Gone are the days when the word “Mom” conjures images of a female who cannot operate the video recorder or navigate her way through the latest videogame, and only switches on the computer to send an email to Grandma.

According to a study published in 2009 by Razorfish and Cafemom, up to 27 million (84%) of Moms online are tech savvy. They use Web 2.0 platforms and shop online. In fact, they use communication technology and social media to connect with others, find advice and information, express themselves, do research on products they’re interested in, and simplify their multi-tasking lives.

“Digital Moms” have become so dominant on the Internet that the researchers concluded they are not a niche, but are rather the mainstream.

If you aren’t reaching out to digital Moms online yet, you might just be missing out on a significant market. Consider these numbers from the United States Census Bureau:

- Women control 80% of household spending. Even if they earn only a part or none of the total household income, women determine how much of the household income will be spent.

- Women do 60% of online shopping. Women do a lot of research online before making a purchase and actually make up more than half of online shoppers.

- Women buy 81% of all products and services. Women shop not only for themselves, but also for the home, family members, gifts for friends, teachers and associates.

The problem is, many online businesses just don’t seem to know what to do when it comes to marketing to digital Moms. They make the mistake of treating all Moms online as if they all had the same needs and reasons for using the Internet. Not true, according to the Razorfish/Cafemom report. For example, younger Moms tend to be more comfortable with social networking and mobile surfing. On the other hand, Moms 45 years old and above gravitate more towards online news, product reviews and podcasting.

What is the best way to reach out to today’s digital Moms?
Here are three tips:

- Provide relevant content. Some of the online Mom’s interests depend on what life stage she is in. For instance, digital Moms with young children naturally look online for information about parenting and child health. But there are topics that most digital Moms are interested in, no matter how old their children are. These include fashion and cooking.

Mom PLR Ebooks provides regular private label rights content just for Moms. For a monthly supply of PLR recipes and product reviews, check out the “All Mom Content” package of All Private Label Content.

- Be present in the channels digital Moms are using. Again according to the Razorfish/Cafemom study, more than half of digital Moms use email, search engines, social networks, gaming and online news. Emerging channels used by about one-third of digital Moms include online videos, consumer reviews and blogs.

Aside from PLR Ebooks, your monthly subscription to Mom PLR Ebooks includes a 5-day Ecourse and 26 newsletter topic ideas – perfect for digital Moms who use Email everyday. If you’re interested in providing consumer reviews, All Private Label Content includes 10 product profiles reviews every month.

- Know the particular needs, interests and online habits of your Mom audience. Digital Moms have varying needs and surfing behaviors, depending on their age and their children’s ages. The best way to accurately understand your particular Mom audience is to listen to them. Ask your list subscribers what their concerns are. Conduct your own surveys. Hang out in Mommy forums. Pay attention.

The majority of mothers online are digital Moms. They are tech savvy, smart consumers who make informed decisions when shopping online. They’re also online for social networking and even gaming. But they have varying needs depending on their life stage and their children’s ages. To market effectively to digital Moms, you need to give them what they’re looking for online, be where they are, and pay attention to their needs. Take care of digital Moms and you’ll have a profitable online business.

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Get ideas for making content more uniquely yours, earning money from your PLR and more.

Click HERE to download the plr checklist

It is a PDF document and you will need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software to view it. If you don’t have this software, you can get it here.

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Get a FREE Blog installed

I took a closer look at their site today to see if there was an expiration, and sure enough – they’re limiting the offer to the first 100 customers for each kind of blog – total of 200 new accounts.

Don’t dally.

A subscriber sent me an email asking a great question, I’ll publish it here in case anyone else is wondering the same or was confused by my email:

“I went there and don’t understand… could you kindly explain to the “computard”? LOL  To me it looks like it’s not free… I want to understand before I sign up for something.  Thanks so much!

Thanks,
K

My response:

You DO have to pay for the hosting account – (their prices start at $7.95 a month).

What is free is the WordPress blog installation – which would normally set you back around $60.

A web hosting account is necessary to host the website/blog files on the internet (you’re renting space on a server).

I don’t mind answering more questions if that’s not clear. Leave them below or contact ReliableWebs directly.

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What is the problem?

Lots of people emailing you. Asking you to do stuff for them.
For free.

Now, please understand.

