The use of brochures in guerrilla marketing for retails is common, and as long as people still walk on sidewalks, brochure marketing will always be important to bootstrap your marketing.

What should be included in the brochure?

Obviously, you may want to have your contact info in it - don’t forget to put a simple map, too.

You also want to get your message across in bigger font and in lesser word counts. Passer-bys have limited attention span, and might only look at your brochure for 1 or 2 seconds and then throw it away. Be attention grabbing in less wording.

For example - “For limited time only - you can have a 20% discount on selected items in our store” can be written, in big and bold, “20% OFF TODAY - ACT NOW”

Colour or Black-and-White?

Colour or black-and-white printing? Simple question, supposedly simple answer, but tricky to decide.

To command quality, colour brochure printing should be your choice over the B/W counterpart. However, B/W brochure printing is definitely cheaper.

In my opinion, whenever your budget allows, choose colour brochure printing.

However, if your budget is limited, choosing B/W printing can achieve similar effectiveness if you know how.

Bootstrapping Tips

I have a simple trick though - consider using a B/W texts (and images) printed on coloured paper. This way, your printing cost is lower, either you outsource your printing needs or do it yourself.

Also consider the size of your brochures - if you can get your message across on A5, don’t use A4.

Another bootstrapping tip - if you use brochure marketing to spread out words about your promo program, ask passer-bys to bring the brochures back to your retail store in good condition to redeem whatever you decide on promotion. This way you can save your printing cost, and reuse the brochure to be handed out again later.

Any other tips you can share in your brochure copywriting and printing experience? Please comment on this post :)

Ivan Widjaya
Brochure printing

With all due respect to fellow bloggers, blogs are one of the websites on the Net that are valuable in asset but clearly under-monitised.

We deserve more :)

Not only blogs, any other websites offering free, legitimate, information are all under-monitised.

Some examples of those websites are sites about Home Improvement and Cancer Signs. Those sites are lightly monetised by Google AdSense.

Although monetisation is the site owners’ prerogative right, in my humble opinion, the information provided worth way too much money than they are today.

Good information need to be supported to stay exist on the Net

Good information clearly need monetary supports from the site visitors.

Many would argue that blogging or creating a content site is not all about money - it’s passion to help others and to pursue personal endeavours. I fully respect those who think so.

However, I also know bloggers and site owners that are passionate about what they do, and hoping that someday, this passion also brings monetary rewards.

In my opinion - maybe I sound a bit too capitalistic - good information need to be monetised, to push bloggers and writers to create better work quality through adequate resources.

Why? Because writing contents take a lot of resources - time and, often, money.

How to monetise information

The most common ways to monetise information on the Net is through sponsorship, donation, on-site advertisements, affiliate marketing, or premium content membership.

Sending some love through donation is nice.

However, if you are an authoritative voice (or an expert) in your chosen topics, the better way of all is through membership program, where an information site visitors can access a great wealth of information by subscribing for a certain monthly payment. Through membership program, you offer free, valuable, content through your site, with an ‘insider or ‘inner circle’ access to even more useful information if visitors join as members.

It is time to monetise!

Your sites’ monetisation methods are yours to choose, but I think it’s about time for bloggers, content writers, and site owners to make more money online that they are today.

Websites take bigger and bigger role in information transmission through the Net. Getting paid for your work doesn’t make you a ‘capitalist pig’ :) - It will only motivate you to create more and better.

What I did all this time if I enjoyed a content I read online? I either click their Google AdSense, AdBrite, etc. ad to show my appreciation. Leaving a comment work well, too, but it’s hardly transformed into monetary reward for the site owner :)

What is your view in this? Please share by commenting on this post.

Ivan Widjaya
Information monetisation

Like many authority bloggers a.k.a. probloggers suggest, perseverance is key if you want to blog for a living.

Thanks to those who have paved the road

I honour Yaro Starak and Darren Rowse, whom I considered role models in today’s blogging. I try hard to follow their recommendation and suggestion, and today I started to see results - thanks to them.

I learn that continuously write posts on topics you love is difficult. Inspiration is hard to find sometimes, and other responsibilities in life - family to take care, business to manage, and other personal endeavours limit my passion for blogging.

But now it’s different - I learn that writing is actually help you overcome your offline life issues, as well as train your brain for creative thinking. I also learn that blogging is actually helping myself, as well as - hopefully- my readers to give an insight or two about issues, in Noobpreneur.com case, business issues.

