A Tale of 2 WAHMs

Ramblings of 2 WAHMs - Anita DeFrank and Kara Kelso. Partners in business discuss how we manage successful websites and young children at home.

Tuesday, August 31, 2004

Back To School!

Yesterday was my daughters first day back to school. I think she really enjoyed it (Phew...!) She was lucky enough to have the same school teacher as last year because the teacher had moved up from teaching 2nd to 3rd grade. Yeah, Melanie thinks thats lucky cause she really likes her.

Although when she came home yesterday I wasn't sure who had started back to school! It took me over an hour to read through everything and fill out all the forms! Ahh...guess that comes with motherhood, huh? I was just amazed at the permission forms that have to be filled out these days. I also found out that I'll probably be learning a little something new this year too. They have to memorize all 50 states (which I knew those) but they also have to memorize each capital to each state. (Hmmm...I must have missed that lesson somewhere! LOL)

Having a home daycare my 3 year old son has become accustomed to having children here for him at all times. Ooops! They all started school this year. Poor Cole. Now all he has left is mommy and you know, sometimes mommy just doesn't cut it. Instead of having more time to work when the kids went back to school I found myself yesterday and today just as bad as it was over the summer. He required all the extra attention and of course I felt the need to give it to him because he was lonely. Hmm...we're going to have to see about some part-time care for him. I think he needs to be around other children too. Ahhh...the joys and concerns of working at home.

Monday, August 30, 2004

I'm Baaack!

Phew! What a great time! I'll tell you, one week is a great amount of time for a vacation. Not too short and not too long. (Although, I must admit we were having a great time and I could have easily stayed there another week!) Ooooohhh! But the work I came back to! :shock:

We packed soooo much in for one week AND even did a little relaxation in the meantime. We had a fabulous time! We were at Rehoboth Beach Delaware and had rented a house (for all of us! LOL!)

Here are just a few things we managed to work in. We went to the beach, to the bay, rented a pontoon boat for the day, swam in the bay, went to the boardwalk a couple of times, had a family picnic (we have family that lives there), went clamming, crabbing and fishing! Oh, and that's just a couple of things.

Really the best thing about the whole week was having no worries, (even having no computer :shock: ) and spending some really good quality time with the family. My kids had an excellent time and I couldn't have asked them to behave any better! We were absolutely thrilled!

Oh and I also picked up a new habit while we were there ... COFFEE!! I never knew coffee had that much caffeine! I'm a very avid soda drinker and have had people tell me how bad all the caffeine is?!?! Yup, but I bet they had a couple of cups of coffee that morning too! LOL! I was literally bouncing off the walls all week long!

Anyway...we really did have a fantastic time and I'm so glad we went! Like I said, I could have easily stayed another week BUT ... I'm glad to be home too! :)

Back from mini-vacation and so is Mom's Market

Today is a good day, although truth be told yesterday I was a little bummed that I had to like, DO SOMETHING today business related. I've been enjoying a little mini-vacation, hanging out inside a game I like to play normally in the evenings (it's my little escape from everything business related - we all need them!). I've been exspecially enjoying the company of one certain individual and wondering if things are becoming serious. So obviously, I didn't want to get back to boring old work. Heh, but today held a surprise for me. :)

A few weeks ago I posted that Yahoo had dropped every single page from Mom's Market. Sales have been extremely low, and I've been quite upset about it. Well today I looked, expecting to see an ugle "now searches found" while looking up my domain on Yahoo, but much to my surprise see 6 pages indexed. It's not much since there are over 500 pages on Mom's Market, but I'm breathing a huge sigh of relief knowing that it's a glitch on Yahoo's part and I didn't do anything wrong to upset them. What's really odd is the 6 that are indexed are the stranges page that have little to do with one another. Take a look for yourself:
http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=slv1-&p=site%3awww.momsmarketonline.com .
Just confirms my suspision that Yahoo has some major glitches still, and it's going to be awhile before we see things settle down.

