One Penny Project - Make Money Research, Testing and Reporting

Monday, May 12, 2008

How to spend Entrecard Credits

As mentioned last week. I love Entrecard. More so now that I figured out the best way to use Entrecard.

Spend your credits by advertising on other blogs.

Very simple and very effective.

I always drop my card on the blogs I like to read. I also mark them as a favorite and often advertise on them as well.

Some days I drop more cards then others. My drops inbox always shows me new blogs to check out.

I'm more picky about placement then I am anything else. If it is an above the fold placement like I have here on my blog then I am willing to pay more to advertise on that blog.

Once a week I spend most of the credits in my account. I get advertising all week long.

Michael

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all. Even if you don't have kids you may have given motherly advice to a child in the past. So to all I wish a Happy Mothers Day.

Yesterday was jam packed with outside work. Hopefully today I will have time to work on the project I mentioned yesterday.

I also have to practice for my big poker tournament later this month.

Take Care,

Michael

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Interesting Testing Results

I had a nice surprise yesterday. I checked my stats on shareasale.com and noticed that I had a sale. But not just any sale, since I often have sales promoting their merchants.

The surprise part was that I had a sale for a merchant that I was planning on testing. I was working on a landing page and was going to promote using AdWords. But I didn't start advertising yet.

So the page was found with a natural search. After checking the page stats it doesn't get much traffic.

I may have found another winner. Now I will have to use the tools over at Wealthy Affiliate to figure out the best keywords to use on AdWords.

I could just load a campaign with 100's of keywords, but I found that using the tools at Wealthy Affiliate save me time and money. Now I only need to have 15-25 keyword phrases in my AdWords campaigns.

Have a good weekend.

Michael

Friday, May 09, 2008

Buy One Get One Free

Why run a special to Buy One and Get One Free instead of offering 50% off?

I don't know the answer to this question and would imagine that it is complex and varies by business and purpose.

Could it be to reduce stock on hand. If the product is consumable will the customer have to also buy more of another companion product. For example shampoo and conditioner.

There isn't an easy way to buy one and get one free with ebooks. That is unless you have 2 ebooks and are selling them together as a set where one is free.

Could this be a new way to joint venture. Buy my product and get Mr.x's product free? Well I guess that wouldn't be too new, but not common.

What are your thoughts on this as it relates to selling digital products online?

Michael

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Tax Rebate & Why I Love EntreCard

First an update on the Tax Rebate for those of us in the USA that qualify. Always be thankful, it isn't much but it is better then nothing. In the end all we have are memories anyway.

Now on to Entrecard. I am starting to like EntreCard more. At first I thought the work to results ratio was not worth my effort.

But then I made a slight change and now I don't have to work as hard. I was dropping over 100 cards a day. But now I drop about 20 and because I like to see who the new blog are that visit me and I drop another 10-20 on blogs that I like to read. So I am down to about 40 from over 100 (close to 150).

Want to know what the big change was that I am so happy about ... keep reading.

When I first started I was dropping and visiting blogs. But I wasn't spending my credits.

The true power of Entrecard didn't kick in until I started spending my credits.

Now I earn more EntreCard credits per day when I did over 100 drops with much less effort.

More bloggers see my ad on other blogs, visit my blog and purchase an ad worth their EntreCard credits. It is a win-win for all involved.

There you have it. To take full advantage of EntreCard you have to regularly spend your credits.

Michael

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Update on my Projects and Tax Rebate

Today I thought I would give you an update on my projects and answer a few comment questions.

Poker - Yes, I love to play poker. If you would like to play poker with me, just go over to Club WPT and sign up. My name is localpoker. Feel free to add my name localpoker in the referred by field. The cost is $20 a month to play and it is legal in the USA. They operate under a sweepstakes format, so you play with points instead of money. I love it, later this month I will be playing in a tournament with a $10,000 prize pool.

Wealthy Affiliate - Don't forget today is the last day to lock in the lower monthly membership rate. Where else can you get one-on-one mentoring for only $30 a month? Sign up at Wealthy Affiliate today to lock in the low rate.

Tax Rebate - While the plan was to only spend 1/2 of our tax rebate on vacation and apply the other 1/2 to a credit card, we decided to spend the whole thing for vacation. But here is the deal. Before the Tax Rebate the plan was to skip vacation and focus on our debt. So we are still paying down our debt, but at the same time taking a vacation. As for if my spending $1500 is going to stimulate the economy, no, I don't think so. There is something smarter that could have been done instead of the tax rebate, but there isn't enough time to discuss that right now.

$170 Project - I did not invest any of the $170 from my $200 prize. I donated $20 to MDS and $10 was for the PayPal fee. The research is started, but I never finished it. Like much of what I do, I start something, let it sit for 2-3 weeks, then finish it. So look for an update on how I invested the $170 later this month.

Blogging - I maintain about 12 blogs and a few websites. Most get a weekly update. Income levels are slightly below normal. Maybe the tax rebate checks will stimulate the economy to buy some of my ebooks?

Social Networking - I am getting close to 10,000 contacts on MyBlogLog. That is the easy part. My almost 800 community count for my Blog on MyBlogLog, now that I am proud of. Not many blogs can grow and maintain above 600. My goal is 1,000 within the next few months.

There are a few more items to give updates on, but I have to get ready for a meeting on the other side of Lancaster. I don't care for the long drive to and from, but the meetings are great. I serve on the Outreach Department for the Donegal Presbytery.

Michael

Monday, May 05, 2008

Tax Rebate Check

What are you going to do with your Tax Rebate Check?

I was going to pay down some debt, or make a few advanced car payments. But then we decided to stimulate the economy.

Looks like we will be taking a vacation this year. We were going to skip taking vacation. But thanks to the relief payment from the government we decided to plan a vacation.

More on that later.

I have a poker tournament in 10 minutes, other then that no work tonight.

Michael