Earning Money While Using Premium Content

I wrote about Mochila as one of the places where you can earn money through syndication of your articles

Mochila has another product that allows you to use content from their member publishers such as Associated Press, Woman's Day, American Profile, among others -- and then earn money from it. The product is called AdMatch, and you can select the type of content you want from their list of premium publishers that you can put in your website. Mochila will serve ads on that page, the revenue of which will be divided between you (the republisher of the content) and Mochila.

The product is like publishing RSS feeds from news and other sources on your website, except that you're getting compensated for putting the content in your site. So as a site owner, you get the benefit of using quality content, as well as earning from that content.

Read about Mochila's AdMatch program and start adding to your online revenue sources.

How Small Businesses Can Succeed in the Catalog Business

Catalog Success Magazine has an interesting post on how a small business can play with the big boys -- and win -- in the catalog business. Here are some of their tips:

• The key to success is “unique product, unique product, unique product.”
• Protect your unique products via copyrights, trademarks and patents.
• Develop efficient operations, even considering outsourcing if you cannot efficiently handle manufacturing in-house
• Test at least one thing — lists, covers, even trim size — on every mailing.
• Set high goals and act like a big guy, to become one.
• Start by assembling a talented, competitive team that shares your values and work ethics, then put the team first and owner’s profits second by sharing the rewards through promotions and great benefits.
• Avoid me-too products and make sure you understand your products’ benefits
• Also avoid excessive backorders
• Do not skimp on customer service.
• Stick to a narrow niche that lets you target a core of loyal customers with unique products.

How to Start an Online Magazine -- and Earn Revenues from the Site

If you are going to start an online newsletter, you can choose these business models:

1. Subscription based model = you charge a membership fee whether monthly or annual to read and subscibe to the newsletter. Be sure to have really compelling and unique content that others will not be able to get for free with your newsletter.

What others do is to give a free sample or teaser of the content -- e.g. the first 2 paragraphs of an article -- and to read more or access more content, the visitor has to subscribe and pay.

There are several shopping cart systems that allow for memberships like this wherein you will automatically flagged when a membership payment is due and to ensure that the subscriber is not giving away the password/username to others

2. Advertising based model = this basically means your entire content is free for all. Advertising can either be

• cost per 1000 impressions or CPM wherein you are paid for every 1000 visitor that sees the ad
• cost per click or CPC where you get paid everytime someone clicks on the ad
• cost per action or CPA where you get paid everytime a predetermined action happens (e.g. sale, qualified lead, etc)

There are several ways you can earn money from advertising:

a. Join an advertising network. Advertising networks are organizations that aggregate Web sites that offer advertising space, and sell banner ads (and other advertising options) across them. Traffic requirement is often a minimum of 5,000 monthly impressions, although many do not accept sites hosted by free page services.

• Burst Media http://www.burstmedia.com
• Fastclick (ValueClick). http://www.fastclick.com
• Advertising.com. http://www.advertising.com
• Tribal Fusion http://www.tribalfusion.com

b. Participate in contextual advertising networks. Contextual advertising are text ads delivered based on the content of the web page using an automated system.

• Google Adsense https://www.google.com/adsense/
• Yahoo! Publishing Network (currently in beta and available to US publishers only) http://publisher.yahoo.com/
• Intellixt http://vibrantmedia.com/site/web_01a5.htm
• Quigo Adsonar http://www.quigo.com/adsonarexchange.htm
• IndustryBrains http://www.industrybrains.com
• Commission Junction Evolution http://www.cj.com
• Kanoodle Brightads http://www.kanoodle.com/about/brightads.html
• Clicksor http://www.clicksor.com/affiliate_programs.php
• Contextweb http://www.contextweb.com/
• Bidclix http://www.bidclix.com/
• Bidvertiser http://www.bidvertiser.com/

c. Sell advertising for your site directly. This is admittedly a more difficult route for a small business site wanting to earn advertising revenues. But hey, as they say: "no pain, no gain!"

