Archive for converting readers to clients – Page 4

3 Biggest Challenges for Online Content Marketing?

By Patsi Krakoff
Tuesday, July 13th, 2010

What are the three biggest challenges to marketing your business? I know, I know, there are so many, but if you could distill them into the most crucial for online content marketing, how would you do it?

(I’m always asking you, because some of my readers are very smart and think of things I don’t. So please feel free to add to this by leaving a comment…)

To me, it’s these three that count more than anything:

  1. How do I get found by the people who need my solutions?
  2. How do I get them to know me, like me, and trust me to do business with?
  3. How do I get clients? Convert readers to buyers?

Get found, get known, get clients… there’s a lot that goes into creating content on the Web that leads to results, and each marketing task, each piece of content, each program you offer, falls into one of these categories or challenges.

I did a survey on this in April, 2010: Readers say that getting traffic, building a list, and converting readers to clients are their biggest challenges. It’s still a matter of findability, creating trust and getting people to take action.

Get found: What does this mean?

You’ve got to be easily found when an ideal client sits down to the screen and looks for solutions to their problem: Read More→

Categories : Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Pathway to Profits
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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
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Online Content Marketing Results: Poll Says 50% Dissatisfied

By Patsi Krakoff
Thursday, July 8th, 2010

In a recent poll, I asked readers if their marketing tasks were easier, faster, more effective since publishing a website or blog…

  • Half of respondents said yes, significantly better results since doing web marketing
  • One-third said yes, but still needs improvement
  • 16.7% say, not much difference

My conclusion: half of you are getting results with your Web content marketing, the other half still struggles to see the kinds of results you want. This is a liberal interpretation to a poll that doesn’t lend itself to participants explaining their answers.

This brief poll was hosted on here on this blog, so only my readers would have responded. I don’t reach significantly large numbers to be able to say half of all people using the Web to publish content are dissatisfied.

Based on what I hear from clients and colleagues, I’m going to speculate some of the reasons this may be so:

  1. Web marketing is complicated: Although tools (blogs, sales pages, shopping carts, audio and video, email marketing) have become more user-friendly in the last few years, there’s a lot more to do (social sites)
  2. Web marketing is crowded: Ten years ago there weren’t as many businesses in your field competing for readers’ attention online. Competition is fierce.
  3. Web marketing is confusing: There are so many ways to publish content online, it’s hard to know what to do first and most.

I’m thinking about this a lot. And, I’d love to hear from you in the comments about what you think the challenges are, for using the Internet to grow business.

One possibility that comes to mind is that some professionals are unclear about their goals for their Web presence. They may be measuring the wrong things. Sales isn’t the only measurement, nor is traffic.

And when it comes to things like thought leadership, reputation, credibility and trust, it’s hard to measure in terms of numbers. Branding is another key element that gets reinforced through web marketing, but it’s also hard to measure.

What do you think about the reasons why many entrepreneurs, small businesses and professionals may be dissatisfied with their online content marketing? What have been your own experiences?

Categories : About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Online Marketing
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Phony Testimonials and Dumb Social Proof

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

How do you get good client testimonials for your sales copy, for example, content for a landing page, when you don’t have a lot of previous clients?

There’s no doubt that social proof is one of the key ways people decide to buy or try your products or services.

I get asked about this by some of my consulting clients who are starting a new business or product launch. Nothing can back fire and destroy trust and credibility more quickly than phony testimonials, as well as vague or anonymous comments.

I’ve been working with an old client who’s been working hard to master blogging so he can have a strong online presence. He’s just about ready to start offering products and services for sale.

He’s got a solid reputation as an expert in his field, but up until now, he’s been working for someone else. He doesn’t feel comfortable using testimonials or positive comments acquired when he was a part of a team effort.

I don’t blame him. Not only will he not feel authentic and sincere, but depending on what the old clients say, it might not ring true for his new company, products or services. Readers can smell a phony testimonial a mile away from the computer screen.

There are a couple key persuasion triggers to remember when composing sales content: Read More→

Categories : Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing, Pathway to Profits, Writing Great Copy
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Business Results from Online Content Marketing?

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

Please vote: What has been your experience using the Web to promote your business?

Categories : Content Marketing
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Your Business and the Web: Getting Better?

By Patsi Krakoff
Tuesday, June 29th, 2010

How has your business been affected by the Web? Have you felt the difference like a Tsunami or a soft summer drizzle? I’m curious.

I know it’s completely changed my life and the way I work. Both the quantity and quality of my business are vastly improved in terms of marketing ease, deliverability and profits.

Yikes, …I feel an urge to create a new poll coming on! But hang on, I need to clarify my ideas first…

I know people who are still doing business without the Web, saying things like,

  • “My clients don’t spend time surfing the Internet.”
  • “I get all my customers from referrals.”
  • “I’ve got a local business, I use Yellow Pages.”

Others may have put up a crappy 1-4 page website and then wondered why it doesn’t bring in leads. And these people are all smart professionals, they’re not idiots, they’re all busy and profitable.  They’re just not web-savvy.

There are those who started a blog because they heard that would bring in business. And they want to know why they aren’t on the first page of searches.

