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><channel><title>Home with the Kids Blog &#187; marketing</title> <atom:link href="http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/tag/marketing/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" /><link>http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog</link> <description>Work at Home in Progress</description> <lastBuildDate>Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:28:07 +0000</lastBuildDate> <language>en</language> <sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod> <sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency> <generator>http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1</generator> <atom:link rel="hub" href="http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com"/><atom:link rel="hub" href="http://superfeedr.com/hubbub"/> <item><title>5 Tips to Sell More on Your Websites</title><link>http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2011/11/5-tips-to-sell-more-on-your-websites/</link> <comments>http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2011/11/5-tips-to-sell-more-on-your-websites/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Wed, 16 Nov 2011 16:00:34 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Stephanie</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Home Business]]></category> <category><![CDATA[marketing]]></category> <category><![CDATA[online selling]]></category> <category><![CDATA[sales tips]]></category> <category><![CDATA[sell more]]></category><guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/?p=3646</guid> <description><![CDATA[Online selling is very different from selling in person. You&#8217;re convincing someone to make the purchase on their own time. Bore them, fail to make the case, and they&#8217;re gone, off your site. You may be able to slow them down with a popup window, but you can&#8217;t stop them, and you don&#8217;t even know [...]
Related posts:<ol><li><a
href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2010/05/home-business-tips-from-a-school-fundraiser/' rel='bookmark' title='Home Business Tips from a School Fundraiser'>Home Business Tips from a School Fundraiser</a></li><li><a
href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2008/11/home-assembly-scams-sell-crafts/' rel='bookmark' title='Skip the at Home Assembly Scams &#8211; Sell Your Own Crafts!'>Skip the at Home Assembly Scams &#8211; Sell Your Own Crafts!</a></li><li><a
href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2009/06/create-sell-t-shirts-weekly-home-business-idea/' rel='bookmark' title='Create &amp; Sell T-Shirts &#8211; Weekly Home Business Idea'>Create &amp; Sell T-Shirts &#8211; Weekly Home Business Idea</a></li></ol>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Online selling is very different from selling in person. You&#8217;re convincing someone to make the purchase on their own time. Bore them, fail to make the case, and they&#8217;re gone, off your site. You may be able to slow them down with a popup window, but you can&#8217;t stop them, and you don&#8217;t even know for certain what their objection was. How do you improve your websites so that you make more sales?</p><h2>1. Make it easy to buy from your site.</h2><p><img
class="alignright size-full wp-image-3649" title="buy now, please" src="http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/buynowplease.gif" alt="" width="200" height="200" />Sometimes the problem is as simple as people can&#8217;t figure out how to buy from your site. The &#8220;buy now&#8221; button may be difficult to find or it takes to long to go from cart to finished order.</p><p>If people have to struggle to buy from your website, they aren&#8217;t going to. The internet is a big place, and even if other sites won&#8217;t have exactly what they were after, there will probably be something close enough elsewhere.</p><p>Links to add a product to your site&#8217;s shopping cart or to buy the product through your affiliate link should be easily found. Even if your copywriting still needs work, a clear and simple path to making a purchase will improve the chances that people will buy from you.</p><h2>2. Make your site easy to read.</h2><p>An easy to read website is a combination of good copywriting and good layout. A poor job on either of these factors will cut down on your website&#8217;s conversion rates.</p><p>Most people do better with short paragraphs and bullet points when reading online. You can use longer blocks of text if that&#8217;s what it takes to get your point across, but remember that many people skim more than they read online. Make it easy for them, and provide greater detail a little further along for those who want it.</p><p>Keep your writing simple too. There&#8217;s probably a lot of jargon specific to your niche, and while you may be comfortable with it, others may not be. The same goes for showing off your vocabulary in general. Use simple words everyone understands.</p><h2>3. Use appropriate graphics.</h2><p>The right graphics are a big help in making sales. People can&#8217;t touch your product when they&#8217;re online, so if you&#8217;re selling a physical product, graphics are the one way you have to show them what they&#8217;re shopping for.</p><p>Make sure your graphics look good. If you&#8217;re selling a product as an affiliate, there are often good images available for your use &#8211; just check with the program you&#8217;re associated with. If it&#8217;s your own product, make sure you take a good picture. A photo taken with a cluttered background or with several other of your products won&#8217;t be nearly as appealing as a clean one showing just the product in question.</p><h2>4. Establish trust.</h2><p>If your website gives people a bad feeling, they aren&#8217;t going to buy from you. Do your best to make your website look reputable.</p><p>In part, this means avoiding hype in your descriptions. Be clear and honest about what the product is and what it is not. People like to know what the advantages and the disadvantages are when they&#8217;re shopping.</p><p>This also means avoid spelling and grammatical errors. We all make them, but if they&#8217;re all over your website, people won&#8217;t trust you as much.</p><h2>5. Encourage newsletter or autoresponder signups.</h2><p>People don&#8217;t always buy on the first visit. It&#8217;s often said that it can take seven exposures to convince someone to make a purchase. Having a<a
href="http://www.homewiththekids.com/getresponse"> newsletter or autoresponder</a> for people who want more information about your products can have a big impact on your sales.</p><p>Provide solid, relevant information in your newsletter, plus sales links as appropriate. Don&#8217;t go overboard on trying to make sales on your newsletter unless you understand that you will get a lot of people unsubscribing quickly. Some people can make that work, but others lose more than they gain that way.</p><div
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style="clear: both; min-height: 1px; height: 3px; width: 100%;"></div><p>Related posts:<ol><li><a
href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2010/05/home-business-tips-from-a-school-fundraiser/' rel='bookmark' title='Home Business Tips from a School Fundraiser'>Home Business Tips from a School Fundraiser</a></li><li><a
href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2008/11/home-assembly-scams-sell-crafts/' rel='bookmark' title='Skip the at Home Assembly Scams &#8211; Sell Your Own Crafts!'>Skip the at Home Assembly Scams &#8211; Sell Your Own Crafts!</a></li><li><a
href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2009/06/create-sell-t-shirts-weekly-home-business-idea/' rel='bookmark' title='Create &amp; Sell T-Shirts &#8211; Weekly Home Business Idea'>Create &amp; Sell T-Shirts &#8211; Weekly Home Business Idea</a></li></ol></p>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2011/11/5-tips-to-sell-more-on-your-websites/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>When Was the Last Time You Experimented with Your Online Business?</title><link>http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2011/04/when-was-the-last-time-you-experimented-with-your-online-business/</link> <comments>http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2011/04/when-was-the-last-time-you-experimented-with-your-online-business/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Mon, 18 Apr 2011 14:36:52 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Stephanie</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Home Business]]></category> <category><![CDATA[experiments]]></category> <category><![CDATA[marketing]]></category> <category><![CDATA[networking]]></category> <category><![CDATA[online business]]></category> <category><![CDATA[online business routine]]></category> <category><![CDATA[social networking]]></category> <category><![CDATA[try something new]]></category><guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/?p=3284</guid> <description><![CDATA[There&#8217;s something nice about getting into a good routine with your online business. You know what needs to be done and how to do it. You know about what response you&#8217;ll get for the work you do. But are you still taking new risks? Are you experimenting with new ideas to bring people to your [...]
