Branding

May

Unique Value Proposition

By Pierre Basson - Business Profitability Consultant · Comments (8)

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The True Value of a Unique Value Proposition

The idea of using a unique selling proposition (USP) isn’t unique or new in business.

So what is a USP? Do you have a simple statement about your brand or business that tells your prospects how you are the only alternative for to solve their problem? You have one already that just rolls off your tongue? Not? It is Business 101 yet most businesses simply do not have an answer that pops into their mind for this?. Even worse there isn’t one on their letterheads, business cards or on their website home page! What a wasted opportunity!

By unique selling proposition (USP) I don’t mean a slogan or a phrase that appears in your advertising. I mean that powerful yet concise and memorable phrase that answers the main question in your prospect’s head, “Why should I do business with you instead of somebody else?”

A unique selling proposition is very important. Let’s ask ourselves…

Why should your ideal customer purchase from you rather than from someone else?

So ask yourself, what one single thing about your company, or your product selection, or your customer service or your customer loyalty is so compelling a value, that even if your product was out of stock, or some par of the supply chain was broken (e.g. your website checkout), it would make a customer stick around and buy something anyway? Can you answer this? Why not? If you can’t answer this what hope has your customer of answering this, who has less insight into your business? Nothing closes clients on using you more easily than showcasing a unique unbeatable edge that they value.

Many marketing experts believe so strongly in the importance of having clarity in your Unique Value Proposition, that they proclaim that if you get your unique value proposition correct, you can afford to do many other things wrong and still get great results!

Whether we are helping our clients determine their Unique “Selling” or “Value” Proposition, we still find it is the biggest energizer you can have in your business. It is one of our 7 Business Sweet Spot Keys that enables your entire organization to zone in on the edge that you have over your competition and turn it rapidly into more sales at every level. Helping you find and clarify your unique value proposition for use across your whole organization, gives you a powerful guideline for your marketing decisions.

I was reminded of this recently when one of our shares their most recent success story. He was testing a variation in the wording of a client’s unique value proposition on their website. The result was an increase in his conversion rate of 36.2 percent. What did we do for our client that worked so well? We started by writing several suggested unique value propositions, since this company didn’t have one to begin with. Then we tested several different and unique value propositions, until a clear winner emerged in our testing. Not only did our client see a conversion rate increase, our customer took their new unique value proposition (UVP) and put it on all their stationery and other marketing materials. Within twelve weeks their sales had increased by over 47%, their sales team was pumped and all their staff felt like they had a new secret weapon, part of their not so secret sauce.

Unique Value Proposition Supporting Headlines

Recently we have seen even better results by surrounding their Unique Value Proposition with supporting headlines. These are often derived from the initial brainstorming to find their Unique Value Proposition. They are supporting value statements that paraphrase, or dimensionalize an aspect of the Unique Value Proposition. e.g. In support of lowest price in UVP, you may offer “We will beat the lowest price you can find – guaranteed”. Or in support of guaranteed service quality, a guarantee that if the solution is not 100% then the labor charge is waived. These headlines are great to add to your PPC ads and for enhancing the landing-page consistency. When visitors take their precious eight-second first impression, you want them to know why they should buy from you and not your competitors.

Strengthen Your Unique Value Proposition

Creating a unique value proposition and supporting headlines that are sticky, isn’t for chumps or posers. Your unique value proposition must be clear, relevant, and easy to understand. Here’s a quick, easy process for creating a more powerful unique value proposition:

* Ask your clients or potential must have clients what they value most about your product or service – make a list. Ideally use our use our 5 killer Ideation Creator questions to max the value of your answers.
* On your list, look for repeating themes.
* Review your list and using the answers you gathered write 5 to 10 versions for potential unique value propositions or headlines.
* Select three of the most promising unique value propositions and test them.
* Pick the best-performing unique value proposition and apply it everywhere in your business.

How strong is your unique value proposition? It is the key to conversion rate increase and boosting your business success.

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May

What is Personal Branding and Why It Is Important Now

By Pierre Basson - Business Profitability Consultant · Comments (13)

Simply put, a brand is the “unique” experience evoked when people remember about an item or person.

For example, Coke is a brand not just because you recognize it as an icon for a familiar soda, but because you’re familiar with its commercials, logos, advertising, colors, designs, taste, and its sizzling sound.

Branding is the marketing process of achieving brand impression.

What is Personal Branding and Why It Is Important Now?

Branding is what helps people to connect with a distinctive characteristic that causes them to retain the experiences from their engagement with that brand. The goal of branding is to stimulate prospective customers to identify with that brand as their prime reference or “go to” to solve a specific problem they have.

Brands create audiences and evoke emotions. They motivate new behaviors and establish reputations. Ultimately it’s how a brand can differentiate itself and create a perception of value, that really determines the brand equity – its real value.

Brands are everywhere. Look at the shoes you wear, the car you drive, the restaurant you eat at and the cell phone you prefer. You chose to go with that brand because you thought it demonstrated a clear and real value for you.

A brand can be a company, service, product, or person. Branding is about “standing out” from the crowded competition in their category and then about creating a “buzz” like the Apple-like buzz .

The Power of Personal Branding Today

In recent years the term “personal branding” has taken on a whole new meaning.

Just as in business or product branding, personal branding is the sum of all the experiences you create in other that are memorable. It is simply you and all you do. You are a distinctive brand that people will engage with, recognize and form opinions about. Your email address, your website url, and your social network user names for instance are all part of your brand today.

Having a strong personal brand can be key in putting your company’s name on the map. Think about celebrity endorsements: Oprah can instantly help sell your book for you, simply by her recommending it. Billionaire, Richard Branson made Virgin Group popular by connecting the fascinating story of his life and entrepreneurship to it. Powerful brand become credible leaders in their category.

How Can I Differentiate?

What is Personal Branding and Why It Is Important Now?

Personal brands connect your audiences to the perception of your fame and renown. They can create visibility, trust and loyalty for your audience. Brand experiences are subjective perceptions, but that’s OK – the goal is to earn votes from people around you, regardless of how much they know you personally, as long as they are comfortable with your brand.

As skills and knowledge become ubiquitous, the value of personal branding becomes more important now than ever –especially in a recession when the value expectation is for greater delivery for less.

Under pressure the top few brand duke it out, because only the top few will win the lion’s share of the market choice. It’s simple: if you are a powerful brand, you get more leverage. More leverage means more business opportunities. More opportunities to generate more wealth, a greater likelihood of winning jobs where you couldn’t before, more opportunities to network and meet other movers and shakers in your category.

How do you become a powerful personal brand?

You must start now if you haven’t already. Here are seven tips to help you differentiate your brand:

1. Network, network, network – remember it’s who knows you…not who you know that counts
2. Become an expert at something that has high value and stay focused on that “one thing”
3. Help others to succeed. Leave your mark by becoming best at what you do
4. Treat it like a business. Focus on pragmatic outcomes and customer feedback
5. Have a vision, a mentor, be a leader, an entrepreneur
6. Market yourself. Build a platform for your audiences to see you often
7. Never stop educating yourself to establish your slight edge that will put you over

There is no magic bullet to success in personal branding. It’s a combination of all the above. You must be in charge of your personal brand. You just have to start building your brand equity in everything you do. Here is your opportunity to emerge as a brand that people look up to want a piece of!

Simply put, your personal branding plan is your growth strategy, to create deep lasting value that is wrapped up in a powerful brand: “YOU.”

Why not share your personal branding strategies, share what worked and what didn’t? What marketing tools do you use to establish, differentiate and enrich your brand?

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May

20 Second Marketing Message

By Pierre Basson - Business Profitability Consultant · Comments (3)

Have you ever heard of an elevator pitch? That’s when someone casually asks, “What kind of work do you do?” and you give them a brief answer in roughly the time span of an elevator ride.

