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I’ll tell you. About two years ago, these signs started popping up all over Fargo as a new and convenient way of marketing. I have to say that the very first bright, neon signs I saw like this did catch my attention and cause me to stop and read them. The problem was that after a little while, others thought they would make some money with this new and successful advertisement and set out to replicate the success of the originator. I am not sure exactly how much it costs to put one of these signs in front of your business. I believe about $150 / week. As you can see, it would only take about two weeks to recover the cost of the materials used to make and alter the sign’s message, then pure profit.

The major problem now is that the novelty of these signs wore off and now they are just like all the other billboards in town begging to interrupt our lives in the hopes of selling us something. The bang for the buck advertisements these signs once had is now gone. They only attract the people who were already looking for whatever is being sold. What are people to do now when they want to get their message out about a new deal or gizmo? Doing something different works for a while, but that requires lots and lots of change to stay ahead. How does this relate to online advertising?

Remember when the fold down ad corners popped up online and everyone went crazy to stick ads in there because people were intrigued? Well, that novelty has worn off and pretty quick I might add. Or how about Google Adsense? It is no wonder Google always has to invent new ways and places to stick ads in order to keep up ad generated revenue. Ads in video, ads on the sidebar, ads in email, ads on their own version of Wikipedia now named Knol, ads on cellphones and the list will go on.

What if, and I mean a big what-if, you took all of the money you planned to spend on advertising and interrupting people’s lives and used that money to better your service or product. You would probably end up with a product that people will start talking about because it has become truly useful or over the top in a way that will separate itself from anything similar to it. It would be like spending the time to run a free clinic to get people interested in a sport or new hobby. The end result could be more sales of your product for helping others get involved, or perhaps more recognition as an authority on the subject increasing your demand.

A funny thing happens when your demand goes up, so does your salary. This will never happen overnight, but it will eventually happen as you increase the value you contribute to others. In other words, you separate yourself from the pack and distinguish yourself or product, allowing for people to talk about it openly. When was the last time someone was ecstatic about the McDonald’s dollar menu and told you about it?

edit* If you don’t have these signs in your town yet, you could make a lot of money by being the first to start.

Whats new at the Unconventional Marketing Blog?

Well last week I did a featured series for a blogger appreciation week, where I made mention of those who wanted to be recognized. I believe I got everyone. If you slipped through, send me a message and I will make up for it. Here are the posts:

• AlmostFit.com takes the stage
• The Big Bald Blog, a Big Pappa creation
• The MLM’s best friend, John Leonard
• Four blogs worth checking out featuring…
  • That’s Great PR
  • Down On Our Luck
  • It Might Be Love
  • The Blue Workhors

Overall I feel it went very well and I really enjoyed talking and sharing some of my reader’s blogs with the rest of my readers. From time to time I really like to give back and make a mention the best I can for those who help support my blog. I wish I could shower you with lavish prizes and tons of cash but not quite yet ;).

Guest Posters

I have offered up guest posting in the past and have not received much attention until out of the blue Shaun Connell stepped up to the plate and shared his thoughts on Google Adsense. I would like to thank Shaun and welcome him to guest post anytime.

Also, you might have noticed a new guest poster page at the top of the blog. To encourage some more guest posting and share a little more about those who do guest posts, I created a page to show off a mug shot and brief bio for all to see. Shaun is lonely on that page and is looking for some more company. If you are interested, feel free to use the contact page to let me know of your interest to join Shaun.

Goals

I am a big fan of goals for both this blog and my personal life, and this month was a great month for goals on this blog.

Here were my goals:

Page Views : 70,000
Alexa: under 125,000
Technorati Rank: 30,000
Technorati Authority: 200
RSS Subscribers : 250

Here is what I got:

Page Views : 106,953 Unique Visits 53,000
Alexa: under 122,000
Technorati Rank: 26,138
Technorati Authority: 193 (just missed)
RSS Subscribers : 308 (last day of the month)

As you can see, I made all but one of my goals of the month with which I am really pleased. I didn’t meet all my goals in the last two months and so I did not set July goals as out of reach as the others. I also was not anticipating all of the new subscribers to the blog but would like to welcome all of you. Seeing that I just missed the Technorati goal by a few, if you would like to add my blog to your favorites to help me meet my goal, I would be eternally grateful. Heres the link.