Well aside from all that, now I am in somewhat of a mood to get back to work. I love what I do and wouldn't want to do anything else, it's just I was having so much fun on my mini-vacation hehe. I do feel refreshed though, and this was something I deffinately needed. :)

Friday, August 20, 2004

Results of Test so far

I posted yesterday about my test for sending out specials. On Wednesday and Thursday I sent out the special to my "Specials and Discounts" newsletter list and to several "spam groups". I also posted the special on 2 message boards where specials are allowed, and one safelist. Here's the numbers that I've estimated so far:

5 or so visitors from the newsletter list
3 from groups and safelist
0 from message boards

Quite low numbers don't you think? I thought so. Oh, and this amounted to no sales. What suprized me the most was the low number from the newsletter list, which almost always has a high response rate.

There could be several reasons for the low response:

1. The wrong time of year for candles.
Since the specials and discount newsletter is made up mostly of parents due to the sign up form being on almost every page of Mom's Market Shops where children's products are shown, most are more concerned about paying for school supplies and what not. I've seen a better response to "back to school" specials on school supplies from this list (like 5-10 sales when a notice is sent to this list).

2. Not a big enough discount/wrong type.
The discounts may not have been enough, since I just used 10% or free shipping.

3. Over saturated market.
Everyone sells candles. Well, not everyone, but ALOT of stores online AND offline.

4. Sent to wrong list.
The "spam groups" I sent to were purely for spam. Monday I'll be running a test with groups which have mostly discussion but certain days for "spam". There may be a higher response on these groups.

5. Wrong days to announce specials.
I could be Monday or Friday is a better day. I sent on Wednesday and Thursday. I'll be playing with the dates in more tests.


I plan to do some tests with traffic exchange programs today to see if I get any type of response from those. What I'll be doing is putting up a page with the special and see if visitors click to other pages, or if it even creates a sale. *We will see*

I believe the only way to know what works and what doesn't it to keep track of tests like this!

Woo Hoo! Vacation Time!

Oh I am just waaaay too excited! It's been too long since I've been on a real vacation and I thought for sure we weren't going to make it this year. But we are :) All 13 of us! LOL, don't be shocked cause usually there's about 3 or 4 plus more depending on who all goes! Each year my in-laws try to take us all on one big family vacation. We've camped at Hershey Park, been to Busch Gardens Virgina, Tennessee and we've even done Disney World (this one we'll be doing again since my son hadn't been born yet). We usually take about a week which to me seems just about perfect ... not too long ... and of course not too short either! (Guess that depends on where were at too!)

This year from Saturday August 21st to Sunday August 29th we'll be at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. This is actually where my MIL spent all her summers growing up. We've rented a house/cabin for the entire week and have many activities planned. This year we decided on something like this so we can actually have a relaxing vacation too. We don't have to jam pack the entire week with activities ... we can also sit back and enjoy each other too. However, we do plan on visiting the beach for a while, the boardwalk and we've even rented a boat for the day to go fishing and crabbing.

Crabbing, now this is a new experience for me and my kids all around! All of my husband's family used to do a lot of crabbing when they were younger and I've heard a lot about it from my husband. I'm kind of excited to give it a try myself.

Well, I just wanted to stop in and say a little good-bye :) I'll be back on Monday the 30th all nice and refreshed ... Well maybe I'll be refreshed, LOL!

Toodles!

Thursday, August 19, 2004

Testing Specials for Soy Wax Candles

I'm sure somewhere there is information on what works better as far as specials go. But for me, I like to test things out for myself. So what I did was send out the special to several lists and posted to several places. I sent out two different specials to see which one is responded to is better, and then different codes for each list/group/board to see which one has the best response. I used the two following specials:

Free Shipping: FREE208040020
10% Off: DISC108040020

This will be an on going project, and I'll most likely be testing this for several months.

