Working at Home on the Internet

Free Advertising Using Free Offers And Get A Great ROI

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When should you charge for your services?

Frankly… ALWAYS (almost)

 You are in business to make money. Tons of people write tons of articles about ROI (Return on Investment). But that doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to get Cash for every transaction, service or bit of advice you give.

On the contrary, you can often times get a very favorable ROI by performing a service or offering a product Free of Charge. The return usually comes later in the form of referrals, free advertising and return customers.

A couple of examples that I can cite are

Offering Free Services in the form of a prize as part of a community effort. By participating in the community in this manner, you can expose all your services (products) to more people that could have a need for what you offer and may lead to more sales. You also get Free Advertising in the form of promotional efforts as part of the overall project.

Offer Something for Free as a lead-in to your main product. This can be an advertisement in itself. Once a potential client has shown an interest in what you offer, they could be enticed to dig further into your product line or may need other services you offer in the future.

Offer Free Advice to existing customers by answering questions they may have. Not really as part of the customer service for something you have already performed, that should be automatic. I’m talking about fairly routine questions that they may have problems with that may not be related directly to the purchase, but something you can answer relatively easily without researching the answer.

So, are these ways of getting paid for your services or products? Indirectly, YES. If you can build your exposure, credibility and ensure return customers without paying directly for advertising the Return on Investment can be well worth the effort.

Can you think of any other ways to get “paid” indirectly for your service? Do you think this is a good way to increase business prospects?

March 26th, 2008 at 05:48am | Posted by Joe | Advertising, Management, Promotion | 6 reader remarks | Print This Post

Hey BlogKits, You Owe Me Money

 I doubt you noticed, but there have been some changes in the advertising I have been running around here. Mostly, some of the low (or no) profit affiliates are missing. There is good reason, they are taking up valuable space and some are are actually making money on clicks and I’m not.

Others were good options in the beginning and we both made some money, but after a little while, there was just no action on their ads.

While still others owe me money because they got clicks and sales, I have cash on the books, but I didn’t make their minimum requirements for payment. These are the one’s I want to warn you about.

Rant Ahead! 

Most of the major advertisers and affiliate programs have minimum amounts you need to meet before payment, and for the most part they seem to pay once you have exceeded that minimum. But, what if you never meet the low end of sales requirements and decide to call it quits. Neither you nor the affiliate are making tons of money, but THEY have made at least something from your sales/clicks. You have money on the books, but not enough to get paid.

How do you get the money that you have earned in good faith? I have no idea, but I have sent e-mails to BlogKits requesting that we break up amicably. Pay me and I will delete my account. I have already taken down their ads and would never refer them as an income source to anyone.

Just in case you missed it Mr Ryno Saayman… “It’s My Money, and I Want It Now!”

Update: I finally got my payment from Blogkits on May 21, 2008. Thanks Ryno!

February 6th, 2008 at 01:16pm | Posted by Joe | Advertising, Affiliates, Rants | 2 reader remarks | Print This Post

The Best Business Card Design Yet (for MCBS)

Ok, I did it again. I changed the design of my Business Card. If you were around after SOBCon 07, you know how much I felt the need for that little card to hand out as a way to make contact with Bloggers and computer users in general that may be in need of services that I could provide.

So, Here it is

I personally think this is a big improvement over the last few designs I tried. I even got K’s approval on this one!

What do you think? Do you think it gets the point across? Does it look Professional? Lara?

November 14th, 2007 at 02:31pm | Posted by Joe | Advertising, Promotion | 4 reader remarks | Print This Post