Blogging is a lot of fun, and it is also a way of connecting with others through a form of promotion. You are choosing to show your thoughts and opinions for the whole world to see in a way that best represents you. But, most people go about it the wrong way when they start out blogging. They are chasing dollar signs and not pursuing their dream of freedom via the Internet. It is not a crime to want to make money online and to pursue doing so, but going about it the wrong way will only result in lost time, energy and money. I have put together 3 major tips that I think anyone starting out blogging should consider before taking the plunge.

1. Focus on a subject you love

Everyone needs a passion. Passion is a good motivating tool as well as fun. If you have participated in any outdoor sports, games, hobbies or arts for many years, you are probably dealing with a passion. Blogging needs to have the same passion. You should be able to blog without visitors, without pay, without recognition all for the love of it. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go after visitors, money or recognition, but you should have the drive to do it no matter what.

It gets said over and over again that you need to focus on a small niche in order to be a successful blogger. While I agree with part of that, I think it is more important to focus on a topic you are passionate about. If you like antique furniture or remote control airplanes, ,jewelry or whatever the case my be, focus on that subject. I don’t care if the topic has already been covered a thousand times and even seems supersaturated. Still stick with that subject. You can always carve out your niche in any subject and still remain passionate about it. At first the results might not show in a crowded subject but by being able to stay the course for 1-2 years, you will see the less passionate people fade away. This week marks my sixth month of blogging, and already I have seen quite a few bloggers come and go. The simple answer: they were not passionate about their subject.

2. Frequency

Blogging is habit forming and like beginning or ending any habit, it takes time and dedication. It is not easy to wake up one day and say gee I am going to start writing every day; the same goes for putting down the cigarette. My advice to everyone who asks me how to improve their blog typically goes like this: “Write a blog post every day for the next 30 days.” Sometimes I hear back from people, but most the time I never hear from them again. When I visit their blogs a week or two later, they still have the same posts on the homepage and nothing has changed, but somehow they still have time to drop Entrecards on my blog. This shows very little dedication. The whole idea for posting every day is to build the habit of doing so to begin with. It all starts with a first step.

I don’t think you have to post 10 times a day to have a successful blog, nor do I think posting once a week will lead to a successful blog. I do believe posting and promoting more often will help your blog grow quickly, but I think that it is all in proportion. If you are a gifted writer and thoughts flow like water and your posts end up being 1,000+ words each, then having a post every couple days is completely acceptable. If you like to post Twitter sized blog posts on hot topics of the day, then I would shoot for more frequent blog posts. At the end of the day, it comes down to finding the best fit for you and your time, then posting consistently and with diligence.

If time is an issue and you don’t feel like you can take the time to post every day, then take an hour or two on a Saturday or Sunday to write out the next week’s posts. I go in cycles when I know I am facing a busy week. In those cases, I will write out a series or string of posts to cover the week. If I have more time on my hands during the week, I will typically do posts day to day. I always have ideas ready to go for the next post at anytime thanks to my many pocket notebooks and Gmail.

3. Content

All you ever hear about is content, content, and more content. The truth is… it is true, content is king. I know not everyone here is a natural writer with gifting that publishing houses are actively looking for, at least I have never been contacted. But, each of us is more than capable of creating and expressing a complete thought, whether it is thought provoking, opinion, rift, muse, story or analysis (I am sure there are more). Take the time to think about what you are trying to say and let the thought ferment a bit. It is not a crime to let a half finished post sit there a while as you develop the thought and content. I have had some posts sit in my holding queue for a month or two before publishing them, usually with a lot of revisions. Take time to think things over and explore different stances and do all the research you can. People are looking for a lot of different things online often at light speed, so give them something worth their time to read.

Don’t worry about people stealing your content. Rarely do blogs above you steal your content without giving recognition. If your blog is updated frequently and you have your pings set correctly, search engines will know where the content originated. I never really go out of my way to fight blogs that take content without recognition (just a waste of time in my opinion), I simply don’t allow their links to appear on my blog. Normally, they get next to zero for traffic and are only doing it to get the ad revenue. Rise above them and focus on writing genuine high quality content.

