How to Write a Press Release that Gets Attention

This guest post is by Frank Strong of PRWeb.

Writing good content for a blog is only half of the equation: promoting your blog to drive traffic is the other half.

Previously we offered five reasons to promote your blog with press releases as part of an overall content marketing strategy. This post provides a few tips on how to write a press release for maximum media exposure.

1. Create compelling headlines.

Should you use a sexy headline that attracts eyeballs or a headline stuffed with keywords for search? We’ve always found that people read content, not search engines, so while it’s important to include keywords in your headline where possible, only use them when they make sense in context.

Just like the subject line of an email invites a recipient to open a message, headlines should compel a reader to consume your content.

2. Draw the reader in with the lead.

The first sentence of the body—the lead—should compel the viewer to keep reading (think: time-on-page). Traditional PR pros will tell you to write using an inverted pyramid, where the content flows top down and the first paragraph explains the five Ws: the who, what, when, where and why.

There’s nothing wrong with that, however, we think the use of press releases has evolved, where they once were primarily used to provide a news hook to the media in order to reach an audience, they now can also reach that audience directly.

As such, in some cases, the press release is the story and the better performing releases (in terms of page reads) we’ve seen read like the story—complete with a powerful lead.

3. Use anchor text links.

It’s a fundamental, but often overlooked, point: anchor text links are pivotal! Be sure to hyperlink your keywords to pages on your blog that are optimized for the same key words.

This ensures that when press release syndication network distributes the content, your keywords are still hyperlinked to the content you’re promoting. Once again, people read content, so ensure that the keywords make sense in the structure and flow of your copy.

4. Include a powerful call to action.

You’ve written a release with compelling headlines and copy that drew the reader in. Now, what action would you like people to take? Invite them to take that action. For many blogs, this would be to visit the blog, subscribe via RSS, or sign up for email alerts on new posts.

5. Choose a strong press release topic.

Stuck for press release ideas? We have a list of hot topics for press releases. When you’re coming up with an idea, the trick is to think like a PR pro—what about your blog, personal life, or business could you see being picked up by the mainstream media? What is the “remarkable” story you have to share?

While those are big-ticket themes, a more tactical approach would be to publish a release about your most popular posts—the top ten of the year, or the five most read every quarter (or month if you’re a prolific blogger). Your release content should focus on the trend. For example, why are readers consuming those specific posts?

For further reading on creating great press releases, try:

• PRWeb Picks: Five Releases we Love this Month
• Use News Releases for More Than PR
• 5 Tips to Optimize Your News Release for New Media
• News Flash! Press Releases Aren’t Just for the Media Anymore
• PR pros should write for search engines

Have you used a press release to promote your post? What tips can you add to this list?

Frank Strong is director of public relations for PRWeb.

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The Most Watched Videos and the Rise of the Video Ad Dollar

With only a few weeks left in 2010, it looks like the trailer for Twilight Eclipse will take the title of Most Viewed Video of the Year with more than 220,000,000 hits.

Every week, AdAge posts a list of the most popular viral videos. Since they’re primarily interesting in brand marketing, they don’t include movie trailer and game trailers because they’d take top numbers every time.  This week, however, they decided to switch it up and let the chips fall where they may.

Seven out of the top ten videos were movie trailers, two were for video games, but sneaking in at number ten is the Old Spice Guy, proving that brand advertising can be just as entertaining as the stuff the Hollywood studios are turning out. Of course, the Old Spice guy is funny as are the Evian roller skating babies and that crazed Target shopper. But funny isn’t the only way to catch the viral viewers eye. Other top brand videos this year include a deathly (literally) serious video from Australia’s Transport Accident Commission and action / stunt videos such as the bike rider for Red Bull.

Turning out a stunning commercial that takes the internet by storm is one way to make money from the video craze, another is to hitch your wagon to someone else’s star.