Tuesday, August 17, 2004

Mom's Market gone from Yahoo

Well I'm just a little bit upset. Every page of Mom's Market that was indexed in Yahoo's search results are now gone. Why? Well, I'm not sure. From what I've been seeing at places like WebProWorld and SEO Chat, Yahoo still has some major glitches. I've also been seeing that others have seen the same thing happen to their websites. Just completely dissapearing, then reappearing a few days or weeks later. Some were mentioning it could be Yahoo filtering out affiliate pages, but that doesn't make much sense since that's only half of Mom's Market. Not to mention one of my sites that is ALL affiliate links is still sitting at #1 for it's keyword phrase in Yahoo when Google dropped it in the last big update months ago (My theory was because I had done far to many link exchanges and not enough one way links - therefor Google "punished" it because it looked like I was trying to increase my rankings just by doing a bunch of link exchanges - maybe they were right, and I now know not to do that again!).

Anyway, I'm watching closely and just praying this is a glitch, and they haven't dropped it completely. I did contact Yahoo support in hopes of a reply, and hoping for a reply that will give me some information.

While Yahoo only accounts for maybe a 1/4 or so of my traffic, they accounted for 80% or more of my online sales. Deffinately not good to have dissapeared - I'm in serious trouble right now. I knew better than to put all my eggs in one basket, but I really was trying to diversify more (thus the reason for working so hard on Soy Wax Candles and RecipesForMom.com), it's just I didn't get things done in time before Yahoo nailed me.

*sigh* So much for that vacation - I can't walk away with this mess right now. :(

Friday, August 13, 2004

Work Habits at Home and Days Off

Yes by posting here I'm buying time. Procrastinating. Putting off what I know should be done. For some reason I just don't want to do anything. Well, I DO, but games are calling me saying "come on...you know you need a day off!". Hey, after all I DID get the press release sent out for the "Stay at Home with Your Kids Day".

Also while I'm staring at my list of things I wanted to accomplish this week (which my black dry erase marker died last night, so today's list is in a bright blue and bugging me very badly), I keep thinking of OTHER things that I could do. Which I suppose I should just go with what is calling me as long as it's productive. But then that silly "To-do list" haunts me. Saying "Hey! Slacker! You didn't do everything this week!".

*Sigh*

I have to wonder, when you work for yourself and just absolutely DO NOT want to do anything, is it ok to take a mini vacation? Do we all need time to relax (other than the weekend), and regroup? How productive can we really be if we are contantly burned out?

Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about, and just trying to come up with an excuse to go play games. Maybe I'm just stressing too much over what needs to be accomplished this month (both online and with family stuff).

Done rambling for now...

And I know better too...

First of all I'd like to make a huge apology for promoting "JUICE" in the first place. My gut definitely told me no. I even talked with my husband before I signed up. My exact words were...

"I'm looking into something that could speed up our computer, but and this is gonna sound funny to you but my biggest problem with it is, It's Free."

And of course by that wonderfully sounding word of Free he was hesitant too? So, why did I sign up? Well, I signed up for that one little glimmer of hope that maybe it's real and I could get out of Slow-Mo without costing me an arm. Why did I tell others about it? I told others about it because not only were they promising this unbelievably wonderful free service, they were also offering a pretty heafty referral bonus of $48 per sign up! Yup, you know...if it sounds too good to be true...it probaby is.

And still I went for it?
I'm not afraid to admit when I'm wrong ... And I wasn't alone. Why do we still jump on the bandwagon. Most of us are smarter than that? We do it because we are hoping and wanting it so badly to be legit that we get blind-sided by the promises. Exactly what the company setting up such programs is hoping for.

I'm gracious to Alice Seba for helping open my eyes to this. Here's a little more on what she has to say about it all Juice Boosted

Always remember (and I promise to practice what I preach)... Research, Research, Research...and they just when you think you have it figured out... Reasearch some more!

