As you may have noticed by now, I am using a gadget to blog that means I can blog items of interest as I surf - the current trend I am following is the trend of cleaning up adverts, nobody wants to be lumbered with a mobile subscription they can't switch off except by changing phone number for example - but this is what is happening - so I am following it.
here is some coffee stuff - there are loads of coffee pictures on flickr well over a Million - so we can share :-)
Some random coffee pics:
This is a new blog just showing random thrashy adverts I find on networks - the type Techcrunch /Michael Arrington are trying to remove from games like Mafia Wars and farm ville on facebook.
Talking of which - here's a screen grab from a facebook app I joined this evening - complete with a naked man playing with his genitals and a zwinky advert (aimed at kids ? )
Zynga CEO Mark Pincus said earlier this week that he intends to make sure his company’s games don’t include scammy offers in the future. Our full background on this story is here.
But what he didn’t say in that blog post is that Zynga has been scamming users from the beginning quite intentionally as part of their revenue model. Rather, he pointed much of the blame at middlemen offer companies: “We need to be more aggressive and have revised our service level agreements with these providers requiring them to filter and police offers prior to posting on their networks.”
Last spring, though, he gave a much clearer explanation to an audience at a Startup@Berkeley mixer, admitting that scamming users was part of Zynga’s business model from the start. And it was all caught on video. I think everyone sort of knew that this was exactly Zynga’s gameplan. But to hear it said so directly is just shocking.
The full 30ish minute video is here. We’ve taken the relevant section of the video, roughly starting at around the 10:40 mark, and embed it below. From the video:
I knew that i wanted to control my destiny, so I knew I needed revenues, right, fucking, now. Like I needed revenues now. So I funded the company myself but I did every horrible thing in the book to, just to get revenues right away. I mean we gave our users poker chips if they downloaded this zwinky toolbar which was like, I dont know, I downloaded it once and couldn’t get rid of it. *laughs* We did anything possible just to just get revenues so that we could grow and be a real business…So control your destiny. So that was a big lesson, controlling your business. So by the time we raised money we were profitable.
In this article I am going to break down 5 Ways you can Boost Coffee Shop sales with actual examples on how to go about implementing them. I have broken this article up into 5 parts and included a quick index at the top of every post for easy navigation. All of the examples I give in this article are great ideas but they are really meant to be spring boards to get your own creative juices flowing.
Way #1: Social Media – Twitter and Facebook
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
By now I think most everyone is on board with the idea that social media is an important element in their overall business strategy. But I don’t think most people really grasp that this is not just a peripheral element. It can and ultimately will be one of the biggest factors that the everyday consumer will use in deciding where they are going to spend their hard earned money. If you don’t believe me then just do a twitter search on one of your favorite brands or t.v shows. You will see a stream of real time information about that particular brand and what people are thinking or feeling about it in that moment. I think so many people are making the mistake of writing this off as a “Twitter Thing” when in actuality it will ultimately change the way people search and surf the web forever.
Now I don’t want to limit you’re exposure or thinking to just Twitter and Facebook but right now they are easily the two biggest players in real time Social Media. So if you don’t have an account at both of these sites please STOP reading this article and get one immediately. Now that you have an account on these sites how do you use them? Well this is going to depend on your overall strategy and later I am going to go into more detail of what that might look like for you. The important thing to remember is to stay active, communicate, be available, be genuine, provide valuable information, remain approachable and do not abuse these streams to over sell or as a glorified RSS feed. Below I will walk you through three examples of how to use these tools by interacting with customers at the store level. (Note: There is also a huge use for these streams at the corporate level.)