The people who hear your elevator pitch could be potential business partners or clients, or they could be strangers you meet at a party or on the street. Even when it seems like no serious business relationship is likely to develop, there are lots of people out there that can help advance your career indirectly. For example, they might personally know someone who’s looking for the service you provide, so your elevator pitch could lead to a referral or two.

Unfortunately most people totally flub their elevator pitch, so they’ll typically receive a reply like, “Oh, that sounds interesting.” At best the other person may ask a few follow-up questions, but deep down they don’t really care about your answers. They’re just making polite conversation. They’ll probably never do business with you, and they won’t refer you any new clients or customers.

The Challenge of Crafting a Good Elevator Pitch

I’ve struggled with crafting a good elevator pitch because I do a lot of different things. For starters I’m a blogger, an author, a speaker, and an entrepreneur. But I don’t identify with any of those exclusively.

Often when someone asks me what I do for a living, I’ll say, “Well, it’s a bit complicated because I do a lot of different things.” Then I’ll mention some of the things I do. Typically the other person will give me a strange look while they process this overload of information, and then they’ll say something, “Ok, so you’re a writer?” And then I’ll have to explain some more.

Sometimes I’ll say, “I run a popular personal development website.” That’s usually a good conversation starter, but all too often it backfires — it leads some people (usually people who aren’t very web-savvy) to think of me as a web consultant. A week later I’ll get a call asking if I can help them solve an issue they’re having with their small business website. I definitely don’t want people thinking that I’m their go-to guy for tech support. I have no interest in that whatsoever.

I’ve had great success in delivering elevator pitches that stimulate conversation, but not the right kind. Too often my response leads to a dull conversation about blogging, writing, building websites, or professional speaking. Sometimes those discussions are interesting, but they rarely help me grow my business or attract new readers.

Ironically, I tend to have more stimulating discussions when I talk about the food I eat instead of the work I do. At least then we can get into a discussion about diet and health, and I can offer some value by talking about my raw food diet experiences, juice feasting, polyphasic sleep, etc. This leads to referrals that are actually relevant — such as people who desire to experience greater health and vitality. It’s also led to a few business deals with people who work in the health field. Those deals didn’t make a ton of money, but they did create some new passive income streams.

Attracting Referrals

On the other hand, people that actually understand the work I do are constantly referring high quality leads to me. The main reason my website exploded with traffic is because of so many personal referrals. People told their friends, family, and co-workers about the work I was doing, and those new visitors became long term readers and soon started referring others as well.

To date I’ve never spent a dime on advertising or promotion. My business has grown mainly by word of mouth. Lots of people have been referred here by their friends and family via face-to-face conversations, phone calls, or emails.

The interesting thing about these organic referrals is that they also involve simple elevator pitches, but the pitches are given by someone other than me. More often than not, people refer others to specific articles, not to my home page or main blog page. So they’re pitching specific content, not the overall website. However, when people come and read one article, they often like it so much that they continue to read more and eventually become long-term subscribers.

This gave me a clue as to how to craft a better elevator pitch, but it didn’t bring me all the way there. My individual articles tend to focus on specific, narrow topics. But I write about so many different things that I can’t turn my general elevator pitch into a pitch for a single article. Close… but no cigar.
15 Second Marketing

Eventually I figured out how to resolve these problems, but I didn’t figure it out on my own, so I have to give credit where credit is due. I found the answer I was looking for in an information product called Insider Secrets to 15 Second Marketing by Charlie Cook. In fact, I found it so helpful that I decided to formally recommend it here on my site, so I recently joined Charlie’s affiliate program. Charlie really gave me a critical mindset shift — one of those gorgeous a-ha moments – so I give this product a big thumbs up.

20 Second Marketing is both a book and an audio program — the content of both is the same. It covers how to write your own marketing message and how to use it to effectively attract more business and make more money. Your marketing message is even shorter than an elevator pitch. It’s basically a single sentence — something you can say in 20 seconds or less.

When I saw how long the book was, I wondered how anyone could create a whole book about something that seemed so basic. But Charlie does a great job of explaining why an effective marketing message is crucial to your career or business. I could certainly relate to what he was saying because of my own challenges in this area. At one time or another, I made all the classic mistakes in the “what not to do” section.

The concept of a marketing message is general enough that you can also use it to develop your career, build new contacts, and even to attract new romantic partners. So you don’t have to run a business to benefit from it.

The basic idea is that when someone asks what you do for a living, you want to offer a response that stimulates the right kind of discussion. So if you’d like to grow your business, you need a marketing message that serves as a good lead-in to a discussion that will help you generate new leads and attract more clients. This is not as easy as it sounds.

Your marketing message isn’t just something you say to people. It’s also something you can use on your website, in your newsletter, on your business cards, in your email signature, etc.

When someone asks what you do for a living, imagine they’re really asking, “What are you here to contribute, and why should I care?”

The mistake I made was that I used labels to describe my work (author, blogger, etc), but I didn’t convey the real value I delivered to people. If you tell people you’re a blogger, consultant, real estate agent, or salesperson, most people simply won’t care. Your answer doesn’t do anything for them. There are millions of people doing all of these things, and you’re just another professional with a boring job title. You may still get some business this way, but you could be doing much, much better if you had a more effective marketing message. This is especially true during a recession.
Your Marketing Message

20 Second Marketing provides a 7-step process to craft a strong marketing message as well as a checklist of characteristics your message should have. I can’t summarize the whole book in a single blog post, but I can share the big picture ideas with you.

The overall solution is that instead of describing what you do or telling people your credentials, you should instead share the actual value you provide. What value do you deliver to people? Why do people pay you? Why should I care?

What I really like about Charlie’s program is that it connects the dots between your elevator pitch and your life purpose. Your marketing message is NOT a sales pitch. It’s simply a statement of the value you can offer people. I like to think of it as a statement of your life purpose filtered through your career.

If you tell people that you’re an independent consultant, a realty agent , or a website developer, your answer offers no value. It’s boring. You just drained all the life out of the conversation.

But if you offer an answer that states the value you can offer to people, now you’ve opened the door to an interesting conversation. You don’t have to do any selling because the right type of conversation will naturally get people interested in your service. This can lead to direct business as well as referrals. It can also lead to new relationships.
Crafting Your Marketing Message

Crafting an effective marketing message is tricky. There are a lot of aspects to consider. If you really want to do a thorough job of this, I highly recommend you go through the 15 Second Marketing program step-by-step. It packs in a lot more advice than I can cover in a blog post. But I can give you some tips to get you thinking in the right direction.

My advice is to think about what kind of conversation you’d like to stimulate. Tossing out labels to describe your work is usually a dead end. Instead, think about what kind of value you can provide to people.

As I tried to craft my own marketing message, I brainstormed a lot of variations and eventually settled on this one:

I teach people who are living below their potential how to feel energized and motivated, how to earn lots of money doing what they love, and how to make a real contribution to humanity, so they can finally enjoy the life that deep down they know they were meant to live.

At first I thought that was pretty good. It focuses on some specific benefits, and it has the potential to stimulate the right kind of conversation — where we can discuss the actual value I provide instead of the mediums I use.

A few days later, I had a phone call with Charlie Cook — I like to talk to people one-on-one before I commit to recommending their products — and during our conversation, I shared my marketing message with him. He said it was a good start but that it was too long. He suggested I make it much shorter, on the order of 10-12 words. He said that the goal isn’t to provide a bullet list — that can come later.

Perhaps I should have asked him this before I pasted this marketing message on my home page, Facebook page, Twitter page, etc.

What he said made sense to me, so I came up with some shorter variations, but I quickly realized that I’ll never perfect my marketing message sitting at my desk. I have to test these in the field to see how well they work.

For example, I might test some variations like these:

I help people grow.

