Archive for How to…Tips – Page 19

Marketing Tip #5: Collecting Email Addresses

Just following up in our series of Top 10 Marketing Tips for Your Blog (or website). This 5th tip is about capturing names of your blog visitors.

This is how you will be able to follow up with them, and get them to keep coming back to your blog. If they don’t sign up, they have to go find you on the web each time.

Tip #5. Use your blog to collect names and email addresses of potential customers and clients. Make sure you have a subscription form on the upper right corner of your blog, from a service like www.FeedBlitz.com . This service sends automatic email updates of your new blog posts to interested readers and prospective customers.

There are many services out there, for free, that handle the database collection for you. The names reside on these 3rd party servers. The one we recommend is Feedblitz.com.

Just sign up for a free account, and follow their simple directions. They will generate some HTML code that you can copy and paste into a Typelist on your Typepad blog account, or any into any other  blog or website.

Directions on how to do this, step by step, is in our Build a Better Blog ebook. It’s not difficult, but if you prefer staying away from HTML code, ask your web person to handle this.

Book to Blog: Marketing Tip #4, Directory Submissions

Did you know there are more than 150 blog directories? Yep, and some of them specialize in blogs just like yours. But you can’t know this, or even begin to do the labor-intensive manual submission process unless you’ve got the list. Quite frankly, I wouldn’t spend my time doing this.

But it must be done, so that you start getting indexed by the search engine spiders. So here’s Marketing Tip #4:

4. Submit your blog to the 150+ blog directories. You can do this manually (10-12 hours of time), or there is a service that will do it for you for $95: http://snipurl.com/Blog_Directory.

Yes, that’s the Blog Squad’s own submission service, and yes, we can do a little self-promotion from time to time, especially when it has BIG benefits for you. No, we don’t actually do this work ourselves; we outsource to off-season elves in Santa’s workshop.

Blog to Book: Raise Your Hand in the Blogosphere

The Top 10 Ways to Market Your Book with a Blog continues with Step #3:

3. Participate in the blogosphere: Read and comment on other blogs in your field. This is a prime way to build readership of your blog. It is also a way of getting fresh content for both your blog and for your book.

Leaving comments is akin to raising your hand in the classroom or town hall meeting: every one turns to look at you and listen to what you have to say. Get out there and raise your hands.

Check out other blogs in your niche: use www.blogsearch.google.com, www.technorati.com, or www.google.com.

Even if you don’t have a blog yet, you should be researching what others are writing about on the web in your field. This is just plain Marketing 101. And finding other blogs in your niche will show you the possibilities.

Don’t worry, you’ll probably find as many bad blogs as good ones; and when you do, you will be inspired to do better. This is just plain Competition 101.

Blogs to Book: Get a Customized Banner (Tip #2)

Tip #2 of our series about 10 Ways to Market Your Book with a Blog is about branding your blog specifically for your book:

Continue the branding process that you started by getting a new domain name for your blog by creating a customized banner or logo for the book and putting it in the header of your blog.

The use of your customized branded header will mean your book gets instant recognition, and your blog will stand out from all the cookie-cutter look-alike blogs.

In fact you should do this anyway, book or not. Please, I am not practicing what I preach here on this blog. I’m purposely keeping this blog plain-jane. But most businesses and professionals will want to use graphics to create instant recognition, like what we have done on www.BuildaBetterBlog.com, or at www.biztipsblog.com, Denise’s marketing blog.

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Blogs to Book: 10 Tips – Name Your Blog

This is Tip #1 for using a blog to write and market a book, in a series of ten posts. Blogs and books really do go together. Denise and I are traveling to the Publishers Marketing Association conference in Washington DC next week, and we are speaking on two panels to promote this idea and our own Blog to Book Project.

These tips have a more general application as well, so even if you don’t have a book yet, pay attention.

Marketing Your Book with a Blog:

10 Must-Do Tactics to Attract more Buyers

1. Use a domain name for your blog that relates to your book title so it becomes known and “findable.” If your ideal domain is already taken, use a version of it such as “YourBookBlog.com,” or “YourBookOnline.com.” Forward that domain name to your blog so when people type in “YourBookBlog.com” it goes to your blog site.

This makes sense doesn’t it? If you already have a title for your book, that is. If not, take the foremost concept or crucial topic that you are writing about, and get a domain name. You want to make it easy for people to find you when they sit down and type in keywords in Google, or whatever search tool they use.

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That Guy with the Nametag, Scott Ginsberg: the Art of Approachability

Scottg Following up on my previous post about the importance of names, Scott Ginsberg engaged us all on the Wednesday evening Conversations with Experts teleseminar. Scott’s that guy who’s been wearing a silly name tag "Hello, My Name is Scott" for the past 1,984 days! Yikes, that’s 5 1/2 years…

That silly name tag gets results: he’s been called by editors of national magazines, even the NBC Today Show. Talk about capturing a simple idea and running with it. Several books and shows later…well, maybe he’s not a household name, but he’s certainly made a name for himself, "that guy with the nametag."