Video advertising is the fastest growing segment of online ad spending and it’s expected to continue rising at its current rate for at least a few more years. eMarketer expects video spending to go up 39% next year while banner and search show a rise of only half that.

Though it’s not ready to take the place of TV advertising, online video advertising is becoming the preferred option due to its highly targeted nature, and accessibility. Not only are more consumers watching video (and sitting through the ads), but there are more sites selling online air time on everything from niched how-to videos to the hottest new shows on TV.

Want to be the next viral video star? All you need is a camera and a brilliant idea. How easy is that?

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Has Internet Marketing Made the Meet and Greet Obsolete?

There was a time when marketing men were like politicians. They had to shake hands and kiss babies, take district reps out for a lunch meeting and have dinner with the guy who could open up new territory but those days have gone the way of the piano lounge in the airplane. Now, we video conference with the reps, connect with customers by email and Facebook and use Linkedin to network with the guy who can help you open a store in Kansas.

Yeah for the internet! But Renee Huang of The Globe and Mail says that the internet is a poor substitute for the old fashioned meet and greet.

“Research in the business-to-business world suggests the No. 1 reason for selection of a supplier is the personality of the sales team or seller. This is above the technical specs, marketing form, anything else.”

Huang goes on to talk to several small business owners who say that face time with potential clients and customers was key to their success.

Now, I’ll admit that as a collective, we’ve gotten overly dependent on the internet. My friend recently lost her home connection for two days and you would have thought she was living without food and water. I’m not mocking, believe me, I feel the same way. I work and play online. I’ve never met 99% of the people I do business with, but that hasn’t stopped me from doing business and doing it well.

My husband, on the other hand, is a face-to-face guy. When ever I’m frustrated over a communication breakdown with a client he starts in with, “why don’t you try picking up the phone instead of this ridiculous emailing back and forth!”

Ah! Texting! That’s the answer!

I guess the biggest advantage to a meet and greet is that it’s harder to say no to a person’s face than to their Facebook. And I suppose that some people will reward the effort if you show up at their office with a box of cupcakes (even if you’re not selling cupcakes.) But when it comes to you, to your business, do you really think that your business would be better off if you could travel the country and pitch your wares one-on-one?

Face time, if you can get it, is a good thing, I’m sure. But when I count up how many business emails I get after midnight and on weekends, I doubt that anyone has time for a leisurely lunch to discuss the sale of a new product. That is, unless you don’t mind meeting at an all-night diner.

What are your thoughts on face time versus connecting via the internet?

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What’s the Perfect Time to Make an Offer?

In advertising we used to have a saying:

“Everyone hates advertising until they have to sell their own car.”

Sometimes we all encounter readers who get mad at us for “selling too much.”

And sometimes you have to ignore those readers. They might just not be your customer. Or they may be those people who hate all advertising, as long as they’re not the ones who have something to sell.

But the problem might be something very different.

It may be that your offer — your advertising — was a mis-timed “speed bump” that wasn’t properly integrated into your content.

Let me explain.

The American Idol guide to integrated advertising

In the reality TV series, “American Idol,” there are three sponsors. When research is done on the sponsors, most people can remember Coke (that seems to come to mind first) and then Cingular Wireless.

So who’s the third sponsor? Are you stumped? Most people are.

It’s not because the third sponsor gets less air time. It’s not because the third sponsor is an obscure brand. And it’s not because the third sponsor is some weird product or service.

So why don’t people remember the third sponsor? Because it’s not integrated into the whole sequence of events.

Coke is. You see the red seats. You see the judges drinking Coke. Coke integrates naturally in the whole sequence of events.

The other sponsor, Cingular Wireless also integrates. You have to text or SMS your response to vote. The connection is natural.

But the third sponsor has no such integration in their sequence.

The third sponsor is Ford

The audience sees a lot of stuff about Ford, but there’s no integration at all within the sequence.

And so, like a lot of advertising, it’s simply annoying. It gets in the way. It becomes less memorable and less actionable. When you’re interrupting viewers or readers, you’re just interrupting them. The logical response of the customer is to either ignore you or “detest” you in some way.

