The Nicher

Have you been dreaming of starting your own business? Or maybe you just want to win a prize with a value of $12,000?

Men With Pens has the answer for you. An answer, in the form of a contest. Yes. I know. Another contest post.

But seriously, if you’ve been dreaming of launching a business online- and not by bootstrapping- this is the contest to enter.

The prizes? Well, it’s too many for me to list, but you’ll basically be getting loads of business advice/courses/books/ etc, business cards, a professionally designed website, and more. A lot more.  It’s kind of a “wow” thing.

I’m not actually entering. You see, if I won, I’d have to do something with it. They’re pretty much HANDING you a business, and I’m more of the  stumble-along-blindly type. But YOU, you have the drive to make a business work. YOU would actually do something with this. So go enter the big business contest. And when you win and become filthy rich? Remember who told you about it.

I think we all know by now that I love holding contests. Why? Because people won’t buy my stuff on eBay, so I have to give it away. Um, I mean, because it gets me links and traffic. Right. That’s what I meant.

Now, when I sponsor a contest, I generally am offering only one prize that only one person will get. When Garry Conn and PepperJam host contests? They freaking pay you to participate.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Garry Conn, he’s sort of a stealth John Chow and Darren Rowse rolled into one. But his focus is on internet marketing, and can actually speak in terms that mere mortals can comprehend!  Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Chow and Rowse, but sometimes their tips are just waaay over my head.

Garry, however, is extremely patient, with a wonderful blogside manner. He not only takes the time to respond to each and every comment, but he solicits questions from those of us who are not blessed with the automatic money making gene. Plus, he’s positively rotten when given half a chance. Or less.

So why am I talking about Garry Conn and how he teaches you to make money online instead of the contest? Simple. The first contest was on his blog. It didn’t engender the same kind of excitement that everyone thought it would, so it’s been moved (sort of) to PepperJam’s blog.

If you don’t know what PepperJam is, you can Sign Up for Pepperjam Network and Get a $10 Sign On Bonus and look around, or ask me about it in the comments, and I’ll try to do up a proper post eventually.

The contest is this. In order to get people excited about their new PepperJam storebuilder, they’re PAYING YOU $10 to build a store with the storebuilder, or add a store to an existing website. Then, submit the link in the comments of the contest post, and email them as well. One entry only. The top prize? $1000 cash.

I’d get cracking though, because that $10 is only for the first 100 entries, and they’re already up to 37 entries.

If you haven’t signed up for PepperJam yet, I highly recommend it for the quality of their affiliate partners, ease of use, and all around niceness. The CEO is such a lovely fella that he offers personal suggestions in the comments of blogs, and Twitters. And, if you sign up through my link, I get $7.

And trust me, the storebuilder is so easy to use. The shop ends up looking a lot like Build A Niche Store as far as the product feeds go, but can be added just about anywhere. It’s even been optimized to be cut/paste into WordPress!

Still not convinced?

It took me less than 2 minutes to insert that little store in here. And with all the programs and product feeds available on the PepperJam Network? You could build an amazing store. Or mix and match on your BANS sites. Or just monetize the occasional blog post better. Or just be a geek like me and use it to go shopping yourself.

I will warn you, however, that the storebuilder can be a little glitchy from time to time. If you don’t see the product feed here, or actually at PJN, don’t worry- it will be back.  Sometimes it just displays the search box, but I’m sure they’re working on that.

I was over at Garry Conn’s blog, and he brought up an interesting way to make ninja affiliate sales. It’s an interesting post, about an interesting idea, but that’s not what this post is about.

This post, is about me. Or rather, how you can bump up my Squidoo earnings. And yes, I’m being cheeky.

You see, part of Garry’s post involved the use of Squidoo, or something like Squidoo. And, since I’m the unofficial Squidoo ninja master around these parts (yanno, on this blog), I’m taking advantage of the buzz.

If you join Squidoo through my affiliate link, I’ll get $5 when you earn your first $15. That $5 doesn’t come out of your earnings, it’s just a bonus that Squidoo will give to me.