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href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2010/03/how-much-of-a-gamble-is-an-online-business/' rel='bookmark' title='How Much of a Gamble is an Online Business?'>How Much of a Gamble is an Online Business?</a></li><li><a
href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2011/04/do-you-need-a-business-license-to-run-an-online-business-from-home/' rel='bookmark' title='Do You Need a Business License to Run an Online Business From Home?'>Do You Need a Business License to Run an Online Business From Home?</a></li><li><a
href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2011/07/running-an-online-business-is-much-like-running-an-offline-business/' rel='bookmark' title='Running an Online Business Is Much Like Running an Offline Business'>Running an Online Business Is Much Like Running an Offline Business</a></li></ol>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>There&#8217;s something nice about getting into a good routine with your online business. You know what needs to be done and how to do it. You know about what response you&#8217;ll get for the work you do. But are you still taking new risks? Are you experimenting with new ideas to bring people to your online business?</p><p>Running any business is a risk, of course. Keeping with a single routine is even a risk in business, as you don&#8217;t know if something else will do better. That&#8217;s why you should be experimenting with new ideas regularly.</p><p>I don&#8217;t mean take constant big risks, making major changes and so forth. Going too wild with how you run your online business can take you in the wrong direction with it, and it may be difficult to recover.</p><p>More appropriate experiments, on the other hand, can help you figure which directions to take your business. They&#8217;re not only appropriate &#8211; they&#8217;re necessary.</p><h2>From Beginner to Pro</h2><p>Experimenting is a big part of how you go from being a beginner with your business to an experienced professional. You learn what works, what doesn&#8217;t and get some idea as to why things happen they way they do for you.</p><p>Just think about it. How much would you trust the expertise of someone who has always run their business one way and only that way? Would you consider them as much of an expert as one who had tried a lot of different things?</p><p>I don&#8217;t mean that you aren&#8217;t an expert in your business if you choose one way to do everything and stick with it. You could choose to have your expertise in article marketing, for example, and only ever work with that kind of marketing for your business. But if you only choose to market by submitting your articles to the same list of directories all of the time, never trying any other article marketing tactics, are you really an expert on the subject overall? Do you even know if what you&#8217;re doing works as well as it should?</p><p>Being an expert doesn&#8217;t mean you&#8217;re safe from making mistakes with your business, of course. We all make mistakes. It does mean you can choose the things you try more carefully. It also means you probably have the things you know work running well as you experiment.</p><h2>Which Experiments Should You Try?</h2><p>There are plenty of ways to experiment with your online business. Here are a few ideas to get you started.</p><p><strong>1. Offer a new product.</strong></p><p>Have you been offering the same products for a long time? Try something new.</p><p>Think about your niche and why people come to your site. You should have a pretty good idea of what your visitors are after. Now think about what might improve the experience they have with your business. Is there something that really goes well with what you&#8217;re offering that you aren&#8217;t recommending yet?</p><p>This doesn&#8217;t have to be a product you own, of course. That&#8217;s what affiliate programs are for. Find a related product you can offer as an affiliate, and you don&#8217;t have to create something new of your own.</p><p><strong>2. Change how you offer products.</strong></p><p>There are a lot of ways to offer products for sale online. You can have an online store, post product reviews, link to products within blog posts, video reviews and so on. However you make it work, it can be worth your time to try a different way, just to see what happens.</p><p><strong>3. Try a new link building strategy.</strong></p><p>How are you getting links to your website? Is it working for you? Are the links good only for search engine traffic or do they bring traffic to your site on their own merit?</p><p>If most of your current linking strategy is mostly search engine food, look at techniques that are more about getting traffic from higher traffic websites. Try building a reputation through YouTube videos, and put your links into the video description. Get active on a relevant forum that allows signature links.</p><p><strong>4. Try paid traffic sources.</strong></p><p>If you&#8217;ve been avoiding pay per click advertising, buying ads in relevant newsletters and so forth, take a look at this option. Paid methods have the advantage of giving fast results and the disadvantage of costing money, which can add up fast. When you make them work, they&#8217;re well worth the money.</p><p><strong>5. Do more networking.</strong></p><p>How much networking do you do, online and otherwise? Is it more than putting up a Facebook page or doing a few tweets here and there about your business? Just a touch of blog commenting once in a while? Are you a real person when you do these things, or just a business with little personality?</p><p>Networking is more than announcing what your business has to offer. That&#8217;s certainly a part of it if you&#8217;re trying to promote your online business, but it&#8217;s not all there is to it. If you want to be taken seriously and really make the most of the time you spend networking, you have to be a real person and share advice, relevant links to other sites and be a bit social.</p><p>It&#8217;s all too easy to go overboard on networking, of course. You shouldn&#8217;t be checking your Facebook page or Twitter every few minutes. Many people find it helpful to set up a schedule. This keeps things under better control, so you keep working on your business in other ways as you network.</p><p><strong>6. Attend industry events.</strong></p><p>Going to an industry event can be a bit pricey, but as an opportunity the right event can be priceless. It&#8217;s a chance to get some great information from some of the top people in your industry and to network with others.</p><p>You probably won&#8217;t know what to do when you first go to an event. They can be pretty overwhelming. My recommendation is to pick the parts you really want to see and don&#8217;t go overboard looking for swag. There&#8217;s neat stuff to be had at most events, but really, they shouldn&#8217;t be the focus of your day. Learning to improve your business is much more important.</p><p>What experiments have you done to improve your online business? Any you&#8217;d care to share?</p><div
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style="clear: both; min-height: 1px; height: 3px; width: 100%;"></div><p>Related posts:<ol><li><a
href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2010/03/how-much-of-a-gamble-is-an-online-business/' rel='bookmark' title='How Much of a Gamble is an Online Business?'>How Much of a Gamble is an Online Business?</a></li><li><a
