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Will You Add? - Marketing Optimization 101 for Blogs
You’ve been running your ezine for a while now, maybe a few months, or a few years. And it’s getting dull, people are unsubscribing, new subscribers are few and far between. What you need is to put the Oomph! Back into your newsletter!It’s easy to get into a rut once the whole e-newsletter thing is old hat. It happens to the best of us, but there’s no need to let boredom set in and ruin all that hard work. Let’s take a look at some of the most common mistakes made by ezine publishers and how to fix them.• Reusing Content. Obviously, it’s easier to republish a few articles here and there, but what you might not realize is that any older subscribers will rapidly lose interest. They will assume (perhaps correctly) that you have no new information to impart and will unsubscribe!How to Fix It: Always, always give your readers fascinating new content. Running short on time? No problem, just hit a few
Foremost, display your e-mail e-zine and RSS subscriptions information at the top of your blog, instead of somewhere far down where no one will see them.
And second, use enticing copy to get visitors to subscribe. Briefly explain the benefits of subscribing, what kind of content they can expect to receive, and also do not forget about your privacy disclaimer, calming potential subscribers that you will never abuse their personal information.
4. EXPLAIN RSS
Mos
I love my RSS reader. I have a gazillion website, blog and news feeds set up in there, and I get the latest information from all of my favorite sites. That means I can be one of the first to share it with you. And RSS Reader 1.0 has a doorbell sound effect that rings when there are new feed entries to read. So wherever I am in the house I hear it and take a look. I also get the additional bonus of six barking dogs to announce the new feed entries.As an aside, I noticed something very interesting. Because of my RSS reader I was one of the first to cover adsenseblacklist.com, a terrific new web site that will help you screen out the cheesy AdSense ads. Because I was on it first, I popped up in the first five Google search results for this keyword for a while, which drove traffic to this site. So watch your RSS reader.All that being said, we are beginning to see RSS used as auto update feature for websit
Blogs may be Web 2.0, but bloggers should not ignore some of the good old internet direct marketing tactics that have been working for marketers online almost for a decade or more.
Here are the absolute 101 basics you really shouldn't ignore ...
1. DON'T FORGET E-MAIL DELIVERY
Bloggers are often abandoning or completely ignoring e-mail as a tool to deliver their content to their readers. As an RSS evangelist I certainly believe in using RSS to get your content to the world, but only as a supplement to e-mail delivery.
While RSS provides us with many unique benefits, it is yet to reach mainstream adoption. Until it does, marketers and publishers should not even consider abandoning e-mail delivery, or risk ignoring most of their potential readership.
If you're still wondering why you need e-mail, consider the potential you might be wasting without it. Someone visits your blog, likes the content and would like to be notified as new content of interest becomes available, and he does not know what RSS is or even care. If you fail to capture his e-mail address and consent at that exact moment, he might never again return to your site, either because he forgets about it or because dozens of other sites capture his interest even before the next day.
2. E-ZINE PUBLISHING IS STILL A MUST
Publishing a blog is not a replacement for an e-zine. If nothing else, publish a weekly or monthly e-zine of your top blog posts, available in a single easy-to-consume format.
Some simply do not have the time to watch your blog regularly and others will only want to receive a quick summary to get only your best and most crucial content. Publishing an e-mail e-zine will do that for you, giving you the opportunity to communicate with the widest possible long-term audience for your blog.
3. E-MAIL AND RSS SUBSCRIPTIONS
Providing e-mail (e-zine) and RSS subscriptions is important to the success of any blog. But neither of these will do you much good if your visitors don't actually see them and if you don't give them enough incentive to subscribe.
Foremost, display your e-mail e-zine and RSS subscriptions information at the top of your blog, instead of somewhere far down where no one will see them.
And second, use enticing copy to get visitors to subscribe. Briefly explain the benefits of subscribing, what kind of content they can expect to receive, and also do not forget about your privacy disclaimer, calming potential subscribers that you will never abuse their personal information.
