If you are always on the look out for a money spinner, sometimes you'll find them pop up in the most unlikely of places.
A Herd Of 45,000 Website Visitors That Didn't Cost Anything...
In September 2003 an amazing turn of events led to a massive flood of
media coverage, which in turn sent a stampeding herd of free visitors to a brand new website.
Leonard Richard is a 52 year old farmer living down under in Victoria, Australia. He was out and about on his farm not too far from his house, when a branch fell and hit him hard on his head.
Leonard estimates that he must of been out cold for at least half an hour and was in a really bad way.
As luck would have it, Leonard's pet kangaroo called Lulu, discovered him and helped to raise the alarm. I didn't realize this myself, but kangaroo's can make a kind of barking noise. The persistent and somewhat out of character barks from Lulu eventually managed to alert Leonard's family in his house nearby.
It's uncertain but Leonard thinks that Lulu may have also turned him on his side to keep his airway clear, although I'm not sure whether I believe that bit. Leonard was airlifted by helicopter to the nearest hospital.
Lulu was credited with saving Leonard's life. The news of Lulu the 'life saving' kangaroo soon spread. The RSPCA decided to give Lulu a very rare bravery award which resulted in a lot of media interest.
A Quick Thinking Entrepreneur...
On the other side of Australia, a quick thinking entrepreneur and website designer by the name of John (sorry that's all I could get), got in touch with the Richard's family and offered to set up a website for them free of charge.
They would then be able to share their story across the globe. The website didn't go live until April this year, just before the RSPCA officially announced the award. This was when the media frenzy whipped up a real pace and the website was literally flooded with visitors. So many, that they had to shut the site down and upgrade the servers. You can view the site here:
luluthekangaroo.com.au/An
Opportunity To Bring In Some Cash
If you look at the site, they've managed to take advantage of all this traffic by adding a few money spinners on the site.
- They've got a small banner for GoDaddy website hosting, and they also adapted it to feature a picture of Lulu as part of the banner animation (nice touch).
- They're selling T-shirts with a picture of Lulu on them promoting world peace.
- They have put together an ebook detailing all the events up to and after the accident.
- Finally, they have converted the ebook to a mini disk as well.
As another nice touch they are also donating a percentage of the profits to charity.
They seem to have made a fair attempt at trying to make some money from what could have otherwise been a family tragedy. Good luck to them I say!
Keep Your Eye's Open For Potential Money Spinners
This sort of
Opportunity is nearly always going to be a short-term money spinner. Obviously, most people are not going to stumble on a life saving kangaroo like this one.
However, as an entrepreneur it may pay you to keep your eye out for any unusual events, acts of bravery, etc. Basically anything that has the potential for a lot of media interest.
Most people like the Richard's family would never even consider building their own website after a situation like this. You can get a domain name and some hosting for about $20. If you know how to build a basic looking website, the only additional cost will be your time.
As this story showed, having a website really helped to give this tale of bravery worldwide recognition. If you type 'lulu the kangaroo' into a search engine you will find loads of news sites linking to Lulu's website. I very much doubt there would have been as much interest if the news websites didn't have Lulu's website to refer and link to.
Joint Venture Possibilities
If you have your own niche product already, you could go looking for human interest stories that relate to your product. Alternatively you could team up with a joint venture partner that does have a related product.
Here's An Exaple...
Let's say that a story breaks in your area about a woman that has given birth to 7 children all at once. With IVF treatment this could happen. This sort of thing is usually very popular in the media.
You could approach the woman and offer to build a website for her. With all those children she is bound to get a lot of media coverage, and she might be interested in trying to make a bit of money from all the media interest. At the end of the day, all those hungry mouths will need to be fed somehow.
You could propose a 50/50 split on any profits from displaying a few ads and links to baby related products on the site.
Summary
This is not the sort of thing that you would be able to give up your day job to pursue, but it could provide you with a nice little cash boost.
Jason Lewis, Copyright 2004
About The Author
Jason Lewis is the Author of the new 'Business Brainwaves' Newsletter. Uncovering new business ideas and untapped 'gaps in the market' that the average person can profit from. Join now, while it's still free! >
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