Category: website

    Subject Lines That Encourage Opening of Emails

    You’ve finally got some subscribers to your email list, and now you want to start getting some interaction from your subscribers. You want them to read the information and answer your calls to action. But first, you have to get them to open the emails. All that starts with crafting subject lines that encourage opening of your email messages.

    1. Pique Their Interest – Don’t give everything away in the subject line. Instead use the space to make them want to open the email and know more. Think about what they see when they get the email in their inbox and put the words in the right order to pique interest.

    2. Tease Them – Email subject lines are a good way to bring humor and a fun personality to your email messages. Keeping your audience in mind, make your email subject lines evoke the emotions that your audience needs to open them.

    3. Make Them Curious – The email subject line should make the reader curious enough to open it. If you know the audience you’re sending emails to well, and you should, it should not be difficult to craft curiosity-seeking email subject lines for them.

    4. Don’t Be Too Clever – You don’t want to mislead your audience, so be careful about trying to be too clever with your email message subject lines. If they feel duped when they open the email, no matter how good your offer is, they’ll be unhappy.

    5. Put Keywords First – Some people search their emails using various keywords; make it easy for them by including those keywords within the first three words of the email subject line. Plus, when the email comes in, the keyword will be immediately visible to them.

    6. Personalize It – People respond very well to personalization in email messages, and that includes subject lines. If you can call out their name, or name their title, they’re going to be more likely to open the email message.

    7. Avoid Filler Words – You have very little space in the email subject line. How long your subject line is will depend greatly on your audience. Test different lengths of subject lines to find out what works well with your audience, but the rule of thumb is 1 to 7 words or less than 130 characters.

    8. Name Drop – A great place to name drop is in the subject line of an email. If you use a famous person’s name, or a person who your audience values, then all the better. You have to be careful doing this because you don’t want the person’s name you drop to be angry, so ensure that it’s all positive. It needs to be a win-win situation.

    9. Focus on a Deadline – A time limit mentioned in the subject line will also entice your audience to open it. If you offer a special that expires in three days, say so in the subject line so that they know that they need to open now and not wait until later. Note: Make the deadline real to be most effective.

    Creating subject lines that encourage opening of emails is something that you need to consider carefully based on your topic, your audience and the results you’re hoping to achieve through your email marketing messages.

    Categories: Email Subscribers Tags: Tags:

    Starting a Mastermind Group

    A mastermind group is a small group of people who share information, education, and support. As an expert in your niche, starting a mastermind group is a lucrative and promising venture. If you have a good following already, starting a mastermind group is almost a sure thing. But, if you are not quite established you can still start one; it will just take more work to get members.

    * Understand the Purpose – If the purpose of your group is to earn revenue while helping others, establish that from the start. Otherwise you can easily start small mastermind groups on Facebook for free. Setting everything up from the start with a vision for what you want your mastermind group to be like is essential.

    * Set Goals for the Group – What do you want to accomplish with the group and what do you hope individual group members will accomplish? These goals will directly determine the type of content you’ll need for your mastermind group, plus even dictate the potential platform you may need to use.

    * Narrow Down the Target Audience – Try not to reach too far with the audience in terms of the mastermind group. Casting a wide blanket will just cause confusion. A mastermind group by definition is a small group of like-minded people sharing resources and information.

    * Establish Rules and Procedures – When you set up the group, you want to establish strict rules and procedures to ensure that the group works together to reach the common goals. If no one in the group understands the expectations and standards, then you may not have much participation.

    * Set Limits – Don’t open your group up to an unlimited membership. If it grows too large, it will be difficult to have a real mastermind situation. The number of members you can handle will depend on your platform and what you plan to do personally for the group. Remember not to bite off more than you can chew.

    * Decide Your Platform – Depending on your goals you can pick different platforms of delivery, such as NewRainMaker.com or aMember.com. Or if you want to offer the group free, you could use Facebook’s private groups feature.