How to Start a Consignment Store Business

The Washington DC area has a very thriving second hand or consignment market. With plenty of foreign service personnel living in the area, shopping in the consignment stores can yield one-of-a-kind pieces from various parts of the world. It's always a thrill to find great and unique pieces of items from consignment stores that you won't find in the department stores.

So how do you join the fray and start your own consignment store? I've found several resources on the Web that can help you start your own consignment business:

• The WEBworks Consignment Store "How To" Manual
• Getting Started in Resale
• Thrift Store Safety Checklist (can help you decide on what products to accept in your resale store)
• How Do I Start A Consignment Shop?
• Rags to Riches (a success story of a woman who started a consignment store)

Also check the website of the National Association of Resale & Thrift Shops http://www.narts.org/ as they have publications catering specifically to those who are thinking of entering this business as well as those already running their own resale stores

How to Build Profitable Events for Your Business

Big publishers such as Ziff Davis, American Business Media and others have been conducting events such as trade shows and seminars as an additional revenue stream for their businesses. In fact, Publishing Executive Magazine reports that trade shows have overtaken business-to-business media's print revenue in 2006, accounting for 36% of the industry's revenues.

Many small businesses are following suit and are also conducting seminars, conferences or trainings, and finding these events to be a profitable source of revenues.

So how do you build profitable events for your business. Publishing Executive Magazine in its May 2007 issue offers a number of tips from developing content, pricing, picking the location and more:

• Be prepared to struggle financially and logistically at the start - to reduce risk, carefully gauge customer interest and plan accordingly
• To maximize attendance, focus on irresistable content and speakers as having these two elements are the best way to draw audiences.
• Avoid turning your seminar into one big product pitch as that can turn off audiences.
• The education benefit is your best bet to lure audiences to the event
• Strike a balance in pricing: too high a price can scare off potential attendees while too low a price could suggest a lackluster event and result in poor return on investment. Price can be anywhere from $50 for a small 1-day event to as much as $2,000 for a 3-day event.
• Sponsorships could be key and where the big dollars will come from. The price the sponsors pay will depend on the level of interaction they want with the audiences - from extensive exposure such as speaking opportunities, access to the audience database and information, to more limited participation such as tabletop displays.
• Expect Murphy's Law: when something you think will go wrong, they will go wrong -- from hotel reservations to location to getting pitted against a bigger event to disappearing speakers. Be prepared for any eventuality and always have a backup plan.
• Location matters - consider where your audience typically are (e.g. you won't schedule a seminar attended by government employees in Las Vegas when most of them lives in Washington DC). Make the location easy and accessible to attendees.

When thinking of running an event, your number one goal should be fulfilling the needs of your customers.

Earning Money from Focus Group Discussions

If you want to earn a little extra cash, you can try joining focus group discussions where you can earn anywhere from $20 to $200 per session.

Sounds too good to be true? Focus groups are real -- they exist and are not a scam. I used to work for a market research company early on in my career, and I can vouch that focus groups are real, and that participants are often given cash to compensate for the time and effort they spend participating in a focus group discussion.

What is a focus group? Focus group is a qualitative marketing research technique where a small group of participants selected from a broader population is gathered and interviewed. A trained facilitator leads the discussions and the goal is to solicit for opinions and emotional responses about a particular subject.

The question of course is: how do you find opportunities to participate in focus groups?

One way is to contact market research companies in your area, and ask that you be included in their database of potential focus group respondents. You can use the yellow pages to get listings of market research companies in your area. An easier way is to check market research directories such as Greenbook.org http://www.greenbook.org/ which has a searcheable database of focus group facilities per state ; or click on their link on Focus Groups - Recruiting.

Another way is to use sites such as FindFocusGroups.com http://www.findfocusgroups.com/ -- a site started by Danny DiGiovanni who got hooked on focus groups but found it hard to search for similar opportunities. He searches the web for focus groups opportunities, from Craigslist ads to sites such as FocusGroup.com, and puts them together in his site.