4. EXPLAIN RSS
Most
If you own a franchise you should be in contact with your nearest franchisees and share information as if you were the manager of a corporate store. You should set up meetings once or twice per month and have their phone numbers logged into your speed dial for easy reference.You should learn from the experiences of your fellow franchisees. For example, let’s say you found out your next-door franchisee neighbor as a certain type of customer and you are starting to see a few of these types of customers come into your store. You decide you would like to see more of them as their average ticket prices are better than your current average customers. You, of course, will want to learn all you can from your neighboring franchisee and what they have done to target this market segment. It’s really nice to know you can pick up the phone and call a friend who has answers to these types of questions you might have on a
While RSS provides us with many unique benefits, it is yet to reach mainstream adoption. Until it does, marketers and publishers should not even consider abandoning e-mail delivery, or risk ignoring most of their potential readership.
If you're still wondering why you need e-mail, consider the potential you might be wasting without it. Someone visits your blog, likes the content and would like to be notified as new content of interest becomes available, and he does not know what RSS is or even care. If you fail to capture his e-mail address and consent at that exact moment, he might never again return to your site, either because he forgets about it or because dozens of other sites capture his interest even before the next day.
2. E-ZINE PUBLISHING IS STILL A MUST
Publishing a blog is not a replacement for an e-zine. If nothing else, publish a weekly or monthly e-zine of your top blog posts, available in a single easy-to-consume format.
Some simply do not have the time to watch your blog regularly and others will only want to receive a quick summary to get only your best and most crucial content. Publishing an e-mail e-zine will do that for you, giving you the opportunity to communicate with the widest possible long-term audience for your blog.
3. E-MAIL AND RSS SUBSCRIPTIONS
Providing e-mail (e-zine) and RSS subscriptions is important to the success of any blog. But neither of these will do you much good if your visitors don't actually see them and if you don't give them enough incentive to subscribe.
Foremost, display your e-mail e-zine and RSS subscriptions information at the top of your blog, instead of somewhere far down where no one will see them.
And second, use enticing copy to get visitors to subscribe. Briefly explain the benefits of subscribing, what kind of content they can expect to receive, and also do not forget about your privacy disclaimer, calming potential subscribers that you will never abuse their personal information.
4. EXPLAIN RSS
Mos
MANAGING SMALL MEETINGS: Keep the size of the meeting as small as possible. The larger the group, the more complicated communication becomes and the more garbled the purpose may get. For example, with a group of two, there are two communication channels, add a third person and six channels have been created. With each additional person, the number of communication channels increases exponentially. When selecting participants for the meeting, consider the following criteria: -- expertise in the topics -- contribution to the discussion -- pre-existing personal conflicts -need for new information.MANAGING MEETINGS: Select a time to meet when participants are most likely to be punctual and attentive. The most productive time is generally early morning, after employees have had a chance to drink their morning coffee. The least productive time is usually right after lunch or towards the end of the day when other w
2. E-ZINE PUBLISHING IS STILL A MUST
Publishing a blog is not a replacement for an e-zine. If nothing else, publish a weekly or monthly e-zine of your top blog posts, available in a single easy-to-consume format.
Some simply do not have the time to watch your blog regularly and others will only want to receive a quick summary to get only your best and most crucial content. Publishing an e-mail e-zine will do that for you, giving you the opportunity to communicate with the widest possible long-term audience for your blog.
3. E-MAIL AND RSS SUBSCRIPTIONS
Providing e-mail (e-zine) and RSS subscriptions is important to the success of any blog. But neither of these will do you much good if your visitors don't actually see them and if you don't give them enough incentive to subscribe.
Foremost, display your e-mail e-zine and RSS subscriptions information at the top of your blog, instead of somewhere far down where no one will see them.
And second, use enticing copy to get visitors to subscribe. Briefly explain the benefits of subscribing, what kind of content they can expect to receive, and also do not forget about your privacy disclaimer, calming potential subscribers that you will never abuse their personal information.
4. EXPLAIN RSS
Mos
What do ultra-successful business owners and top executives ALL do to achieve their goals so much faster than others - with far less effort and struggle?You can bet they are not slaves to their business—they are the masters of their businesses!If you are struggling too hard and feel like a slave to your business, you need to learn what ultra-successful business owners and top executives all do to achieve their goals faster - with far less effort and struggle.Are you the master or the slave of your business?Take this test to find out.There are two types of business people; those who master their business and those who are slaves to their business. Which are you?Here are 10 danger signals:__ I am impatient with others at least several times a week. __ My spouse (or employees) just don't get how big a job this is. __ G
Some simply do not have the time to watch your blog regularly and others will only want to receive a quick summary to get only your best and most crucial content. Publishing an e-mail e-zine will do that for you, giving you the opportunity to communicate with the widest possible long-term audience for your blog.