    * Get the Ball Rolling – Once you set it up, get the ball rolling by planning some promotions like a blog tour, pay-per-click ads, and free giveaways, up until the day of launch. Blog about it, talk about it, and bring it up when you can. Give a sneak peak to super affiliates.

    * Promote Your Group – Once it’s established, even when your group is full you should actively promote it. In this way, you will always have a list of people who want to be in the group at your fingertips so that it will never be empty.

    Mastermind groups are wonderful for getting support and giving support. But as the leader of the group, the resident expert, you will be relied upon to provide direction for the mastermind group. Take it seriously, and remember to cover the areas that will interest your members most, depending on your audience.

    Categories: Membership Tags: Tags:

    Write, Publish, AND Market Your Blog Post

    Writing a blog post can be a lot of work what with getting your thoughts down in writing so your reader can benefit. And on top of it all, you’ve got a lot to remember before, during and after your post.

    Let’s quickly go over it all so you can know that you’re doing what you need to do.

    1. Come up with a good post idea – will it entertain, educate, inform?

    2. Write the rough draft. Now read it and take out the unnecessary words. Your readers want it quick and to the point.

    3. Now is the time to insert your live links such as affiliate links or internal links.

    4. Insert graphics.

    5. Make sure it looks good with the graphics, subheaders, colors, etc. Bullets, numbers and bold headings make it easier for the average “reader” to scan your content. While we’d like them to read every fascinating word, we have to settle for scanning, which is better than skipping and leaving.

    6. Let it simmer. You will always think of something important to add to it and it’s easier to do this before you hit publish.

    7. Polish it one more time and read it OUTLOUD to catch awkward sentences. Even if you’re posting a podcast or video, you will still have a paragraph or two of writing to proofread.

    8. Don’t forget to hit the publish button! Take a deep breath and move on.

    9. Broadcast it to your list.

    10. Tweet it, post a link on FB, and shout it out through any other social media channels you use.

    11. Watch for comments on the post and be sure to quickly answer any questions. Some bloggers don’t answer all comments but it’s a good idea to.

    12. Take some time to comment on some of the commenters’ blogs. It’s a courtesy plus you might learn something from their post. In addition, your blog gets more exposure.

    13. Do some more tweeting. There’s no rule that says you can only tweet once per blog post. You should reword the tweet though. And if someone retweets you, thank them and/or retweet one of their tweets.

    14. Watch your stats. Some topics will be real winners with number of views not necessarily number of comments. Do something with the winning topics – write more blog posts, create your own product, link to an affiliate product, offer a free optin report, etc.

    15. Be open to more ways to promote it in the future. If it’s a good post, keep a lookout for an opportunity to internally link back to it.

    Blogging is not about slapping something up on your site, it requires a little more work than that. Post something you can be proud of, then make sure you promote it so lots of people do see it.

    Categories: blogging Tags: Tags:

    OMG, I’ve Got a Thorny Blog Problem!

    It happens to the best of us, we’re blogging along and we make a huge mistake. Or we try to make changes and screw something up. Maybe we’ve left it alone for too long and want to resurrect it. Any way you look at it, there’s a huge thorny blog problem.

    Change can be a good thing, like when you want to go to a paid theme with all the perks or you want to update to the latest WordPress. So you do it and bam!, you broke your blog. Or at least you and your readers can’t see it anymore. I could tell you that you should have backed up your blog before you messed with it, but you know that now. So get some help. The first place I start is with my hosting company. They back up everything on a consistent basis so they can actually bring your blog back up from the last time they saved it. It might be what your blog looked like 3 days ago so anything you’ve posted since then won’t be on it. That may or may not be a problem. Otherwise, get help from your resident techy expert.

