Blog Promotion : @ProBlogger

Written on 2/6/2012 at 12:00 am by Guest Blogger

An Easy Way to Decrease Your Unsubscribe Rate

Filed Under: Blog Promotion 15 Comments

This guest post is by Michael Alexis of WriterViews.

Frustrated with unsubscribes on your newsletter?

You aren’t alone. Most of the metrics associated with our newsletters are fun to watch.

Subscribe rate going up? Cool.
Open rate rising? Awesome.
Clickthrough rate skyrocketing? Yahoo!

Image by Bruce Berrien, licensed under Creative Commons

So, what is it about unsubscribe rates that is so darn frustrating? Maybe it’s the feeling of rejection that the reader no longer finds enough value in our work. Perhaps it’s the wondering whether they only ever signed up to get our download-bait. Or it could even just be the dissatisfaction of not knowing why all these people are unsubscribing.

Whatever the reason, wouldn’t it be nice if we could just put a stop to unsubscribes for good?

Ana Hoffman of Traffic Generation Cafe is pretty transparent about her blogging strategies. So, when earlier this year, I interviewed Ana, I wanted to find out how she builds and maintains her email list. This post is about the specific tactic Ana uses to drastically cut unsubscribe rates to her newsletter.

The problem isn’t what you are doing

Since you’re active in the world of blogging about blogging, you already know:

So you know all about how to get subscribers and engage your readers. And it’s a lot of work, right? But you are doing it. That’s why we have to look elsewhere for the underlying cause of email unsubscribes.

The problem isn’t what you are doing.

Read that again.

No. The problem is what you aren’t doing.

The problem is what you aren’t doing

The underlying cause of newsletter unsubscribes is that you aren’t building relationships with your readers. Sure, you’re writing content that is useful for them. Sure, you write with the voice you speak in. Sure, you share your strong opinions. Sure, you drop little snippets about your personal life. All of those things can help build relationships, but in the end they suffer from one fatal flaw: you’re broadcasting a message from one to many.

So, how often do you reach out to your subscribers, one by one?

Cut your unsubscribe rate

Hey, wow! Nobody ever did that, you are actually real and respond to your emails.
—Ana Hoffman

You will cut your newsletter unsubscribe rate by building relationships with your subscribers. You do that be reaching out to them one by one. By engaging subscribers in personal dialog, you show them you are a real person sitting behind a computer writing live emails. You show them that you aren’t just looking to flood their inbox with a series of canned autoresponses. And you show them that you actually care and appreciate having them around.

The key here is to change the perception of a one-to-many broadcast into a one-to-one conversation.

Sounds like the right approach doesn’t it?

How Ana does it

Ana uses a simple strategy to engage one-on-one with every subscriber to her newsletter.

She writes them an email.

Here’s her process. First, she sets aside 15 minutes at the end of the day to email her new subscribers.

Second, she opens up each of the “new subscriber notification” emails she gets from Aweber.

Third, she responds to that email (which goes to the subscriber) and changes the subject line to something like “good morning!” or “good afternoon!” Ana says this step gets her a lot of feedback like “Wow, either your responder is so good it knows the time, or you are actually there!”

Fourth, she writes the content of the email. Something like “Hello. Thanks for joining my list. Welcome. I’m here if you need help.”

Fifth, she customizes the email. If she notices someone’s email ends with “.au”, she’ll say “It’s evening my time, but afternoon in Australia, so good afternoon!” There is a free add-on to Gmail called Rapportive that shows you details of the person you are emailing, including their location.

Sixth, she presses send. And bam! With just a little bit of daily effort like this, you’ve built a relationship with every subscriber on your list!

How do you build relationships with your email subscribers?

Photo Credit: Bruce Berrien

Michael Alexis posts video interviews with the world’s top bloggers at WriterViews. The interviews cover strategy, tips and tactics for becoming a ProBlogger.

Written on 2/3/2012 at 12:03 am by Guest Blogger

How to Create and Host a Blog Carnival

Filed Under: Blog Promotion 20 Comments

This guest post is by Greg McFarlane of Control Your Cash.

Everyone has them, except possibly R.L. Stine. I’m referring to those days when you’re lacking either the inspiration or the energy to write something fresh and/or inventive.

If you can somehow get those days to occur on a regular schedule, say weekly, there’s a solution. Outsourcing.

I’m not talking about running guest posts, nor contributions from freelance or staff writers. I mean leveraging the work of dozens of other bloggers in your genre, for your mutual benefit.

Host a blog carnival: a roundup of timely posts from other bloggers, concentrating on a particular area of interest. Your colleagues write the posts, then you assemble, fold, collate, and link to them for presentation to your regular audience.

My blog, Control Your Cash, hosts the weekly Carnival of Wealth. As you can probably deduce, the carnival is germane to my blog’s focus on personal finance. The Carnival of Wealth goes live at around 2pm GMT every Monday and features bloggers from, at last count, four continents.

Every week I receive dozens of submissions, which means that my biggest challenge is getting each week’s edition of the carnival down to a workable size. The carnival posts frequently receive the most comments and trackbacks of any posts on my site. In other words, hosting a carnival means something for everyone. In descending order of importance, that’s:

interesting content for my readers and my contributors’ readers
an increase in legitimate visitors for my site
an increase in legitimate visitors for the contributors’ sites
a respite from research for me
inbound and outgoing links aplenty for everyone.

Where it all began

I’d love to take credit for creating my carnival from scratch, but the truth is that I picked it up secondhand. It’s the brainchild of Shailesh Kumar at Value Stock Guide, who started the carnival a year and a half after he began blogging about personal finance. During that period, while he got to know similar bloggers, his own blog found its voice—a fusion of personal finance and lifestyle, vaguely similar to what I do at Control Your Cash.

As a submitter to other carnivals, Shailesh had trouble finding ones whose area of interest overlapped his own. His posts were too personal finance for the lifestyle carnivals, too lifestyle for the personal finance carnivals. So he created his own, an amalgam of the two. As Shailesh puts it, “There was no one carnival that addressed this super-genre.”