It used to be that after you earned your first $15, both you and your referer would get $5, but that portion seems to have disappeared off the referal page. Which is a shame, but I can’t do anything about it.

The great thing about building lenses on Squidoo? You’re guaranteed to make money. You’re not guaranteed much, but Squidoo splits their profits 3 ways: 50% across the board to lensmasters (for a single lens, this could be a penny- my last month for about 50 lenses was only about $1.50), 5% to charity, and 45% to themselves. That’s not counting products that you sell on your lens, nor does it count any affiliate links you place on your lens.

Eventually I’ll get around to posting about all the reasons Squidoo is wonderful. With a few bad points (such as always being glitchy at 2am eastern when I’m trying to just finish the dang thing before bed!). But right now, go, join, make money, make me money. Thank you.

I really had intended to write up an intelligent, elegant, persuasive post. However, seasonal allergies, and my own lack of focus have decided against that.

Instead, I’m going to highlight a fellow blogger, talk a bit about my favorite charity, and the painless way that I’m assisting them. And guess what? It involves Squidoo! Big surprise….

Fellow blogger, aspiring webpreneur, UnderDogBlogger has written a wonderful post (and I’m not just saying that because I got linked up in it) on how he plans to give this season. He’s giving away all of his internet earnings for the months of October and November to charity.

Now, as he says, it’s not like John Chow money, but every bit helps- and when it’s all of your income for putting in all that hard work? It’s a pretty big deal. Anyone else remember the Bible story of the woman who gave her last coin, and how that was greater than the rich man giving a huge wad of dosh? I’m sure it wasn’t worded that way, but you get it.

As for me, I have a favorite charity. Since I don’t believe in “hand outs” exactly, I’m most supportive of micro-loan charities. I’m also hugely in favor of fair trade companies, but I haven’t figured out how to support them beyond buying the products.

My favorite micro-loan charity is the Grameen Foundation. The reason they’re my favorite, is because when the loans are paid back, and most of them are, the loan money is recycled back into the communities that they’re helping. So your $20 donation isn’t just $20- it’s $20, then $40, then $60, and so on. It keeps giving, and helping, and building.

I honestly believe that medium, small, micro, and indie businesses are the lifeblood of any economy, and support them as much as possible.

So what I’m doing to help, is for Christmas, instead of spending loads of credit on things people don’t want or need as gifts, I’m buying one or two smaller gifts that actually have some meaning. And I’m buying as many as possible from small, micro, and indie businesses as possible.

Gourmet tea for mom from a friend’s affiliate link, a stunning custom pen for bro from a wood pen craftsman, lovely soap and lip balm for sis-in-law and niece, and so on.

In addition to that, my Vegan Skincare lens on Etsy is donating 100% of my profit from it to the Grameen Foundation, and I’m in the process of changing all of my other hand crafted items lenses to a 50% donation.

And, in an act of uncharacteristic restraint, a feat never to be repeated, I did not include any affiliate links in this post, whatsoever! Be proud, be very proud. Because, there were a few that I could have included. Ahem.

The Squidtorials do take a lot of work, though, and I’ve been short on time. Plus, Squidoo has offered two other lens building choices that I need to analyze, and I didn’t make it into the Giant Squids, so I’m a bit bummed right now, and am rarely even checking my stats there.

I still believe that Squidoo is a powerful platform, and most people view it as a means to an end instead of the other way around, so I will continue the Squidtorials. Just, not for the next few days.

You may have noticed a new widget in my sidebar. I love this thing, and I think it’s absolute genius.

So what’s it all about? Funny that you should ask that. (Ok, so I couldn’t think of another way to lead in.)

That widget is from a company called YouData. They’re sort of a broker of advertising. But they’re not quite like all the other greedy bastards who broker ads. No. These guys, they actually have ideals. And ethics. *shudder*

You see, they don’t like cookies, tracking programs, etc. And apparently, they don’t like wasteful traffic either. Instead of paying a website for every click or sale that comes through their ads, an advertiser actually pays the consumer to view his or her ads.

