Archive for Managing Your Ezine & Blog Tasks

Business Blogging: 4 Tips
PLUS 1 Great Video on Creativity

Business-bloggingBusiness blogging can be frustrating for professionals. Does this happen to you? You sit down to (finally!) write on your business blog, you’ve done a bunch of research, you’ve created lists, outlines and even saved a few great blog post drafts, but you haven’t actually published any of your content… There always seems to be one more thing to check before you pull the ‘publish’ trigger.

I talk to professionals all the time who are ‘blog publishing shy’. Perhaps the most crucial stage of business blogging is implementation: PUBLISH THE POST! In this series of blog posts, I’ve been sharing my tips on the four stages of writing a great blog post. It follows the same steps of any creative process:

Preparation => Incubation => Illumination => Implementation

Business blogging is creative but it also follows steps. If you want to write quality content that reflects the quality of your services as a professional then follow these four steps all the way through to implementation.  Creative blog posts are written by a process. Read More→

Business Blogging Time-Saving Tips for You (and Your Cat)

When it comes to business blogging, how do you save time and still get results? How do you make blog tasks so easy your cat could do it?

It’s the dog days of summer but around our house that expression isn’t acceptable. Doodles and Buster would have a cat fit. Here in Mexico we’re in the rainy season, when the heat of the Summer is tempered by the cool nightly rains. Which brings our year-round average temp to a mild 73.  Not bad when you’re a tennis enthusiast and enjoy time outdoors.  Which is why it’s even more important to me to save time when blogging.

Over the years I’ve purr-fected my blogging system. And as a thank-you to all my content marketing blog clients (shout out to all my new and renewing content subscribers who took advantage of our sale last week), I want to share it with you all. Plus I figure it will be good Kitty Karma – maybe it will even help keep the cats off Facebook. They want their own pages now… Read More→

Business Newsletter Tips: Don’t be the Grinch this Holiday

If I’ve said it once, I’veBizBook-Nuggets said it a thousand times: your business newsletter content must solve problems for your readers or help them meet a need.  So, if your newsletter topic is something that you can’t cover in an e-newsletter, don’t be the Newsletter Grinch: give it the attention it deserves and cover it properly on a blog page.  Your audience will appreciate your attention to detail, as long as you provide value.

In my previous blog post, I shared tips to get your business newsletter read, specifically, how to grab attention with a compelling subject line and headline. But once you get your readers to open your email newsletter, make sure they keep reading by offering compelling, relevant information.

For example, I create and distribute a newsletter called Biz Book Nuggets (if you haven’t subscribed, you can sign up in the upper right corner of this page.)  This newsletter includes insights gathered from all the leadership business books I read. Read More→

Writing Services & Quality Leadership Content for Coaches

CCC Header 2014If you’re a leadership coach or a consultant to leaders you know how time-consuming it is to write quality leadership articles and blogs. Here’s a professional writing service just for you providing leadership articles for your newsletters and blogs.

And, you can get a 10% discount on annual subscriptions with Content for Coaches, if you order before Thursday, July 31, 2014.

If you’re interested, go to Content for Coaches Summer Sale, here.

This is a special opportunity to save money on new subscriptions for quality leadership content. Read More→

E-Newsletters: What’s the Ideal Format?

eNewsletter Newsletters: What’s the best format to send yours so it gets delivered, opened, and read? 

There is a definite divergence of opinions, but according to my readers, the preferred formatting and distribution method for e-Newsletters is HTML. Half of those who responded to my poll indicated they preferred HTML, and a third preferred plain text.

With more and more people using smart phones, iPads, e-readers, and laptops, does anyone prefer plain text? What about PDF files? (Either sent as an attachment, or viewed as a page on their websites.)

Here’s my perspective:

  • If you want readers to focus primarily on your message, then plain text is valuable.
  • If you also want to impress people visually with colors, logo and other branding elements, then it makes sense to get the most out of graphic design by using HTML formatting.

Can there be an ideal merge of both of these important elements – design for branding AND showcase valuable content?

Read More→

E-Newsletter Review: Is There Something Wrong?

How’s your e-newsletter? You may be doing all the right content marketing things (e-newsletter, blog, social media, articles, etc.) and still not get good results (get found, get known, and get clients!)

