Posts tagged as:

Hook

The 6 Essential Steps to Writing a Killer Press Release

by Jiyan Wei on January 26, 2011

image of newspaper

Think the press release is dead in the age of social media?

No way. A powerful press release can tell a story, report news, or help a cause. Smart online writers know that a great press release can take your message to new channels and reach thousands or even millions of new readers. And a terrific press release has great SEO benefits as well.

Writing a press release takes time, research and some skill. And writing a killer press release, which catapults visibility of the message and drives results, requires adding a few more ingredients to the mix.

To get the results you want, follow these six steps:


1. Craft a hook

If you’ve ever had a song stuck in your head, you know what a great hook is. It’s that chorus or beat that you just can’t shake.

Just like in pop music, a great hook is key to success in writing a killer press release.

To find your hook, spend time before you start writing your release researching the press releases and blog posts of industry competitors, gathering information about which releases and posts have received significant coverage. Use these successes as a guideline for your own release, with an eye toward what types of content your audience is reacting to and/or sharing.

Great hooks pull us into a remarkable story. They engage our curiosity and make us crazy to find out more.

Remember the primary audience for a press release — a journalist. Reduce the basics of your message down to one sentence that answers the 5W’s of reporting – who, what, when, where and why — and find that story hook that will help them write a story their readers won’t forget.

2. Add a great headline

If you’re a Copyblogger reader, you already know the importance of a compelling headline.

You only have a few seconds to grab a reader’s attention, so be sure to craft a headline with the following elements:

  • Lead with a concept, not your brand name — your audience (both readers and reporters) probably don’t care about your brand or company name, but they do care about finding a good story. Lead with a compelling concept to draw them in
  • Be creative — don’t confine yourself to the headlines you see in other press releases. Use all your Copyblogger-inspired skills to create a headline that stands out.
  • Test — test your headlines just like you would any other content. Find the headline that grabs attention and makes the reader want to learn more. You can repurpose a headline that’s worked particularly well for you in blog content or a special report, for example.

3. Avoid jargon

When writing killer press releases remember to minimize technical or industry jargon. Although relevant for certain professionals or groups, jargon may confuse your audience and turn them off to your message.


To engage new readers who may not be as skilled in industry language, write for a broader audience and increase the likelihood the content is shared. Keep it simple, and don’t be afraid to offer explanatory resources if some industry or brand-specific names or words are needed.



4. Provide resources

We don’t live in a one-dimensional world, and your press release shouldn’t look one-dimensional either. Provide added value to your killer press release by including photos, videos, links to source material and any other in-depth resources, giving your readers the assets they need to fully report the news you’re providing them.

A complete “package” of supporting resources makes your story that much more appealing to a reporter looking for something great to cover.

Remember, we live in a digital world, so be sure these resources are web-ready and in the correct formats for web publication. The easiest way to do this is to use accessible cloud-based services like YouTube, Flickr and others that allow visitors to download content. 

The easier you make it for a reporter or editor to publish your story, the more likely they are to pick up on your message.



5. Proofread

Errors in grammar and spelling can kill your credibility and take away from your overall message.

Write your release in word processing document instead of a text file or online submission form. When you’ve got it drafted, print it out and proofread your writing. Correct and rewrite, then proofread again.

Investing additional time before submission is what separates a professional press release from a clumsy, amateurish effort.

6. Share your news

A good news release distribution service will syndicate your news on relevant publisher sites, and it will also attract readers through search (be sure to be strategic about keywords, as with any other kind of content marketing).

And if you’ve done the legwork to build relationships with influencers in your space, don’t shy from sharing your news release by emailing a link or posting a link to your social media outposts.

Keep your audience in mind when creating your message and stick to these 6 tips to help craft your press release. When you put the thought and time into creating a truly killer press release, you’ll find it can drive traffic to your business and help promote your message.

About the Author: Jiyan Wei is the director of Product Management for PRWeb and a frequent speaker at marketing, PR and SEO events including MarketingProfs, NewComm Forum, SMX and PubCon. For more resources to help you craft a killer press release, read Jiyan’s posts and more on the PRWeb blog.

