Tag Archives: blogging

Getting Discipline For Your Website Conversion Conversation

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Adam Hommey (Help My Website Sell)

I’m on a lot of marketers’ mailing lists. Hey, I’m a perpetual student.

No, I don’t read (or even open) the majority of the ezines, promotion e-mails, and what-have you they send out.  Actually, I probably open about 10-15% of them.  (How close is this to open rates on the e-mails you send out?)

Without me doing any scientific study, I can tell you off the top of my head the 5 or 6 I hear from the most, and can make pronouncements on whose content is most “relevant,” “valuable,” and just plain “worth my time” even though, as I just said, I don’t even click-to-open, much less read most of it.

Members of your target market are making the same pronouncements, right now, today, based on the same non-science.  Are YOU one of their top 5 or 6 most-followed thought leaders?

What puts these 5 or 6 in the top echelon?  Simple: they communicate with me regularly and persistently with valuable content that can help me (as opposed to just endless forwards of pre-written/copy-pasted affiliate emails, or only sending me something once or twice a month out of some misguided fear it might tick me off).

I’m able to declare their content the “best” simply because they are so unstinting in giving me more bang-for-my-buck, their emails almost always fall in that “10-15%” I actually open.  In conversation, when I need an example of “so-and-so is someone you might want to check out,” their names come up the most.

If you’re not regularly posting to your blog, sharing on social media, sending ezines to your opted in subscribers, and giving value because you’re not sure you can “measure to a T” how much money it will bring in, does the above give you reason to reconsider?

If it does, and you need some tips on how to “do more,” then keep reading.  Continue reading →

Posted in Blogging, Conversion Conversation, E-Mail Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Website Conversions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Inspire The Inspiration: 7 Crazy, Radical Ways To Create New Blog Content

Posted on October 13, 2011 by Adam Hommey (Help My Website Sell)

Lately, I’ve been writing a lot of new and updated website content – sales pages, service pages, FAQ pages, and other information intended to help our visitors and prospects come to know us, so they can like us and find their reasons for making the decision to trust us.

While it’s important – and awesome – to create this new content, a very interesting side-effect has come to the fore: my inspiration to write articles for my blog has skyrocketed.  In fact, as I work through developing the content as outlined in my draft sitemap, I keep a separate document open where I jot down topics and ideas for upcoming blog posts as they cross my mind.

Separately, I also started a list of the specific triggers that catalyzed my inspiration to come up with new article topics – you know, figure out what inspired the inspiration.  That became a separate brainstorm, which I’m going to share with you now.

Next time you hit a dry spell with your blogging, try one of these “radical” strategies on for size:

1) Call people who have bought your products and services.  That’s right.  Pick up the phone.  Give them a call.  Thank them personally for buying.  Ask them how things are working out so far.  Offer assistance.   You don’t have bandwidth to do this for every one but you can get to some, I’d think?  You’ll be amazed how many problems you’ll have the opportunity to solve and how many “I was speaking with my customer Jessie today who just bought our Complete Home Study Course For Changing A Light Bulb and she asked me something I’m sure is on the minds of many of our readers…” blog posts will come out of it if you speak with just a few of the people who bought your products.

2) Call your opted-in subscribers.  Even crazier, I know.  You can’t call all 10,000 or 50,000 (or even 500) but you CAN call a few…correct?  So your opt-in form doesn’t include their phone number?  Chances are their e-mail address is something like theirname@theirdomain.com.  Now you have their website.  Go to it.  You’ll probably find their phone number there.  Last spring I booked a $2,000 project because I called a subscriber, actually to inquire about THEIR solutions.  Why aren’t you?

Continue reading →

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Overcoming “The Fear Of Free”

Posted on October 5, 2010 by Adam Hommey (Help My Website Sell)

As internet marketers, there are a number of things we’re more or less expected to do with our websites, regardless of what industry we are in or what market we serve.   Among these are the “free stuff” we put out there in the form of special reports and informative articles on our blog posts and in our ezines.

Frequently, I encounter a variation of this objection, or rather fear: if the marketer “gives away” too much, their visitor will say “That’s great, thanks” and not feel the need to buy their products, join their membership program, or hire them as a coach or consultant.

In other words, “The Fear Of Free.” Continue reading →

Posted in Calls To Action, Conversion Conversation, Customer Contact, Free Offers | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

So You THINK You’re Not Selling Anything Online?

Posted on October 1, 2010 by Adam Hommey (Help My Website Sell)

What are some of the buzz words that come to your mind when you hear the phrases “e-commerce” and “internet marketing“?

I bet some of them include: information products, membership sites, shopping carts, merchant accounts, affiliate programs, instant downloads.

However, what if your website is intended to sell high-level consulting or executive-level training to a corporate audience?  We already know that marketing to corporations is a unique specialty.  Marketing to executives is a unique specialty.  Marketing to corporate executives is, therefore, twice as unique.

A Fortune 500 or 1000 C-level executive is unlikely to whip out her credit card and claim her instant access to your $97 video course, nor is she going to be dazzled by the seven instant bonuses that you generously arranged for five top marketers to “contribute” to customers who take fast action, right now. That “direct response” stuff that works so well elsewhere will more likely be lost on her.

Since e-commerce may be less likely to reach this executive if she and her herd are your target audience, that means your site doesn’t sell anything and you should stop reading this article right now and wait for me to write the next one…right?

Wrong. Continue reading →

Posted in Blogging, Conversion Conversation, Customer Contact, Social Media Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Why Not Having A Blog Leads To Cash Anemia

Posted on September 30, 2010 by Adam Hommey (Help My Website Sell)

WARNING: Failure to regularly and consistently publish fresh, exciting content to your blog can cause terminal loss of customers, fans, and prospects, leading to potentially dreadful  cash anemia!

Any business with a presence online (even a bricks-and-mortar establishment with a website optimized to its local market) that does not have an active, thriving blog with relevant, exciting, fresh content will lose traffic, customers, and profits to the business that does.

The keynote speaker who isn’t speaking to their audience through their blog on a regular basis will soon be speaking only to themselves because the speakers who ARE blogging will be racking up all the best gigs.  In today’s tighter-than-ever speaking market, can you afford to talk to yourself?

Regularly and consistently posting to your blog is one of the best, and easiest, ways to grow your business online – in several ways. Continue reading →

Posted in Blogging, Conversion Conversation, Customer Contact, Help My Website Sell™ Free Events, Website Conversions | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment