Archive for Content Marketing – Page 86

Pathway to Profits: Don’t forget your underwear!

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Getting ready for my road trip from San Diego to Los Angeles is easy. Getting my business tasks in order so I can be away for 4 days without worry, is another thing. And it’s much more important to me than remembering to take a toothbrush or underpants…

Those things can be bought. Losing out on sales with clients, well, that can’t be replaced.

Fortunately, like many smart professionals, I’ve got Kick Start Cart set up and working in the background. It’s like underwear for my business!

Ebooks will be sold in my absence, teleseminar information will go out by autoresponders, and ezines will be delivered on the usual day without my having to do anything. Except set it up ahead of time.

That’s why Denise and I tell our clients who are new to marketing online that the two most important tools to set up first are your shopping cart system and a blog. No, not a website. You can function with just a blog, as long as you have the Cart.

In our series of how to use content to market your business and make money online, these two  important tools are what you must set up first in what we call our Pathway to Profitstm.

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Content Theft & Web Plagiarism: One man fights back

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Jonathan Bailey knows first hand how plagiarists work on the web. And he also knows how to fight them. On the heels of our teleseminar with attorney Jay Hollander about how to protect your creative assets, we’ve found another resource to help hard working professionals.

His blog is called Plagiarism Today. Read his story about what happened to him and what he’s done about it. Besides being well informed about the action steps you need to take when this happens to you (note the use of  ‘when’ rather than ‘if’), he’s even created forms and templates for tracking and reporting offenders.

While not a lawyer, he’s been having a 95% success rate helping others resolve Web plagiarism. Here’s his disclaimer: "I am not a lawyer. I am just a legally-minded Webmaster/Writer frustrated with the plague of plagiarism online and doing something about it."

We hope this doesn’t happen to you, but know there are things you can do when it does. Has it happened to you already?

Mega Speaking Event gets Patsi out from behind her computer…

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Road Trip!
I’m driving to L.A. on Thursday to attend Mark Victor Hansen’s 3 day Mega Speaking Event at the Westin LAX. If you’re going, please let me know and let’s meet up.

Yes, I’m going to vacate my cozy home office, abandon my tennis matches, and appear at a LIVE event. It’s okay, I’m taking my trusty laptop and will be hiding in the back of the room.

I know, I know…I just did the L.A. drive and live-person workshop last week. What’s wrong with me? Have I flipped my introverted wig? Or am I just tallying up tax deductions before the end of the year?

Apparently I’m in a learning mode: copywriting last week, speaking this week. Next week it’s off to Las Vegas for the BlogWorld and New Media Expo! I’ll be fried and ready for a year in a library after all this.

The Blog Squad is splitting up to soak up as much professional development as possible. Denise is attending  Ken McCarthy’s System Intensive Saturday in Los Angeles at the very same Westin hotel at the airport. So if you can join us for lunch or dinner, let us know.

And, by the way, if you want to go to the BIG BlogWorld and New Media Expo you can get a 15% discount on your registration as a Blog Squad VIP.
Use promo code BSVIP to get your discount.

Hey, it’s a good excuse to go to Las Vegas, and The Hubby is joining me for a naughty weekend!

16 Copywriting Steps: How to write a sales letter

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Last week I joined colleagues at Lorrie Morgan Ferrero’s one day copywriting workshop in Burbank. If you are selling information products online, or giving teleseminars, you will need to learn the basics of copywriting sales letters for landing pages.

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Pictured here are Lorrie and I, and Lisa Manyon, Creative Writing Services, LouAnn Savage, and me.

Here’s Lorrie Morgan Ferrero’s copywriting steps for a sales letter:

  1. Research first – Identify the problem, agitate, solve
  2. Openings – open with stories- Stories are relationship building, lowers resistance, engages readers and connects with them
  3. Copy should be scannable, use subheadings and lists
  4. List the facts with bullets, features and benefits – State a feature, then say "so that…" and give the benefit of that feature to customers

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Protecting Your Assets- Teleseminar on Web Legal Issues

Contenttheft
Not all disasters are natural. Some are intentional, such as content theft on the Web, and trademark infringements. That’s why our upcoming teleseminar on protecting your intellectual property is so important.

Without being disrespectful or insensitive to those affected by the fires, I want to urge you to take precautions to protect your business by being informed of legal issues.

I urge you to learn more about protecting your creative assets. If you do any kind of publishing online, whether it’s your website brochure, or you’re blogging about your business, or you have content online to spotlight your expertise, please, don’t be casual about this.

You spend a lot of time writing your content, designing your materials, and creating documents and programs. Don’t let yourself and your business be vulnerable and open to content theft.

