e-Riches 2.0

Strike It Rich on the Internet

The Yellow Pages are passé. The first place people now look for information is the Internet, so your business needs a Web site. Creative entrepreneurs have succeeded in cyberspace using some of these tactics:

• J&D’s Down Home Enterprises promoted its product, Bacon Salt, on MySpace and Facebook. Using a keyword search, the company targeted 35,000 people who had included the phrase “I love bacon” on their profiles and “friended” them. This created great word-of-mouth. J&D sold out its entire supply of Bacon Salt in a week. It has shipped Bacon Salt to 47 countries. The cost to J&D of MySpace and Facebook posts: $0.00.
• A New Jersey liquor store owner, Gary Vaynerchuk, attracted 80,000 weekly viewers to his online videos of wine tastings, dramatically increasing its sales.
• Richard Sexton, a North Carolina furniture retailer, recruited high-end customers using ads on Google and Yahoo.
• Peter Shankman, a public relations professional, used Facebook to create a mailing list of more than 40,000 names for his firm HARO (Help a Reporter Out).

The Nine Commandments

Follow these “nine...