Rexanne Mancini: The Free Thinker
By: Alexandra Wharton
Common advice for those with writer's block is to "write about what you know." That's what Rexanne Mancini did when she started out on the Internet back in 1998. With two young children at home, she persuaded her then-husband to buy her a computer, and with AOL's free software, created a "my page" about something she was passionate about - raising kids. Mancini says she thought the Internet was the wave of the future and wanted a way to connect and be part of it. She waited to get on the Internet until after her younger daughter's third birthday because she had the feeling that once she got on it she would never get off. And she was right.
Although she knew she wanted to sell something online, she had no idea what. She says she just had a feeling that "the Internet was going to be the place to be."
In the beginning, Mancini wanted to reach out to other parents about her unique parenting philosophy, so she covered topics ranging from spanking to setting limits for children to self-esteem issues. As she built a community with returning visitors, her site gained traffic and she won several awards, including AOL's Page of the Week.
Early on, she included a link to Amazon as part of their early affiliate program, Amazon Associates, which is how she discovered affiliate marketing. Her first sale was an Amazon book that she recommended, called Parents Please Don't Sit on Your Kids. Although Amazon helped her figure out the business model of affiliate marketing, her beginning days were filled with trial and error.
She was aware of the wants and needs of parents because she was a stay-at-home mom. Mancini wrote about issues that came up in her day-to-day life and then researched retailers that sold merchandise appropriate to the topic. She tried merchants she thought would make sense for a family-oriented site like hers, such as Disney and Hallmark, but found those did not convert.
"I learned about affiliate marketing by the seat of my pants at first," Mancini says. She didn't start to make "real" money until she found and joined the online marketing forum ABestWeb.com. By participating in the various discussions on the forum and reading advice from others, she learned why she wasn't making money and how "to turn traffic into gold." In 1998, she built out her website into sections to offer holiday items for Halloween and Christmas.
But then in 2000, Mancini decided to take a full-time job and began working for an online traffic school. After a few months, another Internet company doing online video made her a much better offer. Even though she was managing everything from shipping to customer service, the company allowed her to work from home. That freedom gave her time to build out her own site.
Mancini says that both companies were very successful online, and having the firsthand opportunity to "see the power of Internet marketing from different angles was very exciting."
Still, Mancini realized if she devoted the huge amount of energy she was putting into the online video company into her own effort, she could really be successful. That's when she quit her job and jumped into affiliate marketing full time. Leaving her day job wasn't her goal at the time, but when she began to make more money with affiliate marketing, she knew she had to concentrate on her own business.
Around that time, she decided to get her own domain in order to start a newsletter. Because Mancini had a somewhat unusual first name, she thought that might work well for building a brand. Even though the domain name had nothing in it to indicate that it was a family site, Mancini went with her instincts and bought www.Rexanne.com.
According to Mancini, the newsletter turned out to be an instrumental way for her to build community and keep people coming back. Currently, her site continues to get a surge in traffic when she sends out a newsletter. She says it is a great way to keep her in front of her visitors. One successful tactic she uses is to introduce a theme in the newsletter and then carry that same topic over to the forums on her website for people to debate.
Against the Grain
Not one to shy away from controversy, Mancini writes about topics not typically in line with mainstream thinking, and she's not afraid to take a strong position on issues. She often ends up being "quite controversial without trying to be."
When she writes about topics like immunizations, fluoride in toothpaste and talking to your kids about sex, debates among her audience ensue. For example, she was surprised to find out that 64 percent of her audience believes in spanking, because to her it seems so archaic. "It was shocking to be in the minority."
Mancini also found out that her beliefs about childhood vaccinations and inoculations are the minority. Her father was a holistic doctor who started a movement against the polio vaccine and was instrumental in making sure that parents know their rights regarding mandatory inoculations in schools. She believes that vaccines can damage kids' immune systems and thinks it's crazy for infants to be exposed to an onslaught of disease. She feels the same about circumcision - infants should not be exposed to that type of pain when they don't understand it.
Many of her ideas for what to write about stem from what to her seems like common sense. Mancini says she didn't know anything about children before having her own - except that she had absolute beliefs about parenting and raising a sane, healthy child. "I found myself wanting to be the type of mother I wish I had had and wanting to protect my kids from a lot of mainstream beliefs and parenting advice that I felt was wrong and dangerous." Her strongest belief is that children need to be loved and cherished and filled with positive self-images.
La Dolce Vita
Mancini's own childhood was unique. She was born and raised in Los Angeles and lived there until she was 10 years old when her family moved to Rome, Italy. Mancini stayed in Rome for more than a decade before she returned home to the States at 21. She likes to embrace the spirit of the Roman culture - she loves life and thinks it should be enjoyed. One of Mancini's mottos is that life is supposed to be fun and she doesn't like to do something unless it is fun.
Her positive outlook and sunny disposition transcends to all aspects of her life. She lives with her two daughters, Justice, 19 years old, and Liberty, 13; Frankie the dog; and her cats, Holiday and Sage, in Studio City in the San Fernando Valley. Continued on Page 2...
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