Archive for Attracting Clients – Page 6

Online Content Marketing: Let’s Put the “We” Back Into Weblog

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, March 27th, 2013

Follow-MeI get calls from small business professionals who want to start a blog or an e-newsletter. They’ve usually invested money in a nice website, and then suddenly realize that something’s missing… like customers and leads!

They’re genuinely surprised that with the money they spent on their website, no one is coming to see it, indicate they like it, let alone pick up the phone and call.

As for LinkedIn and Facebook, they’re baffled why people don’t interact with them. It doesn’t take a genius (and I’m no genius), but my guess is they have a “me-site,” a “me-blog,” and “me pages” on social media sites.

Instead of generously sharing information about their field of expertise, they share “me-formation.” There’s an “I” in information, but that doesn’t mean you should always talk about yourself. Content should be focused on readers, not you and your business. Sure, people want to know about you, but actually they want to know what you can do for them.

Start everything you write online with a focus on customers and the problems that you can solve for them. Then follow up with building trusting relationships with your readers that lead to sales.

Here’s how online content marketing works for small businesses:

  1. Relationships: Whenever you write content (blog posts, e-newsletter articles, emails), keep the focus on what problems you can solve for your customers. What are their struggles? What do they most desire? Connect with them by writing for them and about them. Read More→
Categories : About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Social Media Stuff, Writing Great Blog Content
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Small Business Content Marketing: When to Hire A Freelance Writer?

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, March 13th, 2013

Content-Matters-Blog-Writing-TipsWhen should you hire a freelance writer for your blog or website? Most small businesses don’t realize how much writing goes into publishing (and updating) a website or blog. Yet the content on your website or blog is the key component of your content marketing strategy.

In order to get the online results you deserve (leads: phones calls, emails, sales!) your web content should be well-written and SEO optimized — as well-thought out as anything else you do to market yourself and your small business.

So who writes the web content? That’s a good question. For small businesses, it’s often the owner or an employee who takes charge of producing and updating the website and blog content. And that can often be a poor decision. If your content is written by someone who’s not a professional freelance writer and isn’t trained to effectively write for the web, it’s usually fairly obvious. Read More→

Categories : About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Writing for Others, Freelancing
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SEO: 3 Things Journalists and Bloggers Can Learn

By Patsi Krakoff
Thursday, February 21st, 2013

Blog-Definition-by-StuartMilesFrom what I see, many bloggers aren’t using hyperlinks when they publish blog posts. Worse, in some cases, they aren’t teaching writers about this in online writing courses. I just attended a week-long writer’s conference in San Miguel. and although there were a few workshops on blogging and online creative non-fiction writing, not one word about keywords or linking!

I could be wrong, of course, because I didn’t sit through the only two courses on social media and blogging basics. But everywhere I attended (there were three courses per day over four days), even opening paragraphs ignored this online basic fact of life: When publishing online, your content must be optimized for search engine indexing.

Granted, this was a course for fiction and non-fiction publications and writers. But if the experts aren’t teaching search engine basics to writers, where will they learn it? For sure, most journals are all published online.

Here’s the thing: when you follow the basic common sense rules for getting your article found online, it’s also good structure for making sense to the readers. Here’s why, reviewing three basics of search engine optimization and how it applies for both getting found and getting read: Read More→

Categories : About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Writing for the Web
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Relationship Marketing Messages that Work:
How to Use Send-Out Cards

By Patsi Krakoff
Tuesday, February 5th, 2013

SendOutCardsRelationship marketing is getting simpler with inexpensive tools. Yesterday I got one of those ‘Send-Out’ cards in the mail from a colleague whose webinar I attended. It’s a great way to practice the fine art of relationship marketing. Send-Out cards, although printed, look as if they’re hand-written, and can be used to get the attention of prospects. More often than not, they aren’t, however.

I admit I don’t open any junk mail. I dump immediately in the trash. Professional marketers are usually attempting to upsell you on more products or services. But because I like this person, (Michael Katz of Blue Penguin Development), I opened it. I was also curious to see how someone I respected in marketing would use this mass-mailing-made-to-look-personal tool.

