MOBILE PHONE TRENDING MARKETING PART 4

 MOBILE PHONE TRENDING MARKETING PART 4

 

PART  4 - Research

Picking A Hot Trend

We've discussed what hot trends are in the previous chapter.  However there are things you will want to consider when choosing a hot trend to profit by:

 

•       How HOT is the trend?

•       When or if the trend has peaked  Can the hot trend be monetized?

•       How long is the hot trend likely to stay hot

•       Is the hot trend tied to something seasonal 

How HOT is the trend?

Let's take a look at 2 hot trends and use some tools and common sense reasoning regarding the potential for the hot trends shown in black below to make money. (Obviously these won't be the hot trends you will see now as they change almost hourly. 

 

Ok so we go to hot trends from out Hot Trends book mark tab and there is the big list of today's hot trends for the last hour.  We see in position number 1 is Clement Hurd in screen shot ht-1.  We see in screen shot ht2 ablve in position number 12, Jessica Simpson.

  

The initial knee jerk reaction of the untrained eye might think that Clement Hurd might be a hot trending project.  Now lets look a little deeper.  When we click on the Clement Hurd link we see on the "Hotness Meter" this trend is at the highest: Volcanic.  

When or If the Trend has Peaked

However even though the Clement Hurd hot trend is in the number one position and has the highest heat, his Google Search Trend chart in screen shot ht-1b below shows the trend having already peaked 6 hours ago. This is what I call a splash in the pan hot trend.  It is not something that will engender mass interest. So I have no interest in making it a hot trends project.

 

The news items on the left below the chart were not what most people would call hot news. Basically a press release about this children's book illustrator books being presented as a play.

 

Can It be Monetized?

The blogs listed on the right below the meter and chart consisted of one very lame attempt at monetizing a blog with nothing but "Clement Hurd" as an anchor text link, linking to Google hot trends.  When I searched on Google for "Clement Hurd" there was only one lonely AdWords ad on the right side bar. so this hot trend is not what I would call a money maker; let alone a money maker with some life left to it.

 

Now lets look at sample 2 - Jessica Simpson

 

How long is the hot trend likely to stay hot

 

This hot trend is listed all the way down in the number 12 position.  And is only showing only "Spicy" on the Hotness Meter but when we look at the Google Search Volume index chart, we see Jessica Simpson as a hot trend had some other hear recently and this hot trend has not peaked yet. 

 

Considering this hot trend has not peaked yet and Jessica Simpson is an internationally known singer and actress, even though the current Hotness is only spicy, the fact that this trend has not peaked yet makes it worth looking into a little deeper. So I go up to the Google Trends search field and type in Jessica Simpson.  Guess what? The trends chart on this young lady show quite a few hot peaks within in the last year. 

 

So I look at some of the news releases to see where this current spike came from.  She was written up in the LA Times, Dallas Times Herald, EOnline and Hollywood.com. Unfortunately for here the write ups were about how she blew a performance in Grand Rapids.  Still she is in the news now, has been quite a bit in the past and therefore probably will be again in the future.  Having seen some things on T.V. about her recent inordinate amount of weight gain and her almost totally blowing a performance, I can almost count on her being in the news again in the very near future.  Millions of people love to hear about and read about big stars falling from grace. 

 

So what am I going to do to be made aware when anything having to do with Jessica Simpson surfaces online? I'm going to set a "Google Alert" on Jessica Simpson. Go to your Google Account home page and click on the "Alert" icon. I'll type in Jessica Simpson, set the type and how often I want to be alerted and have the alerts go to my Gmail account. 

 

Google alerts will let me know before she hits hot trends again that she is in the news.  This will allow me to go back to my records I'm keeping in Google Docs and quickly go to the previous information that made her hot and prepare a quick post about what maybe about to make her a hot trend again.

 

Then I do a Google web search for her name in quotes like this: "Jessica

Simpson".  Even with her name in quotes which cuts out Jessica only or Simpson only, there are still 29 MILLION results listed.  On page one I find fan sites of her's that have PR-5 Google popularity ratings.

