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Blogging for Lead Generation

By Christian

One of the questions I get most often is how to get more leads coming in from your blog posts. This is obviously a pretty huge subject, and it’s something we discuss in consulting sessions quite a bit, but I wanted to take a stab at it here and cover some basic points.

I have some notes to share with you as well as a video today. I also use the words “whilst” and “y’all”, just for fun. Hope you dig it! If you have any questions, please hit me up in the contact form. It’s my pleasure to help however I can 🙂

Here are a few principles to consider:

Consistency
Calls to action
Relevancy and Contribution
Fun (yay!)

Here is a brief outline of each:

Consistency

This is a situation where a lot of us drop the ball. I say “us”, because I’m included 100%. What I’ve found is that best results come from consistency. I work with small business owners. If you’re reading this, you’re most likely a Realtor, a chiropractor, an attorney or other small business owner or professional. As such, we don’t have unlimited time to write a blog. It needs to be efficient, and it needs to produce a result.

One thing that may stress you out is the time commitment of blogging. Don’t sweat it. It doesn’t have to be this huge project that takes all day. An hour or two per week is plenty to get results over time. Share some ideas once per week. Every Wednesday for example. No need to overthink it or turn it into a big project. If you do that, you’ll never do it.

Instead, do something that fits into your schedule. Do it consistently, and before long you’ll notice that people come to expect and look forward to your posts. This is a key element to getting results. Consistent publishing leads to consistent lead gen.

Calls to Action

When clients ask me to critique their site, they’re often looking to get more leads coming in. When I swing out to the site, I find that they’re not asking people to sign up for their email list. There are very few calls to action, and they’re not very compelling at that. This isn’t a very good combo.

If you want more inquiries or people signing up for your email list, you’re gonna have to ask. I’ve had a lot of clients express an expectation for visitors to hunt down their contact page out of appreciation for the awesome content and ideas they share on their blog. Some will. Most won’t.

Here is a video with some notes on how I place calls to action on my site (if you’re reading this in a feed reader, you may need to click here to see the video):

[jwplayer config=”YouTube” mediaid=”2707″]

Relevancy and Contribution

A couple of the frustrations I come across whilst talking with you are lack of leads and low quality leads. In other words, you’re not getting the response rate you want from your blog, and the leads you do get are not responsive or uninterested in what you do professionally. Relevancy and a focus on contribution really go a long way to help here.

By relevancy, I mean your content (both your calls to action and your blog posts) need to speak directly to the most pressing needs of your readers. A small business blog is a different animal than most others. You’re looking to produce a pretty specific result. This is marketing.

I see a LOT of small business blogs miss a lot of opportunities in this area. They spend a lot of time writing for search engines for example. Everything is really optimized and keyword rich. But the content isn’t solving any pressing problem. Your readers could care less how search optimized your site is. SEO is fine, but the one and only thing it will do is bring you visitors. You can have all the visitors in the world, but it means nothing if your blog doesn’t convert. This is why I write for people, not search engines. I know a lot of y’all disagree with me on this point, but I’d rather get less traffic and 40% conversion rates any day of the week, as opposed to a high number of visitors and very little engagement.

What’s funny is that when you write for people instead of search engines, people like your site better. They visit it often and tell their friends. Traffic is never the issue. Relevancy and contribution are what really matters. Follow these steps:

Identify your ideal prospect
Learn their biggest frustrations
Use your blog to solve their problems
Use your blog as a means of “giving back”. Share ideas and solutions with your readers. Give away too much. Give em stuff you could actually be charging for.

If you combine these steps with effective calls to action, it’s a pretty unbeatable combination!

Fun (once again…Yay!)

One of the biggest missed opportunities in the whole small business blogging world is lack of fun. Have some dang fun! Your blog doesn’t have to be perfect. Write short posts, long posts, video, pictures, podcasts…whatever the heck you want. Whatever is simple and fun for you. Yes, you may need to learn a thing or two, but simply pick up some tactics as you go and employ them. Obsessing over whether you’re doing it “right” or not (I come across this mentality all the time) is only going to keep you from taking action.

