Category: Make Money

How much money will be spent during this Black Friday shopping stint? BILLIONS!

Instead of sitting there and saying “WOW!” — you should be planning how you can tap into this major shopping “holiday” as everyone is already in buying mode and they are just waiting to pull out their credit card and spent good money on your amazingly awesome and heavily discounted offer!

To get the most out of this years holiday shopping trends and spending spree, you must first understand what Black Friday is all about, along with how and where people are spending their money.

Special thanks to Nextopia for their awesome infographic and stats collection.

Black Friday Kicks Off the Holiday Shopping Season

Even though more brands are now kicking off their Black Friday promotions earlier and earlier each year, the key figure that you need to know is that there are only 27 days between Black Friday and Christmas. This means you have a short period of time to make a huge amount of money… so be sure to make the most of it!

Just how much money are we talk about? Well, last year we saw $1.964 BILLION in overall online sales for Thanksgiving and Black Friday, which was a 18.5% increase from the previous year. There is no doubt that we will see $2 BILLION+ in sales this year!

How to Best Target Your Potential Customers with Online Markets

1 out of 3 Americans will be shopping this Black Friday… which is roughly 140 million consumers. If your customer isn’t out at your local retailers, then there is a good chance they are already shopping online.

When it comes to shopping online, not only is it easier for customers, but it’s also a cash cow for many brands and Black Friday resource sites. The question isn’t if your audience is going to buy, it’s how you are going to entice them to buy from your site and not your competition. These are some of the methods that work best.

• 44% will offer specific deals and promotions online
• 41% will offer a one-day sale online
• 44% will use a special email campaign
• 27% will offer free shipping at a lower than usual minimum purchase level
• 20% will offer free shipping on all purchases

How Big Retailers are Cashing in on Black Friday

As mentioned, more and more brands and retailers are now offering their Black Friday promotions and deals earlier than ever before — simply in hopes to beat out their competition and bring in more customers. Black Friday is late in November, but brands like Walmart, Best Buy, Target and Khol’s released their Black Friday ads as early as November 10th — 3 weeks before the actual shopping event date!

Something you might also be surprised to know is the big differences between online sales based on actual locations throughout the country. The following cities have the highest online sales during Black Friday for last year. (Something to consider split testing with if you can sort your customer data, demographics and analytics)

1. New York City, NY
2. Atlanta, GA
3. Los Angeles, CA
4. Washington, DC
5. Chicago, IL

When Most People are Shopping During Black Friday

Black Friday events used to occur after midnight on Thanksgiving, but those days are long gone. Throw in the 24/7 world of the internet and there is simply no need to ever put a limit on when and where you can buy something… however, we still do have some great stats to backup when people are buying most during Black Friday.

While most of the big sales are “midnight” promotions for the early birds, the majority of shoppers (39%) aren’t making trek out to stores or buying online until 10AM or later.

Black Friday Online Sales from 2011-2013: Even with the economy and jobs in a sour position, the continued massive upward climb of Black Friday holiday spending continues to grow year after year. It will be no surprised when we see these numbers climb right through the $2 billion mark in 2014.

Mobile Ad Spend is Dominating Black Friday Promotions

It’s no surprise to see a ton of money being poured into the mobile and tablet advertising industry — which is currently accounted for 40% of all Black Friday advertising.

Mobile advertising is one of the best ways to get your message and advertisements instantly read and while customers are already potentially shopping within your online or offline store. Mobile is quickly passing the 40% mark for all online traffic and mobile sales are climbing passed the 20% mark as well.

Google Owns Black Friday: Whether it’s through your desktop, tablet or mobile device… everyone is going to Google to find what they are looking for. With billions of searches made, the majority of them are coming through the hours of 8AM-12PM and then peaking again during 4PM-7PM. Online sales peak around 9AM.

What are People Buying on Black Friday?

We know everyone is buying everything they can find on Black Friday, but actually knowing what types of deals and promotions relate best with your audience is key. Leading the way among all products are electronics, clothing, toys and jewelry.

Pinterest vs. Facebook: Just as important as what people are buying, is how they find your online stores and promotions. Black Friday shoppers referred from Pinterest spent 77% more money per order than those referred from Facebook! However, Facebook referrals converted into sales at nearly 4x the rate of Pinterest. Which social networking platform is best for your audience?

Black Friday 2014 – How Much Will You Make?