I help people live more consciously.

I help people overcome their fears.

… and so on.

The key is that good marketing messages go beyond labels. As soon as someone labels you as falling into a particular career bucket, it gives them the opportunity to dismiss you. They tune out and stop listening to what you have to say. But if you present them with something that defies immediate labeling, you make people curious. You present an enigma they have to solve. You open the door to an interesting conversation.

You can also use different marketing messages depending on the circumstances. For example, I might find occasion to say any of the following when someone asks what I do for a living:

I help people quit their jobs so they can fulfill their life’s purpose.

I help people break bad habits and overcome addictions.

I help people take more risks and live more courageously.

I can imagine many situations where these sorts of replies would make people curious and stimulate interesting discussions.

Are you beginning to see the big picture here?

Using Your Marketing Message to Grow Your Business

A good marketing message doesn’t just stimulate fun conversations. It serves a powerful business purpose too. A good marketing message helps people remember who you are because it gives them a reason to care. When people remember you, they’re more likely to do business with you at some point, and they’re more likely to send you referrals. If people don’t remember you, it’s game over.

When I worked in the computer gaming industry, I learned an important lesson. I discovered that the more time people spent playing a particular game, the more referral sales they generated for that game. The longer people play a game, the more they talk about it. More game play time means more viral marketing. This is one reason the massively multi player online games can generate so many referral sales. When someone spends years playing World of Warcraft, it becomes a safe bet they’ve told everyone they know about the game, and they probably helped Blizzard gain new customers. Heck, I’ve never even played the game, and here I am mentioning it as an example. Now contrast that with a single-player game you can finish in a weekend, and a year later you don’t even remember playing it.

Your marketing message serves a similar purpose. The message itself may not be very memorable, but it can lead to a stimulating conversation that is memorable. If you remember the conversation, you’ll remember the person, and that gives you more chances to engage in business with that person or to send referrals to that person. But if your initial marketing message falls flat, that entire chain of referrals suffers an early abortion.

Do you remember all the times someone offered up a common response like, “I’m a mechanic”? It doesn’t mean anything, so whatever conversation that ensues about fixing cars will likely be forgotten. Your mind won’t retain the details because the conversation fits a pattern you’ve seen many times before, so it just reinforces the general pattern you’ve already stored, and the specifics are lost. We’re far more likely to remember events that violate our expectations because such events trigger our minds to store new patterns.

Now imagine asking someone at a party what she does for a living, and she says to you, “I make people look stunning before special events.” That statement by itself may not be that memorable, but it has a good chance of stimulating an interesting and memorable conversation. This hairdresser is more likely to stand out. If you remember her a little longer, you have more opportunities to utilize her services and more opportunities to refer new clients to her. Pretty soon she’ll be earning double or triple what equally competent hairdressers earn.

Think about the websites and blogs you frequent. Which ones do you remember best? Do they invite immediate generic labeling (like, “oh, not another productivity site”), or do they stand out from the crowd in some way? Being harder to label can be a good thing if it makes you more memorable.

Boosting Your Income

If you’re self-employed and provide some type of service for clients, you can increase your income by attracting more clients. But you can also leverage a good marketing message to increase demand for your services. This means you attract so much business that you have to raise your rates. Then you can earn more money even as you work fewer hours.

Again, the marketing message itself may not be super-memorable. But the idea is that it can stimulate an interesting conversation about the work you do, such that the other person really cares to hear what you have to say.

Think of your marketing message as your conversational opening move. If you use a bad opener, you can stunt the whole conversation. A good opener is no guarantee of success, but it can surely boost your long-term performance.

A good marketing message isn’t all-or-nothing. There’s a whole spectrum from terrible to mediocre to incredible. If your current message isn’t working for you, try something else. Keep tweaking it until you’re able to generate good conversations and create a steady flow of leads and referrals.

You can also use your marketing message on your website, your Facebook page, your email signature, and so on. Even when you aren’t physically present, your marketing message serves as an invitation for people to learn more about you.
Providing Genuine Value

I find Charlie Cook’s advice very refreshing because he offers a way of thinking about marketing that is honest, authentic, and non-manipulative. You’re never trying to sell people something they don’t need. You’re never trying to get people to buy from you. Instead, you’re inviting a discussion about the real work you do and how you can help people. You’re opening conversations at the level of life purpose. This is an awesome way to generate leads for your business and build contacts for your career because it works so organically. The approach meets with zero resistance because it fits our natural conversation patterns.

When your marketing message doesn’t convey any real value, that’s when you have to struggle to sell yourself. That’s when you end up throwing money away on ineffective advertising and promotion. That’s a downhill battle because you’re trying to make people care, and you’re going to meet with resistance because people don’t like being sold.

Once you get into tweaking your marketing message, I think you’ll find that it’s actually a lot of fun to field-test it. The next time someone asks what you do for a living, try out different marketing messages to see what kinds of conversations they stimulate. Do you feel like the conversation is stunted, or did you just open the door to a wonderful discussion about a subject you’re passionate about? Passion makes you stand out. Passion makes you more memorable. It makes people want to work with you. It encourages people to refer others to you. And passion flows naturally when your marketing message is aligned with your life purpose… when you come from a place of abundance instead of scarcity.

In this article I’ve only scratched the surface of how to craft an effective marketing message. If you find value in this topic, I encourage you to get a copy of Charlie Cook’s Insider Secrets to 20 Second Marketing. It’s very inexpensive relative to the value it provides, especially since it can pay for itself many times over by helping you boost your income. It comes with a 90-day money back guarantee, so there’s no risk to try it. I think you’ll get a lot of value from it whether you’re self-employed or not.

Steve Pavlina

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May

Discovering Your Business Sweet Spot

By Pierre Basson - Business Profitability Consultant · Comments (0)

In Jim Collin’s classic business book “Good to Great”, dozens of companies are analyzed to discover the characteristics and habits of great companies. One of his key discoveries is “The Hedgehog Concept” : simplifying a complex world into a single unifying idea that underlies and guides everything. He illustrates the idea with the story of the fox and the hedgehog. The fox is cunning, creative, sleek and able to devise complex strategies in pursuit of the hedgehog. The hedgehog, on the other hand, simply defends himself from the repeated attacks by rolling himself into an impenetrable prickly ball. The hedgehog always wins.

In his acclaimed book, Good to Great, Jim Collins uses the behavior of the hedgehog as a metaphor explaining the success of today’s great companies. His book is a treatise on the common characteristics of 11 public companies that went from a period of providing investors with mediocre total returns, m companies providing the very best returns, exceeding those of other companies by an average of 700 percent or more over an extended period. These are, in his view, the truly great American companies.

Any actions that take away energy from the core concept need to be pruned. Defining your hedgehog concept is not easy and can’t always be accomplished overnight. However, it is a worthy exercise. Once your underlying concept is defined, all of your marketing efforts should be viewed through the prism of this concept. If the event, promotion, advertisement or sponsorship does not feed the vine, then it needs to be eliminated. Your marketing efforts will be rewarded when your budgets and energies are unified toward a common goal.

The problem most businesses face is that no-one has properly identified the underlying causes of why they are struggling, they just know they are struggling and they don’t know why? Develop the ability to immediately identify the underlying causes of your business pains and struggles.

Using this Business Assessment Tool that I show case at speaking engagements and business conferences, to gain access to a strategic assessment of your business that will enable you to measure what’s working and what’s not in each of your 7 critical business profit centers.

Inside of this system that you are going to get access to, I will show why the conventional business models will never be able to help you overcome your limitations.

I am also going to show you how to integrate these 7 critical areas to hit your business sweet spot every time. I am going to share how to get yourself into your “peak performance” zone, to access your hidden strengths and give you a huge edge over your competition.

