Work at Home Parents - Kids & Online Marketing
I'm sure many online marketers have kids and they often come
over to the desk when you are busy working online to ask
questions like "what are you doing dad/mom" etc.
How many of us actually tell them what we are doing or better
yet show them?
I have been guilty of being "to busy" to answer questions or
saying not right now daddy's busy.
All this changed the first time I actually took the time to
explain to my daughter just exactly what I was doing.
My daughter has some "challenges" that I won't go into here but
the result of me explaining a little bit of what I do and why to
her has been no less than inspiring to me.
She took an interest in this whole marketing thing, especially
wondering why people buy things and what makes them buy one item
instead of a similar one.
We have had lots of conversations about this and looked at lots
of products and ads, everything from tv, ebay, online sites and
even the wso's on the forum. We've discussed Christmas and
observed the transformation of stores and tv ads during the
holiday season.
She has learned a lot about:
* Integrity and honesty in promoting a product and many of the
various ways to get the attention of the viewer.
* How a buyer that feels fooled or cheated won't be back and
will tell people they know not to buy from you.
* Wanting to "belong to a group" - she was sitting next to me
when we watched hundreds of people fill up a much anticipated
members site that just launched with a limit of 500 members. She
witnessed first hand how building anticipation and exclusivity
can work.
* Selling something you are passionate about - how it won't seem
like work and you will probably have a better chance of success
when the passion you have for a product show's through.
Soon all these evening conversations and lessons lead to
Stephanie wanting her own website to sell something from.
First she needed some money to launch her site. At the time I
was an active power seller on ebay. Her little brother Thomas
was really into Bionicles (a toy) and was always cruising ebay
looking for a deal on the latest Bionicle. One night we were at
Wal-Mart and as usual in the Bionicle section with Thomas. The
little toys were on sell at less than half price. Stephanie
suggested that we could buy them and sell them on ebay. We did,
we bought them all and sold almost all of them at retail or
above. She helped design the ad and suggested posing some out of
the boxes for pictures and was involved in the design of the
auction ad. Enough was made to start her website. More ebay
auctions followed to raise a few more dollars.
After some discussion Stephanie decided what she wanted her
website to be about.
She decided on:
* The pet niche - an area she is definitely passionate about
(three dogs, hamsters, guinea pigs, fish and turtles make their
home with us).
* She picked out several private label products (from a marketer
we met in an online forum) and a few click bank products to
promote.
* She chose the domain name freepettips.com
* She bought the website to use a starting point for her site
(she picked it out from ebay for $25). You can see the
beginnings here - http://tomdean.net/Pets (it's
not finished this is just the starting point).
Her site will be complete soon and will include private label
products about dog care, click bank products, resell rights
products for dog/cat recipes, articles, adsense, and two of her
very on products written for her but based on what she wanted
them to include. One is on buying and caring for hamsters the
other is on guinea pigs and includes plans for the guinea pigs
home and an outdoor guinea pig play box. Of course I will be the
one to finish up the site and get it on the web but the concept,
product selection, chosen design and her products were all
decided on by her. Think of all she will be learning from this
process. She is involved every step of the way.
Many of her own graphics will be used on the site and in the
products. She went from coloring graphics with crayons (her
other passion) to drawing them in a paint program using a pen
mouse that she purchased from her ebay proceeds.
All of this from dad just answering some questions and deciding
not to say "I'm busy right now".
I know we all get busy and stressed especially when that site is
just not working out or your latest mailing didn't do much for
you. But take some time when the little one ask what you are up
to. You may be surprised by how much they are really interested
in what you are doing and how much your time means to them. You
will also be surprised with what they can teach you if you just
listen.
Tom (A proud dad)