John Cow dot Com » Content Creation

Fresh Content, Fresh Content, Fresh Content

Jason Katzenback — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 18:34:44 +0000

Gee, what do you think this post is going to be about?

Your content is what is going to truly make you a Trusted Expert – it is the single most important thing you can do.

If you’ve been following all the advice I’ve already given in the Trusted Expert series, you’ve already come up with something of value to provide your users with – that thing that helps cement you as a Trusted Expert in their minds, whether it be a tool, ebook, audio or video file or report, and that’s great, but you can’t stop there.

As I mentioned in the last trusted Expert post about site maintenance, it’s important to your reputation as a Trusted Expert that you continually update your site. Make sure that you add in new testimonials when you get them – you can keep the best ones from the past up, but also make sure that there are also new ones, so that people will know that you’re still doing a great job of helping your customers now, not just 3 or 4 years ago.

Also, be sure you keep up on what’s happening in your niche, and where applicable, comment on it. It will add to your Trusted Expert status if you can prove to your audience that you not only participate in the niche, but you’re also up on what’s the latest happening. Put your ideas and opinions out there enough, and soon people will start to look to you for their news and information about your topic – the very definition of a Trusted Expert. And if they go to you for information, where are they going to go when they need to buy something – that’s right – to you.

Always respond to customer inquiries, and if you think the information is useful enough, get the original person’s permission and add it to your site. Not only are you sharing valuable information with your audience, you’re also showing them that you care enough to respond to the people who contact you, making other people more likely to contact you (and possibly buy from you) in the future.

Most importantly, don’t rest on your laurels. You may have written the best ebook or come up with the best tool in the world to brand yourself as a Trusted Expert. And you may think that’s enough. The problem is, no matter how good the original was, everything on the internet has an expiry date on it. Eventually, you’ll need to either update what you have or come up with something new entirely. By being proactive about this, you’ll just further reinforce the idea that you’re an expert in your niche.

Your content is the way you communicate with your users. Everything you say, and how and when you say it contribute to the overall effect of you being seen as an expert. The cornerstone of being a Trusted Expert is to provide users with useful information – not to make a sale. The sale is the side affect of them trusting you because of your useful content. So make sure that you put at least as much effort, if not more, into the quality of your content as you do with your marketing tactics and you’ll be fine.

Heard of the New FTC Regulations? You Absolutely Must Read This Before You Write Another Blog Post or Promote Another Product!

Jason Katzenback — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:05:16 +0000

Yes, that title was a little long, but I wanted to make sure that I had your attention. As most of you may be aware (or should be, at least) yesterday new FTC regulations came into effect concerning the use of testimonials and endorsements in advertising. A lot of the new regulations directly affect online marketers, so I decided to go straight to the source to see exactly what this would mean for me (and for you, my readers).

I went to http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm and actually read through the whole 12 page guide – specifically the Federal Trade Commission 16 CFR Part 255 – Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising. Here are the highlights as they pertain to us online marketers:

First off, there’s the matter of endorsements. The FTC specifically states that endorsements must reflect the honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experience of the endorser. This part may sound pretty straightforward, but how they define that ‘honesty’ has some big ramifications about how you can write your sales copy or other advertising or promotion pieces.

The big term that the FTC is using is “substantiation of representations conveyed”. What this means is that you’ve got to be able to prove (and back up) any claims you make. Which I’ve always told you to do, but what’s changed is what they consider proof. While I’ve always used real examples for my proof, I (and everybody else) would naturally pick the best results out of the bunch to highlight. It’s a natural thing to do.

But now, no longer can you say, about a weight loss product, for example, “Lose 20 pounds in 2 weeks!” just because one of your customers did. Now, any claims you make have to be representative of the average experience of the user, not the exceptional ones. And you can’t just cover your butt with a “results not typical” disclaimer, either – the FTC has deemed that “disclaimers did not adequately reduce the communication that the experiences depicted are generally representative.” In English, that means that even if you say that results are not typical in small print, it doesn’t change the fact that you’re giving the impression in the big giant headline that everyone could lose 20 pounds in 2 weeks.

And even if you have a ringing endorsement of a successful customer (which of course is indicative of the average experience), you also have to disclose any other factors that affected the result. For instance, that person that lost 20 pounds in 2 weeks didn’t just take your supplement, but they also went on a low-calorie diet and worked out for 90 minutes a day. If you wanted to use that person as a testimonial, you would have to disclose all the factors that influenced the result.

Same goes for the use of before/after pictures. You can’t just show the dramatic pictures and let them speak for themselves. Again, if it was more than just your great product that influenced the result, you have to disclose it.

Also, when you are using testimonials, a lot of people (including me) have always recommended using pictures to go along with the testimonials to help to personalize them. Now, you can’t do that, unless you have the actual picture of the actual person. You can’t just take a random picture that you have the rights to and match it up with a testimonial. The FTC feels that is misleading.

In all, each change, taken by itself, is a small thing, but when taken together, will greatly affect how we operate as online marketers. I recommend that you go to the FTC site mentioned above and check things out for yourself – everyone’s business is unique and, although I tried to point out all the important things, you might want to check how this affects you specifically.

In fact, there was so much to cover, that this discussion of the new FTC regulations is going to need another post. Next post will be about the new guidelines regarding “Disclosure of Material Connections.” They certainly have a way with words over at the FTC, don’t they?

PS – Remember i am NOT a lawyer and not giving you legal advice… you need to contact your own legal counsel on this matter… don’t be telling anyone you thought you were ok cause a cow told you… trust me it don’t work.

Next Post in Series: I Was Not Paid By The FTC For This Review

Put Your Crappy Content Away, Ya Lazy Bum!