With this single focus you will achieve 10x more, with 10x less effort. You will enjoy every minute you’re in your business and experience the personal success you’re always wanted but never been able to achieve before.

Access this stealth process that allowed a lowly engineer to turn his expertise into a marketing goldmine of profits in less than 30 minutes per day. Using this simple yet effective monetizing formula you can conquer any market category, and make your competitors wonder how you did it so quickly.

Charles Shadee, Atlanta GA had this to say about this ….
“This system is magnificent. We moved from fuzzy thinking
and shotgun ad spend, to laser precision marketing and cut our
ad spend by 90%. The quality of our clients has jumped,
and we no longer have to fight them to keep them coming back,
now they almost beg us to sign up again and again.
Highly, Highly Recommended”

Pierre Basson – Business Mentor Extraordinaire

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Apr

100 Tips To Blog Like A Pro

By Pierre Basson - Business Profitability Consultant · Comments (32)

This post is a follow-up of my first attempt. This time, for your convenience, I grouped the tips into several areas: content, layout, promotion, plug-ins, networking and money.

Content

Your blog content is the cornerstone of your activity and your credibility. You can’t have a blog without producing good, consistent, quality content. Of all the other activities related to blogging, like promotion or networking, I consider consistent content production to be by far the most importantfactor.

1. Keep An Idea Incubator

Don’t take it easy, take it as it comes. Find a place where you store your ideas. Writing only from instant inspiration is totally unproductive. Besides, chances are that your most valuables ideas will come when you’re not able to blog them. So, create an incubator and let them grow.

2. Make A Mind Map Of Your Blog

Keep a bird-eye of your articles. Putting your blog into a mind-map, with posts, categories, promotion and income sources proved to be an enlightening exercise for me. Not only it offered a totally different image of my blog but gave me a lot of ideas for overall improving.

3. Write Timeless Content

Don’t be caught in the “right now” trap. Writing about hot topics will last as much as the hot topics last. And we all know what’s hot is short. Try to write content that will be easily read in several months or years from now. Even if it’s about a hot topic, put something timeless in it.

4. Use Explicit Headlines

Headlines are the first thing your users are seeing. They are like a bait. If the bait is good, they’ll eventually bite the blog post too, if the headline is boring, common, predictable or not intriguing, they will most likely skip the whole paragraph.

5. Be Specific

Don’t go too far from the specific of your blog. If you do have different skills try to accommodate them on a tight topic. Widening your blog in an uncontrolled way will eventually dissolve your brand and even if you’ll have readers interested in different topics, you’ll be harder to recognize as a monolithic brand.

6. Be Constant

Be there constantly. Create a habit not only for you, but for your readers. Once you establish a connection with them, they will expect you to be there. Whenever you feel the need to give up, remember you will going to disappoint more then yourself.

7. Create And Maintain A Posting Routine

This will need a lot of self-discipline but it’s the cornerstone of your blog. If you won’t update it constantly, there will be no blog. Experiment until you find your pace. Some bloggers are posting 2-3 articles per day, some one per week. I find it easily to do around 2-3 posts per week.

8. Find Your Own Size

Find a post size which fits your habits and skills. Don’t do it like other successful bloggers, don’t copy, do it by trial and error. Seth Godin writes about 6-700 words pe entry, Steve Pavlina does more than 2-3000. My own ballpark is in the 1000-1200 words per post. Find your own.

9. Write From Your Own Experience

Show openly what you know and what you can say about something, without being afraid that you’re wrong. It’s much worse to blindly copy the experts than to assume your own mistakes and publicly learn from them. Your own experience is the most valuable blogging asset you have.

10. Be Authentic

Don’t play the mister know it all, dare to be personal and transparent. Always. A blog is the ultimate expression of an individual. Don’t waste time trying to be perfect, just be better[]. If you’re wrong, so be it. Remember, you’re unique. Nobody can be you.

11. Write For Your Readers

A blog is a personal matter, but if you want to have more than 2 visitors (including your mom) do yourself a service and write for your readers too. Think how your readers will benefit from what your write. If you want to be the only beneficiary of this process, you can safely start a private journal.

12. Create A Blogging Setup

You don’t just write. You must have a strategy, goals, evaluations. You need to have a place in which you can focus on the main goal. Since I created my blogging setup, GTD style, the whole idea of blogging has changed for me. Pick your own specific type of setup, even pen and paper, but do make one.

13. Ask The Readers

Interact. Don’t just assume you know what the readers want from your blog, go ahead and ask them. You can do that in comments, via email, on twitter. Or you can use online communities. Or you can write a specific post in which you ask them. There are ways. Just go ahead and ask.

14. Post In Advance

Don’t be shy about that, or think that it will ruin your authenticity. As long as you’re the author and you do write timeless content, there will be no problem. Posting in advance is a very good strategy exercise, not to mention the relief of always being covered.

15. Your Blog Post Is A Traveler

Once you hit publish, your blog post will live a life of its own. Your blog post will be a traveler. Be sure to give it the needed equipment to survive in harsh conditions and also enough instructions to find his way in this world. Take of him properly.

16. Your Blog Is Beyond Your Blog

Your blog is far more than your posts. You think it’s just a collection of articles, but it isn’t. In order to be successful, your blog must be a presence. It’s made by your posts, comments, your comments on other blogs, your tweets, your stumbles. Make a presence out of your blog, not just a list of topics.

17. Break Your Post Into Edible Chunks

One of the easiest yet most ignored practices in the blogging business. Don’t write like you’re running a marathon. Break the posts in smaller chunks. It will not only help your SEO, but it will create a much more clear writing approach. You’ll actually think better.

18. Link To Yourself

Don’t be shy about what you write and don’t wait for ever that your posts will be discovered by others. Link to yourself as often as you can. This practice, also known as interlinking, is also good for SEO, but its main advantage will be to create a greater awareness of your content. Even for you.

19. Do Writing Challenges

Push yourself into writing exercises. Establish a number of words per each post. Write personal stories. Write a how to. Write a 100 list, like this one. Try to write a specific number of posts in a specific period of time. Try to expand your skills beyond what you already have.

20. Engage In Group Projects

Try to do collaborative writing challenges. I participated in several collaborative projects, for blogs or e-books, and it was a very productive experience. It will be extremely good for promotion, of course, but it will primarily help you try different writing styles.

21. Use A Dictionary

There are a lot of online or desktop based dictionaries. I find this extremely useful when I search for synonyms or related words. Yes, English is not my primary language, but I think a dictionary would benefit even if you’re born as an English speaker.

22. Create A Publishing Filter

Don’t just let the blog posts flow away. Create a publishing filter and apply it every time your write. I have my own filter made up by 7 questions to answer before publishing and so far it worked great. Find your own, based on why and what you are writing. It’s a good thing, trust me.

23. Create Alternative Content

Your blog can contain so much more than just text. Create your own podcasts, video content, or just re-purpose them creativity, like mind maps, PowerPoints, PDF file based booklets or templates. A while ago I added a Downloads page to my blog and I must tell you this page is pretty busy with clicks I’m getting.

24. Link To Authorities

If there are authority sites in your blog niche, link to them. This will help your readers understand your preferences and orientation, it will help them identify with you better. Linking to somebody else it’s a statement in itself. As always, be constant and specific. Stay on topic.

25. Openly Present Yourself

Write an About Me page with whatever type of information you want in it, as long as you feel it represents you. Subsequently, write About Me pages for any other media you are active on. For instance, I created an About Me page for my Twitter

26. Keep It Simple

Blogging is not philosophy. Even if you are trying to explain complicated concepts, do your best to keep them simple and short. Your blog is competing with the overload from a gazillion other sources, so make sure you’re giving them something that is easy to understand.

27. Read Your Own Blog

Too often ignored by bloggers. You must be your first reader! Whenever I have some free time I read some of my older posts. There’s nothing narcissistic in it, on the contrary, most of the time I dislike what I wrote, and think I could have done it so much better.

