Do It! Marketing Blog: Marketing for Smart People™

Many of my marketing mentor clients want to boost their online presence - in the words of my pal Henry DeVries, they want “more blogs, more buzz, and more business.”

So how - exactly - do you generate more buzz around your online platform?

One of the easiest ways is to host conversations and dialogue on your blog by proactively inviting your readers, subscribers, and visitors to leave comments.

There are two paths to doing this - and one is a whole lot more effective than the other. But either one is better than doing nothing at all. More on that in a moment...

How to Generate a Ton More Blog Comments in 10 Seconds

Approach #1: Ask! (General)

End each of your blog posts with an invitation to comment. Don’t just ask “What do you think?” - you have to be more explicit and TELL people to use the comment feature on your blog - and then tell them what to do to get there.

Example #1:

What do YOU think? Please use the COMMENTS area below to share your advice, insights and recommendations on these ideas and join the conversation...  

Approach #2: Ask! (Specific)

One of my favorite clients, Integrity-Based Leadership expert Richard Melancon, recommends taking this one step further. Rather than asking broadly for comments at the end of your blog posts, Richard is a fan of asking very specific questions directly related to the content of the blog ideas you just shared.  

Example #2:

For my recent post, “I’ve Quit and Here’s Why” I took Richard’s advice and used the following at the end of the post:

What have YOU changed up in the last 3-6 months to STOP doing what doesn't matter and start DOING more of what matters most? Please use the COMMENTS area below to share your specific changes and how they've freed up more time or made you more money...

Example #3:

On my previous post, “17 Keys to a Great Sale and a Great Date,” I used this:

What do you think? What parallels do you see between dating and selling? How have your best sales conversations unfolded? Please share your advice, insights, and experiences in the COMMENTS area below...

Big difference, right?

There’s no right and wrong here - you may want to try both approaches and see which one generates more comments, more dialogue, and more good conversation with your fans, followers, and readers. The proof is in the pudding.

As for me... well, you can see what I’ve decided to do below.

What do you think about inviting blog comments in a general way or a specific way? Have you gotten better results with one or the other? Please share your own blog commenting philosophy in the COMMENTS area below and...

I’ve quit.

Yup - done, finished, over.

“Quit what?” you ask?

I’ve quit blogging.

OK, that’s not quite true...

But I’ve quit blogging daily.

It was an experiment.

And it worked.

And it didn’t.

Here’s the deal - for most of last year, this website averaged between 5,000-6,000 visits per month. Not great, but not terrible either.

At the beginning of this year, I committed to an experiment - namely blogging every weekday.

Yup, 5 posts a week. Week in and week out. I stuck to the schedule and didn’t miss a day in 26 weeks. 6 full months.

The result?

It worked great.

Almost immediately (OK, it took 8 weeks, but that’s close enough) my web traffic went from an average of 5,000-6,000 visits up to an average of 10,000-11,000 visits. One month, we even generated 15,000 visits - triple the old number. I'll explain that "we" later in this post...

My opt-in rate doubled (for everything - my free ebook, blog subscriptions, my free teleseminars.)

My SEO went up - I moved from page 2 and page 3 of Google results for certain keywords to page 1.

The second result?

I found out what really worked to drive more traffic, more leads, and more business.

And it wasn’t the blog...

It was three things:

1. My new book. Specifically, the marketing plan for my book, which turned out to also become the marketing plan for the website and the marketing plan for my speaking and mentoring programs. Woo hoo - who'd a thunk it?

Lesson: If you “lean in” and commit to the marketing for ONE flagship product, service, or program like I did with my book - you will start to generate momentum that carries over into everything else that you are doing.

2. Email marketing. Plain and simple, the more marketing emails I sent, the more web visits I got. Accident? No, of course not. Most of my emails contained links back to the website for the latest blog posts, the occasional teleseminar invitation or a new program announcement.

Lesson: The more email you send that contains high-value content, advice, insights, and recommendations (aka email that’s too good to delete), the more stickiness you’ll generate for your fans and followers. 

3. FLOP - Namely, “Featuring and Leveraging Other People.” I wrote about this concept in detail here and it has also been a tremendous driver of new traffic and new friendships, new clients, and new projects. Inbound FLOP is me shining the spotlight on others. And outbound FLOP is me participating in other people’s book launches, surveys, guest blogging, and so on.

