Writing On The Web by Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad

Content Marketing Strategies for Smart Professionals

CoachEzines: About Writing Better Ezines, Blogs and Web Content

By Patsi Krakoff in Email Marketing Tips, Managing Your Ezine & Blog Tasks, On Writing Better

If you’ve landed here through StumbleUpon or some other way, I hope you’re looking for tips on writing better for your online business. I’m Patsi Krakoff and I write about online writing for ezines, business blogs and marketing on the Web.

Want to learn more about the best way to get your business found on the Web? Let me send you our free White Paper: The Great Internet Marketing Challenge: register here. You’ll learn a few things for sure, just sign up at www.onlinemarketingchallenge.com and we’ll send it to you immediately.

Be sure to subscribe using the Feedblitz sign up form in the upper left corner. You’ll get an email notice each time I write new stuff about writing online.

Online Success in Do-able Chunks with The Blog Squad’s Blogging and Beyond Mentor Program

By Patsi Krakoff in Ezine & Blog Classes, Managing Your Ezine & Blog Tasks, Online Marketing, Teleclasses & Seminars

If you need help with all or parts of your online marketing, (and who doesn’t?) join Denise and I in our Blogging and Beyond Mentor Program. Until May 8th at midnight ET, you can get the help you need on your blogs, newsletters, shopping cart, web writing tasks, and sales processes for less than $10 for the first month. Access tutorials, videos, audio files, and documents that break down the steps you need to follow for online success, plus monthly coaching calls. Details: visit www.theblogsquad.net/mentor.

Content that Convinces: 4 Tips for Email Marketing

By Patsi Krakoff in Email Marketing Tips, On Writing Better, Online Marketing

We’ve been reviewing a 6 step formula for online success over on our sister blog, Next Level Biz Tips. If you’ve missed the first parts, you can read them there:

6 Steps for Successful Online Marketing for Your Business
Step 1: Attract the right people
Step 2: Give People Something for Free to Grow Your Database

Step 3: Write Content that Convinces People You Are a Savvy & Trustworthy Person

Once people opt in to your list, you must stay in touch with them through email. Email marketing is an art and a science because you must be respectful, give plenty of value and still let people know you have products and services for them.

Chris Baggott’s new book Email Marketing By the Num8ers lays it all out for anyone wanting to learn how to market using email. (Shameless plug: I contributed to chapters 2 and 7!)

How do you write content for your email marketing messages? Many marketers focus on getting the results they want: a purchase, a registration, a new client.

If you go about it like a drunken frat boy at a party, you’ll get the door slammed in your face. Both Baggott and Seth Godin (Permission Marketing) say to approach your marketing like you would woo your future spouse.

Here’s a short list to guide you when writing a follow-up email message to people on your list. Make sure you:

1. Focus on the reader
2. Focus on the benefits to the reader of what you are offering
3. Write to inform and educate, not to tell or sell
4. Write to build a long-term relationship not a one-night stand

Why are your email messages so important?

Failure to Thrive: Why Many Online Businesses Don’t Make It

By Patsi Krakoff in Online Marketing

I just wrote an article and posted it to our Biz Tips Blog : The Real Reason So Many Online Businesses Fail. Rather than re-post it here, I invite you to go over there to read what I think is the main reason so many Internet entrepreneurs and writers struggle…

After you read the article, please comment and tell me if you think I’m right or out to lunch on this one!

I’ll be posting a series of articles each day this week leading up to Tuesday May 8th. That is the last day you can join The Blog Squad’s mentoring program, Blogging and Beyond, for the low introductory fee of $9.95.

Want to know more about how you can avoid failing online? Visit www.theblogsquad.net/mentor.

Do You Write for Spiders, Readers, or Your Ego?

By Patsi Krakoff in Newsletter Nuggets Ezine

Newsletter Nuggets: May 03, 2007
…tips and tricks for writing great ezines and blogs

1. A Note from Patsi: Do You Write for Spiders, Readers, or Your Ego?
2. Blogging & Beyond Mentor Program: The Best Darn $10 Investment
3. May 07 Featured Article: Great Expectations: The Boss/Direct Report Tango
4. What’s New on the Blogs?

A note from Patsi –

Do You Write for Spiders, Readers, or Your Ego?
©2007 Patsi Krakoff, Psy.D., & Denise Wakeman: The Blog Squadtm

I just read an email from one of those AdSense traffic guys – you know, the ones who put up multiple web sites with keywords built into the content solely for the purpose of getting traffic and click-throughs on ads?

I think they call them `black hat specialists’ for their less than natural ways of trying to game Google.

Words = Money

In any case, these guys are making money with words on a web page. Sometimes it’s $2 or $4/a day, but if you put up enough of these sites, you can generate $2000 to $4000 a month. And, it’s not like ‘real’ work either. So who am I to criticize?