Lemme ’splain. No, there is too much. I will sum up.

Consumer: After you sign up with YouData, and fill out your MeFile (with basic data like gender, age marital status, blah blah), your YouData account will match you with advertising suited to your demographic. You can download a widget to your desktop to view advertising, or log into your account at YouData.

First, matching ads will load up on the widget, and you can click to collect a few cents just because you saw the ads (usually about $0.05 per ad). Then, you can click individual ads which will take you to the actual website of the advertiser. These are usually worth around $0.15 each. I earned about $6 in my first week looking at ads when I wasn’t doing anything else, and it worked out to about $25 an hour. I also found some very cool websites and products that I’d never heard of before- because the ads were targeted to me.

Supposedly there are commercials as well, which are worth more. I haven’t seen any yet, but YouData is still young.

Advertisers: Instead of spending $0.25 a click or more when people may just be randomly clicking your ads, or clicking them to “tip” a blogger, you pay the consumer directly. But you get to choose the demographic, so your ads are targeted. Plus, you have a willing audience, and they’re more likely to stick around a little longer on your site than random clickers.

Affiliates: Sorry. YouData doesn’t believe in cookies or tracking programs, so they don’t offer an affiliate program, and it’s possible that you won’t be allowed to advertise affiliate sites (I haven’t asked, so don’t quote me on that). If you have an actual product to sell, you should be golden, as with having a site that happens to have affiliate products on it. But there’s still a great reason to get people to sign up… And that’s because of the benefit to bloggers.

Bloggers: You can have a widget installed on your blog. When a YouData member is on your blog, the widget will show that there are ads to be viewed. If they choose to view their ads on your blog, they can also choose to split the “profit” with you. It’s automatically set up to be 50/50, so if they forget to adjust before viewing ads, you’ll automatically receive 50% of the cost of the ad. It’s a more ethical way to tip, kind of fun, and actually circumvents the ad blindness problem.

They don’t have the widgets automized yet, but you can email YouData’s support, and they’ll set you up with one (I have a widget on 3 of my blogs).

You can also advertise your blog through YouData- one of the Wal-Mart Moms bloggers already is. I may for one of my planned blogs as well.

Downside: No affiliate program. The widget is occasionally glitchy. There’s still a limited number of consumers to reach this way since they have to actually sign up and fill out a profile to get ads. You must have a text capable cell phone to sign up, since they text your confirmation code (to prevent multiple signups).

Upside: Your ads are targeted. There is currently very little competition for your market’s attention. Your market’s attention is practically undivided since you’re paying them. Oh, and did I mention that they pay out via PayPal every Friday? On time? No banning you just as you’re about to reach payout because even 1 penny is considered payout. And the guy that runs it? Yeah, he’s a Disney fan. And YouData has a Twitter account for updates and service issues. And, if you don’t have text on your cell phone, send a message to support- they’re calling a friend of mine to give her the confirmation code. Now that’s service.

Any questions? I may not be able to answer them, but I’ll try!

To tell the truth, I’m a little surprised, but yes.

About two weeks ago, I tried an experiment in contests for links. I built a Squidoo lens on my favorite skincare products, emphasizing that they’re vegan friendly as that would give them more appeal to most people who would be attracted to the products anyway. Since I’d just found out about the FDA trying to pass legislation that would put most small cosmetic businesses out of business, I posted a video about the legislation and links to a quality post on the subject, as well as a petition against it.

Next, I tweeted the contest, posted it on most of my blogs/sites, and contacted the blogger who was hosting the video and petition, as well as the blogger/twitterer who I’d initially heard about it from. They in turn tweeted about the contest.

For entry, I required one link to EITHER my lens, the skincare product store, or the post with the video and petition. After all, I was trying to get the word out about the products and the petition as much as experimenting with the link backs.

