Writing On The Web by Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad

Content Marketing Strategies for Smart Professionals

Short and Snappy Means Smart and Savvy

By Patsi Krakoff in Writing Better Ezines

What is your core message? What is the purpose of your newsletter or blog? Have you written it out, and is it clear? If not, take some time to do it now. I see so many people who rush into getting out their newsletter or blog without a clear purpose. You need to know what your core message is because it will make writing easier and more interesting. Are your newsletters short and targeted?

Many of you know that I have changed my Newsletter Nuggets ezine from weekly to bi-monthly and revised it to focus on newsletter writing tips, and ezine article topics for executive coaches and consultants. To see the revised version, send an email to dr.patsi-159657@autocontactor.com.

Denise and I, as The Blog Squad, have taken the Internet marketing info out of Newsletter Nuggets, to form Savvy eBiz Tips, a weekly, plain text ezine, packed with information about using the Internet to grow your business.

You don’t need another newsletter that tries to cover all the bases, nor do you need one that takes too long to read.

Savvy eBiz Tips is delivered on demand, and gives you short tips on how to make your Internet marketing tasks easier and quicker.

Oh, did I mention that you can win an iPod this month, just for subscribing? Yep, go here to sign up and enter the contest. When you do, you will find out another way you can win an iPod and a Razer Copperhead mouse.

Ezine Queen Interviewed by Blog Squad, Patsi & Denise

By Patsi Krakoff in List Building Tips, Teleclasses & Seminars

The Ezine Queen’s 7-Step Plan for Building Your Ezine List
Wednesday, April 19, 2006, 8:30 p.m. ET – FREE
Guest Expert: Alexandria Brown, The Ezine Queen

Are you still struggling to grow your email list? You’re not alone. It’s one of many entrepreneurs’ biggest challenges. You can have the best products or services in the world. And you can send out the best ezine or emails in the world. But if you have NO LIST, you have no one to market to and buy your stuff!

And you may know of one or two methods, but you don’t have a step-by-step PLAN. Well, Alexandria Brown, “The Ezine Queen”, has a clear and simple 7-step plan for building your list and she’ll be sharing it on this call. Don’t miss it!

Alexandria K. Brown, The E-zine Queen, is the authority in driving business via e-mail publishing. Her award-winning tutorials, teleseminars, and workshops have taught thousands of solo professionals and small biz owners how to market online inexpensively to get more clients, customers, and long term sales. She’s author of the award-winning "Boost Business With Your Own E-zine" system.

She’s consulted for prominent companies such as New York Times Digital, Adweek Magazines, Scholastic Books, and Dun & Bradstreet, but her passion lies in showing small business owners how to create consistent streams of income using the Internet.

Alexandria has been interviewed by The Wall Street Journal and sponsored by Microsoft, and has been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine and countless marketing books including Confessions of Shameless Internet Promoters by Debbie Allen. Her Web site is EzineQueen.com.

If you cannot attend the live Conversation, you can pre-order the audio program for only $4.95. After the Conversation the price will be $9.95. Save 50% and pre-order the audio program now.

Conversations with Experts: How to Build Your Business On and Off-line
Hosted by Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff.

Conversations with Experts is sponsored by Build a Better Blog System.

CPR for the SOUL: Bonus Bonanza April 14 Only

By Patsi Krakoff in Coaching/Personal Development

Just a reminder, today’s the release day for Mike Jay’s CPR For The SOUL, the book on Amazon. Actually it is much, much more than a book. It is a program for taking your business and life to a higher level, by going deeper into who you are.

The bonuses when you buy the book on Amazon today are incredible. He’s offering weekly interviews with experts in the human and business development fields, and for that all you need to do is register. Denise and I will be interviewed by Mike on April 27.

Dr. Don Beck, founder of Spiral Dynamics Integral, wrote the forward, as an example of the kind of support and credibility that surrounds Mike.

CPR for the Soul: Mike Jay’s Book Release April 14

By Patsi Krakoff in Coaching/Personal Development

My colleague Mike Jay, a long time business coach, has been creating ebooks and audio programs for nearly 8 years, and has just completed an amazing book and series of programs called CPR For The SOUL.

If you invest in one personal growth program this year, this is it. There are many key products in CPR For the SOUL to assist you in understanding who you are at a deeper level. This contributes to building a successful business and marketing your practice, your products, and developing your ideas.

Here’s how you can participate:

You can purchase Mike’s new book tomorrow April 14, 2006, and pick up the free bonus package Mike has assembled to accompany the book for only 39.95, plus shipping.

Just click here for details on CPR For The SOUL.

For those of you who know the name, Mike Jay’s been training business coaches and is active in the Executive Coaching Summit held every year before the International Coach Federation conference. He founded B-Coach Systems from which I graduated in 2000.

He has an amazing grasp of both business and psychological systems which he synthesizes into programs for human and business growth.

So, forget Chicken Soup! This is CPR for the Soul!

Getting High Page Ranks: Use Amazon Backlinks?

By Patsi Krakoff in Promoting Your Ezine +/or Blog

Denise wrote about getting backlinks from Amazon, by writing a review of a book, and posting your profile on Amazon, with links to your site and blogs, over at our Build a Better Blog.

