| Business
Opportunities Weblog Network |
- Introduction The Business Opportunities Weblog Network currently
consists of six blogs: Dane Carlson’s Business Opportunities Weblog Business
Opportunities Weblog en Español MLM Business Opportunities Blog Work at Home
Businesss Opportunities Business Opportunities Brasil and the under
construction Ask the Business Opportunities Blog This is the official blog of
the network.
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| Business
Opportunities Weblog |
- Happy Healthy Meals Trendwatching.com: As part of the
never-ending health trend and obesity obsession, school lunches are a hot topic
across the world. Two Dutch entrepreneurs came up with their own solution to
the lunch challenge (adding in a bit of convenience as well): Lunch4Kids.
Packaged like a McDonald’s Happy Meal, each lunchbox contains sandwiches, a
drink (milk [...] A League of Her Own MyBusinessMag.com: Paula Duffy teaches women
how to score. Well, how to keep score. As the creator of Incidental Contact,
Duffy offers seminars on football, basketball and baseball for
sports-challenged females, whether they’re moms, single women, sports widows or
businesswomen hoping to level the playing field with male colleagues. The
inspiration for the business came from a trip [...] Couple-Surfing: ‘Love Me, Love My Blog’ CNN.com: A man and a
woman sit side by side in a New York cafe, drinking beer, sharing food, and not
saying a word. Instead of chatting, they are typing on a laptop about the tunes
played through a shared iPod. As the Internet evolves — with its Webcams,
iPods, Instant Messaging, broadband, Wi-Fi and blogs — [...] Google, Yahoo! Agree To Independent Click Fraud Audits
TechCrunch: As the outcry by advertisers grows louder than the assurances from
Google that click fraud is not a substantial problem, representatives from
Google and Yahoo! publicly announced that they would accept independent click
fraud audits. Of course the true independence of any audit will need to be
closely watched. The pay per click advertising business [...] After-Prom Business Generates $1 Million A Year Unusual
Businesses Ideas That Work: Remember the prom? The limos, the dresses, the late
nights spent wandering around town looking for after-prom fun? Yoel Silber has
found a way to cash in on that market with Promtix, his one-stop shop for
after-prom adventures. He sells tickets to cruises, comedy and dance clubs.
Says Silber, “In New [...] 30 Second/One Question Interview with Michael Cage My next
participant in the 30 Second/One Question Interview series is Michael Cage. I
asked: One man’s trash, is another man’s treasure. What product or service have
you imagined would be a good business opportunity, but you’ve rejected because
it’s too off the wall? Michael responded on his blog: I have to admit, I had
some trouble [...] This Is Not Your Father’s Garage Sale Startup Journal: This year
Americans will again set up garage sales and their close cousins, stoop sales,
yard sales and tag sales. Gretchen Herrmann, an economic anthropologist who has
studied garage sales for decades, estimates that $4 billion is exchanged in
nine to 10 million garage sales each year. But in many parts of the country,
what [...] Companies Offering Telework For People with Disabilities Wall
Street Journal Online: Call-center outsourcing firms will employ agents with
disabilities. At least two other concerns, however, specifically target the
disabled. National Telecommuting Institute, a Boston nonprofit, has about 250
agents working from home at any given time, and a total pool of about 1,000
agents, says M.J. Willard, executive director. Applicants are asked [...] Motivated To Start A Business? Startup Journal: Successful
entrepreneurs are calculated risk takers. They know that building a
long-lasting company will be difficult. However, they also know the task is
likely to be achievable if they put their energy and intelligence behind it.
Setting difficult yet attainable goals is a hallmark of achievers, according to
research by the late Harvard University psychology [...] Make Millions From Happy Campers Unusual Businesses Ideas That
Work: Happy memories from his childhood days at summer camp inspired Ari
Ackerman to come up with the idea for Bunk1.com. He originally wrote the
business plan for the company for his MBA training, but it seemed like too good
an idea to pass up. His initial concept was to provide a Web [...] Private Yapping Booth Springwise.com: Here’s a smart idea that
could be turned into a global cottage industry: sound resistant cell phone
booths. The Cell Zone, produced by Salemi Industries, can be placed in
nightclubs, restaurants, libraries, on airports, train stations, at concerts,
and all other places where a bit of peace and quiet is often hard to get.