StudioPress Designs take WordPress further


{ Comments on this entry are closed }

What’s Your Story?

by Johnny B. Truant on November 16, 2010

image of storyselling

Back in early 2009, Naomi Dunford of Ittybiz announced that she’d taken on a guinea pig. And, because it was Naomi’s guinea pig, it had a fair amount of attitude and tended to swear a lot.

This guinea pig explained its presence in the IttyBiz big picture by telling a story about what online marketing looked like from the average customer’s perspective:

For those of you who haven’t checked it out, IttyBiz’s “Online Business School” course teaches you how to make money online. Let me repeat that phrase, and then we can all go take a shower: “Make money online.” Ugh. The phrase stinks like a Teletubbies reunion. Why? Because nobody thinks that a real person can do it. Not really. They think it’s a scam. Or, they think that gurus can do it, maybe, but not real people…

So I says to Naomi, I says, “Why don’t I use your stuff and your advice to make money online. Publicly. And show everyone that an average guy who’s never done this before can actually do it. And you can coach me through it. Make course-corrections. Turn me into a millionaire. And together, we can make this whole ‘make money online’ thing a reality for everyone”…

Interesting hook, right? Unknown guy who’s never made a cent online before uses blogger/marketer’s product to see if he can make a career out of nothing. It’s the ultimate case study because everyone gets to see that it wasn’t a handpicked, standout success highlighted only after it worked.

And of course, let’s not forget the very real possibility that it may not work — suspense on top of hope!

For anyone who doesn’t know the story above, I was that guinea pig. What I think of as “The Johnny Experiment” on IttyBiz did, in fact, work rather nicely.

In the intervening year and a half, I’ve given some serious thought to why exactly it worked. I decided that while there were a lot of reasons, the magic ingredient was giving people a great story to follow.

What I learned as a guinea pig

Let’s acknowledge and set aside the mechanical, nose-to-the-grindstone factors that went into building my business. I had to work hard, and I had to have skills people wanted (at the time, setting up blogs and websites), and I had to make and then keep my commitments. All very important, but similarly all very known. Is anyone surprised that you need to work hard to build a business, or that you need to know what you’re doing?

But here’s another rhetorical question: Is anyone out there doing all of the above stuff correctly and still getting nowhere? Any talented, hard-working, professional fledgling businesspeople out there who can’t seem to get anything going?

Knowing the skills isn’t enough. If I learned anything outside of the OBS course material and Naomi’s colorful tutelage, it was that in order to succeed in this space, you need for people to like you and to be interested in you. It sounds trivial, but it is absolutely essential.

You don’t just want customers. You want customers who are fans first and foremost. You want a small army of people who love you, who will stick with you and want to know what’s going on with you and tell their friends about you.

The way you do that is through story.

Why your story matters

A lot of details had to fall into place in order for me to turn the story of the average-guy-turned-experiment into an actual business, but the story itself was the hook that made any of it possible. I was a regular guy. The people who read my IttyBiz posts were regular people. Logic said that if I was successful, then they could be too.

But the story thing goes further. It had to. I started my fledgling business by giving things away (first a free report and then free blog setups), but none of that mattered without engaged people to take advantage of that free stuff. I had to keep people coming back, and back, and back.

I wanted to be like a good TV show or a good book. I needed my story to be interesting enough that people wanted to keep following it.

I could beat this to death, but here are a few elements of my story that kept readers tuning back in. Check out how they mirror fiction:

  • I laid out an upcoming journey that was intriguing — not all that different in concept from a long walk to Mordor to destroy a magic ring.
  • I became an underdog — a little fish in a big pond that people wanted to root for.
  • Thanks in part to my public discussion of some really bad financial mojo caused by failing real estate investments, I had established an interesting backstory that readers could see shaped my ethics, morals, and motivation.

Get the idea? Your business needs fans, and even though you’re in the world of nonfiction, you get those fans the way any great serial work of fiction gains fans — by crafting an interesting character and spinning a compelling yarn.

