When Warren Worthley moved back to his home state of Florida after retiring several years ago he bought a boat and dubbed it “Paradise,” and paradise is exactly what Worthley had planned for his retirement.
“I grew up in Daytona Beach, Florida,” he said. “I swam before I could walk, played on the beach and fished everyday. I was destined to be a world-class beach bum.”
This self proclaimed “Florida boy” had spent years working as Dean of Engineering and Technology at Purdue University in Indiana before making his way back to the Sunshine State. His new boat, a 23-foot Donzi fishing cruiser, was perfectly designed for navigating the shallows of Charlotte Harbor, where Worthley planned to hook trout, redfish and snook.
Worthley bought a 200 HP Evinrude E-Tec engine for his new boat and went in search of some outboard motor oil to power it. When Worthley learned the outboard oil he needed was $44 per gallon, he went to a dealer to try to get it cheaper. Still, there were no better deals to be had and Worthley couldn’t accept that he would have to pay such inflated oil prices to power his boat.
“It seemed to me there was a niche market that I needed to fill,” he recalled. “The prices were high. So I found a dealer who wanted to go into business with me.”
Worthley added that while his partner had the storing and buying capabilities, he had the selling capabilities – the perfect combination for starting a business.
Worthley decided he would keep his outboard motor oil business, now known as Domo, only available online. “That’s the really neat part of this,” he said. “It’s a very low front-end investment operation and unlike a brick and mortar, there’s no rent.”
In 2006, Worthley bought a domain name and built the website. In Feb. 2007 the website went live and products began to sell within the first three days.
“Carson (of iePlexus) suggested a business blog and I turned him down twice,” Worthley said. “I told him I didn’t need marketing.”
Worthley didn’t think he needed any marketing help in the beginning, but after a few months of unimpressive sales, he changed his mind. He signed up for the Web 2.0 service to increase his visibility and credibility with consumers. The combined marketing strategy included a business blog for domo-online, press release, XML sitemaps, directory submissions, and tracking reports.
Before partnering up with iePlexus, domo-online.com was getting traffic of 30 people per day. But after utilizing iePlexus’ marketing strategies, domo-online’s traffic increased to 150-200 people per day.
“Before iePlexus we did nothing near that,” Worthley said.
In 2008 alone, domo-online did more than $200,000 worth of business. In fact, every day since August of 2008, domo-online has received at least one or more order per day. This year Worthley has a new goal. He’s hoping to average four orders per day. At $150 for the average sale he’s sure to make twice the profit he made last year if he reaches his goal.
Worthley admits that his business wouldn’t likely have become so successful without a business blog. Worthley is just one of many business owners benefiting from blogging. In fact, some of the most popular blogs are commercial blogs that utilize their reach to promote businesses and products. Blogging has emerged as one of the most effective marketing tools on the web. Blogging also makes it easy for customers to interact with other customers.
Worthley credits the combination of blogging and social bookmarking to getting his company website and blog site to the first page of Google.
“If you’re not on the first page of Google you won’t sell,” he added. “That’s what iePlexus did for me. Seventeen of my keywords are in the top one or two positions on the first page of Google.”
“If someone wants outboard motor oil, I am the number one guy they’re going to see,” he added. “It’s awesome.”
Family mementos are an important part of passing memories and traditions from one generation to the next. For most, these cherished items include jewelry or photos – but for Long Island, New York resident Deborah Boyd, they’re pots and pans.
In fact, Boyd still uses some her grandmother’s cookware passed down to her by her mother. But these aren’t just any pots and pans, they are cast iron.
“My mother used cast iron constantly, and I learned to cook using those pans,” said Boyd.
There’s no childhood memory better than that of delicious cooking smells wafting from the kitchen. Boyd said her mother would often make her scrambled eggs for breakfast. And if she was lucky, she would make her favorite dish, “German meat patties,” for dinner. The meat patties weren’t anything complicated - just a combination of hamburger meat, onion, egg, bread crumbs, and spices. But they were scrumptious nonetheless.
Decades later, when Boyd’s parents were elderly, she and her husband moved in with them to help out. Boyd began doing most of the cooking using her grandmother’s cast iron.
“Some of the pieces are three generations old,” she said. “They’re still going strong. They just get better with age.”
Three years ago, Boyd decided to open an online business. She thought, “What better to sell than the cast iron cookware?” She decided to call it Cast Iron Depot.
“I thought it was a good idea, but I knew nothing about starting an online business,” she said. “But I did some market research on cast iron, and there seemed to be a good market for it, so I decided to go for it.”
It makes sense that cast iron cookware would be in demand; it’s a safer alternative to using chemically-coated cookware. Non-stick surfaces like Teflon and Silverstone scratch easily and release plastic particles into food. Such surfaces also emit toxic fumes over high heat. These materials often rely on Perfluorooctanic acid, a chemical known to cause illness in humans, to obtain their non-stick coatings. Cast iron, on the other hand, develops its non-stick coating through an all-natural “seasoning” process involving vegetable oil or lard.
Cast iron is also more environmentally friendly than its aluminum and Teflon counterparts. Most cast iron cookware can be 100% recycled, and it takes less energy to manufacture.
If cast iron lasts so long (100 years or more), then why recycle? Boyd said the best way to reuse cast iron is to pass it down from generation to generation.