Booths [...] 10 Steps Every Entrepreneur Must Do When Starting A New Venture
Rhonda Abrams: So, you’ve decided to start a business. What do you do first?
What next? What do you have to do right away and what can you delay? Here are
10 must-dos: 1. Talk to an attorney and/or accountant. Create a simple standard
contract or agreement you can use. It’s also a good idea to [...] How To Sell Without Actually Sounding Like A Salesperson Ed Golad
at adotas: The best salespeople know that selling comes down to relationship
building, and doing it very quickly. And since just about everybody resents
being in a relationship that feels disingenuous, it’s crucial that you do NOT
sound like stereotypical salesperson. Here are several ways to help you avoid
coming off like a used car [...] How to Get a Gig As a Mystery Shopper Startup Journal: When Kim
Keenum, 39, walks through the parking lot of a supermarket in Carol Stream,
Ill., other customers may be searching for their lists, but she’s counting
abandoned carts and looking for trash. “See that crushed beverage cup?” she
says. “There’s no liquid next to it, so it’s been there for a while.” Mrs.
Keenum [...] Carnival of the Capitalists This week’s Carnival of the
Capitalists is up at The Business of America is Business. A Domain By Any Other Name CNNMoney.com: These days, you really
can’t start a small business without getting on the Web, but it’s also never
been harder to score a snappy URL. There’s reason to worry about a shortage of
marketable domain names. To date, more than 70 million domain names have been
purchased, and most - if not all - dictionary-word domain [...] New Twist To The ‘Mom And Pop’ CNNMoney.com: The notion of a
typical “mom and pop” business is getting a makeover. Yesterday’s image of a
family-run corner store is giving way to nail salons, Internet-based auction
sites and even motorcycle dealerships, according to the Census Bureau survey of
small businesses run by one or more people that range from home-based firms to
corner stores. The [...] Business Fills An Itty-Bitty Niche St. Petersburg Times: Last
December, Cecilia Sayre went to a shower for a single mom who had recently
adopted a child from China. Though she wanted to find a gift that held personal
meaning and cultural relevance, she was stymied by the lack of selection.
“Though Chinese pajamas are gorgeous, a person only wants so many,” she said.
What [...] Scan Photo Albums onto DVD Craigslist: An entreprenuer in Texas is
offering to scan family photo albums and place them on a DVD for safe keeping.
He offers to organize the photos according to date or subject matter and only
charges 25 cents per photo. Any one with a scanner and a computer with a CD or
DVD burner [...] Carnival of Personal Finance This week’s Carnival of Personal
Finance is up at Get Rich Slowly. Carnival of Business This week’s Carnival of Business is up at
Consumerism Commentary. Making Dough Selling to Fratboys Unusual Businesses Ideas That
Work:: Reading a business magazine in the doctor’s office inspired Joseph
Tantillo to try his hand at online retailing. At the time, he and his wife were
expecting their first child and wanted to work from home. An article about
starting an online store jumped out at him, he recalls—and, as a [...] What Every First Time Inventor Must Know Inventors’ Digest: In
honor of August being National Inventors’ Month, Inventors’ Digest magazine
will unveil a compilation of its best and brightest articles from the past two
decades, providing the first downloadable volume free of charge now and
throughout August, to help novice inventors move from idea to product
development success. The 20 volume series contains [...] Entrepreneurship in Europe Venture Blog: I spent last week in
Europe meeting with entrepreneurs in Amsterdam and Paris (it is a tough job but
someone has got to do it). I met with some very smart people who are working on
interesting projects. They are absolutely committed to their startups and are,
in varying degrees, having some success in [...]