href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2011/04/do-you-need-a-business-license-to-run-an-online-business-from-home/' rel='bookmark' title='Do You Need a Business License to Run an Online Business From Home?'>Do You Need a Business License to Run an Online Business From Home?</a></li><li><a
href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2011/07/running-an-online-business-is-much-like-running-an-offline-business/' rel='bookmark' title='Running an Online Business Is Much Like Running an Offline Business'>Running an Online Business Is Much Like Running an Offline Business</a></li></ol></p>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2011/04/when-was-the-last-time-you-experimented-with-your-online-business/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>1</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Are You Using Hype or Honesty to Make Sales?</title><link>http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2011/01/are-you-using-hype-or-honesty-to-make-sales/</link> <comments>http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2011/01/are-you-using-hype-or-honesty-to-make-sales/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2011 16:05:16 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Stephanie</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Home Business]]></category> <category><![CDATA[honesty]]></category> <category><![CDATA[hype]]></category> <category><![CDATA[making sales]]></category> <category><![CDATA[marketing]]></category> <category><![CDATA[sales page]]></category><guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/?p=2836</guid> <description><![CDATA[If you&#8217;ve worked online long at all, you&#8217;ve seen plenty of hype. It probably made deciding what you wanted to do to earn a living online that much more difficult. All those images of wealth, all the people claiming their massive success was a matter of months from poverty, or just a few hours a [...]
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href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2010/07/do-you-need-sales-skills-to-build-your-online-home-business/' rel='bookmark' title='Do You Need Sales Skills to Build Your Online Home Business?'>Do You Need Sales Skills to Build Your Online Home Business?</a></li><li><a
href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2005/01/110714228560652626/' rel='bookmark' title='Hype Watching'>Hype Watching</a></li></ol>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>If you&#8217;ve worked online long at all, you&#8217;ve seen plenty of hype. It probably made deciding what you wanted to do to earn a living online that much more difficult. All those images of wealth, all the people claiming their massive success was a matter of months from poverty, or just a few hours a week of work. It sounds nice, but most people know with a little thought that it&#8217;s usually not that way.</p><p>That doesn&#8217;t keep people from wanting to use hype in their own sales process. It doesn&#8217;t matter if it&#8217;s a business product, a health product, a parenting technique or whatever else. It&#8217;s more fun to sell to the dream than to the reality.</p><p>That doesn&#8217;t make it a better idea, especially if you want to build a relationship with your customers.</p><p>There are many good reasons to avoid hype in your sales process. Perhaps the most important is that in the United States the FTC is clamping down on the claims you can make about your products. You have to be able to prove what you say, and you have to know typical results.</p><p>In home business products, I suspect typical results is the ebook gets read (well, partially, anyhow) and little to no action is taken. It&#8217;s probably similar in other areas.</p><p>Certainly there are people who go for hype. There&#8217;s a reason why people use it. It&#8217;s fun to brag about the more exceptional results people can get from what you&#8217;re selling, so long as you keep it honest.</p><p>But if you want to build a good relationship with your customers and don&#8217;t want to get in trouble for overstating the benefits or possibilities of the things you sell, don&#8217;t rely on hype. Go for honesty.</p><p>The single greatest thing about being honest about what you&#8217;re selling is that you aren&#8217;t likely to get in trouble with it. Not from the FTC and not with your customers. Give them more realistic expectations, and they won&#8217;t wonder why the miracles aren&#8217;t happening.</p><p>Ok, so that&#8217;s a little hype right there. You&#8217;ll always get customers who don&#8217;t understand why something isn&#8217;t working for them the way it does for others. Nothing works exactly the same for everyone. Still, you should have fewer problems when people know what to expect from what they&#8217;re buying from you.</p><p>The other great part about honesty is that it brings people back to you. If you tell them straight up what&#8217;s good and bad about what you&#8217;re trying to sell, they&#8217;re more likely to trust you. That gives you more chances to sell to them. Customers who come back are quite valuable.</p><p>This also means don&#8217;t use many of the common online sales tricks. Do you really need to use a bunch of exclamation points? Do you need to pretend that quantities are limited when they really aren&#8217;t? Keep it real and make the benefits of your product make the sale.</p><p>Yes, you can use a good sales page to manipulate people into wanting your product, whether or not it&#8217;s what they need. That will make you sales. It won&#8217;t build your reputation as an ethical marketer. If you want the long term trust of your customers, don&#8217;t dazzle them with b.s. Dazzle them with your upfront techniques that help them to buy exactly what they need.</p><div
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style="clear: both; min-height: 1px; height: 3px; width: 100%;"></div><p>Related posts:<ol><li><a
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href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2010/07/do-you-need-sales-skills-to-build-your-online-home-business/' rel='bookmark' title='Do You Need Sales Skills to Build Your Online Home Business?'>Do You Need Sales Skills to Build Your Online Home Business?</a></li><li><a
href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2005/01/110714228560652626/' rel='bookmark' title='Hype Watching'>Hype Watching</a></li></ol></p>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2011/01/are-you-using-hype-or-honesty-to-make-sales/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>1</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Don&#8217;t Think of It as Marketing</title><link>http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2010/08/dont-think-of-it-as-marketing/</link> <comments>http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2010/08/dont-think-of-it-as-marketing/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Tue, 31 Aug 2010 14:29:12 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Stephanie</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Home Business]]></category> <category><![CDATA[finding solutions]]></category> <category><![CDATA[marketing]]></category> <category><![CDATA[online business]]></category><guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/?p=2594</guid> <description><![CDATA[Marketing is a major part of any business. If you don&#8217;t market, you don&#8217;t make sales. But calling it marketing may keep you in the wrong frame of mind. The word &#8220;marketing&#8221; puts you in the frame of mind of bringing customers to your business. More of a sales-y feeling. That&#8217;s not a bad thing, [...]
