About Jodi Kaplan

Tuesday Travels: Secrets of Successful Content Marketing

Posted on April 5, 2011 by Jodi Kaplan

Image via Wikipedia

Today’s edition of Tuesday Travels focuses on content marketing: challenges, tips, and help from an unlikely source.

How Often Do You Need to Update Your Blog? Is it necessary to post every day? Is once a week enough?

Social Media Content Marketing Lessons from Warren Buffett I knew he was a stock picking genius, but a social media whiz too?

Attract Clients with Content Marketing How Chris Garrett uses content marketing to get coaching clients.

Ignore SEO and Just Produce Good Content Should you ignore SEO entirely? Keep it in mind? Fixate on it? Or something in-between?

5 Common Content Marketing Challenges And Simple Solutions Just getting started? Or afraid to start? Here’s how to get over the bumps in the road.

How to Survive the Ezine Crash

Posted on April 4, 2011 by Jodi Kaplan

Image via Wikipedia

Do you post your articles to Ezine Articles, Article Alley, or other similar sites?

If you’re not familiar with them, they are content sites that allow you to post articles on nearly any subject you choose. Ezine in particular has standards in place for minimum levels of quality and all articles are reviewed before they go live on the site.

The idea is that you get more visibility, because the site gets lots of traffic. In return, you can place a resource box at the end, with a link back to your own site. In addition, readers are allowed to repost your articles on their own sites, as long as they keep all the links and author profile intact. It’s supposed to help your work spread.

Here comes Google and “Panda”

The panda in the picture may look cute and cuddly, but its Google namesake is giving lots of webmasters and marketers headaches. Google’s Panda update just changed how their algorithm works. They want unique content, not words that have been repeated all over the web. This has hit Ezine (and sites like it) pretty hard.

Quantcast estimates that their traffic has dropped by nearly one million readers in the last month. Ouch!

Google’s algorithm can change at any time. We can’t control it. What we can do is take a different approach.

Go direct

Use other blogs to gain exposure. Write guest posts on your topic. Most bloggers will let you add a resource box (like ezine does) at the end of your article – with a link to your own site. Don’t write a sales pitch. Give them something useful.

Sign up for HARO and get free publicity by responding to reporters’ queries in your area of expertise. Or, post a query of your own. This can also be a good source of blog post ideas. Follow up with the people who answer your question (they might guest post, or even become clients).

Use social media such as Twitter or Facebook or SnapChat to build your own fan base. Posting in different places gives you more exposure and helps insulate you from any one algorithm or site’s idiosyncrasies.

Content Marketing Update

Content mills are hurting even more now than they were when I first wrote this. Some are trying to survive by breaking themselves into pieces with more focused, niche sites.

Content marketing is still an important part of your marketing message though. Use guest posts, Google Plus, and other tools to expand your audience. Keep your own site clearly focused on your specific market, your specific solutions, and your audience’s needs. Make your your site uniquely useful and interesting, and the visits will follow.

A word about duplicate content

Panda is still causing some confusion though. The duplicate content Google is worrying about isn’t what many people think it is. Google wants the most authoritative version, and they want to make sure you don’t duplicate the same information on your own site (for example selling red shoes and putting each size on a different page).

Five Essential Pieces Every Email Newsletter Needs

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Jodi Kaplan

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Image by Horia Varlan via Flickr

Even in these days of RSS, Twitter, Facebook, and social media, the “old-fashioned” email newsletter is still a reliable way to connect with your readers, build your tribe, and sell your products.

In order to do that, you’ll need to follow these five essential steps.

1) Reflect your brand

Put your logo on it. Or your smiling face. Use the company colors. I like to keep mine fairly simple (so that it’s readable both on phones and computers), just my face, the copy, and some HTML links. This also helps keep it out of spam filters.

2) Short copy

One or two “screen scrolls” should do it. Don’t write five printed out pages of text. It’s too hard to read. Keep it short, personal, and chatty. My newsletters are about two paragraphs (plus links back to the blog and an occasional P.S.). Quick, short, and easy-to-digest.

3) Minimal Images

Too many places to look gets confusing. Readers are drawn to images — too many and they don’t know where to look first. This can also be another spam trigger. Keep the layout linear – don’t jump all over the place – it’s too hard to follow.

