This week I was lucky enough to give a webinar through Affiliate Summit entitled “Monetize Your Blogging Skills with Affiliate Marketing.” The intent of the webinar was to teach bloggers how they can easily move from blogging to affiliate marketing with a little bit of important information and some easy tools. It was not a basic seminar about what affiliate marketing is (see my Start Monetizing Your Blog video for that information). Rather, it was food for thought about disclosure statements as well as some helpful plugins and network information. [Read more…]
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Monetizing the Day Away
I’ve recently been talking to a number of bloggers who are having a hard time understanding the types of products that they can promote through affiliate marketing. Many of them associate affiliate marketing with either ebooks or diet pills. I decided to try a little experiment and see how many products I used in one day that I could easily blog about and include affiliate links. Some of these products I would just mention in passing in a blog post. Others could be an entire written or video review. I actually got tired of writing them down there were so many. Here’s are some of the highlights. [Read more…]
Planning a Pittsburgh Steelers Party
Getting ready for the season and want to add a little bit of authentic Pittsburgh to it? Living in Indiana, this is a challenge for me–but one that I readily accept! Here are my ‘burgh tips for a Pittsburgh Steelers party:
1) Terrible Towels: You can’t celebrate the Steelers without Terrible Towels. Preferably everyone at the party will have their own. You can get them online for less than $10 each.
2) Black and Gold Decorations: You can get Super Bowl decorations at almost any party store, but if you want actual Steelers plates, cups, and napkins, you will probably have to get them online. My favorite place for that is CelebrateExpress.com. Get the Steelers logo items online and then buy your black and gold balloons, tablecovers, etc. locally.
3) Iron City Beer: Although I am not a beer drinker, Iron City is pretty much the official beer of Pittsburgh. If you don’t like Iron City, you can go with Rolling Rock or Yuengling.
4) Chipped Ham Barbecue: You won’t be able to order “chipped ham” from the deli if you aren’t in Pittsburgh, but just ask them to shave it really thin for you and then kind of break it up into smaller pieces with your fingers. AllRecipes.com has a Pittsburgh Chipped Ham Barbecue recipe, but I make mine even easier than that because I cheat and start with a little pre-made BBQ sauce. Set it out in the crockpot with buns on the side for serving.
5) Heinz Ketchup: I think this one is pretty self-explanatory.
6) Clark Bars: Born in Pittsburgh, they are the perfect way to satisfy your sweet tooth during the game.
7) Primanti Brother Sandwiches: Obviously you won’t be able to buy them if you aren’t near Pittsburgh, but you can make a pretty good imitation. The basics that you will need are sandwich meat, italian bread, french fries, coleslaw, and cheese. All of that goes on the sandwich–all of it! Need more information? Get the cole slaw recipe and meat ideas.
Watch the Man v. Food of Primanti’s below.
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8) Kielbasa, sauerkraut, and pierogies: I like my pierogies with cheese and potato on the inside and sour cream on top. You should be able to find them in your freezer section (Schwan sells good ones as well).
9) Pittsburgh Steelers Polka: It’s been redone many times over the years and they update it every time the Steelers go to the playoffs. The video below just gives me chills. Love the Myron Cope “Yoi” and “Double Yoi”!
[youtube1]BJSZmRgNFJQ[/youtube1]
10) Smiley Cookies: Love those cookies from Eat ‘n Park? Get them online and in Steelers Black and Gold!! (Get $10 off your purchase of $50 or more with code 10OFF5) Just saw that they are also offering free shipping on all Steelers packs right now and you can schedule them to ship just in time for the game!
11) Pittsburghese: Make sure that yinz throw in a few “Stillers” and “‘burghs” when you are cheering and yinz will all have a terrific time at any Steelers Super Bowl Party!
Favorite Jello Shot Recipes
New Years Eve is coming and everyone is planning food and drinks. I’ve had quite a few requests for my favorite Jello shot recipes, so here they are. I’ve pieced them together over the last couple of years from other place and honestly cannot remember which ones I made up and which ones I got from other places. So apologies if any of these are yours. Feel free to post your own recipes in the comments because I would love to try other flavors!
I like to use the jello shot cups with lids so that I can make all of the shots the perfect size in advance and then label them with what flavor they are. I also find that they are easier to store and last longer when you use the cups with lids. You can find them at your local party store or online at ShindigZ. They do sell out fast around holidays so plan ahead!