If all you’re doing is publishing good information, without personality, without offers, what’s the point? Last week I asked which was best for marketing: blogs, social media or e-newsletters.

I have written a “Shortcuts” list of questions to ask yourself when planning your e-newsletter and you can access it for free here.

I shared many positive comments on the benefits of sending newsletters. I also received an email from a client who lamented the poor results from her emailed newsletter. After a year she reported:

  • No new clients came to her after reading it
  • No new sign-ups were happening (or were rare)

She asked what she was doing wrong. Here were some of her questions, followed by my answers. This would be a good time to check your own e-newsletter for opportunities for improvement. Read More→

Newsletters, Social Media, Blogs:
What’s Best?

eNewslettersHave blogs and social media replaced e-newsletters? In a poll I did with professionals who publish a newsletter, people shared that they still send out regular e-newsletters, and told me why their subscribers like getting news:

“It helps me stay connected and it provides me with thought provoking ideas, and useful tools to be successful in life.”

Ask other professionals if they’re getting results from an e-newsletter, and then judge for yourself if it’s worth the time and effort (and money). Here are other comments I received:

“I just met with the COO at a company where I’ve been coaching. He told me that the employees (the ones I coach) forward him my newsletter. He said, ‘They want me to read it because they feel the content is often pertinent to what’s going on at the company.’ There are over 100 employees at this company and I’ll soon be asking if I can send everyone my newsletter.”

“The newsletter is an intimate way to stay in contact with clients and a non- threatening resource for potential clients to learn more about me and how my coaching can help meet their needs.”

“It has heightened awareness, helped build our brand and brought in inquiries, referrals and requests for information.”

“… when it goes out, I always receive emails from people I don’t usually hear from, telling me how much they enjoyed reading it, found my information timely and applicable, and in general, thanking me because they look forward to receiving it.”

“… when at business functions, I will often have someone say to me ‘I know who you are, I get your newsletter.’ I believe it keeps my name and what I do ‘out there.’ I see my newsletter as contributing to
my success. It makes a statement that speaks to my brand.”

Read More→

Simplify Your Blog Writing:
Shortcuts to Publishing a Leadership Blog

mazeHow’s your blog writing going? Snap, crackle and publish? Or are you a little blocked, maybe even constipated?

Do you feel dread and overwhelm when it’s time to post on your blog?

You may offer great solutions and services for your clients, but if you don’t simplify your blog writing tasks and publish frequent, compelling content, you won’t get great content marketing results.

In a blog post last week I shared that the two most common statements I hear about blogging are: Read More→

Blog Goals: 5 Tips to Keep Your Blog
Focused and on Track

Blog-Goals

Is your blog focused and on track? Do you find yourself saying, “I don’t have enough time to blog,” or “I don’t know what to write about?”

Guess what? These two questions are related to the same problem: not enough clarity about blog goals. Here’s how I help my clients solve this problem of clarity:

  1. Define your business Ps & Q – (3Ps + 1Q):
    => What Problem do you solve?
    => Who are the People you serve?
    => What Products and services do you offer?
    => What makes you uniQue??
  2. Create a course outline or a table of contents as if you were writing a book or teaching a class on this problem, i.e., your expertise.
  3. Make a list of keywords, categories and topics you’re qualified to write about and that must be addressed to solve the problems of your readers.
  4. Make an editorial calendar for each day of the week you’re going to be blogging. Make sure you cover all the topics and categories, and that your keywords are repeated frequently in posts and titles (search engine optimization).
  5. Make a weekly blog schedule to include writing the content, sharing it on social sites, researching and commenting on other blogs, and formatting, editing, linking, etc.

Don’t underestimate the time it takes for all the peripheral upkeep of blogging. Maintaining a successful blog takes more time than just writing a post. And it almost always takes longer than the 30 minutes required for writing.

Are you focusing on client needs?

Read More→

Blog Writing Tips: How to Become Productive and Prolific at Those Tasks You Hate

Manage-Your-TimeHow can you develop more productive blog writing habits? When are you going to stick to your content marketing calendar? What’s it going to take?

I know many small business owners who purposely procrastinate on writing and finance tasks they hate. Are you one of these professionals who work better when you have too much to do and not enough time to do it in? Think about it. Read More→