Author Archive for Patsi Krakoff – Page 106

Top 42 Content Marketing Blogs – Why this is such a smart marketing strategy

Gold20starthumb
Do you know any blogs about content marketing, or writing content for business? Joe Pulizzi, whose blog Junta 42 promotes writing great content, has opened nominations for the Top 42 Content Marketing Blogs.

Some of the nominated blogs may be included in his book to be published in 2008, Get Content, Get Customers.

"The team here at Junta42 is compiling a list of the top 42 blogs that focus on some aspect of content marketing – that is helping marketers/businesses create and deliver valuable, relevant and consistent content."

Pay attention to this whole blog nomination process: this is one of the most astute marketing strategies around. Why? Because of the following factors:

  1. Opening up a blog post for nominations will drive traffic to his blog
  2. In sort of a viral way, people who have never heard of his blog before will tell their friends about it
  3. Joe will get to know more good blog authors and form relationships with them
  4. Joe will get new material for his book
  5. Readers will be more informed and curious, and will want to buy the book when it comes out

Smart marketing means paying attention to those people who get it right, and then doing what they do as well or sometimes even better.

I suppose the same can be said of smart writing. Next time you read a piece that’s good, keep it and learn from it.

In the mean time, if you think this blog does a good job of promoting good content, why don’t you visit Junta42 and nominate it? I’m not too proud to ask!

Speaking of Content – have you heard about Content Marketing?

I’ll admit that the concept of Content Marketing makes sense to me. It ties together all the different kinds of content you need to publish for business online and off.

Pulizzi_cropped
So I was thrilled to find Joe Pulizzi and his blog, Junta42. He’s a Content Marketing guru. In fact, he’s written a book called Get Content, Get Customers (being published with co-author Newt Barrett  in 2008). I just downloaded a digital excerpt and can’t wait to read it.

Here’s his definition from his blog post 5 Pillars of Content Marketing:

Content Marketing is:

  1. Editorial-based (or long-form) content. It must tell a relevant, valuable story. Must be informative, educational or entertaining.
  2. Marketing-backed. The content has underlying marketing and sales objectives that a corporation, association or institution is trying to accomplish.
  3. Behavior-driven. Seeks out to maintain or alter the recipient’s behavior.
  4. Multi-platform (print, digital, audio, video, events). It can be, does not have to be, integrated.
  5. Targeted toward a specific audience. If you can’t name the audience, it’s not content marketing.

When you think about it, everything you write for your business should include these elements:  interesting content, with an underlying marketing objective, appealing to universal human behaviors, delivered in an attractive easy-to-read-hear-see message, and specifically targeted to an identified group of people.

Joe makes a big point that the reason content is so important is that traditional marketing isn’t working. You can no longer blast a message in people’s faces.  Maybe you never really could.

Anyway, there are more reasons to learn to write better, or to hire someone who does it for you and your business.

Pathway to Profits: The Content Journey Begins with a Map

Pin_in_mapIn our Blogging and Beyond Mentor Group, on the private membership site, we expose our students to many different tools that can accelerate online marketing success.

Writing content that attracts readers to your business is essential. It can seem overwhelming at first when a professional is told that to market successfully online, he or she must produce quality content and publish in 3-4 sites using multiple tools and media distribution.

You need a Content Plan, a map of what you will write about, and where you will publish each type of content. You also need to cover several content categories. No matter what your business or niche, you will have several topics you need to cover.

This is the first of several suggested pathways to start your journey for successful online marketing.

We suggest sitting down to make a plan. Write it down. Map out where you want to go, and then make a list of how you’re going to get there. You will need to set up a blog, a shopping cart and database management system, maybe a website (or use your blog as a website), a newsletter, and other information products (teleseminars, podcasts, ecourses and ebooks).

Step One – Get clear on your business. Write out the answers to these questions:

  1. What business am I in? (General category, industry, and service or product you provide)
  2. Who is my ideal client/reader? (Describe in as many details as possible)
  3. What am I passionate about? (What is my specific expertise?)
  4. Why should readers believe what I say or write (what makes me an expert?)
  5. What are the 3-5 biggest pain points/challenges my clients experience?
  6. What 5 problems do I solve for my clients and customers?
  7. What are 5-7 sub-topics that I need to write about to establish my expertise and credibility?

Once you are clear on your purpose, only then can you decide which tool to use to distribute your content: blog, ezine, email, teleseminar, ebook, etc.

Next: Step 2 – Blog First?

Writing for Your Business: Here’s a Pathway to Profits

Pathway
Writing for business: where to start? What’s the best path to follow if you want your writing to work for you?

If you want to successfully market your business on the Web, you have to write quite a bit. And I don’t only mean the copy on your Web pages, although that’s a start. You must write on a blog, write articles for your own website and for article syndication sites, write a newsletter, write press releases, and write a white paper.

Of course, being successful means selling something, so you also have to learn to write persuasively for your email promotions, landing pages, and autoresponders. That means learning copywriting, unless you can afford the big bucks for a copywriter.

On this blog, I’ve been covering many of these writing tasks. I started out covering what you need to know about writing a successful newsletter, but boy, has that evolved. This list of writing projects for successfully marketing your business online is big.

To avoid overwhelm, let’s break it down. I recently composed a special report for our Blogging and Beyond Mentor Program, describing a Pathway to Profits.

In the next few weeks, I’m going to break it down for you here: what is the sequence of writing tasks necessary when you take your business online and want to get found, get published, and get leads for your business?

There is “no one size fits all” solution for everyone who wants to do business on line. There is no one road to take to get to success. It’s truly different for everyone.

The person who is selling a book will have different needs than a person selling coaching services. It’s impossible to say "do it this way and you’ll be successful".

