Writing on the Web from Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad

Information Sells: Just Ask Adam Urbanski

Info Profits Success Intensive: Three days in a room full of 50 small business owners all learning about the power of marketing with information, that's Adam Urbanski's idea of fun! And boy, can he orchestrate fun even while he over-delivers information and tips about how to make money with information products.

The Blog Squad was graciously invited to share a piece of the information marketing puzzle: how to use a blog to spread your words and get business.

Adam is an amazingly refreshing master of marketing for coaches, consultants and service professionals. He came to this country in 1989 with $200 in his pocket and now has a huge following of clients. Spending 3 days with him is intense; he doesn't hold back on any of the insider methods of making money both on and offline.

He has an amazing ability to simplify the complexity of marketing into clear action steps. If you get a chance to hear him speak don't miss it. Oh, and by the way, he's going to be at the Speak Your Way to Wealth seminar August 22-24, sponsored by Arvee Robinson, along with The Blog Squad, in Manhattan Beach.

Content Marketing: Treat Your Information Like a Product

Part 2 by guest author Joe Pulizzi, Junta42

How to turn off your customers...

The fact is that consumers are turning away from anything that directly markets to them without first having a relationship with your brand. It's very difficult, if not impossible, to create a sustainable relationship with a customer without first delivering valuable content.

Marketers may long for the good old days of mass marketing, but those days are dead and gone. Those were easier days.

Today, marketers cannot rely solely on creative ads and traditional ad buys, they have to work for it by delivering consistent and valuable information.

To overcome some of these barriers to content marketing, I've been pushing the concept of positioning content marketing as, yes, a product.

What do I mean by that?

Content Marketing: You mean give away information without a pitch?

By guest author Joe Pulizzi, Junta42 Blog

To follow the philosophy of content marketing, you've got to want it bad. Content marketing is all about your customer...that one customer who needs just the right information from you to do their job better or make their lives easier.

Doing that is anything but easy.

I speak to a number of audiences around the country about content marketing as not just a marketing strategy, but an organizational strategy. More people are starting to get this, but many, sad to say, just don't get it.

"You mean I create content for my customer, but don't pitch them anything in it?" is a usual response. The answer to that question is whole-hearted YES!

Writing Better Content to Attract Clients

How does content marketing work for your business? You need to write 2-3 times a week in order for your content to work as an automatic marketing tool for your business. But it's easier than you might think.

Content Marketing: An easier, softer way to snag clients

Six months ago I hadn't heard the term 'content marketing,' but I liked it immediately. So much so, I put it in the tag line of this blog when I redesigned it: How to Use Content Marketing to Attract, Sell and Profit Online.

Most people I talk to guess that content marketing means writing, publishing, and distributing content that ultimately sells your services or products.

Joe Pulizzi, of Junta42 blog, defines it like this:

Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience - with the objective of driving profitable customer action.

Understandably, you may not be clear what that really means or how important it is for your business yet. Quite frankly, I'm not sure anybody can really tell you what that specifically means for you. You might have to do some serious thinking...like, for example:

Small Business Marketing: ask a question and win a book

Are you curious?

What marketing question would you want to ask an entrepreneur or small business professional? Submit a question and you'll be entered to win a book.

Denise and I are going to Adam Urbanski's Info-Product Intensive this week in Costa Mesa, and we'll be interviewing participants with our Flip videos. We made a list of things to ask people, but we want you to participate.

What's one question would you ask an entrepreneur about marketing?

Here's a list of the books you can win:

• The Ultimate Guide to Electronic Marketing for Small Business by Tom Antion
• Publish & Prosper: Blogging for Business by DL Bryon & Steve Broback
• Email Marketing by the Num8ers by Chris Baggott
• What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting by Ted Demopoulos
• Naked Conversations by Shel Israel and Robert Scoble

Ezine/Blog Combos: Here are two examples

I've noticed a trend of combining a newsletter with blog posts. In these two examples, each done a little differently, the focus is on driving readers to read what interests them the most. Whether it's a special report, an audio file, or weekly blog posts, the reader decides what topic and how they want to get their information.

Bud Bilanich's Common Sense Ezine
Debbie Weil's WordBiz Report

What do you think about these examples? And, how have blogs affected the way you do your ezine? Or has it not changed things for you at all? Do you feel it's essential to have both a blog AND a newsletter? Hit the comment link and share.

Related Posts:
Blog or Newsletter? Which is best for building a list?
Ezine Success Stories: Newsletters still get results for business
Top Ten Reasons to Do an Ezine AND a Blog
Newsletters & Blogs: Marriage or Divorce?

Spring Break: The Blog Squad Slashes Prices 81% on Teleseminars

To celebrate the arrival of Spring, we're staging a Spring Break Sale. The Blog Squad is offering 8 teleseminars and a chance to win some amazing bonuses...

Click on over to find out about our Spring Fling sale...

Blog or Newsletter? Which is best for building a list?

"Are Ezines still very relevant and a popular popular way to establish a list vs. a blog?" Amanda from Ft. Lauderdale asks. This is a 2-part question really, about which is best to do, and then about the best way to build a list. I'll try to sort out the overlapping components.

An ezine, or emailed newsletter, has been a major marketing tool for online businesses since the 90s. In 2004 along came blogs; business blogging has quickly become an easy way to publish your message online and get found by the people who need your services.

The Blog vs Ezine debate isn't new, nor is it finished. I posted previously what others were saying about the ezine/blog debate on this blog.

And our answer (in most cases) is to do both. But you should get them simplified so that neither task takes up too much of your time and energy.

Building Your List...

Wall Street Journal & Blog Squad: Denise gets quoted

Find out what Denise, my Blog Squad partner, says in a Wall Street Journal article about getting publicity through blogs...Attention, Bloggers by Shelly Banjo.