Promote U Guru Blog

Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

10 Tips to Write Articles to Build Your Personal Brand

December 07th, 2014

Hi All!

If you want to increase awareness for your Personal Brand and drive more traffic to your website, you need to write articles. personal brand in wood type

Not only can this strategy immediately position you as an expert in your field, it can attract clients and media interviews to you.

And, if you’re an Author, writing short articles with content from your book, even AS you’re writing it, is a way to also generate interest in your book and increase your book sales! It’s also a way to continue interest in your book topic even if it has been out for a few years.

Here are ten tips to make the articles you write get results and become a valuable marketing tool for you:

  1. Grab The Reader’s Attention Fast: Make sure to create an interesting title for your article, and you can even make it a thought-provoking question. Also, in your opening paragraph set-up the “pain point” you’re going to solve and why it’s important to them. Writing articles that will solve a problem for your target audience is a great strategy for the angles you develop.
  2. Keep the Articles Simple, Short and Easy to Understand Quickly: People want to read quick-hit information that they can grasp fast and benefit from. So make sure the articles you write provide good, helpful information and are written in a succinct style. A good way to achieve this is to use bullet points or numbered points so that your key messages and tips are easy to reference and follow. Having your key points “buried” in paragraphs will make it frustrating for your readers.
  3. Add Keywords for Online Search: Your articles will be posted in numerous ways online and will often be found by people doing keyword searches on your topic matter. So you want to make sure that you use the Google keyword tool and add those popular search terms in the body of your articles. I know many experts who rapidly increase their search rankings because of writing articles, and oftentimes their articles start ranking higher in search results than their main websites do. Therefore, you want to implement this strategy!
  4. Don’t Pitch Your Services and Products: When you write articles it’s only about providing helpful info to your target audience. It is not about making your articles big infomercials to pitch yourself and/or your products. If you write good articles that people truly learn from, they will typically want to learn more about you and they will visit your website. The fastest way to kill your credibility and lose a potential “fan” is by trying to sell them on something in your article content.
  5. Be Yourself in Your Writing Style: Conveying yourself as likeable is important! If you’re a fun person, be sure to bring out your personality in your articles. This is the same advice I give to clients who hire me as a coach and consultant to launch their speaking careers! Don’t be one person on the stage and another person off stage. People can see through that because you’re not being authentic. And when you write articles, it may be the FIRST contact anyone has with you; even before seeing your website. So you want to make sure who you really are comes through in your writing.
  6. Don’t Quote Other Experts: The purpose of your articles is to showcase you; not someone who could be a competitor. You normally only want to quote other people in your articles if their information really adds to your message and content quality. Sure, you can quote stats and research results from studies you find, but try to avoid quoting or mentioning other experts who are similar to you.
  7. Offer Your Articles on Your Website & Submit Them to Online Distribution Services: When I submit articles online, I also add them to my website, in Word, so that people can download them to use as content on their blogs, ezines, websites and newsletters. And, on my article web page, I clearly state they can use my articles as long as they are shown in their entirety, and the short bio about me provided at the end of each article is included. I also ask that they send me a link to it when it’s used. Millions of people are constantly seeking for content and understand they have to source the author who wrote it. This is great for driving their traffic to you!
  8. Write Them Consistently: If possible, try to write and submit at least one article per month online. I know experts who do one-per-week because they receive so much benefit from doing so, but that may be tough for many of you. Start by writing a few, and after you get the hang of it and start developing a “formula” for cranking them out (or hire a ghostwriter to do them for you), you can start to increase how many you publish monthly.
  9. Share Your Links: Many article distribution services will create a web page for your article that will be found through online searches. You’ll have a unique url for your article’s page and can share that link to drive traffic to your article on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and in emails to your contact database.
  10. Embed Links in Your Articles: When you write an article, make sure to have certain words or phrases that have hyperlinks to pages on your website, your blog posts, Twitter page, Facebook page, and/or to other articles you have written and that are posted online. Just make sure the links take them to info that is relevant to what you’re writing about and to points you are making.

Okay! Brainstorm some topics and start writing to build your brand, credibility and online traffic!

Cheers & Happy Marketing!

Share

Reverse the Risk and Explode Your Profits

October 23rd, 2011

Jim Palmer: The Newsletter Guru

Hi All!

The following guest blog post is courtesy of Jim Palmer who is internationally known as The Newsletter Guru. Jim is the premier go-to resource for maximizing the profitability of customer relationships.

So without further delay, let’s jump into his informative article, “Reverse the Risk and Explode Profits”:

I have a question for you. Why don’t more of your customers or prospects buy from you? If your answer is “because of price,” you’re probably wrong. I coach a lot of entrepreneurs and small business owners, and when our discussion turns to reasons for not buying, invariably the excuse is price. “My customers don’t say ‘yes’ more often because of price.”