3 Ideas for Your Store
Idea #1: Facebook Fan Page Giveaway
Let your customers know you have a Facebook Fan Page. Once you have over 100 fans turn your url into a vanity url. (http://www.facebook.com/MyCoffeeShop – If you do not have a fan page Spencer at Tutorial Blog has a simple How To on getting it set up.) Once you have the vanity url it makes it a lot easier to market that page to your customers. Now that you have the fan page let’s get started with the giveaway. On your fan page update your status by saying something like, “Come in to the store for the next 60 minutes and say you saw this message and receive ANY small beverage for FREE!” Even if you don’t have all or any of your fans come in for the giveaway many of them will most assuredly tell their friends or family about it. By the end of the day you will have many more Facebook Fans and loyal customers watching your every move, waiting for the next big surprise!
Idea #2: Twitter Contest
This one is super simple. Tweet out a message that saying something like, “Who is enjoying their YourCompanyHere beverage this morning? Send me a pic and you could win a $20 gift card.” Then when some time has past and you have some pics announce the winner. This will draw people to you on Twitter and ultimate increase your companies visibility on this very important medium.
Idea #3: Coupons on Your Blog
Do a blog post the day before a big sale with a coupon in it. Tell everyone they can get an additional 20% off. Include a field where they can input their email address to receive their coupon. This not only gets you more sales but also increases your base of contacts.
Next Page >>>>> Part Two – Giveaways
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These tips are useful for a variety of niches
So, who said marketing was expensive? Who said paid marketing was the best way? Below are 50 of my favourite FREE methods to market my business. I try and use them all and have had very successful results with each and every one of them. Which methods will you use? Don't forget to let me know how you get on and which results work well for you.1. Networking
2. http://www.youtube.com
3. http://www.viddler.com
4. http://www.facebook.com
5. http://www.ecademy.com
6. http://www.linkedn.com
7. http://www.trafficswarm.com
8. http://www.craigslist.org
9. Forums
10. http://www.bttradespace.com/
11. http://www.twitter.com
12. http://hubpages.com/
13. http://www.squidoo.com/
14. http://www.myspace.com
15. Ezines
16. http://www.bebo.com
17. http://www.ezinearticles.com/
18. http://www.wordpress.com
19. http://www.blogger.com
20. http://www.thearticledirectory.org/
21. http://www.digg.com
22. http://www.jumptags.com/
23. http://www.vivastreet.co.uk
24. http://www.ebay.com
25. http://www.usenet.org/
26. http://www.problogger.com
27. http://www.affiliateshowcase.com/
28. http://www.prweb.com/
29. http://www.prleap.com/
30. http://www.clickbank.com
31. http://www.trafficexchangelist.com/
32. http://www.hitvortex.com/
33. Postcards
34. Flyers
35. Back of Car Bumper
36. Testimonials
37. Article Submission Sites
38. Free Classified Ads
39. http://www.socialmarker.com/
40. http://www.uniquearticlewizard.com/
41. http://www.weebly.com/
42. http://www.mybloglog.com/
43. http://www.ping.fm
44. http://www.nrg-networks.com/
45. http://www.business-scene.com/
46. http://betternetworking.co.uk/
47. http://technorati.com/
48. http://www.gumtree.com
49. http://www.onlinemarketingtoday.com/software/link-management-assistant/
50. Network with your family, friends, colleagues and wider circle
I hope the above tips help you. There are many more free places to promote your business, but these are just a few to get you started! It's important to remember that effective marketing doesn't always equal big budget.
Tel: UK 07590 554292 or US 001 209 251 2906
"If you want to be successful, find someone who has achieved the results you want and copy what they do and you'll achieve the same results." Tony Robbins
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Nice list - albeit, some are no longer 'free' for business promotion/advertising/offers, i.e. Gumtree now say:
"Posting an ad for 30 days in any of these categories will cost £4.95 (excl. VAT). "Call Simply-Fone to reduce your Home & Business telephone call charges and line rentals.....
Interested?
Contact us today!
Simply Fone - turning all calls into cheap calls..[ reply to this comment ] [ report spam ]A traditional business advert might cost, but there are still ways you could market for free in the gumtree classifieds ads without paying with creative use of words and ideas about what you want to achieve - that doesn't involve deception or unethical behaviour
Zara Lockwood | Create your badge [ reply to this comment ] [ edit ]
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I belong to most of these sites myself.
