While researching various channels and verticals for our sandboxsports.com theme, we’ve come across a number of creative adverts that are…. well let’s just say puzzling. It’s not too difficult to discover ads where there is an obvious disconnect between the creative imagery, cheeky copy and what it is that most advertisers’ hope to achieve with their marketing budget.

This is fine for the ad agencies and creative professionals who get paid to “create” but not so good for the paying customer who receives a disappointing consumer response in exchange for their valuable - and limited - advertising dollars. It’s also fine for Coke, Nike, Budweiser and so on because the big dollar outlay on repetitive advertising is almost exclusively geared to brand promotion and almost never an immediate call to action.

For small business it’s a mistake to follow this type of strategy. Some marketing experts suggest that as consumers, we are presented with over three thousand advertising messages in a typical day. Billboards, T.V. commercials, radio commercials, email marketing, banner ads, pop-ups, pop-unders, direct response mail at home and at work (aka junk mail), telemarketing, fax broadcasts - you get the idea. To break through and capture the attention of your target audience, your advertising message needs to interrupt and then it must engage the attention of your qualified prospects so that they’ll continue to search for more information.

No doubt you’re probably familiar with the adage that sex sells - right? It’s not true. Sex interrupts. If a sexy image captures your attention in an advertisement, then it has interrupted you, but it has not necessarily engaged you - encouraging you to learn more - leading you to a purchasing decision or some other immediate action such as opting in to a promotion with their name and email address.

This print ad for a sporting event is a pretty good example of a misguided advert. The image of the sexy female squash player does a decent enough job of interrupting. But then it fails to push the hot buttons of almost any potential spectator with the exception of the demographic that is male, twenty something, hormonally motivated and probably indifferent to the game of squash.

Think about it, if you are a heterosexual female, a homosexual male, a family, a legitimate squash fan, an elderly person, just about anyone else - are you really interested in going to a sporting event that is going to be packed with obnoxious, Neanderthal, male patrons? This advert would work better if it were promoting a brand of beer.

If female squash players are really that hot, how about an action shot that captures the essence of the game and presents an image of athleticism, skill, competitiveness and drama. If the athlete happens to be a babe (think Anna Kournikova, Chris Evert) and if she were attired in revealing athletic sportswear (think Anna Kournikova, Chris Evert), then the ad would still work for the Neanderthal but it would also appeal to a much broader market demographic. A whole market segment that just might be engaged enough to want to learn more - maybe even buy a ticket.

WHEW – building an on online affiliate store is a lot of work – that is if you go about it the right way. The key is research followed by more research and so on but at some point, the rubber needs to hit the road - or in our case - the boots need to hit the trail.

In the building of Sandboxspots.com, we’ve been doing our due diligence on keyword research and studying the terms and phrases that people are actually
searching for concerning sporting goods and sports apparel.

We’ve been using some pretty sophisticated keyword research tools that are beyond the scope of this post to expound on. In future posts we’ll be discussing what some of these metrics are that are driving our strategy.

The important note here is that we’re going where the market is vs. creating a business model and then trying to bring the market to us. We don’t have that type of advertising budget! Once the site is set up, we’ll collect opt-in data that we’ll eventually use to further satiate the appetite of our hungry, athletic customers. This is where our real marketing muscle will come into play.

For now, we’ve established a few themes that will be set up as directories on the new site and then further subdivided into appropriate categories. For example, one of our themes will be related to the hiking niche.

According to the Keyword Selector Tool at Overture, “hiking” specifically, is a keyword term that was searched for 21715 times last month alone. The rule of thumb is to triple that number of queries to account for the exact same keyword searches conducted on other search engines including Google and MSN.

We’re actually using software that gives us far more accurate data than this simple rule of thumb approach but nonetheless, the Overture approach provides us with a quick snap shot of a given niche and whether the niche warrants further investigative research.

We’re continuing to build out the themes that we’ll be getting started with at sandboxsports.com but we’ve already started the creation of content for sports that will be featured for certain. These will include hiking, golf, scuba diving, skiing, fishing as well as certain fitness themes such as yoga and massage.

We are also setting up our affiliate/merchant agreements with world class distributors through Commission Junction (and direct) and we will of course match our content to products that include powerhouse brand names such as Adidas, Oakley and North Face to name a few.

So these are some of the broad strokes of what we’ve been up to and the marketing trail we’re following. There are lots and lots of details to sort through and the possibilities are amazing. Stick with us, and we’ll keep you posted on the evolution of our little affiliate store that could.

The affiliate store system that we’ve posted about before is making the execution of these logistics manageable and achievable. There may still be some systems available so it’s worth opting in and vetting their sales letter if you haven’t already.
Happy marketing!