The question isn’t “if” you are going to make money online this year during Black Friday 2014, but instead, HOW MUCH?

Take the time to perfect your Black Friday and holiday ad campaigns and make these last 27 shopping days of the year your best marketing efforts yet!

Most of us use video on our sites or in social media at least once.  It could be a video we produce ourselves, a video we like on YouTube or even something we find and share on Facebook or Twitter. Video are an awesome way to gain interest, increase engagement and generate interest, but they aren’t always the easiest to measure in terms of ROI. You can’t always track click throughs, It’s hard to measure the actual shares and without knowing how to code or program and you don’t have a ton of functionality on standard players. This was a huge issue for many Marketers until Viewbix came around.

Viewbix is a video tool that lets you take videos from your own website, or videos from sites like YouTube, Vimeo Pro or Amazon Webservices, if the owner has given permission to share, use and embed their videos and add a customizable and interactive player to them. The skin is fully customizable and comes with a ton of functionality.

You can add multiple calls to action on the skin including a button on the top right, banners on the top left and space for a banner on the bottom. You can use direct links, Affiliate links, custom tracking urls to combine it with your Analytics package including Google Analytics and it even has it’s own analytics suite if you have a pro account or higher.

Once you have created the custom skin from the drag and drop interface you now have the option to add over 20 apps to the player. These apps take a regular video and turn it into a fully interactive experience that can drive sales, grow your newsletter list or even increase your blog or website readership. One of the coolest features with the Viewbix player is that when it is shared on many of the big social sites like Facebook and Twitter, the majority of the functionality remains intact giving you an almost unlimited reach.

Apps You Can Use to Increase Sales and Leads

Here are a few of the apps, ways that you can use them to grow your business or drive sales and leads as well as a couple of success stories of companies and Bloggers that use Viewbix.

• List App – The list app lets you create a list of products if you sell products, properties if you are in real estate, features or portions from a property if you are a hotel or whatever else you’d like.  You can add a thumbnail image, a custom description and a clickable direct, affiliate or tracking link to each listing. This lets people click through to shop, set up appointments or even make a reservation.
• Newsletter – You can combine your Aweber, MailChimp, Constant Contact or other email service provider accounts to the player with just a couple of clicks. By connecting the two you can provide viewers with a way to opt in to your newsletter without having to leave the video.
• Flickr and Picassa – You can feed images through the video player if you want to show more details about a product, property or whatever else is relevant to the video you are using.
• YouTube – If you have a YouTube video series, you can set up a channel to feed through so people can watch the rest of the series without having to leave the player.
• Social Follow – You can add your social profiles to the player so if people like the video, they can now follow you right from the video. This is especially effective for on site or as the videos are being shared on social sites.
• RSS feed – If you have a blog, you can stream your RSS feed into the player so that people can see other posts from your site.

You also have the option to have any of the apps open up after the video has finished to show products for sale, help increase your newsletter sign ups or whatever the most important goal of the video is for your campaign.

There are a ton of other apps you can use making Viewbix one of the most powerful video marketing tools out there. If you want to split test, you can clone the players so you don’t have to spend time creating each color or app individually and you can even create video galleries with copy and paste code to create a video series section within your website or blog. Viewbix provides you with a video sitemap for SEO, the ability to tag and categorize your players and will soon have the ability to add pre and post roll ads to your videos. Viewbix is always launching new functionality and you can find updates by subscribing to their newsletter. Here are a couple of examples of companies who have had success with Viewbix.

Cedar Creek Cabin Rentals brings in a 1,300% ROI.

Cedar Creek had a large video library of their properties, the area around them and what to do in the town their cabins are located in. The problem was that they had no way to actively share, track and measure their effectiveness. Tom (the owner) was able to track his success with Viewbix and has noted that his investment with:

The Viewbix player ($200) has paid him back 13 times! Each new client represents an average of $550 for cabin rentals, resulting in an increase of $2,500 and a ton of new leads which can be tracked coming in from the players.

Tom has notably increased the engagement of his users. In the last few months, across hundreds of thousands of impressions, he has seen the following results:

• More than 33% of users click on the call to action within the Viewbix player
• More than 30% of users click on the various apps in the Viewbix player

This vs That Increased Their Facebook Ad CTR by 58%

When using videos on Facebook, the image with a Viewbix video has a much more interactive and appealing look than other players or hosting sites. Here are some of the results when using different hosting companies or players and sharing direct and then sharing with a Viewbix player. The increase in click through rates and the ability to track stands out very well in these examples.

