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By Little Mummy, February 25, 2009 1:16 am

Michelle left a comment, she noticed that I’d been AWOL, I’m back to explain myself!

Well, as you can see I’m still here, and still blogging. I’ve celebrated a birthday and have been inspired to change a few things, they are quite big things and it’s taking time,I should be honest too and say that I’ve been indulging in quite a bit of poker recently (and winning yay!).

Whats changing…?

Em, where to start really, I’ve been working a lot on Project 500 as well as the freelance project that kicked off in January (lots more to come on this). I’m working on updating this blog and getting articles on Bukisa, because I plan to get this blog back to parenting and start a new blog (more on that later). Also I plan to cull a few other projects. I know this is all very vague, but all will become apparent soon

In the meantime, if you read littlemummy for the parenting stuff then I’ll be back soon. If you are one of the new subscribers interested in working from home/making money/email newsletters etc etc watch this space, my new blog is coming!

Okay, I hope that explains things a bit, be back soon!

Comments (5)

By Little Mummy, February 8, 2009 2:44 am

If you aren’t already aware of Bukisa, then it’s a site where you can publish short articles (250-1500 words) and earn money. Money is earned for pageviews and is calculated by the Bukisa Index, currently the index is $3.65, which means you are paid $3.65 per 1000 pageviews.

So that’s fine, you write an article and you get paid.

If people join your network you are then paid a percentage of their earnings, and a percentage of their networks’ earnings, and the one after that. So that’s the second way you make money.

The third way is the real secret, I only learned this a few days ago so I have no idea how much it works but it could potentially be the most lucrative part. When you write an article you are allowed to include affiliate links. So if you decide to do a review of Call of Duty 5, then you can include an affiliate link to amazon where you’ll be paid per sale that end too. Now, I’m not suggesting you just right articles to make sales, but in some of your articles a link to the product/service may enhance the article.

I’m not going to tell you that you are going to get rich off a couple of articles, but there are plenty of people earning a side income doing this. The income does rise as you add more articles and this income once the article is published is completely passive, you don’t have to do anything more to that article for it to continue earning. In my opinion, this is a fun way to build up an extra income stream for yourself, and the beauty is you don’t need any tech skills at all, you don’t even need to blog to take advantage of this opportunity.

If you feel that you’ve got nothing to lose by giving it a shot you can join my network here.

Comments (1)

By Little Mummy, February 7, 2009 7:32 am

Aweber is an email service provider.  If you are considering starting an email newsletter, an email service provider (ESP)like Aweber is the most efficient way to go about it.

Aweber eradicates a lot of the work of email marketing, they deal with delivering emails and even advise if your newsletter could be heading for the spam folders (text link to text ratio is too small).

Price

The prices of ESP’s vary,  Aweber charges $19 or around £12.50 per month for up to 500 subscribers, you can build as many lists as you want for this.  The price rises to $29 for up to 2500 subscribers and $49 for 5000 subscribers.  Most bloggers or small businesses will not exceed this, meaning that you’ll never pay more than $50 or about £30 or so.

I think you’ll agree that this is very affordable when you consider that research has shown that each captured email address is worth $140* over it’s lifetime (if you are planning to monetize or sell to your list).  Also, newsletter subscribers purchase, on average, 167% more than a non-subscriber*.

Tech Skills Not Required

Getting started is no problem, Aweber provides email training (well, why not, it’s their thing) as well as live webinars and video tutorials.  You do not need to be a technical genius, in fact you don’t even need to know HTML.  Aweber provides a plethora of ready made templates.  Of course, if you are a technical genius or do know some basic HTML then you can upload your own templates or mess around with the ones provided.

Analysis

Aweber provides plenty of opportunity for analysis including open rates, bounce rates, click rates (for each individual link), subscriber and unsubscriber rates. Aweber can also track sales if you set that function up.