28. Balance Your Category Distribution

This is one of four important metrics I use and I track it using the blog audit plug-in. Keeping balanced categories will help not only in writing but it will improve your rankings in search engine. Too much content under one category usually leads to a lot of duplicate content in your blog archives.

29. Create A Mailing List

This hasn’t yet been applied to this blog, at the moment of writing this article, because I think it’s a little bit too early. But I successfully create and use mailing lists on my other niche websites, to generate thousands of users. I mean it, thousands. So, I know it’s doable.

30. Use Brainstorming Techniques

One of the most simplest – although pretty scary at the first sight – is this very blog exercise: a list of 100. If you are hit by the writer’s block, just sit down and try to find 100 ways to solve that problem – or at least 10. If you think that’s not possible, you’re definitely completely wrong. You’re actually reading the result of such an exercise. Was it worth it. Yes.

31. Don’t Quit

The most important tip of all. Don’t quit. Breaking through seems to get harder and harder, and in your first six months you may barely scratch the surface. Stay there and do your daily job even the results seem oh so slow to show. At some point in time, you’ll be successful. But if you quit, you won’t. That’s for sure. I can guarantee that.

Layout

The way your content is perceived is critical. You may be creating good and engaging content, but if you haven’t laid it out in a pleasant way, it will be read less. People like to see beautiful things first, and then read beautiful blog posts as a result.

32. Buy A Professional Theme

I cannot stress enough on this one. Since I bought my copy of Builder, it totally changed the way I blog. Bouncing from the regular the-best-you-can-have-for-nothing theme to a commercial one that is totally customizable and bug free, it’s like going from running after a bus to running for the Olympics.

33. Create A Different Home Page For Your Blog

If you use an out of the box setup from a vanilla WordPress installation, you may end up with a home page made up of your latest blog posts. Replacing this list with a home page is usually a good idea, especially since your posts will be visited most of the time directly from search engines or other links. A home page can tell a completely different story.

34. Use Excerpts Or Features On The Blog Home Page

If you created a different home page for your site, that doesn’t mean you won’t have a list of posts. That’s what I call a “blog home page”. Using just one or two full posts in that list is a good thing: usually, it keeps the reader focused. For the other posts I suggest using excerpts to de-clutter and aid with navigation. Visitors typically want to browse before they read in depth.

35. Enable Threaded Comments

The latest WordPress version have this cool option in the setting: enable threaded comments. You can even chose the depth of the threaded comments you want, or choose the standard (I recommend this) which is five. In the old days, you had to look for a plug-in to make that happen. Threaded comments are a great visual enhancement, and they boost the conversations.

36. Identify Your Blog Hotspots

Hot spots are places on your blog that draw more attention than others. Depending on the reader’s habits and your own layout, you can use those places for various incentive offers, from subscribing reminders to advertising or premium content. The following four tips are examples of hotspots in a blog.

37. Use A Greeting Before The Content

Based on their referrer. Just before the content I have this sentence which welcomes my users, based on their referrer and give them specific incentives. Originally I created a Thesis hook for those of you who are running Thesis, but I’m sure you can find a plug-in for that, if you don’t.

38. Keep Them Reading Your Articles After They Finished Your Post

After the post area I set up a retention zone. It features related posts (there is a plug-in for that) and link for some strategic posts. After they finish your post, keeping them around is a very good idea, and that hot spot seems the best place to do it.

39. Put Short But Relevant Content Near The Linkbar

Another hotspot is at the link bar level. I chose to put there the total number of subscriber I get via FeedBurner. For my experience, link bar is not as hot as the beginning or the end of the post, so I just use it as an overall subscribing incentive.

40. Use A Tabbed Zone For Recommended Articles

The last important hotspot is just before the sidebars. I used it for a custom tabbed zone holding the most important articles in the most relevant categories. It gives a bird-eye on what it can be found and it dramatically increase the click rate for the selected articles.

41. Your Blog Header Is Your Identity

Pay attention to your header, that’s where the title is usually placed. People will remember your blog by visually recreating that zone. If it’s too crowded it will be hard to memorize. I Always recommend to keep your header as clean as possible, in order to be easily remembered.

42. Add A Top Posts Page To Your Linkbar

And subsequently create a top posts page. I don’t recommend to have it automatically generated based on the popularity of your articles. Tweaking it according to your own perspective of what’s good is much better.

43. Add A Downloads Page

If you followed tips number 23, Create Alternative Content, having a separate Downloads page for that is compulsory. If properly promoted, many people will land to that page directly, without seeing your home page or any of your posts.

44. Use Full Feeds

People have the freedom to chose which way they are going to read you: via web or via an RSS reader. Keeping partial feeds on the RSS part used to be a common tip for making people visit your site for the full content. I don’t buy it. I have full feeds: as long as they read me, it’s their choice how they do it.

45. Mix Your Twitter Timeline Into Your Blog

Put your latest 5-7 tweets in the sidebar or even in the footer, but do let them know that you have a twitter timeline. Will talk about how Twitter can enhance your presence from a promotion point of view a little later, but from a layout perspective, publicizing your current tweets will make your blog feel much more alive.

46. Focus On The Content

Whatever you do or add to your general layout, keep in mind this simple question: will this help my content to reach my users faster? If you answer “no”, or “maybe” to this question, usually the add-on doesn’t worth the time.

47. Use Excerpts On Archives Pages

First of all, make sure you add or enable the standard archives pages in every wordpress theme. And then, be sure to make the archives displaying only excerpts of your posts, this will create a better user experience and possibly increase the time you readers are spending on your articles.

Plug-ins

Plug-ins are for your blogging what chip tuning is for a street car. The right combination is hard to find, but once you find it, not only it will make your work much easier, but it will also make you look awesome! Or at least it will make your blog look awesome, which is what are we talking about in this post.

48. Akismet Spam Protection

You can’t really do it without this one. Or, you can blog but you would have to completely turn off your comments. Which is not blogging anymore, right? Activating Akismet requires a key, but you can easily generate one in seconds. Once you install it, you’ll forget about it. That’s how a decent plugin should behave, anyway.

49. Google Sitemap

Another must have and also an unnotived one. Once you install it, you don’t know it exists anymore, but it does work heavily in the background. The plug-in does exactly what it says, it creates a sitemap of your blog in XML format and automatically submits it to Google every time you add a new post. Pretty convenient, huh?

50. Recent Comments

A very useful addition and one that your commenters will heavily appreciate it. The plug-in is easy to install, it comes as a widget and is also quite configurable. Highlighting comments usually enhance the conversation, or at least this is what happened to me.

51. WordPress Download Monitor

If you’re going to have alternative content, like mind maps, free or paid ebooks, templates or audio / video material, you should consider using this feature. It will help you organize your downloadable items by category, log the number of downloads and you can even create new posts inspired by those results, like my most downloaded mind maps.

52. Blog Audit

This is a shameless self promotion. Blog Audit is a simple plug-in I wrote, which lets you establish blogging goals and measure your progress. You can set a posting routine, a comment density, even a ping back volume and then watch live how you’re doing with it.

53. CommentLuv

This will also make your commenters shine with happiness. If your commenters enter a web address in the designated field, CommentLuv will go there and extract your latest post link. If you sign up for CommentLuv at their site, you can even customize which post you will want featured. Neat!

54. Recent Posts

Great way to showcase your latest articles in the sidebar. Readers are curious, they want to know what’s on your mind lately and if they are really interested in what you write, they will always want to be updated. It’s simple and good blog real estate use.

55. Similar Posts

I use this plug-in to show a list of (possibly) related posts after each article. It’s not always matching the main idea and sometimes it gives weird results, but even that is much better than manually compiling a list of links each time I publish. Great time saver and good retention tool.

