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Hi Patsi and Denise,
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** Limited Time Pre-Order Special **
http://snipurl.com/Blog_Your_BookCD
Blog Your Book: The Easy Way to Write and Market Your Book
Have a book finished and selling in 90 days or less.
With The Blog Squad™ Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff, Psy.D.
You can have a book ready to sell in 90 days or less. Learn what you need to know to get started in this 74 minute TeleSeminar on CD with complete, edited transcript.
With The Blog Squad™ Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff, Psy.D, interviewed by Tom Antion.
You will learn:
Together Patsi and Denise operate a "blog crisis prevention" team called "The Blog Squad™" - helping turn ordinary blogs from boring to brilliant!
You can pre-order the digitally recorded CD and transcript of this TeleSeminar for only $27 (+ shipping). This pre-order special price is only good through Thursday, March 23, 2006. (the regular price will be $37)
Are you ready to write your book?
Yes! I want to take advantage of this great deal!
The CD will be shipped to you as soon as production is complete. You will receive an
email to download the transcript as soon as it is ready.
Blog on!
Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff
The Blog Squad(tm)
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Brian Clark of Copyblogger makes a good point about measuring the success of your blog. He says it's not number of visitors that counts, but number of subscribers. Here's an excerpt of his post:
Blog Commitment
Due to the principles of commitment and consistency, the most important blog metric to track is not raw traffic, page views, or unique monthly visitors. The most important thing to build and track is your subscriber base.
A subscriber has made a commitment to you that a mere site visitor hasn’t. Something magical happens when someone raises their hand and says “please communicate with me on a regular basis.” This small commitment is the heart of permission marketing, a very powerful concept that seems to be getting lost in all the Web 2.0 hoopla.
A subscription not only increases the frequency and regularity of contacts with a prospect, it also changes the frame through which that prospect will view your eventual offer. The prospect’s world view may now be such that a purchase is more likely thanks to the subscription relationship.
Thanks, Brian. Denise and I have always insisted on our blog clients inserting a subscription form from Feedblitz up at the top so readers can get regular updates through email.
If you're not using this free and easy service, you should. Here is a previous post, a Feedblitz tutorial from Denise.
And here's is a post about adding a hit counter to your blog. Measuring traffic is important, but more importantly, is getting the right kind of traffic: your targeted readers who will become clients.
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When you use a blog to report out a conference you attend, or when you are the organizer of a conference, you can turn your conference blog into a booklet, and use it as a marketing tool for your next conference.
Denise commented to my recent post, Blogging the Event: Instant Contacts, Instant Updates, reminding me that not only did we blog from Tom Antion's Butt Camp in Phoenix, but we also blogged the ICF Conference (International Coach Federation) in San Jose in November.
How could I forget that! The blog is still up and active, www.blogsquadlive.com. We produced a wonderful bright pink booklet by exporting our blog to Blogbinders.com, from whom we ordered a bunch of books to give away to all our guest authors, The Team Blog Squad, since they were active contributors to the blog. It's a great souvenir, because all the authors were such great writers.
Of course, we had nothing to do with organizing the ICF conference, we were participating as exhibitors. But what a great marketing tool for the ICF, to generate interest for next year's conference! If they only knew...!
Next time you do a conference, set up a blog beforehand to generate buzz, then blog during the conference, inviting others to guest author as well so that you add perspectives. Then wrap it up with conference notes, highlights, and learning points. Voila, you've just created a valuable information product, proof of a great conference.
What other ways can you imagine to use a blog for marketing? Just hit the comment link below and share your ideas. Best ideas are eligible for a free cup of coffee!
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I just received my copy of Hackoff.com. It's huge -- 642 pages, hardcover. Remember back in November The Blog Squad interviewed Tom Evslin about how he was writing his book and using a blog and podcast to build an audience fo it? It's out now. And, since I pre-ordered my copy from Amazon.com, it's even signed by the author!
Tom Evslin was/is an Internet pioneer and very creatively used a blog (at Hackoff.com)to publish his book bit by bit, every business day. Then, he started podcasting each episode. I've read parts on the blog and listened to some of the podcasts. Now I have the hardcover version--I just had to have the souvenir since I've been following this project for so long. And, it's a really good mystery. The book is self-published by dothill press.
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You see, this is just another reason I love blogs...you can blog directly from the conference you are doing or attending. Like when Denise blogged at our recent Butt Camp with Tom Antion...
Since you aren't at the Business Blogging Summit, all you need to do is read their blog for instant updates on what you're missing, and why you should catch the next event in case it comes to a town near you...
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Today March 16, if you're reading this blog, then you're probably not at the Blog Business Summit in Los Angeles. This is a series of one-day events on the Essentials of Business Blogging. For less than the price of a pair of Ferragamo shoes, you could be sitting at the Westin soaking up blog brilliance for your biz.
So here's what you can do instead: go read their blog and find out what you're missing, what you need to know if you are thinking about starting a blog, or have one that needs to be optimized for business.
Blog Business Summit is a blog run by several blogging and marketing experts, such as Anil Dash, Janet Johnson, DL Byron, and Steve Broback. Just reading the list of topics covered during the day will send you into overwhelm anxiety, but will also alert you to what you will need to know to make effective use of your blog.
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A couple of weeks ago I posted on my Biz Tips Blog about being a part of the LinkedIn Bloggers Network. As a new initiative to bring awareness to the myriad blogs in the network, the group has started a weekly Blog Boost that will feature a randomly selected blog. Anyone in the network who wants to participate or feels the blog's content is compatible with their audience, is invited to post about and link to the blog on a given day.
Today's blog boost is for a blog called Me, Myself and I.
When I surfed around this blog, I couldn't find anything that really compelled me to want to boost it. So I decided I would do a mini Blog Squad Makeover critique since there are many elements missing that I think could make this blog a lot better.
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"Link baiting" -- a term new to me until a couple of days ago. OK, I'm behind the times; there's just so much one can do to keep up with EVERYTHING happening on the 'net AND serve clients AND market one's business. Enough complaining.
When I first read this term on someone's blog (sorry, I cannot remember where I first came across this term and therefore not give link credit), I made a note to look into and report back here.
A simple search on Google reveals tons of articles about link baiting. The first link took me to SearchEngineJournal.com and this definition:
...the practice of creating content interesting enough, funny enough, shocking enough, or smart enough which other bloggers and publishers will link to. Link baiting has become an accepted form of link building in the search engine marketing world, as producing content which attracts interest is one of the building blocks of the Internet.
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I love Doonesbury. Even though the image here is way too small (click on the image to see it full size), you gotta love this message about blogs...
Guy at computer: "Posted 16:30 EST: Krispy Kreme has introduced its new donut of the month. IMHO, it's a winner."
Guy at TV: "Now here's great TV. CNN is actually broadcasting screen shots of random opinion blogs. What a concept. Take the unreadable and make it illegible."
Guy at computer: "Oh... that's really lame..."
Guy at TV: "Look at this one! It's about donuts!"
Which reminds me about all the blog conversations on how businesses should blog, and can bloggers be hired to blog for a company or product. And the answer would be yes, if you make it interesting and passionate. In my humble opinion, unlike the Krispy Kreme donut, not many hired bloggers are winners...
Which is why business owners should be the ones blogging. Nobody can write about your products and services like you can, after all, it's your baby.
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