       

Now I have 2 reliable sources telling me the current information about her is hot, Google has shown her with some activity throughout "08" and she has been on Yahoo's chart for the last 689 days. Lookin good there Jessica.

 

Researching Hot Trends Attitude

 

Ok so you saw my steps to picking a hot trend in the last section and hopefully understood my rationale.

 

But lets take a minute here and talk about what's hot and not taking advantage of what it is because of how you personally feel about the hot trend or its subject.

 

The last thing you ever want to do is take some kind of opinionated approach as to whether or not a hot trend is worth building a project out of or not.  In other words, regardless of what the hot trend is about, don't let your personal biases or opinions cloud your judgement as to whether or not you want to deal with any certain hot trends topic.

 

For example: I don't like pop music for the most part and country music even less.  I have little respect for what I consider blonde bimboes that make it rich based Solely on their looks. Therefore as a rule I don't make it a habit to following anything that has to do with blonde bomb shell country singers.  But there are such "Entertainers" that have audiences in the millions who have an interest in such entertainers. 

 

I know if I can provide that massive audience with a little more information about their country star, on a blog that has been monetized with things on the same subject about the people the "Star" they are interested in, there is an extremely good chance that at least some of that audience can buy into my monetized items, and I will receive a commission for them. Guess what? I win! That's why I don't let my personal feelings about the subject of interest for a hot trend get in the way of me making money. I can't afford to.

 

The same thing applies to religion, politics, government, philosophy, business, foreign affairs or anything else all of us have our own opinions about. If you let your opinions stand in the way of making money, you won't make as much money with hot trends. PERIOD!

 

With that said, there is nothing that says you can't use your opinion, or voice your opinion as part of any hot trends project.  Who knows; if your post on a hot trends project is well thought out, well written, delivers a rational argument about the hot trend, and is controversial to the norm regarding that hot trend, you may build traffic coming into that hot trends blog just to argue with you.  I wouldn't waste a lot of time on doing so in the beginning though. But being controversial has made a lot of people a lot of money.

 

How You'll Make Money with Your Hot Trend Blog

 

Lets Complete Our Research On Jessica Simpson (This is a sample)

 

So how am I going to monetize this hot trend?  What affiliate deals are available that caters to this Jessica Simpson fan audience that may appeal to them?

 

I'm going to run ads on my blog with my keyword rich post in it about this hot trend for people to click on and buy from a company I am affiliated with by virtue of an affiliate contract. You can become affiliated with hundreds of affiliate programs for free; however usually 4 or 5 will do along with Google Adsense.  

 

I will provide links later where you can find tons of affiliate programs. 

Just remember, the more you are affiliated with, the more complicated your hot trends business becomes.  You want to look for affiliate programs that can cover a wide range of products but still pay half way decent commissions.  

 

I will not be expounding on the ins and outs of each affiliate program or how to work them.  That is another project guide worth of information.  Just remember, the simpler the system is to insert appropriate ads, the better for your business.

 

The only way you will learn which affiliate or Pay Per Click program (Like Google Adsense), to use with any given hot trend is by actually using them, testing them and keeping track of your testing.  

 

The reason no one could possible teach you exactly which affiliate program will be best for which hot trend is the trends change in real time and the affiliate programs vary so much, as to the variables within each plan it is almost impossible to match the perfect affiliate, PPC or even CPA program with a hot trend. You will learn to develop and use your own judgement.  However if you stick with these basic programs you can still make good money.  The more you refine your process of matching hot trends with other ways of monetizing your hot trend blog, the more money you will make.

 

So here are some of the basic programs a lot of Internet marketers use:

 

Pay Per Click Systems

Allow you to earn money from relevant ads on your website

These ad services matches ads to your site's content and audience, and depending on the type of ad, you can earn money from clicks or impressions.