Clip #1: The YouTube Clip was seen by 9674 people and was played 115 times for a 1.2% CTR. The Viewbix clip was seen by 5398 people and was played 116 times = 2.1% The Viewbix clip was 55% more effective at getting people to click on it As you can see, it was seen by 4000 fewer people in their stream but was viewed essentially the same # of times.

Clip #2: The YouTube clip was seen by 8152 people in their stream with 87 clicks on the video for a CTR of 1.1%. The Viewbix clip was sen by 9599 people in their stream with 171 clicks on the video. This gave Viewbix a CTR of 1.8%.The Viewbix clip in this example was 58% more effective at garnering clicks on Facebook.

BroadwayReviewed.com increases newsletter signups.

BroadwayReviewed.com uses a ton of video clips from different shows when reviewing them or talking about show tunes. By plugging the videos that they shoot into the player they have been able to increase activity and engagement as well as drive newsletter sign ups and sales.

Out of 5,842 impressions, there were 542 video views, 102 click throughs, 66 social shares and 472 apps used during the launch of a few videos they shot at a concert (cameras were allowed). Almost 54% of the app usage was for the newsletter sign up where the copy encouraged signing up so that you could receive more videos and posts via email. The next highest used app was the list app where they sold tickets to the tour, vocal recordings and MP3s using Affiliate Links. Without having Viewbix they wouldn’t have been able to get the newsletter sign ups from the social media shares, sales from the social sites and would have had to hope that the people viewing the videos would click through the link or pay attention to the annotations on the video.

There are a ton of companies that are finding success by using the Viewbix player instead of embedding code directly into their site. Viewbix is also affordable with plans that start for free and range from $9.99 to $19.99 per month. Click here to try it free or to become a paid user and get all of the additional features with Viewbix.

 

This case study and post was written by Adam Riemer.

One of the biggest goals for all web site and blog owners is to be able to sell their site for a boat load of cash. This was usually done privately and it would be very rare for someone to come out of the blue and ask if you wanted to see your site.

A few years ago Flippa.com came in and completely changed the industry with how we buy and sell web sites. Before being Flippa.com, the buying and selling process was actually done through the SitePoint forums. I had personally bought and sold a few sites through their forum back then, but absolutely love what they have done with their Flippa site and the massive growth it’s had over the past few years. I already have over $100,000 in transactions through my account on Flippa.

Let’s quickly take a look at some of the powerful numbers behind Flippa today.

As you can see, Flippa is pushing some serious numbers… well over $100 MILLION in sales!

You will also notice that 60% of all listings end up in a sale. Why do some sell and others don’t?

This is mainly due to the type of web sites or blogs that are being listed for sale, but a huge contribution to the amount of money a site will sell for also lies within how well they did with their auction listing. That is exactly what we are going to talk about in this post. How to get the most money from your web site through Flippa!

Follow these simple steps and you are destined to find better results, more bids and even higher payout for your next web site or blog auction.

Provide as Much Info as Possible

As with anything in life, the more information you can provide, the better. As much as we all would like to think that our web sites are the greatest and that they deserve top dollar, it will be a completely different view from the person who is buying your site. The more information you can provide, the less likely the buyer is going to feel like they are getting scammed.

What do buyers want to see in site descriptions? EVERYTHING! You should specifically be focusing on how the site was created, why you are selling, did the site earn any money, what type of job and investment is required to continue to run the site, all advertising/management costs and anything else that the new buyer of the site would need to know.

Google Analytics Access

There are lots of ways to track a web site and the traffic that it receives, but at the end of the day Google Analytics is the standard that all buyers want to see. Flippa already has a system in place for you to connect to your Google Analytics account and upload the latest information and reports on your site. If you like to use another outside tracking method besides Google Analytics, that is fine… but if you want to get the most money out of your site, you better have full Analytics to report to your potential buyers.

Monetized Sites Sell Best

If you have a web site or blog that is earning a few thousand a month in sales versus a blog that isn’t making money at all… which do you think is going to sell for more money? Obviously the one that is generating money! This means you should always try to list web sites that are making money. If you have a web site that isn’t making money and you want to get rid of it, throw it on Flippa and see what type of attention it gets. If you don’t see the sales numbers you would like, pull the site down and try to monetize it, then list it again after you’ve made some money with the site.

