Archive for Pathway to Profits – Page 9

What Drives You?

By Patsi Krakoff
Saturday, November 10th, 2007

Success_sign_xxl I’m driven, that’s for sure. It’s such a great feeling to get up each day with new stuff to write and create. It’s exciting. And as one colleague said, "It sure beats working for a living!" I love my business and love what I do, so it doesn’t feel like work. Not always, of course, there’s the routine stuff too.

In our Pathway to Profits series of how to make money online, we tell clients to start with clarity of purpose. And of course that means a little introspection on what drives you. Maybe it’s just me, maybe  it’s not this way for most other people, but I have a heck of a time putting my finger on any one particular "driver."

Why is it I get up at 4 or 5 in the morning to do my work? Why do I care so deeply? I know I’m not driven by money. I’ve had plenty of it at times, and that doesn’t in itself make me happy.

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Categories : Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Pathway to Profits, Patsi's Story

Pathway to Profits: Don’t forget your underwear!

By Patsi Krakoff
Friday, November 2nd, 2007

Pink_bra_and_underwear
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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Categories : Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Pathway to Profits

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

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, October 17th, 2007

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

Money_laundry2
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.

Categories : Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Pathway to Profits

Pathway to Profits: Blog First

By Patsi Krakoff
Tuesday, October 16th, 2007

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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Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing, Pathway to Profits, Writing Great Blog Content

Pathway to Profits: The Content Journey Begins with a Map

By Patsi Krakoff
Thursday, October 11th, 2007

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?

Categories : Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Pathway to Profits, Writing for the Web, Writing Great Blog Content

Writing for Your Business: Here’s a Pathway to Profits

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, October 10th, 2007

Pathway
Writing for business: where to start? What’s the best path to follow if you want your writing to work for you?

If you want to successfully market your business on the Web, you have to write quite a bit. And I don’t only mean the copy on your Web pages, although that’s a start. You must write on a blog, write articles for your own website and for article syndication sites, write a newsletter, write press releases, and write a white paper.

Of course, being successful means selling something, so you also have to learn to write persuasively for your email promotions, landing pages, and autoresponders. That means learning copywriting, unless you can afford the big bucks for a copywriter.

On this blog, I’ve been covering many of these writing tasks. I started out covering what you need to know about writing a successful newsletter, but boy, has that evolved. This list of writing projects for successfully marketing your business online is big.

To avoid overwhelm, let’s break it down. I recently composed a special report for our Blogging and Beyond Mentor Program, describing a Pathway to Profits.

In the next few weeks, I’m going to break it down for you here: what is the sequence of writing tasks necessary when you take your business online and want to get found, get published, and get leads for your business?

There is “no one size fits all” solution for everyone who wants to do business on line. There is no one road to take to get to success. It’s truly different for everyone.

The person who is selling a book will have different needs than a person selling coaching services. It’s impossible to say "do it this way and you’ll be successful".

But ask anyone who makes money from their online marketing efforts and they’ll have followed some basic best practices. Stay tuned as I lead you down The Blog Squad’s Pathway to Profits(tm)…

Categories : Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing, Pathway to Profits, Writing for the Web
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