Jason Katzenback — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:55:25 +0000

The times, they are a changin’. Although it hasn’t officially happened yet, there have been whispers in quite a few places for a while now that things are changing in the world of article marketing, specifically in the article directories and very specifically, with Ezine Articles. And in my personal opinion, it’s a change for the better.

Here’s what’s rumored to be happening: submission standards are about to get a whole lot higher. To put it in a nutshell, the minimum standard for articles to get approved (which, historically, has been pretty darn low) is going to be longer and better. No longer will you be able to throw together a crappy 250 word article full of spelling and grammatical errors and call it a day. Soon, that kind of sloppy work won’t get approved any more.

And what’s more…

The changes are reportedly retroactive!

Meaning if you’ve got crappy articles approved in the past, unless you update them and make them acceptable, they’ll disappear.

What do I have to say about this?

Well, I say it’s about damn time. I’ve said many times, on this blog and on the other sites I own, that putting quality content out there is the real key to succeeding in online business. And I use article marketing to promote my products, but when I mention that I’m an article marketer, people lump me in with those other bozos littering the article directories with crap content and giving the rest of us a bad name.

For my own article marketing, I’ve long held a stipulation that all the articles I use be at least 400 words long, always be completely original, and have really useful information for the reader. Keyword density should be between 2-5%, but is usually around 2.5-3.5%. Because I’ve been doing things this way for a long time, I know that, when the changes do come, I don’t have to worry about any of my old articles being taken down.

HOT TIP –> The MOST IMPORTANT thing i do however, is write the content first and then go back and keyword optimize it. If you write for a keyword the content will suck… create a title first, write a worthwhile piece of content and then go back and keyword optimize it. Your content will get both published and read!

So that’s my advice for anybody using article marketing right now – if you’re not already, make the change and start writing quality articles NOW, before the new rules come into play. Do this for two reasons; one, because quality is always better than crappy (in terms of your reputation and your bottom line), and you should have been doing it this way all this time anyway; and secondly, so that when these changes do come you’ll be ahead of the game and not one of the people left in the lurch when all of their articles get dumped.

NEW Update: Just saw a new update to the ezinearticles guidelines as we speak…

Expert Authors can now earn the ability to link-up 4-word and 5-word phrases* by submitting lengthier (over 400 words) high-quality articles.

BOTTOM LINE:

If your article is shorter than 400 words, each text link may only contain a maximum of 3 words*

If your article is longer than 400 words, each text link may only contain a maximum of 5 words*

* Important Note: Any common words, including to, is, in, on, it, and, at, by, a, an and others will now be excluded from the word count.

PS – If you are wondering why i am focusing on EzineArticles here… cause they are the grand daddy of all article directories and you NEED to be using them (IMHO).

So what’s your thoughts?

SEO & Being a Trusted Expert

Jason Katzenback — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 03:13:44 +0000

You may not realize it, but the things that will make you a Trusted Expert will also help you with your SEO (Search Engine Optimization)…

…which will improve your natural ranking with Google…

…which will help people searching for your product or service find you in the top of the search rankings…

…which makes them think of you as a Trusted Expert!

See how that works?

If you want to be a Trusted Expert (and of course you do) you need to be all over SEO. That’s because people inherently trust natural search results more than PPC ads when they do a search.

Why?

It does not matter what the logical truth is, it’s the visceral emotional response (I am such a genius for knowing that big word) that counts, and gets people to take action. So, if you want to be considered a Trusted Expert in a certain niche, then you need to rank well in your target keywords.

You may expect this post to be full of SEO tips and tricks, but what you don’t realize is that you’ve already been doing a lot already to improve your SEO, if you’ve been doing all the things that I’ve recommended to become a Trusted Expert (and you have been doing those things, haven’t you… cause here is the previous post in the series if you missed it Press Releases the More Technical Stuff)

- Your blog. Google and the other search engines loves them some blogs. Every time you post, you improve your credibility and your standing with Google. Blogs are also a great way to target new keywords – a good blog post with the proper keyword density (2-5%) can bring you in a ton of new people if targeted correctly.

- Your online press room. Again, Google loves anything that provides fresh content, and you’re going to be posting every single press release you send out (and again, you are sending press releases out now, right?) This is especially important because the online press release services only keep your press releases indexed for a short time. Anyone searching on the terms you used in those press releases after that time will be directed to your online press room/latest news area. And if you don’t have an area for your press releases, then they’ll end up…at someone else’s websites.

Beyond your Trusted Expert content, there are a loads of basic technical things you need to be doing to improve your SEO.

Have a Google friendly site map and submit it to the google webmaster tools.
Use a robots.txt file.
Add your primary keyword phrase to your title, description & keyword tags (only one time in each)
Have your main keyword in an h1 tag (only once)
Use your alt tags and add your primary keyword to one of them (most important is to describe the image but when possible add a keyword to one of them)
Make sure no two titles and descriptions on your site are the same (Google often deems this as duplicate content, even though the pages might be completely different)
Internally link to your main pages with the keyword anchor text you want to rank for (internal linking is very important and often overlooked)
Link to related high authority resources (Google likes seeing you offering visitors relevant info and linking to high authority sites)
Check for broken links and images (Google hates errors)

There are a lot of other tips and tricks to improve your SEO, but this is a good place to start. Like most things about being a Trusted Expert, it all comes back to the content. Properly targeted content not only brands you as a Trusted Expert, but it also improves your SEO and makes it easier for people to find you, which helps them to see you as a Trusted Expert.

Funny how reciprocal that is… well i think so anyway… sort of.