Lesson: It’s not all about YOU. It IS all about how YOU can serve and promote other experts in your field who have a complementary skill set, message, or service offering. Welcome to the new collaborative economy. They win when you win. And you win when they win.

Sooooo... I’m still blogging.

But I’ve scaled down to once or twice a week.

And I’ve scaled UP the other activities listed above.

Because that’s what generates results.

What have YOU changed up in the last 3-6 months to STOP doing what doesn't matter and start DOING more of what matters most? Please use the COMMENTS area below to share your specific changes and how they've freed up more time or made you more money... 

Are you a DO IT freak? Welcome to the club!! Please use the social media buttons at the top of this post to share it with your network. YOU are a rock star!

1. Top 5 Blog Tune-Ups in 5 Minutes Each
2. 10 Blogging Lessons from Your Dog
3. 13 Quick Tips for Blogging for Business 
4. It's OK Not to Blog
5. Blogging 101: 3 Reasons Your Blog Isn't Better
6. Blogging 101: 7 Ways to Write Less and Say More
7. Blogging 101: 7 Ways to Capture Ideas Like a Ninja
8. Marketing Coach: 41 Fresh Blog Post Ideas
9. Gesture Writing - NYTimes.com

What do YOU think? Please use the COMMENTS area below to share your advice, insights and recommendations on these ideas and join the conversation... 

Want to get more marketing juice out of your business blog? 

Don't tell me - the answer is... Yes!

Ha - knew it!!

Sooooo... what should you be doing on that good old blog of yours - BESIDES blogging? 

Here are FIVE big ideas you can implement in FIVE minutes or less... and generate some pretty serious results FAST. 

1. Optimize past post titles. Based on your keyword and search engine optimization strategy, you probably have some great blog content with titles that are not optimized. For example, as a marketing speaker and marketing coach, two of my SEO key words (in case you couldn't tell!) are marketing speaker and marketing coach.

Sometimes, I'm good about including those keywords in my blog titles right when I post them. For example: 

Marketing Speaker: 5 Books You Oughta Buy NOW  

and

Marketing Coach: 17 Ways to Drive More Traffic FAST  

And sometimes, I'm not. For instance: 

23 things to say when you're asked for 'free consulting'

17 great answers to 'How much do you charge?' 

So if you go back to some of your older posts and change the titles to be more in line with your SEO keyword strategy, you'll attract new traffic and more traffic to your older (and probably underappreciated!) posts.

2. Add or update Calls to Action on your posts - including adding or updating the calls to action on your most popular posts which continue to generate a healthy volume of regular traffic.

A call to action is NOT a sales pitch - it's a way to OFFER value and INVITE engagement. For example, good calls to action for your business might include: 

• Subscribe to get regular updates
• Download this free eBook
• Get a free assessment
• Contact us for a No-BS initial consultation
• Take an interactive quiz
• Register for this free teleseminar
• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes

This is the simplest and fastest path to convert visitors to leads to sales.

3. Reblog your golden oldies. If a topic worked really well, got a lot of comments, inbound links, and social media love the first time around, it may be time to revisit that topic.

Grab your old content and use that as a starting point for an updated new post - using 80% of the proven material from before and simply adding to it, enhancing it with newer examples, adding video, audio or other multimedia enhancements like Slideshare or Animoto. 

Add links to resources from other experts that relate directly to your content. Make sure to optimize the post's title, tags, categories and metadata to get some zesty Google juice, choose an eye-catching photo or graphic from Shutterstock.com or your favorite stock photo site and boom - you're done!

4. Use your blog to test new offers. Sometimes you want to put an offer out there to see what kind of response it might generate WITHOUT hitting your email list with a blast that might send more of your subscribers scurrying for the "Unsubscibe" button.

Your blog is a great place to send up "trial balloons" for new products, new services, new programs and new investable opportunities that you're not 100% sure are ready for major promotion via your ezine or email marketing efforts.

It's perfectly OK to "soft sell" occasionally - or even better, launch a short 3-question survey - on your blog to gauge your audience's interest in working with you in a new way.

5. Review older posts and find places to cross-promote your newer blog posts, your social media postings, your Flickr photos, your YouTube videos, or your other multimedia assets.