Protect your image and brand by releasing content that is fully ready to be published. If your post has a bunch of typos and grammar mistakes, it will only reflect poorly upon you. I am the first to admit that writing is not my strongest point and knowing that I usually have my girlfriend (an editor) read over my posts before publishing them. If having a significant other as an editor is not an option, there are many sites like quickpostedit.com that will edit your blog post quickly and cheaply.

Conclusion

Be passionate and proud of what you are doing and remember why you chose to blog in the first place. I am a big fan of goals and making sure there is a why behind the reason, whatever that why may be. It is not easy to start a new hobby, and it takes time and work. If you pursue your passions online like you would offline, it will carry you through the times of uncertainty and doubt. If you don’t play rugby in real life, why would you choose to blog about it?

Actually, that title is a lie. I really don’t believe there is a fast track to becoming a millionaire. I do on the other hand think that you can achieve the riches you desire in a short time frame if that is your goal.

It seems like everyone is trying to make money online thinking they can replicate someone else’s success in a short length of time and end up making as much money. The truth is everyone pays their dues. Like starting out on the ground floor of the building and working your way up, it takes some time. Sure you could start out a few floors higher than most, or climb the floors faster than most, but it won’t happen overnight. This isn’t just a post about telling you that “you can’t do it,” or “it’s really hard to make millions online.” The exact opposite is true. Look at Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook. He bypassed the millions and went straight to the billions. What I am really trying to drive at here is the process you go about making your money.

Focus on the lifestyle you want

So many times and probably the number 1 reason for bloggers and online entrepreneurs failing is because all they are doing is chasing money. Chasing money is a very, very hard thing to do. Sadly, most people who could live off the chase of money quit before they have really made any money from their online ventures. It takes time to start turning a profit, and if you haven’t been in the make money online game for long there are a lot of bumps and bruises along the way.

If you think you would like to try one way or the other to make money online, my first advice is to do as much as you can for as little a$ you can. You don’t want to go broke trying to live out your dream of self employment and the freedom that working online brings. Make the Internet work for you, not the other way around. I very rarely feel guilty stepping away from the computer and going outside or on a last minute trip to family or friends. Often business picks up when I am gone because of all the work put in preparation for the mini vacation. I don’t think I could pick a line of work online that involves my direct involvement over every aspect at all times.

The secret to making money online is really the secret of motivation. If you can’t stay motivated doing what you are doing for next to nothing for six months to a year, the chances are high for failure. Failure is likely, not because the idea is bad but it is unlikely someone will stay motivated for that long without immediate returns. If you compare all of the “A-list” bloggers, most started out doing it because they loved what they were doing and a year later they started getting rewarded for it. Find anything that you are really passionate about and focus on that for the first phase of making money. Often, your passion will probably be specific and niche enough to draw a good crowd with the potential to monetize it in short order down the road.

It won’t take long from the time your first project gets off the ground, and all of the lessons you learned from it will steamroll right into the next project or phase. The skills you learn along the way will continue to carry you through each project you take on. As you take on more and more projects, you build a nice big foundation to grow from. This is why there is no magic bullet for making money online and basically to each their own. I never want to be just average, and I doubt I have ever been. So, I would hope you are the same way.

Don’t settle for average or the mundane online either. Look to the edges of the subjects you are interested in and never forget there are close to 7 billion people in this world. That is a lot of untapped potential to find the people who are out there with similar interests as you. Become an authority in your field and niche. I promise you, if you stick with the things you know and love, you will succeed and make your millions.

Over the last few days I have been running a series on how to make the lifestyle change to working online. Here is part 1, part 2 and part 3.

The hardest part about making the switch from, say, a traditional 9-5 job to working for yourself online, is the ability to stick with projects and even more importantly, letting them go. Since starting out online, I have participated no less than 10 different ways of making money online over a 6-month period. I have made money or broken even on pretty much everything, but the downside was the amount of time invested in some of these ideas. Nothing beats the time when I planned on writing and promoting ebooks. I wrote wrote and wrote, only to discover I really didn’t want to do that type of work. It was too labor intensive on the front end and there were no guarantees on making any money from the ebooks themselves.