In reality, customers don’t say “yes” more often because of skepticism, or lack of trust or perceived value. It’s what Zig Ziglar emphasizes as one of the five obstacles to a sale: no trust. Lack of trust is probably the biggest obstacle between your company and a sale. It’s rarely price. The reason more of your customers or prospects don’t buy from you is that you haven’t done enough to build your customers’ trust in your products or services.

Why the 30- or 60- or 90-Day Warranty Is Not Enough!

You’ve heard of Murphy’s Law: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong, usually at the worst possible moment. Well, there’s another variation of that, and it goes like this: The product will cease working exactly one day after the warranty expires. Enough of us have had that exact experience that it lends credence to the veracity of the law. We all take those 30- or 60- or 90-day warranties with a grain of salt. It makes us skeptical consumers.

Your customers are no different. They’re wondering, “What if it doesn’t work? What happens when it fails? What if I don’t get the result I was expecting?” They may be on the fence about buying from you. You’ve done a lot to move them to consider buying from you, but they’re thinking, “Yeah, I kind of like it. It sounds like it will solve my problem. I think the price is fair, but what if . . . ?”

Get rid of the “what if,” and you can close the deal. It’s easy to do. Easy? Yup. All you have to do is reverse the risk. Risk reversal means that you, the business owner, assume all the risks associated with purchasing the product (or service), so it’s going to work to your customers’ satisfaction. If they’re on the decision fence and have nothing to lose, they’re going to buy.

Let’s be clear—square one is that you must offer a high-quality product or service. That’s a given. It’s a no-brainer. Some of my coaching clients assure me that they do (and I believe them), and then they go on to tell me about their 30- or 60- or 90-day guarantee. That sort of offer simply makes people skeptical because we’ve all been burned by that warranty version of Murphy’s Law. What happens after 30 days? What happens after 60 or 90 days? When prospects wonder about that, they’re going to be hesitant to buy. You haven’t gotten them over the trust hurdle.

The L.L. Bean Approach:

“Our products are guaranteed to give 100% satisfaction in every way. Return anything purchased from us at any time if it proves otherwise. We do not want you to have anything from L.L. Bean that is not completely satisfactory.”

As the story goes, a woman returned a pair of boots after fifteen years because the sole had worn out. She thought they should have lasted longer. They were replaced, no questions asked. That’s a rocksolid, stand-behind-your-product guarantee.

A super strong guarantee shows that you are supremely confident in your belief that your products and services do what you say they are going to do. It should be paramount in whatever you sell in the first place. So if that’s true, and if you are supremely confident, then give an ironclad guarantee. You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain—sales and higher profits. Your ironclad guarantee is just what your customers need to increase their trust and lose their fear of risk. When they have nothing to fear and nothing to lose, they have no reason not to buy.

Your super strong guarantee needs a few things to really make it work. First, it has to have a specific name, and when possible, the name of your guarantee should be associated with the benefit of your product and the degree to which you back it up. Second, it needs a specific logo. A lot of entrepreneurs use a seal in conjunction with their guarantees, and that image resonates with customers. It’s like the Good Housekeeping “Seal of Approval.” That seal, and the guarantee behind it, have been around for more than one hundred years. The Good Housekeeping Research Institute tests products and only offers the seal on those that pass its strict standards. It’s an ironclad, rock-solid guarantee. Consumers know they can rely on the product if it has the seal. They can trust it!

Jim Palmer is internationally known as The Newsletter Guru, the go-to resource for maximizing the profitability of customer relationships. Jim is also the acclaimed author of The Magic of Newsletter Marketing – The Secret to More Profits and Customers for Life and also Stick Like Glue – How to Create an Everlasting Bond with Your Customers So They Stay Longer, Spend More, and Refer More, and The Fastest Way to Higher Profits – 19 Immediate Profit-Enhancing Strategies You Can Use Today. Learn more about Jim and all his programs at: www.NewsletterGuru.TV.

 

 

Share

Blog for Entrepreneurs Seeking Branding, Marketing, and PR Tips

January 26th, 2010

Hi All!

Welcome to my blog. For 20 years I owned an award-winning marketing agency in Silicon Valley where I developed brand platforms and marketing strategies for some of the biggest names in technology (Sony, SanDisk, HP and many others).

Now, as the Promote U Guru, I offer all my knowledge and expertise to small business owners, entrepreneurs, authors and speakers. As a Publicist, Marketing Consultant, and Business Coach, I offer a unique blend of real-world experience to my clients. Have I written books? yes, I’ve written 2. Have I owned a business? Yes, I have been self employed for over 20 years. Have I had to launch and create a brand platform for myself? Yes, on several ocassions.

So, I know what it takes. I’ve been in the trenches. And my clients benefit because of it.

I encourage you to follow my blog…I’ll post guest blogs from other marketing experts, as well as offer helpful info about book writing, brand building, social media and much more.

You can also follow me on Twitter for great tips and resources: @PromoteUGuru.

I look forward to meeting you online or in-person…and helping you achieve the success you want.

No hype. Just results.

Cheers!

Lisa

Share