This is a great opportunity to build what are called "internal links" - links from one of your web pages or blog posts to another - to create a "web" of interlinked content and to boost the SEO of your overall site using anchor text that describes the content you are pointing people to.

For example, you might add the following to your older blog posts:

• Check out this YouTube video on effective business card design
• Here's another post you might like titled "What is inbound marketing?"
• Here's a screencast about How to Generate 10X Traffic on LinkedIn
• Want to get better at generating referrals? Read this post on Building Your Referral Blurb

Tags: blogging for business, business blogging, doit marketing, marketing speaker, marketing coach

WHAT DO YOU THINK? Use the COMMENTS area below to leave your advice, insights and recommendations on these ideas to breathe new life into your blog...

Does your dog blog? 

Yes? No? Not sure? 

Well, don't worry because mine does.

You're about to get 10 blogging lessons from my black Labrador retriever, Woofie, who turns 10 soon. (FYI her birthday is April 29 and she loves getting birthday notes by email. And she replies to every one!)

What makes Woofie such an authority on blogging? Well, it's simple really - she gets a TON of traffic. Every month, I get emails from GoDaddy, where her website is hosted, to the effect that her website bandwidth (5GB/month) has been exceeded. Sometimes by a factor of two or three!

Put simply: there's a chance that this dog's blog is more popular than yours. 

So to help you fix that, here are Woofie's guidelines for blogging.

And then leave a comment below with your questions, thoughts, and advice on the ideas above.

Are you a DO IT freak? Welcome to the club!! Please use the social media buttons at the top of this post to share it with your network. YOU are a rock star!

You'll remember from the introduction to this Business Blogging 101 series, I mentioned the three BIG problems keeping you from doing a better job of leveraging blogging into business: 

1. You are unable to write QUICKLY. 

2. You are unwilling to write BRIEFLY. 

3. You are inefficient at IDEA CAPTURE.

Good news for you - #3 is the final topic we'll tackle today and you'll become an idea capture ninja before you're done reading this post...

Business Blogging 101: 7 Ways to Capture Ideas Like a Ninja

1. Set up a blog idea file in your email account. I filter everything through Yahoo! Mail and here's a shot of my "Blog - Best of the Web (BOW)" folder that sees a lot of action every single day. Drag, drop, captured!! 

2. Use the Notes feature on your smartphone. I'm an iPhone guy myself but here's the idea that will work on any smartphone or tablet device...

3. Use a task manager on your computer, phone or tablet - handy for portability across all devices you use - and make a TO DO entry called "Blog fodder." Here is what mine looks like on the terrific to-do/task manager called Wunderlist:

4. Carry a notebook and pen. Everywhere. All the time. Yep, seriously. Pictured below is one of my favorites - the Dot Grid Journal from The Creatives Outfitter.

5. Keep a trusty pad by your bed. In the nightstand, on the nightstand, under your pillow, doesn't matter - but late at night, early in the morning and sometimes at 3am is when you WILL get your best ideas. And if you don't write them down, they are gone, baby, gone... I like these "NOTE TO SELF" pads from http://www.knockknockstuff.com:

6. Carry a pocket video camera. Sure, you have your phone. But if you want HD video, external mic capability, and some special features, why not keep one of these in your briefcase like I do? See a celebrity at a conference? Three-minute video interview - BOOM! See something amazing on the street or while traveling that's worthy of a video blog? Two-minute video blog - BAM! Lots and lots of ways you'll be able capture ideas with this little guy. I own this Kodak Playtouch which runs less than $90 and shoots in 1080HD. Awesome...

7. Use micro-notes. In addition to my main notebook you see pictured above, I also keep an "Action Cahier" which is a much smaller notebook. You can throw one of these in your car, one in your bag, and keep one around the office for jotting quick blog ideas, questions, brain blurbs, blog titles, subject lines, all sorts of random and useful idea-starters. If one of these is always nearby, your next brilliant idea doesn't stand a chance of escape!

Tags: business blogging, blogging 101, marketing speaker, marketing coach

And then leave a comment below with your questions, thoughts, and advice on the ideas above.

Are you a DO IT freak? Welcome to the club!! Please use the social media buttons at the top of this post to share it with your network. YOU are a rock star!

Guest post by Janet Aronica

Creating consistent and helpful blog content is a great way to build community and trust around your brand for your prospects.

