Since I am a huge fan of Fiverr.com - as a buyer - not (yet) a seller - I figured a few words about the site where you can "Hire people to do things for $5" were in order.

Cheap Labor

Talk about cheap labor.  I'll give you an example....

I own a lot of websites - lots.   Often times when I start a new project to "test the waters" and see if I can gain any traction in that market I don't worry too much about graphics and such, but more often that not - and especially lately - I'll start a new business/website with the intent of branding it right away.

How do you brand?

Well that's a multi answer question and if you really want to know you should read the book "Brand Against The Machine", but for the purpose of this discussion - one sided though it may be - is that (in my mind anyway) after coming up with the idea and seeing that it is worthwhile pursuing after some good keyword research and the like you should have a Logo.

Back to the cheap labor or fiverr idea....

I was paying up to $150.00 for a good logo before I found fiverr.  I am sure there are plenty of good graphic artists and business marketing companies - ad agencies and the like - that charge even more than that.

The thing is - you can get the same work done - often times even better work done - by people offering their services on fiverr.  Amazing!

I re-learned a hard and expensive lesson recently after re-doing 5 of my old sites that were just plugging along - mostly just information type sites - but good original content and consistent traffic, albeit not much.

I paid $25.00 to have five different logos/headers/branding graphics made for each of theses sites.   What I can tell you is that not only has my return visitor traffic increased, my customer's overall "time spent on the site(s)" has more than doubled and I have increased sales by a huge factor.

Now what does this all have to do with using fiverr to promote your business?

All of this (and the logo/graphics/branding thing is just a small part - you can get a lot of other types of website promotion done from those on fiverr willing to do it) got me to thinking.

How can I use fiverr to promote my own business(es) or broker some work (charge more and get it done for less) and make some (maybe big) money?

1) Maybe offer a service that I would normally charge $25 or $50 for - local client stuff, etc - Things that I would normally do myself or pay one of my employees to do - and farm out the work to those on fiverr - for five bucks!  Outsourcing.

2) What about offering a "loss leader" on fiverr for work that I do - and then in the follow up after the sale let them know that I have a website/business that not only does that kind of work - but a whole lot of other stuff too.  If you (or me - or anyone) can use fiverr in this way and attract clients I think in many cases it is well worth the money.

Not only is it cheap advertising - it's smart advertising.

Here's Fiverr's take on what they have to offer over there.

 

Now I know that's a lot to take in.  I also know that this is a bit of a rambling type post.  But I figured for those who have not heard about fiverr or for those who have but never really considered using them - either as a buyer or a seller - might want to take a second look and see what they have to offer.

My personal testimonial/review about them - as a buyer -  is that you sometimes have to go through a couple of people to find the ones that really satisfy.  If you do decide to hire someone just take a look at their satisfaction rating  and how long they have been offering the "gig".   The good ones will have positive reviews and a rating above 90%.

That's it for now.  I'm off to the lake.

Jack