Looking for something different for your website or a gift - how about getting a cartoon ?
Zara Lockwood [Edit]
Date of Birth 01/03/1973 Type Role Sales, Marketing, Advertising or PR Member Since 02/11/2007 Primary Website http://www.weston-chatter.com Status Online and currently viewing Member Profiles
Biography [Edit]
Something which could Transform your Business
Click here for More details about The Million Dollar Challenge.
oke doke, trying a different way of doing things, waiting for the magic pixies instead...okay okay, stop it Zara you are so silly!
What are you really doing ?
You really wanna know ? - I don't think I believe you :-(
Okay (gawd where did we find this one ?) well can you just tell us where your website is so at least others can have a look, even if you don't want to talk about it ?
hmmm, okay, I suppose.... www.coffee42.info
hey what's that " De-activated during a4uAwards nominations" mean ? man you'd have thought that kind of information was , like PRIVATE, don't want to be in your awards anyhow....
Oh yeah here is my A4U coffee lounge I will probably add it to my Coffee Blog: http://www.affiliates4u.com/forums/groups/zara-s-affiliate-coffee-lounge.html
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4 comments: -->
agreesHi , It would be great if you will add me to your contatcs list . I saw your websire , may be you shoul try our affiliate program . Babylon pays 40% cut plus 10% of all sales which comes from your sub affiliates . That how you make more then 50 % revenue share ! In addition you can get a special monthly bonuses of $100 to $1,000 for our best performing partners. Have a good day . Regards Daniel
Daniel_Razumov on 26 Apr 2008-->
agreesLoL . . . you sound as daft as me . . . . but hey ...give up on the award thingie eh ... I'll claiming it ....so there :)
TheCheekyMillionaire on 17 Apr 2008
my profile over at A4U - I lurked there briefly in 2003, updated my profile with million dollar challenge info - if you are a Ning Nomad, do come and say hi :-)
If you do want to post somewhere I recommend visiting my social group first to check what is allowed - they are quite picky these days!
Zara Lockwood [Edit]
Date of Birth 01/03/1973 Type Role Sales, Marketing, Advertising or PR Member Since 02/11/2007 Primary Website http://www.weston-chatter.com Status Online and currently viewing Member Profiles
Biography [Edit]
Something which could Transform your Business
Click here for More details about The Million Dollar Challenge.
oke doke, trying a different way of doing things, waiting for the magic pixies instead...okay okay, stop it Zara you are so silly!
What are you really doing ?
You really wanna know ? - I don't think I believe you :-(
Okay (gawd where did we find this one ?) well can you just tell us where your website is so at least others can have a look, even if you don't want to talk about it ?
hmmm, okay, I suppose.... www.coffee42.info
hey what's that " De-activated during a4uAwards nominations" mean ? man you'd have thought that kind of information was , like PRIVATE, don't want to be in your awards anyhow....
Oh yeah here is my A4U coffee lounge I will probably add it to my Coffee Blog: http://www.affiliates4u.com/forums/groups/zara-s-affiliate-coffee-lounge.html
Contacts
Events marked with a
Whiteboard
Expand All | Collapse All -->
4 comments: -->
agreesHi , It would be great if you will add me to your contatcs list . I saw your websire , may be you shoul try our affiliate program . Babylon pays 40% cut plus 10% of all sales which comes from your sub affiliates . That how you make more then 50 % revenue share ! In addition you can get a special monthly bonuses of $100 to $1,000 for our best performing partners. Have a good day . Regards Daniel
Daniel_Razumov on 26 Apr 2008-->
agreesLoL . . . you sound as daft as me . . . . but hey ...give up on the award thingie eh ... I'll claiming it ....so there :)
TheCheekyMillionaire on 17 Apr 2008
my profile over at A4U - I lurked there briefly in 2003, updated my profile with million dollar challenge info - if you are a Ning Nomad, do come and say hi :-)
If you do want to post somewhere I recommend visiting my social group first to check what is allowed - they are quite picky these days!
