What Is Everyone Doing to get Noticed?

So, you want to get noticed do you?  Me too.  But what are we going to do?  Well, if I knew that, I wouldn't have a .blogspot in my URL title and I would be making a lot of money (or at least some money) from all this advice I give.

It is fun, and sometimes even inspiring, however, to check out what OTHERS are doing to get noticed.

Here is one way to get noticed:  Fill something with something else and then let it all spill out.  That is what NY City Harvest did.  I would like to see the ROI figures for this stunt.  Oh well, they got me to blog about it didn't they?

Another way to get noticed is to play with dolls.  Although this commercial reminds me of Asop's fables: Asop mocks people through the use of animal charicaters to avoid offending anyone.  Point Park University uses dolls.

Or you can do the classic, that is, give away stuff for free like Honda.

Finally, you can do something totally absurd that just gets people talking and hope that by somehow getting them talking they will want to buy your product.  I mean, hey, it worked for Skittles.  This is my favorite of their absurds, watch the others if you like this one, there are some really strange and hilarious commercials in this campaign.

Hope this gets your juices flowing so you can get NOTICED.  If not, oh well, at least you had a good laugh.  If not, oh well, at least, you, um... practiced reading and... watching.  Now go get noticed.

Social Networking is for FREAKS, right? Wrong.

I guess it depends on your definition of FREAK.

Possible assumptions:

So facebook is to middle school-ers today what AOL Instant Messenger was to middle school-ers 10 years ago.

Twitter is for following every detail of every portion of all of your favorite people... Ashton Cutcher is SO dreamy

YouTube is for watching boring and often inappropriate home videos.

Linked in is for... what is linked in for?






Maybe these assumptions are true.  Here is what I use these social media sites for (or what I could use them for)

When I post a link to my blog in my Facebook status and my wife does the same, our website visits triple that day.  Have a web business?  Draw attention to it.  Starting a promotion?  Let people know.

Twitter.com can be used for a lot more than obsessions with people that are famous.  Look how writer Ryan Penagos uses his twitter account to promote his business, Marvel.com.  If you have a following on Twitter you have instant access to a market that has already shown interest in what you have to say.  Man, marketing is easy.

Here is a great video from a company that knew how to use YouTube


Blendtec drove incredible amounts of business to themselves with these clever videos.  I mean, who doesn't want to watch an i-phone in the blender?

LinkedIn is possibly the easiest way for someone seeking employment to get their resume and more infront of a potential hirer.  Likewise, it makes the resume review process much more streamlined.  Additionally, there may not be a better site for finding connections in the workplace to try and land an internship, job, or interview.  Look into it.

Don't be a FREAK, make good use of social networking.

What to do with all that CASH?

You have a bank account for your personal finances.  You have another for your credit card.  You open another account with lower interest for your car loan.  You open another account because you had a great business idea.  You hear about a great deal for a gas card through your gas station, so you open another account.

So what are you gonna do?  You might not have a lot of cash, but the cash you do have is moving like crazy!  Here is a great way to keep that cash in place:

http://www.mint.com

You can enter all of your online banking information, including credit cards, loans, checking, savings, etc.  Mint will track all of your transactions, and even classify them for you (i.e., gas, food, clothes, etc.)

Not only can you keep track of where your money comes and goes, you can watch where you are spending all you money, and when you know where your biggest expenses are, you can focus on where to cut costs.

Now you have a great tool for managing all that cash of yours.

An Actual College Business: Overtime Sports Center

This is simply a copy of our marketing audit slideshow.  It is a pretty good snapshot of the business though.  Click on the pictures of the slides to make them bigger.

Don't Kill the Goose: Make Experience Not Money

There is a temptation in us college students to go after the goose and neglect the golden eggs. What the heck did I just say? What does a goose and some metallic eggs have to do with business or ventures or anything of the sort? Oh yeah, I have to start with the story before I go after the analogy:

Once upon a time...

no.

A long, long time ago...

still sounds stupid.

There once was a farmer...

that's better.

There once was a farmer that lived far away in the country with his old wife in his old cottage.  He owned two old dogs, one old cat, and a very old goose.  The whole old community of farmer, wife, and animals were poor and barely could afford to exist!

From this picture to the left, the farmer apparently wore a dress and had a really funky haircut.  Anyway...

He was surprised to find one day when he went out to check the eggs of the old goose, the goose had laid a golden egg.  He was sure that it couldn't be true, even though the egg was heavy and cold.  He took the egg to the local Gold Identification Office ('cuz they had those all over in those days), and indeed, the goose had laid a golden egg!

He was thrilled and told his old wife and she was thrilled and then they were all thrilled together.

The next day the farmer went to check the goose and it had again laid a golden egg.  He was surprised, although less than last time, and he snatched up the egg and went to market to sell it.

Well, long story short, the farmer kept getting golden eggs from the goose, a little less excited and more demanding each time until finally he and his wife decided they would go and get all of the golden eggs all at once.

When they gutted the goose, however, they found that it was the same on the inside as any other goose.  They had killed their source of golden eggs.  After the money they had amassed was spent (they hadn't studied the time value of money at college), they were as poor as they had ever been.