Reserve or Not to Reserve

The “Reserve” price is a feature available on all Flippa auctions. This means you can set a price for your web site and if it doesn’t meet that price, then you don’t have to sell. Reserve prices are good and bad. The good thing is that it protects your web site from selling for a very low price. The bad thing is that it will usually scare bidders away and they will always contact you asking what the reserve is.

Respond to All Comments Fast

Selling your web site is a serious business. If someone is going to a real bid to buy your web site or blog and they have a question, you better be there to answer it for them. Don’t let questions and comments build up on your site auction without any responses. Be active on your auction page as much as you can, and always respond to all comments and answer questions in the most detail as possible. If you come across trolls or people that are bad mouthing your listing, contact Flippa and they will take care of it.

Due Diligence Report

If you have a really large and advanced web site or blog for sale, you can order a Flippa Due Diligence Report which costs $199. In short… “A full, hands-off Due Diligence solution that gives an in-depth overview of any potential problems, or any misrepresentation in the information provided by the seller.” – Though I would not think this service is necessary for anyone looking to sell a web site for less than $20,000.

Accept Payments Through All Methods

When listing your site for sale on Flippa you have a few options for how you can accept payment. These methods are Paypal, Escrow and Credit Card. Paypal is used for the majority of transactions and Escrow is used when you are dealing with higher end sales (usually $5,000+). To make the most out of your auction, you should accept all payment methods (or at least Paypal and Escrow), as this will let the buyer know that you are serious and willing to work with them on a payment method.

Make Your Listing Stand Out

Just like eBay, you can make your Flippa listings stand out from others on the site. With hundreds of active listings on the site it would be a good idea to get a little more exposure. Of course exposure comes with cost, so you better make sure you have a high end site for sale if you are going to spend some good money on promoting. I’ve listed some of the top listing enhancement for you below.

Follow these simple steps and take the time to create the best auction you can and you will see a huge improvement in bids and sales prices for your sites when listing them through Flippa.

Since first purchasing some gold and silver in the early 2000s, I’ve sat in awe and watched as the prices have just skyrocketed over the past decade. From Gold at $400 an ounce, to now over $1500 an once… and Silver from a measly $7 to over $40 an ounce now. No matter what type of investments you are involved with, these are some amazing numbers… and they aren’t slowing down!

A one year chart of Silver vs. Gold is shown below. (provided by money.cnn.com)

So what… you missed getting gold when it was under $1000 an ounce, and probably won’t see silver in single digits any time soon either, but there is still a ton of money to be made… and you don’t even need to buy and sell precious metals to make it. Instead, you can partner with APMEX, the world’s largest precious metals affiliate program. The buying and selling of precious metals is going no where, and with the numbers continually skyrocketing, it means there is more money to be made now than ever before.

Precious Metals Affiliate Payouts… the Real Gold

With over 3500+ unique precious metals products, APMEX makes converting your traffic and earning commissions easy. APMEX offers a lucrative CPA commission structure.

• Affiliates earn *$20* for every new customer sale up to 25 per month.
• Affiliates will be upgraded to a *$30* commission level for 26-50 new customer sales per month.
• Affiliates who send 51+ new customer sales per month will receive $40*per customer.

APMEX Affiliates take advantage of an industry leading 90 Day Cookie Duration.

Earn Residual Income on Sales for 6 months!

For six months after your new customers first purchase, you will earn an additional $10 commission for each repeat sale the customer makes at APMEX.

The APMEX affiliate program is really easy to join, and they are currently setup with both Shareasale and Commission Junction.

How to Promote and Make Money with APMEX

As mentioned, precious metals are an extremely hot topic right now. With the US dollar tanking, gas prices going through the roof and everyone looking for some stability… gold and silver keep testing and pushing past new highs every day. This means people are searching the internet every day for more information on precious metals and looking to buy.

Some potential methods to start generating affiliate revenue with APMEX are:

• To create affiliate content sites which focus on different precious metals and bullion.
• Create Facebook ad campaigns targeting to “gold and silver” interests.
• Advertise through CPC/PPC on precious metals web sites.

No matter how you plan on promoting APMEX, they have a full affiliate team which is dedicated to providing you with custom ad copy and tools for making your ad campaigns succeed.

Visit the official APMEX affiliate program web site, or join directly through Shareasale and Commission Junction.