More on Press Releases – the More Technical Stuff

Jason Katzenback — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:19:29 +0000

OK, so now you know that you have to write press releases in order to become a Trusted Expert. You know that they’re good for business, your blog, or whatever it is that you’re trying to accomplish. But how exactly do you go about it? And in this post, I’m not talking about the content, since I covered that in the last post. Here’s the things you need to figure out to get your post seen by the right people:

1. How you’re going to distribute the press release. There are many options out there. First off, you need to decide your main distribution. There are many press release distribution services out there, both paid and free. While you have to pay money for the paid service (duh), the top paid services have a much wider and larger distribution. (It’s really a case of getting what you pay for.) If you’re really strapped for money, stick with the free one, getting your message out to some people is better than none. Here are some PR distribution services:

You should also make sure to always simultaneously publish your press releases to your online press room/ latest news area of your site, which I’m sure you all built after my last post, right?

2. What keywords you’re going to target. You need to treat your press release just like any other kind of content that you put on your site. And all of your content needs to keep in mind those keywords that will resonate with your buyer personas.

3. What links you’re going to include. At the very least you need to include a link to the area of your site that the release is talking about. Ideally, any time you mention something about your company, you should be including a link. Talking about the company history, or if you’re the company, information about you? Then link to the About Us/Bio page. Remember, you want to make it easy for your buyers/readers to find you.

4. The social media you’re going to utilize. Using social media tags will make your press releases easier to find, and they also give you the opportunity to reach new buyers/readers in the specific niche that you’re looking to target. The big ones are Technorati, del.icio.us, and DIGG, but there are many more. If you’re not sure how to go about using social media tags, Todd Defren at SHIFT Communications has a social media press release template that they have made available for free; you can find it at http://www.pr-squared.com.

And don’t forget to mention your news on your Twitter and Facebook as well, but those Social Media tools and how to use them to become a Trusted Expert deserve a post all their own.

Why Your Content Is Not Getting Read By Anyone!

Jason Katzenback — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 23:47:39 +0000

Top Three Mini Commitment Errors You Are Making Right Now!

Does your content actually get read? When you are creating your blog posts, sales copy or emails, do you focus on what you want or what the reader wants?

I have a friend that I am helping with a new blog and it is in a niche he is extremely passionate about. The expertise and knowledge that he has about this topic (natural health) is incredible but his presentation sucks.

Not that he is not passionate about the topic and helping people… but the challenge he faces is he focuses the delivery of his content on assumptions and we all know that assumptions make an ass of u and me (ass u me).

Now I am not saying he is making an ass of himself at all… if anything that is farthest from the truth but if he did not have my help I could guarantee that he eventually would.

Over the past 2 years especially, I am seeing a huge amount of proof that as content providers, we NEED to focus on not getting our readers to make one big commitment but instead a bunch of mini commitments.

These small commitments are 1 to 2 second decisions that we all make and are what you want to focus on so that your reader will actually read your content.

Below are the 3 biggest assumption that I see being made everyday that cause your readers to NOT read your content.

1. Its Not How You Say it But What You Say

This is such a big stumbling block for so many people. We get stuck in our head that the content will do all the selling and we never pay attention to how we structure and present our content.

The internet has made us an ADD ( no disrespect to anyone diagnosed with ADD) audience and as youtube and twitter have proven to us… people want the content given to them with as little effort as possible and in a small of segments as possible.

Do not make people have to do a full page scroll more then 2 or 3 times MAX when reading your content and break your paragraphs up into no more then 3 to 4 sentences.

This PROVES to help people not feel overwhelmed by your content.

2. People Want to Read What You Have to Say!

Sorry but 9 times out of 10 your biggest fan is usually yourself and the biggest mistake most people make when starting out is they think that people will want to read everything.

In the real world however, what usually happens is you end up talking way over your audiences head or you talk to them from more an encyclopedia stand point than actually relating to them from a personal perspective.

You need to relate to your reader and talk with them, NOT AT THEM. The micro commitment here is that they feel you relate to them right away and as a result they want to continue reading.

3. Your Title

I see so many posts on blogs that simply are two to three words that do nothing to get the readers attention.

The most effective thing you can do here is create a targeted headline (title) that is 5 to 9 words and gets your audiences attention and then immediately have a good sub headline that answers any questions the headline/title poses.

For example…

Headline –> LOSE 15 POUNDS IN 2 WEEKS!

Sub Headline –> New Diet Helps Increase Your Metabolism and Reduce Your Appetite With No Side Effects and Amazing Results!

This is just an example but you can see the headline gets thier attention and then the sub headline answers the question of how.

These are just three simple examples but the point here is remember… focus on talking to your reader, engage them, relate to them and do not overwhelm them with too many words.

What are your thoughts and comments?

How to Create Trusted Expert Content

Jason Katzenback — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 18:21:13 +0000

You need to provide content to your potential customers in the same language that they use. If you use similar style and language that they do, then your message will resonate with them even more. Every single thing you write, from blog posts, to emails, to press releases, to your website’s content, it all needs to take this into consideration.

Well-written materials will help your buyers understand how you can help them, why you’re the Trusted Expert they should go to when they are finally ready to make a purchase. I can’t overstate the importance of this. The content that you write for your potential customers will have a much greater influence over their opinion of you and your company than any piece of advertising that you will ever do.

But how do you know how to talk to them? How do you make them believe that you’re a Trusted Expert? Refer back to your buyer personas. They will tell you exactly how to talk to your audience. Avoid jargon; it’s the language that people turn to when they don’t have anything of use to say. It doesn’t make you sound smarter, and it’s the same stupid buzzword phrases that everyone else (meaning your competitors) is using. You will stand out from the competition by using superior content.