Thursday, August 12, 2004

Recipe Ebook Affiliate Program Open

If I didn't accomplish anything else this week, I'd be happy with getting the affiliate section done for my recipe ebooks. Earlier I found that nice code so I could use multiple landing pages for my ClickBank account. So today I finally finished up getting the code in order on my site, and built a brand new section just for affiliates (so that there wasn't anyway my affiliates would loose out on sales from my own paypal payment buttons or links to other items I sell as an Amazon affiliate on RecipesForMom.com). You can see the special pages I set up here: http://www.momsmarketonline.com/recipe-ebooks.html.

I also set up a page for the affiliates to learn about the affiliate program and get links to use for various pages on that special section. The links that need to be used are a little different from normal ClickBank links, but I've tested them to make sure affiliates get credit for their sales.

While it's certaintly been a trying week, I'm happy to at least gotten that done. Tomorrow for some reason seems like "National Take the Day Off Work" day and I don't know why. I was suppose to help my mom at the restaurant, but since my step dad got the day off so do I. YIPPIE! What odd is another friend of mine somehow just got the day off too. Weird how those things happen, eh? Well must be for my birthday, which is Saturday. Hehe - Just joking of course, but that is somewhat odd.


Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Comparing Google Adsense and New CBClicks

I've been hearing alot lately about CBClicks so I thought I'd check it out. Everyone has been calling it an "Alternative to Google Adsense" which I think is starting to confuse some people. I'll explain some things I've seen so far.

Right from the beginning my thoughts to explain this better would be it's not an alternative to Adsense because you aren't paid per click, but per sale as most affiliate programs.

What I can say though is I think it's a nicer and easier way to use your clickbank account. Just my opinion but sometimes it can be a little time consuming to search click bank for the right product. Using this program will make that a bit easier because they do this for you based on the keywords you choose.

The ads do look very similar to Adsense Ads. One thing that I prefer on the "look" would be that it doesn't say "ad". Where google has "Google Ad" This just says CBClicks.

You also get to choose keywords for each ad. Which can be a better alternative to adsense because I'm sure we all have had a time or two that Google has thrown up a PSA ad or something that just doesn't seem to "fit your topic".

Also like Adsense you are able to choose the color and layout of the ads. Another option you have is to choose the number of ads shown per page. They also have a little section of banner ads that you can use too.

I don't believe I'll be replacing my Google Adsense but I think I will use them to help me find the right ClickBank Products.

There's a nice little Audio Introduction there that you might want to take a listen to at CBClicks.com

I've also added more information about this program to my Affiliate Marketing Information Network


I'd love to hear any opinions on this.

Monday, August 09, 2004

Email Marketing

What is spam? The definition of spam can be very simple. Unsolicited email. Plain and simple. Information sent to my email that I didn't request. I don't care if you're offering a special, affiliate program or business opportunity. Spam is spam is spam.

We all get spam from time to time and probably more often than not. Usually I simply delete the email and move on. Today for some reason I decided to not delete this specific email. One reason might have been the fact that it was sent out in a small mass. There was quite a little list of everyone who recieved this same spam. Of course not hiding everyone else's email address either. Here is what the email said:
"I have a new group that I have been working on for a while now. I think this will work. I am only taking one person from one business. SO apply fast. When the spot is full you will be denied.
This is to help those in business become successful.
Thanx

XXXX"
I've left out the name of the writer of course. I do have to mention though, I haven't left out the link. The link wasn't even in it?!? I simply replied with a "Please do not spam me". To in which was replied with "I did not spam you...I sent the message to the whole group."
I then copied and pasted where she had sent it to my own personal email address and not a group.

Now, this is where you have to be careful of what you do and say again (Just as Kara had mentioned in an earlier post here) online. I honestly believe my simple response of "Please do not spam me" was handled very nicely. Little does this person know what could actually be done to her for things like this. The response I was given was very unprofessional and the way she handles her business shined right through. I was not so nicely told that she was not spamming me, she was simply sharing a Business Opportunity and how wrong it was to accuse her of spam.

