with others and landed some freelance work before deciding on law school.

While forum posters can say what you allow to be posted, take the upper hand and use more energy promoting what you can bring to your demographic.

You read it right…

This Thursday is going to be a monumental day
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For the first time EVER the power of the internet
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There is a team of individuals who have virtually broken
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In addition, there are 3 online networkers who partnered
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were able to accomplish this feat 100% online.

And guess what???

These guys have joined forces!!!

Imagine what would happen to your business if you
could implement offline strategies that have created
downlines of over 60,000+, with online strategies
that have generated over 380,000 leads in 12 months…

And what if these leaders actually wanted to show you
exactly how they did this and how you can implement
these strategies for YOUR business?

Pretty powerful, yes?  I guarantee this has never been
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the network marketing industry are so set in their ways
that they will never be open to the other option.

That’s where they’ve gone wrong… In this exciting, industry-
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Fill out the form on this website and you will receive
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Thursday 9:00 PM EST.

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To Your Massive Success,

Brandon Koon
Online Business & Marketing Coach
Direct: 801.987.0070