Understand your audience. You’ll need to consider what market problems your buyer personas are faced with and develop topics that appeal to them. Then, you need to write for that audience. If you use examples and stories, the content will resonate with them much more than just dry facts. Remember, you’re trying to build a relationship with these people. Make it interesting, and make them want to come back for more. Choose a great title that grabs attention and then use a subtitle to describe what the content will deliver. People are more likely to download, click, or sign up to get more if they have a clear understanding about what they’re getting.

Promote the effort like crazy. Offer the content on your site with easy-to-find links. Add a link to employees (if you have them) email signatures, and get partners to offer the links as well. To drive viral marketing efforts, alert the appropriate reporters, bloggers, and analysts in your category or niche that the content is available and send them a download link. Tweet it, post it on Faceook – get your information out there. Don’t rely only on your website to get info out there – use articles, comments on other blogs. This will help to drive traffic to your site as well as put you on the map with the authorities within your niche. Make yourself a Trusted Expert in their eyes, and they’ll tell the world.

People in the early stages of the buying cycle need basic information, people further along in the process want to compare products and services, both from what you offer and among your competitors, and they then need detailed information about the benefit of your products vs. someone else’s, or even one of your products vs. another one of your products. When the buyers are at the end of the buying process, it is crucial that you have an easy-to-use checkout system linked directly from your content so you can make the conversion as easy as possible for them.

Don’t forget about your communications after the sale, either. Make sure to continue the dialog with the customer, either through an opt-in email newsletter or by directing them to your forums – anywhere where you can continue the two-way conversation. You should also provide them with a tool in which to provide feedback on the sale itself.

Here’s what you need to do:

Decide that form of content best suits your buyer personas. White paper? Ebook? Webinar? YouTube Video? All depends on what your personas like best.
Decide how you’re going to talk to each persona. Based on their needs, wants, and preferred methods of communication, each message should have subtle differences in tone that will make your message resonate more with each persona.
Start writing your Trusted Expert content.

How to Become a Trusted Expert

Jason Katzenback — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 11:00:21 +0000

To develop thought leadership, you need to start to think like your buyer personas. (See previous post in series How to Develop Buyer Personas)

You don’t want to become a Trusted Expert to everyone (well, you would, but it’s nearly impossible to do), you want to become a Trusted Expert within your buyer personas (a much more accomplishable task.)

Remember that being a Trusted Expert is about educating your potential customers on how to solve their problems, it is in no way related to trying to sell them something. It may go against every instinct you have, but you can’t mention your company (besides letting them know who the information is from) or the products or services you sell.

Really, this is what becoming a Trusted Expert is all about. It will turn you from Jim, the guy with a website that sells shed plans, to Jim, the Trusted Expert on the construction and building of sheds who helps us out by also selling plans that have been given his seal of approval. Who would you rather buy from? I thought so.

And to become a Trusted Expert, you’ve got to give a little to get a lot.

If may seem counterintuitive, but you’ve got to give away some info that is valuable enough that you could probably charge for it, but you won’t since you’re Jim, Trusted Expert, who just wants to educate people about how to build good sheds; and if you happen to need a plan to build that shed, why I’ve got one right here for you.

There are many ways that you can establish yourself as a Trusted Expert. Ways to communicate with your potential customers include blogs (hi!), email newsletters, ebooks, webinars, podcasts, video content, research reports, and white papers. Each is a way to communicate useful information that people will value, and, in turn, assign value to your company.

When preparing these communication pieces, there are several things that you need to keep in mind:

This is not a sales pitch; being a Trusted Expert has nothing to do with advertising.
Know your organizational goals.
Understand your audience (buyer personas); you can’t provide them with useful information if you don’t know what they want.
Make sure to promote your efforts; treat it as a press release worthy thing – let reporters, bloggers, and analysts that would be interested in the information know about it.
Decide whether you want to provide the content for free, or if you’re going to require people to register. You’ll get more people downloading it if it’s free, but you could also be building a qualified mailing list if you require them to provide you with an email address. Depending on what your company does and what your goals are, either option could work best.

Don’t underestimate the power using someone else’s expertise to help establish you as a Trusted Expert in your business. Hitch your cart to their star, as they say, and leverage that person’s authority and thought leadership and use it to promote your business, and you as a Trusted Expert.

Get someone who is already respected within your category to write something that you will feature on your site. It could be a guest blog post, a white paper, either a written, audio, or video interview. Not only will you get the benefit of their authority, but you can also get a boost in traffic through promotion on their site.

Here’s what you need to do:

Come of with a list of useful information that you can give to your buyers that will help establish yourself as a Trusted Expert.
Decide what, out of that information, would be the most useful to each of your personas.
Then, decide where you will promote the availability of this information so that each of your personas will become aware of it.

Marketing Content and Content Marketing

Jason Katzenback — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 23:09:40 +0000

For the most part, the instinctive thing that people do is the opposite of what will make them money. The Majority of internet marketers instinctively try to push their product on every one they meet. Sadly, it is the complete opposite of what they should be doing.

Instead of being a sales man, you need to become the Samaritan. Create value for others on a massive scale. People love value. They will adore you for it. And when they do, they will be ecstatic to buy your products.

Most people think of marketing and content as two separate things. Most people think: “I create my marketing to sell my content.” However, content is far better marketing than marketing.

Content provides the prospect with an opportunity to feel what is it like to learn from you, which is much more effective than any Pay Per Click ad. If you begin to look at your content as marketing it will help you make money much faster than if you were to think about it like the majority of internet marketers do.

There are 3 types of marketing content:

1. Free Line Content. This is the content you use in order to attract prospects, get subscribers and build your list. The content you give out for free in order to get the opt-in. Free reports, downloadable videos, audios, and software demos are the best example for this type of content.

