Writing on the Web from Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad

Content for Coaches and Consultants: new site launches

If you're a coach or consultant and specialize in leadership development you'll be interested to know about a new site Denise and I launched this week: www.ContentforCoachesandConsultants.com.

Long name, I know, but I wanted to be clear about what we're offering for sale: content for coaches and consultants. This is a division of Krakoff Wakeman & Associates, Inc.

I invite you all to visit www.ContentforCoachesandConsultants.com and please invite anyone you know who is looking for quality content on leadership development and other topics.

Here's a little history of how this evolved. In 1999 I launched Coaching Matters, providing printed newsletters to coaches. Then I stopped offering print services and went to email versions.

I changed the name to Customized Newsletter Services for coaches, but because of the name, we got a lot of requests from other kinds of professionals to do their newsletters, formatting, design, etc. Then we got into email distribution of ezines, becoming a one-stop provider of emailed newsletters.

I ended up handling some tasks I should never go near: detailed tech work, coding, designing, and the dreaded issues of email deliverability. Fortunately, I found the right people to expertly handle those tasks.

Alex Geana: Portrait of how one professional uses content to market online

Content marketing means different things to different people. So I went out to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and to coaches and consultants I respect who are using Web content to market their services. The results have been terrific.

For one thing, I realize that I am entrenched in marketing the way I do it. It helps me greatly to see how others use it differently. I hope you'll find these series of content marketing interviews enlightening and helpful.

Here's an interview with a smart young professional writer with a creative and eclectic business style, Alex Geana.

1. Tell us what your profession is, and who your typical clients are.

I’m a communications and online marketing consultant. I’m just starting my own practice and have a budding list of clients. It varies, depending on their need.

I’m excited about working with the great American Realist Clark Hulings he’s a master painter with a strong following in noted circles, yet wants to reach a broader audience. We’re working on an online marketing campaign to do just that.

How to Write Content That Markets Your Company (Or, What would Seth do?)

Chris Baggott cracks me up. I asked him how he uses content to market his company's services, and he sent me this video that shows his Seth Godin doll hanging out in the background! What great use of video content to educate and entertain your peeps...take a look:

Content or Marketing or Both? All Content Is Marketing

Where does content start, and marketing begin?

This great question is being asked by the 2008 MIMA Summit, a midwest conference on interactive marketing.

I say, "All content is marketing."

The more you can educate readers, entertain them, engage them and strive to make their lives richer, the better they will feel about your products, your services, and your company.

It works because of what Professor Robert Cialdini and many other scientists describe as the reciprocity trigger. We are hardwired in our brains to feel disposed to give back when we receive something.

Long before the concept of money evolved, our ancestors traded, bartered and exchanged goods, services and food. These habits of giving and receiving laid down neural networks in our brains -- they created automatic responses in our psyche.

I'm not above asking...

If you think this blog offers valuable information about writing, please nominate it for Michael Stelzner's best writing blog list: http://www.writingwhitepapers.com/blog/2008/08/28/nominate/

There are some great writing blogs on the list that I encourage you to check out. I know this little blog doesn't have a chance of making the top ten, but I'd sure appreciate being nominated. Thanks, guys.

Coach & Consultant Marketing: An Interview with John Agno

As a follow up to my post about using keywords to get organic search results from writing on the web, I want to show you an example of an independent professional who is getting great results from his content marketing, John Agno.

Nothing speaks louder than someone who "gets it." John has been using quality content to generate search results, get known, get found, and attract great clients on the Web.

I met John at a coach training event way back, oh, it must have been in 2000, I think. He consistently provides quality content and information that serves to build his credibility and expertise, and build relationships with readers and clients.

I interviewed John and share his words of wisdom here. Please take some time to check out his blogs and subscribe to his newsletter.

Content Marketing: a primer for business people who want to get found quickly on the Web

What's the easiest, fastest, smartest way to get marketing results for your business on the Web?

Here's a clue...it's in the tag line of this blog: Content Marketing! Here's why I say that...

Imagine you're starting out online - maybe you've been in business forever, but you're just taking your business onto the web. You don't have a large staff or a big budget. You look at the Web from your own perspective and try to imagine how your potential customers would search for you.

They'd use certain keywords, wouldn't they? Maybe you don't know squat about "keyword optimization" or "search engine marketing" or any of that. But I'll bet you can guess how your prospects might look for your products and services, can't you?

Okay, that's step one. You might want to use a keyword tool like the one at www.freekeywords.wordtracker.com to see which keyword phrases are more popular. Or not.

You can guess what the next step is... put up lots of pages on your site writing about what your company can do for people. What are the benefits they get from using your products and services?

Blogging Blahs Gone Bye Bye...

I'm not depressed anymore. This week has taught me so many things, like how swiftly you can connect with colleagues through Twitter and Facebook, how we're all in this together, how wise other people are, and how kind they are for holding out hands and uplifting words and birthday greetings. And I could go on and gush but it'd just get messy...

Thanks to all the friends who sent birthday greetings and warm wishes. Back at ya!

How to Get Your Blog Buzz Back

Now I'm getting depressed. Not only am I now officially "old" (and believe me, I've got a black belt in denial) but I haven't been nominated for Michael's best writing blog list. Okay, I know you don't want to hear my whining.

But maybe it's time to beef up this blog. I haven't been feeling my blog buzz lately and I've just been sliding by. This sometimes happens to my tennis and when it does, I ramp up my workouts.

Here's my plan for getting my blog buzz back:

1. Read my favorite writing blogs daily and leave a few comments (Use Michael's list of great blogs)
2. Use those blogs to inspire my own writing
3. Post something at least every other day, even if it's just to refer to a great post found elsewhere
4. Write at least one meaty post a week, where I reconnect with this blog's purpose of teaching content marketing on one form or another
5. Figure out a way to get more reader participation, maybe a poll or survey or contest
6. Take frequent breaks from my own work and visit what our clients are doing - stop isolating

Happy Birthday, Blog

I've got a birthday the same day as my blog. This blog is four years old Thursday September 4, 2008. I am a few decades beyond that, but I feel like only 24 or 34...

Who else do you know celebrates their birthday on the same day as they started their first blog?