Author Archive for Patsi Krakoff – Page 31

E-Newsletter Review: How’s Your Ezine?

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, January 5th, 2011

You may be doing all the right content marketing things (e-newsletter, blog, articles, etc.) and still not get good results (get found, get known, get clients!) If all you’re doing is publishing good information, without personality, without offers, what’s the point?

I got 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.

  1. Could it be the article is too long?
  2. Could it be I don’t know how to sell myself with my newsletter?
  3. Could it be that I don’t choose the right article for my clients (they are small business owners and at time managers in various companies)?
  4. Could it be that many people check their emails on their phone and do not have time to read my newsletters?

The person asking these good questions is an executive coach. She needs to “sell herself” by providing quality content that demonstrates her expertise in coaching matters and leadership and personal development issues. Read More→

Categories : Content Marketing, Executive Coach Ezine Article Topics, Getting Read, List Building Tips, Managing Your Ezine & Blog Tasks, On Writing Better, Promoting Your Ezine +/or Blog, Writing Better Ezines
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3 Easy Tips to Target Readers with Your Content

By Patsi Krakoff
Monday, January 3rd, 2011

This is a guest post from Sam Briones, a freelance writer, who explains how to get targeted traffic to read your online content.

You may be on your keyboard all day and night, writing about content that you are knowledgeable and passionate about. You know that what you are writing makes sense, and more importantly, your expertise could change someone’s outlook, or even their life!

However, you don’t seem to be getting responses. You check your blog, and the only comments are from your mother. What’s wrong, and how do you fix it?

While there are many writers out there who can really deliver, content-wise, the truth is, most of these writers aren’t marketers, or lack the marketing skills to get their work noticed by the people who may actually find the information they provide useful. If you’re one of those individuals, you can change that by following one or more of these easy tips.

1. Have the right domain name: You may love to write about web design, but if your domain name is something like Katlovesdogs.com, then nobody will ever associate your website or blog with design. In choosing your domain name, make sure that it states what your website is actually about. That way, it can also be searchable when people type in keywords.

2. Submit your work to article submission sites: You’ve gotten your domain right, but people are still not visiting your blog. Maybe you just need to inform a wider audience that you are indeed out there. Try taking a few blog posts or articles and submitting them to some article submission sites like ezinearticles.com or goarticles.com. Read More→

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, Managing Your Ezine & Blog Tasks, Online Marketing, Social Media Stuff
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Content Marketing for Coaches and Consultants

By Patsi Krakoff
Thursday, December 30th, 2010

If you’re an executive coach or consultant or a professional working with leadership issues, may I make a suggestion? Content marketing for coaches and consultants can be outsourced, here’s how.

You can get quality content at my other site, ContentforCoachesandConsultants.com.  When you become a subscriber you benefit from article discounts up to 45% for the year. Plus, in many states and countries, your purchase qualifies as a business expense and will be tax deductible.

Up until midnight ET December 31, 2010, you can use discount coupon codes and get an additional 10% off subscription prices.

Content for Coaches offers subscriptions for articles, formatted newsletters, blogging services, or All-in-One E-newsletter Service management for 10% off the regular prices:

  • Save up to $40 per article – pay only $39 per article on a subscription of 12, or $49 per article for a subscription of 6.
  • Save up to $99 on a subscription of 6 or 12 PDF formatted newsletters, either four pages or two pages.
  • Save $240 on the design, formatting and distribution of your e-newsletter with an annual All-in-One Ezine Service.

Here’s a list of links for additional details and the corresponding coupon codes you can use at checkout to receive the 10% discount.  Let us know if you have questions.

Article Subscriptions – 2010ArticlesBonus

PDF Newsletters – 2010PDFBonus

All-in-One Ezine Service – 2010EZINEMGMTBONUS

Blogging Service: We are offering a 10% discount on ghost blogging for both 6-month and 12-month options. However, since this is individualized original content, we only have openings for two more clients. Send me an email if this is of interest to you.

