Tips and Ideas From Friends

Credits-"A Perfect Summer Day" by Digitalegacies
Fonts - Rickles

I have loved advertising and marketing almost as long as I’ve loved baseball. When I look at a ruler, the first thing that flashes through my brain is “Honey Combs big, yeah, yeah, yeah.” As a young baseball fan, my final decisions for just about everything, even more than dancing or a good book as a dancer and member of the library book club, were based on what spoke to me as a baseball fan. I ate the home run gum balls that had different plays written on them, BB Bats, David brand sunflower seeds because that was the brand big leaguers chewed if they didn’t chew tobacco. If it had a baseball logo on it or came in the shape of a baseball, that was my choice as a kid. As an adult, I still have a hard time not choosing Baseball Nut ice creams as one of my flavors in the summer and I’ve served baseball shaped pasta at World Series parties. It’s with that passion for marketing and my analytical tendencies that I approach everything in which I invest my personal time.

I read Bubbles Babbles on a regular basis. Vicki is not only the Quickpage Queen, but she has some fun anecdotes and one small chip on her shoulder. I say it’s small because I don’t think she’s asking too much!

Vicki offers her quick pages as freebies. She just asks that visitors to the blog read her blog before they download! A small price for a juicy freebie, I think! Her downloads are all password protected and the password is hidden in her entry! It forces visitors to read! I’m not going to put passwords on my freebies, but I did take a piece of advice from her by eliminating a source of grab and run freebie hunters!

There are many factors working with my freebies. I can’t afford to purchase my scrapbook supplies right now, so my hobby is digitally existing on the tradeoffs for the promotional work I do as a creative team member and freebies. My amateur kits are all offered as freebies for two reasons; to give back to the digital scrapbooking world for the freebies I download and to promote The Chronicles of Nani.

This is my online hobby and I get “paid” with an inflated ego. Well, okay, it’s an ego boost! My freebies are kind of like those samples they offer at the store on weekends. If you shop at Costco, you can pretty much eat lunch there on Saturday for free. Personally, I don’t sample things I think I might not buy if I like them. That’s my personal style. There are people who will sample everything, indenting to buy nothing. They don’t care what they’re eating or what the brand is that’s feeding them for free, they just take because it’s free. I’m not saying that’s wrong in a “buyer beware, seller beware” world. Of course, if I don’t even read a package or talk to the company’s representative and just take and eat, it’s no one’s fault but my own if I pass out from the MSG!

But a seller does things to try to control giving up samples to people who aren’t the slightest bit interested in the product so the samples are there for people who might actually buy it. They don’t have to buy it, but the seller would prefer that they at least be interested when they try it! Maybe they won’t buy today, but maybe they’ll think of that brand NEXT time. It also makes the job more gratifying for that person who is spraying all that canned cheese on those crackers!

I check the details from my hit counter every day. It tells me where in the world my visitors come from, what pages they read here, how long they stay and what sites they followed a link on. When I see visitors who come in and don’t even stay long enough to register a second on the counter, I know they either clicked by accident (the page they came from and went to is the same), saw the logo and weren’t interested (they usually don’t have a destination - the window was just closed) or came in, grabbed a mini dog on a toothpick and don’t even know if it’s snouts and tails or all beef.

I’ve noticed that a majority of those freebie grab and run hits link from once place! The Chronicles of Nani is no longer linked to that place. This blog is listed on several sites and I promote when I have a new freebie at 8 scrapbook sites. Hits linked in from those sites tend to stay longer and view more pages. So, I’m going to concentrate more on promoting there.

Vicki got rid of the link to that same place and said it only curbed but didn’t get rid of the grab and runs. That’s okay for me. Even in the places were there are fewer people grabbing the samples without reading the box, there are still some. Hey, if they end up REALLY liking the teriyaki beef on a stick, maybe they'll come back anyway! In the mean time, I have more respect for and will cater to the folks that read the information, ask questions and say “thanks, it’s good product!”


Is It Blackmail? Hmmm....

This idea s borrowed from Veelana of Veelana’s Vastly Varicolored Vortex, a freebie that was available at her site in trade for a layout with her “It’s A Spring Thing” kit. In this case, “It’s A Spring Thing” is a 2-part kit. Part one for free, and part 2 for trade for a layout with part 1. I love good marketing ideas and this one is fabulous!

Here’s my take on the “trade ya for a layout.” Since all of the kits I’ve done, a whopping 6 to date, are freebies right here, download any of them, or all of them if you’d like. Send me your layout done with any of my kits to chroniclesofnani@gmail.com and I’ll send you the link for “A Perfect Summer Day.”

A Perfect Summer Day shares it’s title with a painting and gospel album by Thomas Kinkade. The kit is based on the blue skies and green grass with some of the pastime essentials that make a perfect day for playing hooky!



A Perfect Summer Day -
6 papers
3 flowers
2 frames
4 ribbons
5 theme elements - sun, baseball, frisbee, sunglasses and butterfly

One last note on the preferred freebie etiquette, and I do consider it my preference, not a rule, but I’d really appreciate comments here rather than on 4-shared. I LOVE the feedback, but I now have enough kits on my 4-Shared site, that there is really no way I can know what has new comments to keep up with reading them. Blogger tells me when there are new comments to moderate as soon as I log in! If you can comment here while you’re looking at the preview for the kit, all the better! But if you comment on 4-Shared or even if you don’t comment at all, I still appreciate your interest in my work...and that you read the other content on The Chronicles of Nani as well!