But it doesn’t have to be like that at all.

You can integrate information in your content marketing very easily, and get the customer to not only like what you say, but take the next step and buy what you have to offer.

Let’s take an example

Let’s say you want to sell a book on “How To Write Headlines.”

Logically, you should follow the Bikini Concept.

You should be using content marketing (for argument’s sake, let’s say it’s a single article) to give away most of your information, so that the customer is totally empowered.

Now because you’re talking about headlines, headlines and more headlines in the article, the customer is locked into that article. You’ve integrated the information within the article.

Now a call to action isn’t so out of place towards the end.

Why towards the end? Why not in the middle?

It’s because we don’t like a break in sequence.

If you’re having dinner at a fancy restaurant, when would you like the waiter to upsell you the great dessert?

Would you prefer it when you’re having your wine? Or while you’re having your main course? That would be totally out of our normal sequence.

The job of the restaurant is to get you from one point of the meal to the other, and the next action is always integrated in the previous action. Anything out of sequence always annoys.

And so with your email, you need to follow the sequence where you hold the customer’s attention. As you take them from one end to the other, the upsell becomes not only natural, but wanted.

But don’t some people upsell at the top?

Yes they do. And that too (amazing as it may sound) is natural.

We like to know what we’re in for, so if your waiter were to tell you that you what was for starters, main course, and dessert — and do so at the top — you wouldn’t find it weird at all. You’d treat it merely as an announcement, akin to having an agenda, or a table of contents. You don’t see it as an intrusion.

But throw it in the middle of the “meal” and it annoys.

It’s irritating. It’s out of sequence. And it gets a response. The response often tends to be to ignore the information. Some folks get irritated, but most of us learn to ignore it.

Yet if you take that same upsell and put it at the end, it becomes the logical “next step.”

Several things are going on at once:

1. The product/service isn’t being dropped in suddenly. It’s part of your article; part of your communication right through.
2. You’re not holding back information. You’re being generous with your information and empowering — not selling — the customer. Ironically the more you empower, the more you sell.
3. You’re not interrupting the natural sequence. When I am at the end of one sequence, I am ready to jump to the next. As it is with every well-planned meal. In fact I’m keen on the next step, if you’ve done your job well.
4. An upsell at the top isn’t so weird either. It’s like a table of contents. So again it doesn’t annoy as much. In fact, it builds up anticipation.
5. The client doesn’t want to stay where they are. They want to advance. The next step is important to them. So yeah, treat them with a bit of dignity and put things in the right sequence.

You’ll notice quickly that you’re better regarded. You’ll notice that your information is sought after. And you’ll notice that selling isn’t a chore any more.

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How To Build Your Credibility As An Expert While Blogging

I don’t run ads on my blog; I don’t do a lot of affiliate marketing. The primary way of monetizing my blog is selling my own products and coaching services in the area of communication skills.

I’ve learned that when your strategy for making money with your blog is to sell something you have created or something you do, then your credibility as an expert is crucial.

People have to trust that you are a professional and that you can provide them something of real value before they decide to buy from you. The amount of traffic you get is not highly relevant if your readers don’t believe you are an expert in your field.

The good news is that there are specific ways of using your blog which reinforce your credibility as an expert. Being passionate about communication, I was eager to explore this topic and test various methods of building credibility as an expert through blogging.

Here are the methods that have worked best for me and I believe will visibly benefit any blogger:

1. Develop Your Expertise, Not Only Your Blog

I think many bloggers skip a step in their search for a source of income. They start blogging and growing their blogs, but they do little to actually be experts in the area they blog about. They revamp ideas they read in books or on other blogs, and then they wonder why readers won’t buy their products.

Up to a certain point, blogging in itself is a way to develop expertise, but I find it to be insufficient. If you want to become an expert, you need to also address this subject separately and use other ways to train yourself.