Okay, okay...I'll stop with the back and forth and back and forth because it does get much worse. Apparently this person is not aware of what spam is and isn't. Hmmm...shall we even try to figure out how many business opportunities are available on the internet? Nearly impossible to even guess. Let's just say for example that there were only 1000 business opportunities available. (Don't we all wish) Now, spam is legal and all 1000 people are allowed to just email any ole one with their business opp. Need I say more??

KBToys moves affiliate program

I got a not so nice suprise today - it seems KBToys decided to start using LinkShare instead of Commission Juntion for it's affiliate program. While this may not seem like a big deal to the average shopper, it's a huge deal to the affiliates. Those that have used KBToys links had to either remove or change ever single code. Luckily, I only had one mini-shop Mom's Market that I spent a lot of time adding KBToy links to and several other pages that only had a product or two from them.

So today while I thought I was going to get some time to work on RecipesForMom.com, I ended up updating several pages on Mom's Market. Did I sign up to KBToys affiliate program on Link Share? NOPE. Even though they were offering a higher percentage now, I said NO THANK YOU. Why? Because I was not happy they decided on a whim to pull all their links and create an ugly "this merchant is no longer a part of Commission Juntion" page from all my links to them. Also, their conversion rate was very low, and I know while the percentage is now less with Amazon, I can sell more from Amazon. This merchant has dissapointed me, as I'm sure it has many other affiliates.

On top of moving, they gave the affiliates about 5 days to change links. I never even received a notice, and only really discovered that the links where dead when a potential customer emailed me to inquire about a product. On further investigating, I realised that in the last week (the affiliate program on CJ closed July 30th) there were over 1,000 clicks to KB Toys dead links. Thats several potential sales (well, ha, maybe....KB Toys never has converted that well so maybe it didn't make a difference).

Anyway, the bottom line is I'm very upset about the way KB Toys has handled their move, and kept the affiliates in the dark. All links that I could find have been removed from my site, and I won't be using them as a merchant again.

~Kara

Friday, August 06, 2004

Code for Clickbank Merchants

Well, today I wanted to finish another ebook and get some more link exchanges done, but I didn't do either.

What I did figure out how to do and almost got completely set up today was how to have multiple landing pages for ClickBank products. See, when you sell a product with Clickbank and have affiliates, with their codes you only have one page that your affiliates can use to promote. This is a real problem for those that have multiple products and want to give their affiliates the option of selling each product instead of just having one page their affiliates can use.

This code must be set up on the domain where the products are, but once in place affiliates can be given several different links to use to sell products for that merchant. PERFECT! I was afraid I was going to have to set up a brand new Clickbank account and put all the recipe ebooks on one page - NOT what I wanted to do, since for one the convertion rate would have been lower for my affiliates, but it would have cost me $50 on top of that. Now with this code I can give my affiliates the option of promoting just each individual product, but the only thing is I'm going to have to work a little bit harder to make a nice affiliate area will all the correct links. That I don't mind doing at all though, since I want to give my affiliates every advantage possible and earn them more. (Hey, they make money = I make money. Win-win situation!)

Soooo, I'm going to have to take some time next week and make sure everything is up and running for those that are wanting to join the affiliate program. Of course I also have many many more ebooks to finish, and several more link exchanges to do, so that's going to be a challenge as well!

Oh, Stop the Spam!

Some people will do just about anything to get other's ganders up, have a little fun and maybe (I don't see how they could possibly believe this one) they actually think they'll get a few extra visits to their website! One of the first emails I read this morning was from a concerned member of my message boards letting me know that someone had posted spam there. As I was getting ready to go to my boards I had noticed that there were quite a few emails there pretty much saying the same thing. By now I've figured out that these messages must have been of some magnitude because we're all used to a little spam but...what was this about?

