Archive for Attracting Clients – Page 3

Tips to Get Your Business Newsletter Read

eNewsletter 10 TEALDoes anyone read your business e-newsletter?  How do you get your clients and prospects to open that email? In a previous post, I asked if you were sending a holiday newsletter for your business. Here are a few timeless tips to help you get your newsletter read.

Grab Attention with a Compelling Subject Line and Headline

Remember that the singular purpose of a subject line is to get readers to open the mail. The purpose of the headline is to get people to start reading. That’s it.

Research has found that the most compelling subject and headlines cater to:

  1. The three greatest human goals: to make or save time, effort or money
  2. The three greatest human desires: lust, greed or comfort
  3. The three greatest human teasers: curiosity, scarcity or controversy

Read More→

The Scariest Blog: No Personality

Scariest Blog PostWhat’s the scariest blog post you have ever read?  For me it’s a blog or website without any personality.

Storytelling and personalization is the key piece in content marketing as I see it. People are good at writing about what they know. They aren’t as good about expressing who they are and why they do what they do.

If you’re not writing real stories, your content – on your blog, in your newsletter, on your web pages – runs the risk of being boring. You may be excited about what you do as a professional, but your clients will get bored or overwhelmed if you just throw information at them.

What’s your back-story? Read More→

A Quiz: Test Your Content Marketing and Blog Writing Knowledge

A Quiz: Test Your Blog Writing KnowledgeQuality blog posts are key to your business getting found on the Web. While that may sound obvious – (“Of course, why would I write something ho-hum boring?”) it’s harder than you might think. Not everyone agrees on what quality content is.

Quality content scores high with readers, your target clients, and with search engines. If you want to get found, get known and get clients online, you need to write and publish quality blog posts that resonate with your readers.

Two weeks ago I posed the question, “what makes you mad?” This can be a great first step in uncovering a hidden drive – what motivates you. It can also help identify what drives your readers; what content resonates with them. Read More→

Blogging Tips: Unique Ideas to Boost Your Blog

Ideas to Boost Your BlogI feel like we hear a lot of the same blogging tips over and over again. While it is definitely useful to know your blogging basics and how to boost readership, how about we change it up a little and offer some ideas on how to boost your blog in ways that you’ve maybe not thought about before?

Here are a few ways that you can get new (and old) eyes on your blog and keep them engaged. Read More→

Great Blog Content: What Makes You Mad?

DrivenIf you want to write great blog content, tap into what makes you mad. Or, what makes your readers mad? Either way, we don’t get mad about things we don’t care about.

Great blog content is always about what your readers care so much about it keeps them up at night. It makes them angry. Blood-boiling, foot-stamping, screaming mad! Read More→

The ABC’s of Great Blogging:
Be Original and Offer Insight

Image of young pretty woman changing realityWhen it comes to content marketing and great blogging, insight and originality rules.

According to the authors of Content Rules:

“Produce great stuff, and your customers will come to you. Produce really great stuff, and your customers will share and disseminate your message for you. More than ever before, content is king! Content rules!” ~ Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman, Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars and More that Engage Customers and Ignite Your business (John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2011).

This works, but it’s a lot of work. If you’re a coach, consultant, or service professional, say a doctor, therapist, lawyer, financial adviser, or health expert, you need to create content that will help your clients. You need to become a trusted resource for insights, and a go-to curator of tips and information to be helpful to people who are interested.

And you need to create strong feelings around your published content so that people will take action and keep coming back. You need them to subscribe, to sign up, to download, to ask you questions and engage with you so they become clients when they are ready. Read More→

The ABC’s of Business Blogging:
How to be Heard above the Noise

Concept Vector Graphic- Leader & Workers Talking(speech Bubbles)Let me ask you a couple of questions about your business blogging. When you’re competing online with other experts in your field, what makes you stand out? How are your prospects (and clients) finding you among all the other blogs and sites online?

Independent professionals who use the Web for marketing their services can learn a lot from big businesses with big budgets. They hire professional writers to create compelling headlines and creative content to attract audiences to their sites. You can too.

It’s not expensive, but it does require some creative thinking. Here are some tips for good business blogging, simplified, as simple as ABC.

The ABC’s of Great Blogging

A. A great headline
B. Be original and offer insight
C. Create shareable content – Don’t be a bore

Read More→

Content Marketing: How do you know if it’s working?

different people on 3d abstract stairsHow do you know if your content is working for you? Everybody says they want more traffic, but quite frankly, traffic stats leave me scratching my head and saying “Okay, that’s nice…and so what?”

Maybe it’s because I’m not an analytical type, I prefer big picture thinking and gut feelings and intuition. But if I had a metric I could look at and be able to tell if my content is working, i.e. having an impact on readers, then maybe I’d become more analytical.

You know how those yearly physical exams give you a print out of your lab test and tell you if you’re in the “normal” range or not? Why can’t we have a report for our blogs? Or for e-newsletters? Or for overall Web content marketing?

On Monday mornings, for example, you log into your “Content Marketing Impact” account and get a free print out of how well your content has impacted readers:

  • Blog…82%
  • E-newsletter …75%
  • Articles…56%
  • Landing pages…
  • White Paper…
  • Free Report… etc. etc.

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-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→