You send an email to your list. Nothing happens. You work hard and publish an awesome new article. Nothing happens. What the heck?

There’s a crucial difference between subscribership and engagement. I submit that what you’re seeking with your marketing is engagement, not subscribership. I know, this is deep stuff. Yet our focus is usually placed in the exact opposite direction. So I’ll say it again…

We keep wanting to reach MORE people. Why?

• It’s time-consuming.
• It’s expensive.
• It begins a new relationship…which is good, but a NEW relationship is also the most difficult to monetize.

The days of building huge websites that get tons of traffic and then simply monetizing with ads and affiliate links are over. This is old news, but most of us who market ourselves online haven’t changed our approach.

Small is awesome

Focus on who you have NOW. Do only 20 people subscribe to your blog? Don’t discredit yourself, and most importantly, don’t discredit THEM! TALK TO THEM! Get a response. Be awesome to them. Give them cool stuff like a free report that is actually WORTH something. Maybe give them a video or some chocolate. I don’t know. Be cool to them. You know how to be cool. You don’t need me to tell you how to be cool. You’re a reader of Dangerous Tactics, which means you’re already way smarter than most people! Your brand of cool is going to be different than mine, and that’s cool. What matters is that you connect, engage and convert. That’s what businesses are made of.

Getting more people is not the answer. Increasing engagement is the answer.

What happens when you’re awesome to 20 people? Lean in close, because I’m going to reveal a massively powerful SECRET to marketing right now…

When you’re awesome to 20 people, they tell other people how awesome you are! All of a sudden you have 40 subscribers. Not impressed? Maybe you should be awesome to those 40 people too. I know…40 people to be awesome to…that’s a lot of pressure. What are your alternatives?

• You COULD just go spend an insane amount of money on ads that don’t convert.
• You COULD triple the number of times you link out to your own stuff on Twitter and Facebook, alienating your friends and followers.
• You COULD buy a coop email list with 300,000 ill-gotten email addresses on it, and become a spammer.
• You COULD spend a thousand dollars per month (or more…probably more) for a SEO firm to help you get more traffic.

You could do any of these things if you want. Or, you could just be awesome to the people whose attention you already have. The cool thing is that when you do this, people talk and spread the word for you. It’s free, and it’s WAY more powerful and effective with regards to building your blog’s readership, your email list or whatever it is you’re building.

Do you want a BIG list and a LOT of readers? Or do you want a RESPONSIVE list and LOYAL readers, who “get” what you do?

Bigger isn’t necessarily better, but it IS more expensive and wasteful

More and more people on your list who don’t respond…that’s what happens when you focus solely on “getting more subscribers” or “increasing traffic” instead of actually TALKING with the people you already have on the line.

I’ve seen sites with tens of thousands of subscribers close up shop. They called it quits after achieving what most bloggers can only dream of. Lack of engagement is why. Are you trying to become a rock star? OK then, if so…you’re reading the wrong blog right now. Are you trying to build a very profitable business using web marketing? If so, you’re on the RIGHT blog, and you DON’T need tons of traffic or a huge email list to make it happen!

There’s an important need for things like traffic generation, SEO and such. I’m not completely disregarding these things. They’re important. But most of us place way too much importance on it. Focus on the attention you already have. It’s worth a LOT more than you realize. Attention is not the goal; it’s merely the first step.

In new articles coming soon, we’ll discuss the 5 stages of marketing you need to use in order to have maximum impact with your small audience. Until then, don’t sweat the small stuff…be small, stay small. Lean and mean. Lose the need for an ego stroke…you don’t need thousands of people to come out to your site every day, and you don’t need a huge email list to make a great living do this.

Do you want 100,000 subscribers who don’t respond to your content? It may feel good to have the numbers, but it doesn’t mean ANYTHING if the engagement is not there. Here’s a litmus test you can use:

Is your small readership hyper-engaged and responding really well to what you’re doing? Do you only have 20 subscribers? If so, you should still be making sales. Not a lot of course, but something. If you’re making no sales with your small amount of traffic, why do you think getting MORE traffic will help? Zero times a bazillion…is still ZERO!

Place your focus on increasing engagement and really doing something that connects…something that is really MEANINGFUL to a small number of people. Who can you truly reach in a meaningful way? That is your true audience. That is your true list. Everyone else…all those people who don’t respond…are just fake subscribers. Maybe they’ll come around one day, but don’t hold your breath. You have better things to focus on in the meantime.

It’s all about taking something ordinary and making it better. That’s how to keep your business alive, on the edge and profitable. So when I find a little tweak here and there and get all excited about it, most people just think I’m a freak. But little things add up to big results over time! This one little tweak will make me several thousand dollars this year.