56. Woopra

Woopra is a new analytics tool and I’m kinda fond to it. Tracking your website is done by installing a simple WordPress plug-in, which, a part from helping Woopra gather all sort of data, doesn’t do much. But will discuss Woopra as an analytics service a little bit later.

57. WordPress Automatic Upgrade

Saves me the trouble of doing it manually. I reckon I struggled for years with manual upgrades of WordPress, and even if I got really skilled at some point, I can’t avoid the fact that this is just plain boring – right. Not to mention is time consuming. Better automate the process. .

58. Twitter Tools

Twitter Tools can do a lot of nice tricks for you. It shows your latest tweets in the sidebar, automatically tweet when you publish a new post and can even let you tweet from your own public interface (don’t know who uses this, but it’s kinda cool). .

59. Avoid The Plug-in Hysteria

No plug-in can write content in your place. No plug-in can make you authentic. Spending too much time hunting, installing and testing new plug-ins will shift your focus from your most important task: to produce and maintain a constant flow of quality content. That would make you famous, not the plug-ins.

Promotion

You do have to make yourself known. You do have to get out and let the world know you’re there and that you are writing something important. Not promoting your work would be like showing fabulously creative commercials in Sahara. The ads may be fantastic, but if there’s nobody to see them, they’re useless.

60. Don’t Be Shy About Your Blog

If you really know you wrote good stuff, go out and spread the word. Unless you hired a PR company to handle this you gotta take care of your own promotion, at least until it takes off. And even after. Accept the idea and make time for it in your schedule.

61. Tweet Your Blog

Sign up for Twitter and start to promote your posts there. Already mentioned a plug-in which will automatically do most of the hard work for you, but you can also do it manually. Used properly, Twitter can bring in hundreds or thousands of visitors per day. As in every other social media space, the thumb rule is to be constantly there. Somehow.

62. Stumble Upon

That would be the StumbleUpon website, a community which aims to make the internet content relevant, by using a human powered algorithm. That sounds far more complicated than it really is. In StumbleUpon you must first contribute a lot of new discoveries until you really get the benefits of the game.

63. Reddit Your Posts

Go on and try Reddit , one of the simplest, yet most crowded user generated content places on the net. Usually, Reddit users are in the geeky zone of the internet specter, but if you carefully chose your subreddits (that would be special communities inside the main Reddit) you can have pretty good results.

64. Digg It!

Although I haven’t been very successful with Digg , I recommend it. I personally know bloggers who benefited enormously from it. Digg traffic seems to be the most volatile among all the communities I mentioned so far. Maybe you can help me change my luck on Digg by pushing this post on the front page.

65. Facebook

It’s all over so you must be there. I don’t know any specific technique on how to use Facebook to promote your work other than just being there. Put your blog feed on the wall, so your friends can see it and just wait. At some point, you will be surprised by how many hits you receive just by being there.

66. Follow Your Trackbacks

Constantly keep en eye on who’s linking to you. Visit them and let a comment. If the number is too high and you can’t physically leave a comment on every site which is linking to you (don’t smile, it WILL happen at some point) just be sure to constantly verify that list. You’ll learn a lot about your audience and possible followers.

67. Comment On Other Blogs

Find at least 10-15 blogs you really like and make a habit out of commenting on them. Not only you will get to know a lot of interesting and potentially useful players in this area, but you will generate a lot of links and buzz. Don’t brutally say: “Hi, check out this great article I just wrote”, say something meaningful and they will eventually want to know more about you.

68. Respond To The Comments

Keep an eye on the conversation you generate, if any. Be there for it, support it and make it a normal part of your routine. Behind your posts lies another exceptional line of content, and that’s your comment repository. Respect your commenters, as they are voluntarily creating content for YOU.

69. Establish A Slug Structure And Stick With It

A slug is the link part of your post, the one that shows in the browser. You can tweak what is shown there just with a vanilla wordpress setup. For instance, I chose to have the post title right before the domain name. Other approaches are to put the date between them, to add an “archives” or even a custom one made entirely by yourself.

70. Participate In Blog Carnivals

Kinda slow but necessary. Submit your most interesting posts to blog carnivals in your niche. It might be a little cumbersome to do this in the beginning but in a 3 months time frame you will gather a lot of links and awareness. Don’t be fooled by the somehow awkward interface of BlogCarnival.com , those carnivals are actually real and useful.

71. Use Proper CSS For Headings

That would be, by a wide accepted standard, H3. Make sure your paragraph titles, also known as headings, are styled with H3. This is extremely important for layout (if you change your theme and didn’t use h3, you will lose the formatting) but for search engine optimization also. A different CSS style weights differently in most of the search engines.

72. Select Your Keywords In Headlines

If you used a different CSS selector for headlines, don’t forget to chose specific words for it. If you want your post to be found by specific keywords, putting them in the headings will significantly increase your chances. It’s one of the cheapest promotion technique I know.

73. Use Proper Keywords In Your Slugs

In the same league as headings come slugs. Although WordPress can automatically create your slug, it’s always a good idea to double check for common words or / and for keywords you want to be highlighted. Also an easy one, but often overlooked.

74. Use Title Tag Appropriately

The title of your post can or cannot match the tag. The thumb rule is: the tag is seen by search engines and the title in the post is seen by search engines + your readers. It’s useful to play a little with the title tag, but don’t go too far, don’t chose completely different words for the post title and the tag title, you can get penalized for that.

75. Use Meta tags Appropriately

There is a long debate on the internet about how useful meta tags really are. And the real answer is that nobody really knows, so it’s better to get yourself covered. Thesis theme has this awesome feature which lets me control per each post meta tags like title, keywords and so on.

76. Look For Small Or Emerging Communities

Once you’ve done your job with the giants (twitter, reddit or digg) start looking for small / emerging communities in your niche. At this time, both Ycombinatoror BizSugar are still young and emerging communities, but judging on how fast they’re moving, they may become mainstream pretty soon.

77. Use A Cluster Of Analytics Services

Observe your traffic statistics. You can use any service you want, from Google Analytics, to a server based log analyzer like webalizer. I use Woopra lately with fairly good results. One good strategy is to group 2-3 analytics services together, because usually they have different algorithms and you can have a better idea about your real traffic if you check at least 2-3 sources.

78. Establish (and strictly follow) A Statistics Checking Routine

Don’t go to your statistics page every 5 minutes. I know the feeling, and it’s not good. In the beginning, weekly it.s ok. Once you get to be linked or retweeted, 2-3 times a day is enough. And you will do that mainly to get in touch with who interacted with your content.

79. Identify Forums In Your Niche

Forums are still very popular and they can be a very good traffic generator. Just be sure to keep a fair balance between your regular contribution to that forum and your self-promotion, forums users are typically a little bit more sensitive.

80. Watch Your Comments Density

That’s another blog metrics which I consider extremely important and which plays a big role in shaping your overall visibility. By watching the number of comments per post. per day, per week and their variations from one month to another you can draw extremely valuable conclusions.

81. Watch Your Pingback Volume

If comments density is a measure of your popularity, pingback volume is a measure of your visibility among other competitors. Identify posts with the higher pingback volume and see what you can learn from them. Pingbacks are like a volume switch for your work, the higher the volume, the most popular the article.

82. Talk About It With Your Friends

Like the friends you have in the real world (if you’re fortunate enough to still have some). Let them know who you really are and what do you do. Don’t put your work under the carpet. Make it as visible as you can. Word of mouth is much more powerful than any promotion strategy I know.

83. Make Your RSS Subscriber Number Public

Surprisingly enough, many of the bloggers I met are shy about these numbers, most of the time thinking they don’t have enough followers to show off. In fact, making the number of subscribers public will encourage your potential readers to join. People are attracted to meaning, not numbers.

