‘Bad’ online business ideas that made millions

NicheGeek compiled a list of 10 off-the-wall business ideas that will have you asking yourself “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Among my favorites:

The Million Dollar Homepage

1,000,000 pixels per page, a dollar per pixel. Think it would never work? Well, 21-year-old Alex Tew is now a millionaire.

Million Dollar Homepage

Lucky Wishbone Co.

Who needs fake wishbones? And who’s actually looking for them online? Turns out somebody makes them and a lot of people want them. And, they actually break thanks to a “Revolutionary Advance in Plastic Wishbone Technology!”

Lucky Wishbone Co.

PickyDomains

Can’t think of a cool domain name? Let someone else do it for you. The site is so popular that there’s a waiting list of people who are willing to pay someone else to think of a great domain name for them.

Check out the full list of “ That Made Someone Rich,” and have a happy Friday.

SEO Tip: Put your address on your website

Include your mailing address (in plain text) on your website if you want to rank well in local search results, according to Conversation Marketing guru Ian Lurie.

By simply adding a text address to the footer of his site, a week later they ranked in the top 5 on Google and Yahoo! local results.

SEO Tip: Put your address on your website

You may not think ranking well in Google Maps matters to your business, but look at it as another way to connect with a potential customer. Someone may be searching for one of your product or services in their location, your business pops up in their local search, they visit your site and you get the sale.

“Add your address. It’s just silly not to.” – Ian Lurie

Another tip: If your business isn’t listed correctly, visit Google’s Local Business Center. After registering your business, Google will send an activation code to your physical mailing address that you will have to enter into your online listing to be accepted.

Building customer trust online

Trust in business is down in 13 of 15 industries according to a recent Better Business Bureau/Gallup Trust in Business Index survey.

Almost half of survey participants say they have “some, very little or no trust at all” in companies they do business with in everyday life.

As traditional brick-and-mortar businesses move into an online world, building and keeping customer trust is more important than ever before. Rather than selling, put your marketing focus on customer service, trust and long-term value.

“The most straightforward advice we can give business executives is to remember that customers will do business with you tomorrow only if they (and their friends, colleagues and associates) trust you today.” – BtoBonline.

How do we build customer trust?

Give customers valuable information to help solve their problems.

A shiny, new product may look very nice, but valuable content (and lots of it) is what will help customers solve problems. Providing helpful and relevant content will position your brand as a resource, encouraging customers to come back the next time a problem comes up.

“Commitment to and trust in a brand is less about slick promotional campaigns and more about trusted relationships.” – Junta 42.

Integrate content into your marketing strategy and build true value for customers. To help you get started, Junta42 put together The Ultimate Guide to Content Marketing.

Catalog/Internet retailers see slide in online sales

Catalog/Internet retail slide in online sales

“For the first time in a decade, catalog/Internet retailers are seeing a slide in Internet sales as a percentage of total direct sales, according to the Direct Marketing Association’s 2008 State of the Catalog Industry report.” – DMNews.

Internet sales in 2007 were 36% of the year’s total direct sales, coming in lower than the 38% made in 2004.

When postage increased almost 40% last year for catalogers, some reacted by not mailing to Internet customers because of low response rates, according to industry experts. The decision to limit mailings impacted sales numbers more than expected.

The sales decline will be short-lived, as catalogers learn how to better mail to all customers, according to Kevin Hillstrom, president of multichannel retail consultancy MineThatData.

Monica Smith, president and CEO at direct and multichannel marketing firm Marketsmith said marketers need to invest more in prospecting and into creating an engaging online customer experience.

“You’ve got to be in the viral game and you have to be where you’re constituents are.” Smith said in DMNews. “For younger users, this means engaging in blogs, online games and social networking.”

Read the full article, “Where did Internet sales go?” at DMNews.

Better customer service in 10 minutes or less

Tip: Listen to what your customers are saying about you and respond.

“The best companies have someone that takes 5 or 10 minutes a day and works on reaching out to customers.”

Choose one person or a few people, doesn’t matter what department they’re from as long as they’re familiar with the company and have good writing skills, to reach out to customers daily. Just ten minutes can make a “huge” difference, according to Service Untitled.

Along with what they do on a daily basis, they should spend 10 minutes reading what customers are saying about the company on the web. Regularly check outlets where your company is talked about including blogs, Twitter and forums.

If customers are saying good things about your company, thank them. If they’re complaining, help them find a solution to what went wrong.

Zappos, online shoe retailer and customer service giant, encourages employees to join social media sites to connect with each other and customers. CEO Tony Hsieh started using Twitter as a way to build company culture, but quickly found it was also a great way to connect with customers.

“We want the Zappos brand to be about the very best customer service and the very best customer experience. For Twitter, we don’t really view it as a marketing channel so much as a way to connect on a more personal level, whether it’s with our employees or our existing customers.”

It may sound like a bad late night infomercial, but 10 minutes is all it takes. Take 10 minutes everyday to connect with customers, improve loyalty and make your customers happy.

Follow ‘4-Hour Workweek’ principles, be more productive

In 2007, Tim Ferriss published The 4-Hour Workweek, an immediate best-seller outlining simple ways to be more productive and the secret to how he dropped the 9-to-5 and joined the “new rich.”

