Marketing Pilgrim Published: “Cup of Joe: I Do It All For The LULz!” plus 2 more

Link to Marketing Pilgrim - Internet News & Opinion

Cup of Joe: I Do It All For The LULz!
It’s Going to be a Happy Mother’s Day for Retailers
FTC Tells Cap ‘N Crunch and Friends to Set Sail

Posted: 29 Apr 2011 09:16 PM PDT

lol So this week I am going to toot my own horn a tiny bit, but please bear with me because it’s a bit rusty.

A few weeks ago I created a post on one of my old blogs. Soon after, I submitted it to one of my favorite social sharing sites StumbleUpon. The next day something strange happened. Traffic on the site shot up to over 1,500. The next day traffic hovered at around 1,000 and then the following day shot back up to around 1,500. I was happy at this point for what seemed like a modest increase in traffic for a blog that generally gets around 75 to a 100 visitors a day.

And then the floodgates opened.

The next day traffic rose to over 15,000 visitors and each day after it kept climbing until for three days straight, traffic was over 55,000 unique visitors, at one point reaching over 57,000 visitors. Since then traffic has gradually started to decrease bringing the total to over 425,000 unique visitors during the course of just 2 1/2 weeks. Along with the traffic increases my AdSense earnings rose as well.

I wish I could tell you that all of this new traffic and revenue generation was all part of a carefully designed and perfectly executed marketing plan. But the truth is that I was completely thrown off guard when (what appears to be) a seemingly meaningless post when viral. The truth is the only thing I was even thinking about was having a good time. In fact that whole blog is completely focused around my own entertainment. I rarely even update it.

I program for a living. But, you know what? Most of the time programming isn’t fun. Building things is fun. And if you want to build things online then you need to program. Unfortunately, the more I build things for a living the less I build things for fun.

We have all heard the saying, “to be successful do something that you enjoy” and how many times have we heard bloggers and “gurus” tell us to monetize our hobbies? But, trying to monetize what you are passionate about forces you to lose focus on what you enjoy in the first place. I mean come on admit it, if you monetized one of your hobbies you would be doing your best to continually optimize every element. Then it becomes less of what makes you happy and more about what makes you rich.

I am not going to try and build a business by posting stupid pictures on the internet. I am just going to do it because it makes me happy and if I make a few dollars along the way, then so be it!

Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!

It’s Going to be a Happy Mother’s Day for Retailers

Posted: 29 Apr 2011 11:32 AM PDT

Smile mom, according to National Retail Federation, the average person buying for Mother’s Day is expected to spend $140.73 on gifts, up from $126.90 last year, with total spending expected to reach $16.3 billion. That’s a lot of flowers and cards.

BIGresearch conducted the NRF's 2011 Mother's Day Consumer Intentions and Actions survey and they found that mom will be getting more electronics this year (13.3% up from 9%), including smartphones, cameras and tablets. (Lucky moms)

Look, a chart!

Mothers Day 2011 - Average Spending_small .

Powered By: iCharts | create, share, and embed interactive charts online

31.2% of those surveyed said they’ll be shelling out for gold or diamonds this Mother’s Day and the same number of (cheaper) people, said they’ll be buying mom clothing or accessories. 54.7% will be taking mom out to dinner and a whopping 64.9% will spring for flowers.When it’s time to shop, 21.5% will do it online while the others will hit the department or specialty stores. And while most of the money will be spent on the buyer’s actual mom, some said they’d also be buying for their wife (19.6%), daughter (9.6%), grandmother (8.0%), sister (8.4%), friend (7.3%) or godmother (1.8%)

NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay says,

"This Mother's Day, the woman who often puts herself last is being put first. Americans are in a much better position to spend this year and will push the daily stresses of high gas and food costs aside for one day to celebrate the most important women in the world to them."

That makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Mother’s Day is next Sunday, May 8 (in case you needed a reminder.)

FTC Tells Cap ‘N Crunch and Friends to Set Sail

Posted: 29 Apr 2011 10:51 AM PDT

Unless Cap ‘N Crunch can start hawking carrot sticks, this popular advertising icon may have to sail off into the sunset in the near future. The FTC is proposing a new set of guidelines for food advertising aimed at children and there’s no tolerance for anything sugary, fatty or fun.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is quoted as saying,

"Children are strongly influenced by the foods they see advertised on television and elsewhere. Creating a food marketing environment that supports, rather than undermines, the efforts of parents to encourage healthy eating among children will have a significant impact on reducing the nation's childhood obesity epidemic. These new Principles will help food and beverage companies use their creativity and resources to strengthen parents' efforts to encourage their children to make healthy choices."

Hopping on my soap box for just a moment, I have to say that healthy eating is not a matter parents versus the advertisers. Look at Jaime Oliver’s movement to get healthier lunches in the schools. Are dieticians also unduly influenced by the Jolly Green Giant and the Keebler Elves?

Kids are smarter than people thing. Present a cookie and an apple to a kid and I’ll bet they can tell you which is the healthy choice. Kids may ask for a particular cereal because they like the character on the box, but it if doesn’t taste good, they won’t eat it. And that’s what’s funny here.

The FTC isn’t asking advertisers to stop using cartoon characters to promote food, they just want them to promote healthy food. They think that if you put Disney characters on whole grain bread, kids will eat it. I’m not so sure.

Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not against healthy eating and I appreciate the fact that the FTC is trying to protect our kids. They did it with cigarette ads, so it’s likely they’ll also win the battle against junk food ads. But does that mean they’ll win the battle against junk food? Does a lack of colorful advertising really mean a drop in sales? And exactly what is considered “aimed at kids?” Those Keebler Elves make fabulous cookies ,but I would say they’re aimed at the adult female consumer, not a ten-year-old. So can they keep on working their magic?

Right now, the guidelines are voluntary, but you can see where this is going. If your company markets food products to kids, you should go check out the new guidelines at www.FTC.gov.

Join the Marketing Pilgrim Facebook Community