Participating in focus groups is not something that will make you rich, but enough to give you some extra cash in your wallet. It is also very educational in terms of knowing upcoming products, or even learning what others think of a topic you are interested in. Plus, they often give free food :o)

How to Earn from Stock Photography

If you are an amateur photographer or simply someone who loves to dabble in photography, you may be able to earn money from your images. The business of stock photography has grown significantly on the Web, which in turn has allowed photography enthusiasts to find a marketplace for their images.

If you have good images, you can easily earn anywhere from $300 to $1,000 a month. Here are some places where you can sell your photos and earn money from them:

• Shutterstock = one of the most, if not the most popular micro stock photography sites on the Web today. Some photographers earn about $600 a month from this site alone. The site pays you $0.25 per download of your images, as well as referrals both in terms of other photographers and photo buyers.
• Alamy = as a contributor, you get 65% of the sale of your photos while you retain copyright and editorial control over your images
• Photoshelter = this site has over 25,000 buyers including magazines, advertising agencies and other high profile types of organizations. They will host your images, the number of which will depend on your subscription plan which ranges from free to $49.99 per month, and they take 10% of every sale you make.
• StockXpert = offers you 50% for each download of your photographs, but they screen the images first to ensure the quality of the photographs offered in the site
• Fotolia = a UK website, this site provides commission to photographers of up to 80% though the average is about 52% of the total sale price. You can choose to sell your images on an exclusive or non exclusive basis.
• iStockPhoto = royalty structure is 20% if non-exclusive and 40% if exclusive.

Other sites that you need to check include:

• Acestock http://www.acestock.com/
• Corbis http://www.corbis.com/
• Dreamstime http://www.dreamstime.com/
• BigStockPhoto http://www.bigstockphoto.com/
• Fotolibra http://www.fotolibra.com/
• Photostockplus http://www.photostockplus.com/index.php

Importance of Getting the #1 Spot in the Search Engines

A question was asked in Yahoo Answers if anyone knows of statistics that will show what percentage of users click on the top result, what percent clicks the second, and so on. I remember a paper I read a few years ago that actually looked at the behavior of search engine users and gave some data on this precise question.

The paper was written by Dr. Bernard Jansen and Amanda Spink of Pennslyvania State University entitled “An Analysis of Web Documents Retrieved and Viewed.” It was presented at the 4th International Conference on Internet Computing, Las Vegas, Nevada in June 2003. It looked at the behavior of search engine users, including how many clicks on the #1 ranked site for the keyword, #2, and so on.

Their analysis showed that it really pays to be #1 for the keyword (or at least in the first page of the search engine results) as there is a "sharp decrease in the number of viewings between the first and second, and the second and third pages of results..." As for how many clicks on each search engine results rank, their findings showed:

Web Documents Viewed Per Query
Rank = percentage who clicks

• # 1 = 54.3 %
• 2 = 18.9 %
• 3 = 9.4 %
• 4 = 5.5 %
• 5 = 3.3 %
• 6 = 2.2 %
• 7 = 1.5 %
• 8 = 1.0 %
• 9 = 0.8 %
• 10 = 0.6 %
• > 10 = 2.5 %

The above stats only reinforce the importance of getting in the first page of the search engines for your keywords, and the tremendous advantage of getting the #1. If you have been in a situation where your page was previously #1 and then slowly slips down, you can really see the impact on your traffic as you move down the search engine results ranking. It is one big ouch!

You can find a copy of the paper at their university website

Kiva: Lending to the World's Poor

The Internet is really reshaping lending as we know it. I just learned of a fantastic site that allows investors to lend to entrepreneurs from poor countries, where $325 can mean the fulfillment of a life long dream to start a business and hopefully alleviate one's family from poverty. The site is called Kiva http://www.kiva.org

Kiva works with microfinance organizations in third world countries such as Honduras, Tanzania, Azerbaijan, Samoa, Tajikistan and others. You as an investor can look at the profiles of these entrepreneurs needing financial support -- such as Lucia of Tanzania who needs $1,000 to purchase a deep freezer for her fish selling business to Adil of Ajerbaijan who needs $750 to buy a milk cow for her animal breeding business. The stories are varied, the businesses are different , but all are looking for mini-Bill Gates who can give them as low as $25 in loan.