Scott tell us that anybody can "own a word." In fact he suggests you email 15-20 friends or colleagues and ask them what comes to mind as a word that encapsulates you and your business. Most of us already own several words, we’re just not using them for maximum memorability, findability, and approachability.

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Name Game: How Important is Your Label?

It’s not just your headline that’s the most important name you have to consider for getting read. Every name you use, whether for your company, your blog, your website, your newsletter, or for a specific product can get you stellar results…or not.

Here’s a real world example from my own experiences. Denise Wakeman and I discovered the beauty of blogs for professional communications and fell in love with them. We turned our passion into a service with products in the form of several ebooks that we offer for sale.

It wasn’t until we got the hot irons out and branded ourselves as The Blog Squad that biz really took off. People love the name and the idea of two gals out there in the Blogosphere ready to help with your blogging challenges.

Our task this year was to name our corporation. As we solidify our partnership and expand our biz activities to include all of our skills and talents, not just blogging, we needed an official name that would never change, no matter what direction our services and products take us. For this, we will use our real names.

We are now changing the name of Newsletter Nuggets, our weekly ezine to Savvy eBiz Tips to more accurately reflect the focus on ways to save time and money with marketing tasks.

You’ll be hearing all about that this week as we launch a huge 1st year anniversary contest to build subscription to Savvy eBiz Tips by giving away two iPod nanos, preloaded with all our Conversations with Experts teleseminars, and a sleek new Razer Copperhead mouse.

My question this week, dear readers, is what does the term Savvy eBiz Tips mean to you? What would you expect to get in a newsletter devoted to tips on eBiz?

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More Email Tips for Marketing

This must be email tip week, what with Mari Smith appearing tonight on Conversations with Experts about Emails Th@t Sizzle!

Here are more great email tips, these excerpted from Rich Frishman, Jay Conrad Levinson & Jill Lublin’s book Guerilla Publicity.

In Praise of E-Mail: 15 Reasons Why Guerrillas Love E-Mail

1. E-mail is efficient. It’s quick, easy to use and conserves time.

2. E-mail gets through. You can reach busy, powerful people who won’t ordinarily take or return your phone calls via e-mail.

3. E-mail has become the publicists’ most powerful tool. Sending short, gentle reminders helps publicists balance the need to continually follow-up and the danger that in doing so they might alienate important media contacts.

4. E-mail gets right to the point. E-mail etiquette encourages brevity and precision.

5. E-mail allows for Quick, Clear Messages.

6. E-mail can contain links to your website or other sites.

7. E-mail lets you transmit bulky files instantly.

8. E-mail delivers even when unread. When recipients don’t read their e-mail, they usually check to see what came in and who sent it. The subject line on e-mail inboxes provides a small space in which you can convey the gist of your message. It keeps you on the recipients’ radar, even if they don’t open your mail.

9. E-mail eludes electronic fences. E-mail gets past secretaries, answering machines, voice mail.

10. E-mail is a versatile marketing tool. It’s ideal for sending newsletters, fliers, and other promotional materials without incurring the costs of printing and mailing.

11. E-mail domain names can promote your business. Invest in a domain name that includes the name of your business.

12. E-mail signature files are the equivalent of letterheads on stationary. Make sure to include your contact information in your signature file.

13. E-mail demonstrates that you’re firmly in the 21st century.

14. E-mail shifts the cost and burden from senders to recipient.

15. E-mail has revived the lost art of letter writing.

An excerpt from the National Best-Seller GUERRILLA PUBLICITY: Hundreds of Sure-fire Tactics to Get Maximum Sales for Minimum Dollars by Rick Frishman, Jill Lublin and Jay Conrad Levinson.

Rick Frishman wants you to know that you can attend his seminar in Washington DC on Friday May 18, just prior to the Book Expo: http://www.author101university.com/. This is a must-attend crash course for publishing success.

Emails: Adding More Spice

I am looking forward to the conversation with Mari Smith, Emails Th@t Sizzle, this Wednesday (see post below for info). As a follow up to my post on using caricatures instead of stodgy photos, here’s an image Denise and I had created for our Blog Squad partnership:

Blogsquaddpimage We started out with a couple of head shots, gave them to our trusty graphic designer who then created something special.

I imagine you can get any body you want. Without dieting or buying a new Armani suit…

To put an image like this into your email signature, in Outlook, go to Tools, Email Options, Mail Format, create a new signature, and at some point you will click Advanced Edit. A new email stationery will open up. Click on Insert, then Picture, then From File, and insert any image from your hard drive. Save it by naming this signature something that will identify it from the others.

You can also add images of your ebooks, or any branded logo you wish. Hope this is clear, if not, send me an email!

Caricatures Spice Up Your Emails

Patsicaricature1139339398tn Here’s an alternative to the staid professional mug shot: Dimple Art!

Evidently, for a small fee they will draw your face, and put it atop any body you choose. Of course, I chose Maria Sharapova’s body, but it looks like Maria overate…not sure about that backhand either…

A colleague of mine, Ernie Moore, is a coach and had his done atop of Superman’s body…why not? He’s a super coach.

Alternatively, you can choose just a face, as in this here:11393393991tn

Just havin’ a little fun here.