It's how you draw the right potential customers to your website.

But cranking out daily content is challenging.

How can you keep the blog post ideas flowing? How can you keep the content fresh and prevent yourself from re-hashing the same old thing?

Here’s a brainstorm of some ideas to get you started, or just keep you going...

Multi-media and Visuals

1. Do a screencast with Screenr of your product and share it on your blog.

2. Show a step-by-step guide on how to do something in a screencast, how-to video, or show the steps in a series of photos.

3. Create a music video for your company and post it on the blog.

4. Share a cartoon or create an original one.

How-to’s and Tips

5. Write a how-to article. Give instructions with screenshots or photos on the steps someone needs to take to do something.

6. Point out common mistakes in your industry and offer solutions on how to fix or avoid them.

7. Offer a list of benefits for doing something.

8. Share a list of some things to avoid.

9. Relate your how-to content to a current event or a celebrity. Example: “Five _____ Lessons from Lady Gaga” or “What the Election Teaches Us About ____”

Use Existing Content

10. Take the contrarian position – Find someone else’s article that you agree or disagree with. Introduce your blog post with what you specifically agree or disagree with it, and support your argument with a few concise points.

11. Do a weekly or daily links-roundup of relevant news for your community.

12. Find tips in other content, create a list of those tips and give links to those articles as the sources.

13. Share an excerpt from an ebook or white paper with a call to action to download it for the rest of the information.

14. Share an excerpt from an upcoming webinar with a call to action to get the rest of the content in the webinar.

15. Share your slides from a recent presentation.

16. Share conference takeaways.

17. Do a round-up of last year’s/last month’s/last week’s most popular posts.

18. Re-interpret existing content: Collect the top motivational YouTube videos for your audience, top ebooks, top webinars or infographics.

Incorporate Other Platforms

19. Create a Slideshare presentation of new statistics related to your space and share that in a blog post. Tag the Slideshare presentation with relevant keywords for your company to leverage SEO benefits of the platform.

20. Ask a question on Twitter and share the results with a Storify embed.

21. Collect Tweets from a webinar or conference hashtag, show them off with Paper.li (as recommended by FitSmallBusiness.com) and offer your own takeaways in the blog post.

Research

22. Respond to industry research with your own perspective. Offer a fresh angle to spark conversation.

23. Do a survey with Survey Monkey among your community members and create an infographic based on the results.

24. Do a poll of your Twitter community with a Twtpoll or your Facebook community with a Facebook Question and post the results on your blog.

25. Do an in-depth case study about one company, or offer a few examples of how other companies do something successfully.

Thought Leadership

26. Record an interview with an expert in your field and post it to your blog.

27. Get experts to offer a tip and do a round-up of their recommendations.

28. Feature guest posts from industry experts.

29. Publish responses to frequently asked questions about your industry.

30. Create a list of trends to watch.

31. Compare and contrast: Different products, different approaches, different companies, different people, different places, etc.

32. Do a review of other non-competitive products or services that your community cares about.

33. Be a journalist: Be the first in your space to offer industry takeaways about breaking news.

34. Explain what a current event or topic in the news means for your industry or community. Example: “What ____ Means for ____.” “Why _____ Matters for _____.”

35. De-bunk common myths.

Make it About Your Community

36. Interview your favorite customer.

36. Post a Flickr slideshow of pictures from a recent event.

37. Run a contest and give away something relevant to your community.

38. Ask for guest posts from community members.

39. If you have company news to share, talk about it in a way that makes it about the reader. Example: If someone gets promoted, talk about how why were successful. Inspire your audience.

40. Publish a post relevant to the current season or holiday.

41. Outline the top practical use cases for your product, service etc.

Originally posted by our partners at Hubspot on the HubSpot Inbound Marketing Blog.

What do you think? How do YOU generate ideas for your blog? Use the COMMENTS area below to share your advice, questions or opinions...

You'll remember from yesterday's introduction to this Business Blogging 101 series, I mentioned the three BIG problems keeping you from doing a better job of leveraging blogging into business: 

1. You are unable to write QUICKLY.

2. You are unwilling to write BRIEFLY.

3. You are inefficient at IDEA CAPTURE.

Good news for you - #1 and #2 are related and we'll solve them both for you before you're done reading this post...

