Online Business Marketing Offline

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I’ve been researching possibilities for offline marketing of online business activities. When building and developing your online business, it’s too easy to get tunnel vision and, consequently, overlook key opportunities to promote your own products or services, and ones you’re marketing as an affiliate.

Some examples of the types of offline marketing to consider are:

• Web Ads
A small box ad in the national newspapers — OK, it costs a bit but, executed professionally, you can enjoy a substantial return on investment (ROI).

• Free A-List Advertising
Have you tried pursuing the ‘holy grail’ of free advertising? Write an article about your product or service, and submit it to a selection of hard print publications, for instance, Sunday newspaper supplements, niche-specific magazines, and the like.

Don’t be blatant — you need to write objectively, as though you’re reviewing the product or service. Of course, it’s the luck of the draw whether your article is printed, but if you’re one of the fortunate ones, the ROI on this method is nothing short of spectacular!

• Offline Affiliates
If you are marketing a unique product or service, say, something in the health and fitness market, you could negotiate with health shops and gyms, whereby they distribute flyers or literature (individually encoded for tracking affiliate sales) advertising your product or service and earn commission from each sale.

This is just a sample of offline marketing techniques that could leverage sales of your products and services. I’ll be presenting further ideas, and more in-depth details about using these strategies, so stay tuned!

Meanwhile, continue to work hard and smart, and enjoy your Internet Marketing adventure.

Reward Rebel

Entrecard, A Blogger’s Best Friend

Hats off to Entrecard! Graham Langdon and his team have consistently refused to sit on their laurels, always taking on board feedback from service users, and continually implementing improvements. Entrecard is evolving into a major blogging network and online community.

A few days ago, came the announcement of a new partnership between Entrecard and SezWho, the popular and well-established blog commenting platform.

Reward Rebel enjoys a pretty satisfactory level of commenting, and yet there’s already been a noticeable increase since SezWho became part of the Entrecard equation.

Evidently bloggers value comments - and Entrecard Credits - very highly! And so, as part of Reward Rebel’s forthcoming first birthday celebrations, I’m going to backtrack over the comments here, and rate as many as time permits.

In fact, talk about excellent timing! I had already started to showcase my favourite posts to Entrecard visitors, and you’re invited to participate in Reward Rebel’s birthday bash by taking a moment while you’re here to rate any post or comment that you’ve enjoyed. After all, what goes around, comes around, and your turn will come!

Since its inception, Entrecard has helped launch many blogs, and has been a good friend to Reward Rebel. Bringing SezWho onboard will undoubtedly provide the icing on the cake.

Happy blogging, and enjoy your internet marketing adventure.

Reward Rebel

Entrecard Russian Roulette

No doubt I’m shooting myself in the foot here, but during my absence from posting to Reward Rebel blog, I sporadically logged into Entrecard, and there was always a queue of advertisers waiting for approval to display their little promo box on my site.

Curiously, quite often the advertiser wouldn’t have dropped their card on my site on the day they submitted the request… or at all recently.

Firstly, I’d like to thank those advertisers for their loyalty.

Secondly, however, I have to express my concern about how many of the Entrecard community don’t appear to visit a website prior to submitting an advertising request.

In a sense, it is flattering to my blog that a repeat advertiser trusts the content-to-date to be enough, but if there hasn’t been any new content for weeks, why does anyone wish to advertise on a site that’s dormant?

Hey, I’m not biting the hand that feeds me…. er, I suppose I am, but that’s not the point. I’m inclined to infer from the lack of a card being dropped that the advertiser just couldn’t be assed!

Perhaps I’m going about this the wrong way…. “Hey, amigo, WAKE UP!”.

Why aren’t you checking out the websites where you advertise?

It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve advertised on a website, I check it out before submitting a further request. You shouldn’t take anything for granted.

This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed blogs that haven’t posted for months still continue to advertise on Entrecard… as though this is somehow the same thing as maintaining an online business.

