Copy SoapNet and Make Money
Whether you want to admit it or not, soap operas may hold the key to your home business success. This article includes a few home and small business principles I learned while watching SoapNet. Be really, really good looking. I don't know if you've had this experience, but every time I turn on SoapNet I feel overweight, ugly, and hopelessly average. There is no way I could ever compete with the collection of beauties, male and female, that the soap operas have assembled. But before you go out and buy a Bow Flex and dye your hair blonde, remember that I'm talking about your home business in this article. Just because you are running your business out of your home on a low budget does not mean it has to look like you are running your business out of your home on a low budget. Invest a little bit of money into getting a professional logo and stationary. If you own a website and cannot afford a professional web designer, take courses at your local college. Presenting your business professionally can open up doors you may believe are closed to you. Give them something to talk about. If soap operas do nothing else well, they create scandals that have people talking for days. It is a TV show for crying out loud! Can you imagine what kind of publicity you could bring to your business if you gave people something to talk about the way the soaps do? I'm not suggesting doing anything illegal or scandalous. But make sure your business does something that people would be willing to talk about. What do you differently than your competitors? How can you turn that idiosyncrasy into positive publicity? What good causes are related to your area of business? Is there some kind of event you could sponsor that would make the evening news and benefit a worthy cause at the same time? People like SoapNet because it is a lot more exciting than there own lives. Give people something exciting to talk about, and I guarantee they will. Be the good guy. In the days of silent films, the audience used to cheer when the hero first appeared on screen, and they would boo and hiss each time the villain showed up. Earn your clients' and customers' applause by being the good guy. We have all had dealings with people we don't trust or who were extremely difficult to work with. Ask yourself, Are you the shifty-eyed gravedigger American housewives everywhere hate to see on television? Or are you the honest, wholesome doctor moms would love to have their daughters marry? Conducting your business in a way that earns peoples' trust will go a long way in creating word-of-mouth referrals and sincere praise for your company. Remember, like so many SoapNet actors and actresses, your business can get type-cast very easily. Make sure you are cast as a hero and you can't go wrong. Keep it simple. There is an entire channel, SoapNet, dedicated to explaining who is sleeping with whom, what happened when, and who is whose father. Plot twists and messed-up family trees may work well for soap operas, but people place a premium on simplicity when it comes to business. This does not mean that you have to dumb down everything you do, or stop offering complicated or intellectual services. It means the way you present your business is honest ? what they see is what they get (see the first tip above). Do not sign a new client only to later surprise them with hidden fees or contract loopholes that will strain your relationship. This tip has everything to do with creating a relationship that is honest and transparent. Perhaps your business is built around something that you know that other people don't. Do not put yourself out of business by giving away all your secrets. But keep your client or customer relationships open and honest. You'll find that fewer people will try to take advantage of you when they trust you are not trying to take advantage of them. Nobody actually falls down elevator shafts. But you may want to consider pushing parts of your business over the edge. Soap operas are king when it comes to character turnover ? if they are unpopular or the story line isn't going anywhere, there never seems to be a lack of creative ways to kill them off. Take a look at your business and see if there are any aspects of it that may need to be "taken care of," as it were. Cutting down costs by cutting out baggage could do wonders with regards to your bottom line. The SoapNet channel is now in more than 40 million homes. If you play your cards right, your business could be too.
Nick Smith is a client account specialist with 10x Marketing ? More Visitors. More Buyers. More Revenue. To find out how to get SoapNet on your television, check out I-Satellite.
Related News
|
 |
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Massage Therapists Can Now Make More Money
As a massage therapist, your income is usually limited by your stamina and the amount of hours there are in a day. Have you considered that there is a way to make extra income that is literally "no sweat off your back?" Adding retail products to your massage business could provide you with the additional income you would like, by doing something that you already do . . . sharing healthy suggestions with your clients.
Niche Marketing: The Affiliate Angle
If you're just dipping your toes into the waters of Niche Marketing for the first time then Affiliate marketing is the ultimate low risk choice to get you started.
Create Your Own Rumors
A consultant new in the city asked me how I managed to get business so fast. Working for that marketing company definitely gave me a jump start. That's because I already knew about press releases. Only in business a few months and I already had been in two of the local papers. However, it was my male mentors who introduced me to telemarketing.
Selling To Your Affiliates
While success with any internet marketing program falls on the head of the marketer, what the program offers in pay outs and products plays a big roll. What I am going to focus on is the product side of the business. The products that you sell make the difference on who is going to buy them. Either you sell to people outside your own affiliate base. You sell to people within your base. Or you try and sell to both. I believe most marketers try and sell only outside their own affiliate base. If you do this then you are missing out on your greatest customer. Your own affiliates.
Maximizing Your Yellow Page Investment
Yellow Page users are the hottest of all prospects ? someone who has made the decision to buy, and now is looking for a place to do it. Does your ad convince them that your business is that place?
The Seven Vital Steps You Must Know To Ensure Direct Mail Success
1. Your Most Valuable Asset
How to Set Up & Organize Your Customer Mailing List For Optimum Results
Your list of customers who have previously bought from you isyour most important asset. These are the customers who willprovide you with return business, which is more profitable thanthe first sale. But, are you getting the most from your customerlist? There are some secrets you should know, so you can squeezethe most benefits out of your mailing list.