2. Relationship Content. This is the content you use to build relationships and connect with your list. Email newsletters, e-courses, daily tips and anything you can send out daily during the first 7-10 days after the prospect has opted in.

3. Conversion Content. This is where you make the product offer to your prospects. Sales letters or any other types of offers you make to your prospects asking them to buy your product.

Amazing things happen when you start thinking of your content as marketing. Your mindset undergoes a shift. So now you don’t think about getting something – you think about giving something.

You stop thinking: “How do I take their money? How do I get them to spend money with me?” and start thinking: “How do I give my prospects the best value content and take advantage of my knowledge, so they can get some real world experience, so when I build a relationship with them and ask them if they are interested in buying some of my stuff they say “YES!” because they trust me?”

This is a Guest Post by Igor Kheifets. Igor is 21 year old Internet Marketing Expert and the author and creator of Mastermind Internet Marketing where he shares the latest strategies on Social Media Marketing, Traffic and Lead Generation, Copywriting and Productivity.

Writing For Your Buyers – From a Trusted Expert Perspective

Jason Katzenback — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:25:14 +0000

Now that you know who you should be talking to and what you need to be saying to them (I talk about this in my previous post How You Become a Trusted Expert), you need to know how to talk to them.

Your buyers are motivated by an oldie but a goodie (there’s a reason why we still use this):

What’s In It For Me?

Your buyers want to know what specific problems you can solve for them, and they want proof that it works (and no, you telling them won’t be enough.) They need to know why they should think of you as a Trusted Expert.

Poor writing usually happens because most marketers are only thinking about what they want – to sell product – rather than about what their customers want. You need to identify the situations that your buyers find themselves in, that could potentially provoke a need for what you’re providing.

What are their problems?
Their business issues?
Their needs?

Then you come up with solutions for those problems, and not by promoting your product. Remember, all of your content is meant to drive action (whatever action that you desire) and promoting a product does not drive action, providing solutions does.

The great thing about the internet is that it connects you to your buying audience right at the precise moment that they are in the market for what you are providing. They are looking for you, and you have the opportunity to give them the information they need to make their decision, and establish yourself as a Trusted Expert in their eyes. By establishing yourself as a provider of information, not a hard-sales person, you establish yourself as an authority in your category, and people will turn to you for advice. Once trust is established (before a purchase) you have the potential to develop a long-term relationship with the buyer that will be very profitable to you.

Every single part of your communications strategy is an opportunity to communicate with your buyers and convince them that you are a thought leader. The web is the first place that people go to do initial research on a purchase. The question you need to ask yourself is whether your content and communications strategy will draw them into the buying process with you, or will they not find what they need and move onto one of your competitors.

So, now I have a question for you… when you are writing content to sell to others, do you ever ask the question “what’s in it for them?” or do you just try to jam it down their throats?

Buyer Personas and Your Website

Jason Katzenback — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:03:53 +0000

Continued from Buyer Personas – Who, Besides Your Mom Is Your Audience

Websites also fall victim to the one-size-fits-all problem (remember, all your communications with your personas are related, and your website is the biggest piece of communication you have). Most web content is written generically, without buyer personas in mind, even if there has been an attempt to do so with the advertising campaign.

It feels natural to organize your website the way that you think about it. Everything is organized by the products or services, or by how you have things organized for yourself. This is a mistake. You need to structure your site according to your buyer personas; that way, when they come to your site looking for a solution to a problem, they can see an easy path to that solution. You need to concentrate on telling them what they want to hear, not on what you want to say.

This is perhaps the hardest part of an effective communications strategy: stepping away from what you already know about the product, and to learn how to couch it in terms that your buyer personas that will understand, that is categorized according to how they think or behave.

Your typical communications strategy is built on what the company wants to say about itself, not what the buyer is looking for or wants to hear. Communications strategies that work the best (and achieve their goals) are ironically, not actually about the company or its goals. They are about the customer and their problems, and how you are the solution to their problems.

A key part of this is to figure out what you want your buyer personas to believe about you.

Take careful notice about the word I used there: “believe”

It’s a very different thing than ‘think’. ‘Believe’ taps in to the emotional part of the buying cycle, the part that makes the actual decision.

Decide wisely what you want people to believe about you; it may make the biggest difference in whether they choose you to solve their problem or one of your competitors.

Why You Need to Become a “Trusted Expert” in Your Field

Jason Katzenback — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 14:42:38 +0000

Why a Trusted Expert?

Because people want to do business with people they trust. It’s as simple as that. And unless you’ve got millions of dollars lying around, you don’t have the money to put into an advertising campaign to gain recognition for yourself and to build trust with your target audience like the major corporations do. And really, does anyone trust anything that’s said in advertising anymore?

Instead, you need to start looking at your communications in a different way. You need to come up with a strategy that will help you reach people, and build a level of trust with them that will cause them to seek you out when they need your product. And all for little to no money spent on your part. Just time, effort, and some authenticity are all that is required.

You just need to make other people start seeing you as a Trusted Expert. People want to do business with people they trust, and there’s not a whole lot of trust in online business. By being authentic and genuinely helpful (and don’t worry, I’ll explain how to do that if it seems like a foreign concept for business) you will position yourself as an authority in your niche or category.

By putting information first and sales second, it will actually make people want to buy from you more. It sounds counter-intuitive to everything you’ve read (trick them into buying stuff, hypnotize them so they don’t know what’s going on!) but it works, and even better, it establishes a long-term relationship that can provide you with sustained revenue down the road.