“We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is
always ripe to do right.”

Nelson Mandela

If what you know to be true today turns out not to be true tomorrow, when would you want to know about it?

For the world of big brands, this means that many strategies used in marketing and advertising that were effective in the past, are just not as valid anymore.

For the individual and the world of small business, this also means that many traditional business models that worked well in the past, are not the best means for capitalizing on new business opportunity today.

Chris Anderson’s “The Long Tail” is about abundance marketing and becoming a screaming business success in impossible places. There is a revolution afoot and “Brand You” can be a player – on your own terms – based on your own vision.

The faster you can harness the dynamic of exiting commerce and the emerging new world order - the faster you can get on track with your own business – and lifestyle – agenda. We’ll say it again, speed is the currency of business and success loves speed.

The “My Affiliate Store” business system has just opened it’s doors for sale today. They will only sell 1000 systems and 200 were sold pre launch. The system is being heavily marketed by some of the internets’ top affiliate marketers who have massive email lists. It may already be sold out!

We bought a system pre-launch.
Our new store is called; www.sandboxsports.com

We’ll be open for business in a month and we’ll let you watch how it progresses from here. We’ll reveal what we’re doing in terms of marketing, SEO, market research, content and copy etc.

Check it out! Could this be for you – or your business?
Coach speak: “suit up – your starting!” Well, you can at least get in the game!

Shopping online is big business and getting bigger and bigger by the internet nanosecond. Can you say Amazon or eBay?

Marketing experts agree that the majority of all consumer and B2B shopping will be transacted via the web within the next decade – or sooner. The breadth and depth of available - and potential - products and services is boundless. Online order fulfillment continues to get faster, safer and more convenient.

The long tail phenomenon exists because of the web. If you’ve dreamt of success as an online affiliate marketer you must check out this opportunity. Time is of the essence! No kidding – it’s a very limited offer!

We could say more but the information sales letter will answer your questions. This is what you should expect;
1. Click the text link which will take you to an affiliate landing page.
2. Opt in with your name and email address.
3. This will take you to the sales page.
4. Spend some time; check out the videos and beta sites that are featured.
5. Get informed and make a decision that’s right for you.

This is the consummate, irresistible offer with a no risk guarantee. Going through the process is worth the effort just so you can evaluate and learn from an extremely well executed marketing strategy. You are also learning about an empowering new business model.

Speed is the currency of business and success loves speed. To you, good luck – the gravy train is at the station - but there isn’t room for everyone!

So the creative juices have been flowing and you feel confident that you can develop your winning idea into a small fortune!

People have great ideas practically every day and dream about the possibilities that could earn them millions in royalties. So what separates those who earn money exploiting their ideas from those who’ll never get past ground zero?

One clear answer is research. One of the most accessible – and best – market research systems for aspiring entrepreneurs, small business marketers and even multinational corporations is the “How To Double Your Business Power Pack”.

It is a revealing, systematic approach to surveying a marketplace that has been distilled and refined from years of big budget, real world, applied research. The complete system is in a modular format and is the creation of renowned research psychologist, Dr. Glenn Livingston.

A second source of information that can help you transform a fledgling business idea into a viable product or service comes from an audio book by author Harvey Reese. “How to License Your Million Dollar Idea” provides both information and motivation that can help you turn your ideas into money.

This is a totally revised and updated version that is currently available from our friends at Acoustic Bookworm. It’s now a second edition that covers the recent changes in patent law and discusses how the Internet has impacted modern licensing.

Both of these recommendations bring to you the information and the ideas that have been employed by big budget, successful marketing endeavours across a wide variety of markets. The information can teach you how to make – or save – alot of money. Go ahead and unwrap that brilliant business idea! Happy marketing!

Chris Anderson’s best selling “The Long Tail” has become a highly influential and widely referenced business essay that theorises about the future of modern commerce. At its core, The Long Tail is a dissertation about the economics of abundance.

The book provides a description of a business paradigm that has begun to show the power of seemingly unlimited selection of products and services across a broad spectrum of consumer markets. It provides a perspective about what Anderson claims are “the new truths about what consumers want and how they want to get it.“

“In short, though we still obsess over hits, “Anderson writes, ” they are not quite the economic force they once were. Where are those fickle consumers going instead? No single place. They are scattered to the winds as markets fragment into a thousand niches.”

The book explores a variety of contemporary business examples that include movies, books, and music. Technology and the Internet have made possible an empowered, new world of business marketing in which the combined value of modest sellers and obscure titles equals the sales of the top hits. His examples reveal intriguing possibilities that can be applied to other business models.

