John Cow dot Com » Make Moooney Offline

Some Trusted Expert Stuff – Where Do We Go From Here?

Jason Katzenback — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:51:42 +0000

So you may have noticed that the Trusted Expert series has dropped off a bit…well, alright, it’s stopped completely. And that is completely my fault. We’re so close to the end (around 5-8 posts left…I think) but my motivation to get them done has just kind of disappeared.

And I even know what it’s happened. The rest of the posts that I has planned for the series all dealt with the maintenance of your site – the importance of testing, what to do, the importance of fresh content, etc. All of these things are very important to the continued success of your site, and in making sure that your customers continue to view you as a Trusted Expert. There’s just one problem, the thing that prevented me from getting the posts done and finishing the series:

It’s boring!!!

And isn’t that the way it always happens?

It’s easy to get motivated and excited in the beginning – coming up with your niche, developing buyer personas, getting content and building your customer base. But once you’re up and running, and you’ve achieved your initial goals, the work involved is not as exciting. And even worse, there’s no end in sight. Unlike getting up and running, it’s harder to have definite goals when it comes to maintenance. “Continuing to do well” just doesn’t have the same ring to it as “Get website running and turn a profit of X”.

This is a trap many people fall into. The site seems to be doing well, there’s lots of small tweaks you could make, but it’s time consuming and the results you get aren’t as dramatic as when you first started. This lulls a lot of people into a false sense of security, that they can let these small things go because the site is doing fine.

This is a slippery slope. Sure, you can let things slide for a little while, but little bit by little bit your site will suffer if you don’t do the required maintenance. And if you’ve achieved the goals you first set out for yourself, it’s time to set some new ones. Always be striving to improve your business – it’ll help keep you motivated and keep going, even when the tasks aren’t as much fun.

So, it’s a new year, and it’s a time of renewed motivation. So I’m becoming accountable to you all here, that I will finish all the nitty gritty details of testing and maintenance and how it relates to being a Trusted Expert. Just because it’s not flashy and fun doesn’t mean that it’s not just as important to the success of your website as all of the setup was.

So be looking for the continuation of the Trusted Expert series every week until…well, until it’s done.

Click here for the list of previous Trusted Expert posts.

Boost your Online Business Offline

Jason Katzenback — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 15:35:38 +0000

It’s easy to get caught up in the tidal wave of Internet Marketing. You can spend hundreds, if not thousands of dollars promoting your little online site, only to get a relatively low return on your investment. Or, it may be that you’re in a terribly competitive market, and getting your piece of the online marketplace is like pulling teeth.

It might not occur to you naturally, but some of the best ways to promote your online business are actually through offline means. You see, once you hit the online marketing realm, you’re competing with every other online business in your niche. In the offline marketing realm, however, the competition tends to be much less severe.

Here are three ways you might try promoting your online business offline:

Take out an ad. When eHarmony entered the online matchmaking world, the market was already pretty saturated. Rather than rely on AdWords campaigns or affiliate marketing, eHarmony took their message directly to consumers. They saturated both radio and television airwaves with advertisements, and it paid off. While your small business isn’t in a position to create a national campaign on that scale, you can take an ad out in your local paper or on your local radio station.

Network. Before there was online social networking, there was offline social networking. Make sure your friends and family know about your online business. Be involved in your community, whether it’s through a local business group or civic organization. Sponsor a tee-ball team. Think about some of the businesses and groups in your area, and see if you can come up with a mutually beneficial arrangement. Perhaps you can help promote them online while they help promote you online.

Use traditional sales techniques. Whether it’s direct mail or cold sales calls, the tools of the traditional salesperson can help boost your online business offline. Take a course on sales and marketing at your local community college, or immerse yourself in the writings of offline sales and marketing gurus.

Not every niche can benefit from all of these techniques, but most will.

Off-Line Marketing Techniques for your Online Business

Jason Katzenback — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 16:39:48 +0000

When it comes to promoting your blog, things like social media, comment marketing or article marketing naturally come to mind. While these are tried and true ways to promote an online business, you may not have considered the fact that off-line marketing can often be as effective, if not more effective, than on-line marketing.

Why off-line marketing is important

Why is that? Why does off-line marketing often have a bigger impact on your online business? There are several reasons:

Off-line marketing is portable. If you run a small ad in a weekly flyer, a reader can rip the ad out and take it with him. A banner ad on a website is there only while the reader is on the site the ad is located.

Off-line marketing is personal. Personal marketing techniques – from passing out business cards to putting up a flyer at the library – tend to connect with people on a different level than online marketing techniques. In the offline world, people know there’s a real individual behind that business card. Online, there’s just a computer.