Leveraging the goodwill and/or notoriety that come with commenting on other sites, the Carnival of Wealth’s founder received 20-odd submissions for each of the first few editions. Most of those were via invitation, rather than from bloggers who read the announcement of the carnival and then decided to submit.

As a carnival builds, a combination of momentum and prodding helps it grow. It requires haranguing your submitters to tweet about the carnival, and to share it on social networks, which they’ll probably be happy to do anyway. Simple courtesy dictates that anyone who submits to a carnival should offer a reciprocal link, but even the promise of a unilateral link is enough to attract other bloggers and help a carnival grow.

(If you’re wondering, I had originally offered to host the Carnival of Wealth once a month. And did so. Then, after a few months, I got the opportunity to take it over permanently and jumped at the chance.)

How it works

The mechanics of hosting a carnival are straightforward. To keep the submitters happy, I’ve made it easy for them to submit their posts. My carnival has a dedicated page at BlogCarnival.com, with rules for submitting and a firm deadline. Each submitter includes a summary of her post, and if it fits (many of them don’t come close), I run it.

BlogCarnival.com sends me the submissions as they’re received, which I then hold onto and leave unopened until I’m ready to begin assembling. One thing I’ve learned is that it’s inefficient to deal with each submission as it arrives, and then add it to the carnival if it passes muster. Better to let the submissions collect until the deadline, then address them en masse in one concentrated writing session.

Hosting other people’s work in a carnival doesn’t have to mean surrendering the tone that distinguishes your blog. Far from it. I make it a point to showcase every edition of the Carnival of Wealth in the same style that my site is infamous for.

The best part of hosting a carnival is that it guarantees me a slew of readers who wouldn’t normally visit my site. Fans of the submitters who make the cut will leave comments on Control Your Cash, and hopefully bookmark it.

The Carnival of Wealth is anomalous in that the same blog hosts it every week. Most carnivals rotate among a series of bloggers, each of whom gets penciled into the schedule months in advance, whereas I seldom incorporate guest hosts. (In fact, I only do so when the Carnival of Wealth conflicts with my spot in the rotation for someone else’s carnival.)

I’d rather have people visit my site. And I’d rather have my readers know they can find the Carnival of Wealth as a regularly scheduled feature on Control Your Cash, as opposed to anywhere else. Plus the carnival roundups are just plain fun to write, and doing so gives me the opportunity to read some brilliant posts that I’d never have discovered otherwise.

Hosting a carnival can be a lot of work in the initial stages. But it’s work with a huge capacity for leverage. When you host a carnival, it fosters relationships with like-minded bloggers and readers. Done correctly, it can’t help but make your blog grow.

Greg McFarlane is an advertising copywriter who lives in Las Vegas. He recently wrote Control Your Cash: Making Money Make Sense, a financial primer for people in their 20s and 30s who know nothing about money. You can buy the book here (physical) or here (Kindle) and reach Greg at greg@ControlYourCash.com.

Written on 1/13/2012 at 12:03 am by Guest Blogger

10 Ways To Get More Email Subscribers For Your Blog

Filed Under: Blog Promotion 37 Comments

This guest post is by James Penn of AcceleratedNicheProfits.com.

I’m sure you’ve had it drummed into you by now that an email list is vitally important to your blog and your business.

Darren often discusses how vital it is to build your email list and he recently Tweeted this graphic to emphasize his point. He says:

“If there is one visual I can give as a reason to start an email newsletter—it is this.”

Once you have an engaged database of subscribers, you pretty much know every blog post you put out is going to be a hit.

You can send just one email to your list notifying them of the new blog post, and within 24 hours you’ll have had 100, 500, perhaps even over 1,000 eyeballs reading your content, clicking your ads, and buying through your affiliate links.

Plus, I’ve also found that readers who arrive at my blog from an email newsletter I’ve sent to them are also much more likely to share my content on Facebook and Twitter.

This enables my blog to grow at an exponential rate. I send an email out to my subscribers, and they share my content, which results in more people reading my blog and joining my email list, which increases the number of people who click through to my blog in the next newsletter, which means more people sharing, which means more traffic and more subscribers, and so on.

If you aren’t building an email list from your blog yet, start today.

If you are already building an email list, then try adopting some of these ten strategies to increase the number of people opting into your newsletter, and see your traffic and your profits soar.

1. Multiple opt-in forms

Try to have three or four opt-in forms in your blog template. The more you have, the greater the chance you’ll have of capturing your readers’ email addresses. I like to have one pop-up opt-in form that fades in after about 15 seconds of reading (I know these can be annoying, but they work), one form at the top of the sidebar, and an opt-in form at the end of each post.

2. Quality content

This goes without saying, and I hope it’s something you already do, but if you produce top-quality content that readers love, they’ll actively hunt out your opt-in form, join your email list and, most importantly, open your emails.

I’ve definitely noticed a correlation between quality of content and opt-in conversions on my two most popular blogs.

3. Freebies vs. updates

I’ve also found that offering a free product in exchange for an email address converts much better than simply encouraging readers to subscribe for updates.

On my health blog, my “Subscribe For Updates” opt-in form at the top of the sidebar converts at just 1.5%. On my internet marketing blog my opt-in form, which offers a free report and blog updates, converts at 6%.

4. Gentle persuasion

At the end of each blog post, encourage your reader to join your email list to receive a free report and blog updates. At this point, they may be thinking of leaving your blog and may never return again, but this gentle nudge towards your opt-in form will help turn them into subscribers and long-term readers and “sharers” of your content.

5. Make the most of popular posts

Sometimes, and often for reasons unknown, some blog posts take off. They might get an unusual number of Tweets and Likes, or Google might just decide to stick it on the first page for a highly searched keyphrase.

