The Story of Selling My Business

During my keynote panel at BlogWorld last week, I was able to make the announcement that I have sold Sparkplugging – and I honestly didn’t anticipate the flurry of questions that would come my way since then! So for all of you asking for the back story – here you go. :)

The Deal That Almost Broke Me

Last October, I was approached to sell Sparkplugging by a different company. Thinking this was a perfect match and that everything would go according to ‘plan’, I started getting ready to let Sparkplugging go. I began a new project, said my emotional farewells, and then the economy slammed me in the face and the deal fell through. I was devastated at the time – and found myself in a difficult position. My fledgling new kids network was taking off better than I had expected, I was burnt out on business writing, and suddenly I was stuck with a business that I had just spent 4 months saying goodbye to.

For a while, I didn’t really know what to do. So I hired Kelly McCausey to be the Senior Editor of Sparkplugging to buy me some time to determine what was the next best move. In the meantime, my kids network started not only replacing, but surpassing my Sparkplugging income, and I was even less interested in going back to something that was so much more work for so much less ROI.

Letting Go

I ended up turning to my weekly mastermind group of friends for advice – and lo and behold, one of them was interested in taking Sparkplugging off of my hands. My old co-author on Sparkplug CEO – Dawud Miracle (and a business partner) soon purchased the site in a deal that was 20 times better than the one that fell through 7 months earlier. Then he lays the news on me that they have hired Easton Ellsworth to be Editor, because Kelly wanted to move onto other projects.

And then I cried.

I cried because I was so happy that my “baby” was now in the hands of dear friends. I cried because I had worked for this 3 and a half years, and finally saw the fruits of my labors. I cried because I was closing a chapter in my life that was both blissful and painful. And I cried because somehow I doubted the universe had my best interests at heart when I lost the first deal, only to find that the universe totally carried me through to exactly where I needed to be.

What I’m Doing Now

What I find probably most interesting of all is that Woo! Jr. is everything that Sparkplugging wasn’t – and everything that I wanted it to be. Sparkplugging was best monetized through consulting and product sales – two avenues I tried and absolutely hated. I wanted a blog network monetized by affiliate revenue and advertising, and I didn’t want to have to hire writers anymore. My 7 Woo! Jr. sites just surpassed 1 million page views this October, and seriously – my life couldn’t be more awesome. I don’t have to travel and speak anymore to promote myself, I get to make crafts with my kids, and I’ve finally replaced my old income from the corporate world.

2009 was a rough year in many ways – I had some health issues, experienced a difficult betrayal of a friend, and I thought I might have to shut Sparkplugging down at one point. If I had to choose between it and my health, well, the blog was going to go. But I swear that God works in mysterious ways, because all the things that I thought went wrong this year were actually the very things that set me on the right path to where I am right now.

You know that saying – what comes around, goes around? Well for many years I sent around great karma, waiting for it to come back. And waiting. And waiting. And now it’s here, and I honestly have a difficult time putting my gratitude into words. I’m grateful to all of the writers I’ve worked with along the way, grateful to my husband for supporting me when I wasn’t making a cent, grateful to my kids for putting up with all the long work hours, grateful to my friends who helped my website grow, and grateful to my God for bringing me here.

Yeah. :)

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Momfluential Social Media Marketing: Making the Nielsen Mom Power Pack List

I woke up today to find my name on a list. It’s not just any list, but probably one of the most important lists I could be on as a mom in social media. Nielsen (yes, that Nielsen) included me on their Online Power Mom 50 list.

“Nielsen Online’s Power Mom 50 is a collection of leading voices in the mom blogosphere based on a blend of blog posts and comments, and inbound/outbound captured via Nielsen BuzzMetrics, as well as Twitter followers and other metrics.

The complete list is available here.”

-Jessica Hogue, Research Director, Nielsen Online
Power Moms Consumer Insight Report

Since I’ve been laying low lately as I launch my second blog network and take some much needed rest, I was especially pleased to know people haven’t forgotten about me. ;)

So what does it mean to be on The List? The following 16 “Power Pack” moms are considered “…Momfluentials that pack too much of a punch to be categorized. These women create powerful mom networks; speak around the world on the dynamic digital world of mom; and have legions hanging on their every word -via TV, magazines, podcast, blog or tweet.”