As an investor, you can choose to give as little as the minimum loan investment of $25 or the total amount requested. You can lend them the money through your credit card or Paypal. But you will not be lending the money directly to the investor, but through the microfinance organization that are working with these entrepreneurs in their countries. Have no fear: the money will still be given to the entrepreneur 100%; it's just that the conduit of funds have to pass through the microfinance organization.

You will be paid back in about 6-18 months. As the investor, you will not be paid any interest to your money, but Kiva and the microfinance organization typically charges the entrepreneur some interest rates (no wonder there are reports that many microfinance organizations are becoming very profitable).

If you are looking for an opportunity to do your part in making the world a better place, consider extending your philantrophy to the entrepreneurs of poor countries. And if you are living in one of these poor areas, check if there are microfinance organizations that can help get your story in Kiva.org so you may be able to tap lenders from around the world.

Earning Money from Your Articles

I often read of internet marketers extolling the virtues of article marketing -- how it is a great way to market a website, get more backlinks, more traffic, and establish the writer as an expert in the field. However, I've seen very few people talk of how a small online business actually make money from their content through syndication.

In the early 90s with the dotcom boom, content syndication seemed easier to do, even if you have a small online presence. In the pre-Adsense era, you don't have to be a Reuters or Associated Press to earn money through syndication. Companies such as iSyndicate (bought out by YellowBrix) and ScreamingMedia (bought out by Dow Jones' MarketWatch) accepted even small content providers -- and getting accepted and syndicated by these agencies assures you of earning a few thousands a month.

Instead of giving away your content for free in websites such as EzineArticles.com, check first if you can generate revenues from them. Today, here are some companies that can help you earn more money from your content:

• Mochila = free to join and you will set the price for your content. Mochila gets 30% of the selling price while the publisher gets 70%.
• Uclick = syndicates works of cartoonists, puzzle constructors/developers and gamers
• iCopyright = one of the leading reprint solutions today allowing publishers to earn by selling reprints of their content. Publishers pay a percentage (about 10%) of the closed sale done through iCopyright technology
• Associated Content = pay range is about $3 to $20 and accepts both exclusive (never been published before content) or non-exclusive (previously published).
• YellowBrix = top tier content providers; hard for small businesses to get accepted as a provider
• Suite 101 = they recently relaunched the site and now accepts freelance writer for a revenue sharing proposition. Writers earn a percentage of the income earned from Google Adsense ads served on the article pages. The downside is that they want to be first place where you publish the article, and wants the article to be exclusive to Suite 101 for 1 year - after which you can republish in other places including your website (a significant downside if you have your own blog and website)

If you know of other places that can help in syndicating and monetizing content, please let me know.

How to Build a Successful Information Website

I know a lot of people who are lured into creating an information website, whether a blog or a website itself. They've heard stories of people making good money just by serving ads or offering other people's products.

True, there's a lot of money that can be made by simply putting up content on the Web. However, with billions of sites out there and lots of information on every imaginable topic, the question is always how will your site rise above the noise?

Here are my tips to a Yahoo Answer user when she asked this same question:

1. What sector do you want to focus on? "Information website" is a very broad term, and it could be anywhere from information on how to manage your personal finances to breeding animals to online marketing. The first step is to determine what sector you want to focus on and what unique perspective you can offer in that sector.

2. How will you monetize your website? How do you want to earn from the site? Will you earn from advertising? Will you offer a paid subscription content? Will you be syndicating the content?

3. How will you create the content? Will you write the content yourself? Will you pay writers or buy articles? Will you just use those articles in free article submission sites such as Ezinearticles.com that thousands of other sites are already using? Or will you let your visitors create the content for you?

If you want an information website, start with the basics first and think of what type of unique information you can offer -- or if you want to do information that thousands of other websites are already doing, what is the unique angle you are going to explore? If your site has no value, it will just languish as one of the billions of sites with hardly any visitors and no income

Making Sure You Get Paid

One of the common problems of many small and home-based businesses is ensuring that they get paid for the products provided or services rendered.

I've seen this first hand with the lawnmowing/tree services company that we hired for our home. No, the problem is not with us :o) but in the way they try to win new business for their company.