Here are some sample titles and topics available: Read More→

Categories : Buying Content, Content Marketing, Managing Your Ezine & Blog Tasks
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Happy Holidays from Patsi & Rob

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010

It wasn’t easy getting the Hubby to put on his Mariachi costume and all, but I finally convinced him with a can of Mexican jumping beans…

If you haven’t subscribed to JibJab, maybe this is a fun time to do so?

All the best for 2011!

Categories : Content Marketing, Fun and Irrelevant Things About Patsi

Top Ten Musings for Holiday Cheer

By Patsi Krakoff
Tuesday, December 21st, 2010

Remember those days when we printed out things and kept files? What a waste of paper and ink. Now everything’s findable on the Internet. I’m cleaning out files and found some old lists…

Here is a Top Ten list I kept that gives me chuckles. I share them with you to cheer you up as we enter a Holiday week in many countries throughout the world.

Happy holidays to you and your families…

Top 10 Musings

  1. Don’t take life so seriously – nobody gets out alive anyway.
  2. The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.
  3. The gene pool could use a little more chlorine.
  4. If at first you don’t succeed, then maybe skydiving isn’t for you.
  5. Borrow money from pessimists… they don’t expect it back.
  6. I finally got my head together, now my body is falling apart.
  7. It was all so different before everything changed.
  8. Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.

Sorry, the other two were just too lame, I’ll spare you.

I’m sending you warm wishes from sunny Ajijic on the shores of Lake Chapala, Mexico.

Feliz Navidad!

Categories : Coaching/Personal Development, Content Marketing, Fun and Irrelevant Things About Patsi

3 Online Marketing Tasks:
Get Found, Get Known, Get Clients

By Patsi Krakoff
Thursday, December 16th, 2010

How do you check your online marketing to see where it’s working, where it needs improvement?

Here’s my quick and easy end-of-year check up for your business. This always helps me see where I need to spend my energy and time to improve next year’s results.

Look at your marketing tasks as having 3 purposes:

  1. Get found: How visible are you online? How easy is it for someone to find you doing a search? What comes up for your name? What comes up for the keywords that describe what your business does? Are you everywhere, or at least in the key places your target audience is? Social sites, web, blog, articles, videos, etc. Is your content optimized for search engines?
  2. Get Known: How memorable is your name, your brand or tag line? Can people identify your business and know what problem it solves? Are you credible and perceived as trustworthy? Do you show some personality and faces of the people who work with you? Can people easily get to know you, like you and trust you?
  3. Get Clients: Is it easy for people to become a  client and buy something from you? Is it easy to download free offers? Do you have low fee products and a product funnel that includes higher-ticket offers? Is your sales copy effective? Are your landing pages clean and clear? Is your sales transaction process easy and smooth? Do you offer opportunities to upgrade or upsell to products? Are you converting readers to customers?  Read More→
Categories : Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Online Marketing

What Are Your Target Audience’s 5 Top Web Sites?

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, December 15th, 2010

If you want to create content that engages readers, you have to know their online habits and interests. Yet how many of us scramble to post on a blog or upload a  video to YouTube without taking time to survey our target audience?

Here’s a quick list of survey questions for your target audience:

  1. What are the five top web sites you visit frequently in your work?
  2. What are your online reading habits, blogs, websites, articles, videos, podcasts?
  3. Do you use social media like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn?
  4. Do you access web content via RSS feeds?
  5. Subscribe to e-newsletter and blogs?
  6. Do you read web content from a smartphone?

You have about eight seconds to engage someone before they click away. Clever headlines will get them to click over to your content. But unless you know what your audience wants, you’re shooting in the dark. They won’t stay. Click and bye-bye.

Good content builds momentum and always has an objective, according to Ann Handley and CC Chapman in their book Content Rules. Therefore your content needs to trigger to action. That’s the way you engage readers to respond. Your content should be created with the end in mind: to further a relationship. Read More→

Categories : Attracting Clients, Brain Based Content Marketing, Content Marketing, Online Marketing
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Content Marketing Challenge: What to Write?