People know when it’s forced. People know when you’re doing something just because you think you’re supposed to be doing it, not because you really want to. And that’s not fun for anyone. Something funny…people think when you share ideas with them, but they ACT when they’re emotionally engaged. You can have the most badass, super-optimized rock star blog in the world, with half a million visitors every day, but if you’re not having fun and helping people solve their problems, it’s unlikely you’ll see impressive lead generation.

If you’re inclined to think you don’t really want to blog..that the truth is you really ARE doing it just because you think you’re supposed to, then that’s cool. There’s no rule you need to write a blog. It’s just a really effective and leveraged way to share ideas with people.

It really does work. This is my livelihood. It works. But just like any tool, you get out what you put in. Just because you have an office doesn’t mean people are gonna visit. Just because you have a phone doesn’t mean people are gonna call. These are simply the tools of our trade. A blog is a publishing tool. Your prospects are on the web, looking for content. This is your opportunity to get in front of them, be cool to them and get a conversation started.

If you are having fun with your blog, contributing relevant content that solves people’s problems and offering compelling calls to action as I outline in the video above, it’s nearly impossible for you to not start seeing high quality leads come in every day from your site.

It can take a minute to get the pieces put together. That’s true. It’s true that marketing and the internet has changed quite a bit over the last few years. Shoot me an email if you have questions. I’m happy to help!

That was a call to action. Get it? No seriously, send me an email! There’s a contact form right here 🙂

Website Optimization Tips for Lead Generation and Sales (Video)

By Christian

Today’s post gives you a lot of direct, actionable information to help you get better results with your website! As you know, one of the things I do here a lot is something called a 3 Day Web Strategy, where we dive deep into your website strategy and give you an action plan for getting the exact results you want.

Today, we’re doing something a bit different. Derek Halpern has come over from Social Triggers.com, and instead of me doing the critique…he’s going to be critiquing me 🙂

If you’re not familiar with Derek, definitely check him out over at his blog Social Triggers and sign up for his newsletter. I’ve been talking with this guy for the past year or so. He’s a straight shooter with great ideas and a lot of expertise to share. In the video below, we do a critique of Dangerous Tactics, and he gives me some fantastic tips on how to get better results with my blog.

The concepts we cover here will absolutely give you some ideas on what you can do with YOUR site as well! Consider it a free consulting call…there are a LOT of great ideas in here. Check it out…

[jwplayer config=”premium” file=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyLWWCUBi24″]

The Number One Most Horrible Business Strategy Ever

By Christian

Every year this time I ask readers and clients…especially clients…what they’re planning on doing next year.

How will you improve?
How will you grow?
How will your business improve it’s reach?

A disturbingly high percentage of people respond with something like this;

“I’m going to try harder…”

or…

“I’m going to work harder…”

Candidly, this is the most horrible business strategy ever! Why? Because it’s not a strategy at all. Don’t let yourself fall victim to this trap!

This is a great opportunity to talk specifically about web marketing, since that’s the primary focus of this blog. Many people out there right now have some smart things on their to-do list for 2011. They might include:

Start a blog
Launch a new product
Do more prospecting
Get more sales people and/or affiliates
Etc

These are smart items to accomplish. Go for it! I am also an advocate of “try harder…” and “work harder…”. Let’s not misunderstand each other. It is important to work hard; just know that working hard isn’t a strategy. Starting a blog isn’t a strategy. Launching a product isn’t a strategy either. Let me clarify…

The difference between an asset and a strategy

Everything mentioned so far is an asset. Your energy…and the amount of energy you decide to put into your business…is valuable. It’s an asset. It’s an important one. So is your blog. If you’re going to launch a new blog this year, that’s great! It’s an asset. So is a new product. These are all assets, and a successful business needs to have strong assets. Just don’t mistake an asset for a strategy.

I see business owners make this mistake all the time! They create checklists, and they run through everything, convincing themselves they’re working hard and doing the right things. They’re acquiring assets.

Launch a blog…check!
Create a Facebook business page…check!
Create a new product or service…check!
Put in a few more hours each week…check!
Hire a new assistant…check!