 

Google's Adsense (You definitely want to do this)

Adsense is the mirror image of Adwords, (The ads you see on the right side bar of a Google search result page.) Adwords ads are ads that are purchased ad space paid for on a per click basis by people with products to sell. Those same ads can appear in websites and blogs as Adsense ads.When those ads appear on our blogs, they are called Adsense and we make money on every click of those ads. It's that simple.

 

If you haven't signed up for a Google Adsense account yet, you may as well go ahead and do it now. Just go to your Google "My Account" page and click on the "Adsense" link under Products. Sign up, and come back to this section of the guide. IMPORTANT: When you sign up for Adsense, be sure to write down or copy and paste your publisher code to NotePad or put it in a document in your Google Docs. You're going to need it later.

 

Affiliate Programs

 

Amazon.com (Worth joining their affiliate program)

An example but not the best example, as their commission structure doesn't allow you to make much in the way of commissions. Still in some situations, they may be a good fit. In the case of Jessica Simpson I would certainly have links to her CD's page on amazon through my Affiliate link.

To sign up go to: https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/  

 

Ebay

The Ebay affiliate program can be a pretty good money maker depending on the type of system you choose. This program allows us to create a web site that features eBay auctions and receive anywhere from 50% on up to 75% commission on eBay revenue.

 

There are two ways that you can make money as an eBay affiliate: 

 

1.   Get people to sign up for eBay. You get $25 for each person that joins eBay by clicking a link on your site and then goes on to buy an item or win an auction on eBay in the next 30 days.

2.   Get people to win eBay auction items from your site. You get up to 75% of what eBay makes on the auction. So, if your site is showing current listings for widgets and someone places a winning, $20 bid on a widget from your site, you would get anywhere from about $1.15 to $1.72 (50% - 75% of about $2.30). The percentage that you get depends on how much you have sold from your site. We're still in the 50% range.

 

Ebay is worth considering depending on the hot trend. 

To sign up go to: https://www.ebaypartnernetwork.com  

 

Those are probably the most well known.  However there are many other affiliate programs you can match up with hot trends.

 

Other Affiliate Programs

Let's take seasonal hot trends for example.  How about tax season.  Did you know the people that sell "TurboTax", which is Intuit who also sells

"Quicken" and "Quickbooks" and many other business software programs.  Well you know something is going to be in the news about taxes especially considering the economic sewer we're all having to swim through right now. 

 

I have put in a number of Google Alerts and can't wait for April the 15th just to see what I am going to have to name the blog for the hot trend on taxes.  And guess what. I'm an affiliate for INTUIT.  Guess what else.  I already have my banner ad code ready to paste into the blog and the article written in a general enough way that I can plug in the hot trend word about taxes regardless of what they are.

To sign up go to: www.fi.intuit.com/marketing/affiliateprogram/  

 

It really doesn't matter what hot trend keywords you are trying to find an affiliate program for, you can usually find one just by searching online.  For example: Let's say the Super Bowl is coming up (It was really over this year just last week.  Go Steelers!) So we do a Google Trends search on "Super Bowl" 

 

There it is. Hot trends every year just like clockwork.  So we want to be ready to jump on that as soon as the head lines start trending up. Usually around mid January.  What if we could find a Sport Memorabilia affiliate program.  Ok . . . good. We go to Google, and search on what? "Sport Memorabilia affiliate" and guess what pops up as number 1 in organic searches.

https://www.sportsmemorabilia.com/affiliate  - with more pages right below it.

 

So my point here is; you can find an affiliate program that makes sense to use to monetize your hot trend blog with for just about any hot trend.  Just think outside of the box and do some looking around.  That's what

Google is for, (Well in our case it's for a lot more but who's counting :o)

 

I'm going to take one more shot at you regarding monetizing your blog and then we'll move on.  So in researching Jessica Simpson, when I just search on her name, only 2 AdWords ads come up in the side bar of the results page.  Hmmmmm . . . not many people think she is much to advertise about  . . . . or is she?  Well she is a singer. What about Googling "Jessica Simpson CD".  Curses, foiled again. Only 2 AdWords ads again.  