In fact, the book may mean more to small business marketers who are nimble and faster to market than slower moving big business. Speed is after all, the currency of business and success loves speed.

Acoustic Bookworm has just released an inexpensive audio version of The Long Tail that you can download right now. Once you download your copy, you can listen to it as an mp3 or go ahead and burn a CD or DVD and listen to it in your car. Very cool!

Google has announced that it is rolling out a new beta test that it has labelled as “pay-per-action” advertising. Under the new program, businesses using Adwords advertising, will define specific actions that they are willing to pay for such as, a visitor opt-in, a certain page view or an actual sale. They also define the amount that they are willing to pay based on the type of action.

When the advertisers’ ad is clicked by a visitor, Google will in turn, only bill the advertiser if the predetermined action is completed. An advertiser needs to establish a conversion tracking system and then, create the adverts. Ads are then displayed on the so called publisher websites that comprise the Google content network. Publishers will also be introduced to new ad units under this new pay-per-action model that can be featured on their sites.

In a nut shell, with this new Google proposition, advertisers only pay for desired results. And content publishers determine whether to run a specific type of ad or group of ads on their websites. Initially, this pay-per-action beta test is only available to advertisers in the United States.

From a publisher’s perspective, there is some risk reversal in featuring the new cost-per-click ads. There is no guarantee that the publisher will receive any payment for a given ad that gets clicked by a visitor from their site. From the advertiser point of view, they will no longer be charged for ads that are ineffective and the annoying risk of click fraud is going to be significantly reduced.

Along side this pay-per-action news, Google has also revealed that it will be adding click-to-play video ads to their line-up of text, Flash and image ad formats all being supported currently by it’s content network. At launch, video ads will be available to AdWords advertisers in the US, Canada and Japan and progressing to other global regions eventually.

According to Googles’ “Inside Adwords”, users will have total control of the ad viewing experience;

“Finally, unlike some intrusive advertising, users will have complete control. When a page loads, only a static image will be visible; the video will not start playing until the user initiates it. He or she will be able to advance the video, pause it, adjust the volume or click through to the advertiser’s site,…

But, you may say, video is only for big branding oriented advertisers. We beg to differ. This feature makes video ads much more accessible to all advertisers. Now, an owner of a small bed & breakfast in Lake Tahoe can put a video tour of his beautiful chalet right next to an article that talks about skiing the epic slopes of Squaw Valley.”

We’re not sure what part of the world C. Brand lives in but they were nice enough to send us an email responding to one of our recent posts “Ask And Ye Shall Receive”. We responded to their email and then asked for permission to post it here. They agreed and here it is in full:

I just had a few thoughts about your March/ 13 news article that I was wondering about. First it’s a good article but do you consider it ethical for businesses and marketers to take advantage of a persons problems when you wrote; “Tapping into the level of frustration and difficulty that your customers and prospects are experiencing in a given market is their problem and your opportunity.”? To me, this sounds predatory and cold.

I was also wondering about Dr. Livingston’s market research example and why would he use such an obscure example such as guinea pigs (that has to be such a small niche market), compared to what people really search for on the internet such as business information, travel information, automobile news or even anything like fitness and health related news.

I would also like to read more information about Point Of Difference Benefits vs. Price of Entry Benefits. Can you email me some more information about theses concepts?
Thanks
C. Brand

Our response went something like this:

Good marketers – the best marketers – understand their markets intimately. They collect great data and they understand how to correctly interpret that data. Success comes from knowing that a penetrating insight into your market is prerequisite to an academic understanding about the tactics of marketing. But it’s more than a complex analysis of all available metrics.

Understanding the frustrations and the depth of frustration that your potential customers are experiencing in a given area is imperative. Listen to your customer, understand what their most pressing needs are, create a quality solution to those needs and bundle your solution in an irresistible offer. This is an ethical pursuit of a win/win relationship.

Without an adequate understanding of your customer, your approach is myopic – even blind - because you’re going to your market based on your business’s agenda and not your target customer’s. This approach relies on sales gimmicks, marketing hype, publicity stunts and various tactics that are geared at pushing product – and not necessarily solving problems.

Marketing a product without really knowing if it solves your customer’s problems can turn out to be a costly mistake for your business. Even if you know that you have a great product, your customer just may not want to buy – or worse, they buy and return for a refund. A great marketing strategy will always prevail over great marketing tactics and the best strategies begin with an intimate understanding of your target market.

So what about the guinea pig example?
Best to read our post: The Story of The Guinea Piggy Bank!