I’m not referring to people I already have a relationship with. Business partners, friends, people I’ve known through various associations like Mom Masterminds, etc. That’s different. If we’re already peeps, then I know it’s a “I’ll scratch your back, you’ll scratch mine” kind of situation. But I’m not talking about that.

I’m talking about strangers emailing me out of the blue asking for my time, my eyeballs, my website real estate, and my audience.

With no offer of reciprocation.

(If you don’t already have this problem, hold on. Because it’s coming. You might want to put some boundaries in place right now to prepare, or at least decide in advance how you’re going to handle these requests.)

As an example of reciprocation, I use my recent report with 100 Free Blogging Tips. I wanted this report to have a wider reach than just my own readers and subscribers, so I decided to send it to several bloggers/online business owners I respect (and have known for a few years). I asked them to circulate it on my behalf.

But first I took the time to search THEIR websites, find THEIR affiliate link for a couple of the resources I mention in the report, brand it suchly, and then pretty it up into a pdf file after doing so. BEFORE sending it their way.

In other words, I provided value FIRST (excellent content about a subject of interest to their target market that can also earn them affiliate commissions) before expecting something in return.

It comes down to respect. Because I respect the blogger’s time, I made the offer juicy for them as much as for myself.

I wasn’t expecting “something for nothing”.

* A blogger’s traffic is valuable.
* Their subscriber list is valuable.
* Their time is valuable.
* Their bandwidth is valuable.
* Their virtual real estate is valuable.

If I am going to benefit from all that stuff, all that value, I had better offer something in exchange and make it easy for them to help me.

The problem is, many bloggers and online business owners get hundreds of emails each week from people who want something for nothing.

I have a contact form on my other website. I also have clearly written boundaries on that page in large, bold type.

And yet.

I get dozens of emails each week, sometimes a hundred or more, from people who obviously did not take the time to read those boundaries. What kinds of emails?

* Requests to review their product for free.
* Requests to blog about their website/project/company for free.
* Requests to write about their product (without so much as a complimentary product!) for free.
* Requests for advice about starting a blog/online business/ etc for free.
* Requests for advice about homeschooling/parenting/nutrition/etc for free.
* Requests for exposure on my blog for free.
* Requests to be connected with some resource/person/product that could be found with a simple Google search.
* Requests for free advice on launching their new affiliate program.

I don’t want to sound like a jerk. But let’s reasonably think about this for a moment.

If I responded to and acted on all these requests, I would have no time to actually run the business that feeds my children.

I suspect that many of these people who send request emails would not do the same thing with an offline business owner. Do you walk into Starbucks and ask them to teach you how to brew coffee? Do you go to the hair salon and ask them to teach you how to use a flat iron?

Why not? Because that is what those people get paid to do.

Many of the requests I get are for things that I get paid to do.

I get paid to coach people on how to start on online business.
I get paid to expose people’s products and services (as an affiliate) on my sites/blogs.
I get paid to do website reviews and critiques.
I get paid to do product reviews (IF I like the product and they fit squarely into my target market’s interests).
I get paid when people buy advertising on my podcast.

Many of these requests get deleted. If it’s obvious to me that someone scarcely looked at my site before pitching me on something, it’s deleted yesterday.

I understand what it’s like to need help, and I have asked people that I know well, and trust, for help. Yet I’ve done something in return (like in the above example). Maybe I’ve been that person’s loyal customer, or loyal affiliate. Maybe I’ve linked to them with no agenda, just because I appreciated what they do. Or whatever.

Here’s what Tiffany Washko had to say on the subject:

“I get hundreds (not joking) of emails each week from people who want my help “getting the word out” about some product or service they offer.  95% of the time I delete the email and ignore the request. I also usually ignore link requests too. I don’t have time to respond to all of them. Maybe I should format a form email I can jot off to them but still that requires my time.

…. They are not getting that this is a business. I will keep on ignoring them I guess.

As for people asking advice…well I try to answer their questions on my blog.”

So if you are a marketer or business owner (or hopeful business owner) reading this, please take note. Before you hit that “send” or “submit” button, consider:

Am I expecting something for nothing?

If you are a reader and want to ask advice from a blogger, you might want to ask if them if they offer consulting first. It may be a shock to you that popular bloggers get so many requests for help and advice. Perhaps that knowledge will help you understand why they can’t respond to your email, or why you get a form letter or short response.