What an honor to be included with some of my favorite women in social media! I do want to say that I think Barbara Jones, Allison Worthington, Isabel Kallman, Michelle Lamar, Janice Croze & Susan Carraretto, Kristin Chase & Liz Gumbinner and Maggie Mason need to get squeezed onto this list somewhere (I say for fear of forgetting another awesome mom myself!).

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Influencer Marketing Case Study: Kmart Holiday Hoopla Contest

In December 2008, IZEA ran their first large-scale social media word-of-mouth marketing campaign for a well known brand: Kmart. This was also Kmart’s first jump into social media, and they had great timing. With the recession fully underway in the midst of a dismal holiday season, Kmart was perfectly positioned to get the word out about their affordable holiday gifts. They also wanted to combat some outdated misconceptions about their stores as a retailer with low-quality merchandise. Since their acquisition by Sears, Kmart began carrying quality brands such as Craftsman, Martha Stewart, Dyson, & Kenmore.

Kmart’s specific social media goals they wanted to achieve:

Awareness

  • Raise overall awareness of Kmart within the social media space.

Brand Perception

  • Increase Kmart’s brand perception through affinity with leading online influencers.

Education

  • Educate bloggers about Kmart’s various offerings during the 2008 holiday season.

Traffic

  • Create social media content designed to drive readers directly to Kmart.com and encourage offline store visits.

Insight

  • Gain insight into the bloggers opinions and experience with the Kmart shopping experience.

IZEA’s Brilliant Multi-Platform Social Media Marketing Campaign

IZEA identified 6 influential bloggers who also had a strong following on Twitter to participate in the campaign, Chris Brogan, Loren Feldman, Julia Roy, Jeremy Schoemaker, Michelle Madhok, and myself. Each received a $500 Kmart gift card, as well as an additional $500 gift card to give away in a contest to one of their blog readers. Each blogger was required to write a blog post about their shopping experience, disclose the sponsored nature of the post, and host the individual contests on their blogs.

To encourage Kmart brand awareness and a viral spread of this campaign, IZEA structured the contest promotion to reward individuals for their participation in the contest:

  • Individuals could enter the contest by leaving a comment on the sponsored blog posts. To boost product awareness, entrants were instructed to go to the Kmart.com website and do a ‘virtual’ shopping spree. They then had to list what they would purchase if they won the $500 Kmart gift card.
  • Individuals could also enter the contest a second time by sending out a specified “Tweet” on Twitter, which ensured that news of the contest appeared in the timelines of over 2.5 million direct followers on Twitter.
  • SocialSpark community bloggers were then given the paid opportunity to run ads on their blogs promoting any one of the six primary bloggers in the campaign. These appeared at the bottom of the page in an expandable ad unit sending visitors directly to the premium blogger contest posts.

Campaign Results and Analysis

Once the campaign was launched, people entered the gift card contest in droves. In addition to Twitter, IZEA spread the word via their social networks on Facebook, Flickr, UStream.tv and others.  By the time the contest period ended, there were 3,481 comments left across the 6 blog posts, and over 3200 Twittered contest entries. Most impressively, Kmart (green line indicator) increased their Social Media Index as measured by Vitrue a whopping 59%, outpacing parent company Sears and completely overtaking JC Penney:

Kmart Social Media Index Increase

For more data on the Kmart campaign, there is a full case study on IZEA CEO Ted Murphy’s blog, including the results of post campaign product awareness surveys.

Blogger Breakdown – How the Chosen Influencers Delivered Different Results

The part I find a little more fascinating isn’t covered in Ted’s case study – how did the bloggers differ from each other in regards to the success of the campaign? Who drew the most attention to the contest and why? Who drove the most traffic to the Kmart site or drove the most conversation about the campaign on Twitter?

Even though the numbers differ between the participants, it is important to note that no one person drove the success of this campaign. While we can statistically predict who might have driven the most awareness or sales, it is impossible to take one data point from the campaign and judge it separately from the rest of the campaign. Social media marketing is inherently holistic, and the success of parts of the campaign are very interdependent upon one another.

The Number of ReTweet Entries

  • 933 - Chris Brogan
  • 442 - Wendy Piersall
  • 358 - Julia Roy
  • 305 - Loren Feldman
  • 260 - Jeremy Schoemaker
  • 258 - Michelle Madhok

Chris Brogan leads the pack by more than double the number of any of the rest of us. This makes sense because Chris has the largest following on Twitter of all the bloggers in the campaign, and his participation spurred significant conversations in marketing circles about the ethics of sponsored posts.