Off-line marketing is proven. We’re just beginning to scratch the surface of the marketing potential on the Internet. In the long term, it’s likely that most marketing efforts will include, if not exclusively, Internet efforts. Still, off-line techniques have been studied, in some cases, for decades. We know what works off-line, and we know what doesn’t.

Getting started

There are colleges and business schools that offer four year degrees in marketing. I can’t give you all of the advice those programs could offer here on my little blog. I can, however, suggest some basic ways you can get started in your off-line marketing efforts:
Business cards. This is the easiest way to recruit visitors to your website off-line. Hand out business cards everywhere – on the bus, at the diner, even in your kids’ school on parents’ night.

Community news. Most newspapers and public television stations offer free “community news” announcements. Create a special offer or even host an event to tell people about your business.

Networking. I’m not talking Facebook or Twitter here, I’m talking about old-school networking. Connect with your friends, co-workers and former employers. Give them the scoop on what you’re up to with your business, and recruit them as word-of-mouth marketers.

No, you won’t get as much traffic from off-line marketing, but the traffic you do get is more likely to be ready to convert.

Making Money Online is like a clogged toilet

Jason Katzenback — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 20:52:53 +0000

Just hear me out

I bet you’re wondering what could possibly be going through my mind after reading that title. This post is not intended to discourage anyone from pursuing their dreams of being the next big thing on the Internet, and making a nice profit from it.

The point I want to make with this post is that the Making Money Online niche is saturated. So much so, it is like a clogged toilet. The same information and advice on how to make it rich, although it may be good, keeps circling the Internet toilet bowl.

I follow several MMO blogs and well over half the posts from those blogs are just re-packaged versions of the same stuff we always hear about. 10 ways to increase your blogs traffic. 7 ways to get more RSS subscribers, The top 5 ways to monetize your blog, etc, etc.

Now this information is, usually, very good and true but I probably have 4 or 5 different variations already bookmarked. So why is all this content being rehashed over and over?

Good advice is to blame

I have a couple of theories. First off it may be just a symptom of people actually following that advice. What? Yes, we’ve all been told at one point or another, likely repeatedly, that guest blogging is a great way to increase exposure to your site.

This is absolutely true. In fact, if it weren’t I doubt I would have written this guest post, sorry Cow.

The problem is everyone and their dog is trying their hand at guest posting and unless the blog owner uses some editorial integrity when evaluating guest posts we end up with a clogged toilet with the same information floating around and around. This is true of any niche not just MMO but it seems to be more obvious, to me, in the MMO niche.

Own your niche

Another possible problem is people trying to write about something they know very little about or are not interested in. They see a particular subject is popular and doing well as far as income potential and they start reading various blogs from that niche. Next thing you know they are parroting the blogs they read and not adding much value to the niche as a whole. You need to be passionate about your niche.

I can confidently say John Cow is NOT one of those bloggers. I am continually entertained reading the latest from the Cow like the recent mess Graham finds himself in. I enjoy reading the guest posts here too because I never have to worry about rubbish posts getting through. The Cow has higher standards then that.

What can you do about it?

My final thought is that most bloggers just don’t care about the first two points I mentioned. They are in it 100% for the money, it is the MMO niche after all. For me this is not a good excuse. You can make money in any niche if you are adding value to it. Start caring about your content and your readers.

Making a quick buck is all fine and dandy but start focusing on the long term. The rewards will be greater and you will truly be a value to your chosen niche at the same time.

If you enjoyed this post take a gander over at my web development and SEO blog.

The $500,00 McDonald’s Meal

Jason Katzenback — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 21:14:31 +0000

And we didn’t even get a happy meal toy with it! Let’s see if Mr Chow can beat that with his $60 hamburgers!
So yeah, we didn’t really pay $500 for the quarter pounder with cheese, fries and coke, but here’s what happened:
We woke up this morning, like we do every morning, and decided we’d go into town to do some window shopping since it was a nice day and we didn’t want to get hooked playing Halo 3 for another seven hours straight like yesterday!

Too bad we passed the Apple store because now we have to type this post on our new 24′ iMac! Yes, we finally decided we should get it after having thought about it for a couple of months now. The fact that everyone that buys from this week onwards gets a coupon to download Leopard for free when it comes out in a couple of weeks was enough to get rid of our last excuses not to buy.

So, in the first Apple store we asked if they had the 24′ iMac in stock. Unfortunately they didn’t and we told them that we’d go check out the other shops and if it was possible for us to buy the model they had on display if there was no other option. The girl that helped us said she had to ask the manager and so she did. Three minutes later she came back with a smile on her face, telling us that she was just told that they actually did have one in stock after all! It was ordered by someone but the order was canceled last minute or something. Whatever it was, they had one and we were gonna buy it.