Concerning “Point Of Difference Benefits vs. Price of Entry Benefits,” the best thing to do is to learn about these concepts direct from the man who has provided approximately FOURTEEN MILLION DOLLARS in consulting services to a who’s who list of Fortune 500 companies that include:

A T & T, American Express, Astra Zeneca, Bausch & Lomb, Burger King, Chase, Citibank, Colgate-Palmolive, Grey Advtg, Hallmark, Hunt Wesson, J & J, JJill, Exxon, Flagship Banks, Ford Motor Company, General Mills, Gore, J Walter Thompson, Kodak, Kraft, Lipton, M & M/Mars, Master Card, Merck, Nextel, Novartis/Ciba, Ortho McNeil P & G, Pfizer, Pharmacia, Pillsbury, Roche, Sara Lee Unilever, Warner Lambert,

Just visit Real Marketing Muscle to get informed. It’s free to opt in and the information could be priceless to your business enterprise. Good Luck!

This is the true story by marketing psychologist, Dr. Glenn Livingston, about making money starting out with an information product on Guinea Pigs.

How I Fired All My Corporate Clients And Went From $ZERO To $28,462 per-month in PASSIVE INCOME - Starting With a $9.99 E-Book On Guinea Pigs!

Here’s the story!

The decision to move out of the corporate consulting sector was a radical career change for me. I fired all of my Fortune 500 clients with the intention of creating new businesses that would provide totally passive income … with no headaches, no client “emergencies”, no ridiculous work hours and no time away from my family.

But There Was One Major Problem!

I had a relatively crazy idea to re-engineer my market research methods (systems for which I’d already been paid millions by clients in the corporate sector) - to work in any area of business, including both established small businesses, and simple niche marketing on the internet. I had targeted the online media as a kind of latecomer to the e-book craze, … but I knew almost nothing about Internet marketing.

Now honestly, I was pretty scared, and I wasn’t sure if it was doable. After all, there’s a big difference in the advertising & distribution methods available to companies like American Express, Whirlpool, Nextel, Lipton and G.E., and those available to ‘the little guy’, - but I had to make this workable for EVERY business.

Well, what happened next was - quite frankly - stunning.

Here’s how it all went down. Much to my parent’s dismay (they had been SO happy to tell all their friends about “my son the doctor”), the first product that I selected for my new “online empire” was a $10 e-book about guinea pigs. No kidding! Don’t ask why – it’s a long story that goes back to my childhood. But it’s also the perfect example of just how powerful this system is.

You see, using just my research system and nothing else - no purchased opt-in lists, no backend products, no SEO, no affiliates and no JV deals - simply buying my own traffic, I was able to start banking $2,000 a month with my guinea pig book.

I quickly tested and duplicated this success in other markets, and within six months after launching my ‘piggy project’ – I had worked up to $6,300 a month in passive income.

It Gets Better

I went back and made some tweaks to this system, and was able to DOUBLE my business in approximately 6 months.

Six months later I DOUBLED IT AGAIN.

And what’s really interesting is that during this time, my web sites attracted a boatload of competitors – yet my numbers kept going up and up (I discovered that when you fully apply the system and make sure you’re really delivering what the market wants, you can make MORE money when you have more competition!)

And … something even more interesting … I’ve used this virtually fool-proof formula to launch site after site after site. Now to be honest, some of these sites are more successful than others. But to date, I’ve not lost ANY money when I followed the formula in full.

Not bad for a crazy idea, huh?

Well, that’s the story of how I first applied my system outside the ‘big brand’ world, and how I started refining it to get it to do what it does today. (I’ve become kind of obsessed with making it better every month!)

An important lesson from our last post, “Sneak Peak”, is that even major, global conglomerates, with massive marketing budgets, focus their strategies on geographic or regional target markets. This is a strategy that can be highly efficient and effective for small business marketing efforts.

Clearly, it depends on what type of product or service you are promoting and how you want to market or advertise your message. If you have a digital information product such as an e-book or an audio-book, the world may very well be your oyster but it still makes sense to focus your ad dollars regionally – just like Mazda does.

If you run a traditional bricks and mortar business or profession, you may only want to market locally. Two ways to approach your market are by geography and by customer category. For instance, a local Financial Advisor may have two or three different Chiropractors as clients. It would be prudent for the Financial Advisor to focus on marketing to all Chiropractors within their local area for several reasons. Social proof is one of the big ones.

The Advisor can get testimonials from their satisfied Chiropractor clients and include those testimonials as part of their outgoing marketing message. And the existing client Chiropractors can also become an excellent source of referrals or as centers of influence. The strategy is for the Advisor to target market both regionally and by customer category.