So, no, the Web hasn’t changed the way most people do business. Just some of us. I know there are many who feel it’s just too overwhelming to learn, especially now with all the social media chatter. To them, it’s not a Tsunami but a giant sink hole of wasted time and energy. Read More→

Categories : Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Managing Your Ezine & Blog Tasks, Online Marketing, Pathway to Profits
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Why Use a WP Sales Page Template?

By Patsi Krakoff
Monday, June 28th, 2010

Have you tried to create a landing page using WordPress? I have. And I know others have too. You can waste a lot of time and still not get a professional looking page that works to get people to buy or sign up.

Last Thursday, I interviewed Suzanne Bird-Harris, a programmer who developed the WP Sales Page template.

Now Suzanne is pretty tech-savvy and she’s also an expert in WordPress. So when she says this is next to impossible to create a good-looking sales page in WordPress without using a sales page template, I believe her. In fact, I tried to do this once myself, so I know.

I ended up paying someone to create a web page for me, in html. But since WP is so easy to use, I knew there must be a better way.

There is. If you’d like to know how to use a landing page template within your WP blogging platform, I suggest you read this page here, describing how the WP Sales Page template works: WP Sales Page… and yes, it’s an affiliate link because I love this product. It saves me time and energy.

Here are a few notes we discussed during the interview webcast… Read More→

Categories : Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Pathway to Profits, Teleclasses & Seminars
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Rant: The Problem with Formatting Sales Pages..

By Patsi Krakoff
Thursday, June 17th, 2010

Even when you’re giving something away, for FREE, you’ve got to write good “sales” copy that spurs people into action. In today’s info-crammed world, that means you’ve got to grab busy peoples’ attention, and get them to click, and get them so excited that they take the time to type in their email address in exchange for your offer.

Unless you’re Naomi Dunsford of IttzBiz and know how to skillfully weave obscenities into headlines or emails, what cha gonna do? There are Internet gurus who’ve made millions teaching us lowly common folk with Ph.D.s how to sell socks to centipedes.

Entire Web fortunes have been made. Bare with me, I’m just getting started with this rant…

You think you’ve written a fairly decent sales letter, you’ve got all your benefits, your “AIDA“… (you’ve remembered to grab Attention, gain their Interest, spark Desires, address objections and ask for Action – with a sense of urgency, of course  – but you’re far from done.

The fun is just beginning. Now you’ve got to format your sales letter landing page, with a dynamite headline, cool graphics, arrows, ORDER NOW! buttons, subheadings, testimonials, bonuses…

Ay, ay, Chihuahua! (as we say down here in my home town of Ajijic, Mexico.)

Creating Great Sales Pages Read More→

Categories : Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Pathway to Profits, Teleclasses & Seminars, Writing Great Copy
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Don’t Jerk Blog Readers Around:
5 Tips to Keep on Track

By Patsi Krakoff
Monday, June 7th, 2010

What’s the most frequent complaint I hear about blogging? Next to “I don’t have enough time,” it’s “I don’t know what to write about.”

Guess what? The two questions are related to the same problem: not enough clarity about business blog goals. Here’s how I help my clients solve this problem of clarity:

  1. Define your business Ps & Q – (3Ps + 1Q):
    => What Problem do you solve?
    => Who are the People you serve?
    => What Products and services do you offer?
    => What makes you uniQue??
  2. Create a course outline or a table of contents as if you were writing a book or teaching a class on this problem, i.e., your expertise
  3. Make a list of keywords, categories and topics you’re qualified to write about and that must be addressed to solve the problems of your readers
  4. Make an editorial calendar for each day of the week you’re going to be blogging. Make sure you cover all the topics and categories, and that your keywords are repeated frequently in posts and titles (search engine optimization).
  5. Make a weekly blog schedule to include writing the content, sharing it on social sites, researching and commenting on other blogs, and formatting, editing, linking, etc.

Don’t underestimate the time it takes for all the peripheral upkeep of blogging. Maintaining a successful blog takes more time than just writing a post. And it almost always takes longer than the 30 minutes required for writing.

Do you jerk readers around?

When I’m working with my clients on their blogs, I often find their content is all over the map. Quite often, they Read More→

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, How to...Tips, Managing Your Ezine & Blog Tasks
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How to Convert Readers into Clients on Your Blog

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

If a blog is the best marketing tool on the planet, then how does it convert readers to clients?

It may seem like a stretch… like building a bridge over a river and leading readers across. Dare I attempt a pun … like, how do you lead them Over the River Buy? (Please don’t groan while I’m trying to entertain you…)

What’s the most important thing to remember when you’re writing for your business blog? I’m not sure I can answer that in a simple sentence, but let me try. I always say that providing solutions to problems is important, but then there’s…:

  • Write useful, relevant posts that exceed reader’s expectations
  • Educate readers, but try to entertain them while doing it
  • Engage readers, get them to think, stimulate new ways of looking at something
  • Enrich people’s lives, save them time, energy or money
  • Share resources that can help readers
  • Unravel the mysteries, make something complicated easy to understand
  • Provide a road map with directions on how to do something, including memory short-cuts
  • Build trust with readers so they ask for products and services Read More→
Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, Pathway to Profits, Writing Great Blog Content
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