 

So I'm going to go out on a limb here.  It seems to me all these little singer/actress types under 40 (And yes some over 40), seem to have a line of fashions and accessories.  So I Google "Jessica Simpson Fashions".

EUREKA! 3 pages of search results with AdWords Ads about Jessica Simpson Fashions.

 

So what does that tell me.  Am I going to keyword my hot trend blog only about Jessica Simpson and her flop of a performance this hot trend was about. Well yes and no.  That info will certainly be keyworded into the blogger blog name and in the first sentence.  But then I want to remark about how the flopped performance combined her additional weight gain must be adversely affecting here Jessica Simpson fashion empire, and how it might be interesting to be a fly on the wall when her business manager tells Ms Jessica Simpson her fashion and Jessica Simpson fashion accessories business took a major hit, that percentage wise equals in loss to the Jessica Simpson Clothing and Accessory line what her current percentage of weight gain amounts to.  

 

Is that mean?  Who cares?  I certainly don't.  But I got the keywords in there that will have Google loading those Jessica Simpson Adwords ads into my blog like crazy.  And if you think at least a couple of hundred plump little teenage girls that have nothing better to do than stay up on their hero that is going through the same shame they are with unwanted poundage, won't click on her Fashion AdSense ads on my blog, think again. 

 

I happen to know how you can get another free tool I will direct you to later, that shows me the number one AdWords Ad buyer is paying a low of $00.41 to $01.21 per click through, (41 cents to a dollar & twenty one). 

 

So lets say I wasn't writing this guide and actually took the time to load this hot trend. Because the visitors are so targeted, there is not only a potential of upwards of 2,000 visits on a hot trend like this, the potential that 10% of them would click through on an AdSense ad is pretty good as well. Now that's based on previous similar celebrity hot trends campaigns I've done. So lets see here . . . 200 click thru's X say 81 cents per click thru = $162.00 for what amounts to 1 hours work.

 

The research part of this hot trend set up took me all of 10 minutes.  Will you be able to accomplish the same in as little time.  Doubtful but you will with a little practice.  Would you have known to search on this singer/actress beyond her name plus CD or the word movie?  Maybe not!  And if not you can probably see how you may have taken a pass on a hot trend that could have made you some serious money for one hours work.  So you will have to think outside the box.  Use your imagination and look beyond the obvious to cash in where others never will.

 

OK now that's just her fashions.  What about posters? Sure there are all the 14 to 24 year young ladies that are fans but what about the 14 to 24 year old young men that have secretly (Or openly for that matter), lusted after Jessica Simpson.  What if I went to AllPosters.com's affiliate site and signed up and found a killer poster of Jessica (Sans 40 pounds), and put a big poster of that little vixen right below my post.

 

Hello boys!  Go ahead . . . click on Jessica.  Now I don't consider myself sexist or exploitive. However just like every advertiser that uses a pretty girl or handsome hunk in an ad of any kind, I know that sex sells.  And I have seen women wearing less than this in Vogue.  So no judgements here please - Just think about the strategy I've employed that can allow me to tap into both the male and female market in this type of hot trend project.

 

By the way, you can sign up for "All Posters" at: http://affiliates.allposters.com/affiliatesnet/  Open your mind. Use your imagination. Think outside the box.  Google "Affiliate Program Directory".  You'll find more affiliate programs than you ever wanted to know about.

 

Now let's get this hot little trend up on our blogger blog.

 

Blogging A Hot Trend

 

Lets say I chose the Jessica Simpson performance melt down in Grand Rapids hot trend.

 

I need to set up a blogger blog using keywords in my blog URL or web address. Some people call it a domain name but that is really only true if the blog is on my own domain instead of blogger's.

 

I know from additional research I want may want to include additional keywords in the blog title to take advantage of searches on other Jessica Simpson searches; i.e. clothes and fashions.

 

So I'm going for a title of "Jessica Simpson Fashions Weight Gain and Melt

Down"

 

There for I will go for a blogger web address/URL of:

JessicaSimpsonFashionsWeightGainMeltDown  . . . . but blogger will only accept up to 36 characters.  So I end up with this:

JessicaSimpsonFashionsWeightGainMeltD - No big deal but keep yours under 36 characters if you can.