I worked with my first coaching clients for free and I also had another coach supervising me, before I started calling myself a coach and asking money for my services. Also, I only started blogging and promoting my services on my blog after I’ve already had significant experience as a coach. Putting expertise first did wonders for me and the quality of my blogging.

2. Go Against the Mainstream

In any area, there are ideas that are very popular yet any real expert knows to be wrong. This is why instead of reinforcing the same old ideas, many experts will oppose popular ideas in their blog posts and they’ll debunk them.

Do the same and you’ll develop credibility as an expert. Of course, in order for this strategy to be successful, you need to know what you’re talking about, to pick the right ideas to oppose and to back your claims with hard and smart evidence. Otherwise, you position yourself as a rebellious novice rather than a connoisseur.

3. Write with Depth

Almost anybody can write a blog and offer some general advice, much of which may be impractical or mundane. A real expert stands out because they can talk or write about a certain subject with a lot more depth and go into the fine details that make a piece of advice exceptionally valuable.

In my field, many bloggers write advice such as: “Just be confident”. This kind of advice is too superficial to actually help anyone. I write posts in which I decode the psychological process of acquiring confidence and describe it much more precisely. This is what makes me more believable.

4. Quote Scientific Research

Anybody can make claims on their blog. What separates experts from the rest is the fact they crave solid evidence and they put in the effort to keep in touch with the current scientific research in their area of expertise.

As a result, they often quote research to support their ideas or simply to discuss it, and they do so in a skillful way. One of the most important recommendations I can make is to practice reading and quoting scientific research, at least in some of your blog posts. The more you practice, the more apt you’ll become at using research.

5. Associate with Other Experts

Professionals in a certain field often tend to know each other and collaborate. Prove to your readers that you interact positively with recognized experts in your filed, that they appreciate you, and some of their authority will transmit to you.

There are many ways to do this: you can interact with experts using social media, you can guest post on their blogs, you can interview them for your own blog etc. While doing any of these, keep in mind that the main focus is on truly building trust-based relationships with experts, not on simulating them.

At the end of the day, the most important thing I’ve learning about building credibility as an expert is that it only works if it’s authentic. Expertise cannot be communicated with high impact by faking it. You can only do so if it is something you really have and you know how to tastefully reflect through your blogging.

About The Author: Eduard Ezeanu provides communication coaching and helps people put their best foot forward in communication both online and offline. He also writes on his blog, PeopleSkillsDecoded.com.

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Introducing FM's Signal Conference Series

I'm pleased to formally announce Federated Media's upcoming Signal Series - three full-day conferences in three great cities. Born from FM's annual Conversational Marketing Summit and my daily Signal newsletter, the Signal conference series focuses on one key topic in one city at a time. These three events will culminate in our annual CM Summit in New York next June during Internet Week.
We've nearly completed the program for the first event - Signal LA. The event is February 8th at the SLS Hotel (it's quite nice!). The focus, as befits an event in LA, is content marketing, one of the more talked about trends in brand marketing today.  Our speaker line-up, as I hope you've come to expect, is stellar, and we're really excited for what we're sure will be an interesting, informative and impactful day. Please join us!

Confirmed speakers for Signal LA include:

Luke Beatty, VP & GM, Associated Content Yahoo!

Joanne Bradford, Chief Revenue Officer, Demand Media

Deanna Brown, COO, Federated Media

Chris Cunningham, CEO / founder, appssavvy

Arianna Huffington, Founder, Huffington Post

Peter Guber, Chairman & CEO, Mandalay Entertainment

Ann Lewnes, SVP Global Marketing, Adobe

Joel Lunenfeld, CEO, Moxie Interactive

Suzie Reider, Director of Sales and Marketing, YouTube

Rashmi Sinha, Founder, Slideshare

Biz Stone, Co-founder, Twitter

will.i.am, Founder, Dipdive and Black Eyed Peas

We're still adding great speakers, so watch our site for more updates.