It doesn’t matter why that post is getting so much traffic, but it is important to capture as much of it as possible and turn those visitors into subscribers. You could do this by putting a welcome message to new readers at the top and encouraging them to opt-in for a special free report and to receive future updates.

One of my blog’s most popular posts, 50 Ways To Add More Subscribers To Your Email List, does just this and it gets me a number of subscribers every day.

6. Premium content

Occasionally, perhaps every month or so, create a special report, video, or audio file for your blog readers. Post a teaser of it as a regular blog post, but require readers to submit their email addresses to read/watch/listen to the rest of it.

As soon as they submit their email addresses, take them to a confirmation page (if you are using double opt-in) and instruct them that to access the full post they simply have to click the confirmation link.

They get to read the full post which is, hopefully, of incredible quality—and you get a new subscriber. Win-win!

Worried about annoying existing subscribers? Don’t be. Put a snippet of text above the opt-in form saying something like:

“Already subscribed? Simply enter the email address you are subscribed with and you will instantly be taken to the full post. You won’t be opted-in again.”

If you use Aweber (and I’m sure other email service providers have this feature), you can set an Already Subscribed Page when you create your opt-in form.

If you set the Already Subscribed Page to the full post, then existing subscribers won’t be taken to the confirmation page—they’ll go direct to the full post. It will essentially be more like them logging in rather than opting in.

7. Hold a competition

Holding competitions is one way to encourage more readers to subscribe. If you hold a competition, state that entrants should subscribe in order to be notified of the winner(s). A huge percentage of these entrants will do so. What’s the point of entering a competition if you aren’t going to be able to find out if you win?

If you can run a really successful competition that gets hundreds (even thousands) of entrants, you can easily recruit a huge number of new subscribers.

8. Auto opt-in blog commenters

One way some bloggers get more subscribers is to have everyone who leaves a comment auto-opted in. I believe there are a few plug-ins that can do this. It’s not a strategy I’ve tried, since I’m not sure those who comment would appreciate being automatically added to my email list.

Does anyone do this? Does it work? Have you had any (or many) complaints?

9. Create special reports on popular topics

On my health and beauty blog I noticed I was publishing a lot of posts with natural recipes for beautiful hair. I decided to compile the ten best recipes into a special report. I created a simple squeeze page that offered the report for free and requested an email address.

I went back through each blog post that discussed hair recipes and put a little snippet of text that suggested that if they wanted to find out my ten best natural hair care recipes then they could download my special report. I then linked to the squeeze page.

That squeeze page only gets about ten or 15 visitors per day, but the opt-in form is converting at over 60%, so it’s getting me an extra six to ten subscribers per day. Not bad for an hour’s work!

10. Get more traffic

If you implement the above nine methods, then you’ll be converting a significant proportion of your readers into subscribers.

Therefore, the only other way to increase the number of subscribers we get is to increase traffic.

That’s beyond the realms of this blog post, but it’s a topic that has been covered in great depth on Problogger and many other blogs. Take a look through the “Blog Promotion” category for help with increasing traffic.

Having your own engaged email list is one of the most important assets you can own as we approach 2012 and beyond. Make sure you are building one!

James Penn shares his internet marketing experiments, tips and secrets at AcceleratedNicheProfits.com. Take a read of one of his favorite posts: Daily Action Plan To Build Your List Fast

Written on 12/30/2011 at 12:02 am by Guest Blogger

A Quick and Dirty Guide to Your First Guest Post

Filed Under: Blog Promotion, Writing Content 35 Comments

This guest post is by Neil Patel of KISSmetrics.

You can’t really turn anywhere these days and not hear somebody telling you that in order to grow your blog, you need to guest post.

I know you’ve heard that before, but have you actually done it?

Or are you looking for somebody to tell you how to actually go about creating a guest post content strategy, finding the right blogs to guest post for, approaching that blogger and actually writing that post? If so, then you’ve come to the right place.

Develop your guest writing strategy

Your first step is to create a content strategy. There are a couple of decisions you need to make. Listen: guest posting is not easy work. If you have a full schedule and your own blog to keep up with, you now need to find the time to write posts in addition to your regular guest posts.

There are two common approaches:

Slow and methodical: This is very strategic and targets one, maybe two blogs and dishes out guest posts for them at least once a month. This is a really great way to ease into the habit of guest posting. You’ll stay sane with this method, but results will build up more slowly over time.
Fast and furious: The other method is simply to write as many guest blog posts as you possibly can in a short period of time. The way to make this happen is to blast an announcement to your social media sphere announcing that you’d like to write a guest post for anyone who signs up. You’ll be surprised how many takers you’ll get. People are desperate for content. Next, set aside large chunks of time … like every night of the week from 6pm to 10pm, or devote your entire weekend to it. Then write non-stop. This was The World’s Strongest Librarian’s approach when he wrote 42 blog posts in a seven-week period. It’s one that may make you go nuts, so don’t over commit.

Which approach you choose will determine the quantity and quality of your guest posts, so choose wisely.

Brainstorm for fresh, relevant guest posts

It doesn’t matter which approach you chose above, the following brainstorming ideas will help you come up with ideas for your guest posts.

Mind mapping: Mind mapping is the concept of starting with a central idea and then branching out from there into subsets. FreeMind is an open source program that will help you do that. It even allows you to add images and hyperlinks so you can track all your ideas.
Time machine: Another creative way to brainstorm unique ideas is to pretend you step into a time machine. From there imagine how someone from the 70’s might solve a particular problem. Or look to the future and make a prediction about how particular problems could be solved.
Push the envelope: One of the reasons I like to guest post is because it forces me to push my boundaries of thinking. It’s a great way to see how far you can go with an idea. When you think you found an idea’s limits, take it farther.
Role play: You can do this either alone or with a partner. Alone, all you need to do is just put yourself into someone else’s shoes, like a child or client, and try to imagine how they would approach a particular problem. If you have a creative partner, ask him or her to play the devil’s advocate and have a conversation about your topic idea. Take note of all the ideas that pop up.
Hot potato: This is a great one to use when you are hanging out with a bunch of friends. This brainstorming technique basically involves someone starting an idea … and then passing it on to the next person. Use a timer and some kind of object to pass around so you can keep track of whose turn it is. This technique is great for getting everyone to pitch an idea.

