Work at Home Moms Articles – WAHM Articles

This week’s prize in our Saving Summer Giveaway is the Shape Up Your Website report from The Muses Guide. And it might be  just the thing you need to help you save your summer online sales this year.

Is your website working effectively for you?

It’s your 24/7 sales person – is it representing you well?  Does it reflect the very best of your products and/or services?

Before you invest time & money promoting your site, SHAPE IT UP!

We’ve made it easy to review your own site and make the changes that can help you make more sales.  This guide is a quick read at just 25 pages and walks you through what you need to know to make sure your website isn’t scaring off customers.  In addition to info and tips, you’ll find an “Action Plan” Checklist to help you easily implement everything in the report.

To enter to win your own copy of this summer-saving report, just enter your name and email address over on the right hand-side of the screen. Remember to look for your confirmation email as well. I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but I need to be sure I have permission to email you.

And if you want to start shaping up your website right now, here’s the link to purchase.

Summer’s here, and after the long winter we had in Calgary, I am SO ready to be outside instead of sitting here at my desk. In fact, by the time you read this, I’ll be nowhere NEAR my computer. Thank goodness for blog post scheduling!

However, I do still need to make money to pay for all this family fun.

This week starts the Saving Summer Giveaway where I’m giving away weekly prizes and tips to help keep your sales sizzling all summer long.

This week’s prize is one hour of article or press release submissions from WAHM-Articles.com .

You can enter the Giveaway right now and be eligible to WIN by filling out the form on the right hand side of this screen. This prize will be drawn on June 19. You’ll want to enter now so you don’t miss out. And if you don’t win this week, you’ll still be eligible to win one of the other fantastic prizes we have coming up!

So, this is what I LOVE about article and press release marketing.

When you write one article or one press release, then submit it to the popular directories, it can go viral and circulate around the Internet, busily promoting your business and getting you website traffic… while you’re on vacation or just taking the kiddos to the beach for the day!

Just writing 500 words one time can get you links and traffic and spread your news like crazy, and you don’t have to do anything. You can shut off your computer and starting enjoying summer just like me. Because if your article is good, and submitted to the right places, this marketing magic will happen all on its own!

Enter to win the Saving Summer Giveaway right now. Then go check out these article marketing specials I have going on too.

Summer slowdown. Summer slump. Whatever you want to call it, many WAHMs find that business can really cool down when temperatures outside heat up.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, last summer, I had three of my highest revenue-producing months ever… and that includes the month I had a car accident and couldn’t work for a few weeks because of a whiplash injury. It also includes the month I took a week off and went on a short family vacation.

I have plans in place to make this summer even better.

And so can you. It really all comes down to having processes in place. And then following them.

In a few days, I’m launching the WAHM-Articles Saving Summer Giveaway, and I’ll be giving away prizes that will help you have your most successful summer ever. I’ll also be sharing some of the strategies I use to maintain (and even increase) my income during the summer months.

Like I said, it’s starting in a few days. But you can sign up for the giveaway right now, on the right hand side of this page.

Here are the prizes we’ll be giving away. Thank you to our wonderful sponsors who are committed to helping WAHMs like us achieve our goals of earning a decent income while having a great summer with the kids.

Saving Summer Giveaway Prizes

1 hour of press release or article submissions from WAHM-Articles.com. If you want to be successful over the summer, you’ll need to be visible to your target market. Articles and press releases are a valuable tool to keep your business in front of those who need your product or service.

Shape Up Your Website report from The Muses Guide. Is your website working effectively for you? This report makes it easy to conduct your own site review and make the changes that can help you make more sales.

Spring Jumpstart Teleseminar Course from EBook Writing and Marketing Secrets with Connie Ragen Green.  These teleseminar series and accompanying action guides will walk you through all the steps of selling your product or service online.

Advertising space from Work at Home Jobs . Button and banner  advertising is an important component of staying visible to your audience.

A book (TBA) by Diana Ennen of from Virtual Word Publishing.

Tupperware e-gift certificate from Shelly Hill When you’re a work at home mom, looking after your family and your home is as important as growing your business. Products from Tupperware make it so easy!

One hour of business coaching from my own business coach, Diana Ennen. Diana is a marketing specialist and publicity expert who has helped countless work at home moms (including me!) achieve their own work at home dreams.

So sign up for the Saving Summer Giveaway and say “No” to summer slowdown!

If you’re writing WAHM (work at home mom) articles, you’ve probably discovered that moms are an ideal market for all kinds of products and services. Did you know that companies are spending billions of dollars every year marketing their products to Moms? If you’re in the Mom market yourself, you know you’re in the right place.

But you can reach them with more than just your articles. Services like  Mom PLR eBooks make it easy for you to tap into this market, too. Don’t worry, there’s plenty of room, as you’ll see in our Top 10 reasons why the Mom market rocks:

1. Moms make up a huge market. There are over 80 million Moms in the United States, with 1.4 million new Moms giving birth for the first time every year (US Census).

