Blogs are great Attraction Marketing tools
Attraction marketing is all about focusing upon creating customers instead of focusing upon creating sales. On the surface it may sound like a "chicken and egg" kind of conundrum, but actually your choice of which end of the marketing spectrum you will direct your attention determines everything about your business.
If your focus is upon sales, you’ll create a different marketing message than if your focus is upon attracting customers. If your business is engaged in making a major sale (read more about major and minor sales in my book,“Beyond the Niche: Essential Tools You Need to Create Marketing Messages that Deliver Results
When you’re searching for attraction marketing tools, nothing can compare with the power of a blog to promote your business (Again, I’m assuming you are making major sales).
The thing is, when you’re using your blog as an attraction marketing tool, you can forget about becoming the biggest or worrying about growing your blog traffic. Steve Rubel writes on On the Devaluation of Traffic:
My Google Analytics account is my laboratory. And over the past year I have noticed a trend. Most of my traffic is from Google and they are largely passerbys. The same holds true for anyone who visits my site from Techmeme, Digg or even big blogs. A prominent mention in The Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks ago garnered me a whopping 40 visitors.
Ah… isn’t that what most businesses are looking for when it comes to web site traffic? A casual passerby who has found them via a search on Google? Then, the passerby will judge whether this business is a good "fit" for them… by reading a few posts and seeing what the author knows and how he/she communicates that knowledge.
Alexander Vanelsas writes in his post Newton’s Universal Law of Blog Attraction better than a Techmeme leaderboard?
The narcissistic way of ranking (who has the biggest..) seems less valuable to me than being able to see which blogs attract me and I am attracted to. Newton’s universal law of gravitation, which calculates the attraction between two objects seems perfect to tweak into a blog attraction formula.
I love Alexander’s definition of the quest for a top blog spot: narcissistic!
As a matter of fact, I’d go as far to say that narcissists are unable to make attraction marketing work. They’re too focused upon themselves to be able to devote any attention to the wants/needs/desires of their potential customers.
I have a client who has been blogging for about 6 months. His readership is EXTREMELY low… as in double digit figures. He kept asking me for a log analysis and I kept stalling… because 28 visitors a month is not going to encourage him to keep blogging. Here’s the great part… last Friday he got his first appointment from someone who identified himself as coming to my client because he was a blog reader.
Since my client is an EXCEPTIONAL practitioner of his craft AND is by no means narcissistic, I’m confident that his newest client will become a life long customer. After all, my client’s customer retention rate is incredibly high. However, the best news for my client is that he not only has one more client on his rolls, he also has another "missionary" so to speak. Someone else who will spread the word about my client and encourage others to begin using my client’s services as well.
That’s the power of blogging. When you’re making a major sale, trust is a HUGE issue. By blogging, you share yourself and begin building that trust long before and introduction is in order.
Resisting the irresistible…. or how NOT to be a victim of a really great sales letter.
I got an email from a client on a new service that promises it will do the following:
- It gets you traffic to you blog
- It adds relevant content to your Blog
- It ads (their spelling, not mine) new and constantly changing content
- It makes your visitors happy
- It is 100% F.ree
- It is easy to use (all you need is a blog or website)
- There is NO up-sell or after sign up offer
This is TRULY a case of an INSPIRED marketing piece. The offer is truly irresistible.
The product truly promises to solve a myriad of problems faced by the typical web site or blog owner.
However, it’s only an irresistible if you DO NOT KNOW how Google works.
Here is my response:
There is a thing for which Google will penalize your site and it’s called "duplicate content".
What that means is that if the content that shows up on YOUR site is showing up on other sites as well, Google has to make a choice on WHICH content it will feature. If you’re lucky, and it’s YOUR content being featured on other sites, Google will recognize YOUR content as the originator and your content will be featured while the other copies are doomed to the "supplemental index" (Google’s version of Hell.)
Knowing this bit of information will help you to understand the glaring FLAW in the product’s business model.
From a marketing stand point…. it’s brilliant. He’s addressing EVERY blog owner’s deepest desires:
- Effortless quality content
- Effortless quality visitors
- All of the above delivered for free.
However, while this product will probably be a HUGE success for the developer…it will do little for the countless throngs who sign up to allow him to syndicate his content via their blog. Those who sign up should not be surprised if adding his content to their site does NOTHING for their traffic or their customers.
I guess that’s why my clients have me on retainer, to help them see BEYOND the hype!
In this case, learn from a truly BRILLIANT marketing piece. It does a MAGNIFICENT job of defining a problem and presenting a solution. Not only is it brilliantly crafted, but it was then TIGHTLY targeted to a mailing list filled with web site and blog owners who signed up to learn more about marketing their small business via the internet.
I always tell my clients to look at what artists like this are DOING to promote their product instead of getting caught up in the sales frenzy being generated. Watch their feet, don’t listen to the song!
The I follow movement
I guess I should have recognized it sooner…. after all, Word Press is GREAT about letting you know what’s going on when it comes to inbound links to your blog. Here I was out laying "bread crumb trails" by commenting on other blogs and few if any of those comments were resulting in inbound links.
Then I stumbled upon the I Follow Movement. DUH! So that’s what the Do Follow Plug in with Semilogic is all about!
Thanks to Randa Clay, there’s even a logo for the movement! THANKS!
If you’re using a Word Press Blog, then simply installing the Do Follow plug in will open your blog up so that people who comment will be rewarded with an inbound link from your blog. If you’re using a Blogger blog, then here is the tutorial for removing the no follow in your blogger blog.
Understand, if you don’t already, that inbound links are what makes the internet world go round. More inbound links means a higher page rank and therefore, higher SERPs (Search Engine Ranking Position) for your posts.
Instead of relying on the kindness of strangers…. who will exercise proper blogging etiquette by reciprocating useful links, now you can create your own.
Since listing another site as a "Do Follow" blog, I’m finding that people are finally commenting on my blog!
So, if you’ve noticed that it looks like no one is reading your blog because no one is commenting…. get into the I Follow movement.
If you comment, I follow. However, I don’t approve spammy comments. Hey, a girl has GOT to have her standards! <grin>