After visting my boards I quickly realized WHY so many people had so quickly emailed me. Some non-friendly (for lack of more unprofessional words!) spammer had posted some links to websites of an adult nature! Quickly (Kara and) I found the IP Number of the offender, banned that number and of course deleted the post. I found it necessary to apologize to my loyal members for such messages to appear. I started the long process of changing each and every forum to allow only registered members to post. While I was doing this the spammer had the guts to read my apology and post many many more posts of the same nature! (Of course now I threatened to bring in the authorities!)

So, now I've wasted a good part of my morning changing the administration of the boards and making it an inconvience for someone to stop by and post anything of revelance with out first registering. I didn't want to have to resort to such measures but, what choice do I really have? I'm not stupid enough to believe that that this will stop the spam but I do believe it will put a little more control over it. It's a shame that I'd have to do something like this! I mean did this person REALLY believe that a bunch of work at home moms were going to visit this site?

Becareful what you say, and who you follow

Recently I came in contact with a rather interesting situation. I won't go into details or mention who was involved, but there were at least 3 or 4 handling a rather rude and unprofessional person. What she didn't know is all her emails were being circulated to even more close business friends that were somewhat involved. Of course there are 2 sides to every story, but when you see how the story unfolds in emails you tend to be able to form educated opinions on the situation and each person involved.

What's worse is this person handles a large networking group, where the members have no idea how this person has behaving or what her real motives are. It's possible these members could be hurt because of programs they are involved with being associated in this person.

So anyway, becareful how you handle yourself even in a one on one email - you never know who may see it, or who it may be passed to. Also, watch who you follow. Don't believe everything they tell you just because they have a lot of "followers". Do your own research and seek advice from many different experts, especially when the "leader" has something to gain from their advice to you.

~Kara

Thursday, August 05, 2004

Home Page Face Lift

Ta Da! I've decided to give MommysHelperOnline.com a bit of a face lift. This is something I've been wanting to accomplish for quite some time...just hadn't know exactly where I wanted to go with it. And since my recent battle with what my target market was and finally got it limited down a bit, it's actually helped. I can't say that I have really changed my target market though. Wahms are still my target and I can't get around that. It is such a diverse group but...thats what it is. BUT...I did manage to find more of a "direction" of my site. And I pretty much have to thank the ezine design for that because thats the direction my site started to take on too. Now, the definition of MommysHelperOnline.com is like this:

Helping Work at Home Moms keep Balance in their lives!
We're committed to help you keep the balance betweenFamily Life and Business Life.

Which now is what I would consider as my "Unique Selling Point". The thing that makes me set out from all the rest of the wahm sites. The thing that makes me different. Yeah, I like being different!

Wednesday, August 04, 2004

Mom Pack Auctions

I finally decided to get serious about this new auction site, and join Anita in promoting some products and advertising space. Just before the Ezine went out today, I set up my About Me page, then put up two auctions for advertising spaces and one for the last recipe ebook I finished. The auctions are as follows:

Site Sponsor Ad
1 month "Site Sponsor" listing on home page of Mom's Market. Normally $40 for 1 month, the auction starts at $9.99.

Featured Business Ad
2 weeks as exclusive "Featured Business" on home page of Mom's Market. Normally $30 for 2 weeks, the auction starts at $9.99

Chocolate Lovers Ebook
Over 600 recipes, all including chocolate. This ebook sells for $17.95 on RecipesForMom.com, but this special auction starts at $9.99. I figured with this one since the ebook is new I would give the option of buying it for a low price in this auction.

That's all for now. I don't want to spend too much time on these auctions just yet until I know for sure how well they will go. Just like at eBay, I know I'll have to advertise these auctions a bit for bids because it's not automatic. At least with Mom Pack Auctions there are no fees to set up a basic listing, and no fees involved if you don't sell the item. I never liked that about ebay, and it was becoming a real problem when I was making only a $1 or 2. My time was better spent doing other things! Hopefully this new auction site will be more worth my time and worth the time for my advertising manager.