2. Moms send a lot of money. Moms spend $1.3 trillion every year (Marketing to Moms by Maria T. Bailey, 2002). Have I mentioned the Mom market is huge?

3. Moms make a lot of buying decisions for their homes and families. Moms account for about 50% of spending on consumer electronics, food, health and beauty aids, home furnishings, and clothing (MRI, 2004). If you’re still looking for products to promote to the Mommy market, let this guide you.

4. Moms are web savvy. About 70% of Moms surveyed say they use the Internet to research before buying products (Marketing to Moms, 2002).

5. Moms like to shop online. The majority of Moms say they buy products online (Marketing to Moms, 2002). I told you, you’re in the right place. Internet marketing is the way to go!

6. Moms read their Email. Moms check their Email messages all day long (Lucid Marketing & BSM Media). Whoever said Email marketing was dead, was wrong.

7. Moms take Email messages to heart. 71% of Moms say their buying decisions are influenced by Email messages (Lucid Marketing & BSM Media). Not only do Moms read your Emails, they act on them, too.

8. Moms make things go viral. 80% of Moms say they forward useful Emails to their friends (Lucid Marketing & BSM Media 2004). So make your Emails useful!

9. Moms buy, not only for their spouses/partners and children, but for their parents as well. Up to 40% of Moms reportedly are involved in purchases for their aging parents (Marketing to Moms Coalition, 2007). This is a wonderful insight – let’s remember that Moms are somebody’s children, too.

10. Moms rely on their communities or tribes. 64% of Moms say the recommendations of others influence purchases they make for their home (Marketing to Moms, 2002).

Moms are the chief financial officers of their homes (and many have their own businesses as well). They buy a lot of stuff, both online and offline. They rely on other people to make up their minds about what to buy, and they appreciate getting really useful information that makes their lives easier.

What’s the take-away lesson for marketers here? You better be marketing to Moms and you better be doing it properly. Moms are craving useful information – are you providing it? Moms PLR eBooks can help you give Moms the content that they’re looking for online. You’ll get high-quality content written just for Moms, to use in your websites, infoproducts, Emails and more. Use coupon code “momsrule” (without quotation marks) to get $10 off your first month of membership.

Give Moms content and products they love and they’ll spread the word for you. Moms ROCK!

We’re winding down our homeschool year. Usually I get really pumped about that and by this time of the year I have pages and pages of lesson plans written for the next year. But for this upcoming school year, we’ve decided to have Darian and Cassidy do almost all of their classes through a virtual school.

Darian’s entering high school, and Cassidy’s in junior high, and the idea of homeschooling through high school doesn’t really appeal to me. I know many do it successfully, and it can be done extremely well. But for us, it just feels like it’s time.

I thought I would be sad when this time came. I am a little sad, but with every end comes a new beginning, right? For example, I’ve realized how much more time I’m going to have for my business and my own interests without planning my work day and my personal life around our homeschool schedule.

I’ve written a bit about being a successful work at home mom while homeschooling. And every thing I’ve said is true. It’s possible to homeschool and have a successful home business, and have a blast doing it all. There are moms who continue homeschooling through the high school years, and run mega-successful businesses while doing it. It’s possible.

But I always said I wanted what was best for my kids. For a while, for us, it was homeschooling. But going forward, I can see that I might not be the best person to manage their education over the next few years.

So while I’m saying good-bye to homeschooling, I am looking forward to having more time for just me, to focus for hours at a time on my business… (what a concept!) and, the biggest change of all…

… to rediscover who I am if I’m no longer a mom who homeschools.

For those homeschoolers who have decided to put your kids back in school for whatever reason, what was the transition like for you?

Now that May is here, it’s also time for our annual Mother’s Day Ad Space Giveaway. It starts today!

Here’s how this year’s Mother’s Day contest will work.

The contest will run from May 4 – May 10, 2009.

The three people who submit the most articles to the WAHM-Articles article directory during that time will win ad space at WAHM-Articles. (If you sell a product or service to moms, you want your ad there. Hundreds of moms visit us every day.)

Here are the prizes you can win:

First place - 2 months of button ad space on every page of the WAHM-Articles article directory. Your ad will be on nearly 4000 of our pages. $50 value.

Second place – 4 week featured classified ad at WAHM-Articles. $20 value.

Third place – lifetime listing in our WAHM business directory. $17 value.

To win, submit as many WAHM articles as you can starting today and ending on May 10. Only articles that meet our editorial guidelines will be counted. (You can review our guidelines here )

Here’s where you go to submit your articles or to register for an author’s account if you don’t already have one.

If you have any questions about writing articles, or need an idea for your next one, why not pop on over to our forum?  There’s a wonderful group of ladies there who would love to help you out.

Good luck, and Happy Mother’s Day to all you wonderful moms!