Business Blogging 101: 7 Ways to Write Less and Say More
 

1. Think fortune cookies - you don't need to write an essay to share a key nugget that occurred to you while you were driving or in the shower.
   Example: 101 Success Tips in 3 Words  
    
2. When you have a lot to say, say it in shorter, sharper chunks. Like a series. Call it something snappy like "Business Blogging 101." See?
    
3. Use quotes, stats, visuals, videos, and graphics. These are not only easier for your blog readers to absorb, they're MUCH more likely to be shared, thus driving more traffic and Google juice back to YOU. 
   Example: Marketing Concept: 12 Home Page Must-Haves
    
4. Great blogs do NOT persuade, explain or convince. Put your opinions out there - the sharper, the better. Give your readers something to agree or disagree with.
   Example: The (REAL) Idiot's Guide to Social Media Marketing
    
5. Stop being so nice. It's OK to piss people off. Too many blogs take both sides of any given argument and end up sounding like a high school essay instead of a pointed, share-worthy piece of thought leadership.
   Example: 5 Signs that Your Prospect is Giving You Too Much Bullsh*t
      
6. Master the 20-minute blog post. Give yourself 20 minutes on the clock. Set a timer. Write. Revise as you go. When the bell goes off, hit publish. Truth: Even if it sucks - which it won't - you're better off posting it than if you had posted nothing that day. Honest.
    
7. Steal these blog titles: 7 Ways to... 5 Keys to... Top 10 Strategies for... 3 Biggest mistakes of... 11 Secrets of [topic] revealed... 7 Questions to ask yourself... 13 Quick tips on... 
    
8. (Bonus) Use numbers in your titles
   Example: Marketing Coach: 17 Ways to Drive More Traffic FAST
    
9. (Bonus) People love lists of key points, mistakes, lessons, examples, templates, strategies, tactics, tools, secrets, and so on. 
   Example: 23 things to say when you're asked for free consulting
    
10. (Bonus) People love free resources. People love when you point out other cool people, other great blogs, and things they need to know about, use, read, or buy to make them more successful in your area of expertise. 
    Example: Why Your Business Needs to FLOP
     
11. (Bonus) People love bonuses. Underpromise and overdeliver and you'll keep folks coming back for more. Like sharing 11 points when you initially promised just 7. Priceless!! 
     

And then leave a comment below with your questions, thoughts, and advice on the ideas above.

Are you a DO IT freak? Welcome to the club!! Please use the social media buttons at the top of this post to share it with your network. YOU are a rock star!

As a marketing speaker and marketing coach, I've noticed that my clients and audiences are always fascinated by the topic of business blogging - specifically blog writing. 

Questions include: 

• How can you write so much?
• Where do you find the time to write?
• Do you REALLY post a new blog every day? 
• Where do your blog ideas come from? 
• Do you do your own writing or do you have people that blog for you? 
• How do you know what to put on your blog and what to put in your email newsletter? 

This week, we'll dig into Business Blogging 101 and you'll master the basics of business blogging. So stay tuned and please DO use the COMMENTS area of the blog to share your own blogging advice, insights and recommendations. 

Let's dig in... 

Business Blogging 101: 3 Reasons Your Blog Isn't Better

Simple, really:

1. You are unable to write QUICKLY.

2. You are unwilling to write BRIEFLY.

3. You are inefficient at IDEA CAPTURE.

Notice I didn't include the two biggies that YOU probably think are YOUR problem - 'cuz they're not. These are... 

1. Inability to write. (That's a convenient BS lie/excuse)

2. Not having ideas. (That's another convenient - and bigger - BS lie/excuse!)

We'll address all of these business blogging challenges and more in this week's posts. So stay tuned for more Business Blogging 101...

Please use the COMMENTS area below to share YOUR biggest questions, stumbling blocks, or burning issues when it comes to blogging for your business...

Are you a DO IT freak? Welcome to the club!! Please use the social media buttons at the top of this post to share it with your network. YOU are a rock star!

It's OK not to blog daily. 

It's OK to blog daily. 

It's just NOT OK not to blog. 

Ya dig?

Tags: Marketing coach, blogging for business, marketing for speakers, marketing for authors

Leave a COMMENT below with a link to YOUR blog and let's send some Google juice your way. (Fair warning: No spam links or Gucci handbags or MLM offers please.)