    Here’s another problem that can happen with change – you want to change your blog’s direction to match your new direction. Maybe your blog has been all about writing content and now you want to teach how to do video. You’ve got to make a choice. If the difference is not too great you can keep posting to your blog and explain to your readers what’s coming up. Some readers will go right along with you and some will protest and drop off. If the difference is pretty massive, then strongly consider starting a new blog on your new passion.

    A very common thorny blog problem is when you’ve decided to start blogging again after a long hiatus. There are two schools of thought here. Either start blogging again and totally overlook the fact that it’s been forever since you blogged, or give an explanation about your absence. I think smaller gaps can be ignored, but larger gaps might need an explanation. It’s okay to admit you got beaten by shiny object syndrome or whatever; it makes you human. Word of caution – if you come clean about your lapse, don’t continue to keep lapsing.

    Promoting an inferior product(s) or a slimy marketer is a serious problem. It can happen if you don’t do your homework and thoroughly check out the marketer and/or the product. It might also happen if you’re desperate for an income and your back is against the wall. Obviously you’re digging your own grave going this route and you can’t stop it soon enough. I’ve seen marketers come clean, tell their story, and give a heart-felt apology. Does this work? I think it depends on what you do next and if your word is good again.

    Promoting products or showing ads when you haven’t previously can be an issue, especially if your blog is long established. Start small, very small with the ads or promotion, and keep the same great content coming. There will always be people who complain that you sold out. As long as you’re still giving valuable information on your blog, ignore them.

    As you can see, every thorny blog problem has a solution. It might not be exactly what you wanted, but there’s always a work around. It’s not always possible to predict which direction you’re going to want to take your blog but the changes may be worth the bumpy ride.

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    Ideas For Blog Post Series

    A blog post series is just what is sounds like – a series of posts that are connected. There are good reasons why your blog should include some blog post series. They’re not the status quo, same old thing and this makes them more interesting for your audience. If your readers can follow the journey you’re taking them on via the series of posts, then they’re buying into You. They become vested and trust is established. Also, a series of posts means natural internal linking and that’s good for your SEO.

    The unofficial ground rules are these posts have to have something tying them together. If not, you can’t really call it a series. In addition, they must cross-reference the other posts in the series, yet they need to be able to stand on their own so a little intro on each post is necessary.

    You might be wondering what sort of thing you should write a blog post series on. Check out other blogs you enjoy reading and get some ideas or try these:

    * A personal challenge – you set a personal goal to write 2000 words a day for 1 week, lose 5 pounds in 7 days, train for a marathon, or create 1 new product per month. It’s best if these goals tie into the general theme of your blog.

    * Affiliate contest – perhaps you have joined an affiliate contest or you’re having one yourself. Periodic updates on how it’s going can be exciting for everyone to read.

    * Before and after – readers love these! Your room remodel, weight loss, website redo, landscaping project, even your blog’s About page are examples. Again, these before and afters should be within the theme of your blog. Your IT blog readers don’t want to see how your veggie garden is progressing.

    * How To – how to rewrite PLR, put a grill together, organize your garage, learn crossfit exercises. The series can take one How To thing and break it into several posts, or it can be a series of related How To’s.

    * Lists – break down a Top 100 into three or four parts so you can be more thorough. Your audience will thank you for not making them read it all in one looooong post. Shorter posts are much easier to digest, plus knowing there’s a Part 2 or Part 3 brings the reader back again and again. You can also do a Top 5 Tips list with each tip as a separate entry.

    * Interview series – interview one expert in your niche – written, video, or podcast – per blog post. I prefer to ask each one different questions even though the general topic is the same.

    Remember that the posts must have a common element, they need to link to each other, and they have to be written to make sense if the reader has not read the other parts. Doing a blog series is an excellent way to retain and entertain an audience, and it’s also helpful for SEO.

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    Great Old Posts Should Never Die

    There are at least two reasons why you should never let your old blog posts die. One is that you want internal linking for SEO purposes, but you want it to be natural to make the search engines and your readers happy. The other big reason is that some of your posts are amazing works of art packed full of valuable information that you want everyone to read. The problem is that you push your content down the ladder every time you publish new content.