The most problematic page on your website

What’s the most problematic page on your website? It’s your 404 page. For those of you who don’t know what a 404 is, it’s the page that shows up if someone visits a page that’s no longer there. Or perhaps they typed in the url incorrectly, etc. In any case, your visitor is trying to visit a page that doesn’t exist. When that happens, they land automatically on your 404 error page.

Most of you haven’t even visited your 404 page to see what’s up. I encourage you to do so; it’s probably pretty ugly. It probably says something like “The page your trying to visit doesn’t exist. I am a cold, computer-generated page built for the purpose of alienating you, making you feel like a dope and causing you to leave my website quickly, never to return.” Something like that. That’s NOT how you want to roll, trust me.

Visit your 404 page today, and see how stupid it is. Make it better.

How to make your 404 page rock

If you’re an enlightened webmaster (there are lots of you out there), you have probably already customized your 404 page. Instead of the stock 404 page, you’ve made your page more inviting. You explain the page they’re trying to visit is not available, and instead why don’t you try visiting one of these other articles…and you provide some links to other articles on your site. You might even offer them a search field, so they can find the article they intended on visiting in the first place.

Not bad. You can do better though!

Whether you have a customized 404 page or not, I recommend turning your 404 page into a squeeze page. I did this last week, and it’s been bringing in new subscribers to my site every day. It’s not a lot, but it’s steady. I’ve had maybe 20 new opt-ins in the past week. Not bad if you ask me 🙂

Doesn’t it make SENSE to take the ugliest page on your website and turn it into an asset which consistently brings new subscribers into the fold? Before I did it, I questioned whether there is some unspoken rule against this or something. I simply do not know why no one does this. It works great for me; I recommend giving it a shot on your own site.

The details

All I did was take my 404 page and put an optin on it. The verbiage I used was:

Get Everything
EVERYTHING is available to subscribers! Make sure to opt in here to get access to EVERYTHING on the site. Subscribing is:
1. Free
2. Awesome
3. High value

Then I created a plain opt-in box, and that’s it.

I hope you’ll test it for yourself and let me know what you think. If you need any help implementing it, I’m here to help you with that also. Isn’t web marketing fun? Rock on 😉

There’s a statistic out there which you’ve no doubt heard. 95% of all businesses fail in the first 5
years. We take it as a fact, but few of us question why. WHY do they fail? We ASSUME it’s because business is risky. Yet some people start one successful business after another, while the rest of us struggle. I encourage you to look at this a little more closely, because there’s a very powerful truth to uncover.

In nearly every instance, a business fails due to an identifiable and correctable issue. Perhaps you didn’t have the capital necessary. Perhaps you didn’t have a competent management team. Perhaps your offer wasn’t in alignment with the target audience. My point is that almost every business failure can be tracked down to a cause. Fix the cause; prevent the failure.

The same goes for blogging.

Blogging is the same as business. For some of you, blogging IS your business. Are you going to fail? If you do, it’s not because blogging is risky. It’s not because most people simply fail, and that’s all there is to it. It’s definitely not because “blogging is dead”. I hate it when people say that 🙂

The fact is that most business blogs fail for the same reasons most businesses fail. As the old saying goes: “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

Do you have a plan?

• Does your blog have a written plan?
• What goals do you want your blog to achieve?
• What specifically are you going to do to make those goals happen?
• Why do you think your plan will work?

Do you have answers to these questions? It’s not particularly time-consuming or laborious to answer them, but if you DON’T have these answers, the success of your blog is in the “crap shoot” category. If you’re blogging for fun, then you may be cool with this. If your blog is supposed to be a part of your marketing though, then you may want to step up your game a bit.

Can writing a plan really make that much of a difference? Yes it can!

I don’t know how many people tell me they want more traffic to their website. Let’s just say lots 😉 Invariably I ask the obvious question “What are you doing currently to get traffic?” Too often, the answer is “Well, nothing really.” It’s difficult to know what to do if you don’t have a plan. When you don’t have a plan, it’s easy to get frustrated, because nothing really has any perspective.

I find out by working with clients that a lot of you aren’t very sure what you want to be getting out of your blog in the first place. Sit down for a minute and DECIDE what you want your blog to achieve. It’s really one of the coolest things about blogging. You get to pick! You can use a blog to build your email list, make offers, establish yourself as an authority in your niche, break into a new niche, etc. Focus in on one or two things that you really want to make happen with your blog. Then do some research or hire a consultant to sit down with you for a bit, and put together a PLAN to make it happen.

A well-written plan. It makes a huge difference. This one simple thing will put you in the top 2%.