Recently, I had to reject an ad request from a website that hadn’t posted fresh content since March! The disquieting aspect was that it was a website dealing with financial markets and their changeability. How can I justify displaying an ad encouraging my readership to visit a site that doesn’t offer anything new for three months… a quarter of a year!

Don’t be complacent, don’t be loyal for the sake of it. If you aren’t involved in internet marketing per se, and participate in Entrecard for the social aspects, you are fortunate that none of what I’ve said here really applies to you, because you have a different agenda.

But if you’re involved in internet marketing and/or blogging to be making money with an online business, it’s all the more important.

You need to constantly monitor where and with whom you advertise, because the internet changes so fast, you may get left behind!

I wish you enjoyable blogging and successful internet marketing!

Reward Rebel

Entrecard Jugglers

On occasion, an Entrecard-enabled website applies to advertise on Reward Rebel, and when I check it out, decide to submit my own ad request. Of course, the danger lies in the timing – I need to make certain that the ads don’t coincide and display on the same date! Ouch! How come I witness this undesirable synchronicity so frequently? I can’t figure out how or why it happens, when it’s avoidable.

The Entrecard system isn’t ideal for planning a consistent schedule of ads, but there is some guidance, and once an ad is approved, the date of display is advised. If a person monitors their advertising schedule, they’ll see there’s an overlap. Why do they allow it to proceed? Why not contact the blog, and cancel the ad? They can resubmit it — what’s the deal?

Is it simply because people don’t monitor their advertising schedules? Are there people who are just unaware that this is happening? It seems odd to me that a person would pay to advertise, and not keep an eye on developments.

Before I submit an ad, I usually check the estimated date of display, but last night I was so delighted at securing a spot on the highly popular website, Android’s Dungeon, that I slipped up!

Android’s Dungeon already had an ad scheduled on Reward Rebel, and I was aware its display date could be a close call, but went ahead all the same. I also sent a message explaining that we needed to avoid the ads coinciding on 26th March.

The need to avoid displaying an ad on a particular date has arisen on a number of occasions recently and, to my knowledge, there is no direct method to alter the scheduling of Entrecard ads. However, by manipulating the ‘Ad Queue’ and ‘Approvals’ we can exert a little bit of influence over scheduling – a teeny weeny little bit, but enough to avoid any wasted advertising!

When I need to manipulate the display date of an ad, I simply postpone its approval, and inform the advertiser that their ad has been approved in principle, and that I’ll advise the display date asap.

Unfortunately, I had to cancel the ad on Android’s Dungeon, but I sent a note expressing my apologies and regret, as well as my desire to advertise at a future date. A speedy response assured me that I was forgiven, and welcome to advertise another time.

Communications are so important, and good communications can be the difference between success and failure. I believe in reaching out, after all, people don’t bite (not over the internet, they don’t anyway)! There is an element online who use its automated functionality to avoid personal, individual communication. Big mistake.

But that’s a different topic, which I think I’ll leave for another article!

Reward Rebel

Advertising on Entrecard ~ A Call to Arms

Following on from my last post, ‘Online Business Advertising on Entrecard’, I’ve been researching online advertising in general, and I’m drafting a follow-up.

I need a favour of some of you.

I’d be really grateful to those Entrecarders who advertised on Reward Rebel during February or March to let me know the number of clicks generated by the ad, and how much was paid for it.

As well as the article about advertising on Entrecard, I’m considering placing a couple of independent advertising spots on Reward Rebel, and am trying to ascertain how much to charge.

The price of Entrecard credits on Ebay is in the region of $50 per 1,000 (oops) 10,000 or 50 cents per 100. Advertising on Reward Rebel with Entrecard costs around 400+ credits, so that’s equal to $2 per day… $60 per month. Surprised? Yeah, I was too.

Please help me get my head around it all!

You’re welcome to submit the advertising data by commenting here (with yummy CommentLuv) or by messaging me at Entrecard.

Many thanks to y’all, and have a stonkingly fab weekend.

