Archive for Content Marketing – Page 58

How to Write Some Serious Stuff…

By Patsi Krakoff
Monday, August 3rd, 2009

Conceptualizing I'm a writer. I write leadership development articles for executive coaches. Some serious stuff, you know? That's how I make my living. (I actually spend more of my time playing tennis and writing blog posts, but nobody pays me to do either of those things.)

(Justification for having fun: Writing blog posts helps keep me slightly famous, and gets me the odd referral. Tennis keeps my body and mind in shape. I can't write well unless my brain is healthy. So it's all good for keeping me afloat.)

I spent a bunch of money to go to a writer's retreat last week. Jennifer Louden has been gathering writers together for 8-9 years, bundling them off to beautiful Taos, New Mexico, and feeding them magical words to transform them  into better writers.

It's the only conference I've been to where one of the goals is to laugh your butts off. We also learned the Dance of Shiva and did yoga every day with the incredible Havi Brooks.

While there, I started my book and wrote 9,000 words of stories, most of which I really like. I had been putting this off for a decade, but I cracked through the starting block thanks to Jen and the group's magical powers.

Read More→

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, On Writing Better

Mid-Year Content Marketing Check List:
Are You On Track?

By Patsi Krakoff
Friday, July 31st, 2009

I just ran across this end-of-year check list for reviewing your business blog posts. It ties in with the 2 posts I wrote last week, about doing a mid-summer review of your content marketing efforts and How Do You Know if Your Content Marketing Is Working.

This is also a great way to review your content marketing efforts at the half-way, mid-summer point. Are you on track with your Content Marketing Goals?

  • What were your most effective blog posts in terms of numbers of page views?
  • Which posts generated the most comments?
  • What email promotional subject lines got the best open rates?
  • Which email newsletters titles got better open rates?
  • Which white paper or special report got good download rates?
  • Where did your most qualified leads come from?
  • Which teleseminar or webniar topics got the most registrations?
  • What were the press releases that got the most clicks?

You should also be taking a look at the quality of your writing, especially for your blog. If you want a good review of some sophisticated blog writing concepts, read Sonia Simone's review of the best of Copyblogger for 2008.

Related Posts:

5 Ways to Enrich Your Blog Posts

How Do You Write to Entertain?

Content Marketing Goals: Educate

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, Online Marketing

Other People’s Content: Let Your Fingers Do the Walking

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

Finger-walk Sometimes easy is better than hard. Finding great blog content for your business blog doesn't have to be a struggle. You can make great use of "OPC" – other people's content. I stumbled upon this tactic while trying to find blog content before going away on vacation.

Remember the old Yellow Pages ad, "Let your fingers do the walking?" Here's how to let your fingers do the heavy lifting. Everything is done by email, except of course the actual posting to your blog, but then, your fingers do the work there too.

The idea is to write a series of interview questions (5-7) about your core topic. Send them off by email to the 10 top experts in your field. Ask them for 5 minutes of their time to complete the emailed interview, and let them know you'd like to feature them on your blog.

Then run the interview series on your blog. This provides your blog readers with valuable, relevant content in addition to your own experiences and perspectives. Your readers will deepen their understanding of your topic.

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Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing

7 Keys to Content Marketing on a Business Blog:
Why a blog is not a newsletter

By Patsi Krakoff
Monday, July 27th, 2009

Blogger-with-community Content Marketing is the Buzz-du-Jour among marketers everywhere, both on and offline. I have encouraged you over the last five years to write relevant content on your business blogs that provides good information, builds relationships, entertains and converts readers to clients.

But here's the thing: how do you do all that when you write a blog post? Many business bloggers are using their blogs like e-newsletters. They write an article on a topic and post. Your blog isn't a newsletter, it's different.

In fact, some of the smart clients I've worked with to set up their blogs and train them tell me, "Oh, content isn't a problem for me. I've written dozens of articles. I'll just copy and paste them into my blog."

Wrong. Blog posts are meant to be conversations, not one-way information vehicles. It's not a lecture, or a newsletter. It's somewhere in between.

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Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, Online Marketing

The Spaghetti Content Marketing Plan: 14 Questions to Ask

By Patsi Krakoff
Saturday, July 25th, 2009

Spaghetti-around-fork You know the old saying about throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks? I've never understood why you would throw it in the first place, or what you do with it afterwards, yet some very smart professionals are using this as their content marketing strategy.

They've got a Facebook page, they Twitter for hours, they post on their blog (but not often enough), they're collecting subscribers with a form on their website (but they haven't actually sent out a newsletter just yet.)

You know what else I see people doing? They follow certain people on the Web they admire, take their teleseminars, but never act on the very advice they've paid too much money to listen to. After a year they get burned out and disenchanted with their gurus, find new ones, and start throwing spaghetti against the wall again.

I don't mean to be negative, and I really do feel bad when I see this happen. Probably because I've done it myself. I know what it feels like to know you "should" be doing something for your marketing but you never get around to it.

For myself, having lived with my quirks for a few decades, I know what gets me into action and what can trigger procrastination. I don't know what works for you, but you need to figure out what will get you over your humps. For me, having a clear plan and a schedule works.

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Categories : Content Marketing, Online Marketing

Why Content Marketing Online Isn’t Actually Free

By Patsi Krakoff
Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

Catching_with_money Independent professionals who use the Web for marketing their services can learn a lot from bigger businesses with big budgets. Take a look at where the guys with money are spending their marketing dollars and efforts. Then figure out the cheaper way to do what they're doing.