Big surprise: He sent me a valuable tip without any attempt to sell me or ‘friend me.’ Instead of “Thanks for attending my webinar, and by the way, here’s the next big thing I’m doing for you,”  I got a reminder that a marketing plan needs small daily steps to connect with clients.

Michael’s tip resonated with me. I keep remembering it. I’m someone who puts off marketing (apart from blogging) until after I finish my client work. (This is the very same recipe the cobbler uses to fix his children’s shoes…) Read More→

Categories : About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing
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2013: No Marketing Goals This Year, Just One Word

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, January 9th, 2013

Goals-by-Stuart-MilesNo goals for 2013. I’m not setting any marketing goals this year. Goals are bad. I am not kidding, and there’s research to prove it. This isn’t just me trying to avoid feelings of failure when I’m not seeing immediate results.

Here’s an excerpt from Peter Bregman’s blog Consider Not Setting Goals for 2013 on HBR:

It’s not that goals, by their nature, are bad. It’s just that they come with a number of side effects that suggest you may be better off without them.

The authors of a Harvard Business School working paper, Goals Gone Wild, reviewed a number of research studies related to goals and concluded that the upside of goal setting has been exaggerated and the downside, the “systematic harm caused by goal setting,” has been disregarded.

They identified clear side effects associated with goal setting, including “a narrow focus that neglects non-goal areas, a rise in unethical behavior, distorted risk preferences, corrosion of organizational culture, and reduced intrinsic motivation.”

Here are two of the examples of goals gone wild the authors described in their paper:

  • Sears set a productivity goal for their auto repair staff of bringing in $147 for every hour of work. Did this motivate employees? Sure. It motivated them to overcharge on a companywide basis.
  • Remember the Ford Pinto? A car that ignited when it was rear-ended? The Pinto resulted in 53 deaths and many more injuries because workers omitted safety checks in pursuit of Lee Iacocca’s BHAG goal of a car that would be “under 2000 pounds and under $2,000” by 1970.

And here’s another, via the New York Times:

  • Ken O’Brien, the former New York Jets quarterback, was throwing too many interceptions. So he was given what seemed to be a pretty reasonable goal — fewer interceptions thrown — and penalized financially for every one. It worked. He threw fewer interceptions. But only because he threw fewer passes. His overall performance suffered.

It’s practically impossible to predict the negative side effects of a goal.

On the other hand, I got a great idea from reading a book review on Amazon. What if instead of setting business or personal goals for the New Year, I picked One Word to focus on? And no matter what I am doing, I think about implementing that word, in every way I can? Read More→

Categories : About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Coaching/Personal Development, Content Marketing, Online Marketing
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Tips for Better Blog Outreach and Blog Marketing

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, December 19th, 2012

helpfultipsHow can you make the most of your blog marketing and outreach? Here are some helpful tips so that your business blog attracts more readers, and you get found, get known, and get clients.

Small business owners know that a well-formulated blog with consistently fresh content can improve brand image, customer interaction and overall revenue. Blogs are so powerful, in fact, that their Web pages are prime real estate for outside companies that are hoping to improve page rank of their own.

In fact, a key tactic for SEO ranking is the practice of guest blogging with links back to the author’s site.

Back linking programs are becoming a standard operation of business blogs in all industries and of all sizes. The pro for blog owners is quality content written by someone else. The obvious benefit to outside companies is the ability to add a link to increase their own online credibility.

But such practices are not without peril. If you are thinking about allowing other writers in your blogging space, but unsure of how to maintain creative control and authority, follow these steps for the best outcomes in back linking and blogger outreach programs:

  • Agree to terms upfront. You put a lot of time and effort into ensuring that your blog accurately represents you and your brand image. Though an outside company may have good intentions, it does not have your vision or know your blogging goals. Take the time to explain who your audience is, what types of posts do well with readers and what topics are completely off limits. If your blog is about B2B technology, make sure outside bloggers do not send you posts about B2C topics. Come up with a regular deadline and a workflow. Read More→
Categories : About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Online Marketing
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My Business Website: Content for Customers… or SEO?