Signal is produced for senior decision makers in the Internet, media, and marketing businesses. If you're involved in the digital media ecosystem, you belong at Signal. Sign up today.

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Affiliate Summit West Meetup You Won’t Want To Miss!

I cannot wait for my favorite conference of the year, Affiliate Summit West, that is coming up in January! I am really excited for this year... like... really excited. Of all the shows you NEED to go to... this is it.

The reason that Affiliate summit is so powerful is the networking. It's simple... networking is one of the major keys to success in this industry.

I've complained since the first affiliate summit... the parties always have crazy loud music, tons of drunk people (free alcohol seems to have that effect), and can easily turn into a pitch fest. Sure those are all good at times but as far as networking goes, it can make things fairly difficult.

Free Networking Event

One of the ideas that I had was to put together a time and location where any affiliate could come to a specified place just to chat about affiliate marketing, network, and hang out. There would be no speaker or any structure. You know... good ol' "let's chat about the industry" time. No overbearing loud music, no free alcohol, no strippers. Just good ol' fashion chatting. Go figure.

I'm still trying to pin down a place / time for this so I'd love to hear some suggestions.

One idea I had was to rent out a large room. Another idea I had was to just meet outside somewhere that was publicly accessible. Not sure - need suggestions.

Let me know what you think and if you'd be willing to go or not!

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Niche Marketing Breakdown

Before jumping into your next ad campaign, or even starting a new web site or blog, take a step back and look at exactly who you are tying to target. We often come up with great ideas for new ad campaigns and site, then start getting excited with our ideas, without looking at the big picture and room for improvement. It’s not enough to target a niche, but it’s now more important than ever to focus on niches within niches.

An excellent example of a huge site in it’s own niche, is IGN.com, which is one of the largest video game sites on the internet. They don’t just cover computer games, they cover all games! Everything from XBox, Playstation, Wii, Computer Games and more. IGN has the massive exposure, staff and funding to take on this massive and competitive niche like many others can’t. Pushing out quality content and video on a daily basis isn’t a problem for them. With all of that said, do you think you would be able to compete with a player like IGN.com if you wanted to get into the video game space? Probably not.

You want to focus on video games, but how can you compete at the same time? Simple… break down your efforts and focus on a niche group. Instead of trying to create an ad campaign, web site or blog that focuses on all games, you need to be selective on your targets and ad copy. An excellent way to do this, would be to focus on one of the big three (Wii, PS3, XBox). To break down your efforts and increase your return on efforts, you can go a level deeper and select specific games which are only available on one of these system.

Using Google’s Keyword Tool, we can pull up quick reports on how many time the big three gaming systems are searched in a given month. Among the three systems, you have over 300 million searches every month. Even if you were to grab just one tenth of a percent (.001%) of this traffic, you would have 300,000 visitors to your blog… but the competition for these keywords is phenomenally high, as you can see from the “competition” bar below.

Break down each of the gaming systems to another level, such as the most popular games from each system. You can see we still have millions of monthly searches, and they vary heavily based on the game search. Competition is still extremely high, which usually means there is good money to be spent and made in this area… but the majority of these advertisers are probably big and well funded sites in the video game space.

One last time… let’s take one of the search results from above and break it down by itself. You are now given a selection of top keywords searched just on this one search term. Now you have a massive amount of search results and topics all on this one tight niche group. Had you created a blog on call of duty when it first came out, you would have reaped the benefits every time a new version of the game came out.

This breakdown is a perfect example of how you can take one niche and continually break it down til you have a super tight and high traffic topic. Instead of spreading you and your ad campaign or web site thin, why not focus on a single topic with a large following and search traffic? You will find that not only will you provide exactly what your customers and site readers are looking for, but they are also more likely to be in a buying / action mode, which increases overall revenue.

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Does the Rise in Social Media Marketing Equal a Rise in Holiday Sales?