It’s nothing personal, it’s just that bloggers have to draw boundaries on their time so other more important things don’t get shortchanged. You could also search their blog’s archives for your answer. Or see if they sell a product that would explain that issue in detail.

Perhaps it would be more appropriate to join a community forum. Online message forums were created in part to provide free places to get support and information. Oftentimes, a Google search would turn up the answer for you.

For you bloggers, how do you handle this? How do you set boundaries with people who want free access to your time, website, expertise or other valuables?

More:

Are you giving away the milk for free?

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Lynn has been one of my most important mentors since I started with my online business 6 years ago. It was a blog post of hers that inspired me to launch my very first niche affiliate website. (It’s still online but I no longer own it.)

The success of that site, and the knowledge that following a proven system *works*, inspired me to switch my focus to affiliate marketing (instead of direct sales, which I was doing back when I first got started).

If you’re new to me (maybe a new Twitter follower from Blissdom? Welcome!), here are a few quirky facts about me so we can get more acquainted. I’ve done this meme already on my Facebook page, which had a more personal theme, but since this is my business blog I’ll focus more on being a work at home mom and internet marketer.

1. I haven’t had a “job” in over ten years.
2. The last “job” I had was a supervisor at Starbucks in downtown Atlanta.
3. I worked until just a few days before my oldest son was born.
4. I never went back.
5. I have no education to speak of (high school graduate) and am self taught.
6. I think it’s dangerous for a woman to be economically dependent and never will be again, no matter how my current circumstances change (I’m a divorced single mom who supports her family).
7. I have Irish Traveler (tinker) blood and would love to live in an Airstream, traveling the country with my kids and working via a wifi connection.
8. I am mildly agoraphobic, and could easily live in a small space (like an Airstream).
9. I do not own a television set.
10. But I never miss House (I watch it on my laptop).
11. No matter how little sleep I got the night before, I cannot sleep late.
12. I hope my kids never have a job. I want to teach them entrepreneurship.
13. As long as that’s what they want.
14. My kids are homeschooled. We have an eclectic style and do history, science and other subjects all together, Little House on the Prairie style.
15. I am deeply religious and after school spend several years as a youth minister, but prefer to compartmentalize. I don’t mix business and faith.
16. I’ve been single for over two years, but the divorce was only final weeks ago. I “didn’t believe in divorce”.
17. Oddly, my ex initiated the proceedings, but I was the one who left him (for the fourth and final time) and just before signing on the dotted line, said he didn’t want the divorce. I, on the other hand, very much did.
18. What does that have to do with business? Don’t know. (See #6)
19. My oldest child has known how to brew coffee for several years now (he’s 10), and loves to bring me coffee in bed. It comes natural I guess. (See #2, 3)
20. I think I have an awesome life. I am so blessed to be able to do what I do, from home, surrounded by my kids.
21. I recently got my 2nd speeding ticket… the first one in 16 years!
22. When I need to focus, I drop the kids off at my mother’s, head to Starbucks and write my brains out.
23. I developed my first information product, Natural Mom Business Guide, one day when my internet connection stopped working.
24. I am on a mission to help educate mom bloggers that they can make money and still have integrity and be true to their voice.
25. Other than Twitter, I don’t do social media. But I do love Twitter. The other day my sister called me on the phone worried, because she hadn’t seen me on Twitter that day. LOL!

Thanks Lynn, that was fun! Now I’m tagging:

- Sarah and Mary Ellen from Moms Marbles (I think you guys need to write an ebook!)
- Nell at Casual Friday Everyday
- Jessica at Jessica Knows

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This session deserves a post all its own.

For a couple of reasons.

I talked to several women privately at the Blissdom conference who have fantastic blogs and are wonderful writers but are totally frustrated.

They’re frustrated because they aren’t making any money.

They aren’t making any money because they do not understand affiliate marketing.

Now, if you don’t want to make any money with your mom blog that’s cool.

But if you do want to make money, I’m here to tell you that not only CAN you, but many of us ARE doing it and earn a full time income doing so.

My fellow Blissdom attendee and Mom Masterminds member Alyssa Avant and I are proof of that, as are hundreds of women at MM.

(Don’t forget, if you attended Blissdom and did not get my card, please DM me on Twitter or email me for your special link that entitles you to a FREE MONTH of membership.)