How to craft your story

What I’ve done in creating the story of Johnny B. Truant (which is totally true, but shaped by fictional influences) wasn’t really strategic. I fell into it because I’ve always written short stories and even a “closet novel,” and I’ve read innumerable books written by other talented folks.

But once I realized that stories work and why they worked, I started coaching people in the telling of their own stories. And I’m not alone.

Take the Reinvention Summit. When Michael Margolis asked me to participate in his virtual summit on storytelling (which is going on right now), I thought it sounded interesting. He told me about all of the great people — like 25 of them — that he’d gathered to discuss the importance and the future of narrative and story.

Very cool, but there are dozens of various summit-style products in our sphere every year. I didn’t figure it’d be making any waves or anything, especially given that translating “storytelling” to “business and moneymaking” isn’t easy for some to get.

But I was wrong. I’ve been following this thing and WOW is it a packed and amazing production. Check out the lineup (and check out the price while you’re over there … it’s kind of ridiculously low.)

Every one of the speakers is talking about the use of story in the way I talk about it. Copyblogger has been talking stories as marketing vehicles for a long time, so I should mention now that Copyblogger is a proud media and marketing partner for Reinvention Summit, and, like I said, I’m a presenter.

Why is a conference on story called the “Reinvention” Summit anyway?

  • Because the changes in the world are forcing people to reinvent the stories they tell about themselves or perish.
  • Because the internet is changing as we all reinvent this space.
  • Because careers and lives and styles are being reinvented every day … or they fall apart, as the old paradigms weaken.

My IttyBiz story was also a story of reinvention. I was a real estate investor who was circling the drain, and I had to rethink my entire existence and adjust to avoid being sucked down.

Story is important. Reinvention is important. If you’re stuck, it may be time to reinvent yourself, and tell a better story.

Luckily, you can still join the Reinvention Summit. It’s a huge event, and runs until the 22nd, but you get all of the sessions that have already been conducted (including mine) as recordings.

As for the live events, I’ve never seen something quite so interactive and organized. Chat live, follow and meet and interact on social media, bonus materials and webinars, you name it. A lot of events borrow the name “Summit,” but this actually feels like you’ve attended a live event and are going to individual sessions.

Make the time to craft and start telling your story. It’s important.

About the Author: Johnny B. Truant took his business from nothing to six figures in a year thanks mainly to storytelling as marketing. He’s one of 25+ speakers at the Reinvention Summit, running right now. He also plays the musical blender with his bandmate, Marty the Rabbit Boy.

Genesis takes WordPress further


{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Landing Page Makeover Clinic #29: InShapeAtTheOffice.com

by Roberta Rosenberg on September 10, 2010

Landing Page Makeover

This is another addition to our ongoing series of tutorials and case studies on landing pages that work.

Baolin Liu wants to help fellow office workers stay strong and fit, both in and out of the office. He’s developed an exercise program designed to assist even the most sedentary office worker … or micropreneur who puts in too much tush-time in her comfy, almost-ergonomic desk lounge.

But I digress …

Baolin is using article marketing to drive prospects to his page. But his bounce rate is nearly 91%. And sales? Well, they’re not happening.

  • The Goal : Reduce bounce rate, increase sales.
  • The Problem: Very high bounce rates; non-existent conversion from the 9% who do stick around a little longer.
  • The Current Landing Page (homepage): http://www.inshapeattheoffice.com.
  • Value: $17.00

image of landing pageClick image for larger view

The Maven’s 10-Point Critique

#1 — Be clear about the product you’re selling.

I think I know what you’re selling, but even after reading your long-form sales letter, I’m still not sure on the specifics. That’s why your bounce rate is high. Your visitors aren’t clear about what you’re selling because you’re trying to sell/promote too much, when what you need to do is paint a clearer picture of what you have to offer.

Here’s what I mean: if your URL is “inshapeatheoffice,” it’s reasonable to think you’re offering an inexpensive, easy exercise and nutrition program that office workers can do while they’re at the office. That’s your hook.

But your copy — and my guess is your product — tries to grow the topic “beyond the cubicle.” And when you do, you’re in competition with EVERYONE in the fitness space.

#2 — Be clear about your prospect’s “pain point” in the headline.