Build a social media presence

If you choose to go the slow and methodical way, then when it comes to guest posting, it’s helpful if you build your reputation with the blogger you hope to write for before you ask to guest post. The best way to do this is to start following him on Twitter, Facebook or Google+ and interact with him. Here are some other things you must do:

Comments: Start to leave thoughtful comments where you are asking questions and engaging with the blogger on his site. But don’t ignore everyone else. Answer questions that other readers leave. Busy bloggers love it when someone comes along and starts answering questions that allows him to not to worry about following up on every comment.
Join forums: If there is a forum to join, join that. Subscribe to his email newsletter if he provides one, too. Occasionally it’s a great idea to reply to his or her email newsletter. Do it from your inbox so he or she will see your email signature, which should have your blog address on it. Hopefully they’ll take the time to look at it. I’ve had a few bloggers invite me to write guest posts for them after exchanging emails.
Email: At some point you should directly email the blogger. It doesn’t have to be about guest blogging. It could be just to ask a legitimate question. For example, you could compliment them on their writing and then ask where they learned how to write. You want to build that relationship.

Of course, some blogs like problogger.net have guest posting guidelines that you can follow and skip the above process, but most don’t. And don’t think of this as a waste of time just to get the guest posting opportunity. This is really about building long-term relationships, so it helps to do it whether they have a policy or not.

Master the components of a guest post

Is a guest post different than a post you’d publish on your own blog? The answer is yes. See, when you are posting on somebody else’s blog, you need to put your best foot forward. Your hope is that the guest post will generate some subscribers to your own blog, so you better be on top of your game.

Here’s what you need to think about:

Links: Bloggers like it when you write a post that has links in it, both internal links and external links. When you create a blog post that links to the blogger’s own content, it shows that you’ve done your homework. And he or she appreciates the external links because that builds his credibility with those bloggers.
Advanced blog posts: The jury is still out about whether you share your best stuff or not on guest blogs, but my view is that you write a damn good post no matter what. This means give the host blogger something unique to his sight. This won’t work if you’ve decided to write fast and furiously, because advanced blog posts take time.
Create a conversation the audience: Your post must answer some question relevant to the host blogger’s audience … not yours.
Demonstrate you are an authority: Don’t be afraid to casually mention the reasons why the audience should listen to you. You won’t be bragging if it’s true and part of the conversation.
Hook headlines: Although there is a good chance the host blogger may change your headline, give him or her the best one. Yet, give them three to choose from. And remember, a great headline is unique, useful, ultra-specific and urgent. They’re the four Us. Use them!

Conclusion

That’s it. If you follow those steps, you should be on your way to your first guest post gig in no time. All you have to do is start pitching bloggers.

When pitching bloggers make sure you play the numbers game, as everyone won’t say “yes.” What other tips do you have for guest posting?

Neil Patel is the co-founder of KISSmetrics and blogs at Quick Sprout.

Written on 12/16/2011 at 12:05 am by Guest Blogger

5 Tips for Getting Free Media Exposure for Your Blog

Filed Under: Blog Promotion 32 Comments

This guest post is by Michael Haaren of Creators Syndicate/Dallas Morning News.

Many bloggers and other brandbuilders are moving en masse into Twitter, Google+, and other new media. While these should certainly be part of your overall media strategy, don’t neglect TV, radio and other legacy media. They still have plenty of reach and prestige, and are starving for cool stories to tell. Here are five tips for getting your name in lights.

1. Grab the big picture

Legacy media is grappling with tectonic changes. Before you pitch any idea to a TV producer, radio-show host, or newspaper or magazine journalist, take a few minutes to see what’s happening in their industry. Since your “target” is dog paddling in those trends, knowing them helps your pitch bob to the top instead of sinking to the bottom.

Sites to check include I Want Media and Media Bistro.

2. A good pitch is usually short and succulent, like a fish hook with a worm on it

It’s trite but worth remembering—the journalist is a fish and you’re the angler. You’ve got to cast something we’ll bite at. And since we’re even more info-stupefied than everyone else, you only have a moment to catch our eye.

For example, I recently put out a query on Peter Shankman’s Help a Reporter Out, better known as HARO, which many journalists and producers use to find interviewees. (Queries are distributed three times daily and are free, so be sure to sign up while you’re there.)

Since I write about home-based gigs and careers—which now includes many bloggers and experts, like Darren working in a home office in Melbourne—I wanted to hear from people who have unusual home-based businesses.

As soon as the query went out, pitches began to flood in. I scanned them in spurts, in between posting to our Facebook page and screening a job lead for our website and trying to keep the dog from chewing his hot spot again. (Like many journalists, I work from a home office, too.)

Soon, I was “hooked” by a lead-in that described a baby fawn lying on a bed of broken glass, in Pennsylvania Amish Country. The glass, I learned, came from antique bottles, discarded long ago. Collectors would scoop up intact bottles but leave the broken ones behind, and wildlife like the fawn had to cope. The artist pitching me, Laura Bergman, turned these fragments into remarkable pieces of jewelry. The business was Bottled Up Designs, and we covered it in our column.

As a rule, keep your pitches to a three- to five-line paragraph or two. Mention briefly why you’re pitching the journalist (“In reply to your HARO query on wombats…” or “Having read your Toy Industry Review article on Ken cheating on Barbie, I…”). Then add the “hook,” and your relevant credentials. Close briefly with your cell phone number. Journalists are usually time-pressed and work odd hours. If you’re not available, they’ll quickly move down the list.

3. Target people who care

It’s much easier to get a journalist to cover you if your pitch includes something we care about. For example, I often write about green issues; it’s one reason I’ve advocated telework for so long. Laura Bergman, whether by coincidence or by research, hit a nerve when she mentioned that fawn lying in glass.