3 Strategies to Market Your Business Even When There?s No Money
Many small and home based businesses know they need to market and yet, have little or no money to do so. Sadly, many use this as a reason not to market. Even on a limited budget you can promote and gain visibility for you and your business.
The Battle of Positioning -- Altruism or Paranoia?
Competition in the past has embodied such beliefs of "kill or get killed" which has fostered paranoia with many individuals and companies. Our competitive thinking has been to: defend, hoard, knock off competition, defame and win at any cost. A view propagated by Intel's Andy Grove that, "only the paranoid survive."
Dear Friend: Dont Start Your Non-For-Profit Fundraising Letters As A Stranger
Dear Friend:
The Marshall Plan -- Or, Customer Aftercare: How To Spend Less & Sell More
My wife likes to shop at the local Safeway. Is it because of the competitive prices? Yes, that's part of it. Is it because of the convenient location? Yes, that's part of it too. She also likes their produce department. But the biggest reason she likes to shop at the local Safeway is "Marshall."
11 Rock Solid Techniques For Generating Product Ideas Anytime Anywhere!
Whatever business you are in, either online or offline,
you've got to constantly generate business/product ideas.
People Do Business with People They Like
People do business with people they know and like!
8 Proven Ways to Get Referrals
Do you find it hard to ask for referrals?
Turning The Casual Scanner Into A Buyer
The world is full of scanners. Most people simply scan the page to see if anything piques their interest, rather than reading the ads, sales letters, or web copy. That's why you should ensure that your copy is scanner friendly. That means placing headlines, subheads, and other devices throughout your copy that's compelling enough to sell your customers on your business.
How can you turn the casual scanner into an active reader? More importantly, how can we turn a scanner into a buyer? First, ensure that your headlines can stand alone, without the support of other sentences. For most, that means getting rid of those one-word headlines. Headlines should include the benefit of your offering, evoke curiosity, or compel the scanner to read the main copy.
Don't forget the subheads. They also should be compelling, preferably complementing the headline, giving enough power to nudge your reader from scanning to reading mode. Keep in mind good subheads support the main promise of your copy. If your headline, for example, promises to help your customers lose weight, your subheads could briefly explain that your product is clinically proven or has a secret ingredient. Subheads are also a great place to introduce your offers.
Another way to be a scanner's friend is to use short paragraphs. Rule of thumb: Keep paragraphs between 3 to 5 sentences. If you must use a long sentence, place a short snappy paragraph after it.
The most popular way to generate interest: Use underlines, boldface, highlights, and italics throughout your copy, carefully. Too much can leave your customers overwhelmed and likely to stop scanning and move on. When using these tools remember, the purpose is to emphasize certain points.
Some ideas on what you should highlight in your copy:
* Call-to-actions phrases, like buy now, subscribe here, or receive your special offer today.
* Contact information, including toll-free numbers, emails, and web-sites.
* Major benefits supporting the promise of your copy
* Your rates and fees and how they compete
* Your business or product's name.
Adding a second color to your copy boosts retention and readability. Especially, when using a medium that's typically black and white like newspapers. What colors are best? Typically, the most used and most effective colors are red and blue. Try placing offers or premiums in different colors to emphasize and pull your customers in.
P.S. Don't forget the P.S. An important aspect, most readers read the end, first. It's a great spot to recap your offer and restate your benefits. This may also be a good spot to add a bonus, premium, or guarantee
Plant a Seed and Watch Your Business Grow
Do you have all the business you could possibly want or need? If you're like me, you're still growing your business. Marketing is an ongoing item on my agenda, and I'm always looking for new ways to market my services. Where do you begin the process of attracting more business? How do you get the ball rolling in the direction you want your business to be heading? Well, it's really simple. Start planting seeds! If you can start your garden growing this spring, why not start your business growing too?
What You Need in Your Marketing Calendar
Marketing calendars are used by many businesses to help keep sales pipelines full of new prospective customers. Small businesses may just keep a simple calendar with handwritten items on the dates that marketing efforts need to be completed. These items might include attending a trade show, sending out an email campaign, or placing a buy for a magazine advertisement. Larger corporations typically have a more detailed marketing calendar planned out a year in advance. Regardless of the size of the business a good marketing calendar does have to have some key elements to assure the monthly activities in which the business is investing are paying off.
50 Unbelievable Benefits Of Joint Venture Marketing
What Is A Joint Venture?
Networking, iNetworking, What Is The First Rule?
Networking on the Internet is the same as networking in
person, or is it? Let's take a conversational tour together
on this topic.
Financial Services Marketing Insights: A Marketing Compass
What we now call "marketing" began long before the name was coined. In the mid-1800s, traveling salesmen dressed "snake oil" and other tonics in fancy packaging and extolled their virtues to a gullible public. New marketing applications soon proliferated in the belief that marketing could make many new things possible in virtually any business situation. For more than a century, implementation, experience and ultimately strategy have helped marketing evolve from crude beginnings into today's sophisticated practices.
|
