Kids and Online Marketers

By: Prakash Sharma
Submitted: 2008-03-19 15:01:54
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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 who’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 I signed up for the Alliance forum and witnessed firsthand 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 James was really into Bionicles (a toy) and was always cruising eBay looking for a deal on the latest Binnacle. 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 and 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) but it will be up and running soon on her domain.

Her site will be online 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 that she is involved with 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.

* My daughter is 11. She is currently taking art class and learning to draw online with a mouse pen using photo impact and ms paint along with getting her website ready to launch.

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