 

So I go to my Blogger Dashboard (Remember you bookmarked it in the Hot Trends tab). and copy and click on Create a Blog near the top right of the Manage Blogs section.

 

On the "Create a Blog" page as shown in screen shot ht-7 below I will do the 4 steps as indicated:

 

1.   Paste or type in my Blog's title. 

 

2.   Paste or type in my Blog's Address/URL and check availability. If the address/URL is available you will see green text appear that says: This blog address is available. If the address is not available you will have to try again. Get inventive. Using hyphens (Dashes - ) between your address/URL words will usually allow you to come up with an address that is available. The URL you select will be used by visitors, or yourself, to access your blog.

 

3.   During the blog creation process, you'll have to select a URL for your blog if you want it hosted on Blog*Spot. Since there are already a large number of Blog*Spot blogs, you'll need to get creative and possibly try a few different ones before you find one that's available.One thing to note when selecting your blog's URL is that hyphens (also know as dashes, - ) are the only nonalphanumeric characters allowed. Spaces aren't permitted, nor are underscores (_) or any other special characters.

 

4.   Type in the Verification Word.

 

5.   Click the "Continue Button.

 

Choose A Template

 

There are only a few basic templates to choose from.  It doesn't matter.  Just give it your best guess.  Click a dot into the template of your choice then click the "Continue" button at the bottom of the page. On the next page, click on the "Start Blogging" button.

 

 

Hot Trend Blog Content

 

Your Blog Post - Entering Your Post

 

You can do something as simple as copying another blog post and including a link to the post and then putting an opinion statement just before and after the blog post you have an opinion on. In this case I might type in above the post from the other blog something like:

 

"I don't think Jessica is being treated fairly in the following blog post".

 

Then use a little imagination to put other key words I'm wanting to go for right after that opinion statement like; "Jessica may have weight problems, and not giving the best performances she can right now, but you have to admit with the line of Jessica Simpson clothing, apparel and accessories line she has she is a pretty sharp business person.

Then another short statement below the post:

 

Then below the other blogs post, type in a short opinion statement about how I would appreciate comments on my opinions.

 

However, I decided to write a short post about this girls woes as a celebrity. This is not rocket science. Here's the post . . . 

 

 

(SAMPLE) Title:

Poor Jessica Simpson with Weight Gain and Bad Performances - Fashions and Accessories

 

Post:

Yes one of my favorite singing and acting stars, Ms Jessica Simpson continues to be in the news about her weight problem, bad performances and so on with headlines like:

 

    * Jessica Simpson Performance Melt Down in Grand Rapids     * Jessica Simpson's Weight Gain Makes Three Magazine Covers     * Magazine Denies Dropping Simpson Over Weight Scandal

 

I have no doubt Jessica Simpson's avid music fans like me will continue to buy her CD's but what about that large and previously profitable Jessica Simpson Fashion and Accessories line.

 

When the name sake Jessica Simpson herself probably can fit into any of the clothing items in her fashion line like the models do, I can't help but wonder what that is going to do to Jessica Simpson Fashion and Accessories Sales.

 

I think Jessica Simpson is just going through a rough patch in her life and will get it back together. With here CD sales tumbling, I hope this rough patch she's going through doesn't affect her clothing and fashion accessories business.  What will Jessica have left then?

 

I know at least some people are still buying Jessica Simpson posters.  My son just bought a poster of Jessica for his dorm room.  I have to admit, when the girl was at her fashion weight, she was drop dead gorgeous. Maybe she needs a Jessica Simpson Poster in her clothing closet.

 

I hope she pulls herself out of this slump.  Maybe I'll pay more attention to her career and let you know what I find here in this blog.

 

Denise

 Nothing Fancy

See? Nothing fancy, just a quick 250 words that took me about 5 minutes. But look at the number of times I used the keywords: Jessica Simpson, Grand Rapids, Fashion, Accessories, clothing, posters, and so on.  The blog address/URL, title, post title and keywords are what will be pulling in the targeted PPC ads (In this case we'll use Adsense), the site visitors should be clicking on.