The end.

What a weird story, right?  What does this have to do with us?  The farmer killed his opportunity by going after the quick fix or the easiest route.  We do the same thing!

Lets play the "would you rather" game:

1.  Take an easy class in your area of interest where the professor doesn't take attendance and tests are a cinch
OR
2.  Take a tough class in your area of interest with hard tests, required attendance, and highly technical content?

1.  Work at McDonalds as a cashier for $17 an hour
OR
2.  Work for WalMart in corporate offices for free?

1.  Take an internship from you brother in-law running the copy machine at his print business for $3500 stipend
OR
2.  Take an internship from Intel helping manage accounts for free?

1.  Start a business selling hot dogs for $1200 a month
OR
2.  Start an internet business with increasing traffic for $100 a month?

I don't want to blabber.  I hope you get the point.  Don't kill the goose.  Don't go after the quick fix and waste your opportunities to build valuable experiences that will move you towards your goals.

My simple recipe for not killing the goose:  Find your passion + Make experiences in your passion + Use experiences to make better experiences = great professional life, healthy goose, many golden eggs.

DON'T KILL THE GOOSE BY WORKING FOR MONEY ONLY!

Get All Pumped Up n' Stuff

I am not into motivational stuff.  I think it is a bit fluffy.  I think it lacks information and exudes opinion.  But I also think it is very popular.  I think some people really like it.  That being the case, here are a couple of videos that aren't half bad and that will motivate us to be "true to ourselves" and all that jazz.

Guerilla Marketing: Doing more for less!

Here are some of the things we have been doing lately with the on campus Overtime Sports Center:

This is the "Chair Booth" as we like to call it.  What it is: a recliner on wheels with a side table built in.  The sign is a white board on one side, but soon it will look like a TV on the other.  Also coming soon, soda cans.

How we us it:  We "park" this bad boy in the middle of high traffic areas on campus and someone just sits and chills, drinks a soda, eats chips, and talks to people who laugh or look interested.  They are, of course, armed with flyers at all times.


Total cost of this bad boy?  Less than $20.00.  (Chair - $5 DI, wood and sign - free from friends, wheels - free from old shopping cart, brackets - $10.00, etc.)

And this is our sports anchor station.  the most expensive thing on this sucka was the laminated sign.  The actual table is built out of a simple wood frame, cardboard, a piece of plywood and cloth.  Total cost - $50, of which $25 was the sign.








Here are some other great examples of guerilla marketing:

Hopefully it is clear the value of guerilla marketing.  Essentially it is just using advertisements in different ways to attract attention.  I love the creativity and EFFECTIVENESS of this method of advertising.  Try your own, its fun!

My Current Venture: Overtime Sports Center

We have a fun commercial:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uAWm-ETGK4
We have a website:
http://www.overtimesportscenter.com



We have a facebook group:
Search for Overtime sports center . com.

I will talk about some cool gorilla marketing techniques later on.

Beginner Internet Marketing tools 101 - Part 3

Parts ONE and TWO have already been covered.  If you missed them, click the links in the text.  At this point, we can create a decent amateur internet business.  That is, you understand internet business, you can build a simple site, you can optimize that site, you can determine keywords and use them to structure your site, you can analyze the competition, and you can choose a reliable host for that site.  So your set right?  Wrong.  Well, partly wrong.  You could move forward, but you would be lacking some powerful tools.  Part 3 is going to serve you up those tools on a silver platter.

The Other Tools
Beginner Internet Tools 1-3 (development)
Beginner Internet Tools 4-6 (refinement)

Internet Tool Set # 7 (Marketing)
Pay per click AdWords Learning
Pay per click AdWords Help
Yahoo Search Marketing

Pay per click advertising for a website can be a great way to drive traffic to your site for cheap.  A lot depends on the keywords your site focuses on (read the guides in the links), but pay per click can be an inexpensive boost for site popularity.  As a website business owner, your initial main goal should be to get people to the site!

Internet Tool Set #8 (Search Engine Optimization)
SEOmoz Beginner's Guide to SEO
Simple BNET list
Finding Backlinks

Search engine optimization is the key to your website's long term success.  SEO is the art of optimizing your site for search engines, so they can easily read, report, and show your site.  After all, when people "google" your keywords you want them to see your site!  If you want to understand, I highly recommend the SEOmoz link.

Internet Tool Set #9 (Suppliers)
Alibaba - global trade.  Be CAREFUL
Small Volume
Global Sources

Your business will really take off as you cut costs by getting great suppliers.  You may have read my sad supplier story, and needless to say, BE CAREFUL!  That being said, a good supplier will make or break the business.

That concludes my Beginner Internet Marketing tools 101 course.  Ask yourself questions as you go through these tools, ask me those questions, and I will not know the answer (but I will find it).

Beginner Internet Marketing tools 101 - Part 2

Dum dum dee dum dee dum, DUUUM!!  PART 2.... HAS ARRIVED... ETC.!

