Archive for Online Marketing – Page 34

Recession-proof Your Business: Listen to What the Experts Do

By Patsi Krakoff
Thursday, January 29th, 2009

(Please note: the following blog post is a promotional announcement about our January 09 CD sale. The CDs are offered at a 61% discount. The sale ends when supplies end, or when February comes around…)

Problems
"Every single money-sucking business problem you have is going to be resolved, one way or the other."

That's
what I heard the other day, and it's true. Whatever your problems, with
your business or your blog, things either solve themselves…or you
aren't in business any more!

No business, no problem! I know, that's rather grim, but maybe you could use a little help so this doesn't happen…

Do what smart professionals do:  Get immediate
professional advice and learn what you need to do differently:

  • Get a healthy Reality Check on your situation…
  • Fix the profit-leaks in your business, for your blog and all your content marketing efforts…
  • Learn how the smart pros like Tom Antion, Joan Stewart and The Blog
    Squad are still reeling in leads and converting them to customers…
  • And quickly get busy making your business work like crazy

Read More→

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Writing for the Web, Writing Great White Papers

7 Top Ten Ways to Get Readers to Respond – What’s Missing on this List?

By Patsi Krakoff
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

10-winner-3d-symbol-isolated
"Calls to Action" isn't just about asking for the sale. When it comes to writing content that markets for your business, you must interact with readers and get them involved long before you ever ask for the sale.

In Leesa Barnes' recent Blog Squad interview on Social Media Telesummit II, we talked a lot about how blog authors must actively encourage audience participation. Here are 7 out of 10 ways to do that:

  1. Run a poll
  2. Ask readers questions and ask them to comment
  3. Do a survey
  4. Run a contest
  5. Ask them to submit their tips, ideas, and suggestions. Example, a post I titled, “What would you tell this professional to do?” brought in many comments
  6. Ask them to contribute resources and links
  7. Write a top ten list of great blogs in your field, then ask them to contribute additional ones. This will let you know what your readers are reading and give you an idea of what they appreciate. (This is a great way to build links because people on your top ten list will post on their blog about being included in your list…)

What's missing from this list? Any other suggestions? What is one of your most responsive tactics? Hit the comment link below and share…

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Writing Great Blog Content

Get the Best Out of Your Business Blog

By Patsi Krakoff
Thursday, January 22nd, 2009

Social Media TeleSummit
You won't want to miss Leesa Barnes’ Social Media Summit II.
It's Leesa's second year of presenting the telesummit with expert info
on what's new in Social Media and what you really need to pay attention
to for growing your business on the Web.

On Friday, January 23, 2009, at 1:30 p.m. ET, The Blog Squad presents this program:

Get the Best Out of Your Blog: How to Create Massive Visibility on The Web

Think
about it: Many of your ideal clients go online every day, and some have
problems only you can solve …but sadly, most of them can't find you.

In
order to build desire for your products and services you need to be
findable online. If you want to take your business from doing OK to
doing great, you need to have massive visibility online. With the
proliferation of easy-to-use web tools, you can easily connect with
more people than ever before.

If your goal is to transform
people's lives doing what you love, then you need to create massive
visibility online. The best way to do that is with a business blog
that's optimized.

You'll learn how to use your blog to:

  • Get you massive visibility so your ideal clients can find you
  • Reverse the client chase, to attract your ideal clients online, spending less than 30 minutes a day and $10 a month
  • Tap into the pool of 1.4 billion people world-wide who are connected to the Internet and looking for information and solutions
  • Connect with ideal clients in a more intimate way so they are
    driven to contact you, already pre-sold to buy your products or services
  • Leverage the power social networking sites without wasting your time

Don't waste time trying to guess what's best. Learn from the experts. For more info and to register, click here.

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, Managing Your Ezine & Blog Tasks, Online Marketing

3 Ways to Write Content that Brings In Business

By Patsi Krakoff
Sunday, January 18th, 2009

Business-woman
Denise Wakeman answers a question over on our Build a Better Blog site that's an important key to effective business blogging: 3 Ways to Motivate Blog Readers to Take Action.

This is a key piece of the content marketing puzzle: how do you write so that readers become clients or customers? How do you provide valuable content that educates readers yet also works to bring in new business?

Denise"s response is this:

  1. Connect with readers on your blog
  2. Interact with them on your blog
  3. Move readers off your blog to a deeper experience

This same good advice can apply to other things you write. After the main body of an article, email broadcast, newsletter or blog post, provide opportunities for people to get more involved: download a free report, attend a teleseminar, or meet in
person at conferences and workshops.

Read More→

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

Learn to use social networking sites for your own business…

By Patsi Krakoff
Thursday, January 15th, 2009

 SocialMediaTelesummitJan09-800wi Social Media Telesummit 2009 with Leesa Barnes

Here's an opportunity to learn what's needed for your business about using these new online networking and social sharing sites.

An eight day online event with 18 social media marketing experts.

The Blog Squad will be presenting on January 23 at 1:30 p.m. PT about…you guessed it…business blogging.

There are so many great speakers that I will be attending most of the events as well, or at the very least listening to the audio replays.

The social media landscape is evolving so fast that it's critical for businesses to not only use social media marketing in order stay ahead of your competition, but also learn best practices so you get the most bang for your buck and your time.