    So how do you give those old posts additional chances to see the light of day? Here are a few ideas:

    Reference an old post, with link, to a current post but only if it applies. For example, if you’re blogging about your tomato plants and blight, you can reference that big comprehensive post you did a few months ago on vegetable disease prevention. A new post about affiliate marketing can have a link to an archival post that’s about a different aspect of affiliate marketing.

    Where are you now? Talk about, and link to, a post you wrote exactly a year ago and compare it to your current thoughts, knowing what you know now. Experience is a good teacher and your readers can benefit from what you’ve learned over the year since you wrote that first post.

    Do a part 2 or part 3, etc. If you explained 3 ways to do something in a post, chances are you have more to share. Instead of making a super-long post that loses people, make it a series. People will click the other parts and read them too. Curiosity makes for good natural linking.

    Sometimes you have an awesome old post you want to share with your current readers. You don’t want to let that die – it was well written and the content is very helpful. It’s okay to tell your readers to go read it. Set it up with a nice intro and maybe a graphic first. This is a great idea when you’re not feeling inspired to write a new post. Just don’t do this too often or people will think you’re being lazy.

    Lastly, showcase your old blog posts on social media. Do periodic Facebook posts and tweets about them. You might want to say they’re from your Blog Success Archives or something so people don’t feel like they’ve been tricked when they see an old date on the posts.

    These are a few ways you can resurrect those great old posts and gain some SEO ground with internal linking. Don’t get carried away, be natural and be creative. Your new readers will appreciate valuable content, even if it isn’t brand new.

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    Blogging Mistakes

    Blogging is a natural extension of sharing your passion. It can also produce an income stream if done properly. So what’s the deal? Is it really hard to do? The answer is no, it’s not hard, but the sooner you avoid these mistakes the sooner your blog can become successful.

    Probably the biggest mistakes right off the bat is fear. If you have to work up the courage to post something, it’s exhausting and time-consuming and you’re going to avoid it. No posts mean no blog. The saying “feel the fear and do it anyway” applies here. It should get easier as you progress.

    Another problem that will kill a blog is that of perfectionism. A perfectionist is never happy and always tweaking. That means posts are far and few between. Nothing is ever perfect and people certainly aren’t. Let you human side show, mistakes and all, and your readers will bond better with you.

    Not having a lead magnetic is a mistake. It is so important to build your list as soon as possible that I’d go so far as to say don’t open your blog for business until you have your optin freebie in place.

    Not having a call to action in your posts is a problem. What do you want them to do next? This is where you can send them via an affiliate link to a product that will solve their problem, or to your Facebook page, or another post.

    Too broad or too narrow a niche are both mistakes. Too narrow means you’ll run out of content and too broad means you’re all over the place and losing people.

    Another mistake is not sticking to your niche. Who wants to read about handguns on a photography site? Sounds ridiculous but it happens more than you’d imagine.

    It’s a mistake to not have enough quality, actionable content. People don’t want to just read, they want a game plan. They want to be able to think “I could do that, let me try now.” Give them PowerPoints, worksheets, cheatsheets and the like.

    Giving up too early or abandoning your blog is wrong. Yes, it can be disheartening when you’re blogging your little fingers off the bone and no one is reading it yet, but don’t stop. Instead, learn how to drive traffic to your blog. Continue to get educated about blogging and stay at it for the long haul.

    Being impersonal is another problem bloggers have. Don’t be just another blog. Make yours memorable by adding the missing ingredient, the spice – you.

    Blogging can be fun and lucrative and there’s no reason why you can’t get your share. Pay attention to your mistakes and keep focused on your blogging goals.

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    Blogging – Where’s the Money?