Networking

Blogging is about connecting. Don’t stay in the same place, you’ll get dusty. Go out, meet new people, contribute or help in different ways. Networking is so often forgot and I think this is a big mistake. Networking is much more than promotion, being able to connect you with people in the real world.

84. Write Guest Posts

Go out and find blogs in your niche. Contact the authors and ask if they accept guest posts. Most of the time, they will. The main benefit of guest posting is not, as they largely promote it, the traffic you get, but the relationship you establish with the host.

85. Write Massive Guest Posts

Massive guest posting is something a little bit different than guest posting (and, as far as I know, is something that wasn’t done so far). Basically, you write an article with several possible developments and then continue those developments as guest posts on other blogs. See massive guest posting.

86. Create And Maintain A Close Group

Identify bloggers with a similar background (they can or cannot be in the same niche, as long as you can get along) and openly propose a cross-promotion. Be careful when you chose them and be sure they are persons you can rely on. You will be in that group for quite some time.

87. Promote The Members Of Your Close Group

Just like any other friendship relationship this must go two-ways. Whenever you see the opportunity to promote them, do it. Retweet, stumble, digg or reddit their articles. Remember, they have to be people you trust and admire. What you promote tells a lot about yourself.

88. Participate In Internet Blogging Challenges

One of the most famous internet blogging challenges is Darren Rowse’s 31 Days To Build A Better Blog . I personally attended (virtually, of course) the last edition and I must tell you it was a really nice experience. This is as good as participating in collaborative projects, only you benefit from the exposure of a blogging icon.

89. Go Out And Meet Bloggers In Flesh And Blood

If you have a hugely diverse audience this may be a little difficult. But even so, you can try it. I did it too and that helped me understand that other bloggers are for real, just like you, they’re not just some numbers in your analytics tool, under the “referrers” tab. Meet them, maybe you won’t become close friends, but you may learn a lot form this interaction.

90. Attend Specific Blogging Events

Like in real world specific blogging events, this time. One of the most famous is Blog World Expo , but there are many other established conferences, not to mention the local ones. Do your best to participate in real events as often as you can.

91. Speak Out

Once you’re at a real life event, don’t be shy. I saw too often bloggers attending to interesting events but keeping an unexplainable low profile. Stand out, speak, give feed-back and let the people know who you are. People are more curious than you think to actually meet the real presence behind a blog. Even yours.

Money

At some point, you will want to make some money out of your blog. It’s natural. It’s your work and there must be some sort of payment for it. Only in this business, you have to take care personally about this problem. And that is the good news, because if you’re careful, the sky is the limit. Literally.

92. Accept Donations

Don’t make a loan and vouch it with your blog donations, it will never be like that. Donations aren’t predictable. But having them displayed is a nice way to let people know that you accept their gratitude. If you really write valuable content, you will receive donations. I know I did.

93. You Sell Authority, Not Goods

Always remember that what you are really selling would be your authority, your expertise, your credibility or your lifestyle. Be very careful when you chose to make money and how you do it. Blogging is not about selling, blogging is about building partnerships. You’re responsible.

94. Promote Only What You Use

Once you’ll become well known, there will be more and more requests for promoting different products or services. One of the rules I followed so far was to promote only what I directly used. People have this tendency to associate your person with what you are promoting and if the promoted product is a mess, that could be really awkward.

95. Use PPC Diligently

Don’t overcrowd your page with ads (and yes, by PPC I also mean AdSense). Pay Per Click is such a size consuming advertising technique, it needs a lot of space and exposure to create sustainable results. It can create a stable source of income, but its golden days are gone.

96. If You Sell Space, Sell It Directly

If you decide it’s time to sell display advertising, sell it your own. Make a separate page in which you are announcing your prices and your conditions. Selling display advertising via an advertising agency is very expensive. Not to mention that you don’t really control the process.

97. Make Your Expertise Stand Out

And clearly state that you are for hire. If it’s consulting that you do, say it out loud, if it’s web design, write it with big fonts. Don’t expect people to dig through your posts trying to find what’s your main expertise and if you could help them. There are a lot of people out there already doing it.

98. Make Long Term Deals

Even if the overall payout is smaller, always go for long term deals. Despite what TV news told you, economy is not predictable. Go for a tinier profit but do it for longer time. One of the best promotions I did was a year long deal with a software producer and I’m totally happy with it.

99. Create And Sell Your Own Products

Write an ebook. Create an online course. Make a suite of videos. Go for what you can genuinely create. Making money directly from your products is always better than advertising. You can totally control the process and even if you use affiliate networks to promote your products, the payout is much bigger than in any other field.

100. Use Incentives To Promote Premium Content

Create free ebooks or other free resources to create awareness. Link to your commercial products in those free products and then spread the word. That way, people will have the opportunity to know more about what you do before actually buying the commercial product.

101. Add Paid Membership

I didn’t actually do it here, but I successfully did it in other projects and all I can tell you is that is really working. But it depends a lot on your niche and audience. As a rule of thumb remember that people are ready to pay from premium content, if that content really solve some real problem for them.

I know, there are 101 ways, not 100, as I promised in the title. I lied. And I also did something that always helped me being successful: under promise and over deliver.

Technorati Tags: blog content tips, blog layout tips, blog promotion tips, blogging for credibility, blogging tips, marketing my business

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Mar

Simplifying Power of Apple’s Hedgehog Concept

By Pierre Basson - Business Profitability Consultant · Comments (1)

Apple chief operating officer Tim Cook recently sang the praises of the forthcoming iPad, whilst outlining the company’s future plans for retail expansion, and also giving an overview of the company’s other products during a talk for investors at the Goldman Sachs Technology & Internet Conference in San Francisco.

Besides their huge market share gains, where they are now THE biggest player in the Mobile market ahead of Sony, Nokia, LG, etc.

In regard to the PC market Tim Cook said ” I think people in general, think that enterprise is bigger and therefore more important than consumer. But it’s not the case. In PCs, it’s 10%, which is sizable, but consumers are over 50% in Apple markets. Our heart and soul and DNA is the consumer. It just so happens there these consumers are working in enterprises who want to use these products.” See their one thing emerging. Apple has always focused on the user experience being simple, easy and reliable – consistent delivery of less rather than inconsistent delivery of more. Their one thing is about A CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE, as the driver of their economic engine.

But what takes the cake comes next. This excerpt from Tim Cook’s address to the shareholders is even more powerful. He describes their “sweet spot” that magnifies their focus and simplifies their business!

“We are the most focused company that I know of or have read of or have any knowledge of. We say NO to good ideas every day. We say NO to good ideas daily in order to keep the amount of things we focus on very small so that we can put enormous energy behind the ones we do choose. This table each of you are sitting around today, could probably fit every product that Apple makes on it, yet Apple’s revenue last year was $40 billion.”

He goes on to indicate how this one thing has become their corporate culture and is the key to their success. ” I think the only other company that could say that, is an oil company. It’s not just saying yes to the right products, it’s saying no to many products that are good ideas, but just not nearly as good as the other ones. I think this is so ingrained in our company that this hubris you talk about that happens to companies that are successful and whose main aim in life is to get bigger, I can tell you that our management team at Apple would never let that happen. That’s not what we’re about. Always only a small list of things to focus on.”

This is a vivid illustration of the Hedgehog concept applied to Apple.

To learn more about how you can apply this powerful concept to your business, sign up for our free newsletter.

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Feb

Internet Business Branding

By Pierre Basson - Business Profitability Consultant · Comments (0)

Internet Business Branding

Branding Affiliate websites is an area that is creating a lot of money for many larger companies that offer affiliate programs. This is how it works you sign up as an affiliate and choose a template that has the look at feel that you like and your identity is promoted while the hosting company remains virtually invisible and undetectable to the consumer. Consumers will think they are ordering directly from your website. Branding Affiliates programs are designed to enable just about any website the opportunity to offer e-commerce with variety of different products and services.