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, December 12th, 2012

Should my business website focus on keywords and getting search engine results? Or quality content for customers?

Perhaps a more important question is “How do I make the most of each of my web pages so that my business and I get found, get known, and get clients?”

The challenge:

You want to make sure that your business website is fresh, attractive and informative. People visiting your website want to see something that piques their curiosity in you and your products and services.

Or put another way, you want to satisfy readers who ask: “What are you going to do for me that will… (Fill in the blank).”

Always keep that ideal customer in mind when crafting your message. The content must be relevant, new and, of course, SEO “friendly.” This last requirement can seem the most daunting, especially for non-technical professionals who are less familiar with websites and online content marketing.

The “SEO Friendly” site:

For good SEO results, each page needs to be both keyword-rich and current. That means pages are updated frequently with good (relevant) content that is keyword-rich and unique, and appeals to what customers seek. You need to make your keywords obvious.

Do not use a template or basic page format and tweak the content. Search engines will not know which page to rank for what keywords. Similarly formatted content can easily be classified as duplicate content and you risk being penalized or ignored by the search engines. Read More→

Categories : Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, How to...Tips, Online Marketing, Writing for the Web
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How Blog Readers Find You – A Diagram

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, November 14th, 2012

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:  a business blog is the best way to get found online, the best way to connect with potential clients, and the pathway to turning readers into clients.

So, what’s your favorite excuse for not blogging for your business?

I keep hearing the same reasons, over and over.

Top 3 Excuses for Not Blogging:

  • “I don’t have time to blog.”
  • “My clients aren’t surfing the Web reading blogs.”
  • “Oh, that means I’ve got to write about my business every week?”

There are over a billion people connected to the Internet. I’m willing to bet my lunch money that quite a few of them fall into the category of “your ideal clients.”

It’s not likely they go online looking for you, your business or your blog. I’m not saying that. But they do go to search engines and they type in questions with keywords.

And they do go to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Here’s what this looks like, how readers find your blog, in this Smart Draw diagram I did:

How Readers Find Your Business Blog

Read More→

Categories : About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Getting Read
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Content Marketing with Blogs: Online Persuasion

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, October 24th, 2012

Want to know more about online persuasion and how you can write content that gets results? Here’s a quick one minute video promoting my Content Marketing with Blogs ebook.

The e-book formatting and design was done by my son-in-law, expert graphic designer and creative genius, Scott Krakoff. Tell me what you think…

If you haven’t downloaded it yet, be my guest: Content Marketing with Blogs…

Categories : About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Brain Based Content Marketing, Content Marketing, Content Marketing with Videos
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How Content Marketing Works on Pinterest

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, September 19th, 2012

For a social media site to truly step into the spotlight, it has to have something special. Pinterest is one show-stopping sharing site that has taken the Web world by storm. A study done by Shopify, shows the growth of this site is better than Facebook and Twitter at the same point in their history. So how does your content marketing strategy work for this site?

According to Wikipedia, Pinterest is a pinboard-style social photo sharing website that allows users to create and manage theme-based image collections such as events, interests, hobbies, and more. Users can browse other pinboards for inspiration, ‘re-pin’ images to their own collections or ‘like’ photos. Their mission is to “connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting” via a global platform of inspiration and idea sharing.

Orders from Pinterest are double those of Facebook and the site is the leader in average dollar amount per order, over sites such as Google, Amazon and Bing. Marketers are trying to find the best ways to leverage their companies and clients on this photo-driven site. So, how do these online marketing professionals incorporate content marketing while on Pinterest?

What to Share

For sure, this new social site is a no-brainer for retail stores and e-Commerce sites. However, if you’re in a B2B business or sell services or have products that might be tricky to show off on an image driven site, what to share as part of your content marketing strategy can be a roadblock. Read More→

Categories : Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Social Media Stuff
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