Archive for content marketing tips – Page 3

Content Marketing: Connect the Dots and Drive Results

By Patsi Krakoff
Monday, April 18th, 2011

How do you master the art of writing content for the Web so that you provide quality information on your web pages, blog, and newsletters that works to convert readers to clients? Ahhh, that’s what I’ve been trying to figure out for the last 12 years. In the World Wide Web, there often seems to be no rules.

But that’s not true. You have to find what works for you in your business, with your target audience. And then publish a lot of content in many different forms. But if you’re a busy professional, unless you have staff, you don’t have time for everything.

So on Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 5 p.m. ET, I’m giving an open webinar to share my tips and tools that make online marketing manageable, especially for service professionals, solo entrepreneurs, busy consultants, coaches, etc.

Time-Saving Tips for Content Marketing Results – Register to get the recording, handouts and a marketing road map.
Wednesday April 20, 2011, 5 pm ET

Here’s a sample of what you’ll learn: For example, your content should accomplish these 4 goals:

  1. Connect with readers right away (ask them about their problems or challenges)
  2. Answer reader’s questions and educate
  3. Provide choices without confusion
  4. Compel readers to take one action

These goals apply to your website, your blog, your newsletters and everything you publish on the Web whether in text, audio or video.

Outsourcing your content needs will save you a lot of time, but only if you do it right.

Let’s say you’ve outsourced your newsletter and blog content to a professional writer, an expert in your field. The writer gives you content for your blog or newsletter. You publish it under your banner or logo, therefore it’s up to you to get it personalized and provide context.

This means you’ve either got to add your own stories, or introduce it with a personal note. (Or have the hired writer do this for you, which may cost more.)

Context: What I mean by providing context is that you need to connect the dots from your content to your business. You don’t want readers to read your content and say, “Oh, that’s interesting.”

I’m mean to say, sure you do, but that’s not enough. Draw a picture for them.

  • How does this content apply to the work you do with your clients?
  • Tell a story about a real person that illustrates the concepts in the article
  • Tell how you personally interact with and interpret these principles in your work Read More→
Categories : Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Teleclasses & Seminars, Writing for the Web
Tags : , , , , , , ,

Content Marketing for Professionals:
Time-Saving Tips Webinar

By Patsi Krakoff
Saturday, April 16th, 2011

Are you getting results from your content marketing? Does your website do it’s job? What about your e-newsletters? Or your blog? If these marketing tools were people, would you give them a raise … or fire their butts? Think about it.

It’s all fine and dandy to spend time, money and energy upgrading, re-designing, and adding content so that you have an automatic lead generating system online, but if your output is more than your incoming business results, it’s all just silly, isn’t it?

I’ve been working with some really great clients who understand good content marketing. And, I’ve reviewed more than my fair share of boring blogs, websites and newsletters this past month.

I’m frustrated yet occasionally blown away by the quality of online marketing by small businesses and professionals.

Big ANNOUNCEMENT:

I’m giving a free webinar this Wednesday April 20, 2011 at 5 p.m. ET:

Time Saving Tips for Content Marketing Results

You can register here.

What’s the one BIG mistake I see eight out of ten websites making? For that matter:

  • Why are so many e-newsletters not getting read?
  • What do many smart professionals forget to do in their online marketing?
  • What’s the least time-consuming, most effective way to build up your web presence?

Part of the problem I see with marketing – at least with coaches and consultants – is that people are too busy with clients and don’t have a clear marketing road map to follow. The 1-2-3 next steps aren’t laid out. What’s “not sure” gets put off. Here’s what else… Read More→

Categories : Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Teleclasses & Seminars
Tags : , , , ,

Business Blog: 4 Reasons to NOT Write Your Own

By Patsi Krakoff
Monday, February 7th, 2011

(Guest post by Adam Kosloff)

You’re swamped.

You barely have time to scan the headlines of your favorite news feeds. Probably the only reason you clicked on this article was to check out whether it might provide instant value to you. Can this article save you time and/or money and/or hassle?

Hopefully, it can. And not because this article will tell you anything you don’t already know – rather, it will remind you of business principles that you already apply in your everyday professional work but which you forgot once you started marketing online.

Here’s the message, loud and clear: 99% of busy business professionals and attorneys should not – repeat, not – waste their precious productive hours writing their own blog posts and website content. If you are guilty of this practice, stop it. You will burn yourself out, and your business will suffer – even if you enjoy doing the writing.

Not convinced? Consider these four arguments.

