2010: A Bacon Odyssey or is it a Bacon Store?

The title of this post “2010: A Bacon Odyssey”, is also the name of this year’s Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival in Des Moines. I thought it was cleaver so I wanted to use it for the title of my recap of Goal’s in 2010 post (aka this post).

Last year around this time I wrote a post about ideas I had to improve the site and goals I wanted to accomplish. Looking back at the post it’s nice to know that I did reach a few of those goals.

Recap of 2009’s ideas and goals:

• Add one or two more writers to the blog – I did add a few writers to the blog and it worked out great. As of right now Sean is the only other writer, I think I am going to keep it that way for a while.
• Create a two minute video highlight reel of Bacon Radio – I did the next best thing. I made the whole podcast a video cast can changed the name to Bacon LIVE. People really seem to enjoy the live video feed and we get a lot more viewer interaction this way.
• Make more bacon-themed crafts – I dropped the ball on this one but this year that will hopefully change.
• Gain more traffic/page views – I wrote a few big posts in 2009 that did increase these stats. I am looking to do the same in 2010.
• Increase revenue for the site – When I started selling CPM adverting, my revenue doubled and it’s growing every month.
• Getting mentioned in old-media – At last year’s Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival I was on TV, the Radio, and in the News Paper. I was able to tackle all three forms of old-media at one event.

This year I have a lot of the same goals as did last year, increase revenue, readership, and viewers. Being a blogger is like playing a real life RPG, you are always trying to better your stats. So every year my goals are going to be the same. The only thing that really changes is the way I reach them.

Last year was podcasting and writing, this year will be merchandising. In my online travels though the Bacon Nation I come across some great bacon inspired products. Sometimes is hard for my readers to find and/or buy these products. Well to fix this I am going to create an online store on my blog to sell the best of the best that bacon has to offer. I plan to launch the store by the end of January.

I am only going to sell items that have the Mr. Baconpants stamp of approval. So when you buy from my store you know it’s going to be good. I may even start to sell my own brand of bacon by this summer.

I am excited to see what 2010 has to offer. I wonder if this time next year I will be writing about how my online store made me millions. I guess we’re going to have to wait and see. Either way I know I will be Enjoying Bacon!