I allowed links to be from blogs, Twitter, other social networks, StumbleUpon, Digg, etc on the theory that blogs are actually the least viral of the above. Most entrants actually linked to all three (store, lens, post), and some from several locations- just because they thought the products were cool, were het up (Pennsylvania Dutch term) about the FDA Globalization Act of 2008, because they liked me, or because they thought it was cool that all my proceeds from that lens were being donated to the Grameen Foundation (a very worthy charity that offers micro-loans to start ups in third world countries, and even the US).

The prize? 1 lip balm, and 1 soap from the seller I was promoting. And yes, I paid for it, even though I literally can not make money off of that lens as long as I’m donating the profits.  Totally worth it, however, as the total was under $10, and I didn’t have to schlep to the post office- simply ordered online and put in the winner’s address.

Despite the fact that there were only 5 entrants, the incoming links seem to be bearing fruit as the visitors continue to climb a week after the contest ended. The winner was so appreciative, that she immediately Stumbled the lens, and I’m receiving visits from that as well.

And I am ever so happy, because merely 2 weeks after publishing the lens, my Vegan Skincare Products lens is ranking at #31 in the Green category, and #5815 over all. This is the best that any lens of mine has ranked in a category- though I have to admit that the Green category has less competition than many others.

What worked? Having a handful of friendly peeps on Twitter who wanted the luxury of handmade soap and lip balm, and who are social networking addicts. Having the contest benefit someone who has a large following (the petition is hosted by a popular blog), and sending out the good karma (supporting small biz, donating to charity).

Obviously contest results will vary on a number of things. If you already have a strong following, you can pretty much offer anything and get a huge response, or you can interest a sponsor. If you don’t mind pimping yourself out, or if you have a circle of friends who like to promote, you can have all the social networks covered.

But if you only have a few Stumble happy friends? Yes, you can still use contests to your advantage. They may not be as effective, but they’re a great way to jumpstart a new project.

Now, to find the guy who makes the Lancaster County Towing Company t-shirts with the picture of a horse and buggy on the front… I’ve got a deal that he just can’t refuse.

Have you ever noticed that when people are particularly stressed, even minor ha-ha moments bloom into laugh your @$$ off funny?

Wall Street Melt Down = Marketing Humor

So, I’ve got a few links to share that have at least good sense information if nothing else, but are also very funny.

1.) Whore Presents: 6 domains that really should have passed the “don’t make a 5th grader laugh” test.  Seriously folks, just because you know what your domain says, don’t assume the rest of us do!

2.) A video on how to produce a viral commercial: Every Small Business Owner Must See This Immediately  (That means IMers too)

I’m a tea drinker who has recently discovered the joys of gourmet loose leaf tea.

My most recent order was a selection of oolong teas- one of which is Wu-Yi. Now, I’ve discovered that out of the three oolong teas that I’ve selected, I only considere the Wu-Yi to be so-so.  However, I did remember all those advertisements blasted across the web for Wu-Yi being some sort of weight loss wonder drink, so I thought I’d look up a little information on it before giving it the heave-ho.

I saw an ad promising diet reviews of the Wu-Yi tea. I followed the link to see what they had to say.

This is where I discovered the first problem. All this site had to offer was a short blurb about 5 different sources of Wu-Yi tea. They were reviewing the sites, not the tea or the diets. At first I thought this was a rather clever way to funnel traffic through their affiliate accounts, but when I went to choose one, there was no link! Not only that, but the linked website was the first listed.

Remember the article I mentioned a few posts ago? The one about how to get people to buy what you’re selling? The key to promotion is in mentioning what a product can do and then give the consumer the solution (usually being “click here, buy this”). By placing the linked website at the top/front of the list, I was convinced that it was the least worthy! I was already frustrated when I clicked through, and that’s not what you want your potential customer to be feeling. (By the way, it turned out to be a mini site/satellite site, which is a great idea, just poorly executed.)

At first, I was rather impressed with the website’s over all design. It was, after all, rather attractive and a good use of WordPress. The location of the articles was relatively good- requiring a bit of scrolling past sales pitches, but clear enough to not be obnoxious. To my freelance writer eye, the articles were also obviously rewritten PLR or possibly spinned articles (or budget original). They also lacked the most important thing- information.