  1. You earn the most money – and generate the most productive return on your time – when you stay in your “area of strength. The more time you blog, the less time you will have available to serve your clients. Let’s do the math. Say you’re an attorney who bills out at $250 an hour. Currently, you write three blog posts a week. It takes you about an hour to write each post. $250/hour X 3 hours = $750.This means you are investing a whopping $750 every week into your blog. Are you really getting a return on that investment that justifies this practice?
  2. You are not a professional blogger.You have been trained as an attorney, corporate executive, or entrepreneur. Even if you consider yourself a master writer and communicator, web writing is its own very cagey animal.Creating ongoing, tonally accurate, riveting web content requires specialized skills that you must hone over years of practice. Undoubtedly, you could learn how to write more effectively for the web. But why bother? Your time and resources are extremely limited. You must husband them for the crucial tasks of operating your core business. Read More→
Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, Managing Your Ezine & Blog Tasks
Tags : , , , , , ,

3 Easy Tips to Target Readers with Your Content

By Patsi Krakoff
Monday, January 3rd, 2011

This is a guest post from Sam Briones, a freelance writer, who explains how to get targeted traffic to read your online content.

You may be on your keyboard all day and night, writing about content that you are knowledgeable and passionate about. You know that what you are writing makes sense, and more importantly, your expertise could change someone’s outlook, or even their life!

However, you don’t seem to be getting responses. You check your blog, and the only comments are from your mother. What’s wrong, and how do you fix it?

While there are many writers out there who can really deliver, content-wise, the truth is, most of these writers aren’t marketers, or lack the marketing skills to get their work noticed by the people who may actually find the information they provide useful. If you’re one of those individuals, you can change that by following one or more of these easy tips.

1. Have the right domain name: You may love to write about web design, but if your domain name is something like Katlovesdogs.com, then nobody will ever associate your website or blog with design. In choosing your domain name, make sure that it states what your website is actually about. That way, it can also be searchable when people type in keywords.

2. Submit your work to article submission sites: You’ve gotten your domain right, but people are still not visiting your blog. Maybe you just need to inform a wider audience that you are indeed out there. Try taking a few blog posts or articles and submitting them to some article submission sites like ezinearticles.com or goarticles.com. Read More→

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, Managing Your Ezine & Blog Tasks, Online Marketing, Social Media Stuff
Tags : , , , , , , , ,

Neuroscientists Discover “WIIFM” Center in Brain…

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, October 13th, 2010

Through the magic of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), neuroscientists are able to look inside the brains of consumers while reading marketing messages.

Copywriters and content marketers have been telling us for years how important it is to address the “what’s in it for me” filter in consumers’ minds.

Really Big News: They’ve found this WIIFM center located in the old brain!

Thanks to advanced scientific formulas and algorithms, we can now market directly to the subconscious mind and get anybody to do what we want without even knowing it!

I’m just kidding you… If that were actually true, it’d be really scary. It’s not that easy, neither is neuroscience easily applied to content marketing. Every time I read about a new neuromarketing study, it seems they’re only confirming what copywriters and marketers knew all along.

But here’s some new information, which could improve your marketing messages. Although we can’t directly cause people to do something, we can use knowledge of the brain to improve our chances of influencing their buying decisions. We can write better content because we understand how consumers make decisions.

We know more about the subconscious functions than ever before. We know what kinds of messages reach the emotional brain and the old brain, even though consumers aren’t aware of their influence. More importantly, we now understand that much of our decision making goes on in the old brain, out of conscious awareness.

Neuromarketing and science can help improve your content writing so that it has more of an impact on people in your target audience.

I just love this site: SalesBrain, a neuromarketing company. Founded by Christophe Morin and Patrick Renvoise, authors of Neuromarketing: Understanding the Buy Button Inside Your Customers’ Brains. The company does sales training using neuroscience as it applies to what influences buying decisions.

I recommend you visit the site, as it is clear and easy to navigate to find great information about buying decisions. I found the page on 6 ways to stimulate the old brain especially illuminating.

Here’s an excerpt: Read More→

Categories : Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing, Online Persuasion
Tags : , , , , , , , , , ,

10 Ways to Make Content More Engaging

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, October 6th, 2010

The Content Marketing Institute has hit another home-run with their question to content experts, “How do you make content more engaging?” Ten experts responded, including moi, and their answers are illuminating, especially for anyone charged with creating quality content for blogs, social media, and writing for the Web.

In my opinion and experience, marketing that engages is emotional.

The human brain is emotional at its very core.

While women process messages with more emotions than men, both must be engaged emotionally for a message to be remembered and acted upon.

Marketers must uncover the key emotional triggers their product inspires and pinpoint them in their messages.

Here is a summary of what other content marketers think about this important question:

Just as there is no single definition of engagement, there is no single way to engage with your audience:

  • Focus on what is important to your ideal reader, which is often different than what is important to your business.
    • Actively listen to your audience and respond to their needs.
    • Create buyer personas to capture key information about your readers.
    • Try to connect with your readers emotionally. Read More→
Categories : About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Online Persuasion, Writing for the Web
Tags : , , , , ,

Content Marketers Answer the $64,000 Question…

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, September 29th, 2010

What does it mean to write content that “engages” readers? What the heck is engaging content? According to a recent survey by the Content Marketing Institute, this is the #1 challenge for people charged with creating content that markets businesses.