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href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2010/09/5-steps-to-improve-your-online-marketing/' rel='bookmark' title='5 Steps to Improve Your Online Marketing'>5 Steps to Improve Your Online Marketing</a></li><li><a
href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2008/02/when-is-a-network-marketing-opportunity-the-wrong-choice/' rel='bookmark' title='When Is a Network Marketing Opportunity the Wrong Choice?'>When Is a Network Marketing Opportunity the Wrong Choice?</a></li></ol>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Marketing is a major part of any business. If you don&#8217;t market, you don&#8217;t make sales. But calling it marketing may keep you in the wrong frame of mind.</p><p>The word &#8220;marketing&#8221; puts you in the frame of mind of bringing customers to your business. More of a sales-y feeling. That&#8217;s not a bad thing, but a little switch might help you to think of what you&#8217;re doing in a way that&#8217;s more helpful to your customers and your business.</p><p>You aren&#8217;t marketing. You&#8217;re finding solutions.</p><p>You&#8217;re finding solutions your customers need. This encourages you to think of what your customers need, rather than just what you want to offer them. You need to think more from their perspective. Don&#8217;t market them. Find a solution they want and offer it to them.</p><p>There are many ways to think of the problems potential customers are facing. It can be a problem of image. It can be a problem around the house. It can be a problem with their career.</p><p>Whatever the problem is, don&#8217;t think strictly of what will make the sale for you. Think of what will make the purchase right for the customer.</p><p>You&#8217;re also finding solutions for your business. What brings in the most money? What works? What doesn&#8217;t? What has the best return for your efforts?</p><p>When you&#8217;re solving problem, you test. That&#8217;s something you should always be doing in your marketing, testing. Test sales copy. Test landing pages. Test prices. Test traffic sources. Keep testing.</p><p>There are a few things that will tell you if you&#8217;ve solved a particular marketing problem, but money is a favorite way for most to know. We&#8217;re pretty much in business for the money, with loving what we do as a wonderful benefit that&#8217;s almost as important. But few of us can run any sort of business purely for the love of it. A decent income is needed to keep the passion alive.</p><p>Not every solution you create will work out. Sometimes you&#8217;ll lose money.</p><p>But you&#8217;ll always learn something, even if it&#8217;s &#8220;Wow. That really, really didn&#8217;t work like I thought it would!&#8221;</p><p>Most failures have something more to teach, however. There may have been some money earned, and if you can separate that part out, you can find out what part of the failure worked. That&#8217;s valuable information you may be able to use on its own or combine with a new solution. Or maybe it brought in traffic but poor to no sales. It&#8217;s up to you to figure out if it was purely low quality traffic or another problem.</p><p>Don&#8217;t fool yourself and think that any business can get away without marketing. Instead, treat your marketing as a chance to find solutions to the problems you and your potential customers face.</p><div
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class='shareaholic-googleplusone' data-shr_size='medium' data-shr_count='true' data-shr_href='http%3A%2F%2Fwww.homewiththekids.com%2Fblog%2F2010%2F08%2Fdont-think-of-it-as-marketing%2F' data-shr_title='Don%27t+Think+of+It+as+Marketing'></a></div><div
style="clear: both; min-height: 1px; height: 3px; width: 100%;"></div><p>Related posts:<ol><li><a
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href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2010/09/5-steps-to-improve-your-online-marketing/' rel='bookmark' title='5 Steps to Improve Your Online Marketing'>5 Steps to Improve Your Online Marketing</a></li><li><a
href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2008/02/when-is-a-network-marketing-opportunity-the-wrong-choice/' rel='bookmark' title='When Is a Network Marketing Opportunity the Wrong Choice?'>When Is a Network Marketing Opportunity the Wrong Choice?</a></li></ol></p>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2010/08/dont-think-of-it-as-marketing/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Do You Focus on the Parts of Your Home Business You Can&#8217;t Control?</title><link>http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2010/07/do-you-focus-on-the-parts-of-your-home-business-you-cant-control/</link> <comments>http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2010/07/do-you-focus-on-the-parts-of-your-home-business-you-cant-control/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:18:33 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Stephanie</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Home Business]]></category> <category><![CDATA[control]]></category> <category><![CDATA[link building]]></category> <category><![CDATA[marketing]]></category><guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/?p=2476</guid> <description><![CDATA[Making a home business successful is hard. There are some things you can control, mostly what you do yourself or hire someone to do for you, and other things that you cannot control. It&#8217;s really easy to focus on the parts you can&#8217;t directly control, forgetting that the things you can control can help the [...]