- 30 Second/One Question Interview with David Tufte Stealing a
great idea from Darren, I’ve started a 30 Second/One Question Interview. My
first participant is David Tufte, a professor at Southern Utah University. I
asked: One man’s trash, is another man’s treasure. What product or service have
you imagined would be a good business opportunity, but you’ve rejected because
it’s too off [...]
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| Vic Johnson: Motivational Speaker
and Author |
- The vision of Jay Leno and
President Clinton The vision that you glorify in your mind, the
ideal that you enthrone in your heart - this you will build your life by; this
you will become. Everything happens for a
reason Whether you already believe that things happen for a
purpose, or are unsure about this notion, here are some points to consider to
get the maximum results from this principle. Persistence is a state of
mind When defeat overtakes a person, the easiest and most logical
thing to do is to QUIT. That is exactly what the majority of people do. Forget the mistakes Letting
our "sins and mistakes of yesterday" dominate our thinking today robs us of our
present joy and our future happiness. It causes us to miss the real opportunity
of TODAY! 3 days with 2 legends Are
you ready to accomplish more in the rest of this year than you have in the last
five years --- combined! Acres of Diamonds Only
by much searching and mining are gold and diamonds obtained, and a person can
find every truth connected with his being, if he will dig deep into the mine of
his soul. Plant corn and you get corn Good
thoughts and actions can never produce bad results; bad thoughts and actions
can never produce good results. This is but saying that nothing can come from
corn but corn, nothing from nettles but nettles. Cherish your vision “You’re
not on this Planet to live someone else’s dream.” The 52-word formula for
success We have the choice to live our life on purpose or without
a purpose. Life doesn't make the distinction, it simply rewards our choice.
- It’s Never Too Late Part 4 What
have you got planned for your next birthday?
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| Reverse Direct
Marketing - Search Engine Marketing Blog |
- Flavor
of the Week
Well, it’s more than just the week and more than one flavor
that is attracting attention from the media and marketers alike. The first is
mobile marketing. iCrossing unveiled its mCrossing mobile unit this week, an announcement that piqued the
interest of both advertising and wireless industry publications. We even got
some play in the mobile blogosphere!
As a digital marketing agency with strong roots in search, the search portion
of our mobile offering naturally was the focus of a lot of the inquiry, but the
bigger story is how mobile marketing stands to be a powerful tool for truly
connecting brands with their audiences. And as I said in an interview with ClickZ,
we want to make sure we are in a position to go to our clients and recommend
and then implement a full-fledged mobile solution without waiting for them to
come to us.
The second trend is word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing. The
acquisition of Ammo Marketing, a WOM marketing firm, by the Aegis Group’s
Isobar unit, attracted considerable attention from the press this week. And
let’s not forget that BuzzMetrics generated its fair share of…buzz last month,
first when it wooed away JupiterResearch analyst Gary Stein and then, not long
after, when the company merged with Intelliseek. Given the complexity of online
media and the speed at which opinions are disseminated, the interest in WOM is
not surprising. Marketers need to be able to track brand value and monitor
evolving marketplace perceptions.
These two growing trends – mobile and WOM marketing – have in common something
fundamental: they are the latest attempts to develop deeper relationships with
consumers. And there are increasing signs that mobile devices are a key
platform for WOM exchanges. That’s why it’s time to put money where the
word-of-mouth is.
Frost
& Sullivan Internet Marketing Strategies Interactive Symposium Wrap-Up
Last week I had the distinguished opportunity to be part of
a panel of search optimization experts at the Frost & Sullivan Internet
Marketing Strategies Interactive Symposium event in Phoenix, AZ. The session
topic covered when to use paid or organic (natural) search or both. It has
always been my belief that both paid and natural techniques should be used in
any website marketing campaign. Paid search offers speed to market and
distribution channels beyond the search properties. Natural optimization
provides long-lasting effects for the search rankings of a site (not to mention
the fact that many studies find it provides more traffic than paid campaigns).
I won't go into the arguments for both, but I was pleased
with the responses from the other members of the panel. The panel agreed, to
some extent, that there is a time and place for paid and organic campaigns, but
both should be considered for the job.