 

Below the blog post editor field you will see a "Labels for your post" option field.  This is where you want to type in your keywords. In this case I entered keyword phrases separated by commas like this:

Jessica Simpson, Weight Gain, Grand Rapids Melt Down, Fashion

Accessories, Poster

 

Then I clicked the "Publish Post" button.  When you do your first few projects, you may want to just click the "Save Now" button if you want to save it for now so you can edit it later. When you do publish your post, you will come to a page that gives you the options to "View Post" or view it in a new window.  Choose "In a new window". Proof read your post.  If you have mistakes or find you want to make some changes, go back to the options page and click on the, "Edit post" link and make your changes.  Then save the post.

 

Ok . . . my post is done. Total time less than 10 minutes.

 

Now go back to your blog dash board and fill in the blog for your hot trend description.

 

Now scroll down  the page and answer the configuration question with the appropriate drop down options.  Everything should be answered "YES" except for adult content and transliteration.

 

Now click the "SAVE SETTINGS" button at the bottom.

 

My methods and the strategies in this guide should start to make a lot of sense to you about now.

 

You may have noticed I'm not keeping any records as I set these things up. I will be going through record keeping when we go through the final walk through in the last chapter.

 

Let's move on to setting up our Adsense and poster ad.

 

Setting Up PPC And More

 

To run Pay Per Click (PPC) Ads on your blog, say AdSense for example, you need the code from the PPC Ad service, like AdSense placed into what is called a "Gadget" in your blog.  The nice thing about using AdSence for your PPC Ad service is Blogger and Adsense are both owned by Google.

So they make if very easy for you to set up your AdSence on a Blogger Blog.

 

From your hot trends blog dashboard, (Not your primary Dashboard that lists all your blogs), click on the "Lay Out" tab.

 

In the Lay Out screen you will see in the top right a link that says "Add Gadget".  You will also see the same link below the post field.  So there are 2 places you can add AdSense Ads through a Gadget.  We will use the side bar gadget in this example.  See screen shot ht-12 below:

 

When the "Add a Gadget" screen appears as a Pop Up, scroll down till you see the AdSense icon.

 

Click on the AdSense + icon.  Another screen will appear.  If you are not signed into your Adsense account, enter the e-mail address of your Gmail e-mail account and your zip code as you entered it when you signed up. 

You will then presented with the AdSense configuration screen. 

 

Depending on where you are placing this AdSense Ad panel, you will use the drop down options to select the size, color, number of ads etc as seen below in screen shot ht-13.  Notice that since I am putting the AdSense Ads in the side bar this time I used the tall and long or Sky Scraper ad that is 160 pixels in width by 600 pixels in height.  You will need to play around with these a little to meet your personal preference.  

 

NOTE: I don't believe you can put more than 2 set of AdSense ads on your blog.  You can choose "Match Template" and the ads will be color coordinated with the Template you chose.  As you look through the different size ads, the sample ads below the options will change accordingly.

 

When you have configured your ads, scroll to the bottom of the "Configure AdSense" screen and click on the "SAVE" button.

 

You can go through the process again and put another AdSense ad in the body of your post.  OK your done.  You will get to where you can accomplish this task in under 2 minutes.

 

You can use code generated from other PPC services by adding a Text Gadget and pasting the code into the Text Gadget.  The same goes for affiliate ads you want to run with a hot trend.

 

Tracking your AdSense Click Thru's go to your Google Adsense Account. Click on the "AdSense Setup" tab.

On the next screen click on the "Channels" tab.

 

On the next screen click on URL channels.

 

Now click on "Add new URL channels.”

 

Now where it says "Enter URLs to track, one per line:" paste in your blog's URL.

 

Then click on the "Add channels" button.  Now in reports you will be able to see what kind of impressions (site visits), you are getting, and how many click thru's you're getting.