By associating themselves with Chris Brogan, Kmart best achieved their stated goal of “increased brand perception through affinity with leading online influencers.” His reach on Twitter heavily influenced the overall awareness of the campaign for everyone involved.

The Number of Blog Comment entries:

  • 871 - Wendy Piersall
  • 630 - Michelle Madhok
  • 468 - Chris Brogan
  • 460 - Jeremy Schoemaker
  • 370 - Loren Feldman
  • 290 – Julia Roy

My post brought in the most comments of the campaign, and this makes sense for several reasons. The post was written on a contest blog on my Sparkplugging Blog Network, so we already had an established audience that was very receptive to the offer. Additionally, being able to participate as a mom on a blog targeted to moms, our readers were a fantastic fit with Kmart’s target market.

Sponsorships Taken on SocialSpark:

  • 40 - Michelle Madhok
  • 39 - Loren Feldman
  • 39 - Julia Roy
  • 38 - Wendy Piersall
  • 34 - Jeremy Schoemaker
  • 28 - Chris Brogan

40 individuals chose to promote Michelle Madhok’s contest over the rest of the participants. My educated guess as to why is because Michelle’s blog is a women’s shopping blog, and these blogs are the easiest to monetize as a small publisher. SocialSpark user blogs are more likely to be in this genre than the rest of the blogs in the campaign.

Click Through Ratio (CTR)

IZEA had a sophisticated tracking system in place, and one of the things they measured was how many page views each contest post received. This allowed them to determine the CTR of each view through to the Kmart website. While some of this data is confidential,  I can say that the average CTR of the campaign was 14.7%, and that my post on Sparkplugging’s Momsational delivered a pretty astonishing CTR of 85.6%.

How is it that my post could so drastically outperform the campaign average? Again, it comes back to the right brand paired with the right audience. If this had been a Harley Davidson campaign, I doubt I would have sent more than a handful of visitors to their website. Sparkplugging has an established audience that would naturally respond to an offer from a brand like Kmart, which is heavily skewed to moms who are seeking to either make extra money or save money.

Key Takeaways

For a campaign of this scale, it was wise of IZEA and Kmart to reach out to influencers with different strengths and different audiences. Where one blogger was able to deliver more awareness, others were able to deliver more traffic or conversation around the campaign. This multi-faceted approach was especially effective during the holiday season to ensure that they could achieve the best message penetration in a short amount of time.

IZEA’s multi-platform approach across the largest social networks on the internet ensured that the campaign built buzz. It’s also a testament to just how far the company has come from their start as PayPerPost. The success of this campaign led to significant new business for the company, including a similar campaign for Sears, a newly launched campaign for SeaWorld, and campaign in the works for Jim Beam Brands.

The best results are seen when a variety of initiatives are planned over time that support each other. In fact, this campaign supported a larger campaign by Draftfcb in Chicago touting Kmart’s Layaway program for the holidays.

As we can see, if IZEA had eliminated even one or two of these components, the campaign wouldn’t have been nearly as successful as it was:

  • Choosing bloggers that have excellent reputations and who know how to respect the cultures of the communities they are a part of
  • Creating a compelling story behind the campaign, “See what these bloggers bought at Kmart!”
  • Offering a prize for the contest winners that was significant enough to warrant the attention it received
  • IZEA’s infrastructure of bloggers in the SocialSpark program who effectively spread the word about the program
  • The use of social media tools to encourage conversation around the campaign
  • Simple and effective calls to action
  • Measurement tools to track results

Kmart wasn’t the only one impressed with the results. The campaign was also covered by AdWeek, MediaPost, AdRants, and the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA).

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Word of Mouth Marketing Case Study: Epson & Sparkplugging

In July 2008, I was sitting at a cafe in San Francisco at the BlogHer Conference with Rick Calvert, founder of the BlogWorld Expo, and Lucretia Pruitt, otherwise known as GeekMommy. I wanted to bring my team of 15 writers on the Sparkplugging Blog Network to BlogWorld in September. And I needed to find a way to do it.

Brainstorming with other web 2.0 marketers is really one of my favorite things to do. In less than 10 minutes, we hatched a plan: find a sponsor to pay for the trip. Someone who would benefit from the exposure our network could offer them, someone who wanted to get in front of SOHO business owners. In a perfect networking storm, later that very day I met Barbara Jones from the One2One Network in a women entrepreneur breakout session.