    We are told money from blogging is supposed to go like this… start a blog, get an audience (traffic), build a list, and sell products to your list and your blog audience. Is it that simple? Of course not. It’s a bumpy road with switch backs, dead ends and potholes, and you never arrive at a destination because it’s always a journey.

    Instead of stressing about the money, concentrate on making your blog a really good one. Make it a blog with very helpful, even valuable information, where people want to go again and again to see what you have to say. Make it an authority site and you’ll find the money comes in some surprising ways, not just from hard-selling products.

    Partner with other marketers on product creation. Having a successful blog you’re passionate about makes you stand out in the crowded blogosphere and you’re going to get requests from others in your field to work together. Get to know them and pick and choose carefully. It could be that you both are experts, or that you have the expertise but they have a huge audience. Bottom line, make sure you can benefit from the partnering.

    Selling ad space on your blog. There’s some prime real estate on your blog’s sidebar(s) and you might want to sell ad space there or at the end of a post. Again, pick and choose carefully who you want to represent. The more traffic your blog gets, the more you can charge per ad.

    Incidental selling. These are sales you make from blogging about the tools, software, ebooks, etc. that you’re successfully using. Your own case studies are an excellent path for incidental selling. No hard-selling involved, just mention what you use and why you picked that particular thing over another.

    Private coaching. “Show me how to do what you do!” will be the recurring theme in emails you receive and in comments on your blog. Consider turning those requests into one-on-one or group coaching. This can be very lucrative.

    Speaking engagements. Successful bloggers are in demand as speakers and they get paid for their time at the podium. Not only that, they often get to pitch their own products during their speeches. That makes for two income streams from one event.

    There is definitely money to be made from blogging, but it may not be in the way you’ve been told it will come. Relax, have patience, post amazing content again and again, grow your audience, and be open to other income-producing opportunities that come your way.

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    Blog Posts – Inspiration from Unlikely Sources

    Starting a new blog is exciting. You’re full of passion, you have a lot to say, the blog posts seem to come out of nowhere and you’re buzzing along building that stellar content for your important audience. Then… you hit a wall and can’t come up with anything to blog about. The more you think about it, the more blocked you become. So you try a few of the usual writing prompts, get some posts up, then run dry again.

    Here are some more unusual ideas to inspire your next blog posts:

    1. Have your significant other or a parent (someone who is not an online marketer) ask you 3 to 5 questions about what you do online all day and how you make your income. Answering these in a post not only helps you gain insight into what you actually do with your time, but allows your readers a chance to be a voyeur in your work day, week, or month.

    2. Go to the library and pick a magazine not in your niche. Think about how your business is similar to the magazine niche. Compare and contrast. Say you reach for a knitting magazine. What do you and a knitter have in common? You have to pick a project and focus on it, plan ahead to get all the pieces and tools for the project (different colors of yarns and knitting needles vs. video, graphics, squeeze page, etc.), learn the parts you don’t already know as you go, and so on.

    3. Do an acrostic poem using the letters from an important word in your niche. Don’t really do a poem; make it a paragraph for each letter. Pack these paragraphs with really helpful information. Tip – don’t pick a really long word or you’ll have a ton to write!

    4. Write a ‘What If’ post. What if Joel Comm contacted you and wanted to do a joint venture with you? Or if you write a gardening blog, what if HGTV wanted to feature you on an episode of Yard Crashers? Make it something out of your everyday realm and have your readers join in.

    5. Think about one of your biggest screw ups since you’ve been blogging. Now share it, the whole ugly story. Your readers will appreciate your honesty, transparency, and humanness. They’ll also learn what not to do.

    6. Pick 5 (or 7 or 10) words or phrases that best describe you and your blog and why. While it’s tempting to just use positive words, throw in some that don’t show you in the best light. For example – good writer, transparent, procrastinator, funny, unfocused, super affiliate.

    With these ideas, you should be able to write some good blog posts. They will be informative and have elements of You in them. That’s the winning combo for any blogger.