4. Identify, hone, and cue up your blog’s unique stories

Every blog comes with unique facets, aspects, or stories. Bloggers are individuals, and blogs, in the larger sense, are always narratives—absent mimicry and plagiary, both unique. The trick is to find the sexiest or most intriguing or flamboyant facets, polish them down to a few lines, and share them when the opportunity presents.

A pitch might be based on something in your own life—“How blogging wrecked my marriage” could easily be a morning-show segment—or key off a subject or individual you covered in your blog.

Even a blog on a theme that many might yawn at—tax law, for example—can hold compelling tales. How about a rogue tax agent, who leaves his family with embezzled funds, and winds up on a nude beach in Brazil, surrounded by aspiring samba stars? You get the picture.

5. Pitch early and often (email is usually best), but don’t call

When journalists send out queries on HARO or Bill and Steve Harrison’s Reporter Connection (be sure to sign up there, too) they trigger immediate replies, often voluminous. And the first pitches to arrive in the inbox frequently end up the winners.

Pitch often, too. If you can score on 10% of your pitches, you’ll beat many pros. You have to play the odds to “get ink.”

Finally, unless invited, don’t call to follow up on a pitch. Let the journalist call you.

Oh, and one last tip, which you may have heard elsewhere: don’t believe everything you read in the papers.

Michael Haaren is the co-founder of Rat Race Rebellion, a site devoted to screened, home-based jobs, and a syndicated columnist with the Dallas Morning News. His frequent media appearances include CNN, the Wall Street Journal, and many more.

Written on 12/11/2011 at 10:00 am by Guest Blogger

Infographic: What Makes Content Go Viral?

Filed Under: Blog Promotion, Writing Content 8 Comments

This guest post is by Voltier Digital.

Not every piece of content can go viral, but if you understand the basics behind what makes great content highly shareable, you will have a better chance of getting better exposure for each piece of content you create. The following infographic looks at some of the factors involved in making great content go viral, and what it takes to really hit a home run (click the image to enlarge it).

Voltier Digital is a content marketing agency specializing in infographics and other compelling content mediums. They can handle a wide variety of content marketing projects: from single infographics to complete content strategies. If you’re looking to drive traffic, increase exposure to your brand, and find more success online, Voltier Digital can help.

Written on 12/11/2011 at 12:07 am by Guest Blogger

How to Establish Influence from Scratch

Filed Under: Blog Promotion, Miscellaneous Blog Tips 23 Comments

This guest post is by Jonathan Goodman of the Personal Trainer Development Center.

I’m a nobody. Scratch that; I was a nobody. I work as a personal trainer in Toronto; I had no connections, knew nothing about blogging, and hadn’t written anything since University.

What I did have was an idea and, with the right know-how, an idea is powerful enough to break through all barriers.

I’m not the first person on the Internet to talk about fitness. On the contrary, I’m about the 1 000 000^th. My idea, though, was to be different and I decided to cover topics that nobody else was covering.

You see, every fitness guru on the planet gives suggestions pertaining to exercise prescription, while nobody was effectively teaching trainers how to actually train. After all, isn’t learning how to effective teach more important than a fancy new version of the squat?

That was my idea: “I’m going to be the one to bring non-exercise prescription advice to personal trainers.”

I launched the Personal Trainer Development Center (PTDC) in April of 2011 and it has become a main resource for personal trainers passionate about getting better. It already brings in a nice monthly passive income and will provide a great forum for me to sell my book in April of 2012.

The question I get asked constantly is how I made friends with some of the best fitness pros in the World and consistently get them to take part in my site without being able to pay them. These are folks who charge $200-500 to write elsewhere and give me their article for free. To take it one step further, I know bloggers who put out brilliant information weekly. Too bad their mothers are the only ones reading their blogs.

The answer doesn’t lie in SEO and doesn’t lie in buying links. Those things matter but come later on. The first step in building a house is a strong foundation. That foundation hinges on both the relationships you’re able to build and your creative problem solving ability.

This article is the first time I’ve ever written about why I carefully hand-picked the people to be involved in my site and how the power of my idea has grown to both a money-making enterprise and a beacon of change in a badly controlled industry. Apply these principles to your own industry and watch your influence grow.

Do your research

If you write it, they won’t come. Content is only king if people read your content and care who you are.

The first step is getting a thorough understanding of who the movers and shakers are in the informational sector of your industry. I took a full year to study the fitness internet informational world. Before launching my site I had research done into who the influencers were and who were the people behind the scenes acting as puppeteers.

I opened a new email account and subscribed to everybody’s newsletter in addition to adding as many blogs as possible in my reader. From there, I made notes not only on content but on who was linking to whom. I was then able to ascertain which bloggers had relationships with whom and who seemed to be competing.

What I quickly realized is that in the fitness world there were a number of distinct “camps.” Each of these camps had their head guru behind the scenes and top infopreneurs putting out resources. Peel away the layers and I found all of the soldiers spreading information.

There is good news and bad news here. The bad news is that you’re too late. I can promise that these camps and levels already exist in your industry. The good news is that there aren’t many bloggers who have figured this out yet and you have a great opportunity to become acquainted with these camps.

Look at it this way: the systems of spreading information are already set up for you. That’s the hard part. So how do you break into these camps?

Create a committee of coaches

Anybody can contribute to the PTDC but I have a special section for “coaches” where I highlight their profiles and link back to them. These coaches are my advisory committee. I don’t ask for much from them but keep them on an email list. Camaraderie has evolved where the coaches are now proud to be part of the team and many have built relationships with each other.

If you want to build a community, I recommend having an advisory committee and introducing them. One of the biggest benefits you can give to new potential contributors is the ability to network with your existing following.

Start strategically small

At this point, your site should be built. Don’t blast it off to the heads of the aforementioned camps. You will be ignored. During your research, though, you took careful notes of the foot soldiers right? Here’s where they come in handy.