Do you make money with your words?

Or are your web sites, blogs, and landing pages just d‚cor for your ego, something to show your friends and family?

What Is It That You Do, Really?

What I’m noticing is that there are different kinds of writers on the web: those who write for the spiders, and those who write for their egos. Nothing wrong with either.

Those AdSense guys write for the spiders to crawl their sites and bring in traffic from search engines.

Most of the rest of us, especially we professionals with a business who aren’t trained in copywriting or marketing, well, we’re writing about ourselves, our business, our products and our services. We’re writing for our egos.

A Premier Class of Web Writers

It doesn’t have to be that way. Here’s what the savvy web writers do: they write for the customer, the client, the readers, and all the web surfers looking for solutions to problems.

Their words also equal traffic and money. They understand it’s all about benefits, not features. Nobody cares what you do for a living, really. But everybody’s got problems that need solving.

So the next time you have some writing to do for your business – be it a web page, landing page, sales page, a press release, an ezine, a blog post – remember this:

– Write for the reader
– Write for your ideal customer
– Write to solve a problem

Oh, while you’re at it, use some keywords to keep the spiders happy.

Little Miss Muffit 😉

Niche Blogs Corner the Long Tail

By Patsi Krakoff in About Blogs, Online Marketing, Teleclasses & Seminars

Join Denise and I this Thursday as we interview Shirley Frazier about niche blogging.

Blogging and Beyond with The Blog Squad, Patsi Krakoff, Psy. D., and Denise Wakeman
With Guest Expert: Shirley Frazier, president Sweet Survival and SoloBusinessMarketing.com

Thursday, May 3rd 2007
3:00 p.m. PT (6 p.m. ET)

How to Use a Niche Blog to Corner Your Market

Why do some blogs take off right away, and others seem to languish
without traffic? What does the solo business professional need to know
in order to use the power of blogs and online marketing to get found
and get clients?

Blogs have quickly become a smart way to find people interested in a specialized niche,those customers often found way out in the long tail of marketing statistics.

The Blog Squad interviews Shirley Frazier, SoloBusinessMarketing.com and publisher of the wildy successful GiftBasketBusiness.com blog on how to find a niche that works and what you need to do to corner your niche market.

Writng for Money, Spiders, or Ego?

By Patsi Krakoff in On Writing Better, Online Marketing, Writing for the Web

Words = Money

I just read an email from one of those AdSense traffic guys – you know, the ones that put up multiple web sites with keywords built into the content solely for the purpose of getting traffic and click-throughs on ads?

I think they call them ‘black hat specialists’ for their less than natural ways of trying to game Google.

In any case, these guys are making money using words on a web page. Sometimes it’s $2 or $4/a day, but if you put up enough of these sites, you can generate $2000 to $4000 a month. And, it’s not like ‘real’ work either. So who am I to criticize?

Do you make money with your words? Here’s what I see among the different kinds of people writing on the web: There are those who write for the spiders, write for their egos, and those who write for money.

Blog Squad’s Mentoring Program Opens Up

By Patsi Krakoff in Online Marketing, Teleclasses & Seminars

Big Announcement this week for professionals who need help with their online marketing!

What do 97 savvy professionals have in common?

They all participated in the successful Blogging and Beyond Mentor Program with The Blog Squad.

Now it’s your turn.
Denise and I are opening this program to you at a fantastically reduced introductory fee so you can experience it for yourself.

Yes, for the price of a couple of Starbucks frappaccinos, you can put more boost into your marketing than a shot of caffeine!

The Blogging and Beyond Mentor Program gives you a competitive edge for marketing your business online. Learn what you need to know about blogs, ezines, shopping carts, info products and selling online.

Want to know more? We have an audio note for you. Get the details now.

P.S. The introductory offer ends on May 8. Take action today.

By Patsi Krakoff in Uncategorized

Email Marketing by the Numbers

Chris Baggott’s new book, Email Marketing By The Numbers, is now available on Amazon.com. Why are we excited about this? Well, I’m one of the featured authors. It’s a "compendium of ideas" culled from many people.

I was going to wait until I got my copy to sing praises, but heck, why wait. It’s good. I know because I saw the copy before it went to the printers.

It is a great way to understand the power of email marketing, and to get latest best practices for ezines. It doesn’t matter if you are a lone professional or a big company, you need to understand email marketing if you’re going to leverage the power of the Internet for marketing.

Just so you know, the sound of horns in the background is me tooting: I’ve got 2 chapters in there!

Chris Baggott is Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of ExactTarget and we interviewed him on Blogging and Beyond in February about whether or not email is dead. Can you guess his answer?!