Archive for Content Marketing – Page 2

How a Product Funnel
Makes Blogging Profitable

Product-FunnelBuilding a product funnel on your blog is key to making all your hard work profitable.

As I explained in my previous post, a great product funnel provides your readers with an opportunity to get to know you, like you and trust you. You make compelling offers to your readers that they can receive from free to fee:

  • Some information for free, immediate download, no strings
  • Some information for an email address, which will prove you can be trusted to deliver good stuff and not abuse their email
  • Some valuable information worth paying for, even if it’s only a few dollars
  • Excellent products and services that deliver much more than expected, worth the price.

Read More→

Build a Product Funnel on Your Blog:
Make Your Content Marketing Profitable

FunnelAre you building a product funnel on your blog?

In my recent blog posts, I’ve been talking about ways to earn money blogging using two different methods:

  1. Sell products directly through your blog (or website)
  2. Sell products or services because of your blog, or indirectly

These are two key elements of a product funnel – a key internet marketing strategy that will help ensure that you are not leaving money on the table or missing opportunities to solidify the relationships your hard-earned content marketing efforts are creating. Read More→

How to Write Blog Posts: Awesome Graphic

Do you know how to write blog posts so that they actually get read? Some people think blogging is easy: Write it and it will be read. If you’ve ever written a blog post, you know that’s not true, and it’s hard to craft a post people will read. This infographic was created for Salesforce Canada and it says it all; it will help you put together a share-worthy post.

Click To Enlarge

Anatomy of a Blog Post

Via Salesforce

Blogging Strategies for
End-of-Year Business Blogs

How are you doing on your business blogging strategies for 2015?  Have you been hitting the targets and benchmarks you set for yourself?

I don’t believe in making New Year’s resolutions, but after 15+ years working with executive coaches and consultants, I know that having clearly defined goals and expectations for a business blog or website is critical to help you get found, get known, and get clients. Setting strategies and goals will improve how you show up on the Web.

If you haven’t set any goals, or you’re just starting out, here’s how you can still get in the game and get some traction in 2015. Read More→

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→

Tips on Writing a Great Blog Post:
Give it a Rest

Bird BandageIt’s the rainy season here in Mexico – a great time to do a lot of reading, writing and recovery – at least, that’s what I told myself when I scheduled my shoulder surgery.  But I’m having trouble with my blog writing.  And now I’m stuck. I’ve got Blogger’s Block.  (Yes, even experienced bloggers can get stuck from time to time.)

So I pull out my bag of great blog post tricks, and determine where I’m stuck in the process.  And that’s it.  I had altered my writing process.  But that shouldn’t matter… should it? 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→

Social Proof and LinkedIn:
‘Tis Better to Give, than Receive…

ExcellentAs I’ve shared in previous posts,  the value of social proof — referrals, recommendations, and client testimonials — cannot be underestimated.

Similar to how frequent, quality content enhances your website pages, social proof enhances your professional credibility.  When readers learn from the comments from other people about your business, they become your most persuasive sales people. Comments from others are such strong persuasion triggers, you shouldn’t limit them to just a page, but have them scattered throughout your web pages, blog, and social media profiles, such as LinkedIn.

With over 350 million members, and over 1 million members publishing blog posts on LinkedIn, you’re likely to encounter a few colleagues you know.  So make sure you take the time to recommend and endorse them.  Your recommendation or endorsement on LinkedIn is social proof for a other people; it signals that the person is qualified and recognized as a valued colleague. Read More→

Client Testimonials: Readers Know When They’re Phony

Client-TestimonialsThere’s no doubt that social proof is one of the key ways people decide to buy or try your products or services.  But if you don’t have a lot of clients, or you’re starting a new business or product, how do you get quality client testimonials?

I get asked about this by some of my consulting clients. Nothing can backfire and destroy trust and credibility more quickly than phony testimonials.

I was working with a client who – now that he owned his own business – didn’t feel comfortable using testimonials he had acquired when he was part of a team effort, working for someone else.

I don’t blame him. Even though he had a solid reputation as an expert in his field, he was concerned about authenticity and sincerity. He was afraid that the client’s comments were not genuine because they were not about his new company, products and services.  And he is right: Readers can smell a phony testimonial a mile away. Read More→

Social Proof: Why It’s So Important

Customer FeedbackWhy is social proof so important when writing on the web?

This week I got a call from a person who wanted to buy a subscription to executive coach articles to use for her new newsletter. What sealed the deal? The testimonials from other subscribers.

Recommendations, testimonials and client stories are a powerful persuasion tactic. It’s one of the key persuasion triggers that get people to take action. It’s called social proof.

Do you remember the landmark book Influence, by Robert Cialdini?  He wrote about six weapons of influence, and it turns out, social proof is one of the most powerful mechanisms for triggering buying decisions.

We are heavily influenced by social persuasion, we can’t help it. Our brains respond to our strong need to belong and fit in, and it all happens in our unconscious minds.

Read More→