So here’s weird thing number 1:

She scanned the box and it came up with a price of $2,299.00 which is what you pay for the top model. Our model is $1,799.00 and not a penny more since we feel the minimum upgraded can’t justify the extra $500. Anyway, the girl called one of her colleagues, telling them this was the box with “the weird bar code” that displayed the wrong price and that she needed to change it in the system. We were thinking that this was probably the iMac extreme but that the staff would have checked this so we let them do their thing. As long as we could take it home.

Now, here’s where we could have made $500.

We didn’t have any lunch yet so we asked the girl if she could keep on to the box for an hour so we could go eat something without having to carry it around. No problem, we could leave it there and pick it up whenever we would be ready. Since McDonald’s was around the corner, and we really didn’t want to waste a whole hour eating when we could play with the new toy, we walked back into the shop after about 20 minutes — Guess who was standing next to an empty box, reinstalling and polishing the demo model? OOPS! Did we come back at a bad time?

Yes, they were giving the demo model a nice shine, clean drive and were timing to get it into our box before we were back — in an hour.

It turned out the box they sold us did contain the iMac extreme like we had thought when the jackpot price popped up. Both the girl and her manager went red in the face when we walked back into the shop to pick up the iMac we had paid for. Ya, so what are you gonna do in a situation like this? To be honest, we were quite amused with all the apologies and excuses that were made. Even though we felt cheated because of the way they were trying to get the demo model prepped. We had never agreed to buy that one, just asked if that would be a possibility if we couldn’t get another one anywhere else. We ended up with the demo model and a $100 discount. Not a problem really since there’s nothing wrong with the machine.

So what’s the lesson to be learned here? Assumption really is the mother of all fuck ups. Make sure you double check anything you do if it involves your money.

Become a Better Blogger With Free Goodies From Seth Godin, Aaron Wall and Yaro Starak!

Jason Katzenback — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 06:50:03 +0000

Hello boys and girls, we’ve managed to get our hooves on a couple of udderly fantastic prizes to give away to you from the masters of the blogosphere themselves! Without shame we approached Seth Godin, Aaron Wall and Yaro Starak to see if they were willing to part with something valuable that we could use as a contest prize. And so we’ve secured the following goodies for a couple of you to use in your quest to become a dot com moo-gul like us.

Mr Seth Godin was recently listed as number 11 in the top 50 Most Influential Bloggers and is the founder of Squidoo! Just to compare, the Big Beef himself barely made the list on the 48th spot!

He’s kindly offered us a copy of the NY Times bestseller, The Purple Cow and another copy of The Big Moo. Rather catchy titles if you ask us! We tried to get them signed but an award winning author like Seth has an agent who works for him. They shipped us the books. We’ll include a print of the email conversation if you’re looking for the books authenticity!

Next up is Mr Aaron Wall, a well known name in the business as he’s the author of the SEOBook, an excellent source that has helped thousands of bloggers and webmasters to maximize their earnings via SEO optimization techniques. Even the ProBlogger himself admits he’s got Aaron to thanks for thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars to his current earnings. Aaron is an authority in his field and many big names like Google’s Matt Cutts are most likely to be considered his personal friends.

He’s putting up a couple of free copies of the renowned SEOBook for some of our lucky readers. Let’s see if you can outdo the ProBlogger himself now that you’ve got the same tools to do the job. These aren’t hardcovers like Seth’s books, but instantly downloadable ebooks with over 320 pages of pure SEO gold!

Last but not least, Mr Yaro Starak from Entrepreneurs-journey.com and Blogmastermind.com. He’s only been on the blogging scene for 3 years and is currently making between $4000 and $6000 per month with just 2 hours per day spend on work! Don’t worry, he teaches anyone that want’s to achieve the same or even more in his blogmastermind blogging program. It’s not a free course but we managed to squeeze out a 3 month free membership to Yaro’s acclaimed blogging program!

Well now, here’s how to get your hands on one of these superhot goodies!

1 ticket if you leave a comment in this post.
1 ticket if you sign up for our daily full RSS feed. (Yes, we’ll give you a ticket if you’re already subscribed kids)
2 tickets if you leave a comment on another blog’s latest post about this contest
3 tickets if you blog about this contest.

Extra bonus prize! John Chow offered his free make money online ebook to everyone that didn’t win. Thanks John, very generous! And if you’re just looking to make some quick cash or a Nintendo Wii, join our $500 cash competition or compete to win the Wii this month!