Noobpreneur.com blogging tips

Tips that work well for me, that might also work well for you:

• Write a post every day, at a constant pace, the more the better.
• Social bookmark your post yourself - A bit narcissistic, but if you don’t do it, don’t expect others to do it for you.
• Review exchange is better than link exchange.
• Be active in forums and blogs related to your blog topic.
• Don’t blog for money, even if you do a paid one - your enthusiasm will wane more sooner than later - blog for your audience first, yourself, and then money.
• Be humble and honest - write about your success and failures, and share what you have learned from them.
• Do Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and link building - even a non-technical background blogger should learn the basics.

Last but not least, thanks to you, Noobpreneur.com readers, for the continuing supports on this blog. I really, really appreciate it!

Ivan Widjaya
Blogging myself out

Online job market has been a constant provider of qualified candidates, even more with the blurring boundaries between online and off line world.

Why you should consider online job listings

There are several reasons why you should consider online job listings:

• Fast - sign up, pay, and list right away.
• Listing fee is only a partial of job listing in newspapers.
• Everybody who is computer-literate can access and apply your job openings - this is naturally select candidates that have basic computer skills.
• If you choose your online job marketplace right, you can get faster responses by candidates, which means a hefty number of candidates in a short period of listing time.
• You can post, edit or update your job openings yourself, right away.
• You can get candidate screening services fro online job marketplace that offer such services, helping you ‘throw away’ unwanted candidates that fit in a certain criteria.

Where to list your job openings online

You can post jobs almost everywhere on the net. Blogs, forums, job marketplace, classified ads site, and other places can be the right place to advertise your job openings. You can post yours either for free or paid.

However, in my opinion, posting your job in online job marketplace offers more benefits for business owners. Listings are more trusted, as service for job posting is usually not free - thus selecting companies that are legitimate, to the least.

New online job marketplace, such as Fresho.com has emerging with a rapid fashion today.

In online job marketplace where you can post jobs and job seekers post resume.

Tips on listing your job openings online

I would like to offer you some tips on posting your job openings online:

• Seek a marketplace that is visited by a large number of visitor and job seekers.
• Post your job opening as concise and explanatory as possible, as people online are usually having short attention span and tend to skim content - this include job opportunities.
• Create a listing where job seekers are encouraged to apply online, instead of contacting you through email or phone.
• Create an interesting job opening copy that is read as ‘challenging’ and ‘fun’.
• List in online job marketplace that will help you ’select’ candidates.
• Seek online job marketplace that offer excellent and easy to reach support for business owners.

Good luck on your search for candidates!

Ivan Widjaya
Online job marketplace

Next - you have to choose a great domain name. If it’s merely ‘good’, your online business is only half the potential. Period.

Choosing a great domain name is just as important as choosing a great business name. Fail to do so in the first place will damage your business potential.

You might ask, what’s in a name? In business, as well as in our daily life, a name can command respect, trust, and worthiness. Just to make my point, you simply don’t want to name your child Lazy or Stupid, do you?

What to look in a domain name

Having your business name as your domain name is not always a good way to go.

If your business name is Amazing Retail Company selling laptops, choosing AmazingRetailCompany.com might always seem logical to do.

However, in my opinion, this is not the best route to take.

I recommend you to have keywords in it.

What’s in a keyword? Choosing the right one for your online business will almost always guarantee more organic traffic and better position in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).

For the above example, I would prefer to choose AmazingLaptops.com than AmazingRetailCompany.com.

Where to look for a domain name for you

I highly recommend you to use domain name suggestion tool, such as AptDomain.name.

I use AptDomain.name to look for domain names with the keywords of my choice. The site will suggest you the domain name filled with the keywords you specify, if any. If yours is available, you can buy the domain name from the site.

In my opinion, AptDomain.name is better than most domain name suggestion tool out there because you have more control in your domain name suggestion, such as adding your custom prefix or suffix, as well as choosing keywords in several languages.

Another way is to look for your domain name in domain name marketplaces, such as Sedo.com. Choosing this route, however, will definitely cost you more money, and choosing the one that really suites your brand name is difficult.

Webmaster forums, such as DigitalPoint.com forums are great source for available domain name. Watch for scams, though.

How to choose a great domain name

I have some tips on choosing a great domain name:

• Always consider dot com over any other TLDs.
• Always look for a shorter domain name, formed with no more than three words - AmazingRetailCompany.com is ok, but AmazingRetailCompanyinOrlandoFlorida.com is sick :)
• Always look for domain name with meaningful keywords - xjpzm.com is plain awful.
• Choose the one that you would like to stick with forever - just like brand names.

Your domain name, your online business

To conclude, let’s say your domain name is your online business.

Online, your domain name is far more important than your brand name - this is why many online businesses have their domain name as their brand name, not the other way around.

Spend your time to look for the right domain name for your business. This could very well your best investment of all.

Ivan Widjaya
Domain name