Having worked on our property several times, our neighbor saw them and asked them to cut the branches of the trees in their property. The business owner, Vicente, immediately summoned his men to work next on our neighbor's yard. Given that the lawn mowing/tree cutting business is highly dependent on word of mouth and referrals, Vicente was really hoping that he would be able to get new accounts in our neighborhood (we were their first clients in our area). So they willingly cut some of the tree branches, worked on the lawn and planted grass seeds -- apparently, on the work-now-pay-later scheme.

Two weeks later, Vicente told us that he hasn't been paid yet by our neighbor. Everytime he knocks on the door -- even with the presence of several cars in the driveway indicating someone's home -- no one opens the door for him. He visited several times, and always the same thing -- he can't collect because he cannot get anyone to open the door for him.

So how do you avoid this problem?

In Vicente's case, he needs to stop working on a new account pronto without any written contract and a downpayment. In our case, he worked on our property immediately when my husband first saw him driving in our neighborhood in his business truck -- without pay! Same thing with what he did with our neighbor. He asked for payment from us only in his third visit (and we did pay him!). Lucky if all his customers are like us who will pay when asked to pay -- but if he's got more deadbeat customers, then it could spell real trouble to his small-scale operation.

As a small business owner, you need to realize that completing a job and collecting on the payment for a job or product can be two different things. Significant amounts of receivables can lead to cashflow problems, which can spell the end of a business in some cases. There's also the hassle of going through the process of collecting (especially in Vicente's case where he had to drive to the customers' homes to collect). Other suggestions to ensure you get paid and improve cashflow include:

• Always have a standard payment form with you, especially if you are not expecting a sale. In Vicente's case, when the neighbor talked to him wanting his services, he should have with him in his truck a payment form detailing the services he will provide and the amount the neighbor needs to pay. It is always better to have something in writing than just plain verbal agreement (some folks conveniently have amnesia when the collector comes!).
• Send an invoice on the same day. If you closed the sale today and the goods are already on their way, or even if you did part of the services required, do not let the day pass by without sending your client the invoice.
• Make your invoice clear and easy to understand. Make sure that your invoice does not contain any terms unclear to the customer. If the customer wants certain information on their invoice to make it easy for them to understand what is expected of them, accomodate their request.
• Offer a discount for paying ahead of time. If your standard payment terms is 50% down and 50% after the service has been done, offer to lower your price anywhere from 10-20% if the customer agrees to pay 100%. Or if they preorder your services for the next month or so.
• Make sure you cash checks immediately. It took Vicente more than a week to cash the check we gave him!

For more ideas on how to make sure you get paid, read our articles How to Manage Cash Flow Effectively and Making Sure You Get Paid

How to De-Risk Your Business when a Competitor Arrives

In my post yesterday on how you can survive the arrival of a tough competitor, the book "The Upside: The 7 Strategies for Turning Big Threats into Growth Breakthroughs" by Adrian Slywotzky offers some questions you need to ask to help you fend off this competitor:

1. Do you have an early warning system to help you find out if a competitor is coming in to your space? You can gather information from your own customers, suppliers, employees (if any), distribution people.

2. If the competitor is already operating in your space, have you taken the time to analyze your own operations with that of the competitor? What are the advantages of this competitor?

3. How can you now differentiate your business from that of the competitor? What assets do you have -- whether tangible such as products or intangible such as customer loyalty -- that this competitor would find hard to match?

4. The most difficult question is how can you change your business to outcompete this competitor?

How Small Businesses can Survive in a World of Giant Retailers

One of the greatest fears of many small business owners is the arrival of Wal-Mart in their areas. In fact, in many areas, communities are even protesting the arrival of this giant chain to demonstrate support to the communities' mom and pop stores whose existence may be threatened or jeopardized.