You’re piling up assets, but there is no STRATEGY anywhere in sight! So my question to you is…what is your STRATEGY this year? I don’t care much what you want to accomplish. That is highly personal and subjective. You can set whatever goals you want. Whatever edifies you and motivates you…go for it!

Want to make a hundred thousand dollars this year? Great. A million? Great. Goals are important, but they’re very easy to set. We all know the importance of having goals and writing them down. What we need to FOCUS on is strategy. Most of your business plans contain 90% asset aquisition, and very little strategy. This is fun for a month or two, because you get to be busy, and you get to check things off your list, but after a short while it starts to become apparant that nothing is really happening.

Have you ever started a website, and it just sat there accomplishing nothing?
Have you ever launched a new lead generation system that cost you some money but fails to pull it’s weight?
Have you ever hired someone that doesn’t add to your company’s bottom line?

These are all examples of assets that have been mistaken for strategies. Let me explain…

The problem is that when we mistake assets for strategy, we end up with a bunch of assets that aren’t performing. If you buy a rental property, you have an asset. But if you fail to manage it properly, it turns to crap over a period of time, and you end up with a liability that just ends up costing you money. That’s what assets do when you don’t attach a strategy. So, make sure you have a strategy!

What is your strategy?

Want to start a blog? That’s a terrific, powerful asset. Congratulations! Now…what is your strategy?

What specifically do you want your blog to accomplish for your business? Brand awareness, lead generation, sales, client engagement?
What schedule will you follow to produce content for your blog on a consistent, regular basis?
What specific tactics will you employ to drive traffic to your blog? SEO, PPC, social media, etc?
What metrics will you use to TEST and measure your growth?
Why are these specific metrics important to you?
How often will you visit these metrics, and if things are not on track, what will you do to GET on track?

These questions are the BEGINNING of what it takes to create a strategy, and some of them aren’t necessarily easy to answer. You might have to do some research. You might have to do some networking or hire a consultant to give you some perspective. I do consulting by the way 🙂

The ideal asset to strategy ratio

Do you see the difference between an asset and a strategy? Do you see how essential it is to have one strategy for every asset you have? An asset without a strategy quickly becomes a liability. MANY of you have a lot of liabilities on board that are costing you a lot of time and money. You can cut them loose, or you can put them to work for you.

Importantly, when it comes to marketing most of you guys (for those of you who don’t know, I work with and write this blog for a specific type of small business owner) only need a few marketing assets. 2-3 strong lead generation systems coupled with a strong marketing strategy WILL produce more leads than you even know what to do with.

Are you marketing efforts getting that type of results in your business? If not…it’s time to develop a STRATEGY that works for you!

Actually, Content Marketing is Dead

By Christian

blogging is dead content marketing is dead — Blogging, content marketing. My God...they're all dead!

Recently, Brian Clark declared that Actually, Blogging is Dead. He’s totally right. But dammit, he offers up content marketing in it’s place, and I have a problem with that. The fact is that actually…content marketing is dead also.

What is content marketing after all? It is the act of sharing valuable, targeted information with your audience, no? The problem is that we continue to mistake information as being valuable these days. Be honest. You think information is valuable, don’t you? Well, it’s not. Information isn’t valuable at all. Why?

Because information is free, yo

Look around. Information is free. Is this fair? No, actually it’s not. It’s just the way it is. Look at the facts. Almost no one pays for news anymore. It costs millions of dollars to produce, and people literally risk their lives bringing it to us, and no one is willing to pay a dime for it. Why? Because it’s information; we’ve had enough already. We’re freaking inundated with it. Screw information. In fact, we want less.

If content marketing is the act of sharing valuable information, then it’s fundamentally flawed, because information isn’t valuable.

As marketers, we need to stop offering our customers and clients information, thinking that we’re giving them value. It’s one of the biggest reasons blogs fail actually. We publish awesome information, and no one cares. Why? Because information is blue on black. It’s frickin invisible. It’s meaningless.

The next big thing is…

If not information, what then? Context…it’s the next big thing. Context is the new information. Ironically, Brian Clark’s blog was the first to say this in my recollection. Larry Brooks wrote a while back that Content is No Longer King. He’s right. Do we not remember this?