The affiliate marketing panel had some basic info on what affiliate marketing is and some advice on making it work for you, yet I feel that it left many women wanting. That may be because it’s impossible to say enough about affiliate marketing in such a short amount of time.

I talked to a few of these moms who were adamant about wanting to know how to earn real money – and not just get free products – with their blogs.

After I type my notes, I will share some of my favorite resources, including a free affiliate marketing ecourse that I offer for those who are in the “natural/crunchy mom” niche like myself. (But the same principles apply to every market so it really doesn’t matter what niche you scratch.)

Affiliate Marketing as a Mom Blogger

To maximize your results from affiliate marketing, it’s imperative that you learn how to skillfully weave affiliate links into the body of your post.

While buttons and banners can and do perform, they do not perform *nearly* as well as natural, organic product mentions in your actual content.

Another effective strategy is to both write about in your posts AND put a button on your sidebar for a product you endorse. Your readers may not realize it consciously but they will understand subliminally that you mean what you say about the product if you do both things.

If you’re getting lots of free stuff from companies to review, ALWAYS check to see if they have an affiliate program and MONETIZE that post with your affiliate link.

I do this all the time and it works great. You do not need to ask permission from the company either. If you’re doing reviews for free (which I hope you’re not), you need to be benefitting in some way from the free exposure and traffic you’re giving these companies.

At the very least check Amazon to see if the product is also sold there before publishing the review. If you already have a ton of reviews on your site, go back through your posts and add affiliate links.

To maximized your results, search your stats for your ten highest traffic pages and begin there.

The panelists recommended creating “gift guides” that you release around the holidays and big shopping days. I don’t do this at all, my affiliate recommendations are evergreen in nature, but I know some that do it with great success. Maybe start there.

Another tip I tell moms that I coach is:

Look around your own home at the products you can’t live without.

Make a list of them on a piece of paper, Is it your baby sling? A favorite well worn parenting book or cookbook? Some skin care product?

Whatever it is, if you can write a compelling review, sit down and search for an affiliate program for that product and get busy writing.

Here are some of my favorite sources for information on affiliate marketing.

Lynn Terry’s blog Clicknewz. It was Lynn who inspired me to launch my very first niche affiliate site 5 years ago. It was a great success and proved to me that a system works if you work it. If you’re brand new to the internet marketing world, some of her posts may seem a little hard to understand, but she is great at linking back to some of her 101/how to posts for beginners. Just keep reading and the lingo will start to make sense.

Alice Seba’s Affiliate Marketing Sweetie – if you want to have a basic solid education on how to make money with affiliate marketing and can only afford ONE thing, this would be the one thing I recommend. Alice is a great friend and mentor and I trust everything that comes out of her mouth (you can see my guest posts on her blog here).

I linked to it above, but my free ecourse on affiliate marketing has some valuable free info to help you get started.

Please feel free to leave a question you have about how to make money as a mom blogger with affiliate marketing in the comments below.

I will do my best to publish them here and answer them for you or point you to a resource.

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One thing that is helping me stay on top of things is my handy Todoodlist.

I know some of you are familiar with it because you’re Twittering about it. I love this system. It’s much easier to implement and remember than GTD, but along some of the same principles.

A few things I wanted to say and one announcement too.

I did an interview for Virtual Perception. This is a quick discussion about staying motivated when things aren’t going your way in your business.

Here is a link to my interview at Kelly’s Wahm 2.0 blog and over at Alice’s blog I’m talking about Escape Velocity as a principle for internet marketers.

I’ve also got a pretty exciting new development. I became a licensee for the Joy of Connecting. I have enjoyed attending a few of these groups and decided to launch a group in my area. You can find out more about it here. If you live in the Atlanta area or know women in business who do, I would really appreciate you spreading the word. A quick tweet will do.

Thanks

P.S. Did you hear about this coupon code courtesy of All PLR?
Code: 56F42
Details: 15% off all PLR
Expires: October 21, 2008

Go here to redeem it: All Private Label Rights

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Understandably so.

If you’ve been putting off launching an infoproduct, buy a PLR report and edit it, and voila! You’ve got a product.

If you don’t have time to create reports to help you make more affiliate sales, buy a PLR report and edit it, and voila! You’ve got a special report to give away that will get you more commissions.