Official user wide launch of twitter lists - if you couldn't get them yesterday should be able to now.
Twitter Lists
So, busy yesterday looking at twitter lists. Looks like you can have 20 lists which are like sub accounts - I am using these lists to put twitter contacts into groups - this will take some time, but not that long as I have around 5000 on @lemonknickers and a couple thousand on several other accounts. The list names are changable, I might even merge my accounts as the reason I opened up multiple accounts was to track different subjects - not to spam!
Most of my current lists are private, but I have the directory - of products and services open, and cool people - which are people that have my kudos!
open lists - that are still being sorted - on an ongoing basis:
http://twitter.com/lemonknickers/directory (Products and services)
http://twitter.com/lemonknickers/cool-people (People I give kudos to)
http://twitter.com/lemonknickers/top-cats (People that are known to be head of the pack)
http://twitter.com/lemonknickers/ning-nomads (Ning friends)
http://twitter.com/lemonknickers/local (Weston-super-Mare)
My use of the lists is mainly to organize people by location, UK, USA and by subjects like Coffee - all twitter need to do now is add a status box at the top of these lists so users can message people just in that list (like the message all members of this group function on Ning) maybe that is something they could charge people for ?
The private lists are for my use, I might open them eventually.
Other subject Ning Gifts - idea is good - I still think they need to add a few more free ones, like profile comments or HI5's - so that people can give them out as welcome presents, as I think it takes a while to build up motivation to pay for virtual gifts, it need to be ingrained into the network - like the game of monopoly - who want's the racing car and who wants the old boot ? - answer different people like the different ones like flavours of crisps - i.e you all rush to get the car (or the salt and vinegar crisps in my family) a mystery gift might be good in that it could be opened and a person won't know if they are going to get a generic gift like a heart or a lucky clover - or like the lotto they might get some bling/sport car/luxury gift. The virtual gifts could have collectable themes too, like an eco friendly collection or a love heart collection - reasons to make the person want the whole set - like people that collect thimbles - they get the case free then buy new thimble every month. These kind of ideas could make virtual gifts work - if someone created a coffee collection for example - I'd collect them myself and give out coffee gifts to new members or if they liked rainbows or cats - I might leave them a gift relating to their hobby/niche - a fisherman might collect fishy's - not rocket science is it ?
be interesting to see if they do develop the gifts, as they are it is very basic, not enough to motivate me to spend real cash on them just yet - alot the point prices need to vary - it is dumb to give people 100 points free to start when gifts are 75 each - better to add some at lower points like 25 - so atleast a person can try the gift function twice before having to pay out.
If they aren't going to add freebies other than cancer, aids and army for free (good causes, but not universal in appeal when trying to sell the app to potential new users) they should let a person be able to sent at least 7 gifts free - I use 7, as 7 times is 7x exposure use of the gifting feature - and they say it takes atleast 7 times to 'sell' an item to some people before they buy - these gifts aren't shiny enough for compulsive buyers yet in my opinion - if the price varied - with some lower and some 'expensive' like $5.00 each you might get a complusive buyer or buyers buy them as mini status symbols - as in "I like you and respect you so much I am wiling to buy you this diamond encrusted virtual rose, because money means nothing in comparsion to your beauty!!!" see what I'm saying ? - A person that has alot of shiny gifts have alot of people that care enough to spend on something so trivial. - this would work with charities - if you are socially minded - as 'save the rain forest' could recieve donations via gifts to each other on a network - maybe Ning could offer that function to network owners - to have 25% of the 50% rev share donated to a charity - that way, everyone would have themed gifts that benefit 1. Ning, 2. Charity/social cause 3. Network manager 4. givers 5. recievers who are sharing - how can that kind of win/win deal not work for mutual benefit eh ?