I work with a lot of real estate professionals in my business, and these people have it tough. They’re busy as all get out, running all over town showing homes, negotiating deals and trying to get things to the closing table, and now they have to worry about internet marketing on top of all this. Literally 99% of home buyers use the internet as an integral part of their home search, so REALTORS have to get good at internet marketing if they want to survive.

They start with content marketing, and they fall on their face. Why? Because content marketing is dead! Clients just aren’t impressed that their agent knows about a home on the market. The client knows about the home too! They have an internet connection, after all. Who doesn’t? Clients need more. Way more. They need….CONTEXT.

For God’s sake, they don’t need any more content. They don’t need anyone to tell them what square footage a home has. They already know. They don’t need anyone to tell them the listing price either. Again…they already know. They already have gobs of information; what they need is context.

Examples of CONTEXT

They already know the price, but they NEED a professional to tell them what’s going to happen to the value of that home over the next few years…and why. That’s context.
They already know the square footage of the home that interests them, but they NEED a professional to point out how they can make a small change to the layout of the home and unlock a lot of hidden potential that they wouldn’t have otherwise seen. That’s context.
They already know that the home they really wanted is off the market, but they NEED a professional to let them in on the fact that the buyer is having credit issues (uh, oh!) and the deal is likely to fall through, so instead of writing an offer on another home they don’t like as much, maybe they should sit tight for a second. That’s context.

Context is what separates the men from the boys, so to speak. Thing is, you have to ACTUALLY know what the heck you’re talking about…you might even have to take some risks on occasion, if you want to offer genuine CONTEXT to your audience. You man enough?

How I make money fast ($522.60 in less than one second)

By Christian

I’m about to trick you. Pull the wool over your eyes, if you will. It will be fun. The fact is I DO make $522.60 in less than one second. I do it all the time. You can too. It’s just not some stupid “get rich quick”, “make money online” garbage. It’s the actual truth. Sorry about that.

How to make $522.60 in less than one second

My average client pays me $522.60. You know…it’s the average. Some pay less. Some pay more. Almost no one actually pays me exactly $522.60. It’s just the average. When someone clicks the “submit payment” button, over the course of that one second I make on average $522.60.

It still amazes me that this works. It still blows my mind that I can literally sit here at my kitchen table (or wherever I’m working at the time), click “publish” and then money shows up in my Paypal account. It’s addictive, really.

How to make money fast

Just for those of you who feel ripped off by this post so far, I want you to know…there IS a point, and there IS a reason I’m sharing this with you today! It’s deep stuff, actually.

The reason I’m writing this post is that “make money fast” is a keyword that gets almost 250,000 searches PER MONTH. Can you believe that? There are a LOT of you trying to figure out how to “make money fast”. It’s simple really…EVERYONE makes money fast.

You didn’t know that, did you?

The fact is that making money fast is kind of automatic. It doesn’t take long. Money changes hands. It only takes a second, really. So what’s the problem? What are you struggling with?

You’re asking the wrong question! Making money is a piece of cake. All the work leading up to it…that’s what you need to focus on!

For all of you searching “how to make money fast” this month, I humbly submit that you’re asking the wrong question! Don’t ask how to make money fast. It’s a waste of time. Instead, ask stuff that’s actually going to connect you with better customers and clients. Why aren’t more people searching for this stuff? Ask these things instead:

How to create value (5400 searches last month).
Ask how to connect with your customers (210 searches last month).
How to survey your website visitors (ZERO searches this past month…really?).
How to do market research (2,100 searches last month).

Why are so many of us struggling to make money with our websites? We’re asking the wrong dang questions!

One final point

Check it out…not only do the RIGHT questions yield you MUCH more helpful answers (you know…stuff that’s actually going to HELP you grow your business), there is also another extremely high value benefit you might be overlooking. Look at how much COMPETITION there is for these much more powerful questions. There are way less competitive.

Do you know who IS making money fast? People searching the keywords above, not the ones searching “how to make money fast”. It’s ironic, isn’t it?

As soon as you make the decision that you’re going to use the keywords above (and many others like them), instead of useless searches like “how to make money fast”, everything gets so much simpler…and so much more effective.

Are you looking for answers? Make sure you ask the right questions!