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href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2010/06/css-control-page-loads/' rel='bookmark' title='Why Use CSS to Control How Your Page Loads?'>Why Use CSS to Control How Your Page Loads?</a></li><li><a
href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2009/02/planning-more-focus-on-work-at-home-jobs-and-home-businesses/' rel='bookmark' title='Planning More Focus on Work at Home Jobs and Home Businesses'>Planning More Focus on Work at Home Jobs and Home Businesses</a></li></ol>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Making a home business successful is hard. There are some things you can control, mostly what you do yourself or hire someone to do for you, and other things that you cannot control. It&#8217;s really easy to focus on the parts you can&#8217;t directly control, forgetting that the things you can control can help the parts you don&#8217;t directly control.</p><h2>Visitors to Your Site</h2><p>You don&#8217;t directly control whether or not your website gets visitors. You can do everything possible to make it attractive to visitors and search engines, but sometimes that doesn&#8217;t bring in traffic.</p><p>You can control your link building activities. You can control your spending on pay per click advertising. You control whether or not you make videos or podcasts to bring in traffic.</p><p>You don&#8217;t know for certain if any of these will work or if any will suddenly quit working. But you can learn what makes them more likely to work for you.</p><p>With search engine traffic, expect that changes will happen sometimes. Your rankings go up, your rankings go down, your rankings fall into a deep, dark, dank pit leaving you wondering if you&#8217;ll ever see them again.</p><p>You can&#8217;t control that. You can try to influence with link building, but you can&#8217;t control it.</p><p>Even pay per click traffic you can&#8217;t control completely. You may get a new competitor or the algorithm that decides which ads get what space can change and you now have to rework your campaigns to go along with it. That&#8217;s online business for you.</p><h2>Buyers</h2><p>You can&#8217;t control whether or not people will buy from you. You can have the best copywriting, the most useful products and the best price, and still a certain percentage will not buy from you.</p><p>You can use what information you have to improve the odds that people will buy from you. You can test ads, ad placement, the copy describing the product, and if it&#8217;s your own product, your shopping cart, the checkout process, everything to do with how people buy from you or through your links that you control.</p><p>Work on these factors that you do have control over to make the most of the visitors who might turn into buyers. Thats&#8217; the control you have.</p><h2>Life and Chaos</h2><p>No one has complete control over how their life goes. Sometimes it&#8217;s easy. Other times obstacles throw themselves enthusiastically into your way and make it hard to run your online business the way you used to.</p><p>You can control how you meet these challenges. You can hire someone to help you so that even when things get a little rough parts of your business will keep on going with less input from you. You can ask for guest posts on your blog. You can plan for problems.</p><p>You can&#8217;t be ready for every contingency, but you can cut down the ways that you can be caught unprepared. Think of where you want your business to go and take steps to help it move in that direction.</p><div
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style="clear: both; min-height: 1px; height: 3px; width: 100%;"></div><p>Related posts:<ol><li><a
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isPermaLink="false">http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/?p=2338</guid> <description><![CDATA[For some people, marketing their home business is a pleasure. It&#8217;s something that comes naturally. For others, it&#8217;s just plain work. But no matter how you feel about it, you need to market your business if you want it to get anywhere. You need to market your business if you want it to get anywhere. [...]
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href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2010/05/is-it-better-to-start-a-network-marketing-business-or-an-affiliate-marketing-business/' rel='bookmark' title='Is It Better to Start a Network Marketing Business or an Affiliate Marketing Business?'>Is It Better to Start a Network Marketing Business or an Affiliate Marketing Business?</a></li><li><a
href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2010/08/dont-think-of-it-as-marketing/' rel='bookmark' title='Don&#8217;t Think of It as Marketing'>Don&#8217;t Think of It as Marketing</a></li></ol>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>For some people, marketing their home business is a pleasure. It&#8217;s something that comes naturally. For others, it&#8217;s just plain work.</p><p>But no matter how you feel about it, you need to market your business if you want it to get anywhere.<p
class="pullquote">You need to market your business if you want it to get anywhere.</p><h2>Don&#8217;t Stick to Just One Method Forever</h2><p>There are many different ways to market your business. You can do <a
rel="nofollow" href="http://www.homewiththekids.com/contentcrooner">article marketing</a>. You can talk to people you meet about your business. You can post on <a
href="http://www.twitter.com">Twitter</a>, <a
rel="nofollow" href="http://www.facebook.com/">Facebook</a> and other social sites about your business. You can do<a
href="http://www.homewiththekids.com/adwordsguide"> pay per click advertising</a>. You can do blog commenting. You can add to this list.</p><p>Whatever method you use, make sure it&#8217;s not the only one you use for all time.</p><p>Don&#8217;t get me wrong. I firmly believe you should master, or at least be comfortable with one marketing tactic before you start trying others. But don&#8217;t stay in that comfort zone. Move out and try something new.</p><p>How else are you going to know what will work for you?</p><h2>Market Every Day</h2><p>Well, perhaps not every, every day. If you need the occasional day off, do what you must. But until your business is really growing and thriving, market as often as possible.</p><p
class="pullquoteleft">Market as often <br
/>as possible.</p><p>There&#8217;s a balance here between marketing and otherwise running your home business that you have to strike.  Your marketing will only do so much good if you neglect the rest of your business. But running the rest of your business will only do so much good if you neglect marketing. They need each other.</p><h2>Keep an Eye on the Competition</h2><p>Knowing what your competition is doing can help you to think of things you should be doing to market your business. Don&#8217;t copy them outright, but if you see a great way to market try to find a way to adapt it to your own use.</p><h2>Track Your Results</h2><p
class="pullquote">Keep track of where you&#8217;re getting the best results.</p><p>Do the best you can to keep track of where you&#8217;re getting the best results from. This will tell you which marketing efforts are paying off and which are a waste of your time. You need to know.</p><p>You can follow most referrers through a good website statistics program. Most hosts have Awstats already installed, and you can get some good information from there. You may also want to consider signing up for Google Analytics for a different source of statistics on your website traffic.</p><p>Keep working on your marketing and find out what is getting you the best results. It&#8217;s one of the best ways to find out what&#8217;s helping you to grow your business.</p><div
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href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2010/05/is-it-better-to-start-a-network-marketing-business-or-an-affiliate-marketing-business/' rel='bookmark' title='Is It Better to Start a Network Marketing Business or an Affiliate Marketing Business?'>Is It Better to Start a Network Marketing Business or an Affiliate Marketing Business?</a></li><li><a
href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2010/08/dont-think-of-it-as-marketing/' rel='bookmark' title='Don&#8217;t Think of It as Marketing'>Don&#8217;t Think of It as Marketing</a></li></ol></p>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2010/06/are-you-spending-enough-time-marketing-your-business/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Which Social Media Sites Should You Be Marketing On?</title><link>http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2010/04/which-social-media-sites-should-you-be-marketing-on/</link> <comments>http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2010/04/which-social-media-sites-should-you-be-marketing-on/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:01:06 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Stephanie</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Home Business]]></category> <category><![CDATA[marketing]]></category> <category><![CDATA[online business]]></category> <category><![CDATA[social media marketing]]></category><guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/?p=2145</guid> <description><![CDATA[There are a lot of social media websites out there. You could spend hours each day on marketing on them, but which ones will give you the best results? That depends on you and your target market. No social media website is going to do you any good at all if you don&#8217;t put some [...]
