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1. Go out of your way.

2. Make things easy for them to talk to you, then engage in discussion.

3. Direct and guide visitors to where they can go to ask a question, like that bright, shiny new email logo to the right

4. Sign up for all the social networking sites you can mange to get ahold of. Then add them to ping.fm to reduce the amount of time you spend using them.

5. Find people in your niche and comment, comment and comment (sincerely).

6. Print business cards and hand them out to people at any chance.

7. Write guest posts.

8. Create videos.

9. Start a contest.

10. Give things away and make it easy to share.

11. Offer and take free advice.

12. Be yourself!

13. Have fun!!

A large percentage of new bloggers want to make it big, to have a blog that tons of people visit and money pouring in. The truth is this rarely happens, and if your goal is to make money online, getting tons of people to your site is the wrong way to go about it.

I will probably get booed off the blogosphere for stating the obvious and so many people are ready to defend social media successes, but rarely do any of those defending it actually make money from the traffic that sites such as Digg and StumbleUpon deliver.

I won’t lie to you and say that if you make the front page of Digg you won’t get a ton of traffic, because you will. But did you know that most of Digg’s front page stories are generated by just a handful of people? The rest of the stories are generated by everyone else who is using the site. (Grip time) The traffic from these sites rarely comment, subscribe, buy, share or hang around.

When I first started blogging I used to think that social traffic was the end all and be all of blogging and that having good stats was better than anything. But if your goal is to make money, go where the money is and where you need to go in order to get paid. Provide for or target the people who are looking for a solution to their problems. Digg users aren’t looking for something in particular, they are looking for something random or weird that they can entertain themselves with for a few minutes while they kill time at work. They aren’t going to sign up for an affiliate program or buy a book. They are simply wasting time and floating from one thing to the next.

Making money online more often than not requires you to do and talk about the things that social traffic sites shy away from. This would be the niche blog or abstract art dealer site. By catering to the people who are looking for specific things like a service or collectibles you will find there is money to be made.

Before you persecute me saying you can convert that massive social media traffic, I will admit that many people can convert that traffic and have perfected the monetization of mass traffic flow. In the end, for me, if comes down to the amount of time spent achieving that goal and if that can sustain itself. If you stop for one week pressing, shouting, friending, digging, stumbling and so on, your business will wither. But if you set up a site that generates nice and consistent traffic and money you now have a business model. Don’t forget that a lead in the hand is worth more than a thousand fly by.

*For the record I have obtained mass traffic including having a number of posts hit the Buzz page on StumbleUpon, netting upwards of 35,000 page views per article. So it is possible, but simply unsustainable in the long run.

*Inspired by Vic and Grizz

Our local Gander Mountain outdoor sporting goods store hung up this huge sign declaring that they will not be under sold. That is a big and bold statement in my book. I also believe a statement like that is a big attention getter as well. Over the last few months as consumer spending has dropped businesses have taken more creative approaches to gaining new customers, and for good reason.

What Gander Mountain did is said loud and clear we are your cheapest solution in town. They also stated you should come in and see if you can find anything that doesn’t fit that statement. And they did this with a huge sign on the front of their building. They are located right off of the Interstate and a busy overpass. This sign is easily visible to everyone who travels by there.

I am sure the sign will drive a huge number of visitors initially and possible steal some other customers from other sporting good stores in town, but will it last over the long run? I am not sure. Humans are funny creatures in the way we get used to things and rarely like to break away from the familiar.

I remember one time in Los Angeles driving through an intersection and seeing the gas station on the corner with more cars than it can hold. Meanwhile the one directly across the street had none. The crux of it was the empty gas station had much cheaper gas prices. What gives? I have a feeling it was partly due to preference, but more so, convenience. One gas station had an easy in and out for traffic, while the other wasn’t as easy to get to. But what if there were bigger variables at play such as time of day, going to work / coming from work, new and clean vs. not, or any other unseen reason.

Essentially what Gander Mountain is doing is making a statement, hopefully strong enough to make people break away from their life habits. They are challenging and encouraging people to visit their store with a bold declaration that they will find what they were and weren’t looking for cheaper in their store. In the end, I am sure Gander Mountain will make more money from the sign than anything, but only time will tell in the long run.

What are your thoughts?

It’s no secret that Dyson vacuums do a great job of sucking up all of the grit and grime around the house. They are known for never losing any suction power no matter what. They also do many other things like cleaning the air as it passes through and easy dumping of waste. I am sure in due time they will be automated and have dinner waiting when you arrive home from work. Only if it were soon enough.

What Dyson did is over the top for branding, but it is the combination of branding and an excellent product that leads to success. The creators of the Dyson vacuum went above and beyond creating just a vacuum. They created something that was different in its category. The biggest lesson any of us can take away from the success of the Dyson is to know that in a world of similar products and services, it is still possible to set yourself or your product apart from the rest.

In marketing, it is easy to settle for what pays the bills. But what is your goal really? Is it to be mediocre? I know my goal isn’t to be mediocre but sometimes I don’t even realize I am heading that way until I see myself surrounded by more people just like me. That is the reason I quit my last job. I could feel the walls of mediocrity closing in on me and had to make a break for something better.

The same goes for life as in marketing. The thing that sets those in the top 20% from the majority are the ones who get complacent or who settle for what is working. You ever wonder why there are always a few Realtors in town who sell the majority of the houses? How about the sales person driving the Corvette in a town full of sales people? What about the gas station across the street that gets 40% more business?

I have no doubt that the creators of the Dyson vacuum are going to keep innovating and finding new ways to break the mold of the traditional. I hear they are even creating a new bathroom hand dryer, thank god. The key to marketing and branding is to create something that is different in the world of the same. How can you take what you have and mold it into a product or service that goes above and beyond, to the far right, to the far left, the most color, twisted, unique, useful, creative in your market? I am sure with a little thought and effort it will begin to take shape into something people crave and desire.

Let me ask you this one question: Have you ever seen a UPS truck broken down on the side of the road or in a junk yard?

I for one have never seen a broken down UPS truck and probably for good reason. As it turns out, UPS and its competition would never want to be branded as the company that can’t deliver on time due to faulty equipment. Besides maintaining all of its vehicles regularly, UPS goes to great lengths to ensure you never see one of its trucks “broken.” If one were to break down on the side of the road for any reason, the cargo is immediately swapped from one truck to another, making sure to get all packages to their destination on time. Shortly there after, the truck is carted away to a mechanic.

If the broken UPS truck is no longer valuable to the company or needs to be destroyed, it is altered. UPS goes through the process of repainting and re-branding the original truck so that by the time it is done, the only similarity is the shape. For this reason, you will never see one in the junk yard. I wonder if UPS makes them look like FedEx before carting them off…ha… anyways.

Each of these companies has a huge image and brand to protect. It is so big and so important that they will go to the lengths or repainting a totaled delivery truck so people will never see that there was something wrong with their brand or that it was unreliable somehow.

Branding is a very important aspect of business. Visitors to your site or business can either promote your brand or they can trash it. When you are about to add that new advertising or start a new marketing campaign, make sure you think about the effects that it could have on your brand. Don’t let your customers see your brand if it breaks.

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.” -Warren Buffet