It may seem daunting (and a tad egotistical) to brand yourself as a Trusted Expert…

But there ain’t no room in business for humble, and you’ve got to blow your own horn because no one else is going to do it for you!

But to become a Trusted Expert, you first have to know more about your audience. In order to provide them with the information they want, you have to know what they need and why they need it.

So whats your thoughts on this post?

Clear and Effective Communication When Talking to Customers

Jason Katzenback — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:29:50 +0000

In my last post, I talked about the importance of talking to your customers directly to get the most out of everything the internet has to offer you and your business. In this post, we’ll talk a little bit about how that can be done.

How do you do this?

We’ll get more into that in the practical parts later, but you’re going to need to customize your site and all of your other communications so that you are exactly what the potential customer is looking for. At its most basic level, you’re going to need to build many different microsites or landing pages with purpose-built content aimed at each of the targets that you’ve identified.

That gets us on the topic of how the design of those pages is another integral part of your communications strategy, but I’m getting ahead of myself again.

With regards to PR, while media coverage is still important, and can be very beneficial to some businesses, there are now better ways to get media coverage than simply by sending out a press release.

What if a reporter already has a full plate when you send your release out? What if there’s no interest in the subject just then? But two weeks later, something related to your subject hits the news, and he goes looking for more information to give his story a new angle, but he can’t find anything about you (And he forgot about the press release you sent out).

Instead, you could tell your story directly to interested people. They will then talk about you, leading the media to pick up on the story and cover it.

The crucial difference in PR campaigns, is that, for the first time in a very long time, public relations is actually public. Anyone can launch and run a successful PR campaign by knowing who to talk to, and how to go about it. Blogs, online news releases, and other kinds of web content will make it easy for your potential customers to find information about you, and opens up a dialogue for your buyers to communicate directly with you.

With a direct PR campaign, you should cultivate as many small relationships within your niche that you can. While these bloggers and media people may seem like small potatoes compared to some of the biggies out there, they are highly influential within your niche, which is where your customers are.

You need to remember that a large number of small marketing efforts can bring in just as much business as one big coup can.

You also can’t look at your PR campaign as something that exists separately from your marketing efforts. Online, the two are inextricably linked. PR and advertising are all different aspects of the same communications strategy, and there are a lot of communication efforts that will possess aspects of both. Again, throw out everything you thought you knew about how advertising and marketing campaign are planned. You’ll get lost in the details. Get the big picture down first, and then move methodically through the other steps.

In later posts we’ll go over what the new strategies and theories you need to look at when formulating your communications strategy, and in then I’ll show you how to do it yourself, through step-by-step instructions. Then I’ll tell you how to keep your site in tip-top shape once you’ve gone through all the trouble of setting it up properly. That includes testing, as well as the importance of fresh content and keeping your site relevant in fast-changing times.

And at the end of the process, you can start calling yourself a Trusted Expert.

How it Works Today (Or Should Work)…

Jason Katzenback — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 03:59:47 +0000

(Continued from the previous post: How We Tried to Make a Square Peg Fit Into a Round Hole With Early Online Media)

It’s all About Communication!

If traditional advertising was a speech, then online advertising is a conversation.

Your content, in all of its forms, is the single most important part of your communications strategy. Your content needs to be authentic and provide useful information; in today’s jaded advertising atmosphere, people can see a sales pitch coming from a mile away.

So don’t pitch to them!

Instead, use your content to position yourself as an authority within your niche. You can get more accomplished with some genuine information and by being helpful than you could with a swanky advertising campaign. Make education one of your foremost communication goals.

Building an authentic communication strategy for the web may seem time-consuming, but it is a simple, cost-effective plan that can do amazing things for your company.

Today’s consumer is looking for the right product or service to satisfy a particular need or want – they are already further down the buying cycle than the targets of traditional advertising where you had to interrupt and introduce the idea. They are actively seeking out information on a service or product; you need to position yourself as an authority on that product or service, and gain their trust in order to convert them into a customer. And you do this with your communication strategy.

The web gives you and your business the unique ability to highlight your expertise to potential customers, by using the web-based media that’s available, as well as by interacting and participating in conversations with your existing clients as well as users that you want to turn into clients.

The internet started out primarily as a communication device, and that’s where its strength lies. You need to learn how to harness this power and use it to your greatest advantage. You have to ignore the old way that things were done in traditional advertising, and even in early advertising online. Those rules don’t apply. In fact, the transient nature of the web itself resists rules, as things are always changing. There are, however, guidelines that you can use to guide you through your communication strategy.

The most important thing to remember about your communications strategy is that fact that you can now tell your business’s story directly to your audience via the web; you can reach millions of people without having to buy advertising or run an expensive PR campaign.

People seek out information that they are interested in; you need to make sure that you are up front and center when they are looking for you.

Five Ideas for Generating Purposeful Content

Jason Katzenback — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 11:32:43 +0000

Blog writers face the same kinds of struggles and challenges that other writers do. It’s not easy, day after day, to come up with new ideas for your blog. Yet, if you only go through the motions and throw something up just so you’ve got a post for that day, it weakens your site and your credibility. So, what do you do when you have blog writer’s block?