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href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2009/12/remember-your-social-skills/' rel='bookmark' title='Remember Your Social Skills'>Remember Your Social Skills</a></li><li><a
href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2006/10/figuring-out-media-center/' rel='bookmark' title='Figuring Out Media Center'>Figuring Out Media Center</a></li></ol>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>There are a lot of social media websites out there. You could spend hours each day on marketing on them, but which ones will give you the best results?</p><p>That depends on you and your target market.</p><p>No social media website is going to do you any good at all if you don&#8217;t put some effort into it. If you just sign up and drop your link in, you probably aren&#8217;t going to see much benefit from any of them.</p><h2>Where&#8217;s Your Target Market?</h2><p>Start by figuring out which social media websites your target market is using. With the wide range out there, they may be using a few, but there are some rules of thumb, such as more professional networking going on at <a
rel="nofollow" href="http://www.linkedin.com">LinkedIn</a> and sites such as <a
rel="nofollow" href="http://www.twitter.com">Twitter</a> and <a
rel="nofollow" href="http://www.facebook.com/">Facebook</a> having a huge range of people on them.</p><p>You can find people in your target market on Facebook by checking out the Groups pages. Search on your keywords and see if there are any active groups there. What about Fan pages for your competition?</p><p>There are a variety of ways to seek people out on Twitter. You can search on the site itself. You can find directories that Twitter users have signed up on so their accounts show by category, such as <a
rel="nofollow" href="http://wefollow.com/">WeFollow</a> or <a
rel="nofollow" href="http://www.twellow.com/">Twellow</a>.</p><p>Social bookmarking sites can also be a good choice, although it can be hard to say how the quality of traffic will be. A ton of traffic doesn&#8217;t always mean a ton of conversions, subscribers or anything other than a ton of traffic. But sites such as <a
rel="nofollow" href="http://www.stumbleupon.com/">StumbleUpon</a>, <a
rel="nofollow" href="http://www.digg.com">Digg</a> and <a
rel="nofollow" href="http://www.reddit.com/">Reddit</a> can be a fun experiment. Just beware the time sink.</p><h2>How Do You Use Social Media?</h2><p>How you use a particular social media site depends on which one you&#8217;re using. What works well on one may not be the best way to build a network on another.</p><p>To find people on <a
rel="nofollow" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/stephanie-foster/8/1b4/11b">LinkedIn</a>, you may be best off letting them find you. Become an expert there. Join groups. Answer questions. Show that you&#8217;re an expert and build your references as a professional. It&#8217;s social, but more professional than personal.</p><p>Twitter does well if you can provide interesting information in a small space. It&#8217;s good if you&#8217;re able to tweet regularly and be interesting in some way. Share good article links, make interesting observations, interact with people as they post interesting things.</p><p>With all sites, the challenge is to keep them from eating up too much of your day. It&#8217;s very easy to get sucked into the various sites. If you don&#8217;t want to waste a lot of time on Facebook, for example, don&#8217;t start playing the games there. Sign up, connect with some friends and you can quickly tell who&#8217;s gotten too much into the various games. They might invite you, but unless you have time to spare you&#8217;re better off avoiding the games. Better to spend your time on things there that will benefit your home business.</p><p>Using StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit and similar sites can also be a huge time suck. You can get some good traffic out of them if you build a good profile and connections, but you can also lose a lot of time wandering them aimlessly. Use them wisely and at times when you can&#8217;t so easily do things that will more directly bring in business.</p><p>On any social media site, being overly promotional is not a good idea. People aren&#8217;t there to have things sold to them. They&#8217;re networking because they enjoy it, to build their own business, to get good information, that kind of thing. If you do nothing but say &#8220;buy, buy, buy,&#8221; they&#8217;ll unfriend you as fast as they can.</p><p>Instead, give quality information to bring people to you. If you sound like an expert and they need what you have to offer, they&#8217;ll decide to do business with you.</p><h2>How Many to Use?</h2><p>You can&#8217;t do a good job of using all social media websites, not even if you only stick to the big ones. There&#8217;s too much to do.</p><p>You&#8217;ll be better off if you can pick a couple to focus on. Get good at marketing on them.</p><p>Dividing your efforts dilutes them. There&#8217;s a balance between being available on a variety of networks and being unable to keep up.</p><p>As with any other sort of marketing you haven&#8217;t tried before, start by using just one social media site. Figure out what you&#8217;re doing. Get some fans, friends, followers, whatever they&#8217;re called. Get comfortable.</p><p>Even though each site takes a slightly different approach, you can take some of what you learn from each site and apply it to the next one while continuing with the sites you&#8217;re already on. You&#8217;re learning how to bring in business with a possibly more personal touch than other forms of marketing may have been for you.</p><p>Social media marketing isn&#8217;t something that comes naturally for everyone, but it&#8217;s a big help for bringing in traffic and business if you use it right. Give yourself some time and really pay attention to the learning process. You might find it a lot of fun as well as profitable.</p><div
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href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2010/07/how-do-you-use-twitter-when-social-media-dont-come-naturally-to-you/' rel='bookmark' title='How Do You Use Twitter When Social Media Don&#8217;t Come Naturally to You?'>How Do You Use Twitter When Social Media Don&#8217;t Come Naturally to You?</a></li><li><a
href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2009/12/remember-your-social-skills/' rel='bookmark' title='Remember Your Social Skills'>Remember Your Social Skills</a></li><li><a
href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2006/10/figuring-out-media-center/' rel='bookmark' title='Figuring Out Media Center'>Figuring Out Media Center</a></li></ol></p>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2010/04/which-social-media-sites-should-you-be-marketing-on/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>2</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Building a Home Business on a Shoestring Budget Basics</title><link>http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2010/03/building-a-home-business-on-a-shoestring-budget-basics/</link> <comments>http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2010/03/building-a-home-business-on-a-shoestring-budget-basics/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Thu, 18 Mar 2010 19:12:29 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Stephanie</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Home Business]]></category> <category><![CDATA[build home business]]></category> <category><![CDATA[marketing]]></category> <category><![CDATA[shoestring budget]]></category><guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/?p=2094</guid> <description><![CDATA[Most people don&#8217;t have a lot of money to spend on running their home business. They need to be more practical and really think about where their money goes. These are some low to no cost activities you can do that may help you to build a home business. Most are more time intensive than [...]