The end of the session opened the floor to questions from the audience. One
question posed asked about each panelist's favorite optimization technique. My
recommendation was two-fold. First, content: a website without content is no
help to natural or paid campaigns. Content that is targeted for search will aid
natural optimization, while well-written copy in a paid campaign can mean the
difference between your ad getting the click or your competitor’s. Second,
track both campaigns. If your current web analytics tool does not allow
tracking of paid campaigns, comparisons between natural and paid, conversion
tracking and the ability to use that information in your paid management
applications, then you need to look for a new tracking system. If you can’t
track the information, you can’t quantify the results, and if you can’t
quantify, you can’t realistically expect to manage or improve your campaign.
JJ
Record,
Watch, Repeat...Search
With all the talk about Super Bowl ads, the average sports
fan might be left wondering whether there's actually a football game to be
played on Sunday. But let's face facts: Super Bowl ads have become a form of
entertainment every much the equal of the game itself, and they attract viewers
with little or no interest in football who might turn their attention elsewhere
on game day.
Super Bowl advertisers, who are spending an estimated
$83,333 per second according to today's New York Times, are rushing to capitalize on the multimedia
frenzy surrounding their commercials. In an effort to extend the lifespan of
the spots, they are making the commercials available online, through
video-on-demand cable, on mobile networks, and, to cover all bases (and
devices), for download to video iPods. It's a good bet that the best
commercials will be replayed more often and by more people than the game
highlights themselves. True fans can replay the ads on multiple devices at the
same time, and some no doubt will.
By distributing the commercials across a range of channels both during and
after the game, marketers have shown that they understand the opportunity
before them to connect (and reconnect) with interested consumers. The next
question is: have they prepared for the flood of search traffic they should
expect from these interested consumers? Stay tuned for iCrossing's Super Bowl
search preparedness report to find out which companies reached the endzone.
And
Then There was One...
Blogs around the industry are aflutter with the news that
Yahoo! has, in the words of Bloomberg News writer Jonathan Thaw, "capitulated
to Google" in the quest for dominance in the increasingly competitive search
marketplace. Yahoo!'s CFO, Susan Decker, was quoted as saying: "It's not our
goal to be No. 1 in Internet search. We would be very happy to maintain our
market share."
On the face of it, this would appear to be a stunning
admission. But pry beneath the surface and you'll find little more than an
affirmation of Yahoo!'s long-in-the-works strategy to a) become both an
aggregator and owner/creator of content, and b) monetize its content through
search and usage fees. By contrast, Google, which has taken a sizable lead in
overall global search volume, appears content to be the king of aggregators
(not a bad thing by any means). I made similar distinctions between the two
companies' strategies in my latest iMedia Connection column.
Does this mean that advertisers should de-emphasize Yahoo! in favor of Google?
Not at all. Yahoo! still has a very sophisticated marketing platform, and the
key there is platform. What Yahoo! gives up in quantity, it may be able to make
up in terms of quality.
Mobile
Marketing Ready for a Breakout Year?
Another year has come and gone and once again, the big
breakout in mobile marketing has failed to materialize. In the interests of
full disclosure, I have to admit that in a report I wrote at the beginning of the year while I was still at eMarketer, I was among those who predicted that the big buzz around
mobile marketing would become more than just big buzz in the 2005-2006
timeframe. In my own defense, I did caution that a "hit or miss" environment
would prevail in this initial period and that some marketers might become
disenchanted with the medium before it grew to maturity at the end of the
decade.
At this point, with a new year stretching out before us, a
more circumspect approach seems destined to win out. In its predictions for
2006, wireless blog MobHappy, citing demographic shifts (among both consumers and
marketers) and fresh interest in mobile from mainstream agencies (as
traditional ad formats continue to wane in effectiveness), stressed that the
year ahead will see the beginning of the “sea change” but not an explosion in
mobile marketing.