These foot soldiers are trusted within their chosen camp and will act as your person on the inside. Here’s how I did it.

I noticed that many of the gurus offer internships. One by one these interns become household fitness names. It was obvious to me that the gurus weren’t only teaching them fitness, they were also teaching them the internet marketing game.

In identifying the foot soldiers, I made special note of the folks who had done top tier internships and had small websites popping up or were starting to be quoted on the major blogs. These were my targets. I made sure to Like their Facebook updates and comment where warranted. I also commented on their blogs. After some back and forth among the comments I sent them a private message asking if they would like to be involved in my site as coaches.

I had a warm opening, as we had had some contact previously, and getting them on as coaches allowed me access to their networks (which, conveniently, consisted of the camps I was desperately trying to break into).

Identifying the foot soldiers in your industry is a great way of gaining entry into the trusted gurus camps. These people are just as hungry as you are and will jump at the opportunity to network and be part of something bigger than them.

Republish your coaches’ old content

Now that I had a small but well-connected gang of coaches, it was time to approach the influencers. Armed with my vision and some early success because of good content, I wrote them a message. Out of the ten I contacted, I had a 90% response rate, and out of those 90%, every one agreed to come on board.

It was right then that I knew the PTDC was going to make it big. So how did I get their participation without being able to pay them?

I realized that all of these top fitness pros had been writing for years. As a result both of their longevity in combination with poorly built sites, I realized that their old material was getting little to no traffic.

I went through their archives before speaking to them and mentioned a couple of key articles that I had figured they forgot about. I discussed how these articles would be a great addition to the site and were needed to help the industry. They supported my powerful idea.

Each of the gurus agreed to come on the team. I then sent them a list of the articles I wanted to republish and got the okay for each one. Not only did I get a bank of articles to use for the coming months, so content wouldn’t run dry, I also had given these folks a great forum to attract more readers without any work.

Once two or three top pros were on board, they started referring me other “friends” who might be interested. Now I also had the advantage of offering new coaches a powerful new network.

While doing your research, make sure to go through the archives of the gurus you found. Keep a file on your computer of their old articles that support your idea. It is a great way to stimulate initial traffic to your site.

Creatively solve problems

This process was not always rosey, and there were a lot of problems in building up the PTDC that had to be dealt with. One I want to cover here is how I approached the top coaches.

As a new blogger, your only currency is links, and sending out cold calls or messages to top writers won’t get you any response. After a failed attempt I went a different route and started a weekly blog entitled Online Personal Trainer Blog Posts of the Week.

It wasn’t much extra work since I was already reading these blogs anyway. All I changed was to make a file and when I liked a post I kept the link and included it in the article.

Here’s the catch. I knew which influential bloggers I wanted to approach next and the Posts of the Week blog was my way of making sure they noticed me before I sent them a message. I linked to their blog and tagged them on Facebook in addition to mentioning them on Twitter. They would almost always interact back.

Adding their post to the list was my way of saying, “Hey! I noticed you do good work. Come look at my site and the great info we provide.” Nobody is every surprised when I send them a message an more as they have all already seen the site.

You will also have problems building up and here is my recommendation to you: figure out who on the internet can help you solve your problem. Don’t approach them immediately. Instead, creatively find a way to make them notice you.

Summing it up

Follow Metcalfe’s Law. Whether you are a new blogger or an existing blogger trying to increase your influence, remember that you are only as valuable as the number of nodes on your network. Figure out who is already effectively doing what you want to do and find a way into their good books.

Armed with your powerful idea and with the help of your advisory board your reach will explode. Remember: content is only king if there are people to read it.

Jonathan Goodman is a personal trainer and blogger. His powerful idea led him to create the Personal Trainer Development Center and maintain a personal site.

Written on 12/10/2011 at 12:07 am by Guest Blogger

5 Tips to Improve Your Web Sales During the Holiday Season

Filed Under: Blog Promotion, Blogging for Dollars 17 Comments

This guest post is by Isaac Atia of Howitoo.com

It’s that festive time of the year again: the holidays will soon be at our doorsteps. While many will be celebrating the holidays, us bloggers have to work hard to reach our sales goals.

Hopefully we can celebrate this season in a different manner: by improving our sales and boosting our profits. With competition always around the corner, it’s vital to formulate and apply solid strategies that get real results. Here are my favorite ways to boost sales over the festive season.

1. Create attractive landing pages

It doesn’t matter if you’re selling a product or a service. In order to really convert plain traffic to a final transaction, you must create effective landing pages that list all the benefits of whatever it is you’re offering.

For a landing page to produce good results, it must have a purpose and a goal. What’s your target revenue? Set a time frame, aim high, and work towards your goal.

More importantly, the page must emphasize the ultimate advantage of your offer while stimulating the prospect’s mind. Get in the reader’s head—what are they thinking? To earn the visitor’s trust, link or quote authority figures and websites. Offer your product to a few individuals for free to create buzz and so you can get persuasive testimonials. Feedback is potent and cannot be underestimated. With a little bit of tweaking, landing pages are simply the best way to boost your offer’s sales numbers.

2. Offer incentives to improve sales

There are plenty of incentives to consider.

Free shipping

In the event that your website is promoting a tangible product such as a book, for the buyer, your offer of free shipping can be the deciding factor between making the purchase or ditching the product altogether.

Believe it or not, offering free shipping can actually make you more money. To qualify for delivery that’s free of charge, websites usually require a minimum order. That way, the buyer purchases at least one fairly expensive product or two products at a regular price. How many times did you visit an online store to buy one thing but then bought something else as well just to qualify for free shipping? I know I’ve done it plenty of times.

Slick promotions

Who doesn’t love the buy-one-get-one-50%-off deal? How about buy one, get one free? If you slightly raise the price of the first item and include a separate shipping and handling charge for the second, you could be earning almost the same profit you would by selling both items at the regular price!