Related posts:<ol><li><a
href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2011/05/should-you-get-an-outside-the-home-job-while-building-your-home-business/' rel='bookmark' title='Should You Get an Outside the Home Job While Building Your Home Business?'>Should You Get an Outside the Home Job While Building Your Home Business?</a></li><li><a
href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2009/01/skill-building-for-the-new-year/' rel='bookmark' title='Skill Building for the New Year'>Skill Building for the New Year</a></li><li><a
href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2009/04/build-a-niche-store-weekly-home-business-idea/' rel='bookmark' title='Build a Niche Store &#8211; Weekly Home Business Idea'>Build a Niche Store &#8211; Weekly Home Business Idea</a></li></ol>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Most people don&#8217;t have a lot of money to spend on running their home business. They need to be more practical and really think about where their money goes. These are some low to no cost activities you can do that may help you to build a home business.</p><p>Most are more time intensive than money intensive. That&#8217;s a trade you often have to make. If you have the money to risk on making things go faster you can go that way. If you don&#8217;t have the money you&#8217;re going to have to spend the time.</p><h2>Shoestring 1: Blog</h2><p>Blogs are highly affordable to run, even if you pay for hosting and a domain name. They take a lot of time to build up, but can bring a lot of targeted attention to whatever you&#8217;re trying to sell, whether it&#8217;s a product or a service.</p><h2>Shoestring 2: Article marketing</h2><p>Article marketing isn&#8217;t easy. You have to write a lot of articles in order to succeed. You have to submit them to at least one of the top directories, possibly to several. You can automate this through sites such as <a
href="http://www.homewiththekids.com/contentcrooner">Content Crooner</a> or by buying article submission software.</p><h2>Shoestring 3: Social bookmarking</h2><p>Social bookmarking can build a great number of links. There are hundreds of sites out there where you can bookmark pages from your website. They&#8217;re not terribly strong links for the most part, but they&#8217;re still links.</p><h2>Shoestring 4: Social networking</h2><p>If you want to put a little more effort into particular networks, social networking sites can be great. You can create accounts on sites such as Twitter and Facebook and promote your products.</p><p>This is challenging in the amount of time it takes. You get more followers by giving good information, not just promoting your business. You can get plenty of followers by following other people, but if you aren&#8217;t getting them interested they won&#8217;t do you any good. You need numbers of engaged followers, not just followers.</p><h2>Shoestring 5: Blog Commenting</h2><p>Commenting on relevant blogs generally doesn&#8217;t bring a lot of traffic, but can bring some. It can show your knowledge in your industry. Just keep things relevant to the topic you&#8217;re commenting on and don&#8217;t constantly be promoting your site.</p><h2>Shoestring 6: Forum Participation</h2><p>Participating in forums can really help to bring people to your site, so long as you can leave links to your site in your signature line. As with blog commenting, you need to keep things relevant to your site and not be too promotional. Forum owners hate that and you&#8217;re likely to be banned and have posts deleted.</p><h2>Shoestring 7: Squidoo Lenses</h2><p>Creating a lens on <a
href="http://www.homewiththekids.com/squidoo">Squidoo</a> can feel as though you&#8217;re making content for someone else, but it&#8217;s also a way to build links to your own sites while earning a little income. They&#8217;re a little picky about certain topics, and have rules about how many times an individual lens can link to a particular domain, but within those rules they can be useful.</p><p>Some people <a
rel="nofollow" href="http://d7924p4zw3ghtmrhte-9u6llqb.hop.clickbank.net/">build their entire business</a> around Squidoo lenses.</p><p>With enough shoestrings for your business, you have a chance to tie up a pretty nice business. Keep working at it and you might go far.</p><div
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class='shareaholic-fblike' data-shr_layout='button_count' data-shr_showfaces='false' data-shr_href='http%3A%2F%2Fwww.homewiththekids.com%2Fblog%2F2010%2F03%2Fbuilding-a-home-business-on-a-shoestring-budget-basics%2F' data-shr_title='Building+a+Home+Business+on+a+Shoestring+Budget+Basics'></a><a
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style="clear: both; min-height: 1px; height: 3px; width: 100%;"></div><p>Related posts:<ol><li><a
href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2011/05/should-you-get-an-outside-the-home-job-while-building-your-home-business/' rel='bookmark' title='Should You Get an Outside the Home Job While Building Your Home Business?'>Should You Get an Outside the Home Job While Building Your Home Business?</a></li><li><a
href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2009/01/skill-building-for-the-new-year/' rel='bookmark' title='Skill Building for the New Year'>Skill Building for the New Year</a></li><li><a
href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2009/04/build-a-niche-store-weekly-home-business-idea/' rel='bookmark' title='Build a Niche Store &#8211; Weekly Home Business Idea'>Build a Niche Store &#8211; Weekly Home Business Idea</a></li></ol></p>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2010/03/building-a-home-business-on-a-shoestring-budget-basics/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Why Are Mom Blogs Getting So Much Attention from the FTC?</title><link>http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2009/05/why-are-mom-blogs-getting-so-much-attention-from-the-ftc/</link> <comments>http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2009/05/why-are-mom-blogs-getting-so-much-attention-from-the-ftc/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Tue, 26 May 2009 13:04:14 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>Stephanie</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Blogging]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Home Business]]></category> <category><![CDATA[disclosure]]></category> <category><![CDATA[FTC]]></category> <category><![CDATA[legal issues]]></category> <category><![CDATA[marketing]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Mom Blogs]]></category> <category><![CDATA[social media marketing]]></category><guid
isPermaLink="false">http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/?p=1403</guid> <description><![CDATA[A post over on Jessica Knows about her experience with some reporters misreporting how she discloses on her blog got me thinking about how mom blogs in general seem to be the ones getting an awful lot of the attention when it comes to disclosure issues and advertising. There&#8217;s been a lot of talk lately [...]