There’s no doubt that this is the year of the social media holiday marketing blitz. More folks than ever are using Facebook, Twitter and other sites to encourage holiday shopping.

According to eMarketer, 27% of retailers said they’d spend most of their marketing budget on social media, up from 18%. And 75% said they had a social media strategy this year as opposed to only 51% last year. But does this rise in activity mean a rise in sales?

We’ve been told that Black Friday and Cyber Monday both did very well this year, but is it as a result of all the social media air time?

Practical eCommerce took a look at this very question and came up with some interesting answers. They began with numbers from Hitwise who said that, “social networks referred 4.39 percent of traffic to the top 500 retail sites on Black Friday 2010.”

4.39? That’s not so much.

Their expert, George Eberstadt, CEO of TurnTo Networks says:

“The social stigma against shilling is as strong today as it’s ever been, and that limits the amount of commerce-related sharing that’s ever going to go on – the popularity of social media hasn’t changed that.”

Shilling. Haven’t heard that word in awhile, but it’s a valid point, except during the holiday season. Because everyone is on a buying spree, we’re much more likely to tolerate a barrage of sales Tweets and updates. But imagine if marketers maintained that same enthusiastic level of social media marketing throughout the entire year? I love a good deal, but I’m already growing weary of the onslaught.

The article goes on to say:

“Eberstadt added that he believes social commerce will ultimately be more important to brands and stores than social media marketing. “Social will be more important as a discovery and decision-making tool for people that are in-market for goods and services than as a way to promote and advertise.”

An interesting distinction and one I believed we’ve addressed here before. It’s the difference between conversational Facebook updates and a continuous stream of sales pitches.

So while your Facebook and Twitter followers might be okay with “Save 50% on Blu-ray Players” today, after Christmas they’re more likely to respond to “what’s your favorite movie on Blu-ray?” They’ll not only respond but they’ll share their answer with their Facebook friends who will also come and answer, resulting in more “likes” for you and more potential customers when one of them decides to buy a Blu-ray player.

What do you think? Are your social media efforts paying off in actual sales, or is brand awareness the ultimate goal?

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Five Creative Ways Real-Time Opinion from Twitter is Being Shared

People love to rant and rave on Twitter. Brands and organizations love to engage with current and potential influencers. The combination is perfect. It allows Twitter to be used in increasingly creative ways and tweets to be shared in the most unexpected places. The following are five creative ways real-time opinion from Twitter is being shared:

1) Retail Stores – Last week I was at a Las Vegas mall when I passed Metropark, a men’s and women’s store that had a live in-store Tweet stream running on multiple television screens in the store as well as in the front window. It was very interesting to see as a consumer that I could walk by the store and read what people were discussing about @MetroparkUSA in real time.

2) Religion – The Mountain Park Community Church in Phoenix, Arizona hosted a four week series that featured Twitter interaction. After creating an instructional video on how to set up a Twitter account, the church’s pastor would ask questions throughout the service and encourage worshipers to respond via Twitter. The pastor would then read several responses out loud throughout his sermon.

3) Sports – Want to tell sportscasters what they should talk about on the air? Well, now you can. ESPN’s show Audibles asks you to guide the hosts’ conversations by sending them Tweets with questions you want them to answer. While announcers select questions from Facebook comments as well, ESPN is continuously thinking of ways to increase fan interaction through social networking.

4) Elections – For the past few election nights, anchors have sent viewers to stage left, their makeshift social media election center (a large screen TV monitor hooked up to the Internet). The center features a reporter reading citizen reactions to the latest election night results. This goes to show that producers feel that viewers aren’t only interested in a professional opinion of the results, but opinions of social media users as well.

5) Award Shows – If there’s a live award show on TV, there’s a great chance you’ll be able to interact with the show via Twitter. Whether it’s live tweets scrolling along the bottom of your screen or celebs tweeting from stage, we’ve seen it all. Check out MTV’s Twitter Tracker from the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards. The program provided a hub for viewers to tweet about the awards show. There were over 1.7 million tweets about the VMAs and its participants during the awards show.