3. E-MAIL AND RSS SUBSCRIPTIONS
Providing e-mail (e-zine) and RSS subscriptions is important to the success of any blog. But neither of these will do you much good if your visitors don't actually see them and if you don't give them enough incentive to subscribe.
Foremost, display your e-mail e-zine and RSS subscriptions information at the top of your blog, instead of somewhere far down where no one will see them.
And second, use enticing copy to get visitors to subscribe. Briefly explain the benefits of subscribing, what kind of content they can expect to receive, and also do not forget about your privacy disclaimer, calming potential subscribers that you will never abuse their personal information.
4. EXPLAIN RSS
Mos
Small Business Marketers often undervalue and misunderstand the third critical element of marketing: People. Remember, Brand is who you are to the customer and Package is how you present yourself to the customer. But the third basic building block in any business is People.And that’s all the people, not just the prospects. All the people means: Customers Prospects Employees Every small business marketing plan must focus on gaining new prospects. This is marketing 101--find fresh sources of revenue to support growth for the company. Unfortunately, most marketers focus 80% or more of their time searching out new business, pay lip-service to customer retention and cross-sells, and completely ignore employees as a marketing resource.This practice of prospect-only focusing is just like injecting an anti-profit to
Foremost, display your e-mail e-zine and RSS subscriptions information at the top of your blog, instead of somewhere far down where no one will see them.
And second, use enticing copy to get visitors to subscribe. Briefly explain the benefits of subscribing, what kind of content they can expect to receive, and also do not forget about your privacy disclaimer, calming potential subscribers that you will never abuse their personal information.
4. EXPLAIN RSS
Most internet users still do not know what RSS is or how to use it, and consequently the RSS buttons on your blog mean absolutely nothing to them.
To overcome this problem, create a special RSS presentation page and link to it next to the RSS subscribe button. On that page explain:
- What RSS is
- How the visitor will benefit from using RSS
- Where they can get a free RSS aggregator (recommend one yourself!)
- How they can install it (provide step-by-step instructions)
- How they can subscribe to your RSS feeds
- Why they should subscribe to your own RSS feeds
Then, on this same page, include the links to all of your RSS feeds.
5. TOP CONTENT
If you update your blog frequently, your less recent top content keeps being pushed down and down, where most of your blog readers will never bother to look for it.
Overcome this frequent blog problem by creating a list of your top posts, clearly displayed and available from each of your pages. Depending on the topic you cover, you might want to place these headlines as close to the top of your blog as possible, in order to quickly entice your new visitors to start reading the best of what you have to offer and then use this content to convert them to loyal readers and subscribers.
6. THE HEADLINE
The site or blog headline will tell your visitors what to expect from reading your blog and will answer their key question: "What's in it for me?"
Make sure that your blog headlines gives this reason and the story inviting enough for your readers to keep reading.
7. LEAD YOUR VISITORS TO YOUR MDA
MDA is the Most Desired Action you want your visitors to take on your site, ranging from a subscription to your e-zine to requesting more information about your services or ordering your product / getting more information about it.
Your blog will be of great help in this area, but only if you actually lead your visitors to this action. Putting this information in your menu simply is not enough.
Experiment putting some copy for your MDA directly below each blog post (on your permanent blog post archives pages) and also prominently in your left- or right-hand columns.
If you're providing multiple services or products,
HTTP = HTML link (for blogs, profiles,phorums):
<a href="http://www.atriclecheck.com/article/69870/atriclecheck-Marketing-Optimization-101-for-Blogs.html">Marketing Optimization 101 for Blogs</a>
BB link (for phorums):
[url=http://www.atriclecheck.com/article/69870/atriclecheck-Marketing-Optimization-101-for-Blogs.html]Marketing Optimization 101 for Blogs[/url]
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