By Patsi Krakoff
Tuesday, December 14th, 2010

A survey of more than 1,000 businesses this past Spring found that “producing engaging content” is the top challenge for people charged with marketing. The Content Marketing Institute published these results here:

When 36% of marketers struggle with producing engaging content and another 21% with coming up with enough engaging content, well over half of content marketing challenges involves what to say or write.

Many of the small business clients I consult with have this problem. They spend a nice sum on a good-looking website designed only to find that it’s delivered with “lorem ipsom” text as a place holder for content.

What do they write to replace the lorem ipsom? Of course it’s all about their company products and services, why wouldn’t it be? It’s their website and people want to know what they do.

Yes, except for the fact that people are bored, in a hurry, and completely focused on themselves. Web visitors only want to know what you’ll do for them, and if you are unique, amusing, shocking or outrageous they’ll stay and read your pages.

Only the problem is, if you’re in a field like leadership development or executive coaching, or a serious provider of any kind of services, you can’t grab readers’ attention by being rude like some of the videos on YouTube…

Here are three things the brain can’t ignore, to keep in mind when you create content for your home page:

  1. Novelty
  2. Human faces and eye contact
  3. Promise of rewards and satisfaction of desires

Can you see how hard this might be when you’re selling serious products and services? Let’s take life insurance, for example. Novel? No, not really. But wait a minute. The Aflac Duck is a very novel way to attract attention. The trick is tying it into what your staid company does for people.

The Aflac Duck story is brilliant branding. It contains three of the elements required for marketing to get actionable results:

  1. Attention
  2. Emotional response
  3. Memorable

What can coaches and consultants do then, to provide content that grabs readers’ attention in a way that makes an impact?

That’s right, you guessed. Tell engaging stories of real people with real problems and how you can help.

Categories : Attracting Clients, Brain Based Content Marketing, Content Marketing, Online Marketing

Content Marketing Tasks: Practice Makes Progress

By Patsi Krakoff
Monday, December 13th, 2010

If you’ve spent your career avoiding certain marketing tasks because you don’t think you’re any good at them, you struggle each time you try, and you end up with weak results, take heart. Persistence has been touted by poets for a reason.

Your brain learns a lot each time you try something, even if you fail. If you stop trying, you’ll walk away with nothing. If you persist, however, the rewards are huge.

Example: public speaking. Many small business owners and entrepreneurs including many of my clients love getting the chance to get up and speak. The larger the group, the better. In my experience, they are extroverts. They love people and love conversations.

On the other hand, they usually don’t like writing. (Which is why they are my clients… they need content and they need to publish on the web – blogs, e-newsletters, ebooks, etc.)

Other people tend to focus their online marketing on content; they write books and they publish blogs and newsletters… and they hate speaking. They would rather have a root canal than deliver even a 3 minute elevator speech at a networking event. Read More→

Categories : Brain Based Content Marketing, Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Writing Speeches
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Content Marketing Tips to Get More “Juice”

By Patsi Krakoff
Thursday, December 9th, 2010

Here are some content marketing tips to save you time and energy while getting more visibility on the Web.

I began these writing tips when I wrote about taking one nugget of information, and instead of posting it as one blog post, you make a list of 3-5 sub-topics or issues. Then you expand each one into 3-5 blog posts.

The point is that as long as you are writing quality posts for your readers, use that content in multiple ways, at multiple points in time, and deliver it multiple ways.

For example:

  1. Take a 300-word blog post, write an introduction, a conclusion and make it into a stand alone article of 450-500 words you can submit to article directories. Be sure to name it using a keyword-rich headline, and include your resource box with links to your blog, website and ezine sign up page.
  2. Write one longer article (600-850 words) that ties together the 3-5 blog posts you used in your series. Write an introduction, a conclusion, and add your resource box including links to sign-up for your ezine and your blog. Submit it to article directories with different a title. Read More→
Categories : Managing Your Ezine & Blog Tasks, On Writing Better, Writing Better Ezines, Writing Great Blog Content
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