How about promoting the older ebook that’s been sitting on your blog’s shelf for quite some time? Maybe throw it in as a free bonus to guarantee the sale. If you’re advertising a valuable service such as blog consultation, how about offering 25% off your first lesson to get things rolling?

Many thriving blogging mentors such as Jon Morrow offer package deals such as “sign up for five classes and get one free,” which can help achieve promotional goals. This is smart because it doesn’t cost you anything and creates more value for your buyers.

Other techniques

Other proven techniques to consider are cross-selling and up-selling. Have you ever bought a shirt and shoes from the same website at the same time? That’s like buying a theme framework and a skin for the design.

The point I’m trying to make is that you can convert sales to even more sales if you address the customer’s needs. The best way to do that is by dedicating a section on your website that links to related products. Placement is important so the related product(s) should be displayed in a highly visible area, preferably on the sidebar or right below your current product.

These are some powerful tips to think about. Keep in mind that there’s no right or wrong incentive that can make or break your sales this holiday. Your success will be mostly measured by the effort you put in and the strategies you apply. It is, however, possible to determine the most ideal incentive for your operation through continuous testing (shifting things around).

3. Rely heavily on email marketing

Email marketing is so powerful because it’s right in your face. When I get an email from ProBlogger’s newsletter, 95% of the time I click on it and read it thoroughly. Why? It’s simple, I’ve been sold on Darren’s ideas as he gained my trust and loyalty as a reader.

I wanted to know this is true for sure so last week I emailed a few successful bloggers and asked about their experience with email marketing. Every single one of them responded with truly positive comments and one person mentioned that it’s beneficial to any web campaign.

I agree—in fact many web gurus have said that a large percentage of their sales come from email advertising. It works because it’s a direct form of sales that builds relationships based on trust. Most importantly, it’s targeted towards a crowd that’s already following your lead, which makes it easier to convert the sale.

Take into consideration that it’s not always just about making the sale. It’s imperative that your value your loyal readers and offer them substantial value in return. Sometimes it’s enough to just get more downloads, views, or subscriptions.

4. Shoot for repeat business through social media

The people who are already following your moves on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter are usually the first ones to know when you release a new product, run a promotion, or publish a new post. Connect with people you’ve already convinced in the past. Make them feel at home by dressing up the design of your social network page to a holiday related theme.

Doing this will naturally encourage holiday shoppers to pick up the book you recently published on your website for their family or friends. Maybe they’ll even purchase a service you offer on their behalf. Guess what? You just sold two people without even knowing it.

5. Test your website early and frequently

If you’re expecting a serious wave of traffic for the holidays, the last thing you want is to have any errors such as broken links or pages on your website. If your planning is poor and your website is not fully functional, you could be losing substantial revenue.

Proof read as many pages as you can to check for grammar mistakes, especially the pages where an offer is based on visitor action. The images on your site should load quickly to avoid the visitor from exiting your page.

Your page shouldn’t take more than two to three seconds to load for the same reason. It may also be a good idea to go through a test transaction to make sure that your order link is working properly. This way, if there are any issues, you’ll be the first one to know.

So, how exactly do you improve sales through your website during the holiday season? By implementing the above strategies to your website and making buying easier, more comfortable, and rewarding. Share your extra tips in the comments, so we can try them too!

Isaac Atia writes about blogging tips, SEO advice, and other closely related topics. The goal of his blog is to help other bloggers improve their overall blogging knowledge. You can subscribe to his blog for more posts.

Written on 11/27/2011 at 12:08 am by Guest Blogger

The 10 Secrets to Making a Spellbinding Video Trailer for Your Next Blog, Book, or Product Launch

Filed Under: Blog Promotion 20 Comments

This guest post is by Jon Morrow of boostblogtraffic.com.

Okay, so not everybody is a natural-born Steven Spielberg.

You might like the idea of creating a trailer for your next launch. You might even believe it’s doable after reading this guide to creating movie trailers.

Image copyright Rafa Irusta - Fotolia

But is it reasonable to think you can be “spellbinding?”

Can little old you really make a trailer that connects with visitors on such a primal level it throws them into a frenzy to subscribe?

Are you really capable of making a video so jaw-dropping they want to tell their friends, creating a tidal wave of viral traffic for your new project?

Well … I won’t make any promises. For one, you probably wouldn’t believe me, and for two, spellbinding millions of people isn’t something anyone can do at the drop of a hat.

It takes work. It takes thought. It even takes (gasp!) a little bit of talent.

But it’s probably easier than you think.

Here are ten little strategies for making it happen.

1. Beware the technology

When you pop open a site like VideoHive, it’s easy to get hypnotized by all the jaw-dropping special effects, musical nuances, and limitless possibilities of what you can do with the technology.

But beware.

The secret to creating a great trailer isn’t special effects. It’s not music. It’s not even the great and powerful Adobe After Effects.

It’s story.

In my trailer, I told the story that I’m an up and comer respected by some of the biggest names in the industry. In Google’s Super Bowl commercial, they told the story of how Google is an integral part of a beautiful and constantly changing life. In the Lateral Action trailer, they told the story about how creativity is the new secret success.

Yes, the special effects and music and technology were important, but it all started with sitting down and writing the story. The reason we see so many big-budget Hollywood flops is directors routinely forget this fact and try to put the gadgetry first.

But it doesn’t work. Regardless of whether you are creating a video trailer, a book, a radio show, or a blog post, the story comes first. It always has.

2. Put your creativity in a box

Okay, so I’m a pretty creative guy, right? I understand the desire to do something new, to create art that uniquely represents your brand, to drive people to places they never thought they would go.

But you have to fit it inside a box.

With your trailer, for instance, you’ll be tempted to hire an After Effects designer to develop a trailer that better represents your brand. You’ll be tempted to believe you need to take an entirely new approach. You’ll be tempted to invent said approach all by yourself.