Sounds reasonable. As brand advertisers look for new and improved ways to
engage customers and prospects, there will be renewed focus on creating
full-fledged mobile experiences that go well beyond condensing, converting and
repurposing existing content. Being able to reach customers (and, in turn,
enabling them to reach you) whenever and wherever they show interest entails
first building a mobile presence optimized specifically for mobile devices and
mobile search, then driving connections with those interested customers using a
full arsenal of mobile marketing campaign tools, from messaging to couponing to
multimedia integration, and finally quantifying the results and refining the
campaign based on insights gleaned from analytics. As cooler heads prevail in
2006, expect to see more emphasis on the create-connect-quantify-refine mobile
marketing model.
Search
Marketing and Christmas Commerce
As an ex-retail buyer, Black Friday, White Monday and the
Christmas shopping season brings back vivid retail memories. The Christmas of
‘87 still haunts me to this day. The Broadway Department Stores had just
introduced Black Christmas boxes. I was the poor guy behind the wrap desk
trying to convince the horrified pack of stressed shoppers that black Christmas
boxes were not the work of Satan.
As the Paid Search Director for iCrossing, I am often asked what elements are
needed for a search marketing campaign to be effective. My best answer remains
“the same things you need to do to be an effective merchant”. (This includes
offering more traditional Christmas Boxes or avoiding One Day Sales every day
of the week). The performance of a search marketing campaign is inherently
linked with the customer’s perception of the retailer itself. Successful
retailers are not only efficient in their operations but innovative in terms of
marketing and merchandising.
Paid Search marketing is such an innovation. By focusing marketing spend only
where the customer has already shown interest in the product or service - the
marketing process is inherently more efficient. (Reverse Direct Marketing)
Unfortunately a search campaign by itself is not going to make a retailer more
effective. Search campaigns add the most value when the following online
commerce fundamentals are being executed:
Commerce Model
Seems somewhat obvious - but a large number of online companies still subscribe
to the popular .com theory of losing a little on every sale but making it up on
volume. Today companies that are growing online – are making money online.
Unless you have a very healthy retention rate and LTV; paying 50 cents for a
customer that nets 10 cents is always going to be a losing proposition.
Brand Awareness
Brand has a huge effect on the effectiveness of a search campaign. A company
with a known brand is more likely to be clicked and is much more likely to get
the sale compared to a company with little or no brand awareness. Paid Search
can also be used to monitor the effects of marketing events.
Paid and Natural Search
There seems to be some confusion as to whether companies should budget money on
natural or paid search. The short answer is that any retailer who wants to
dominate online channel needs to be participating in both in a coordinated
fashion.
- Paid search allows for conversion testing to inform and improve the
effectiveness of a natural search build-out.
- Natural search is needed to allow visibility on expensive high volume terms
Used together companies can deliver a larger number of qualified customers to a
site or store.
Landing Page / Shopping Environment
Back in my retail days we spent a lot effort devising “race tracks” to best
guide our customers through the store and to the cash register. You can imagine
management’s horror when they scientifically tested traffic and found the vast
majority of our visitors were using the store as a cut through to the mall.
Many online stores are the same way. If the site does not do its job and
convert visitors to shoppers to buyers additional search traffic is not going
to lead to greater sales. Ideally all search traffic:
- Land on pages that are as relevant as possible to the search query
- Receives a consistent message on the search ad and the landing page
- Encourages the visitor towards taking action and making the purchase
Merchandising
Timing and speed to market is everything in retail. Had the Broadway brought
out black boxes in 1991 they would have been a big fashion hit instead of a
holiday nightmare. The difference between what works and what does not work can
just be a matter of seasonality.
Inventory
I wonder how many online retailers this year are paying for iPod terms when
they don’t have any inventory. Apple seems to be faring very well selling the
new units directly at the expense of its channel partners who are doing all the
promotion for them. The online retail market is even more fickle than the
offline one. If you don’t have what your customer is looking for the next shop
is just a click away.
CRM
Once you have paid for a new customer it is vital that you keep that customer
over the long run. It is obvious that a higher customer LTV leads to a higher
ROI on a search campaign. Yet many businesses do not have an effective
retention system in place - forcing them to repay for traffic that should
already be theirs.