With all the positive news about cast iron, Boyd must be on to something.
But even the best business idea won’t work without patience, commitment, and most of all, good marketing, specifically social media advertising and search engine marketing.
“You’ve got to be out there and get people to see your site,” said Boyd. “A lot of people fail because they give up too fast. For me, it took three years to see results.”
Boyd added that having a product you believe in and some professional marketing helps.
“I tried to do the marketing myself, and I wasn’t terribly successful,” she said. “I really didn’t have enough time to put into it.”
Starting a business can be tough, especially when owners work another full-time job, like Boyd. A year after getting her site set up and a few misguided marketing efforts, Boyd said “there was nothing.” The next year, she saw more traffic to her site but not as much as she’d hoped. That is until 2007, when she started a marketing campaign through iePlexus. Her traffic began to increase, and Cast Iron Depot experienced its first Christmas rush.
“This year, I had an even bigger Christmas rush, and I attribute that to iePlexus,” she said. “I am on the first page of Google now. For a small, start-up business, I think that’s great.”
During the months of October, November, and December 2007 Boyd had $3,347 in sales. This year, during the same months, sales have increased by nearly 260% to $9,785, traffic increased 450% from 5,271 to 24,238, and the number of buyers rose by 175% from 81 to 142.
In December 2007, Boyd signed up with iePlexus’ Web 2.0 Plus program, which provides blog building, hosting, a domain name, a press release, social bookmarking, blog writing, and more. This combination of marketing services is intended to increase website exposure and credibility. It's essentially social media advertising.
These ideas made sense to Boyd, especially the blog site and postings. iePlexus built her a business blog called Cast Iron Chatter. “It’s a way to connect with customers, introduce new ideas, and feature new products,” she said. “I can contribute to it whenever I want.”
As for the blog posts iePlexus provides, Boyd said “they really have a good handle on my products.”
There are millions of online businesses hawking every product imaginable, but that doesn’t mean any of them stand out. Blog sites are the way to do this. They humanize the business. They’re places where customers can connect with owners and where owners can offer insights into their products, philosophies, and past experiences.
Even business owners like Boyd, who work full time, can find a few minutes a week to write a blog post.
“I think they (the blog articles) have been very successful in driving traffic to my site,” she said. “Between the blogs and the submissions to different links, I have seen more business.”
The marketing may help, but high-quality products like those offered by Cast Iron Depot speak for themselves. Cast iron cookware costs much less than other types. It’s also more economical because of its durability and lifespan.
Despite its faltering start, Boyd has always thought her business has had an edge over brick and mortar stores. “At a shop you have overhead. You have to pay rent, maintain inventory, and pay insurance, shipping, and staff,” she said.
“I have an edge, especially in the current economic situation. In contemporary times, people are busy and don’t have time to go to the store,” she said. “On the internet, you can shop at two in the morning if you want. The internet is much more able to work with timelines.”
All in all, Boyd warns other prospective online business owners not to expect a walk in the park.
“People seem to think they are going to get into business and sit on a beach in Bermuda just watching the money roll in,” she said. “But it takes a lot of work and the right marketing to start making a profit.”
“But I believe that if you have a good product, it will eventually pay off,” she added.
As far as the marketing goes, that’s better left to the professionals at iePlexus, said Boyd.
She added that in addition to her firm belief in her product, she’s relied on iePlexus’ press releases, blog post writing and posting, and social bookmarking services to get the word out on her product, and to ultimately put money into her pocket.
There are many benefits to implementing a business blog for your online business. The additional credibility and visibility that comes as a result of consistent blogging can often eclipse that of traditional marketing efforts. If the business blog is setup to enable communication and posting to social networking and social bookmarking applications, the exposure potential is even greater, as these are some of the most popular destinations for people online. Having your business integrated into these new standards of Web 2.0 marketing can result in impressive returns. These are important steps to take when starting a business blog campaign, but when it comes to marketing, you aren't finished yet...
Beyond the setup of your business blog and integration into social media advertising, you need to consider the blog community, or blogosphere. It's vital that other bloggers are aware of your spot on the web, as they are probably the most active and knowledgeable online community when it comes to better search engine rankings and interactive marketing. Participation on your blog is necessary to start building a readership and making some waves within the community, not to mention the process of building relationships with people who can have quite a significant impact on your business success. Bloggers must remember that no blog is an island, and the real goal here is to create as many bridges in the blogosphere as possible.
So how does a new blog owner start this process? First, get your blog listed in as many blog directories and communities as possible. Build a profile, syndicate your posts, and start interacting. Look for other bloggers with similar topics and comment on their posts. Don't directly sell your blog, but make sure there's a route back to your blog for users to follow. Many blogs allow you to enter a link for your name when commenting, and this is often the most common way to be subtle about self-promotion. After you've got some conversations going, connect with these other bloggers through the networking aspect of the blog directories and communities. You'll find most bloggers welcome the partnership and will continue to participate on your blog, sometimes linking to you in their Blogroll, adding link popularity for better rankings and more exposure.
Here's a list of the most popular blog directories and communities. These applications are typically free and allow social networking connections between bloggers. Sign up for an account, add your blog, start participating, and watch the blogosphere start working for you.
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