Twitter is being incorporated into anything and everything that human opinion can be provided on. Receiving real-time opinion on Twitter is becoming more valuable.

What are some creative ways you have seen Twitter being used?

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I SUCK At Ecommerce (Stats)

Recently I mentioned how I would branch out from affiliate marketing. Not quit... just expand the business into multiple areas. With new territory... comes new lessons.

And new stuff I have been learning. Namely... that I really didn't know as much as I thought I did about ecommerce. I never realized how much went into ecommerce sites before I started getting involved with my own. Even though my dad runs a very successful ecommerce business from the same building as me, I still had a good number of things to learn.

INSTANT PROFITZOR!!111one

While I was building the site, I'd be lying if I said I didn't expect the site to be instantly profitable - I did. Having paid for millions of clicks (and billions of impressions) via search engine marketing, I figured that I had the whole search marketing stuff down. Call it over confident or whatever you want but now I know that I have more to learn.

For the last couple weeks I have been advertising my ecommerce site via MSN/Bing, Yahoo, and Google. Surprisingly, many days so far have been at a significant loss to me. Doh! Not what I expected.

So, without further ado, let's take a look at these (dismal) stats.

Right away you'll notice that everything is mostly a loss. This does not include the expensive server or any other bills either. Also, this includes SEO sales. I am already starting to rank in the SERPs for some keywords on bing and yahoo (and noooo where in Google yet).

This brings me to what I have been reminded of recently.

Expect to Suck At First

Not everything you'll do will succeed. More importantly, [and the reason why I am writing this post] not everything you do will succeed right away. No matter how good you are at something, there is almost always going to be a need to tweak and refine your sales process. If you're fortunate enough to be profitable from day one, consider yourself blessed.

Dust off those losses and stick your nose into every single aspect of every single part of the buying process. What can be better?

That's really what I told my team in a recent email. Go through each step and tell me what can be better. Surprisingly, we realized a lot could be done... so we're doing that.

Personally, I am NOT writing this project off. Every day for the last week or so we have been making modifications to the site. Soon enough I think we will be consistently profitable. As soon as I hit that profitable sweet spot, I can remove budget restrictions from advertising campaigns and scale this site to a nice level.

All of it would not be possible if I were to see the losses, frown and pout about how much it sucks, and start on the next project.

Regardless of losing money and being challenged, I am absolutely loving running this site and overall really enjoying ecommerce. I think it can be a really profitable business model that I will continue to look into as I expand my internet business to new levels.

Have you ever had a campaign that sucked at first but then went on to make you loads of cash? Let's hear some stories.

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Angry Birds App Earns Over a Million a Month

If you're an iPhone or Android user, you've probably seen or even played the Angry Birds game app. A few months ago I first downloaded the game and I was hooked. Besides being one of the best and most downloaded (over 30 million downloads) smart phone games, it's also been a cash cow for Rovio (Angry Bird's parent company) and Google's Admob companies. Angry Birds is soon due to earn over a million a month just from ads being served on it's Android platform! (source)

The secret sauce being earning a million dollars per month for mobile advertising? The hardest part is in the beginning, and that is to build a powerhouse game that everyone loves and downloads. Next you just need to keep adding new levels and holiday editions. The players just keep coming back for more whenever new levels and seasonal games are added... which of course leads to more ad spending.

Watch the video below for more info about Angry Bird, Roxio and how they've become a monster in the mobile gaming market. In the video Peter Vesterbacka, the Mighty Eagle at Rovio talks about mobile game monetization, expanding to the Android (ad supported model) and how Roxio grabs an 80% update rate and continues their success month after month with Angry Birds.

Angry Birds is still growing in user base every day, and the company is now expanding out to cartoon and plush slingshot toys. The branding and growth of Angry Birds has been amazing.

Would you have ever thought those in-game/app advertisements were really making companies hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars per month?

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