My Experience with Aweber

I’ll come right out with it, I love (or at least am very fond of) Aweber. I find them affordable, easy to use and completely customer focused. Since I’ve been registered they’ve phoned me once, sent me two letters and emailed me just today to ask if everything’s ok, apparently they read my tweet(@Erica) saying that I was writing a review. I think Aweber fancies me
Seriously though, it’s refreshing to be cared about, even though I’m a mere minnow in their ocean.

So if you’re looking for an ESP, Aweber come highly recommended. They offer a 30 day test drive, so nothing to lose if you want to give them a go.

*Facts from Email Marketing: An Hour a Day

Comments (2)

By Little Mummy, February 5, 2009 9:42 am

It was Erin’s birthday this week and instead of a large party we had a series of smaller birthday treats.

On Monday we decided to treat Erin to her first visit to the cinema or ‘the movies’ as she now calls it (Dad’s a film buff and Erin can recognise and name characters from the Lord of the Rings, nothing weirder than a three year old saying ‘aargh it’s Gollum’ in a mothering tone)please note I am definitely not boasting here, in fact I think it’s kind of strange! We dragged ourselves out of bed for the 10.45 am showing of Madagascar 2. Unsurprisingly the cinema was dead, I think there were about six in to view the film. We treated her to one of the kids boxes and settled down. I was a little apprehensive (she’s already walked out of the pantomime this year) and it wasn’t long before she was asking to go home, the lights hadn’t even been dipped yet! I wasn’t ready to see £20 wasted though and encouraged her to stay.

Once she realised that ‘the movies’ was nothing more than a ‘big dvd’ she was ok and started to get into it. The film was really good, in short the kooky bunch of aniamals from the first film try to leave Madagascar via the old aeroplane, the penguins attempt at fixing it fails and they end up crash landing in Africa, their native land. Alex, Gloria, Marty and crew meet their relatives and Alex is reunited with his long lost Mum and Dad. Of course Alex saves the day when the watering hole dries up and they all decide to stay in Africa and live happily ever after, or until the next instalment anyway. My favourite character was Moto-moto a sexy hippo (very funny), Erin only mentions the shark – who she didn’t like.

Lots of fun and I think she’s heading to ‘the movies’ to see Ice Age 3 next

Comments (3)

By Little Mummy, February 3, 2009 9:12 am

Okay, ‘attack’ might be a little strong, ‘approach’ might be better. I’m surprised everyday by the lack of take up of social media amongst small businesses, especially in the UK. The blog & email newsletter is a popular combination in the blogosphere, yet many small businesses are missing (or ignoring) the benefits.

Blogging is cheap and if done correctly can create a community that laps up your information and your products. It’s practically free to blog, a couple pounds for hosting and a few good articles and you’re on your way.

An email newsletter can be a way of connecting with your customers, building community and giving something back (ie Value) to the people who keep your business alive. Or it can be just another sales pitch. It all depends on the format, include articles, competitions, and valuable information and you have a valuable newsletter. A list of products with links to buy, well that’s just a blatant sales pitch, and very easy to unsubscribe from (especially in this economy).

I’ve checked out a cross-section of businesses owned by parents to see how they are connecting with their customers. These were completely random choices from the mum and working website. Just for fun I’ve rated them with a star system. 1* = Blog/Newsletter non-existant. 5* = Social Media Superstar

Everyday Maternity – No blog here, but they have a registration form which has a tick box for a newsletter, I suspect this newsletter would be merely a sales pitch (I might be wrong?), no incentive for joining either.

2**

Green Mums – They have an articles section, but not really a blog. No sign of a newsletter, there may be something when you sign up, but nothing promoted on the front page.

2**

Scribble Bug – No blog or newsletter sign-up form on the front page

1*

Hippychick – No blog or newsletter, but a big button to connect on facebook!

2**

Hippins

No blog or newsletter, but they have managed an adsense ad, interesting

1*

So there it is, none of the businesses I looked at were really promoting a blog or an email newsletter that offered any incentive. Maybe I’m wrong and it’s not profitable for small businesses to do this, but as a potential buyer I’d like to hear the stories behind the business owners and really connect with the companies. Loyalty and trust are key in an economy where I for one am reluctant to open my wallet and make a purchase without a lot of consideration.