A Marketing Lesson From My Daughter

by Steven Wagenheim

Posted: 14 years ago 20 replies

OFF TOPIC

My daughter is no marketer...but let me tell you, she would put a lot of
marketers to shame.

Last night, as we're watching the series finale of 24, she's typing away on
her Macbook. I ask her what she's doing. She tells me she's writing up a
review of the show.

"But it's on right now. WTF?"

"I do it real time so that when the show ends, I just click publish and I'm
the first one listed when people go to look for a review."

This is a girl who never read one marketing book, but figured out that, "Hey, if I'm the first site up about something, I'll get listed first and people will
read my blog."

Turns out she's been doing this for a ton of shows for a long time and
gets tons of visitors to her blog.

Imagine if she actually took the time to monetize the darn thing. She's
got nothing on it...nothing. Just excellent content about tons of shows.

She gets like 30 uniques a day...with ZERO marketing skills or tactics
other than just being FIRST.

What's my point?

If a 21 year old "know-nothing-about-marketing-guidance-counselor-to-be"
kid can get 30 uniques to her blog a day...

WTF is YOUR problem with all your marketing smarts, books you've read
and money you've spent on who knows what, that you can't get a freaking
visitor to your site?

News flash. My daughter is living proof that getting traffic is NOT hard.

Getting regular readers is NOT hard.

And yes, if she cared a frick about the money, making money is NOT hard.

A marketing lesson from my daughter.

Who'd a thunk it?

#daughter #lesson #marketing

scrofford 14 years ago

That's awesome! It is good food for thought! I think that people make the concept of building a business too hard. Though I haven't made a whole lot online yet, I understand the concept and am working hard to build business. It comes down to actually doing what you know needs to get done instead of looking for that all elusive "magic bullet" or "automated system" that doesn't exist. Just do what you know and git er done!
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- Steven Wagenheim 14 years ago
  
  OT? Okay...whatever.:rolleyes:
  
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seasoned

14 years ago

Gee, you talk like she's 5, and then reveal she's 21!

30 uniques isn't THAT much. She should organize it, and maybe give it a nice border. Monetizing immediately could have hurt its appeal.

If she allows comments on it, and picks popular shows in a few genres, maybe she can get HUNDREDS of viewers, and several target markets to hit. THEN it could REALLY catch on. Of course, she DOES have competition. The MAIN appeal may always be HER view, and quick posting. Who knows, maybe she can go to conventions, and get actors and actresses to give it some added attention.

Steve

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Steven Wagenheim

14 years ago

Originally Posted by seasoned

Steve, my point is, she doesn't know crap about marketing and still
does better than most of the people in this business seriously trying to
make money.

But of course, I can always count on you to post a downer of a response.

:rolleyes:

Sheeesh...maybe I should have stayed in bed this morning.

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seasoned

14 years ago

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

Well, I had a similar site, I was getting hundreds of visitors to it every day. I didn't really advertise either. IT was probably not quite as nice as your daughters site. It had about 15,000 sites(almost ALL were NON revenue sites), a few SOFTWARE reviews, and some hints. SADLY, I got too complacent, worked on other things, and lost the domain name. OBVIOUSLY, MINE was geared towards people wanting to work with computers, or solve problems. In fact, if I had a problem, I put the solution there.

But I DID say she could do betterr, and that not having the ads at first may have helped her. It wasn't a downer, it was HONEST!

Steve

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CDarklock 14 years ago

Originally Posted by seasoned

Well, I had a similar site, I was getting hundreds of visitors to it every day. [...] It had about 15,000 sites

Steve, would you say your daughter gets "several" daily visitors for every 150 articles on her site?
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- Steven Wagenheim 14 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by CDarklock
  
  Steve, would you say your daughter gets "several" daily visitors for every 150 articles on her site?
  
  Caliban, I honestly don't know her overall stats but she does okay for a kid
  who doesn't give a crap about marketing.
  
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Kurt

14 years ago

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

For the sake of accuracy I propose we petition the mods to get seasoned's user name changed to "buzz kill".

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AlanGNW 14 years ago

Had a similar thing with my 16 year old son last year. Built himself quite a nice looking site. A fansite for an online game he was playing a lot at the time - he approached the owners of the game who made it their 'approved' fansite. He was getting good traffic and some adsense income on it - not a lot but it was growing.

As with most kids his age he didn't have the perseverance and wouldn't listen when I tried to make him realize what a gem of a site he had. He had all the foundations in place - just needed to stick at it.
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khurram84 14 years ago

she is doing good , she is writing a unique content and original that's very important of any site , but its time consuming most people just copy paste content from other site to their and just modified it in little bit
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madzseo 14 years ago

30 uniques without any marketing or bookmarking is excellent. People are always saying do what you love first then money comes after...maybe she's following that advice.
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HeySal 14 years ago

Steve -- well, well, well. Now the New guy on the block goes and blows the number one marketing secret in the universe.

You have to have common sense and a few brains that you are willing to engage instead of just following the "rules" that are laid out by others if you're going to win the game.

So the "secret" nobody wanted anyone to know turned out to be an OT freebie. Now ya know why I hang out here? LMAO.
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meganeven 14 years ago

Hey, I'd say she is definitely doing good if she honestly "doesn't give a crap" about marketing. Even just one little marketing tip --being the first-- is a good marketing tip.
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tahersaid 14 years ago

Many people are lazy to do stuff and search for the best method to get traffic
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Patrician 14 years ago

OK Proud Papa Steve, so in your book, she 'hung the moon'.

I wondered who did it.
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- Kay King 14 years ago
  
  Steve -
  
  I expect half the people posting on the WF today don't get 30 uniques a day
  
  She's doing something she enjoys and what she's doing could serve her well in the future if she starts thinking about the potential. If not, still not a bad hobby.
  
  kay
  
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Rembo 14 years ago

Actually, this is universal knowledge. Write what you're passionate about, the money will follow if you monetize it.

I'm an idiot with a similar experience. Besides the website you see in my sig that I do make money off, I have a number of other websites.

One of them is a repository for VBA scripts (MS Office). Nothing fancy, in fact it is plain boring. From a SEO point of view this website is horrifying, I'm just too lazy to create a decent website for it..

But the information is good, some is even unique, and eventhough I haven't done anything about it for months mow, I'm getting hundreds of unique visitors every day.

Alexa thinks this website is crappy but type in the (sub)domain name in google and see how many results it finds.

Moral of the story; do what you're passionate about. IF you want to monetize it the money will follow automatically.

Cheers,

Rembo
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pkornmann 14 years ago

I say "Hats Off" to her. There is one good lesson to be learned here. First always has and always will count!
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- AlanGNW 14 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by pkornmann
  
  First always has and always will count!
  
  From what I've seen on here there's plenty on this forum who can learn from that statement.
  
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A Marketing Lesson From My Daughter

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