But ask anyone who makes money from their online marketing efforts and they’ll have followed some basic best practices. Stay tuned as I lead you down The Blog Squad’s Pathway to Profits(tm)…

The Great Internet Marketing Challenge…unraveling the secrets to success online

Do you understand what’s going on today with Internet marketing? Everyone seems to have the same big challenge… even those professionals and businesses with a lot of money.

Even when you throw big bucks at web designers and search engine optimization gurus, businesses aren’t getting the results they need for success online. Why is that? The answer may be under your nose and it may be simple, easy and inexpensive.

Read The Blog Squad’s white paper to find out… click here.

The Great Internet Marketing Challenge...Click here to get the free white paper.

What Kind of a Blogger Are You, Anyway?


What Kind of Blogger Are You?

Take this quiz to find out your blogging "type." I really don’t like this image, but hey, it’s for a good cause. It’s all part of the fun for a special day supporting environmental issues.

October 15 is Blog Action Day and you’re invited to participate.

  • 5 days left to sign up
  • 8,033 blogs participating
  • 5,671,653  people in the audience

As you know, I recently bought a low-emission car so as to not be polluting any more than possible. I’ve never been a tree-hugger or an activist, but all of a sudden, these issues seem vital for the survival of our children. Heck, I don’t even have kids, but this is important. Do whatever you can to help.

Bloggers Unite - Blog Action Day

FeedBlitz Makes Subscription Services Easier, Better AND Keeps It Free

Do you use Feedblitz
to deliver blog updates by email to your readers? No? You’re missing a
amazing opportunity to get more readers and drive more traffic to your
blog.

Now they’ve added newsletter distribution services (for free) which means you don’t even have to have a blog to start using it for promotions and communications.

Did you know that adding an email option to your blog can boost your
readership by over 50%? And did you know that you can also send out
your newsletter through a free account with Feedblitz?

We’ve been using Feedblitz for years now, and love it. But listen to
this: recently they made some important upgrades for their paid Premium
accounts, AND then made them available to all free accounts.

You need to know about this! It could dramatically boost your readership and subscription lists.

We know Phil Hollows, Feedblitz founder and president, and he never
does training teleseminars. But we used our Blog Squad charms and
twisted his arm ever so slightly!

Phil Hollows relented and is giving a full hour interview on how you
can use Feedblitz to reach even more readers and grow your subscriber
lists. The interview is on Tuesday, October 9 at 3 p.m. ET.

For free!

But there’s a catch!

No, we’re not charging you to attend the class, it’s truly free. You just have to join our mentor program to be a part of this. But it’s a low fee…

Read More→

3 Deadly Marketing Mistakes You Can Avoid

Fishing_businessman
I just wrote about 3 Worst Online Marketing Mistakes and realized all three can be avoided by good writing skills…

I was composing copy for our Blog Squad(tm) Mentor Program, and wrote this:

3 Worst Online Marketing Mistakes

  1. People aren’t finding you easily online – your website or blog is not updated frequently enough, there’s not enough content with keywords, or you may have poor website design that makes search engine indexing and capturing visitors difficult if not impossible.
  2. There’s no way for people to try out your services or products for free before buying; no information products available; no way for you to capture email addresses for follow-up marketing. Even when you do have a system in place, you aren’t following up with leads like you should.
  3. Your emails, web pages, blog posts, ezine and other content lack benefits-driven reasons why visitors or email recipients should read, care, and act on your messages. You’re not persuading anybody to do anything. You wish you could hire an expensive copywriter, but you’re the one in charge of your marketing and web writing.

Each of these common online marketing mistakes can be avoided when you have good writing skills. You don’t have to have a Ph.D. or even be good at writing like they teach you in school. You do have to be able to communicate clearly what the benefits to readers are.

That means putting yourself into the mind of a potential prospect, and writing with their needs in mind. When you address the problems of your readers, you’ll be using the keywords they use in search directories to find solutions to their problems.

You write about them, they search for solutions, they find you (your website, your blog, or your landing pages), and everybody goes home happy.

You can’t find good clients online without good writing skills.

Want to learn more? Click here to read about the advantages of joining the Blogging and Beyond Mentor Program. We teach you the writing skills you need to grow your business online.

Copywriting Intensive in Sunny L.A. with Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero

Copywriting is the single most important skill you must have if you want to do business online and make money. Yet most of us struggle with writing our own persuasive copy that sells.

Just look at the poll here on most challenging writing tasks: promotional copy is ranked the hardest, and has been top of the poll since day one. And few of us can hire expensive copywriters for our businesses. To make matters worse, many copywriting seminars cost thousands of dollars to attend.

Here’s a solution, that will pay off in $$$ for you. Attend this one-day copywriting intensive and learn from an expert who’s very familiar with our kind of businesses:

Lorrie_mo
On Friday, October 19 my friend, Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero of Red Hot Copy is holding a one-time only, hands-on copywriting workshop.

This means you will actually be molding your own copy into a powerhouse ready to work for you 24/7 ON-SITE, at the workshop one-day event.

This high-touch, hands-on event takes place in Burbank, California. It’s called, *The Insider Copywriting Formula: What Every Business Owner and Entrepreneur Must Know For Maximum Profit and Prestige.*

There are only 50 39 seats available and GOING FAST! Visit http://snipurl.com/greatcopy now to claim your spot! Click here to register.

This event will actually be in Redondo Beach, but you can fly into Burbank airport for convenience. If you come, I’ll buy you a big coffee latte! Hope to see you there.

Online Marketing: What’s Your Biggest Challenge?

We have a new poll posted on Biz Tips Blog. We want to know the biggest challenge you face with marketing your business online.

Please take a minute to vote.