These questions are asked and answered by a distinguished group of contributors to the Content Marketing Institute’s blog and you can read the post here: What Does Engaging Content Mean?

I contributed my take: your content must create an emotional impact in the brains of readers if you hope to influence them to take any sort of action.

Here’s a summary of the ideas, in case you’re in a hurry:

  • Make sure content is relevant to your audience and helps them with an issue they have right now.
  • Give your audience something that they can’t find anywhere else.
  • Be entertaining, educational or both.
  • Tell the audience a story.
  • Invite the viewer to engage with you further by adding a call to action. Read More→
Categories : Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing, Online Persuasion, Pathway to Profits
Tags : , , , , , ,

Content Marketing Tips from Computer Games

By Patsi Krakoff
Thursday, August 26th, 2010

What can we learn from online computer games about content marketing for business? A lot, apparently. If you write content designed to trigger action in readers, pay attention to this.

My husband, Attila the Honey, plays World of Warcraft, an online game that’s part of the multi-billion dollar gaming industry. If you think computer games are just for kids or young people with too much time, think again. Money spent on games has now surpassed movies and books.

(He swears that his online gaming is market research for his company Razerzone.com, but I don’t buy it.) I do believe it’s true that online games are good for your brain as we age. He’s speaking this weekend at the local Lake Chapala Society about this.

I just watched Seth Priebatsch, a Princeton dropout (something he’s proud of), who’s chief ninja at SCVNGR (“scavenger”), on the online speakers site TED.com. If he’s speaking at a TED conference in Boston, he’s got to have something important to say, right? You can watch it here. (A big thanks to Susan Weinschenck for this link.)

Here are three dynamics we can learn from online games that can be applied to content marketing:

  1. Appointment dynamics: this persuasion trigger is probably what Cialdini would call the scarcity or urgency factor. There’s no greater example than Happy Hour in bars: show up at a certain time, you get rewarded. It’s also at play in the game Farmville, a popular game that already has 70 million players. How can you use this to persuade readers to take action? Think about your business and how you could include an appointment dynamic to urge responses. (Like all things, there’s a cool way to do this, and a way NOT to do it!)
  2. Influence and Status dynamics: When games confer a red badge or gold or virtual money to players, their ego and pride causes them to continue playing. What ways can you inspire loyalty and engagement with your readers/ clients /prospects? What’s in it for them? How can you use the status trigger to persuade people to use your services or products? Read More→
Categories : Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing, Online Persuasion, Writing Great Copy
Tags : , , , , , ,

Blogger’s Block Strikes Blog Squad…Blogger Bites Back

By Patsi Krakoff
Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

Grrrrr…

I’m going nuts. This hasn’t happened in a long time. I’ve been sitting at the computer for the last 2-3 hours wondering what to write about. I’m the gal who says blogging is easy, 1-2-3, done in 20 minutes.

I admit lately it’s been taking me more than hour to post. Some days longer. And I call myself The Blog Squad…I’ve even got a great little package you can have called Time Saving Tips for Smart Bloggers, audio, transcript, PDF handouts. You can solve your blogging blues with all the tips in this program.

Have I changed my mind about how nifty blogging is? No. Am I stuck? Yep.

Solution? Start writing about where I’m at, and then tie it in with something useful and relevant to readers.

Source of problem? I’ve been blogging so much lately for my clients that I’m dried up and stale for my own blog.

So what? I’ll bet some of you have the same problem or similar. You give your all to your clients, then when it comes time to do your own content marketing you’re as dry as toast without butter.

It’s no wonder the cobbler’s children have no shoes.

What to do? Just do it, just start writing and see what comes out. You may surprise yourself. One of my clients tells me he doesn’t write that much anymore. He finds it easier to hook up the Web cam and post a video clip. Hmmm…wait a sec. Read More→

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Writing Great Blog Content
Tags : , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Content Marketing Results: Landing Pages Rule

By Patsi Krakoff
Monday, July 12th, 2010

How do you get readers to take action? Short answer: a landing page. (Also known as a sales page, squeeze page)

You can’t get results from  all the content you’re creating and publishing on your blog, e-newsletter, social media sites, unless eventually you send people to a landing page and ask them to take action.

Otherwise, you may be creating a great brand, great thought leadership, great content… and so what? Sooner or later, you need to ask your readers to actually do something. You need a landing page to do that.

Landing page definition: An attractive, compelling page:

  • Published on the Internet that is
  • Optimized for search engines and
  • Designed to persuade a defined group of readers
  • To take one specific action Read More→
Categories : Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Pathway to Profits
Tags : , , , , , ,
« Previous Page
Next Page »

Content for Coaches and Consultants

Serenity Virtual Assistant Services

Social Buzz Club

get your bright idea known