We have previously written about ways small businesses can compete with the big boys

• Small Business Survival in the Midst of Giants
• 10 Ways Small Businesses Can Compete With the Big Boys
• You're Small -- Use It to Your Advantage!
• Competing with the Retail Giants

The new book "The Upside: The 7 Strategies for Turning Big Threats into Growth Breakthroughs" by Adrian Slywotzky looks at the various threats affecting businesses (big and small). We've published an article of the author based on the book entitled "How Precarious is My Business Model?" that talks of the seven risks that every business needs to anticipate.

In one chapter, the author discussed how businesses are competing against Wal-Mart. He specifically discussed the strategies employed by Target that have enabled it to thrive in a world dominated by Wal-Mart. Well, Target may not be a small business, but the strategies it employs to compete with Wal-Mart can serve as important lessons for small businesses. These strategies are:

• Play a different game: define a different customer base, product mix, brand image, and business model from that of the competitor
• Streamline the system: minimize fixed cost and maximize efficiences to reduce financial risk
• Pursue non-overlap: look constantly for ways to differentiate your product and service offerings fron those of the competitor
• Get stylish on a budget: partner with high fashion brands that are temporarily available at reasonable prices
• Build buzz to get customer attention out of proportion to your company's scale
• Use technology and rigorous employee training to hone unbeatable service

The only way another business, particularly a small business, can fight Wal-Mart or other big competitors is making sure that it creates its own area of non-overlap. Find its niche, focus on that area and really serve that segment well. Invent a different game.

If you think you are facing a seemingly unbeatable competition, the author advices to simply take a look at how others in your situation are doing what you think is impossible -- thriving against the heavyweight.

Marketing to Tweens

I have a four-year old son, and even at this early age, he already understands the joys of shopping. When we go to the mall or a store, he insists that he buy something (he doesn't always win, but he definitely tries). He feels that he is entitled to buy anything he wants and I can imagine that this growing consumerism will only grow worse as he gets older.

And marketers know this. Marketers are trying to reach younger kids, getting them hooked early to their products and brands. USA Today had an interesting piece on how marketers are reaching out to the tweens market, particularly girls. Tweens, or those kids age 7-14, have significant influence on what their parents buy and by themselves already have spending power.

PRWeek magazine listed five facts on the tween market:

1. WonderGroup reports that kid influence on items bought for them is in the 80-90% range, with the highest influence on DVDs and music.
2. According to Alloy Media and Marketing, tweens independently spend $30 billion, and they influence an additional $600 billion of family spending.
3. Of the 26 million tweens in 2009, iGilliotResearch forecasts that 4 milion will be using their own cellphones, according to a previous Businessweek article
4. Yankelovich Youth Monitor reports that 72% of 6-to-8 year olds and 56% of 9-to-11 year olds ask their parents to buy thing they seee in TV commercials
5. According to McNeal and Kids Youth Marketing Consultants, children are able to recognize brands from the age of about 18 months.

If you are looking for a growing and increasingly significant market, consider the tweens market. Parents will resist, but children's persistence can be amazing at times.

Making a Leap of Faith and Starting a Business

I've met a lot of folks who have long thought of starting a business, yet never had the opportunity nor the time to actually start it. Some just talks and talks about wanting to start a business yet never could find the time to squeeze it in their current lives. Others seem content to put their dreams in the backburner of their lives.

My colleague Lyve gave several tips on how to make that giant leap and just start the business. Read her article "Making The Leap Of Faith And Starting A Business"

A Peak into the Marketing of a New Product

I am a chocolate addict, and I need to eat chocolates every day. I eat not one or two, but three or more bars (not just small pieces) every day. The only times I lay off chocolates are the couple of weeks before my glucose tests during my pregnancies.

So of course, when one of my favorite chocolate brands launches a new product, I am all ears. Godiva has recently launched a new product called Godiva Chocoiste
http://www.godiva.com/chocoiste and lessons can be learned on how they launch this new product and work towards branding it.

The first step into launching a new product is first defining what this new product will be and how it will be different from all the existing products in the market today. Ask the question: why will people want and buy this new product?

With this new Godiva chocolates, the product concept is "Decadence Goes Mobile" and the product's tagline is:

"A tantalizing new assortment of supreme chocolate pleasures, absolutely sinful enough to satisfy anytime ... Instant gratification will never be the same."

