Remember The Internet is Global

Now I know I’ve said that you need to make your lenses very narrow and focused if you want to make sales, but you also need to think globally. I’ll give you an example – Halloween. Now if you want to do a costume lens for Halloween – do you put Halloween in the title, url and market it just at Halloween? I’ll put my hand up that I did for one of my lenses, but that was horror movie costumes. The answer I’m hoping to hear is no.

People wear costumes at other times of the year besides Halloween so you need to think in the terms of a costume lens, not just a Halloween lens. If you want to pull Halloween in then that is fine as long as you don’t mind changing the text after Halloween so that you can still attract other markets.

When I was growing up in the UK we didn’t really celebrate Halloween, we did all dress up on New Years Eve however. I remember helping my parents with their costumes and then as I became an older teen I was able to go out with my friends in fancy dress around the pubs and club.

I moved to New Zealand when I was 19 and they used to dress up in fancy dress on Christmas Eve. Fast forward to now and the last few years have seen many of my friends turn 40 and quite a number of them have had fancy dress parties to celebrate.

My Lady Gaga Costume lens uses the word costume and talks about dressing up for a party or a night out clubbing and it’s still making sales, in fact I’ve made a sale today – are your ‘Halloween costume’ lenses continuing to make sales in January?? It is because of the traffic and sales that the lens remains in the top tier.

The internet is global.

There are other things to think about when you think of how global the internet is such as seasons. Now I’ll admit the majority of my sales seem to come from the US and Canada, but the traffic still comes from around the world. When it’s winter in the northern hemisphere it will be summer in the southern hemisphere so if you have a summer cocktail lens or a top ten salads to take to a bbq lens then you need to make sure they are still being promoted during the Northern winter.

Back to school lenses should also be prepared to be polished and promoted for schools elsewhere. Australia and New Zealand school terms start at the end of January, beginning of February not in September, so if you market your lens correctly you could have two bites of the cherry.

Even Christmas lenses can have two chances at being popular……confused? A very popular thing ‘down under’ is the Christmas in July. This was originally pushed by emigrants who couldn’t ‘handle’ a full Christmas lunch in the middle of an Australian summer day and so they decided to celebrate in July! The tree and decorations were up at the last one I attended, small gifts were passed out (you just brought one small gift each, there was a price cap) and we ate the full Christmas turkey dinner and drank far too much!!! So if you have a Christmas lens that focuses on the food, drink or decorations of Christmas then get it out and promote it for the Christmas in July ‘season’ as well!

Hopefully that’s some food for thought, if you’re wondering whether any of your lenses might be able to do double duty then just google Australian holidays, New Zealand holidays, South African holidays…..the list is endless and you might be surprised at the results.