You know what I’ve discovered? Most of the people writing about blogging are experts. Funny thing, that.
These expert bloggers have been doing it for a while and they have thousands (if not tens or hundreds of thousands) of subscribers. The best give lots of free stuff away that’s actually worth reading, and [...]
“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful” ~William Morris, poet and designer
Imagine the household you would have if you got rid of every item that was neither useful or beautiful.
Gone would be the plastic doodad with no known purpose, the ugly frame your [...]
These days, a lot of online product launches are like zombie attacks.
One day, everything is fine. The next day, there’s a legion of crazy people banging on your virtual doors and windows, wanting to feed on you.
Who the hell are these zombies and how did they get my address? Time to break out the shotgun, [...]
Content is king, but if the king looks like a toad, no one will know he’s royalty.
On the one hand, your blog theme might be drop-dead gorgeous. But if your writing isn’t compelling, readers won’t stick around to read it.
Even worse, your writing might be fantastic . . . but if your design doesn’t stop [...]
There’s a new version of Thesis out, and this is one of the best updates in quite a while. And yet there are a lot of new Copyblogger subscribers who might use WordPress, but might not really “get” what this Thesis thing is all about.
So in this post I’ll share with you why Thesis [...]
So this is the second week of the weekly wrap-up, and Brian seems to suspect that I might need encouragement to keep going or something. I tell him I don’t need encouragement as long as the pay is good, and that’s when he tells me for the last time he’s NOT paying me, and then [...]
I know what you’re thinking. Here you thought it was Saturday, and yet there’s a new post on Copyblogger.
So either you’re drunk, or it’s actually a weekday and you stayed home by mistake and now you’re going to get fired and lose the family farm.
Or maybe this is a new feature. Maybe each Saturday, [...]
There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman? ~Woody Allen
You’ve got to feel for insurance salesmen.
They actually rank below used-car salesmen and bloggers on the list of people no one wants to hang out with. With only a slight edge over politicians . . . [...]
You’ve heard it a thousand times: the money’s in the list. If you’re serious about getting results online, you need to build a list of people who are paying attention to you, typically an email list.
So how do you get people to sign up for your email newsletter?
You probably already know the answer to this [...]
The entertainment and CGI world has been fawning over the movie Avatar for months, and it seems you can’t watch any entertainment news program without hearing about James Cameron’s groundbreaking 3D epic.
And even if Cameron went home last week without the armful of Oscars he expected, directing the highest-grossing movie of all time probably takes [...]
There’s a wonderful European-style market and bakery in the Oak Lawn area of Dallas. They serve everything from made-to-order salads and sandwiches to chef-prepared, ready-to-eat meals.
But what I love most about the place is the sign on the door when you leave. It’s classic.
The sign doesn’t read “Please Come Again” or “Thank You for Your [...]
There are two kinds of people on the Internet: the greedy and the generous.
The greedy want you to pay for everything. Every link is an affiliate link. Every recommendation has a profit motive. The really good content is locked away until you fork over some money.
The generous want to give you everything free.
It never occurs [...]
I’ve always been of the opinion that if Carrie Bradshaw had popped onto our television screens in 2010 instead of 1998, she would have been a blogger. But alas, she didn’t, so she wrote a (gasp!) print column for the fictional New York Star newspaper.
Yes, before there were blogs, there were newspaper columns – [...]
As writers, inspiration is one of the most important of the criteria for success. Without it, well, our writing ends up pretty lame.
A huge percentage of blogs see their demise before the six month milestone. Why?
Because people don’t know what to write about – writing becomes a chore and when that happens, you might as [...]
Do you know this story?
A scorpion needs to cross the river. He asks a friendly-looking frog to carry him across.
“Do you think I’m stupid?” asks the frog. “You’re a scorpion. You’ll sting and kill me.”
“No I won’t,” says the scorpion. “That would be completely against my self interest. If I sting you, I’ll [...]
Right around a year ago now, I made my first cent online. It was literally a cent — $0.01 — and it showed up in my Google AdSense account after a certain number of people had viewed an ad for dog food or a shiatsu massager or whatever on my old humor blog.
That first cent [...]
We tell you about the power of stories quite a bit. And now we’re able to see what happens in our brains when we encounter a compelling story.
But how do you learn to tell these types of stories? Often, just by studying great ones.