Think of your bottom line and how much time it is worth in order to earn that money. If you spend a lot of time just to earn a little return, you are fighting a losing battle. On the other hand, if you have to spend 100 hours without seeing any profit in order to make much larger returns, that is the better deal. Most of successful work online involves more front end work and higher rewards after the time, energy and effort are put in. This is why most make money online schemes don’t work, because they promise the returns before the effort. Rarely is this ever true. Like I said in the earlier posts, there is no magic bullet. The key is determining when to hold onto those projects and goals as they start costing you more money and time than you had planned or anticipated for. For me, I like to make a plan and return to that plan even if it is just mentally to reassess where I am at in the process. If I feel directionless and unmotivated, it is probably because I have strayed from my original plan or I am realizing the cost benefit ratio is changing.

I really don’t have a set guide for when to drop a project and when to keep it. I spent about 1 year working on an ebook site to help unpublished authors and ended up putting the idea on the shelf. That was a really hard thing for me to do, especially after all the work and time invested. Fortunately, I had only invested a tiny sum of money into the project, mostly due to the limited budget. The project could have easily cost me a lot. It was a hard choice to tuck the idea away, knowing it would probably never see the light of day again, but I had a couple quiet secessions with myself. I really dug deep and asked if that project was something I really wanted to pursuit, or did I want to cut my losses while they were still minimal and move on? I chose the latter and have been thankful ever since.

On the reverse side, I made the choice to stick to my guns and pursuit other ideas that have paid off much more in the long run. It is a hard choice to stick with a dream as you are watching your bank account dip into the double digits territory and just hope that some of the auctions you have on eBay are enough to carry you through til things pan out. It was slowly becoming a reality that I might have to pick up a part-time job to make sure I was able to pay my bills. Just for future reference, potatoes are $.67 a pound, hard not to be able to eat when some food is that cheap. I truly loved what I was pursuing and was going to stick with it until the last possible second. After being humbled by an extremely tight budget fit for a college student it did not take much to feel rich. This is why it is so important to be doing something you really love and would do even without pay. When times get hard, that desire to continue on will be the driving force to carry you through. What separates most successful people from others is the ability to make it through the dip, because I can promise you there will be dips when you start to question your sanity.

If you have forgotten what sunlight looks like it, might be time to reconsider how much effort you are putting into your project. I made the decision to have the freedom and lifestyle that working online allowed. Recently, I made a trip to visit and help family for 3 weeks, and nothing changed as far as my business was concerned. In fact, I saw a slight boom in business while away. This is not always the case, depending on the kind of work you have chosen or are preparing to choose online. My goal was not to choose a line of work that I had to babysit on a regular basis but rather work that molded to my desires and lifestyle goals. Lifestyle design is a really important aspect of choosing what online ventures you pursuit. If you are interested in lifestyle design, I highly recommend Tim Ferriss’s 4 Hour Work Week.

Having determination and a love for what you are doing is vital for making it through the rough times when things are highly uncertain. I lived off of about $800-900 a month for a few months in order to realize my dream of working online and the flexibility it brings. This is another reason to have a financial buffer while you make the switch. My reasoning of quitting my job and jumping in head first was to force myself to really work from day 1 at making money. I made a sign and posted it right above my computer that read “will this make you money?” For me, it was sink or swim, because there was no way I was going to return to my previous job, and I was willing to do anything to avoid another job just like it. This was not the easiest way to make the switch and being young without many liabilities aided in my ability to approach my new career this way. I would highly recommend for anyone else thinking of making the switch to really analyze your situation and make the proper preparations to ensure your success. Mostly, that involves saving a lot of money or phase out the old job while phasing in your new career as it becomes more profitable.

I can’t encourage you enough to pursuit your dreams, whatever they are. The neatest thing about those dreams and the things that you love is you can make good money doing what you would do for free for a friend. The biggest thing is asking the right questions and really targeting the people you most want to work with. I love helping small businesses because I can relate with so many of them and their desire to succeed in what they do. I get a sense of reward and accomplishment watching others succeed and knowing I was able to assist them in their efforts.