Since your site or blog is judged to be important by the search engines such as Google if great big important sites (like Amazon) link to you, this makes sense. Here’s some excerpts from the article, Backlinks from Amazon.com

Maybe I’m missing something here and web/SEO gurus who know way more about this can add to my limited knowledge, but if you were to set up a profile on Amazon.com that includes a link to your blog, then post book reviews, create Listmania lists and guides, wouldn’t that help your pagerank?

At the very least it can help create awareness for you and your business. If your review is substantial and provocative, a reader might click on the link for your name. That takes them to your profile and if that’s compelling, they may click on the link to your blog. Over the weekend I posted a review of Tom Antion’s book The Ultimate Guide to Electronic Marketing for Small Business. I’m going to make a point to post book reviews from here on out and see if it makes any difference.

Do you use this as a way to drive traffic to your blog? If so, what’s your experience?

Hate to admit this, but the astute people over at Amazon even sent me an email asking me to review the last 3 books I bought from them, and I ignored it, or rather put on my ‘to do’ list (that never gets done because it isn’t on my ‘urgent’ list).

Okay, okay, now I get why this is so important.

Win an iPod…and a Razer Mouse!

By Patsi Krakoff in Promoting Your Ezine +/or Blog

The Blog Squad Announces…

Win an iPod Contest

We’re giving away 2 iPod nanos and a sleek Razer mouse
to celebrate the first year of our "Build a Better
Blog" ebook and Conversations with Experts TeleSeries.

iPod Contest:

Here’s how you can win an iPod nano loaded with our
entire Conversations with Experts TeleSeries! To
celebrate The Blog Squad’s first anniversary, Denise
and I are giving away 2 iPod nanos, plus a sleek Razer
Copperhead mouse. There are 3 ways you can win:

1. Subscribe to our ezine, Savvy eBiz Tips. All new
subscribers are automatically entered into a random
drawing for 1 iPod nano, preloaded with 44+ hours of
Conversations with Experts. Use this link to
subscribe and enter the contest:

http://snipurl.com/SeBT_Contest

2. Enter by contributing your answer to this question:
"In your experience, what is the most important
marketing skill a professional must master to be
effective in the years to come?"

We will judge the winning answer based on relevance,
utility, creativity, and "smart and savviness."

Use this link to enter your answer:

http://snipurl.com/Question_Contest

3. If you are already a Savvy eBiz Tips subscriber,
you can win by referring the most number of friends
and colleagues who sign up. This prize is a sleek Razer
Copperhead mouse, the mouse that is so fast and precise,
you will save your wrist action. Use this link to
make your referrals:

http://snipurl.com/Contest_Referral

The Blog Squad’s free weekly ezine, Savvy eBiz Tips,
gives action-oriented steps for streamlining online
marketing tasks, including those for blogs,
newsletters, websites, and e-commerce systems.

We’ll be drawing the iPod and Razer mouse winners
the first week of May.

Good-luck!

Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff
The Blog Squad

Link Baiting NYTimes Style

By Patsi Krakoff in Promoting Your Ezine +/or Blog, Writing Great Copy

Gotta love it, this post by Brian Clark of Copyblogger. He writes about an astute headline published in the NY Times:

"This Boring Headline is Written for Google."

For those of you not familiar with "link baiting," it’s when you just know you are going to get picked up by the bloggers and get plenty of links back to you and your article…

Well, you know that bloggers drool when it comes to Mainstream Media and an opportunity to kick ’em in the shins, the ol’ David and Goliath thing.

Is it kosher? Sure, you can boost traffic this way. But the key is to get the right kind of traffic. Remember? You want those people to come to your blog or web site, but the ones who are going to become fans, clients, or referral sources for you and your business.

The point of the NY Times article? (Besides getting bloggers to write about them?) That headlines have to be written with key words so that searches on Google will be possible, and also they have to compel readers to read the article. And it shows how ‘Net savvy Goliath is becoming.

The Media & You: Joan Stewart, The Publicity Hound

By Patsi Krakoff in Teleclasses & Seminars

The Publicity Hound, Joan Stewart, will be barking up our tree this Wednesday, April 12 at 8:30 ET on Conversations with Experts teleseries. There’s no charge for attending, but you do have to register, and if you can’t attend you can get the audio file.

And Joan is another example of someone who knows the value of a good label. She really knows how to ‘hound’ the key media people to bring you valued press, radio and TV exposure. Her weekly publicity tip newsletter even gives some good clean dog jokes! Here’s what you’ll learn from Joan this Wednesday:

Conversations with Experts
Joan Stewart
Wednesday, April 12, 8:30 p.m. ET

How to promote your expertise and generate thousands of dollars in free publicity–online and offline

The media flock to experts. They interview them. They put them on the covers of magazines and quote them in ezines. They feature them on TV shows like "60 Minutes" and "Nightline."

Joan Stewart, a.k.a. The Publicity Hound, is a publicity expert who will share the secrets of how to position yourself as an expert so the media start flocking to you too. Joan has accepted and rejected thousands of story ideas during her 22 years as a newspaper editor.

During this Conversation, you will learn:

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

By Patsi Krakoff in How to...Tips, Promoting Your Ezine +/or Blog, Teleclasses & Seminars

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.

Name Game: How Important is Your Label?

By Patsi Krakoff in How to...Tips, Managing Your Ezine & Blog Tasks

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?