In a way, the Web is ideal for people who must work with little advertising budgets. Social sites like Facebook and Twitter are completely free. Time is the biggest constraining factor. Even so, you want the best return for your investment of time, energy and money.

Joe Pulizzi of Junta 42 wrote a post a couple of weeks ago that got me thinking. His information is directed towards companies who spend money advertising. Now many of them want to use content marketing to build business, and some expect it to be free. Read his post The Decline of Advertising and the Rise of Content Spending.

Here's an excerpt worth considering:

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Categories : Content Marketing, Online Marketing

Conquer the “What Do I Write Next” Conundrum…

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

Blonde_with_laptop My hubby asked me the other day, "How do you keep coming up with ideas to blog about?" I'm going to be gone the last week in July for a writers conference, and just finished pre-publishing 8 blog posts which will appear during my absence. (I'll tell you a secret trick for doing this at the end of the post…)

One of the reasons blog authors get stuck for content marketing ideas is that they start blogging without any forethought or plan. I know this because I did this myself. But it's never too late to stop and make a plan for your business blog, including an editorial calendar.

  • At the very least make a list of keywords that your readers would use if they were searching for solutions to their problems.
  • Make a list of categories that define the topics you write about. It's smart if these are focused on solving problems and helping your readers.
  • Then make sure your blog  posts cover all these categories and that you use the keywords in titles and in the body of your posts.

Lee Odden is a favorite search engine optimization expert (even though I only understand half of what he says! 😉 He's got a great post called 5 Tips for Successful Blog Optimization. I particularly appreciate his tip #3:

3. Plan editorial and source content. Unlike traditional publications, blogs do not typically have editorial calendars, but why not?  Use categories as an indication for the topics the blog should be posting about. Category keywords should support the business goals defined in the blog’s objectives.

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Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, How to...Tips, Online Marketing

How Do You Know If Your Content Marketing Is Working?

By Patsi Krakoff
Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

Results How 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?"

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, 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 they have those for blogs? Or for ezines? Or for overall Web
content marketing?

On Monday mornings, for example, you log into your Content Marketing
Analytical Account and get a print out of how well your content has
been doing:

  • Ezine: …75%
  • Blog: …82%
  • Articles…56%
  • Landing pages…
  • White Paper…
  • Free Report… etc. etc.

This software would compile all the results from your content
including sales, referrals, downloads, subscriptions, and inquiries and
give you an overall success rating. It would also tell you where you
needed to make improvements.

Read More→

Categories : Content Marketing, Online Marketing

Transparency & Trust: New Article Available for Coaches

By Patsi Krakoff
Monday, July 20th, 2009

CorrectedBanner  Part of what I do as a Content Marketing specialist is write articles for executive coaches and consultants (www.ContentforCoachesandConsultants.com). These can be up to 4,000 words in length and customized for a person, as in a recent white paper I did for a client.

Or, I also write non-exclusive content that can be used in newsletters and blogs about leadership development and issues of concern in organizations. I've just finished an article about transparency and trust, and it's available for purchase and use in company newsletters.

What's Needed Next: Transparency & Trust

An issue all organizations are facing now days is that of trust and transparency. A January 2009 Harvard Business Review survey revealed that, over the last year, readers reported having 76% less trust in U.S. companies’ senior management and 51% less trust in non-U.S. companies. (Of the 1,000+ respondents, 60% were based outside the United States.) That’s a significant drop in confidence levels.

Roughly half of all managers don’t trust their leaders. Exact figures and study results vary, but no data compiled over the last 7 years have shown more than 50% trust for company leaders.

Without trust and transparency inside a company, you won't get customers to trust and buy products.

What can you do to improve the quality of trust and transparency in your organization? There are seven steps you can take towards a culture of transparency and trust.

If you're an executive coach or consultant, you can use this article in your newsletters or blog by buying a subscription to ContentforCoachesandConsultants.com. Read the full synopsis here…

What's Needed Next: Transparency and Trust

Categories : Buying Content, Content Marketing, Executive Coach Ezine Article Topics

Mid-Summer Review: Content Marketing Check List for 2009

By Patsi Krakoff
Sunday, July 19th, 2009

Summer-beach-writing We're smack dab in the middle of 2009…and I'm wondering how you're doing with your content marketing efforts? I know I'm reviewing mine and what I see is a glaring lack of posted video clips to augment all the written content on my blogs, Twitter and Facebook updates.

Here's what I predicted at the end of 2008, along with some words of wisdom from Joe Pulizzi, Junta42:

"If 2008 was the year social media went
mainstream, 2009 should be the year of content marketing, the
corporation as media company, the brand as publisher and broadcaster,"
says Junta 42 publisher Joe Pulizzi.

It's
true that much of what you read these days about online marketing is
about using Twitter, Facebook and social sites effectively. And most of
what experts are saying about using these sites has to do with the
quality of your content marketing and how to tie into building your brand and
relationships.

If you haven't been keeping up with all this,
don't worry. Some of us just aren't early adopters. What is becoming crucial is
that we can no longer afford to NOT pay attention to content marketing,
be it on a blog, email newsletters, or on Twitter.

It doesn't
matter if you're part of a big corporation trying to brand and market
your products and services, or a solo professional or small business
owner.

Creating content that engages readers is the challenge.
You can forget going out and buying an ad. You've got to write – or
hire someone to write for you.

Read More→

Categories : About Blogs, Buying Content, Content Marketing, Online Marketing
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