Hello This is my new universal blog, posted from posterous it in theory can act like a bigger update than a tweet and also get to some of the blogs I don't get to sometimes - speaking on which I have a godaddy blog that I need to add once I figure out how to add it.
I'm going to try and write something most days (she says) mainly about my current favorite subjects - i.e Coffee, web tools, social networking, on-line life and my dog.
I usually get fed up and forget to blog - but like a diet - I will try to post 5 out of every 7 days - 7 days when ever possible. I will probabley add reminders to myself on here too.
Sooo, what are you up to Zara ?
Well... at the moment I am setting up a place to add profiles - over on www.totallyu.co.uk that site is made using a script I brought via a web script reseller buddy of mine (I have the resell rights myself - once I've got the hang of it I might offer custom installs), I am customizing it at the moment - sign up is quick, what a person can do there is add a profile, add video's from youtube, add photos, I might turn it into a social network for my coffee affiliates actually, people that join either the healthycoffee downline builder , or are coffee fan's from I Love Gano but anyone can add a profile or start a journal/blog there - coffee drinkers / coffee fan's only please!
I have a both free and paid web hosting I use - my coffee venues are like little kiosks - I'll plonk one on most social networks where it is allowed - imagine a franchise like a chinese takeaway or a news agents or a mini version of a starbucks / costa coffee - then imagine - they are all coffee themed places, where you can chat with people about coffee, social media, web tools, blogging, with coffee games and links to coffee websites and coffee experts (I am in the process of looking for coffee experts - I have already found a few good ones in UK and USA) and it's on-line. That's kind of what Zara's Coffee Venues is about - I'm your Barista / cafe owner type person - if you buy a coffee product either directly off me or via an affiliate link, I will earn a commission and that will go towards a wage to make me finacially independent. Once I can earn a profit that can keep me from being homeless - then I can think about hiring others that wish to help out - a bit like Cafe World on Facebook !!!
Hi - just an update - what Zara is up to:
Firstly !FB is a code that should mean that none of my updates with links in go to my facebook profile page - this is because a change in the facebook rules that mean's business posts / status updates aren't allowed to have sponsored links in - and if you are anything like me, it's almost second nature to add a link or reference to the latest product or gadget I am promoting in relation to my business interests - but commerical posts outside of the business pages can get you a facebook ban however if you use Plurk to update your facebook status you can add !FB and that post won't go to your facebook profile - this is handy if you use hellotxt or ping.fm to say good morning to alot of people on different networks - as it means you can do a generic hello then - another one to your coffee buddies for example - which is what I do - that way I can still use one interface - i.e hellotxt first thing in the morning - then check up on individual networks when i feel like it.
Okay other stuff - I've quit the paid version of Zlio for the time being, I might have to retire Ning Nomads too in the future as like other networkers - it just doesn't 'pay to pay' and while I carry lose leaders for a while - the cash could be used to pay eBay fees instead - and eBay is virtually guarenteed quick sales - I am a bit more hesitant to give up Ning Nomads as I kind of like it there but it's running at a loss and I don't have the funds that twitter and facebook do to keep loss making activities afloat for long like they do!
So I'm clearing up ready for winter, my venues and other free blogs however can stay up as long as blogger is free - thus they are growing naturally using mybloglog and I am using the power of "cloud" hosting to set up venues - I am planing on making them more interchangeable - I am growing networking friendships of the networks - which is great - I have eBid (a free version of eBay) for UK sales, I have web hosting for storage - in short all the tools are there - it's just tweaking and optimising that takes the time - the groups will start to have people soon.
I am testing out Google websites, a way to have hosting for free with a theme - I have another wordpress blog for the coffee venues - the google website may act as a "cloud" point of reference so if you are an Affiliate on http://ilovegano.blogspot.com I might direct you over there for examples.
Anyway got to go now, I will speak again soon.
Zara x
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