I'll be watching these auctions closely and reporting how they do. :)

~Kara Kelso~


Tuesday, August 03, 2004

On Link Exchange Network

In my previous post I mentioned the Mom Pack link exchange network. Turns out that it's classified as a "link farm" to Google, therefor I'm pulling my links and won't be using it. I wondered, and had a gut feeling that something wasn't quite right about it.

Internet marketing is fun, isn't it?

~Kara Kelso

Chocolate Lovers Ebook finished

Well even though I don't have the free recipes up yet for this ebook, I did at least get the entire Chocolate Lovers package done today and all set up. That I'm happy with, although I'm afraid I may have worked a little too hard on getting it finished. I can feel myself slipping into that old habit of working myself to death to get projects finished. I did this last summer too, and should have learned my lesson back then. Although I still have been pulling away from work to give myself enough time to make a good supper for the kids, then sit down with them until their bed time. I did sneak online for just a little bit between after supper and bath time (hey, my youngest fell asleep so I let her sleep until bath time - we had a rough night last night and I'm not sure why).

I found a nifty little resource that really I've known about for quite some time but decided to give it a shot. It's a basic idea of a link exchange except with a whole network. If you haven't heard of Mom Pack, they are the ones offering the giant link exchange network. I do worry a bit about how it looks to the search engines and what it does for backward links, but I'm going to observe and see if it does effect anything. I know Anita has had this link exchange network up on Mommy's Helper for some time now, and just glancing at her backward links I spoted 5 from that network. Not too bad, exspecially when you figure that each member is required to do an update every 6 months. Wish I would have tried this one out before.

Aside from link exchanges and recipes, Anita mentioned something very interesting in her last post here. Target market! I do like that topic, because it's something that doesn't cross our minds very much. I know I had to really think for a long time with Mom's Market, because for awhile I was targeting the wrong market. I was stressing the fact the stores listed where mom run, but honestly for mothers not in business why would they care? So my target was shifted to mothers with young children, and focusing on what THEY need. Not just wahms, but any mother with young children. The title says it all - "Online Shopping Mall for Busy Mothers". Those that don't want to drag their kids to the mall, that want the easy and comfort of shopping from home but with the personal customer service that can only be given by sympathetic mothers (that is somewhat of a bold statement, and possibly somewhat biast to men, but I believe there is a bit of truth in it). Anita mentioned some intresting questions like "what makes my site different?". Well, I think I already answered that question. Not only is it a mall specifically for mothers, but it's filled with unique, mother run stores. Sure there are other copy cat sites, but I've seen the others and they are no where as large at Mom's Market. The last count was over 300 UNIQUE stores (not including duplicate direct sales company reps). Ah, I may be rambling just a bit, but that's what this blog is for right? Even with all this rambling, I think the topic of target markets could further be discussed and I could use to think about it just a bit more too.

~Kara Kelso~

Monday, August 02, 2004

What is your Target Market?

Well, now thats a pretty easy question, right? Isn't it? Well, I thought it would be. Until I was asked that question and didn't know how to answer. Of course I always could answer with "wahm" or "work at home moms" which IS my Target Market, right? Well, yeah...but, boy oh boy thats a pretty large Market isn't it? And each and every wahm has a different business, different reason for working at home, looking for different advertising, looking for different information....How can I provide all thats needed for that large of a group with such a diverse outlook and needs?

Okay, so there's also how many other "Wahm Resources Sites" out there? What makes mine so special? What makes my visitors want to come back day after day or week after week? The sad part is I don't know! How many others don't know? How can we be running successful online businesses if we don't know who our target people are and in which case then don't know how to fill the void those people are looking for? Yikes! What a question? (and a few more)

Now, thats some food for thought!

(Yeah, I'm learning a thing or two over at MomMasterMinds ;) )