Are you thinking of starting an affiliate program for your WAHM business? Or are you wondering what to do next with the affiliate program you already have?

I just picked up the latest report from the Sweetie Saturday Report Club , and posted it in the WAHM-Articles Forum to share with you. (One of the membership perks the Report Club is being able to share these reports with others.) And this month it’s all about starting and running an affiliate program.

This report is written by Angela Wills of MarketersMojo.com . I recently had the opportunity to hear Angela talk about affiliate programs at another networking site I’m a member of and she really knows what she’s doing. If you want to sell more of your products and services, and still have time for the family and yourself, setting up a good affiliate program is an easy way to accomplish all of that.  And her tips can help you get it done faster than just playing around, trying to figure it out on your own.

In fact, I’ve already applied some of her advice to the WAHM-Articles affiliate program.

Here’s the link to where you can get your report. (Sorry, it’s only available to Platinum members.)

Speaking of which, if you haven’t registered as a Platinum member yet, it’s a good time to do that too. I’ve been adding lots of valuable benefits to the membership. And in one month, the price is more than tripling!

If you sign up before June 1, your membership fee is only $50 a year. With everything I want to add to this membership, I know the price is going to get a lot higher, so this is a good chance to get in on a really great deal.

You can contact me at contact at wahm-articles.com  if you want to know more about becoming a Platinum member.

When you’re work-at-home-mom juggling naptimes and soccer schedules with running a business, it’s sometimes hard to think of yourself as the “expert” in any field. Most days, you’re just glad to get through without the house falling apart and making a sale or two.

In speaking with women who work from home, I’ve discovered that many of them don’t feel qualified to write articles to promote their businesses. They’ve been told that they need to present themselves as “the expert” in their articles… but they just don’t see themselves that way. So they give up on article marketing before they even really start.

I have a few ideas of why some women have problems identifying themselves as experts… Sometimes it’s because they know that, however much they know about their chosen field, there’s always someone who knows more. Sometimes it’s because they’ve gotten the idea that “nice girls” don’t brag about their accomplishments.

As for the information these women do know, they often wonder if anyone would care. Do any of those descriptions sound like you?

Here is my response to all those objections, and any others you might have…

Whatever it is you know about your chosen field, it can help someone else. And if it can help someone else, I believe it is your responsibility to share that information with people who need to hear it.

Writing articles and submitting them is one of the easiest ways I can think of to share what you know with others.

Maybe it would help if we used a word other than “expert”… or at least re-examined what an expert really is.

In the 4-Hour Workweek, author Tim Ferris describes being an expert as knowing a little more about your topic that the audience you’re trying to reach. You don’t have to know everything about your topic, just more than the person you’re explaining it to.

In the WAHM-Articles Forum, some of our members prefer to think of themselves as simply sharing information that can help someone else. I like that approach too.

You don’t need to be a guru in your chosen field. Whatever it is you know, that’s what you should write. You’ll be surprised to discover how much you have to offer.

You’ve felt the power of a single word.

• hate
• ugly
• beautiful
• adore

Or in two word: I’m sorry.

As a writer, I know that words are colors too. When I’m trying to create a perfect paragraph, brick red might do, but perhaps a darker shade of pink would suit even better.

One of my inspiring Twitter friends, @sundaycosmetics understands the power and the color of words. In fact, she’s even created a nailpolish line where each shade represents a word… or several.

Faith = clear
Prosperity= gold
Blessed = orange/red
Avoid Negative People = bronze brown

Can you imagine… instead of choosing a color to wear, choosing a word? For example, “I need to be sky blue (optimistic) today.” Or, “From now on I choose to have orange (self-respect).”

Even better, telling your tween/teen daughter how beautiful (black) she is to you and reminding her to carefully choose friends (burgundy).

In a way, the right color can express much more inspiration, hope and love than words alone.

I hope your week is filled with rainbows of iridescent pink. Remember you can discover gold when you follow your dark purple and use it to help others. (Pop over to Bev Davis’s nail polish collection for a translation.)

Be orange/red!

WAHM-Articles is launching its Spring Tour and I wanted to invite you and your WAHM blog to participate.

On this tour, we’re promoting the WAHM-Articles forum, the WAHM Author’s Club. If you’d like to participate, you’ll get 6 months complimentary Platinum membership ($50 value) plus an EXTRA 6 month Platinum membership to give away to one of your blog readers. If you’re already a Platinum member, I can add the extra six months on after your membership expires.

Additionally, to thank you for your help, I will write a blog post about your blog at some time during the next 6 months, and introduce you to our readers as a WAHM-Articles Blogger.

The tour dates are April 27 to May 1, 2009 and you must make your blog post during that time to participate. I’ll send you some text you can post in your blog, or you can write your own.

To be part of the tour, simply email me by Wednesday April 22. All participants will receive further details by email on Friday, April 24.

Thanks for your help in getting the word out about WAHM-Articles!