Your blog can be used to achieve any number of goals. A business blog is great for building an email list, establishing yourself as an expert in your niche, making offers (you know…SELLING stuff), reaching out to a new audience, communicating with your audience, staying in front of your prospects and much more.

With so many benefits, we tend to simply set up a blog and wait for the magic to happen. Then…nothing. How can such a powerful marketing tool just sit there and accomplish nothing?

Setting up a blog, plodding along and waiting for cool stuff to happen is not the approach I recommend, in case you hadn’t guessed! You need to have a plan, and the best time to have put a plan together for your blog is now. What do you want your blog to achieve?

For this particular blog (Dangerous Tactics), my main goal is to stay in touch with my subscribers. My secondary goal is to continue building my email list. As a result, you don’t see a lot of opt-in forms, banner ads or any overt attempts to monetize this site. My mission is to continue the conversation with my clients and readers, so this site is mostly all content, and there are a few links to sign-up forms. That’s it.

It’s surprising how many blogs are cluttered with all types of widgets and ads that aren’t even helping the blogger achieve their goals. This is why it’s so essential to decide what you want your blog to accomplish. When you don’t know what you want, you end up wandering aimlessly in the blogosphere. It’s a boring an intimidating place to be. I know; I’ve done it.

The fact is, succeeding with your blog is 100% impossible…it absolutely WILL NOT HAPPEN unless you have a clear goal and a clear plan to achieve it. With a clear goal and a clear plan in place…success becomes probable. That’s right. I didn’t say “possible”. I said “probable”.

So few people make a real plan for their blog…

If you’ve followed me or read my blogs for any length of time, you know I’m an advocate of blogging. Clearly I write a blog myself, and it’s because I think it’s a crucial and effective way to spend time with your customers, share ideas with them and of course, sell stuff.

One thing I see a lot of new bloggers do is spend WAY too much time on their blog. We want our blog to be awesome, so we spend all this time putting up new widgets and playing with the design, retweaking articles, etc. There’s nothing wrong with this of course…not inherently. But if your blog is taking up too much of your time, you’re not going to stick with it.

I don’t want you to quit, so if you’re new to blogging or struggling to get results, this post is for you…

Don’t burn out, yo…

Blogging is a long game. It takes a while to build an audience. Is it worth it? Oh my…yes, it’s worth it. But treat it as a marathon, not a sprint. It doesn’t mean you don’t run hard…but run for distance. Don’t burn out before you even get started. Most bloggers (and by most I mean almost ALL) quit before they even have a chance of making it. Don’t do this!

Spending tons of time on your blog when you first start is like cleaning your house for a party…spending all day making sure everything looks perfect…and completely neglecting to tell anyone about the party. You’ve ended up cleaning your house for no one. Doesn’t make much sense, does it?

When you first start, you don’t have a strong readership for your blog. How do you get one? By handing out invitations. Tell people about the party, for god’s sake! I’ve been to some great parties at some really crappy apartments. I know you have too. It’s the people that make it great, not whether everything is perfectly in order or not.

Here’s the big secret about blogging

Here’s the big secret: great blogs come from great audiences. The community really is what it’s about. It’s what feeds you and guides you and motivates you. It’s all about your readers. You don’t create your audience. They come to you, and THEY are what make you great. They make you great way more than you make them great by gracing them with the presence of your awesome blog. Find your audience first…get the party started. The minutia of blogging takes care of itself from there.

Trust me, after you’ve been networking for a while and built an audience, your audience will tell you when they want to see some changes. You’ll get feedback left and right. You’ll get good at knowing when to listen and when to make changes to your blog. But until you have an audience and are getting that feedback, who are you making these tweaks and changes for? No one.

The boring (yet dang effective) truth about how to get started blogging…

Instead, post new content regularly, and then focus on getting the word out. Leave your design alone. Spend the majority of your time talking to people on other platforms. Leave your widgets alone. Leave your plugins alone. No matter what claims you read, I promise you from my very core…no plugin or widget is going to make your blog popular and successful. It’s just not going to happen!

People are the key. Talk to them. You know where:

• Commenting on other blogs
• Forums in your niche
• Community events
• Conferences

Get people on board with what you doing. If you’re new to blogging, your audience is simply scattered around out there at the moment. You need to reach out and meet them. The more you talk with them, the more they’ll come out to your blog. The more you talk with them, the more feedback you’ll get. The more you talk with them, the more you’ll learn about yourself, your business and how to run your blog better to create more value.

As counterintuitive as it may seem…no amount of tweaking is going to get you an audience. Tweaking ain’t gonna make your blog great. Your AUDIENCE is what’s going to make your blog great. Until you have an audience, you don’t have anything. Your audience is already out there, you just need to reach out and grab em.