Now that you have thoroughly studied up on part 1 of the Internet Marketing Beginner's Guide, you are ready for double barrels (or just some more information).  From part 1, we know about the inner workings of internet business, we can actually build a website, and we understand the principles of building a physical site both for appearance and code integrity.  Now lets dig a little deeper.  We'll get muddy n' stuff.

Internet Tool Set #4 (Determining Keywords):
SEObook's Tool
Google's Keyword Tool
Trellian Keyword Tool
Google Insights

It is important to understand the importance of important keywords.  That may sound redundant, but mostly I just said the same thing more than once.  Anyway, the fact remains that structuring your site with good keywords, understanding what keywords are valuable, and using those keywords to understand niche and competition are essential skills in internet business.

Internet Tool Set #5 (Finding Out the Competition):
Compete.com
Niche Watch
Google Traffic Estimator
SpyFu

Analyzing competition can give you valuable insights on how to optimize your own internet business.  These sights provide valuable resources, like determining who gets traffic for what keywords, how sites measure up to each other, and who has the top spots for your keywords.

Internet Tool Set #6 (Getting a Host for your Site):
Terms You Oughta Know
How to Choose a Host
Top 10 Web Hosts

You can't really build a successful web business without hosting your site "for real" (i.e., independent of other sites, getting that .blogspot out of your URL *cough cough*).  Hosting is generally pretty cheap and very valuable to your business.

If you have studied this guide, and the first guide, with your powers combined you are... Captain Internet!  But wait, don't celebrate yet.  There is still much to learn.  Part 3 is coming soon.

Go to Beginning Internet Marketing Tools Part 3 Now!

Beginner Internet Marketing tools 101 - Part 1

Okay, so you are young, poor, ambitious (but not too ambitious) and tech-savvy (but not too savvy).  Does this describe you?  Well even if it doesn't keep reading.

Ambitious (want to start a business), but not too ambitious (don't want to leave your home).  Solution:  Internet business!  Assuming you understand some internet and some business, I will provide 3 tried, tested, amazing, FREE internet business tools (or tool sets) and their breakdowns each day for the next week or so in this multi-part blog post.  But lets cut all the blah blah blah and get into the good stuff.  This week's tools are all related to getting started:

Internet Tool Set #1 (Internet Business Starting Info):
Start An Internet Biz in 10 Days
Dozens of Articles for Starting
How Creating an Online Biz Works
Entrepreneur.com's Online Biz Articles

If you read every article in these links (or that these links lead to), you would be busy for a week, and you would also be well versed in the language and methods of online business.  These are (for the most part) well written, well geared towards beginners, and up to date.

Internet Tool Set #2 (Easy Site Building):
Learn HTML
Weebly Drag and Drop
Wix Drag and Drop (flash)
Drupal Drag and Drop (Downloadable)

There are several tools here because each has its value and may appeal to different users.  For instance, if you are more interested in learning code, go to the "Learn HTML" link.  If you would like to slap up a website quickly but you want to maintain decent code, try Weebly.  If you want a lot more design freedom and don't care about code, try Wix.  If you want a downloadable editor, try Drupal.  They are all superb programs.

Internet Tool Set # 3 (Making a Quality Site):
Web Wiz Guide
8 Tips
Taming The Beast
17 Rules

This is a well rounded list of guides to making an appealing website, both with design and with appearance.  I found particularly helpful the "17 Rules" guide.  Reading up on these articles would definitely give you a well rounded feel for how to design a website.

Thanks for checking out this guide.  There will be more to follow including selected links hosting sites, international supplier sites, or competition information sites.

GO TO Beginner Internet Marketing Tools Part 2

GO TO Beginner Internet Marketing Tools Part 3

An Internet Business Gone Wrong

My internet business went terribly wrong. Shall I tell you the story? Yes. Shall I speak to you in old English? No. Sorry about the "shalls".

It was an unfortunate mix of Alibaba.com, a scam artist in India, some flash drives, and China. But I think I am getting a bit ahead of myself. Let me back up.

I had a business class where we had the great opportunity to learn how to and actually start up an internet business. I was so excited! I went into hyper-business-obsession mode (much to my wife's dismay) and researched all sorts of stuff. Wedding rings, photography, blogs, i-pods, services, flash drives... wait, stop right there. Flash drives. That was it.

I had seen flash drives for super cheap on alibaba, and decided to look into buying them. Let me make a short story long by telling you that I found a great supplier from India who had connections with a factory in China to sell me some fantastic 32GB Kingston flash drives for only $15 a drive! Too good to be true, right? Right.

I bought them. 100 of them. If you struggle with math that's $1500. Now that I made the short part of my story long, I will make the long part of my story short. They were fake. The guy in India with great connections in China was a scam. I never saw my money again. The flash drives were faulty. China was still China. To sum it up, it stunk.

Lesson Learned: Dudes (especially outside the country dudes) that claim to be selling something or doing something that just seems too good to be true are. There is a reason they call it "too good to be true", it is.

The good news is I bought a few real flash drives just to get the business really running, and the business failed for real. At least this time it was legitimate failure.