Testing
One of the retail lessons I was taught back in the 80’s was “Test, Validate,
and Expand”. This is also the ideal mantra for search marketing. Companies that
thrive online are constantly testing new keywords creative’s, and landing
pages. Search is not just an effective form of marketing but a real time
marketing test environment that allows the marketer to see exactly what
messages the customer responds to.
Had there been an internet back in 1987-the Broadway could have tested customer
demand for black boxes through search ads...and avoided the mistake that ruined
my Christmas season.
And
the Winner is...Google!
Google appears to be the winner in the long-brewing contest
for a piece of AOL. In what can be seen in part as a very expensive customer
retention move, Google reportedly will pay $1 billion to get a 5% stake in AOL
and a guarantee of its biggest customer's continued business. While the deal
gives new meaning to the term "buying traffic," it also changes the game for
Microsoft, essentially complicating the software giant's attempt to break into
the top ranks of the paid search business. Although Google certainly would not
have wanted to lose AOL's business, and least of all to a competitor, MSN
needed the inventory far more than Google. By all signs, Microsoft has a good
product on its hands in adCenter; it just needs the inventory to compete with
its two major rivals.
As an aside, before the news of the AOL deal broke, I was
gearing up to post about Google Music, a quintessentially Google-ian approach
to the concept of the online music store -- really more of store window than an
actual store. It's not so much a function of name that tune, but definitely a
matter of "find that tune." Great service (and it is decidedly a service, not a
product, as Jupiter's Gary Stein noted this week) and a mark of what Google does best:
connecting searchers with the content they're seeking. But where's the product?
Relationships with online merchants are the source of monetization for now. The
only Google-ian hallmark that's missing is the familiar presence of highly
targeted music ads.
- A
Pressing Need for Search
This week I'm blogging from halfway around the world. I'm in
Geneva to chair a UN expert meeting on information and communication technology
(ICT) and tourism for development. That sounds like a mouthful, and in fact, it
is: a topic too vast to digest in just three days. And if it seems that I'm
headed off on a tangent that has little or nothing to do with search, fear not.
The theme of "winning connections" that I took up a little over a month ago provides
the crucial link.
Although the speaker lineup was quite diverse, comprising
representatives from industry, government agencies and non-governmental
institutions from both developed and developing countries, the conference
primarily was geared towards representatives of destination marketing
organizations (DMOs) from the so-called "least developed countries" (LDCs). The
goal was to share strategies, case studies and best practices that can help
DMOs in these countries adopt appropriate e-business practices and utilize ICT
to spur the growth of their tourism industries.
While the issue of technology implementation (and cost) was a recurrent topic,
many participants cited marketing and branding as points of concern,
particularly in terms of the Internet. To circle back to the question of
search, DMOs, tour operators and travel suppliers down to the smallest hotel or
restaurant are all about making winning connections. Establishing and marketing
a compelling brand, with the right message targeted at the right audience, lie
at the heart of what all of these members of the travel value chain can and
must do. And when the goal is to attract tourists coming from abroad, those
same tourists that start their travel planning with an online search, site
optimization and paid media campaigns become even more vital.
Application of ICT and search engine marketing techniques won't be a cure-all
for the tourism sector in developing countries, but when used effectively, they
can help to bring suppliers a littler closer to their desired customers.
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Additional website resources:
http://www.entrepreneur.com
http://www.hbwm.com
http://www.networkmarketingnews.com
http://www.onlinemlm.com
http://www.entrepreneur.com/bizoppzone/0,4997,,00.html
http://www.network-marketing-works.com
http://www.workathomeincome.com
http://www.fedbizopps.gov
http://www.sbomag.com
http://www.entrepreneur.com/bizoppzone/0,4997,,00.html
http://www.entrepreneur.com http://www.albertarose.org
http://www.homebusinessmag.com
http://www.work-at-home.org
http://www.incomeops.com
http://www.business-opportunities.biz
http://www.boconline.com
http://thelazyloadedguy.com
http://alexa.com
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