If a consumer is taking the time to read your articles, they’re not going to be swayed by a sales pitch.  A little weak content is fine for SEO purposes, but if you’re going to build an all-out website? Make sure you have something good for the more discerning patron.

That, however, was not my biggest concern. What annoyed me the most, and what spurred on this post, were the pictures used.

Now, let me explain something. Weight Loss is not a niche, it’s a category. Men’s weight loss is a niche. Pet weight loss is a niche (and yes, pet weight can be a problem). Teen weight loss is a niche, and so on. But weight loss itself is too broad. If you’re focusing on something as broad as weight loss in general, you need to think about who your audience is or you’ll lose them to someone else who actually has focus.

And the biggest market for weight loss products? Women. The biggest market for natural/organic products? Women. (That was one of their selling points.) So tell me, why on God’s green earth, would you put a picture like this in front of an overweight woman who believes in natural products?

Yes, she’s slim and toned. Yes, most of us overweight women would like to look like her. But that look screams “I’m going to rip your shirt off and then dance naked until you jump me”, not “Look! I’m slim and toned, and I did it naturally!”. Remember: Fake tits and organic anything don’t mix.

Sex sells. But male oriented sex? Does not sell to women.

There were many more pictures like this, and some taut and toned men, which would be fine if the market and target audience been other than what it is. There were also more appropriate photos that actually indicated weight loss (thin women with measuring tapes, or holding their oversized pants away from the waist, and so on). There were also books by Oprah, Rachel Ray, and Kevin Trudeau, which tend to be very appealing to the target market.

We all say that content is king, and in many cases it’s true. But design can tell your customers more about who you are than your words can.  Makes sure that you’re appealing to the right audience, because otherwise? You’re just flushing sales down the proverbial toilet.

Ya Digg?

We all know that once you have a certain number of slaves… Um, I mean, loyal readers, that a contest can shoot your visibility through the roof by dint of all those followers talking about your contest on their own blogs and Twitter accounts. But can a little guy, say, someone with 10-100 page views a day do it? Would it be worth the cash spent?

We’re about to find out.

No- I’m not hosting a contest here on TheNicher.Com, but I AM hosting a contest in order to boost visibility.

I recently found out that the FDA is trying to shut down micro businesses in the skin care field by requiring insane registration fees (to the tune of up to $12,000 a year) and loads of paperwork. I’ve recently discovered a wonderful little shop on Etsy that sells the best dang lip balm and soap (the CranGrape lip balm totally smells and tastes just like CranGrape juice- just ask the husband). Do I want to see them shut down? Heck no! I’m afraid of them running out of my favorite flavors and scents!

So, in order to spread the word about both, I built a basic Squidoo lens with info on the products, and info on the FDA Globalization Act of 2008- and announced a contest. The rules are simply to post a link from virtually anywhere (no spamming allowed) to either the lens, her shop, or the petition against the Act, and then tell me that they’ve linked it.

The contest is barely over a week, which doesn’t give it much time to go viral, but it does keep the contest relevant (who knows how long the FDA thing will be alive?).

I’ll be posting messages similar to this on all of my blog accounts, and have already tweeted about it. I’ve notified the shop owner, the woman running the petition, and the Tweeter who I originally heard about this from.

At the time of announcing the contest there were zero visits/page views. When the contest is over, I’ll announce my stats, and we’ll see how the contest did! And just so that everyone knows that I really am being selfless here: I’m paying for the prize out of pocket AND all proceeds from that particular lens are being donated to the Grameen Foundation which offers micro loans to people in third world countries. Helping to stamp out poverty by teaching them how to fish so to speak (Remember the saying? Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for the rest of his life.).

Now, if the contest were to run longer, I’d be buying up advertising on several affordable blogs. But, alas, a week and a half is not long enough to go about making banners and finding people to host them.

Update: Would you look at that? I forgot to link to my vegan skin care contest!