The idea behind branding is to give website owners the opportunity to offer products and services, without even having to stick the items. With the technology available today Branding Affiliates are now able to match their products and services that they choose to offer in their stores to their existing website, with even more transparency.

By offering services such as this big companies get the opportunity to drive traffic to the branding affiliates, with transparency being the key element. This allows everyone involved to make money. Many of the other affiliate programs, do not send traffic back to the affiliate sites. Branded Affiliate programs provide additional traffic through other marketing methods as well. The goal is to help the affiliate make money while they make money.

By selecting a store template the affiliate can make their store match their website so there is very little difference between the two when going back and forth. You have the opportunity to choose color schemes, page alignment, upload your logo. Many branded sites allow you to select up to 30 items to place in your online store. We highly recommend that you choose products and services that relate directly to your website. This will allow your visitors to your site to possibly convert to buyers. Branding Affiliates have the ability to change the selected items and modify the look and feel of their stores whenever they feel the need to.

By offering services such as the ones above, this allows for a better working relationship between the affiliate and the company they are working with. Having worked with branded sites myself, it is clear that they are out to help you in any way they can by providing the best support and services. If you have ever though about working with a company that uses branded sites, now is the time to join in. You are bound to make money if you are willing to promote your site and help to get the people there.

Remember your success will depend on the effort that you put in. However here’s the eBook that can help you.http://www.webquartet.com/befamous

Technorati Tags: brand definition, Branding

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Jan

Shattering the Branding Myths

By Pierre Basson - Business Profitability Consultant · Comments (0)

Shattering the Branding Myths

If you’ve been online long, you’re sure to have seen many “gurus” give their ideas about branding. However, much of what you read simply isn’t true. Over the years, many myths about branding have taken hold in the online world and spread like wildfire. The fact is: They are doing you more harm than good.

Branding is not one aspect of your marketing campaign. It is the combination of everything your business stands for. Branding is not created with a single, stand-alone event — rather it is created over time through a series of strategically thought-out actions.

Let’s take a few minutes to shatter a few common myths about branding and to introduce constructive, proactive branding principles that you can build on.

Branding Myth #1 – Your USP Is Your Brand

Absolutely not. While your USP (Unique Selling Position) might be used to help convey your brand, it is not – in and of itself – your complete branding strategy.

Branding Principle #1 – Your Brand Is All Encompassing

Your brand is built, and conveyed, with every action you take, with every product/service you offer, with every piece of communication you send, and with every contact you make with your customers.

Branding Myth #2 – To Be Remembered, You Must Have A Logo

Also not true. Look at companies like Marlboro (cigarettes), Puffs (tissue), and Ziploc (plastic bags). They simply use a specialized font with the product name. No swirls, no images, no “logo.” While logos certainly are not “bad,” they are also not mandatory.

Branding Principle #2 – Customers Remember You Primarily By How They Are Treated

The most innovative logo, the most attractive colors, and the world’s best logo designer will do you no good if you don’t offer excellent service. Customers remember you and your company by the way they are treated. Was their shopping experience good? Were all their questions answered? Were their problems solved to their satisfaction? These things go way further to help customers remember you than any logo could ever hope to.

Branding Myth #3 – Once Your Branding Strategy Is In Place, You Need Do Nothing More

This is probably the biggest myth of them all! So many online businesses are led to believe that once they have an amazing USP, and a snappy logo they have accomplished everything in the realm of branding.

However, just the opposite is true. Your branding strategy is an ongoing process, not a one-time event. Defining your strategy is just one part of that process.

Here are some basic tips to help you define and implement your brand.

1. Decide how you want to be perceived by your customers. Do you want to portray an image of trust? Loyalty? Dependability? Innovation? Wide selection? Speedy service & delivery?

2. What makes YOU perceive other companies that way when you shop? Is it their selection? Customer service? Pricing? All of the above?

3. Make a list of the qualities you and your employees must display to customers in order to portray your desired brand.

4. Share the list with everyone in your organization and ask them to develop specific ways they can support the brand.

5. Compile a final branding strategy and share it with everyone in your organization.

Successful brands are those who are well defined and that have the support of the entire organization. Brands based on myths are those that simply have a spiffy logo, a “killer” USP, and the hope that the customer will “get it.”

Would you rather base your brand on sound principles or myths? That’s what I thought!

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Dec

Positive Company Branding

By Pierre Basson - Business Profitability Consultant · Comments (3)

Company branding is one of the most important components of your marketing plan, particularly when you are making an effort to establish your company’s position in the marketplace. Identity, differentiation, and reputation are all part of the company branding package. How people perceive your company largely relates to how effective you brand is and how it is portrayed, recognized, respected and remembered in the community both with existing and potential customers. A brand is so much more than a name or a logo.

A brand is essentially a way of communicating a promise or an exchange between you and your customers. It is a way of you communicating to your customer who you are and what you promise to deliver to them.

Company branding helps to gear up your advertising. When people are familiar with your company name, logo, products and your brand, they try to relate with association. This is helpful when you place a commercial or a print advertisement, as the people would easily connect to the company with this brand name. You can just concentrate on one thing and that is, selling your products.

When people start recognizing your logo, and come to know the great practices your company stands for, then they will rely and associate with the products as well. You have to create a niche for yourself first and then things will be easier for you. It takes a significant amount of effort to market your products and this need to be sustained over a relatively long period of time. This is where you need to consult the agency to assist you.

So, right from the very beginning, you have to work towards building a strong brand and creating brand awareness. If you have a strong brand presence, people will automatically be drawn to you when they are looking for that particular product. This is what every business aims to achieve – an automated customer.

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Nov

Refining Your Elevator Pitch

By Pierre Basson - Business Profitability Consultant · Comments (0)

Imagine this: You’re in the elevator with the producer of your favorite show. The program you’ve been trying to get on for years. What would you say to this person? Would you comment on the weather? Perhaps lament about the price of gas? Or would you take the opportunity to pitch your story as you glide up three floors? Now, this might not actually ever happen but it’s still a good idea to be prepared. That’s what I call your elevator pitch.

So, how do you get to your elevator pitch? How do you refine your topic down in such a way that it grabs the attention of someone in a matter of a few seconds? Getting to the heart of your story is the first part to this. The “heart” of your story is what everything else is built around. A couple of weeks ago, I taught a class on writer focus. The single objective of this class was to pare down a story until it was so refined, and so focused that a 250 page book could be described in one minute. To some, this type of manuscript refinement might seem unrealistic and counter intuitive to everything they’ve ever learned about writing. But whether you are querying literary agents or trying to get into the media, you’ll need to know your elevator pitch.

But an elevator pitch doesn’t just serve you in the media, having a refined focus of your book is a necessity to a tight manuscript. If your book is unfocused, you’ll find yourself struggling to finish it, chapters won’t follow a particular order and the general objective of the book won’t be met.

So… how do you get to your elevator pitch? Start by focusing on the core of your book. What’s the one thread that carries through your manuscript, the one topic or story that everything else circles around? If your response to that is: “Well there are actually five things that go on in this book.” I’d say that’s fine, but keep in mind that without that one thing, the rest of the book wouldn’t exist. Another way to get to this “core” is to ask yourself (or have someone help you with this) “what are the benefits to the reader” or “what will my reader learn?” That is the answer to your question. That is the core of your book.

Again, your reader will probably walk away from your tome with many other benefits, but there is one that is paramount over all others. That’s your focus, that’s what your book is about.

So let creativity and your muse be your guide but always remember to focus, focus, focus!

Technorati Tags: focus focus focus, how to elevator pitch, pitch your story effectively, refining your elevator pitch, what would you say

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Pierre Basson

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Shattering the Branding Myths

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