4) Consistent calls to action

Hold off on the call to action until you’ve explained the benefits of whatever you want the reader to do. Some need more information than others, but don’t make it the first or second sentence. Click here now (why? I don’t know what I’m getting into yet). Keep the call to action consistent – use the same wording and anchor text (the text that shows up in the link rather than the url).

5) Answer readers’ questions

Think about what concerns your readers may have. Are they worried about the price? The quality? Getting a refund if something goes wrong? That the product will be hard to use? If they worry about price, point out what a great value it is. If they’re concerned they won’t be happy, emphasize your great guarantee. If they think it’s hard, include testimonials from happy customers showing how easy it is to use.

How an Eight Year Old Kid Can Outsell Grownups

Posted on March 28, 2011 by Jodi Kaplan

Image by SMN via Flickr

When I was a kid, my mom was active in the League of Women Voters (a non-partisan organization devoted to increasing voter registration and lobbying on selected issues).

One day she dragged me along to help hand out voter information leaflets in the local shopping mall.

Plenty of traffic, tough crowd

We set up a table in one of the corridors in the mall. We had big stacks of leaflets with voting information, background on the candidates running that year, and information on the important issues. Behind us, there were signs “Help Hire a President.”

The mall had lots of traffic, but it was hard to attract attention. There were plenty of people, yes, but it wasn’t really the right audience. People were focused on bargains and shopping, not voting. If we sat there – nothing. If we stood and held out the pamphlets – nothing.

Talk to them, not at them

On the other hand, if we asked a question, such as “Are you planning to vote?”, they’d stop for a second and listen. I later found out that this was also likely to get them to actually go out and vote on election day. Robert Caldini (author of Influence) tried this exact same test about ten years later and tracked the results. It turned out that once someone has publicly (or mentally) committed to do something, they are more likely to do it.

Engage your audience

We got even better results with an open-ended question, or one asking for their opinion, “What do you think about the landfill proposal?” (the county wanted to build one near the water supply – such bright bulbs they were). That required that they stop and think, give us a reply, and think about what the consequences of that landfill would be.

Don’t assume – test

I noticed which questions got the best response, and started asking only those. Mom did too. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was my first split test.

Because I stopped, listened, and noticed what was happening my mom and I (and the others) gave out a lot of pamphlets and registration information. Success!

5 Simple Ways to Get Your Readers to Love You

Posted on March 24, 2011 by Jodi Kaplan

Image by qthomasbower via Flickr

When I first started writing this blog, my posts were rather dry. My newsletter too. I knew content marketing was important (though we didn’t really use that term then), so I was dutifully writing, without really thinking too much about it and without a real b2b content marketing strategy in mind.

Dull. dull dull. Not quite as bad as sharing what color socks I’d worn for the last five days, but pretty boring.

Since I was doing b2b marketing, I was trying too hard to be professional and formal instead of personable and likable.

Nobody wants to be lectured at, or read a dry recitation of marketing advice. It has to be entertaining. Heck, I didn’t even think to add pictures. Duh. So here are five b2b content marketing tips to make your newsletters, posts, and email marketing more interesting. Your readers will love you for it.

Make your content marketing interesting

If you want people to read what you write, start with a great headline, like “The Worst Marketing Idea Ever” or “Ten Secrets to Successful Landing Pages.” Talk to them in a conversational way. Ask some questions about what they are struggling with. Point out your own failings, and how you compensated for them.

Add illustrations to your posts

Don’t just write text, add photos or other images to your blog posts, newsletters (if appropriate) and social media posts. People like looking at pictures, especially of other people. Use them to draw more attention to your site. There are lots of places to get free images for your blog.

Be personal

That doesn’t mean you have to go back to your sock colors, or write six paragraphs about the terrible headache you had two days ago. It just means sharing what you’re comfortable sharing. Showing that there’s a real person behind the curtain. Talk about dumb things you did, or setbacks, and then how you got over them; like writing boring posts about your socks.

Make connections

If they leave a comment, answer it. Respond to your emails. If someone new leaves a comment, email them and thank them. Go check out their blogs. Leave them a comment or two. Comments can also be a great source of new blog post ideas. Either use your own comments or refer back to other blogs or posts you’ve read or commented on.

Promote your readers

If they do something you think your other readers will like, showcase it. I’ve started writing posts about my readers’ ebooks, videos, and newsletters. If you’ve got something you’d like to share, send me an email.

Have you tried any of these? What are you doing to make connections?

P.S. And one simple way to confuse them – forget to edit the default post ID number so your title doesn’t show! Oy!