Part 2 to the first post I made recently. I know it’s taken me longer than I hoped to write this, but here it is!
In the last post I talked about how Reading and Writing will help you not only overcome writer’s block, but also make you a better writer overall. And this isn’t just with Blogging, but with any type of writing.
I really can’t reiterate how important this is.. but I’ll try.
Read and Write. Write and Read. And Save.
That’s all. Just keep reading other people’s Blogs for ideas (and read anything in general) and keep writing. Even if you feel it’s not that great, write it anyway. Keep a Word file or Notepad file of ideas and posts you don’t wanna publish that you’ve written to combat Writer’s block. You’ll have a collection of random ideas and rough drafts. And once in awhile, go through these files and you may discover future post ideas as well!
Patronize Don’t Plagiarize.
Another tip to get through Writer’s Block is to read other blog posts, articles, forum posts, stories, etc and take their idea and base your post on it. Don’t rip off other posts! No no no. But you can take the topic, write it in your own words, add your own thoughts, ideas and stories, and post it.
This method can also teach you more about certain topics, and even writing techniques, that you can slowly (or quickly if you’d like) incorporate into your own Blogging. It’s a good way to get around blocks and get around times when you have no idea what to Blog about anymore. (Hint- Sometimes you just run out of steam and feel clueless about what to post. Good news is, once you push through it, you’ll find it easy to post again for quite awhile!)
You can even sometimes approach other Bloggers and ask them (via comment or email) if you can repost their post on your blog. They’ll usually say yes. You can even copy 2-3 paragraphs of their article (crediting them of course) and write something like, “To continue reading, visit John Doe’s excellent Blog post ‘Example Here’” providing a link back to his Blog. That way, you have a Blog post! And links between your two blogs!
Some Other Tricks.
Just believe in yourself. Read, Write, Save, Incorporate Ideas By Others, and Do It. Don’t let a few moments or days of frustration lead to letting your Blog die, and perhaps your business as well.
Writer’s Block does fade away. It truly does. Just believe it fades, and half the battle is already won!
Look forward to future posts from me about Writing Techniques and Tips in General.
Also see the Posts- By Larry Category on this Blog for excellent Blogging related posts by our Article/Blog/Writing expert Larry Smith! And drop by to see any new posts we may have made each day and week!
Many “Newbies” in the world of marketing are drowning in a sea of information. Data, data, data and more data coming from every direction is so overwhelming that they become literally dizzy or even comatose and could drown in the deluge. It is also so sad because so much of that data is misinformation. Data problems manifest themselves in many forms causing Internet business slow-downs and failures.
Individuals as well as companies can suffer from too much data, or data that is hard to comprehend, sometimes confusing and frequently untrustworthy. The ability to take appropriate action and meet with marketing success depends on getting through the data “menagerie”. Getting through this accumulative data mess is imperative. One must find the strategic information that is needed so that the correct information can be delivered to the right person(s) at the right time and in the right format.
These are the four strategic keys to meeting with success in the “dizzy data” arena. First is getting the best information that is available. Too many businesses, sales teams and individual blog marketers settle for less than the best. Whether it is related to product development or statistical information pertinent to business positioning, the old inadequate data, will not work.
The second key is to get the best information to the right prospective customers. Paying the price in terms of choosing the customers one will work with, is both cost effective and makes for a happier business sales team (which will then not have to deal with dead-beat and time-consuming individuals).
The third important component is getting the sales message to potential customers in a timely manner. Good auto-responder systems will allow frequent and pertinent information to reach the customer base as well as reaching potential customers whom can be converted to purchasers.
The fourth and final key is having the best format for the information delivery. To put it in a nutshell, the marketing information must be simple to read, easy to understand and timely, to convert receivers into buyers.
I watched my employer turn a $1500.00 simple informational booklet into $25,000.00 in two weeks back in the early 1990’s, because she told a niche market how to make money using these four keys. Today she is very wealthy from continuing to repeat this process over and over again using both direct response and Internet marketing mediums. Get the data access and delivery right and success will follow.
Innovation has always been a key to business success and wealth creation. In the past innovation was primarily linked to new inventions like Walk-mans, I Pods, and yes, even pet rocks. Today in the Internet/Blogging arena, innovation has shifted to a global concept of ad campaigns and marketing strategies. A major marketing problem in the 21st century is “Invisible Constraints.” They can be as small as business meetings that start first thing on a Monday morning, to huge emotional barriers that prevent people from taking small steps to financial success.