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    How Scaling Affects Content Creation

    Scaling content adds a new way to use content in all the information you gather in your business. You may already be doing a lot of this without realizing it is content scaling. Ideas such as repurposing, sharing, and curating have been around for a while. But, often it’s not done with much intent. Content scaling allows you to start thinking of your content strategy in a new light and affects content creation positively.

    Improved Idea Generation

    Scaling content forces you to give each piece of content a lot more thought and consideration and planning ahead. With the additional planning and reimaging of the content, you will come up with more ideas because you aren’t thinking of each piece of content as one thing anymore.

    Instead, each piece of content becomes not just a blog post, but research for future pieces of content such as an eCourse, or a video education series, or a podcast. Now that you can look at content differently you’ll be able to bring more creativity to all the content ideas that you generate.

    Get More Bang for Your Buck

    By strategic rewriting, reformatting, and reusing the content that you have spent a lot of time, money and effort creating, you’ll actually get a lot more bang for your buck.

    If you can pay a content creator for 40 or 50 pieces of content each month, based off your product funnel and the information you want to impart on your audience, and then each of these pieces of content are recreated into other formats, and each new creation is shared multiple times on social media, via email marketing and via your affiliates, how much more will you earn off each piece of content?

    Get Your Ideas to More People

    When you spend time reproducing your content into many different forms, and even languages, and sharing it often through social media, email marketing, and other means, you’re going to get your ideas to more people than you did before.

    The more people who see your information, the more leads you’re going to get, and the more creditability you will get for the work that you do. Strategic content creation, curation, and sharing across multiple networks will work in concert with your overall marketing plan.

    Develop Thought Leadership

    One of the ways in which you become a sought-after person in business is to become a thought leader. Scaled content allows you to become a thought leader by helping you make the most of the content you are creating, plus the content other people have created through curation.

    By showing others your expertise through sharing your thoughts on other people’s content, and choosing the right content to share with your audience from other authors, you will become known as a thought leader within your community. This can boost your credibility exponentially among your audience members.

    Make Competitors Allies

    A great way to bring competitors to your side of the road is to start curating their content. Share their content with your audience with your commentary and thoughts. You can use as much as 50 percent of your content as curated content as long as you add in your own thoughts, link to and provide attribution to the original creators of the content.

    Now competitors will see what you’ve done and they may feel a need to comment on what you said, or bring you into a cross-blog conversation that can bring you brand new traffic from their audience. Plus it turns your website or blog into a hub for information revolving around your niche, a one-stop shop for your audience to find the information of the day about your topic.

    Multiply Your Message

    Once you’ve developed a piece of content in any format, you can immediately multiply the message by reproducing it into new formats. You don’t want to copy and paste the information into a new format; you want instead to use the work as research, and reimagine it into a new format.

    The blog post becomes a slide share, and the slide share becomes a YouTube video, and so forth. Use some creativity when moving content to a new format. You want to consider the personality of the network that your content will be pushed out to when crafting the new format. Also, give the new format some of its own personality and creative changes to ensure that it’s not cookie cutter.

    Become a Global Brand

    Most people read content or use content only in their own language. If you want to reach other audiences in other languages, you can duplicate your content into new languages by having it translated into entirely new websites. This will attract the audience you want to promote your products and services to.

    Don’t just use the same content in a different language, but also be sure to consider the values and personalities of the audience that speaks that language. You may need to change more than just the words to make it work. However, adding more languages can boost your selling potential and your reach. Consider English, Spanish, French, German, and any language that has freedom of use and purchasing power on the internet.

    Empower Brand Ambassadors

    Affiliates, employees, contractors, friends, colleagues…they all need to feel as if they can share the work that you do without concern. Make it easy for them to share your content in their own words on their social media accounts, blogs, and among their contacts.

    Push out content that can be edited by your affiliates, employees and contractors to make it original yet still carry the message you want to get out. Teach them how to use the information to make the most of it.

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