Not even 2 weeks later Barbara and I were on the phone, talking about her client, Epson. They wanted to get the word out about their two new printers launching in the fall, and she approached me about putting together a contest and exclusive cocktail party for our readers. Before I knew it, I had the opportunity to pitch my idea to Epson

Since sponsorships and social media campaigns aren’t about advertising, I put together a proposal that didn’t include one single ad buy. We were going to do what we do best – create conversations and build buzz – but this time, we invited Epson to the party.

The Epson/Sparkplugging Word of Mouth Marketing Campaign Breakdown

As a business owner and an active participant in social networks, I had some solid assets to work with:

  • The audience of Sparkplugging’s with 15 blogs, 14 writers, and a sizable monthly audience in Epson’s target demographic: women business owners
  • A strong presence on Twitter, with 6 writers being active, regular, (sometimes fanatical) users
  • The honor of being a featured speaker at the BlogWorld Expo
  • An established audience interested in contests, kids printables and home office solutions
  • An established local presence with other bloggers in a major metropolitan area
  • An online reputation as a highly trusted person and company with a focus on supporting the online small business community

We put our proposal in front of Epson:

  • Send our team of writers to BlogWorld, announcing that Epson has sponsored our trip
  • We created a giveaway at the expo in which we played a Twitter game of “Where’s Wendy“, feeding clues to my whereabouts via Twitter. The person who found me won an Epson printer. The clues and responses used the #Epson hashtag and ranked as one of the conversation trends for the day.
  • We created a new blog on the Sparkplugging network dedicated to coverage of BlogWorld. The blog was Epson branded and fed video interviews, photos and news stories about the event to our readers.
  • The ability to mention Epson in my panel, as I led a discussion on selling advertising and sponsorships directly to advertisers and this campaign was a great case study.

We were also willing to obtain a booth at the event in which our Sparkplugging writers would be available for free blog critiques for BlogWorld attendees. The booth would have been shared with Epson and the ability to print pictures from the event instantly on site. Ultimately, approval for the campaign came too late to enable us to implement this portion of the proposal.

The trip was a huge success – we built significant buzz at the BlogWorld event, with coverage of the sponsorship also being mentioned on the BlogWorld site. Epson was thrilled with the increased conversation we created on Twitter around their brand. Our YouTube videos got thousands of views, as did the special BlogWorld/Epson blog on Sparkplugging.

THANK YOU EPSON!

Over the next few weeks, several of our writers received Epson products to feature and review on their blogs. We also ran a contest tive give away another printer to the Sparkplugging readers.

A month later, Epson hosted a Sparkplugging cocktail party in downtown Chicago for local women who are prominent in the social media space. About 30 women attended. The only Epson promotion we did at the party was to hire a photographer and print out pictures during the evening on the Epson photo printer to give to guests to bring home. This was extraordinarily effective because the quality of the prints spoke for themselves, and many people approached us asking for more information about the Epson products.

Lastly, in November Epson put together a package in which they created a landing page on their site that offered an exclusive Sparkplugging offer at a discounted rate. We ran ads and promoted the package via Twitter.

Quantcast data on Epson.com/Sparkplugging.com visitor affinityWhile we don’t have access to the sales totals of that promotion, we do have directly measured data from Quantcast that places Epson.com in the top ten domains that are visited by Sparkplugging visitors.

Key Takeaways

This campaign wasn’t a one-time promotion. Doing a variety of initiatives over several months was very effective in helping our audience to associate the Epson and Sparkplugging brands together.

We were cautious to never pull a hard sell approach at any point along the way. We had confidence in a great product that would sell itself if put in front of the right people.

It was the right product and the right brand for each other. Since Epson was targeting women business owners who are active in social media, Sparkplugging was able to deliver the perfect audience, and Epson was a brand that we were proud to be associated with.

It was reproduceable. Barbara Jones and her company, the One2One Network, were able to use this campaign as a springboard to reach out to other bloggers and women in social media, continuing the Epson promotion across several other sites.

And most importantly, with the Quantcast data, we have proof that the conversations we started on Sparkplugging led to greater brand awareness of Epson and a measured increase in traffic to their site directly attributable to our efforts.

Filed Under Blog, Case Studies · 8 Comments