A popular misconception of Ferriss’ 4-Hour Workweek (4HWW) is that it is limited to top CEOs or successful entrepreneurs. But, the productivity-focused principles he follows and writes about can be used in almost any type of organization, large or small.

Several businesses in the Colorado Springs area began training employees on 4HWW. The training has led bosses to put more trust in employees, improved client relationships and increased productivity.

Read what one Colorado Springs CEO had to say about implementing 4HWW training in The Gazette:

“We’ve removed many of the normally accepted distractions that detract from productivity,” he said. “It’s not so easy to just pop your head into someone’s office for a ‘quick’ question. You start to see the true cost of those little interruptions, and you modify your approach. Our efficiency has increased, so we have been able to take on more work without adding employees.”

Another public company in Silicon Valley reinforces Ferriss’ productivity principles by listing them on a large board in a high-visibility area. Simply put, the board reminds employees to:

• Focus on quality over quantity.
• Check email only at three designated times during the day.
• Never send email on evenings or weekends.
• Focus on one to three activities each day.
• Minimize chat and avoid multitasking.
• Leave the office by 5:30 p.m. everyday, no excuses.

While all of us may never make it to a true 4-hour workweek, the productivity and time-saving principles that built Ferriss’ success can also make an impact on your career. He invites every business to give it a try, “it just takes some lateral thinking and a willingness to test small.”

Shrinking marketing budget? Don’t get mad, get creative

Sure, marketing during tough times can be tough, really tough. Before you let the size of your budget (or lack of it) make you angry, get creative. Take the time to search for lower-cost ways to get the job done and you’ll come out on top.

Marketing Sherpa recently shared a How To case study on how marketing director Tracy Drumm “took lemons and made lemonade” for a budget-slashed client by focusing on existing customers.

Even though Drumm’s client was a doctor and the customers were plastic surgery patients, her “11 Steps to Frugal Marketing” can be used in any line of business.

After three years of “bare-bones spending” Drumm developed a marketing model that focuses on enhancing customer experience, customer education and word-of-mouth promotion.

Take a look at how her model helped one business “think outside the box” and how her method could help your marketing during tough times.

Promote content, generate buzz with Yahoo Buzz!

Yahoo Buzz!

Six months ago Yahoo launched Buzz!, what some call a Digg “clone,” on their homepage. Originally there were only 100 publishers posting content to the site, but Yahoo has opened the doors to everyone.

Now, anyone with “buzzable” news can submit articles and posts to the site. The Buzz community then votes on submissions, posts with the most votes are pushed to the top of the ranking boards.

While Yahoo ranks second under Google, their front page still welcomes an average of 90 million U.S. visitors a month.

The network is new, still in beta, but has potential. If you already submit content to sites like Digg, reddit or Propeller, you may want to add Yahoo Buzz to your list of article submission sites.

For a review on how to use article submission sites like Digg and Buzz! to increase website or blog traffic review some tips from Problogger.

Don’t run a social media campaign

Run a social media marathon.

When marketers think in terms of a campaign, they usually think: beginning, middle and end. Venturing into the world of social media with a “campaign” mentality may land you in some dangerous marketing territory, according to Paul Dunay at Marketing for Technology.

“There is no overnight success when it comes to social media. Sure, we all are reading about some superb viral results out there, but they are the exception, not the rule. And to say you can systematically achieve those results for your clients (either internal or external) is not accurate,” according to Dunay.

Whether you’ve started a blog, online community, webinar or podcast series, it will take time to mature. Marketers must be prepared to stick with their social media endeavors and be prepared to contribute a lot of content.

“The average age of the top 100 blogs listed at Technorati is 33.8 months,” according to Darren Rowse and Chris Garret authors of the Problogger book and blog.

That’s not to say that marketers should forget about a strategy when it comes to social media. The authors of Groundswell created a four-step approach to social media strategy called POST (People, Objectives, Strategy and Technology) that can get you off to a good start.

Just because it may not be traditional, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t have a strategy.

“In any other business endeavor we start by figuring out what we want to accomplish. Social technologies are not magic. They accomplish things, too. It’s time to stop doing social because it’s cool. It’s time to start doing it because it’s effective.”

Monday marketing links: Social media, advertising and proper hygiene

Global Neighborhoods relays some geeky customer service advice and social media tips – “SM Global Report: Geeksquad Founder Robert Stevens”

New study categorizing U.S. adults according to how they like to receive advertising messages – “How Consumers Prefer to Receive Advertising – a New Segmentation”

Marketing Sherpa shares advice on how business-to-business vendors can reengage existing customers – “How to Use Networking Tactics to Generate New Business with Old Clients: 6 Tactics”

BusinessWeek on how cell phones have changed the rules for 800 numbers – “Think Easy Number, Not Easy Phrase”

Advice from BtoB Magazine on how to get “right now” responses to email campaigns -  “Ask the Expert: How to get immediate response to your e-mails”

The MarketingProfs show you six ways to to scrub that list – “Email Hygiene: Six Ways to Polish Your List”