Related posts:<ol><li><a
href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2009/10/ftc-says-bloggers-must-disclose-payments/' rel='bookmark' title='FTC Says Bloggers Must Disclose Payments'>FTC Says Bloggers Must Disclose Payments</a></li><li><a
href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2009/11/deciding-what-to-say-for-ftc-disclosures/' rel='bookmark' title='Deciding What to Say For FTC Disclosures'>Deciding What to Say For FTC Disclosures</a></li><li><a
href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2010/01/how-do-you-find-blogs-to-comment-on/' rel='bookmark' title='How Do You Find Blogs to Comment On?'>How Do You Find Blogs to Comment On?</a></li></ol>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>A post over on Jessica Knows about her experience with some <a
rel="nofollow" href="http://jessicaknows.com/2009/05/reporters-desperate-for-a-story-prey-for-post/">reporters misreporting</a> how she discloses on her blog got me thinking about how mom blogs in general seem to be the ones getting an awful lot of the attention when it comes to disclosure issues and advertising. There&#8217;s been a lot of talk lately about more regulation of social media marketing and how bloggers disclose. For some reason, mom bloggers seem to be a popular focus of attention.</p><p>This drives me nuts. Mom bloggers are far from the only ones getting merchandise to try in order to review it. That&#8217;s <a
rel="nofollow" href="http://jessicaknows.com/2009/05/reporters-desperate-for-a-story-prey-for-post/#IDComment21865434">something that has been going on for a long time</a> in many other areas, as commenter <a
rel="nofollow" href="http://www.crunchycarpets.com/">Crunchy Carpets</a> pointed out, and as I&#8217;ve been wondering as well. I&#8217;ll quote her, as she has it right:</p><p
style="padding-left: 30px;">What I am curious about is why the &#8216;mom&#8217; bloggers seem to be getting more heat about reviews than other areas on the blogosphere. Are the male tech writers getting scrutinized by mainstream media and the FTC? They all get sent free stuff. Are the video game or movie sites getting grilled for their &#8216;promotional&#8217; efforts. They all get sent free stuff.<br
/> Movie sites get sent to sets and on press junkets and given all sorts of freebies in return for &#8216;good reviews. Their morals have been argued about for years. It is all nothing new.</p><p>All this doesn&#8217;t mean that I don&#8217;t agree with appropriate disclosure. It just means that I don&#8217;t see why it&#8217;s suddenly a big deal when mom bloggers get the things other sites have long been getting.</p><p>It strikes me as sexist too.</p><p><a
rel="nofollow" href="http://intensedebate.com/people/momblebee">Momblebee</a> makes <a
rel="nofollow" href="http://jessicaknows.com/2009/05/reporters-desperate-for-a-story-prey-for-post/#IDComment21907524">similar points</a>, as do some of the other commenters.</p><p>Free samples have been given in exchange for review for a long time, longer than blogging has been around. It&#8217;s nothing new. Perhaps the only new thing about it is that just about anyone can start a blog, and not have the costs associated with starting a print magazine or newspaper. It&#8217;s very open.</p><p>Yes, that means some people will lie about the products because they think only a good review should be posted. Yes, some people will be fooled into buying things they wouldn&#8217;t have if an honest review had been posted. Goodness knows that dishonest reviews are common enough in the work at home arena!</p><p>But does that mean we need special disclosure rules?</p><p>I tend to think not. I would expect the standard rules on making false advertising claims should be sufficient. Best aimed at the blogger, and at the advertiser more if there seems to be a pattern of encouraging false claims. It&#8217;s awfully hard for advertisers to control what bloggers say, after all, and still keep things honest in both positive and negative comments about the product.</p><p>There&#8217;s no doubt that the internet is very much a wild frontier in many ways as of yet. It&#8217;s much harder to control what goes on when it&#8217;s so easy for content to be created. That&#8217;s not a call for speedy, harsh regulation. There&#8217;s an advantage to the wild growth and free flow of information that the internet provides.</p><p>Should buyers beware when they read online reviews? Absolutely.</p><p>Should reviewers disclose if they got products free or have a relationship with the business whose product they are reviewing? Of course.</p><p>But no matter how the disclosure is done, it comes down to a matter of trust. A good source will be trusted with or without the disclosure.</p><p>A bad one may be trusted once or twice, but if they share false information people will learn. Certainly not as quickly as the FTC would like, but that&#8217;s going to happen even with regulation, as new sites and blogs will pop up faster than they can be reviewed&#8230; not to mention everything that is based from outside the United States.</p><p>Much as one might like all reviews to be honest, it&#8217;s not going to happen.</p><p>As a blogger or business owner, all you can do is keep yourself honest. Being transparent about when you get something for free is a generally good idea. If nothing else, it will help you if the FTC does keep getting serious about this. It also makes it clearer why you&#8217;re talking about a product that maybe you wouldn&#8217;t have otherwise. Say what you really feel, even when it&#8217;s not 100% positive.</p><p>Of course, the focus on mom bloggers may in large part be simply due to the media. And if you think the disclosure issues are going to be a problem, you&#8217;ll also want to pay attention to the part about &#8220;atypical results&#8221;. Lynn Terry has a really good post on this issue. The <a
rel="nofollow" href="http://www.clicknewz.com/1891/ftc-to-regulate-social-media/">FTC doesn&#8217;t even want atypical results</a> to be used, even if they&#8217;re your own experience. They only want typical results, which strikes me as beyond problematic. How can you discuss your own experience then? How do you know what&#8217;s typical?</p><p>If you review products, whether you&#8217;re paid to do so or just receive them free, or even if you&#8217;re hoping to get an affiliate commission for sales through your links, it&#8217;s really going to pay to think about what you&#8217;re saying. Have a disclosure policy and stick strictly to it.</p><p>And, of course, keep paying attention to the story as it develops. It doesn&#8217;t matter what kind of blog or site you have, if you&#8217;re talking about products you need to know what&#8217;s might impact your business.</p><div
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href='http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2010/01/how-do-you-find-blogs-to-comment-on/' rel='bookmark' title='How Do You Find Blogs to Comment On?'>How Do You Find Blogs to Comment On?</a></li></ol></p>]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.homewiththekids.com/blog/2009/05/why-are-mom-blogs-getting-so-much-attention-from-the-ftc/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>6</slash:comments> </item> </channel> </rss>
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