Have you ever been around a circus or zoo and seen a huge elephant tied down to a very small stake. This is a great analogy of the invisible constraint problem. When the elephants are small they try to pull out of the stake and they fail. The attempts to get free are very painful to the small animals and when they get large, they never try to pull out of the stake again. This parallels the Internet marketing problem of limiting ourselves by what we have been in the past, instead of going for what we are capable of achieving. Like the elephant, which is anchored down and thinks it is impossible to be free, humans are also affected by such invisible constraints. They become emotional barriers that prevent us from being innovative in our blog marketing. This problem looks like an “Elephantal Constraint”, but action can be taken to overcome this dilemma.
Determine if there are any invisible barriers that cannot be crossed. Then take action to cross them. Break away from the invisible ropes and stakes. Do it! Get rid of those mental barriers. Crush those huge elephantal constraints. As they are destroyed we will begin destroying any physical constraints to our blog marketing success, like lack of capacity or lack of sales. We were created for success! Remember, our thoughts create our life.
Many blog marketers and even company marketing teams are failing to reach niche markets that enhance and speed up their marketing success. In the face of highly competitive business conditions and limited resources for marketing, leaders will need to know how to identify target markets that provide the fastest and greatest likelihood for success.
Segmentation marketing is the key to this problem. By targeting segments in the marketing arena, bloggers can develop a very competitive positioning and focus those limited resources most effectively. Markets need to be segmented by value. Prioritize your marketing based on the potential customer buying power. This will permit reaching potential customers with products that best serve their buying power.
Markets need to be segmented by customer needs as well. This can be real or perceived needs. Remember that buying is very emotional. If a person has a perception that something is good or right for them, they will take the steps to acquire that product because, it is in that time frame, a need for them. For example, how many weight loss or exercise products are purchased and really never used. All because of a perceived need to have the product that will magically make a difference, just like they saw it on television. I love the ads for Bowflex. The users, both male and female have perfect fat-free bodies that supposedly have been produced by using this machinery. The potential customer wants to look like this and will pay big bucks to get the miracle-working machine. Diet and other issues are not advertised as a part of this perfect body scenario. Get your Bowflex and in 90 days look like the paid models on that commercial. What amazes me are the number of Bowflex units that buyers purchased and now have advertised for sale by Craigslist, Ebay, newspaper ads and other media. These units are purchased frequently by perceived need and are purchased again (used) by the same process.
Survey your customer base or design a market research study to go after potential buyers. The key here is to identify profitable and reachable groups of customer segments. High quality list brokers have and can do this for you at a price. Learning how to do segmentation marketing and replicate the process time and time again is far more advantageous to bloggers. This should also help the company to better design products and service offerings to meet customer needs.
Help in identifying targeted markets is not difficult, nor expensive. Go to Google on your computer and put in Segmentation Marketing Courses and do a search. Myriads of course offerings online at as little as $30.00 can empower a business or individual marketers to meet with success in the marketing game. IIP also offers ongoing webinar training and Zoomica training strategies that can assist in segmentation marketing. Go for it!
In the world of blogging marketing, it is frequently the little things that kill momentum, hinder achieving goals, or impeding home-based business growth. Having a limited business mindset is not a small thing and is one of the most destructive problems to marketing success. By limited mindset we are talking about the issue of listening to the wrong people.
There are so many gurus, so many magic buttons, so many perfect programs and so many marketing strategies, all designed to make everyone instant millionaires. In most cases the only one getting rich is the creator of the “program” itself. It is amazing the testimonies of blogging marketers who are making astronomical sums of money from these programs and when closely examined, they spend almost as much (on marketing) as they earn. Thank goodness there are tried and true courses and programs like IIP that can help blogging marketers and other Internet business owners meet with real financial success. Mindset is ninety percent of the equation for success in every area of life. The limited mindset will wreck havoc with business success.
Individuals who listen to the wrong people will spin their wheels with “false efficiencies” and not target real success. Hours will be wasted in front of a computer but only a small fraction of capabilities will be achieved. The marketer will get stuck dealing with the same problems over and over again holding him/her back from making any real progress. I have watched these scenarios take place time and again because the business mindset has not been established.