But don’t. Stick with a template that’s already created, or at the very least, confine yourself to a style of trailer that’s proven to work. You can still do amazing things; just do them inside of those limits.

Because, you see, real genius isn’t about reinventing the wheel. It’s about doing things with the wheel nobody ever thought of.

PS: Thank you Twyla Tharp for showing me this.

3. Forget about teaching anything

So, in your launch video, you need to give everyone all sorts of useful advice they can put into action right away, right?

Actually, no. Yes, giving away useful advice is an important launch strategy, but in your trailer, you don’t have time. If you use the Hollywood guidelines, you only have 30-210 seconds, and that’s only enough time to do one thing:

Create a bond.

You can’t show off your expertise. You can’t teach them a tip that will improve their life. You can’t give them a sample of what they’ll get inside.

But you can make them care. And if you trailer accomplishes that and only that, you’re off to a good start.

4. Deliberately manipulate people’s emotions

What’s the simplest way to create a bond?

Easy: manipulate people’s emotions.

Yes, there’s a dirty connotation to it, but there doesn’t have to be. Your date or spouse is deliberately manipulating your emotions when they put up candles for a romantic dinner, but we don’t care, because it feels good.

Same idea here. In your trailer, you can use your story, special effects, and music create a state of happiness, curiosity, expectancy, inspiration, or pretty much any other positive, enjoyable emotion.

It’s good for you, because it builds an emotional bond, and it’s good for them because you put them in a positive frame of mind. Everybody wins.

5. Decide who you want to be

When I told everyone how I got 1740 subscribers in only a week from my trailer, the response was both loud and predictable:

But that’s because you have quotes from Darren Rowse and Brian Clark! Not everybody can get endorsements like those!

And, well, that’s kind of the point. If everyone could get endorsements like those, it wouldn’t be as impressive, now would it?

But nobody said you have to take the same approach.

In my trailer, I consciously positioned myself as an authority on blog traffic. Maybe you want to position yourself as the:

nurturing mommy or daddy type who can help and encourage beginners
eccentric but creative genius who creates works of art
reformer fighting heroically for change.

All those positions can make people want to subscribe, and all require a different approach with the trailer. Not everybody has to be an authority, so if you’re not one, don’t worry about the quotes. Choose a style that fits your positioning.

6. Keep it under three minutes

If you’re using a trailer from VideoHive, this one isn’t an issue, because your template will determine how long your trailer is, but if you’re designing one from scratch or substantially modifying a template, here’s the rule of thumb on length:

Keep it under three minutes.

Yes, it’s possible to go longer, but you start to lose viewers, and it affects your subscription rate. Longer videos are fine for sales or training, where it’s necessary you educate the viewer, but in this case, you want to give them just enough to get them excited … and nothing more.

7. Autoplay the video

Okay, so saying this is going to get some people upset, but you’re reading this to learn how to craft an effective trailer, right?

Well, here it is:

Autoplay video works better than making people click play.

When visitors arrive on your trailer page, in other words, the video should begin playing automatically. Yes, it annoys some people, but marketers have tested the socks off this, and it gets a better subscription rate pretty much every time.

8. Eliminate all distractions from the page

If you look at my trailer page, you’ll notice it’s pretty stark. Just the video, a TV-style border, and the subscription box at the bottom.

Here’s why:

It keeps people focused.

If you put your trailer on a page with a sidebar and other blog posts and comments and tweets, your visitors are going to do everything but subscribe. They’ll get distracted, they’ll intend to come back, but then they’ll forget, leave, and you’ve lost them forever.

So eliminate the distractions from the page. If you already have a blog, set up a separate page with its own template, but under no circumstances put it in the body of a regular blog post. It will get a horrible subscription rate.

9. Tell them what to do at the end

This is one area where I disagree with Hollywood.

Normal movie trailers end with a cliffhanger or a quip or a snappy line of dialogue, fading to the logo and the film’s premiere date. They don’t actually expect you to remember the name or the date, of course. You’re just supposed to remember you like it and it’s coming soon.

And that’s fine, if you have $30 million to buy thousands of commercials, reminding people several times a day that your film is coming out, but if you’re a little guy, and you’re getting all of your traffic from word-of-mouth, it’s deadly. For us, it’s absolutely essential we get them to subscribe the first time they see the trailer, and to do that, we have to tell them:

Subscribe.

You can still have the cliffhanger or quips or snappy dialogue, and I do recommend inserting your logo somewhere in the trailer, but the ending must absolutely tell them to subscribe, and you need to do it in the strongest possible way. If there’s one thing I regret about my trailer, it’s having such a soft call to action at the end. It’s probably cost me hundreds of readers.

10. Be worthy of the hype

Now we come to the most important point of all.

The purpose of a trailer is to build buzz. The purpose of a trailer is to raise expectations. The purpose of a trailer is, bluntly, to hype your project.

But are you worthy of it?

All too often, the films we see trailers for are not. The trailer makes it seem uproariously funny, edge-of-your-seat tense, or satisfyingly lovey-dovey, but when you go see the movie, it’s just … terrible.

We feel betrayed. We feel lied to. We feel like marketers are evil scum buckets who will say anything to make a buck.

Many times, it’s true. But here’s the question:

Do you want to be that guy?

I don’t.

I want to go beyond what people could ever imagine. I want to enchant them. I want to create a little sliver of magic they carry with them until the day they die.

And it’s hard work. I’ve been working on my blog launch for … umm … three months, and honestly, it’s just getting started.

But it’s also worth it.

At the end, I’ll have tens of thousands of subscribers. At the end, I’ll have a business that will support me for years to come. At the end, I’ll have changed the lives of countless people.

You can too. You just have to make an uncompromising commitment to being worthy of your hype.

Do that, and you’re not a scam artist. You’re a hero.

And if you ask me, the world needs more of those.

Jon Morrow is also on a mission to help good writers get traffic they deserve. If you’re one of them, check out his upcoming blog about (surprise!) blogging.