I don’t have all the answers, but there are a few tips that have worked for me:

Read other blogs: One thing that makes the blogosphere different from the rest of the Web is the dialogue that takes place, not just in the comments section, but across blogs in a given niche. Problogger may write something one day, and the next day you’ll see something by Copyblogger that expands on the idea. Don’t steal someone else’s idea, but find your own way to apply what’s out there.
Take a break: Get out from in front of the computer. Go for a walk, breathe some fresh air or get some sunlight. If you want a real change in perspective, take your laptop to the mall or a Starbucks. You’ll be surprised what odd places your muse might be hiding.
Rework an old idea: Peer back through your archives, maybe even back to your earliest posts. There’s a good chance most of your readers haven’t read those early posts. Take one of them and update it. Add some new information or insight you’ve gained since you first wrote the post.
Outsource: Hiring someone to write your blog doesn’t have to be a long-term thing. Jump on one of the bidding sites and hire someone to give you a few weeks off while you regroup. Use that time to queue up some new posts, too.
Stop whining and write: Sometimes, you’ve just got to look past your current situation and force yourself to type something – anything – to get started. Write a post or article. If it’s crap, don’t publish it. Instead, rework it two or even three times, whatever it takes to turn that post into gold.

None of these ideas guarantees you’ll come up with the next big thing in your niche, but they can’t hurt, either.

Create Writing Rituals to Power Your Writing

Jason Katzenback — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:46:21 +0000

No, you’re not a professional writer, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use the same tricks and techniques professional writers use. One of the dirty little secrets effective writers don’t tell you is that they aren’t good writers because of innate talent; they’re good writers because they practice writing rituals.

Writing rituals are nothing more than personal habits. They might have to do with how long you write, where you write or when you write. In some cases, there are behavior-based writing rituals that use a repeated action – such as sipping a drink or sharpening a pencil – that you do before, during or after writing.

Many rituals don’t have any practical impact on your writing, per se. Instead, they have a practical impact on you, which then impacts your writing on more levels than you can imagine.

Here is what writing rituals do for you:

They decrease your stress: The stress of writing quality content day in and day out can lead to procrastination. By using writing rituals, you put yourself in a familiar situation that reduces procrastination and peels away some of your stress.
They boost your confidence: It’s easy to feel like a slave to your blog, having to publish updates on a daily basis. Using writing rituals gives you the ability to regain a sense of your own self control.
They make the writing process easier: Nothing will cut through a little writer’s block like using your writing rituals. They make it easier to start writing and power you through the writing process.

Now, just because most writing rituals don’t have a practical impact on your writing doesn’t mean that they can’t. For example, here are some rituals that writers use in order to get their juices flowing every time they sit down to write:

Outline before you write: If you jot down just three or four main points that you want to get across in your blog post, you’ll be surprised how fast the writing goes from there.
Close your other applications: When you’re 500 words into a blog post and an email comes in, you’ll be tempted to read it. If and when you get back to the blog post, you are essentially starting over. Close everything out during the writing process.
Set parameters: Know how long you’re going to write for or, better yet, know how many words or blog posts you want to write. Don’t stop or even get up until you’re done.

So, what about you? Do you have any blog post writing rituals you’d like to share?

Blogging with Clarity – I Can See Clearly Now the Rain is Gone

Jason Katzenback — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 22:42:17 +0000

Whether you use your blog to sell something, interact with others in your niche or just get out a message, writing with clarity is essential. Clear writing is convincing, more likely to connect with your reader and get a response. Most of all, clear writing is more likely to produce the results you want, such as a sale.

If your reader doesn’t understand what you’re saying, he isn’t going to spend the time to figure it out. Like most web surfers, blog readers have short attention spans. When they hit a roadblock like unclear writing, the look for the nearest link and they escape as quickly as possible.

So, how do you improve the clarity of your writing in your blog? I can think of a few steps you can take:

Organize your writing: Outline your post before you write it, and make sure your post has a logical flow to it.
Edit your writing: Don’t put up your post immediately. Sit on it for a day, and look at it again. When you do, ask the question “Does this convey the message I’m trying to convey?”
Learn to write with precision: Get rid of unnecessary words and phrases. Watch out for redundancy. Never use eight words to say something when it could be said in three words.
Open your writing up to constructive criticism: Ask someone to proofread your posts before they go live. Once they’ve read it, ask them: “What is the message this post conveys?” If it doesn’t match up with what you intended, go back to the drawing board.
Keep your writing simple: While you don’t have to stick to small words, the more simply you write your blog posts, the more readers that will be able to understand.
Finally, you need to review your posts after they’ve been up: Look at the comments. Are there questions in there about your meanings? If so, figure out where your weakness was and fix it for next time.

With a little dedication and attention, you can turn your muddied blog posts into laser-sharp attention-getting posts.

Blogging with Purpose… My Guest Post

Jason Katzenback — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:32:02 +0000

One of my favorite bloggers “Brian Clark” of copyblogger, just published a post of mine called…

“Are You Blogging With Purpose?“

And if you love the COW, check it out and do me a favor and stumble the post for me

Click Here to read the post now!

Three Types of Blog Writing Styles to Get You Started

Jason Katzenback — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 18:00:13 +0000

Everyone who runs a successful blog seems to have advice about how to write your blog posts. More often than not, the advice of one blogger will directly counteract the advice of another.

How do you know who is right?

The bottom line is this: whatever writing style works for your blog is the right style for you. It’s the ultimate test of practicality. If it works, do it some more. If it doesn’t work, stop doing it.

How do you find your writing style, though?

How will you know which one is working for you? I suggest that you try out a variety of different writing styles on your blog, and see how your readers respond and what kinds of backlinks each generates.

Here are three types of blog writing styles to get you started:

Personal Writing: This is the kind of blog writing where you talk directly to your reader in a conversational style. You use lots of personal anecdotes. You use informal language at times. You write as if you were writing a letter to your best friend.

The upside to a personal writing style is that you’re likely to create quite a loyal community of readers. The downside is that it’s awfully hard to outsource your blog writing down the road when you want to let your blog run on autopilot for a while.

Expert Writing: This sort of blog writing is much more didactic. You write as though you are an authority in your field addressing neonates. Expert writing is instructive, offers lots of little bits of advice and tips, and gives readers concrete activities to engage in.

