Joey Kissimmee, an online marketer by profession, is a technology geek and an extremely smart chap in the web marketing industry. Joey, who commenced his online journey back in the year 2000, went through a lot of tough phases, but with consistency and the learning through his mistakes¸ he managed to get over all those
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Joey Kissimmee
I recently put out the word that I wanted to interview small business owners for an upcoming project, the Empire Building Kit . These were the criteria: you had to net at least $50,000 a year with two or fewer employees, you had to be willing to talk about money in specific terms, you had to share your biggest mistakes as well as your greatest successes, and you couldn’t be a professional blogger. (Obviously there’s nothing wrong with professional blogging — I just figure that bloggers get enough attention already. Besides, if you want to create a business , there are much easier models.) I heard back from 300 people with all kinds of different backgrounds, but Lisa’s email stood out from the rest. I have a dog-walking business in Minnesota. Can I contribute my story? I’ll be honest: I didn’t think much of it at first. A dog-walker? Shouldn’t we be talking about affiliate marketing, information products, and Facebook ads? Walking dogs around the park for cash isn’t really my thing, so I assumed I’d say no. But then Lisa told me how much money she makes: $88,342 in 2009, and now on track for $105,000 in 2010. That got my attention. She makes six figures as a dog-walker? Wow. Now that’s a story. And in marketing, of course, story is everything. If you can build a real business around something you’re passionate about — in this case, Lisa loves dogs — I think that’s worth some attention. Follow your passion? Yes . . . sort of The thing about following your passion to the bank isn’t so much overrated as it is incomplete. Finding a way to get paid for doing what you love is both feasible and sustainable. The trick is to construct a lifestyle business around something you’re passionate about that other people are willing to spend money on . The difference is crucial: I can be passionate about eating pizza and playing video games, but so far I haven’t found anyone willing to pay me for it. Therefore, I have to orient my business not only around my own interests, but also around what other people are willing to pay for. I built the rest of the Empire Building Kit around conversations and insights from people like Lisa. The photographer, the triathlon coach, the translator, the guy who makes baseball art, the murder mystery host, and so on. You’ve probably never heard of most of them, but they’re doing very well doing something they love. Last month I released the product on board a 44-hour Empire Builder train from Chicago to Portland. It was a huge success, with rave reviews from our inaugural group of emperors — and a freaked out merchant account that wanted to know why so many sales were rolling in. Long story short, today I’m doing it again. It’s for 24-hours only, before I get on a plane and head overseas as part of my quest to visit every country in the world. If you’re interested in joining the inaugural group of new emperors, I’d love to have you on board . All the details The goal of the Empire Building Kit is to help people build a business in one year by doing one thing every day. To that end, I’ve compiled a truckload of resources and hand-holding to make sure that happens. The Kit includes: 15+ Case Studies. From 300 initial respondents, I narrowed it down to more than 15 thriving emperors from at least as many different backgrounds. I asked for their stories, their secrets, what they wish they had known before they started. The case studies come in a variety of formats: video interviews, MP3 files, PDFs, with complete transcripts. So you can get the most out of them no matter what your learning style. 365-step Email Series. You get one mini-lesson today, one tomorrow, and 363 more over the rest of the next year. According to the folks at Aweber, it’s officially the longest follow-up series in their history. The key is: if you do one thing a day, it will be much easier than trying to do everything at once. But you also have to make sure you’re doing the right things, so we help with that too. A 52-step Product Launch checklist. Even if you’re not launching from the “bloggers’ lounge” onboard an Amtrak train, something always goes wrong with a product launch. Use this checklist to avoid big mistakes, and dramatically increase revenue. One step produces an average revenue increase of 30% every launch, no matter the price of the product. Another step ensures you can sleep at night by not screwing up the confirmation emails. And so on. “Show Me the Money” module. All the details from behind the scenes of my own Unconventional Guides business. You’ll learn how much money each product brings in, where I’ve screwed up, where I hit it big, and so on. Ok, so I could go on about all of that for a while. But what you really get is insight and context from people who have successfully cracked the code of following your passion. They all talk about money, they are all extremely candid, and they’re all real people doing fun things while getting paid. Care to join Lisa and the rest of us? You can find out all about it right here , but it’s only available for 24 hours, ending Wednesday morning at 9am Pacific Time . And if it’s not a good fit for you, of course, that’s fine too. Most importantly, I hope your business is as enjoyable as Lisa’s — and as enjoyable as mine. About the Author: Chris Guillebeau travels the world and writes for a small army of remarkable people at chrisguillebeau.com . Follow his live updates from every country in the world at twitter.com/chrisguillebeau .
