Did you know that every day over a million blogs are left idle and never updated…again?
Now I just made up that statistic but I can assure you that many people enter the blogging world thinking it’s going to be easy to get traffic, get buyers and make millions of dollars.
They think they just have to write blog posts and the money will come flooding in.
WRONG
Your blog is a product and there’s no product that’s ever been created that sells itself.
Without marketing there would be warehouses full of unknown things and your blog is the same.
If the world doesn’t know about your blog then it’s going to be one of the millions of cold and lonely blogs lost in cyberspace…never to be updated again!
There are certain steps you have to take to market your blog but first…
The Basic Reasons People Buy
There are only three basic reasons why people purchase goods and services:
- Because they need them
- Because the product solves a problem
- Because it makes them feel better
Understanding this helps enormously when marketing.
Depending on the ultimate reason for creating your blog (which is more often than not to earn money) then you can use this information to write more focused articles, blog, forum and social media comments. Appeal to all three types of people and you’ll have part of the perfect marketing formula.
Who Are You Targeting?
Whether you’re marketing a physical product or a blog, you need to get it in front of the people who need it – your target market for your chosen niche.
Ask yourself a simple question “who is my ideal blog visitor?” and start building a picture / persona of them. The ideal customer picture will help you decide who to market to.
Networking With Your Target Market
Whatever the subject of your blog or the product you’re promoting there are places where your target market hangs out.
- Blogs
- Forums
- Social media
Three good places to start looking, participate regularly by leaving helpful and informative comments and people will follow your link. Just make sure that you’re allowed to leave links on the blogs and forums you choose.
Using Twitter
People laughed at Twitter when it first emerged; even the experts thought it would fail. Today millions of people use Twitter to communicate with each other and there’s a huge market of Twitter followers that will be attracted to you. Interact, Tweet and be re-Tweeted.
Andrew is a website builder and helps small businesses with their on-line presence…so they can grow their customer list and increase sales. That’s it! That’s what we do each and every day.
I’ve seen a ton of traction from my About page and I also created a “Start Here” page which gets great conversion to my Newsletter.
Honestly, I’m surprised how well the Start Here page converts first time (supposedly) visitors to Newsletter subscribers which is a main goal of my blog…
Great Article!
Ryan H.
Ryan,
That’s a cool idea – thanks for sharing.
I shall try it myself.
Andrew
For me, mobile marketing is a great way to let your usual customers/potential buyers know what’s currently for sale at your website (in case you do sell stuff). It keeps people informed even if they are not on their computers or when they are currently offline or on vacation.
Felicia
How do you let your customers know about your website via a mobile?
Andrew
I agree with the Facebook and Mobile marketing thing, because you can directly reach your audience.. But i never got very much positive response from email marketing.. Might be a reason that my email was marked as spam by spam filters or something.. Anyways this post was helpful.. Keep posting good content.. 🙂
Prithvi
There are many reasons why your emails could be classed as spam. These days you only have to mention the word ‘free’ adn it could be classed as spam.
Andrew
Great post Andrew, just like the others of the series. I think you’re right in giving such valuable information for free as first you can help more people, second you show you know what you say and third this builds trust that you can help customers to succeed. And also at the end you can always make up an ebook with it.
As for mobile it’s sort of a problem as users tend to avoid both clicking on ads and leaving comments. It will probably push Adsense out of business in favour of affiliate sales, BuySellAds and CrankyAds. Not that this is a bad thing though.
Have a great day!
Andrea
Thanks for the kind words and I think you are right in what you say…well I hope so.
All the best,
Andrew
Hi,
Any time I post, I create some great web 2.0 properties to get some links. Helps for SEO for some reason especially Squidoo.
I then send email to list, which brings great traffic, because it’s targeted.
Thanks for tips
Joe
Joe,
I don’t email my list each time I publish a post. I don’t to abuse the list by sending them too many emails.
I just pick one or 2 a month.
Andrew
Wow, the followerwonk tool is amazing. Haven’t got too much into social media until now, but I believe time has come to get in line with the world, lol. Thanks for sharing!
Create a good about page as well as a page for products that you use and recommend. Give away a ton of quality free information. Also it’s ok to recommend free products. Your goal is to establish a relationship of trust with your audience, not just trying to sell them stuff.
Richard
Totally agree – a good About page is mandatory.
And as you say mix free with premium products/services.
Andrew
A wonderful wrap up of almost everything needed to succeed with blogging, Andrew. IMO a product that “solves” people’s problems are a winner – so is a blog!
Jane
So it a blog…only if it provides great quality content that does solve people’s problems.
Unfortunately, many blogs don’t!
Andrew
well thats a very robust article
But its difficult to target your customer
as now many of high PR rank only gives their link
which and which donot have any information
I was shocked at the first stat. Glad you let us know it wasn’t exactly true. But in my daily reading of blogs, I do find many that aren’t updated and I always wonder what happened to the author? Did they die, just give up blogging or what?
I also agree on the need for a gravatar. and a good about page. I have just begun creating meaningful about pages for my sites. Before anything else, I need to make sure the about page is up and running. Must establish trust.
Brian
I often wonder the same thing – what happened to the author?
Trust does take time and effort but well worth it.
Andrew
Corinne
Well I shall be ‘stealing’ Ryan’s idea!
And I agree about the ‘urgency’ type sales approach. It’s too spammy for some.
Andrew
Hah, yeah a million blogs every day. But I get the point, especially since I have abandoned 3 or 4 blogs myself.
I never really thought about the gravatar being used a symbol of trust. Thanks for the tip, I’m going to be changing mine asap.
I’m looking forward to the e-mail list strategies!
Eric,
I have also abandoned several blogs but we learn don’t we?
Andrew
Good post. You need to get a handful of satisfied customers who will refer people to you, once this ball starts to roll, you are in business.
Neil,
There is nothing better than referrals. I get numerous new clients via referrals.
Andrew
As I enter the blogosphere it’s a huge learning curve and it’s great to be able to have people like yourself providing free resources to us noobs. Thank you very much. Great post! -Trev
Very nice. I enjoy reading your ideas about blog marketing. You have opened up a whole new world for me to get started on! I’m trying to read all of your posts, so there may be more comments. This is really good stuff!
Million or not, but I’d say it is 985,412 =)
I want to say thank you for the post, as I read your articles with joy everytime.
FollowerWonk is a great soft for promotion (as Twitter is by itself) – it helped me very much exactly when I was in need!
I agree with the Facebook and Mobile marketing thing, because you can directly reach your audience..
This blog shows all the basic points to generate more income. Marketing through social media is of the best way for building links. Facebook,Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest all play vital role in building links.
Ayesha
What do you think are the advanced points?
Andrew
Thanks for your post. I’ve found interesting information here.If you don’t mind I’d like to add one more reason why people buy: because a product is on sale. People like ‘special’ conditions which probably will never be repeated.It makes people be proud because they buy something with a good discount instead of those who payed a regular price.