Also at risk is your brand: have you taken the necessary steps to protect yourself with trademarks? Just registering a domain name isn’t enough.

There’s a lot to know and worry about when you’re running a business. I like to take precautions so I don’t have to worry.

That’s why Denise and I have invited attorney Jay Hollander, Esq. to inform our listeners about protecting your intellectual assets on the Web on a teleseminar this Tuesday October 30th.

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Teaching, Writing, and Making Money Online

Teaching Sells Free Report

Have  you read Brian Clark’s Teaching Sells free report yet? Do it now. Brian says what I want to say, only better, way better. Read it and look at what he does by writing this significant report:

Brian creates a mindset for learning by linking historical events to what is going on right now with
Internet businesses trying to make money the wrong ways, and putting events into perspective. He wakes you up to opportunities right under your noses you might not be seeing. And he creates a desire to learn more. He demonstrates clearly that teaching does sell, and offers you that opportunity to learn more.

That opportunity to learn is in the form of a Teaching Sells 3-month training course, only open to charter members until next Wednesday October 31, 2007. If you’re in any business and want to learn how to make money online the right way, register for this course presented by Brian and his partner Tony Clark.

For example, you probably realized this already, but do you recognize this huge significance to your business?

From page 18:

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A Personal Story Backfires…

In trying to be more personal and share my own experiences, I goofed. Yesterday, I wrote about the San Diego fires in an email promotion. I said I thought the reason there weren’t more deaths is that people were more prepared to evacuate early – much earlier than they were in 2003.

In that fire, there were more deaths because people waited until the last minute to evacuate. In my email message, I meant to express that preparation and caution were good things in times of disasters. Even though packing up and evacuating was a real pain for our household, being prepared is worth it.

Then I made an error in using this story. Here’s my mistake: I went on to say that you need to be prepared and cautious about protecting your online business too.

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Pathway to Profits: A general plan for making money with content

Let me ask you… What do you want your content marketing efforts to accomplish for you?

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Here’s a general plan, what we call our "Pathway to Profits…" It starts like this:

• Communicate with prospects and customers
• Build relationships with both prospects, customers, and strategic partners
• Create informational products
• Give information away and sell some
• Up-sell current customers to higher ticket products
• Attract more people to your business through useful content
• Keep building your list of prospects by providing more useful, relevant content to readers

Soak, wash, rinse… and repeat.

We think that a blog is the best way to provide content to people who need solutions to problems. But there are other important elements necessary to make the pathway go from content to marketing to sales and profit.

Next up – The second most important step: using a great shopping cart and database management tool.

Pathway to Profits: Blog First

Stairway_concept_ii_opening_doorThe first thing we recommend for any professional or business that wants to go online to grow business is to set up a business blog.

What about a website? Well, you can put up a website if you want, but if you want to get results (get published, get found, get clients) right away, then starting a blog is the best bang for your buck.

A blog is your first priority. Because a blog will get you found quickly on the Web by the people who need you, we recommend starting a business blog even before a website, if you don’t have one already.

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Pathway to Profits: The Content Journey Begins with a Map

Pin_in_mapIn our Blogging and Beyond Mentor Group, on the private membership site, we expose our students to many different tools that can accelerate online marketing success.

Writing content that attracts readers to your business is essential. It can seem overwhelming at first when a professional is told that to market successfully online, he or she must produce quality content and publish in 3-4 sites using multiple tools and media distribution.

You need a Content Plan, a map of what you will write about, and where you will publish each type of content. You also need to cover several content categories. No matter what your business or niche, you will have several topics you need to cover.

This is the first of several suggested pathways to start your journey for successful online marketing.

We suggest sitting down to make a plan. Write it down. Map out where you want to go, and then make a list of how you’re going to get there. You will need to set up a blog, a shopping cart and database management system, maybe a website (or use your blog as a website), a newsletter, and other information products (teleseminars, podcasts, ecourses and ebooks).

Step One – Get clear on your business. Write out the answers to these questions:

  1. What business am I in? (General category, industry, and service or product you provide)
  2. Who is my ideal client/reader? (Describe in as many details as possible)
  3. What am I passionate about? (What is my specific expertise?)
  4. Why should readers believe what I say or write (what makes me an expert?)
  5. What are the 3-5 biggest pain points/challenges my clients experience?
  6. What 5 problems do I solve for my clients and customers?
  7. What are 5-7 sub-topics that I need to write about to establish my expertise and credibility?

Once you are clear on your purpose, only then can you decide which tool to use to distribute your content: blog, ezine, email, teleseminar, ebook, etc.

Next: Step 2 – Blog First?