Weekend Projects – Count Down to Christmas

Published on Sep 20, 2008 // Weekend Projects

ThreeÂ weeks down and only 13 weeks until Christmas. Last week we talked about choosing aÂ shopping cartÂ and using affiliates. Again if you still have not picked a product it is not to late to do so, a few hours of workÂ could meanÂ putting $500 into your pocket for the holiday season. This week we will focus on advertising optionsÂ and update on how sales have been.

Step 6 – Getting the Word Out
You can have the greatest site, affordable pricing, amazing service but if nobody knows you exists your business will not be successful. The next 13 weeks we will be doing a combination of advertising that are both free and paid to find out which works best. When you do any type of advertising it is very important to track your results. We will be tracking all our initiatives through either a tracking software or by using coupons.

This weekÂ IÂ will spend several hours getting the word out using the following freeÂ advertising methods…

Advertising Method	Â	Details
Blog Comments	Â	Leaving comments on blogs that fit your target market will drive traffic to your site. To find blogs use Google Blog Search and enter keywords that apply to our target market. The more keywords you use to narrow your search the better quality of traffic you will get.
Forum Posting	Â	Joining forums that have specific target markets to your product will drive traffic to your site with each post you make. Do not spam the forums but join the community and make appropriate comments on others posts. Your forum signature should have a link to the site.
Groups	Â	Yahoo and Google have large groups where you can join a community which will drive traffic to your site. Spamming these groups is not tolerated so you will need to join and contribute. It is usually fine for those that contribute can post a signature with a link.
Social Sites	Â	Posting to the various social sites like Facebook that you are now selling the product will drive some traffic to your site. Friends and family will make a big effort to buy your product or refer customers to you.

Any free methods you have used that worked well for you that we missed?

Sales Update
To accomplish our goal of $500 profit before Christmas we will need to sell 25 Vado’s. To date using just word of mouth with local friends and family I have already sold 5. That means we are already 20% done. I am sure that in the next 13 weeks there will be no problem with selling the remaining 80%.

Next steps?
Next week we will go over more advertising and a weekly update on sales.

If you are interested in participating post a comment on what product you are choosing and we will contact you for updates as we go through to see how your doing. This will also allow me to customize the examples to help you with what your selling.

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