Take 37 seconds to read this one:
______
The soul of the city is [...]
Let’s face it — choosing just the right word can be a lot of fun. Most writers like to play with language, and choosing the perfect word makes you feel like a master chef selecting the perfect spice.
But words, like spices, can be overused. If you’re not careful, you’ll end up with the enemy [...]
Copyblogger is about to go on our annual holiday hiatus. We’ll be taking a break from posting while we catch up, get rested, and get excited about what we’ve got in store for you in 2010.
You may be taking a little time off yourself. Or you may still be going into the office, but the [...]
Earlier this week on TechCrunch, Michael Arrington wrote an alarmed post about “fast food content that will surely, over time, destroy the mom and pop operations that hand craft their content today.”
Mom and pop operations and hand-crafted content sounds an awful lot like you and me, doesn’t it?
So is this actually something we need to [...]
I’m a big fan of Leo Babauta.
His book, The Power of Less, is required reading for anyone who wants a rewarding life.
But many of Leo’s followers think doing less means, well, settling for less.
I’m here to tell you it can mean achieving much more.
In the last 4 years, I’ve been living the power of less.
In [...]
Are you guilty of spamducation?
Spamducation is a white paper, special report, video, podcast or manifesto that claims to solve a pressing reader problem, but is in fact a thinly disguised ad. Jon Stribling describes them as “compelling headlines and disappointing content written by amateurs or second-rate copywriters.”
The content is too often a lame version of [...]
So I’ve created something brand new, and it occurred to me it would be pretty silly if I didn’t let you know about it.
I put it together in response to a lot of frustration I was hearing about overwhelm. We’ve got hundreds of great resources. All kinds of good advice about this big, complicated problem [...]
Ever had an idea that couldn’t miss?
You took immediate action, created the perfect warm-up content, the best launch strategy, and the perfect offer . . . .
And then it totally failed.
So yeah, the film Purple Rain contains the consummate lesson on this one.
No, really.
Upon mature reflection, the album Purple Rain is a work of genius, while the film . . . not so much. But any true Prince fan loves it anyway.
And as a teenage boy in 1985, the fact that a diminutive man sporting a jerry curl and a ruffled shirt could score with gorgeous women was rather encouraging, you know?
One memorable scene involves Prince giving bombshell Appolonia Kotero a motorcycle ride through rural Minnesota. As he pulls up to the shoreline, Prince lets her know she has to prove herself.
“You have to purify yourself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka,” Prince says mysteriously. Then he says it again.
Next, fulfilling every teenage boy’s as yet unimagined wish, Appolonia strips down to her thong and jumps in the lake.
The freezing water provides an immediate shock. But the cruel surprise comes from a half-apologetic Prince.
“That ain’t Lake Minnetonka.”
Often, you do everything right, except for the first thing.
You start with an otherwise great product and mistakenly try to sell it to the wrong people.
This isn’t always fatal, but it’s definitely frustrating. And it’s because you focused on what you want rather than who you’re trying to serve. You jumped right in without understanding all the critical facts.
While it may sound a bit kumbaya, understanding who you can help helps you. It’s the key to the kind of outstanding success that alludes those who don’t understand why the take, take, take strategy doesn’t work.
It’s really give, give, give to win. But only if you give the right things to the right people.
Missing the true needs and desires of your market is like jumping in the wrong lake.
You simply end up like Appolonia — cold, wet, and disappointed.
So where do online marketers go wrong?
There’s an old saying . . . start with the prospect, not the product. It keeps you from trying to sell stuff to the wrong people.
Even better, it keeps you from selling stuff nobody wants.
That truly unfortunate event happens when someone has an idea they think, for example, every small business owner should embrace. But it isn’t something the small business market wants to embrace.
It’s like trying to sell asparagus to kids because it’s good for them. If you’re competing against the jingle of the ice cream truck down the street, you’re not likely to get the results you want, because there’s simply no market for your offer.
In this sad case, the analogy is more Matrix than Purple Rain:
Do not think that the lake is cold . . . that’s impossible.
The truth is, there is no lake.
Ouch.
You’ve heard it all before. But do you get it?
Wealthy entrepreneurs are essentially highly-compensated servants to their chosen market. And yet the benefits are way better than the numerable perks Alfred gets from the bat cave.
Wow, three film references in one post . . . did it work?