If you’re a small business selling an e-book on the other hand, Google Adwords can allow you to target your ads both geographically and by customer category as well. Your Adwords campaign can achieve a global reach but nonetheless, still be highly focused by a region or customer category that you hope to reach.

Google does an excellent job – and is getting progressively better – at matching your ads to appropriate, content rich, websites that will suit both your desired region and targeted customer category. Technology allowing even small business marketing campaigns to act like those of a global conglomerate.

Click on the posters above for a better look! This is a sneak peak of sorts. Our Mazda “marketing insider” sent us these posters with a bit of additional perspective and insight about the logistics that go into the actual production of a major ad campaign.

Whether your interests are those of a major ad agency executive, a marketing student or those of a small business marketing manager, it’s interesting to watch a new marketing campaign of a major global corporation unfold.

And while Mazda’s consumer reach is global, these advertisements are geographically targeted to a region - the European consumer. The lesson with small business marketing in mind is that, it can be a very effective use of your ad dollars - even corporations with massive marketing budgets - to market to a specific geographical region.

This concept, or strategy, is something that is very scalable for small business marketers and we’ll be adding some content on regional marketing for small business in our next post - so stayed tuned.

This is what our insider told us!

“Regarding the print work, I’m sending along two additional adverts for the “Desert Treasure” phase of the campaign. As of yet, they’ve only been published in the paper edition of a Swedish advertising magazine as the actual film is having the finishing touches made in post-production in London… So these adverts are still somewhat “exclusive”…

The photo-shoot itself happened alongside the film production in South Africa. Despite the fact that the films were being shot around-the-clock (“Desert Treasure” by day and “Casino” by night) the photo-team and film-team worked perfectly together and the entire project was as uneventful as a successful shoot should be…There are actually several additional versions of the “Casino” adverts, the differences being if the Mazda MX-5 is shot from the front or the back with the hardtop up or down… We’ve sent you the ones we like best…

The photographer was the same that we used for the “12 Second Thriller” posters; a German by the name of Peer Brecht. And all the “models” in the shoot were also the actors in the films. And the sets were the same too.”

Scroll down to our Zoom Zoom Grows Up post if you haven’t already and you can check out more of the new ads targeted at the European car buyer.

Small-business owners spend about $10,000 to start their companies, mostly out of their own pockets, study says. Many small-business owners started businesses with their own money, and with relatively small amounts, according to the Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index study. Small-business owners spend an average of $10,000 to start their businesses, the study said.

Seventy-three percent of business owners surveyed primarily funded their businesses with their own personal savings, while 37 percent obtained loans and lines of credit.

More than half of those surveyed, or 53 percent, indicated they would have had an easier time had more money been available at the outset. Yet just 31 percent of small-business owners surveyed started with business plans, the study found.

Forty-nine percent say they would have had an easier time had they asked for more advice from experienced business owners, while an additional 39 percent indicated a better understanding of financial management would have been an asset.

“The reality of owning a small business is both exciting and a bit scary,” Rebecca Macieira-Kaufmann, executive vice president and head of the Small Business Segment for Wells Fargo, said in a statement.

“The survey results provide us with real insight into what it takes to start and run a small business, and what many small business owners wish they had at the onset - more capital and more financial management education.”

The Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index surveyed approximately 600 small-business owners nationwide. Results were based on telephone interviews conducted May 22, 2006 through June 9, 2006. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Who wants a free pen with your company’s name on it? I don’t and I doubt many others do. I recently advised a small business that was charging customers $10.00 if they wanted to purchase a t-shirt with the business’s name on it to stop. Sure they sold shirts to about 10% of their members but the profit margin was only $4.00 per shirt.

Instead, I advised them that during the initial sign up for each new member the business owner provide a free t-shirt with the business’s name on it in exchange for filling out a short survey designed to categorize who were the business’s customer base. In order to get the t-shirt the customer would have to sign up for a minimum of 6 months. I did so because the business owner was cold calling new potential members out of the phone book and I felt this was Read the rest of this entry »

Whether you like it or not, you have to make alliances to truly market your business for free. Take for example the limousine business. Limousine companies can easily make alliances with retail stores that sell and rent tuxedos, wedding chapels, sports stadiums, and more.

The key to fusion marketing is finding out who your customers are and what else can be tied into their experience with your company. With the limousine example, your customer base might be shared with a non direct competitive industry such as the tuxedo rental shop down the street.

Free Memberships – To show you how fusion marketing can work for your business let me give an example of how it can work for anyone. A local Italian restaurant was striving for new customers. One of the business owners went down the street to a local salon to get her hair cut and gave the stylists free dinner for two coupons. Within days the restaurant was jam packed. Why? Because the stylists would chat up their Read the rest of this entry »