Targeting Events with your Online Business
May 8, 2007 | Comments (3) | Filed under: Online Business
At Bookmark Bliss, one of our goals has always been to help you improve your online business. Whether it be improving the traffic to your site, finding ways to promote yourself, or simply setting up your site and running it from day to day, our goal is to help you succeed while figuring out what it takes to keep doing so ourselves.
Over the last few years, I’ve had the opportunity to experiment a bit with merchandise advertising powered by many tools including Amazon Web Services and the Yahoo Developer Network. There have been 5 sites in total I’ve worked with existing in a wide variety of different niches ranging from online movie information to hardware and technology reviews. One thing they all had in common was that their primary source of income was commission off the referral sale of products tailored to their specific articles.
For example, a movie review of Spider-Man 3 might display advertising for DVD’s of Spider-Man 2 or even copies of the XBox 360 game Spider-Man 3. Each person who actually purchased one of these items generated a percentage based commission which was paid to the site giving the referral. Anywhere from 1-2% all the way to 15-20% depending on the product being advertised and the advertising network displaying the ad.
What I found most interesting about my time working with these sites was the huge opportunities available when it comes to targeting trends and events as a way of generating quick traffic and converting huge sales. Using a well established site who’s articles are quickly indexed by Google and updated frequently affords you an incredible opportunity to be fluid and dynamic and chase many fluctuating keywords and rankings in an attempt to turn a profit.
These keywords may only be profitable at certain times of the year or even for just a short period of time and never again. The key to success is that well established sites have their newest content indexed by Google on a daily basis. So, refocusing your site to something new can literally have your campaign showing in search results within a matter of days.
Again, take for example the event that was last weekend’s release of Spider-Man 3 to theatres. For a dynamic and versatile site, you could have focused your advertising and marketing to capitalize on this one time event and monetized it throughout your site for a quick increase in both traffic and profits. On the movie site, for example, you might highlight your review of the new film and focus your marketing on related DVD’s and Toys. For a site selling ringtones, you might highlight the Spider-Man theme ringtone or even Spider-Man based skins for your phone.
Being smart and focusing your advertising on coming events and reoccurring trends can really increase your profits. You can do even better if your site is also publishing articles that coincide with that event. If it’s February, why not do a series of articles with a Valentine’s Day theme? If it’s May, focus on Spring, blockbuster movies, or even the finale’s of popular television shows. Be creative and design your site in a way that users are comfortable taking recommendations from you.
There are so many events and holidays in a given year, you could easily spend every week highlighting a new event. Doing this is not easy, and there is no formula to success. Every site is different and constantly adapting to trends and events is something you’ll have to work at constantly to stay on top of it and be successful.
Once you figure it out though, you can kiss those Adsense pennies goodbye.
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3 people have left comments
i had loads of aws sites at one point. made me some good cash the first few months and then all the results were drowned out with everyone jumping on the bandwagon
I know some people right now who do pretty well still with AWS sites. The hard part is coming up with a whole “package” that convinces people to buy…
Like they say, it’s much easier to convince someone to give up their email then it is to get them to type in their credit card numbers
I always appreciate learning about different ways to monetize other than with Adsense. This is thought provoking stuff.