Expert blogs are great because they tend to have high conversion rates. On the flip side, expert blogs can become mired in controversy when someone challenges their authority.

Sales Writing: Some blogs exist for one person: to get you to buy a product. This type of blog includes a lot of product reviews or may promote its own products.

Sales blogs can be very profitable – if they’re done well. However, a sales blog will rarely generate any kind of a loyal following, and you’ll probably be forgotten once they’ve bought their product.

Are there other types of writing styles that you think should be mentioned?

Marketing Your Content – Take Two

Jason Katzenback — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 17:29:42 +0000

This is Jerry West again from SEO Revolution and as promised from my last guest post, I would cover one of my ways to effectively market my content. I use the power of Blogs. You see, my experience has shown that people want to be served. They would rather have content delivered to them than have to go out and search for it.

Search = Work

RSS feeds and other ways of delivering content on the web today looked like a clear answer. After all, webmasters can sit back and have the content dumped in their laps in minutes without having to think about what they want and go looking for it. Sounds good, but I have talked to the big bloggers in many industries and their biggest gripe is all the SPAM that is sent to them via RSS. One blogger mentioned that he was getting so much SPAM through RSS that he just killed the feeds. “It was to the point that I was getting ten SPAM articles for every legit one.” It’s too much work to go through.

What should you do instead?

From those I spoke with, they only rely on a few key outlets for their content. I suggest you find the main bloggers in your space (Google Blogsearch).

Read their blog. Get to know it.

Then post comments that are good and insightful. Use your real name or a pen name, but leave a full name. Don’t post your site as a way to get some free “links”. Don’t “kiss up” either. If you disagree with what the blogger said, say so and back it up. Contrary to popular believe, nobody likes a “kiss a$$” so don’t do it. If the Blogger really knows their stuff, and you come up with a counter point that is well thought out and delivered, that will get their attention. Once you feel you have their attention, call them. Tell them why you like their Blog. Be direct and to the point. Then, get down to business.

What To Do:

First, don’t ask for a favor from them. You provide the favor. Tell them you would like to sponsor their Blog, or advertise on their Blog. That will open up the conversation. They may ask what site you want to advertise, and once you tell them, they will know you are in a similar space. PayPal them the money right then, don’t wait. If they are being receptive, ask for them to review one of your articles (it must be killer and reflect the same well-thought out approach of the comments you made on their Blog). But make sure they understand you aren’t asking for the article to be posted, just commentary with a link to your article.

Do you see the power of this yet?

It’s coming. Once you do this with the top 3-4 Bloggers, the secondary Bloggers, who follow the top Bloggers like puppy dogs, will pick up the article as well, and they will do the same thing … they will comment on it and link to your article. Using Digg and the other “Social Bookmarking” tools is fine … but you won’t even come close to getting the same amount of quality traffic as going direct to the top Bloggers.

Why?

Because they control the quality traffic on the web right now.

Let me repeat that: Top Bloggers Control the Quality Traffic on the Web.

Think about that statement for a moment. It isn’t the QUANTITY of traffic, it is the QUALITY of traffic. If someone you trust recommends a source, you are going to at least check it out aren’t you? You will also be more willing to spend more time on that site and really look into it, wouldn’t you? Of course. That is human nature.

Here is the kicker: If you sell a product or service, make sure the Blogger understands that you track all sales and if any sales are the result of his/her traffic, you will personally see to it that they are paid an affiliate commission for that customer for life. Yes, life. Make it worthwhile for them.

As my grandfather would always say, “Take care of the people who take care of you.”

Build and nurture these relationships and you will see great things happen for your promotions. Here are some actual stats that were achieved by getting three top bloggers to post their opinion on an article I wrote:

Blogger One: 1,015 uniques
Blogger Two: 345 uniques
Blogger Three: 156 uniques
Total Uniques to Page: 2,551

In just 30 days, 432 links were acquired. While most of those links will not be counted in Google’s new measurement, that is still an excellent achievement.

If we placed each unique visitor at a cost of 30 cents per and each link acquired at $2.50, this is our “projected benefit” from this campaign:

Uniques: 2,551 * $0.30 = $765.30
Links: 432 * $2.50 = $1,080.00
Total = $1,845.30

This figure represents what it would have cost to deliver the traffic and getting the links. In other words, I can use that $1,800.00 for something else. Remember, all the links acquired are one-way links. That is a nice added bonus. And link builders, even those overseas, can charge up to $8.00 for each one-way link.

This technique gets better. Look at the referrers in your log files. Start at the top and work your way down. Those who are sending you the most traffic are those you want to contact first. Look at their site and/or their blog. Is this someone you want to do business with? To promote you? To advertise with?

Based on your needs and goals, you can decide if you want to continue and contact them. Remember that just because the page is a PageRank0 doesn’t mean you shouldn’t contact them. There could be an issue with the site, the Blog being new, or the owner not understanding how to get their site indexed. You would be surprised how many Bloggers don’t understand fundamental Internet Marketing. If they don’t, offer to help them in that area in return for their help to promote your business with their readers. It’s a win-win.

As you go through the list of referrers, your goal is to expand your own “PR Distribution List”. You have the top three Bloggers on your list, now you want to expand into the secondary level. While the secondary Bloggers tend to have a very small fraction of the readership the big Bloggers do, they are worth contacting. If you expand your circle to include 40-50 Bloggers, when you have your next great article, you have a distribution list that will give you immediate quality traffic … plus, you’ll get some great incoming links to boot.

If you are struggling with qualified traffic and getting solid links, this approach can breathe life back into your site.