Sex on the Beach Jello Shot
3 oz. package Orange gelatin
8 oz. (1 cup) boiling cranberry juice
3 oz. peach schnapps (or Pucker)
5 oz. vodka
Add gelatin to hot cranberry juice until dissolved. Stir in alcohols and divide into cups for chilling.
Piña Colada Jello Shots (A little labor intensive but really good!)
3 oz. pkg Pineapple Jello (Sometimes called “Island Pineapple”–found it at Walmart)
1 cup canned, unsweetened coconut milk
1 cup Malibu or coconut rum
Bring the coconut milk to a boil. Add jello and stir until dissolved. After cooling to room temperature, stir in the Malibu or coconut rum. Pour into cups and chill. Layers will form with the coconut milk on top. These are smooth!
Mix and Match Jello Shots
You can mix up different flavors by dissolving 3 oz. of gelatin in 1 cup boiling water and then adding then adding 8oz. of cold liquid – straight alcohol, a mixture of liqueur and vodka, or alcohol and cold water. For flavored liquors use can use straight alcohol but you might want to combine high proof liquors with some water so that they are not too strong.
Lime Jello can be mixed with things like Absolut Citron for a citrus shot or tequila for a “margarita” shot.
Sour Apple Schnapps can be mixed with pretty much any flavor of jello to get a “Jolly Rancher” jello shot. We used peach and watermelon.
Chocolate Covered Cherry Shots
This is the most labor intensive of all to make but was a perfect “dessert” shot and just about everyone loved them. Plus, they are fun to eat.
3 oz. package cherry jello
8 oz. boiling water
3 oz. crème de cacao
1 oz. vodka
Maraschino cherries without stems
4 oz. white rum
Chocolate “Magic Shell” ice cream topping
Spray can of whipped cream
Soak the cherries in rum for 24 hours. Put one of the soaked cherries into the bottom of each shot cup. Keep the rum/cherry soaking mixture for later. Mix the cherry gelatin into the hot water and then let it cool to room temperature. Add crème de cacao, vodka and ½ cup reserved rum mixture from cherries. Pour into cups so that cherries are submerged. Chill at least 4 hours or overnight. Cover with a thin layer of the Magic Shell and freeze 5-10 minutes. Top with whipped cream and serve.
The Expectation of Free
I’m pretty sure some of you are going to disagree with this post. In fact, I might even lose some customers over it. And yet I feel strongly about writing it. I love free stuff as much as the next girl. But at some point you have to step back and evaluate the expectations that we all have now when it comes to getting something for nothing.
I love getting free samples of products because I never know what I might buy. I’ve found many of my favorite foods and beauty products from trying out free samples. It’s good business for companies to give out free samples to people in different ways–gift with purchase, a sample and a coupon, a free trial of a service, etc. It gets the product in the hands of the consumer and if the product is good, enough people will buy that product in the future to justify the expense of giving away the freebies.
Sometimes the free stuff isn’t even related to the product being sold. Our local hardware store used to have a popcorn machine set up for customers to get a bag of free popcorn while they shopped. It probably kept people in the store longer and some parents probably preferred to shop there when their kids were with them just because the popcorn kept the kids happy while the parents did what they needed to do. The popcorn was in no way related to hardware but was cheap and worth it.
Now here comes the part that drives me crazy. Because of all of the above, people start to expect that they will be given something for free all the time and actually get irritated when they do not. They also find ways to work the system so that the businesses get nothing out of the free stuff. There are people who collect up the free samples so that they never have to actually buy the products. They send their kids up multiple times so that they can get more than the “one per person” allowed. They go to the hardware store for “snack time” every afternoon and go straight for the popcorn and back out again with no intention of ever even looking around the hardware store. These are the people who are ruining it for everyone else.
I own a website where we have a free game on the site that 600 people can play a day. I figured out recently that over 500 people had figured out a way to ensure that they got the free money every day and none of my other customers had a chance. Those 500 people do not use my business in any other way. Over YEARS of membership, they have done nothing but the free game and cashed out for prizes. So I changed up the game so that other people had more of a chance to play. Now I’m getting email messages from people telling me to “go to hell” and people are posting on message boards that it isn’t “fair” that I am taking away their free money.
When did “free” become the expectation and not the added surprise, the unexpected bonus, or the reward for loyalty? When did people start thinking that they DESERVE to be given free stuff by companies for absolutely nothing in return. Business is tough even in a good economy and even tougher right now. A company needs to show a return on investment for all of their marketing, and this kind of “free” doesn’t allow for that.
By the way, I heard the hardware store isn’t giving away the free popcorn anymore. I can’t imagine why.