Christmas is the biggest shopping season of the year and not getting even a small campaign up means you are facing a huge opportunity cost.

Talking to a couple of experienced affiliates, I got the sense that even they were somewhat jaded after years of doing Christmas and holiday promos.

Luckily eBay has released market research on toy ideas for the holiday season. (see the study here)

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• affiliate marketing
• 6 Comments

I was doing research for an upcoming post and came across Darren Rowse’s Who Is Darren Rowse?

And found this cool “What is” tool.

IT consultant Arttu Ylärakkola’s Solvalou.com site scrapes content off the search engine and provides a snapshot about a certain topic.

I did a search for my buddy Rachit Dayal and came up with the following:

• Rachit dayal is a Singapore-based Entrepreneur who founded Rachit Dayal Communications in January 2005 – An Internet Marketing Strategy Consulting Firm for.
• Rachit dayal is a Singapore based Entrepreneur who graduated from NUS in 2005.
• Rachit dayal is a Singapore-based Internet Marketing Specialist.

As you can tell, Rachit is a very exciting guy. (NOT…).

On the other hand, a search for “George Bush” shows up the intriguing…

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• Market Research
• 4 Comments

When’s the best time to go into Internet Marketing some ask.

Anytime.

But if you’d want to capitalize on huge masses of people, rabid for products, and willing to shell out top dollar for products and services, you can’t get better than special events, celebrations and holidays.

The Olympics and World Cup are way past (with some racking in revenue in the tens of thousands off affiliate marketing) and retailers rejoice as the year-end shopping comes about.

For some retailers, more than half their annual revenue could come from the Christmas shopping season alone, so there’s adequate time to do strategic planning to capitalize on the business opportunities.

We can’t kill Santa, but we can sure make a killing at Christmas.

How fantatical are the consumers? Consider Zach Comm’s (son of Adsense guru Joel Comm) post on: Bionicle – A Fan Critiques the New Sets.
Fanatically loyal fans can make and break the market.

Put toys and Christmas together and you have a lucrative market.
To succeed however, you’d need to do accurate research to position yourself for success.

Here’re some suggestions:

• Scope out the forums: What’re the hot topics? The Xbox360 and PS3 are on everyone’s lips, but could there be a sleeper hit? Maybe paintball guns? The new-fangled Furbies? Star Wars toys? Only insiders have the inside scoop, so blend in, get the buzz.
• Top seller’s lists/wishlists: Amazon and other retailers list their bestsellers (possibly updated hourly depending on their order processing infrastructure). Identify trends. What’re the hot new technologies that’ll be in toys? GPS? Bluetooth? USB/firewire connectivity? What will the next ‘killer’ toy be? Is it for boys? girls? unisex?
• Support for other channels: Successful retailers will tend to expand their branding and presence by branching into other media like Web sites and TV programs, cartoons, etc. You can gauge the popularity of these media by looking at their Alexa/Google PR rankings (for the Web), Nielsen ratings for TV, and rating services for radio programs.
• Offline still rules: The above channels are adopted by manufacturers/brand owners, but it’s important to adopt a needs-based approach and get feedback from the consumers themselves. Poll your little nephew/niece and his friends. Talk to your friends kids. Get a pulse for what’s hot and hip. Not from the advertisers, but from the consumers.

With good data at your fingertips, you can then position yourself.

Opportunities are always out there.

It’s just a matter of seeing them.

• affiliate marketing, Internet Marketing, Market Research
• 9 Comments