What’s Your Site’s Elevator Speech?

December 18, 2009 by

The other day, while trying to explain the purpose of The New Business Blog (yes, it does in fact have a purpose) to my friend, I was having a tough time coming up with a basic summary.

I talked about how I write about basic entrepreneurial issues like legal entities, business bank accounts, etc., but I also write about things that are pretty specific to online marketing, like social media and how to choose the right affiliate programs.

Invariably, I had to explain each referenced subtopic as well, which left both my friend and me frustrated and out of breath. At this point, my friend, who was tired of hearing me go on and on, said, “Just give me your site’s elevator speech.”

An “elevator speech” is a quick 30 to 60 second summary of what it is your site or business is about. As you’ve already guessed, an “elevator speech” is what you would say to someone if you were riding an elevator with them.

Obviously, you’re going to be talking in very high level terms here, so you’ll want to focus on the broad aspects of what your site or business does. If you start getting down into nitty-gritty of your site, you’ll very quickly find that your 30 second speech has turned into a three minute ramble.

After taking a minute to think, I came up with the following elevator speech for this site:

“The New Business Blog is a website and resource for anyone interested in starting their own business, in particular, an internet based business. In my writings I cover basic entrepreneurial topics like how to legally start a business, but mostly focus on topics that are a little more relevant to online marketers, like how to get more targeted visitors to their websites, or how to convert that traffic into revenue for their business.”

What’s your site’s or business’ elevator speech? Leave it in the comment section below.

Filed Under: Entrepreneurship, Marketing Tagged With: , , , , ,

How Mesothelioma TV Ads Prove Any Niche Can Make Money

December 16, 2009 by

Mesothelioma TV Ads

Over the past month, while watching TV I’ve seen probably 25 commercials from three or four different law firms advertising their services for people suffering from Mesothelioma. After seeing a couple different commercials and not really knowing anything about Mesothelioma, or why anyone afflicted with it might need a lawyer, I decided to do a little bit of research.

Without getting into too much detail, Mesothelioma is a type of cancer which, in most cases, is brought about by long-term exposure to asbestos. Asbestos is a material that was used in brake pads, pipe insulation, drywall, and various other products before being essentially outlawed in the late 1980’s.

(Before I continue, please understand that I am not trying to make light of Mesothelioma in any way; I am merely using law firms’ advertisements as an example of niche marketing.)

Considering the number of people afflicted with Mesothelioma is very small in comparison to the amount of people watching TV at the time any of the law firm’s ads appear, one would think these firms have set themselves up to lose a lot of money. After all, getting a commercial played during prime-time TV certainly isn’t an inexpensive endeavor.

However, not only do these firms not lose money, but apparently they stand to make a small fortune on settlements and litigation.

In essence, what these law firms are doing is akin to what you or I might do for one of our niche sites. While our site likely will not appeal to everyone on the internet at any given moment, there are enough people out there who are looking for the information or product that we provide that it makes our site worthwhile and profitable.

So, these Mesothilioma lawyer ads are a perfect illustration of what I stated in a previous post: somewhere someone is looking for exactly what you have to offer.

Click here for more info on mesothelioma.

Filed Under: Marketing Tagged With: , , ,

Your Audience is Out There

December 5, 2009 by

“Somewhere someone is looking for exactly what you have to offer.” – Louise Hay

I saw this quote the other day, and immediately thought about how relevant it is to those of us who run an online business, in particular blogs and information based websites.

According to the World Bank, as of 2008 the world’s total population was nearly 6.7 billion people.  Of those 6.7 billion people, roughly 21.3% of them — or  1.4 billion people — have access to the internet and use it with some regularity.

It probably goes without saying, but 1.4 billion is a gigantic number!  When you multiply that number by the fact that each of these internet users have a wide range of interests, it’s impossible to fathom a situation where you could create a site or blog that wouldn’t be of interest to at least several thousand people.

For argument’s sake, let’s say you decide you want to blog about a niche that only .01% of the world would be interested in.  Obviously, that’s a pretty small percentage, but when you take .01% of 1.4 billion people, you’ll find that there are 140,000 people who would be interested in your site.

Now that percentage doesn’t seem so small, does it?

So, if you’ve been on the fence about starting a blog or a website because you weren’t sure you’d have an audience, get over it! There are so many different types of people online that you’re bound to have not just an audience, but a captive audience.

For those of you who have already started an online business, keep it up, even if you have yet to see a significant influx of traffic or revenue. Although it may take a while for your audience or customers to find you, they do exist and will eventually make their way to you because you have exactly what they’re looking for!

What do you think?  Please leave your comments below!

Filed Under: Starting a Business Tagged With: , , , , , , ,