If you need to create a “bribe to subscribe”, buy a PLR report and edit it, and voila! You’ve got a dangling carrot for your newsletter.

Etc, etc.

Guess what?

You can find PLR reports in just about any niche.

- For the mom niche, you can use Mom PLR Ebooks.

- For the internet marketing/work at home Mom niche, try Special Report Club.

- For the mom, marketing, finance, health or other niche, try All Private Label Rights (you get a free special report each month with your membership).

Unconvinced?

Download this free report:

How to Make Money with PLR Special Reports

She spells it out nicely for you.

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I posted last week at Mom Masterminds about my feelings lately regarding my business. And I thought I would share it here so perhaps it could help you avoid the same mistake. I’ll go ahead and paste that now.

“I swear, sometimes I wish I had only 3 websites. If I knew I could get a good price for them, I would put several up for sale. I have been in a kind of funk for about 3 weeks now, and it’s lifting, but part of it is because I feel like I’m scattering my seeds everywhere and diluting my efforts too much. I’ve been thinking about what I really want and what I really enjoy in my business. I no longer want to do what I don’t want to do. And I don’t think I have to. Let me explain.

What I really love is blogging. I don’t have to make myself do it or talk myself into it and I don’t procrastinate about it or do any kind of mind games to get it done. I’m envious of people who ONLY have a blog. That’s it. All their focus goes into it and they do it full time.

I really like affiliate marketing. I don’t particularly like creating products. I don’t wanna do it anymore. Wah!

I have a couple sites that produce a really nice income with minimal work. I can add a teensy bit of content or get another incoming link once a month (or less) and they just keep on pumping out income. That’s fine.

But then I have several small websites in my niche that I feel could ALL be incorporated into my larger site or blog. Some of these aren’t making much money, and I feel their content could be more valuable on a website that IS my focus.

How do you decide whether to move stuff around and reorganize stuff or just let it be? Or sell it?

All this disorganization makes me a little depressed. I know if I had fewer websites I would feel more energetic. Bleh.”

I got all sorts of helpful responses, including:

“Oh Carrie, I so know how you feel! I have too many sites and I know it. I’ve grown out of quit a few of them and my interests in life have taken me in completely different directions.”

and

“You’re in charge and you can start over.” 

and 

“Your experience is helping me tone down me newbie enthusiasm and focus on the plan!”

and

“Carrie I get it completely. I have never enjoyed being a virtual real estate owner. I much prefer to keep my efforts as centralized as possible.”

After I posted this I felt much better just knowing that other work at home Moms felt the same way I did – which was scattered and pulled and guilty that I wasn’t giving some of the projects the attention they deserved. But I also got to work and started moving towards my goal of fewer projects, done better. More centralization, less scatter.

I sold one website to a wahm who is perfect for it. She’s already marketing to that niche and it was a perfect fit for her.

Then I simply deleted another that wasn’t performing. The domain was about to expire anyway. First I took a look at stats and stuff to see if there was any value I could put on another site, which I did. I moved some of the decent performing pages to another site. Then I kicked it to the curb.

Then I took a serious look at one of my biggest projects, Natural Moms Talk Radio and the blog that goes with it. The site and blog are a little bit inconsistent, and to boot there is another blog that I use just for articles. So.

Right now someone is working their magic on the whole site. It will be centralized into one big blogsitepodcast thing. It’s getting new snazzy graphics and I can hardly wait. Everything I do to the site, whether it’s an informative article, a podcast episode, or a blog post, will boost the rankings of the domain and the other parts of the site, whereas now it’s disjointed.

I feel so much better.

I have another site that’s going to be up on the chopping block soon.

What’s new with your business?

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I also need to narrow down the categories. Wordpress imported all those crazy tags from Blogger. I noticed my pictures all disappeared. I guess I’ll have to decide whether it’s worth the time to go back and fix those. We’ll see. I also need to find an updated pic. The one in the header is several months old and my hair has gotten longer. The one here was taken just a few days ago.

Thanks so much to Jen for her hard work on the blog. What would I do without her?

Bleh – I just realized that if you click on the little thumbnail picture it pops up in its huge size and you will see my face in all my first thing in the morning glory. My son snapped this picture on my phone. Don’t click on the picture! Too big!

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