Reward Rebel

Online Business Advertising On Entrecard

Making money online isn’t easy if you don’t have complete control over all the elements that comprise your online business.

Entrecard provides an excellent free service, which can really kick-start a new blog, and revitalise one that’s a bit wilted. Also, they listen to what their customers want from them and, for the most part, provide it. Entrecard has embarked upon an ongoing program of upgrades to the service and the website, and understandably is developing into a very successful online business… a real success story.

I haven’t advertised Reward Rebel on other websites, other than via Entrecard, but does anyone else find organising their Entrecard advertising as difficult as I do?

I try, really I do, but because of the way advertising scheduling is set up on Entrecard, I quite frequently find that I have too many ads being displayed one day, and not enough on another. Hopefully, every blog featured enjoys satisfactory returns from their advertisement, but some will be more satisfied than others.

Of course, I’d prefer not to dissuade prospective advertisers from promoting their website on Reward Rebel, so for absolute honesty, here’s a screenshot of the most recent incoming Entrecard dropping activity on Reward Rebel.

And a shot of Reward Rebel’s Alexa ranking statistics graph showing its rise in traffic over the past few months — currently, it ranks at 89,142, although the past week has averaged at 54,688, which is very encouraging.

I’m not so naive that I expect this level of traffic to continue, should I cease my activities on Entrecard, however, I am happy to have accumulated additional readers, as well as friends, whilst exploring Entrecard’s community.

Recently, a website with a very high profile on Entrecard placed an ad on Reward Rebel at a cost around 300 credits. When it had completed its scheduled run, the owner contacted me to express his delight at the 193 click thrus his site had received, and submitted a second ad at a cost of over 300 credits.

Can you guess what happened? Of course, you can. Yep, the second, more expensive, ad generated an ROI of only 30 hits! Why the huge disparity between the ROI on Ad 1 and Ad 2? Erratic scheduling of Reward Rebel’s own advertising, and too many disappointing returns.

When we submit an ad for approval, Entrecard provides a guide to how long it should be before it’s displayed. However, it’s rather a vague guide, because it doesn’t take into account how long it may be before the request is approved, or how many requests there may be awaiting approval.

How can Entrecard and its clients develop a system of scheduling advertisements that allows the advertiser to deploy them accurately?

I’m no whizz at figuring out this kind of logistical exercise, and so I don’t have a solution to offer, but I’m interested to hear your own experiences and ideas for improvement.

On the other hand, if I’m the only Entrecarder experiencing this advertising stats roller-coaster, perhaps you could let me know and I’ll shut up!

I’m in the process of contacting site owners who have recently advertised with me, to try to ascertain the true value of advertising on Reward Rebel. I’m considering adding a number of independent advertisement spots to the site, and need to gauge how much to charge.

Making money online wasn’t an original objective of this blog, however, it’s now enjoying enough traffic to warrant its inclusion as an earner in my online business empire-in-the-making!

When I have collected the data regarding Reward Rebel’s ROI, I’ll most likely be posting a follow-up on Entrecard Advertising.

In the meantime, how do you organise yours?

Reward Rebel

Flagrant Waste Of The Planet’s Resources

This little lot was delivered to me this morning, and at one time I’d have thought, “wow, what brilliantly tantalizing marketing”, but today I’m just furious.

To flagrantly waste the planet’s resources like this, just for a marketing ploy, should be criminalised. It highlights an aspect of internet marketing that is often overlooked – the savings on materials that would otherwise be used to notify prospective customers of new products and services via direct mailings.

Everything in the picture above served to advise me of the information on the business card, and the ‘fortune’ bears the website address being promoted, which is why I’ve blanked it out. That’s it.

This is a typical example of unethical marketing — the promoter has given no consideration to the wider impact of his actions, and this cannot be allowed to continue, if the planet is to survive.

All the package achieved is to convince me to unsubscribe from this particular marketer’s mailing list.

How do you feel about this type of marketing and its drain on the planet’s wealth?

Reward Rebel