If you’re trying to make a match between your market and the right offer, subscribe to Copyblogger’s free newsletter on Internet Marketing. It starts with a 20-lesson tutorial on the four keys to building a sustainable business (one of which is finding the right product or service for your people).
About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and co-founder of DIY Themes, creator of the innovative Thesis Theme for WordPress. Get more from Brian on Twitter.
We live in a world of free. If you’re trying to make money, especially online, you might think that would make things difficult.
Every day, someone releases a new eBook, video, or podcast that not only contains tremendous value, but gives away many of the “tricks of the trade” that we used to have to pay for.
You’d think that the paid content business would be shrinking in the face of all this free information, but it keeps getting stronger. How can that be?
For instance, there are a lot of free materials that teach people how to set up a Wordpress blog or to use Twitter effectively. A quick search on YouTube will provide you with hundreds of videos that can teach you to do almost anything you want to know.
Yet, there are still people making plenty of cash selling products explaining how to do any and all of those things.
How do they do it?
People buy from those that they know and trust.
Sure, there are people in the yellow highlighter brigade who can sell ice to an Eskimo, but it isn’t easy to do. (And you may not even want to.)
Most of us can’t write the ultimate sales letter. We also can’t afford to hire a $20,000 copywriter. So how do we do it? We build relationships.
When you establish a “winning difference” or USP, you can start attracting the people who really dig what you do.
If your stuff is good, I guarantee you can find at least one evangelist to recruit others to come check you out. They’ll spread the word for you, which attracts more evangelists, and means that you will have ever more people stopping by.
Nurture relationships with your readers and evangelists and your small army will continue to grow.
Content marketing is all about giving away some of your best stuff for free. Not just your “pretty good” content, but content that will improve and add value to the lives of your readers.
As they learn more, their game will improve and they’ll keep coming around for more. And they’ll want to reciprocate by either buying your paid products or spreading your message.
Most people won’t buy from you unless you’ve proven to them that you know what you’re talking about. Great content is one of the best ways you can do that. When you give content away for free, you earn trust and anchor your business in the mind of that reader. If they use your stuff, and it works, they’ll keep coming back for more.
I first heard this idea from Seth Godin when he gave a speech about book marketing, but the concept applies to nearly every online business.
He said that people buy souvenirs, not products. In the music industry, Nine Inch Nails does this by selling collector’s editions of their albums. In the blogging industry, we can do it by selling a physical version of a product, limiting quantities of digital products, or by publishing a book.
If your blog creates a great experience, think about what kind of souvenirs you could offer that would let them hold onto that experience.
Particularly if you’ve used your blog to build your reputation and authority, you can also sell different levels of access to you.
The people who truly love what you do want other ways to access your knowledge. Your raving fans will start by picking up every digital product you offer. From there, many will want more exclusive access, such as a consulting service, a mentoring or coaching program, or a monthly membership with exclusive access to you.
If you empower people to do what they most want to do, they’ll want to buy something in order to feel closer to you. (And, of course, it goes without saying that you’ll deliver value that’s in line with the prices you’re charging.)
JB Glossinger does a great job of this with his Coach Cast. Brian and Sonia do it with Teaching Sells.
You’d have to sell thousands of eBooks to make a living as a blogger, but it might take only a few hundred premium members to do the same job.
Free samples have been part of marketing and selling since long before the Internet. Give great value and follow a few proven models, and you’ll discover not only does “free” not hurt you, it can actually be a great boost for your online business.
About the Author: Nathan Hangen writes about web entrepreneurship at NathanHangen.com, and about how to use social media to fuel your brand at Making It Social. Follow him on Twitter @nhangen.
In a recent Copyblogger post discussing how the king of content is being slowly usurped by the Crown Prince of Context, author Larry Brooks referenced the remarkable opening scene of Quentin Tarantino’s new movie Inglorious Basterds.
There are few writers like Tarantino, and though his verbal carpet bombs and kinetic escalation of violence aren’t for everyone, there is no doubt that the dude follows his muse. Those who love him will eagerly wait in lines wrapped around the block to show their support.
In short, Tarantino sells it every time. And by it, I mean an ironclad belief in the worlds he’s created.
On Larry’s post, a great conversation continued downstairs in the comments, where a second Tarantino clip was referenced, the “Sicilian Scene” from True Romance. Though I love both movies, I was inspired to write this post by a scene from Tarantino’s earliest feature, Reservoir Dogs.
In Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino assembles a marvelous scene, on the surface about gaining the confidence of the men the protagonist plans to double cross. Closer inspection reveals the scene for what it really is, a seven-and-a-half-minute love letter to the art of storytelling.
The film itself is about a bank robbery gone bad, though Tarantino manages to turn the adage, “show not tell” upside down by showing only a few seconds of the robbery, while his characters sit around for the rest of the film swapping one slice of story at a time.
Spoiler alert: The hero of the tale is Mr. Orange, an undercover cop, played by the superb Tim Roth, masquerading as a fellow bank-robbing miscreant. The success of his cover hinges on convincing the other criminals of his authenticity. He does this, in part, by reciting “The Commode Story,” a fictitious anecdote that is not only amusing, but also easy to sell to the other delinquents because it deals with a dicey encounter with the law.
It is in the Commode Story where Tarantino becomes the teacher.
“An undercover cop’s gotta be Marlon Brando . . . . you gotta be naturalistic as hell — ’cause if you ain’t a good actor — you a bad actor, and bad actors is bullshit in this job.”
It’s the details that sell your story, according to Officer Holdaway, played by Randy Brooks, delivering lines obviously written for a Sam Jackson Tarantino could not yet afford.
Holdaway instructs Mr. Orange on the finer details of selling the story.
“You’ve got to memorize what’s important so you can make the rest your own.”
He then continues to expand his point with something Copyblogger has frequently preached:
“Remember, this story’s about you and how you perceive the events that went down.”
He wraps up with a version of the same sage writing advice Brian’s been posting for years:
“The only way to do that is to keep saying it and saying it and saying it and saying it.”
As the scene unfolds, we watch as Mr. Orange rehearses the story in his room with slowly mounting confidence until he owns the narrative enough to deliver it without flinching in a smoky bar populated by criminals, any one of whom could end him in an instant.
Eventually, we find ourselves breathlessly watching as the Commode Story unfolds via flashback and Mr. Orange’s voiceover.
We watch as a man packing massive amounts of marijuana finds himself entering a bathroom containing not one, not two, but four police officers and a K-9 unit. As the camera pans the officer’s narrowed eyes, the dog’s fervent attention, and follows Mr. Orange as he tries to casually go about his business without getting busted, the narration adds to the palpable sense of danger.
We feel the tension even though we know Mr. Orange has manufactured every word and was never actually in danger of being busted.
Why?
Because Mr. Orange owns the story.
The more you write about a particular topic or in a specific genre, the tighter your work will naturally become. Your expertise will grow. Better words will come to you, and they’ll show up more quickly.
If you write about widgets, write the hell out of your widget copy.
Loving your widget is a great start, but you also have to know your widget inside out and upside down. You must know every surface, every detail. Knowledge and passion will shine through the copy and accentuate the differences between you and everyone else writing about widgets.
If you want to be a great writer, you’ve got to own the story. Fiction or sales copy, know your story like nobody else and you will write words that no one else can touch.
About the Author: Sean Platt is a direct response copywriter and independent publisher. Follow him on Twitter.
Since the very first blog, written around an ancient campfire somewhere in the moist foothills of Seattle, content has been crowned the undisputed king.
The king ruled over all that was written, be they blogs, articles, ads, fiction, or a killer love letter. All that was copy sat at the feet of the [...]
Recently, I learned a handful of techniques from Brian Clark that brought me some pretty intriguing results.
234% more site memberships.
62% more unique visitors.
100% more paying clients.
How much did I pay Brian to teach me how to do this? Not a dime. I got everything I needed out of a free report.
Let me tell you [...]
Think it’s the lack of advanced techniques that’s been holding you back?
Think your blog isn’t finding readers because you don’t have the coolest plugins? Or that your sales page doesn’t convert because you couldn’t afford the 1,999 Secrets of Ninja Marketing Masters product that got released last month?
Think the secret to successful marketing and running [...]
The written word is having a tough time.
It’s not just that literacy rates are surprisingly bad. (One source maintains that half of American adults can’t read an eighth grade-level book.) But even among people who can read, fewer and fewer want to read.
If you’re a passionate reader (as I am), this might bring you [...]
Search engine optimization by SEO Design Solutions