Rectifying the limited mindset is not difficult for most aspiring business entrepreneurs. The answer is to get rid of the “stinking thinking” and actions that cause the blogger to do the same things over and over again and not meet with success. There are good CD’s and books on the business mindset. The Internet is loaded with articles and materials that can help the limited mindset problem. I am blessed, as my employer for about eight years, my daughter, is so gifted in this area of helping people. Her book, “When You Can Walk on Water, Why Take The Boat”, as well as other motivational material turned me and many thousands of others around. I encourage you to win the battle of the mindset, and you too, can walk on the water of success.
No, this is not a critical article on pricing techniques and/or policies in blogging marketing success. Instead, there is a powerful emotional mystique that is associated with buying that also makes the seller’s job, at the least, a very exciting experience. Blogging marketers, sellers and closers need to understand how to deal with the emotional processes of price to be successful in the sales arena.
Emotion has a tremendous role in the entire buying/selling process. Some estimate that emotion is nearly 90% of the buying process. I am blessed to have lived with an extraordinary salesman, my father. As a young man he started his sales career pedaling produce after returning home from the South Pacific at the close of WWII. In the early 50’s he became a Fuller Brush salesman with a creative flair for selling ordinary household products like brooms. Dad would dress a broom up to look like a woman. He would approach a door, spray some of his air-freshener product on the door, knock and quickly disappear, leaving the broom standing there. An amazing process would take place in the next few minutes, as he would sell the broom (frequently two or more of them), the air-freshener and a myriad of brushes and household/kitchen aids that he carried in his Fuller Brush bag. He was the top sales person for Fuller Brush in the entire state of West Virginia. In the later 50’s Dad became an insurance salesman and was again a top producer, having 17 consecutive years of being a million dollar seller. This was not just big!
It was incredible! Very few men in this time period were million dollar producers in small populated, economically deprived states. He was the first man selected to the Insurance Hall of Fame of his Pennsylvania based Life Insurance Company. My dad could sell anything! The emotional challenge of making sales was the driving force of dad’s life. He had a record of 7 consecutive years of selling at least one insurance policy each week. I loved to see him in action selling anything. He understood how to create a perceived need to buy, and the process was so very entertaining, that he was always able to get the best price. Customers always seemed to be so satisfied that price was rarely an issue. The emotions of buying frequently make price not come into the picture until the buyer has already made a decision to make a purchase.
Sellers focus too much of their time and energy on price and fail to see the real emotional reasons customers will buy. It is so important to understand and feel the emotional connection potential customers will attach to the seller, the products/services offered, and the way they will relate or interact with the business. All bloggers need to address the emotions that attract and keep good customers. The decision to buy something almost always starts with an emotional need. That emotional need influences the customer to consider buying something to fill it. The search and evaluation of all the possible choices of products or services is also emotional and many other emotional factors may enter the process. The price issue comes in near the end of this process and in essence it usually helps to justify the emotional decision that the buyer has already made. The seller sees the price request as a big buying signal (will the cost allow me to buy what, I perceive I want, and is it fair for what I decided to buy). For the seller this is wonderful. He can take charge at the price point and have a blast making the sell. Fun! Fun! Fun! I get all emotional just thinking about it!
We all want to make money online. And the Max Pro System has been designed so that we can do just that. But we know that to make money we need to build up our site. That’s the job of the affiliate; we have to market our site and get leads into our system.
So how do we do that?
I moderate over in the Club Zoomica forum and I can tell you that when people first join the system many don’t know where to begin. That’s usually the first question that comes up. “How do I start marketing my site?”
So I thought I would just briefly touch on some of the methods that are recommended for the Max Pro System. Article marketing, social networking, posting on forums and blogging can all be great ways to build up your traffic and create a loyal customer base. And the best part about them is that these methods are totally free. (Unless of course you pay a professional writer to do your articles for you. Which even then shouldn’t run you that much.)
One of the most important things to keep in mind when submitting articles and blogging is keep your content UNIQUE. Make sure your content will pass Copyscape. (If you don’t know what that is visit http://www.copyscape.com/.) Keep in mind that the content you generate for your articles and blog posts will be unique to you. It’s your marketing method that you are putting out there to generate your unique customer base. (It’s not like the sales page/letter.)
Social networking sites can be great but you have to be very careful to make sure that you don’t get labeled as a spammer. You’ll need to spend time building trust and relationships. (After all, they do call it social networking.)
Posting on forums is also a great tool. Remember that the most effective method is to place the link to your site in your signature file. But please remember that most of these forums have rules and policies in place that don’t allow you to do this right off the bat. You’ll need to build up trust first. And most of the time there is a post count guideline that you must have before you are allowed to even put live links in your posts.