The idea behind this new chocolate product is that Chocoiste is a casual, portable, chocolate treat that you can indulge while you're on the go. For me, it's the perfect chocolate to take while I am walking to the subway or during a bus ride. I actually go to the Godiva store just to buy a bar that I can sneak in when no one's looking in the subway (you're not supposed to eat in the Washington DC subway system). So I am a perfect target market of this new product!

To increase awareness and market the new product, Godiva is undertaking a combination of merchandising PR, in-store promotions, web site promotions and sampling initiatives (or what they call experiential marketing). Specifically, the company embarked on the following strategies:

• Hired a double decker bus in New York from April 16 to 20 to act as Godiva Chocoiste Convoy that takes passengers from the Godiva store at the World Financial Center to Times Square, all the while handing out the chocolates to the passengers
• Sent samplings and VIP pass for the convoy to media (talk about sweetening the media!)
• Hired people to give out samples of the chocolate at the Central Park in NY
• Created a chocolate personality quiz in a new website http://www.areyouachocoiste.com/ after which the user can redeem a free gift certificate for free chocolates (alas, redeemable only in NY/NJ area)

To measure the success of the campaign, Godiva plans to monitor PR and media/broadcast coverage of the convoy as well as the product itself. They will look at NY sales, website hits of their specifically designed website, and click throughs from the Godiva.com homepage to the new product section.

Not many small businesses can spend money to hire a double decker bus to act as convoy for target market and the media. However, product sampling is something that small businesses can employ. Maybe not send 5,000 samples to media and people in the park, but on a much smaller and intimate scale. It can help the small businesses get the needed feedback from its target audience. Sending some product samples to the media (and even bloggers) can be a very effective tool to market the new product as well.

But starting with the right product concept and how this concept can be packaged into a tagline that will resonate with the target market is very important. This will shape the copy that will be placed on your website. Website marketing is something that small businesses can do. But I urge you to study how Godiva is handling their online campaigns:

• Having a special site created to engage the target audience through the clever use of a survey -- the visitor gets a free sample, and the company gets more information about their target audience
• Putting a button of this new product on the homepage of their main Godiva.com website
• Using lush photography to showcase the products
• Providing option to see larger image of the product
• Cross selling of the products with their Other Options Available in each product presentation page

Like Godiva, it is important to have measures of success to determine how the new product is faring in the market, how people are reacting to it, and what is the most effective way of reaching the target audience.

The Perils of Cheating

A Yahoo Answers user has been emailing me for weeks asking about the contextual advertising program Google Adsense. We run Adsense here at PowerHomeBiz.com and it's an advertising program that has worked really, really well for us.

After several back and forth of emails where I explained to him how the program works and offered him tips on how he could earn more from the program, he finally said that he's been clicking on his own ads. Not just once or accidentally, but every day. In fact, he even goes to various cyber cafes in his city just to click on his own ads. He's got a new website -- a site that at first glance has no value added and created merely to earn from Adsense. No wonder he complains that his site does not get any traffic.

I patiently explained to him that he needs to stop as Google will eventually catch his cheating ways. He persisted, even arguing that he goes to several cyber cafes, not just one per day, so the IP address changes.

This morning, he emailed me saying that Google kicked him out of Adsense because of invalid clicks, and that I was right all along. I couldn't pass up the chance to say "I told you so."

I can understand how the prospect of earning money simply by clicking on own ads can push a publisher to the "dark side" and click on their ads themselves. There's the lure of easy money. Or merely to check whether the program can indeed earn money for the publisher. Just monitoring the types of questions in Yahoo Answers regarding Adsense shows that many are clicking on their own ads.

However, be prepared for payback time. In Adsense case, the dreaded "you've been booted" from the program email. The main responsibility of advertising programs is to their cash cow -- the advertiser. And they need to protect the integrity of their program, part of which is to ensure that publishers are not generating invalid clicks for the purpose of inflating their earnings.

I told this Yahoo Answers user to forget about Adsense, and simply apply to other programs. But always to remember the lesson from Adsense -- that he can get kicked out if he cheats again.