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Walk Dogs for $105,000 a Year (Or Make a Living Doing What *You* Love)
Today’s copywriter is more than a mere “wordsmith.” If that’s how you think of yourself, you’ll be stuck in Junior Copywriter ad agency purgatory for eternity. Think back to recess in third grade, when you kept getting stuck on the see-saw with the fat kid at the other end. All the cool kids were playing kickball. And there you were, waiting for the inevitable bounce . By investing your time in understanding five key areas, you’ll be able to exponentially improve your ability to create effective content. And that, my friends, is what it takes to bounce the fat kid off the see-saw and start playing a much cooler game. You don’t have to be the 500-pound gorilla — you just have to think like one. 1. Real-time search With Twitter and Facebook having made deals with Google and Bing to make content available for search, copywriters working in the online space cannot ignore the importance of real-time search. Every social media portal and social bookmarking site is now a place for content to be found online. If you can’t sit down and have a coherent client conversation that includes real-time search, the fat kid is going to send you flying. Copywriting 3.0 Tip: Take the time to understand real-time search. Learn the sites indexed, the type of content indexed from each site, and where people go to find real-time search results. Check out real-time search engines like OneRiot , read how Google is incorporating real-time search , and think about how this can affect the way people phrase online conversations. 2. Article marketing and repurposing content Article marketing is no longer about just building backlinks. Instead, it’s about breadcrumbs. The more you leave around the web, the more likely you are to have people follow those breadcrumbs to where you’d like them to go. If you’re not in tune with the latest in article marketing and how to repurpose online content for maximum visibility, you’re missing a key conversation that you should be having with your clients. It’s no longer about just having a blog — it’s about where those posts go after they’ve been launched on your blog. Facebook, Twitter, Posterous, eZines — there’s a world out there just waiting for your content. Check out the new eZine WordPress plugin as well as the cool features of Posterous . Copywriting 3.0 Tip: Read up on anchor text, SEO keyword research , and make sure that any online destination for which you write understands how an SEO strategy affects the success of their online goals. Fat kids don’t like breadcrumbs — they like donuts. Help your clients stay light and nimble by introducing the breadcumb strategy. Which leads us to our next point. . . . 3. SEO-savvy copywriting When’s the last time you sat down with an SEO firm to chat about how you can make their job easier? I work with multiple firms and pick their brains on a regular basis. If you’re writing online content willy-nilly and with no regard to an SEO strategy, why on earth are you writing? Granted, some sites are purpose-driven and others have built-in audiences. But by and large, you’re going to be working with clients who want new prospective business to land on their sites. If you don’t understand the latest in how search engines read words or the basics of keyword frequency, keyword ratio to content length (to avoid keyword stuffing or even under use), and placement on the page, the writer who took the time to learn is going to make you look old school. B-O-U-N-C-E. Copywriting 3.0 Tip: Check out Copyblogger’s SEO Copywriting Made Simple guide. Connect with a local SEO firm. Pop over to SEOMoz and read their Beginner’s Checklist to Learning SEO . And of course, you should be using Scribe ( I recently reviewed it here ). 4. Blogging: Where SEO and social media collide Search engines lurv “dynamic content.” In lay terms, that’s a consistent stream of fresh content instead of a collection of static pages that never change. It shows the search engines that a website is consistently updating and is therefore more “relevant.” That’s why everyone’s got a blog these days. It’s also where SEO and social media collide. A blog is the ideal place to help a client execute a keyword strategy, increase traffic, and be seen as an authority in the space they want to dominate. Show your clients you understand how blogging fits into a sound SEO strategy, and is a facet of not only their social media strategy but an overall marketing plan. Copywriting 3.0 Tip : Read up on blog marketing strategies , don’t discount the importance of linkbait-style headlines , and understand what a good blog does and where bad ones fail. Creating online content is about more than tweeting a blog post or putting a link on a Facebook fan page. It’s understanding how the words you use and where you use them affect your business goals. 5. What mobile means With 42.4 million iPhones on the market (as of January 2010), you can’t argue that mobile content isn’t relevant. The fat kid on the see-saw has been content with churning out old-school SEO copy. And that’s all fine and dandy. But he doesn’t know diddly about mobile content. Screens are smaller, attention spans are shorter. If you can’t write something that can be read at a stoplight (not that this blogger reads and drives . . . oh, no . . .), you need to rethink your skill set. With DVRs and online news distribution, we don’t watch commercials or read ads. So where are businesses supposed to go? They go mobile. Smart businesses are developing mobile versions of their corporate websites. You need to know how to write for them as well as the ad networks that operate in the mobile arena. Copywriting 3.0 Tip: You may be writing ads, but you’re not going to bounce the fat kid without reading up on AdSense Mobile and iAds . You also need to start surfing more on a mobile device. See what annoys you about content not formatted for mobile, and who does a great job. Check out Whole Foods Market on your smart phone. Bang-up job, I say. Straight on. The bottom line is this: copywriting has gone high-tech. If you’re not up to speed with the changing landscape, you’ll keep getting stuck on the see-saw with the fat kid instead of in the killer game of kickball with the cool kids. Do your homework, stay on the pulse of how social media and SEO are changing the way businesses communicate. And never forget: you’re never too old to learn something new. About the author: Erika Napoletano is an online strategist based in Denver, Colorado. As the Head Redhead at Redhead Writing , she serves up sound yet snark-laden advice on social media, SEO copywriting, and business strategies.
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Copywriting 3.0: How to Bounce the Fat Kid off the See-Saw