Join Denise and I for the Social Media Telesummit!

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, Online Marketing

How to Write for the Web – Copywriting Intensive

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, January 14th, 2009

Sign_up
 Here's an opportunity to immerse yourself for three days and learn how to write great content for the Web. This is important for any small business professional, even if you hire a copywriter for your big projects.

Why? Because everything you write on the Web, your blog posts, your Twitter messages, your email broadcasts, should do all of these things:

  1. Grab the attention of your ideal prospects
  2. Keep them interested to read your entire message
  3. Connect with them on a human level
  4. Provide useful information that appeals to learning styles
  5. Move your readers to some sort of action

Otherwise, your content will not market you, or build your brand, it won't attract the right people, and your business won't grow using the magnetic power of the Internet.

No other skill is as important than writing for the Web. Okay, delivering your products and services is important, but if your writing doesn't interest prospects, you won't have customers!

The American Writers and Artists Inc. (AWAI) is teaching what you need to know about web writing:

AWAI Web Copywriting Intensive:
Words That Work – Converting Your Web Traffic to Cash!
Austin, Texas, February 15-18, 2009

Read More→

Categories : Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing, Writing for Others, Freelancing, Writing for the Web, Writing Great Copy

What would you tell this professional about starting a blog?

By Patsi Krakoff
Tuesday, January 13th, 2009

Internet-communication
I got an email today from someone in Switzerland wondering if she should start a business blog:

Dear Patsi:

I am a counsellor and life Coach based in Geneva, Switzerland. I have had my own practice for 11 years, but now I would like to take it to the next level and increase my client base. I have been thoroughly intrigued by your views that Blogs are the way to  go  "Fishing"!

I specialize in the field of eating  disorders anorexia and bulimia. One of the things I want  to do is get the word out to a maximum amount of people about the groups I run for the mothers and other family members of people suffering from anorexia.

Question: can you see blogging being used effectively for this or does this fall outside the topics most generally used?

Maureen Pilkington
Citadelle-counselling.ch

Here's my reply:

Maureen, most definitely. I'm sure if you do a search on the web you will find other professionals already blogging about this topic. This is a good thing for you, because joining in and commenting on other blogs is a way to get attention and get readers back to your own blog.

In fact, that is the best way to go about starting a blog in a topic: research on what's out there already. Look at what's being done that's effective, and what's not. There are usually many professionals AND amateurs out there in any niche. Some will be good, some not.

Remember that blogs started out as online diaries, but a business blog isn't about writing personal stuff, rather should be used as a marketing tool by building relationships, reporting case studies, sharing client successes and challenges.

It's the best way to get found, attract ideal clients, and establish your expertise. A website won't easily do what a blog will. Your business blog is a place to publish content, communicate your core values and beliefs and have a conversation with people who need your services.

What else would you tell someone about starting a blog for a private practice in Geneva?

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Writing Great Blog Content

Social Media Survey – Find out what others are doing about it

By Patsi Krakoff
Saturday, January 10th, 2009

Very_good_survey_series
Wondering what to do about Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn? Want to know what other professionals online are doing, what you should pay attention to?

So many tools and sites fall under the term "social media": video,
blogs, twitter, facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon…do you really get it? Do
you know how to use social media to market your business or why you
should?

Take this survey that Michael Stelzner of Writing White Papers is running and you'll get a copy of the results.

He needs at least 1,000 people to take it in order to get some good results.

Take the survey here—>

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, Online Marketing

A Checklist for 2009 Content Marketing Plans

By Patsi Krakoff
Monday, January 5th, 2009

Rate-clipboard-chart
I've been reviewing my 2008 blog posts, email broadcasts and taking stock. I hope you're doing the same, so you'll get an idea of what's needed for your own business in 2009. Here's a checklist for reviewing your content marketing results so you can know where to spend your time and energy:

  • 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 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, On Writing Better, Online Marketing

How to Write an Email Promotion Message… 6 Rules to Guide You

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

Email-not-spam
This is my follow-up to yesterday's post: How NOT to Write an Email Promotion Message. It's so easy to pick out what's wrong with something; the real crux is in correcting an email to make it sizzle.

Pat McGraw of McGraw Marketing contributed a great comment which sums up what is wrong with the previous email message: "This laundry list of stuff has no clearly stated benefits and is more about the Famous Guru that it is about the recipient of the offer(s)."

I agree with Pat about what's wrong:

  1. No greeting, nothing with my name
  2. No reason given why this is important to me
  3. Only give me one thing to think about at a time, otherwise too many choice, no action will be taken.

There are others, but clearly the biggest one is not addressing the needs or wants of the reader. What's in it for me?

Even if I know who is sending me a message, I still need the reasons to care to be spelled out. Why? We're all busy with our own stuff. So if you don't spell it out for me, fuggitaboutit, I delete and move on.

Rule #1: Grab my attention. Here's a clue. I scan email headlines to decide what needs to be read. If your subject line isn't compelling, I ignore your email.

Read More→

Categories : Content Marketing, Email Marketing Tips, Online Marketing, Writing Great Copy
« Previous Page
Next Page »

Content for Coaches and Consultants

Serenity Virtual Assistant Services

Social Buzz Club

get your bright idea known