Here’s your current headline:

Time for a reality check …

Are your 2010 weight loss goals on track? Can you EVER return to your “fighting” weight doing the things you are doing now … sitting for long hours at a desk? How many of your fitness goals have you actually reached working your desk job?

If any of those questions challenge you, GREAT! You have landed on the right page.

Yikes. Maybe I don’t have any weight loss or fitness goals, or feel driven to return to my fighting weight.

It’s not that I don’t care about these things, because I do. But …

At the other side of that “but” for your prospect is his pain point:

… But with long hours at a desk job it’s hard for me to find the time outside of the office to work out. It’s hard enough to even eat right. I’m too busy!

Once you understand your prospect’s pain point, the rest of your copy begins to flow in the right direction.

#3 — Be clear about your product’s big promise in your headline.

Having identified the pain point: “I care about my health and appearance, but spend too many hours at my desk to eat right and get enough exercise” — now we have to identify and promote the product’s big promise.

Again, your current copy doesn’t address the promise at all. Your prospects don’t care about challenging questions. They want relief from their pain point, and they want it in a big, palpable and dramatic way.

Here’s your big promise:

You CAN get stronger, leaner and healthier right at your desk during regular working hours — in just XX minutes a day — and your boss and co-workers will never know! All they’ll see is how good you look and wonder about your secret.

#4 — Identify your primary target right off the bat.

And that means your salutation.

“Dear Fitness Enthusiast” is all wrong since someone who IS an enthusiast makes time for exercise.

However, “Dear I Wish I Could Be Leaner, but Who Has the Freaking Time to Exercise” hits the mark square.

Feel free to edit. :)

image of landing pageClick image for larger view

#5 – Tell your story in a way that is genuine and builds identification. Consider video to tell a portion of it.

Here’s an excerpt from your story:

After several years of working at the office, I noticed that I began to lack muscle tone. I was steadily gaining weight and I had lost the attractive youthful appearance that I had entered the workforce with.

Does this sound like a real person? “I began to lack muscle tone?”

Compare to:

I was getting soft in the middle … I was beginning to loosen my belt a notch here, another notch there. Pants I had just bought were feeling tight — and not in a good way. Not at all.

Here’s another example: “I had lost the attractive youthful appearance that I had entered the workforce with.”

Compare to:

I wasn’t looking like myself anymore . I would look in the mirror and wonder whose pudgy, bloated face was looking back at me … Someone guessed my age today — and they guessed 10 years older than I am!

Your copy has to sound genuine, like two friends meeting and chatting over coffee — especially if you’re using a personal story to sell your message. Video could be very effective for you as an adjunct to your main letter copy.

#6 — Show your story with before and after pictures.

In the weight loss/fitness space, you’ve GOT to show before/after pictures — and lots of them — because they, even more than the copy, show the results that people are most interested in.

And since you’re selling your plan with your personal story, your before/after shots are the most important, so get them in there and in the first screen.

#7 — Tell enough of your story to inspire your prospects and get them to identify with you … then stop.

Your personal story goes on and on. Baolin, your reader doesn’t care about your story except how it ultimately relates to him or her.

So tell enough of it — and show enough of it with pictures — and then write to the interests/needs/wishes/desires of your reader as they relate to your product.

Write in the ‘you’ and not the ‘I/me.’

#8 – Strengthen your subheads by having them tell their own story and keep the momentum going.

Subheads are mini-headlines that help orient and pull your readers along as they scan through your message.

Ideally, if your reader reads only your headline and your subheads, he/she should be able to get enough of the general story to understand what you’re selling and resonate with the emotions you’re hoping to elicit.

#9 — Punch up and quantify the features of your product.

After wading through your letter, I realized that there’s simply not enough about what your prospect will get, learn, discover, and benefit from.

Go through your e-book and make lists. Count the number of tips per exercise, etc. Organize them and get them into your letter.

If you have charts and illustrations, I’d include them, too. You’re looking to create a tidal wave of emotionally resonant “stuff” that’s so compelling that your prospect won’t be able to resist it.

image of landing pageClick image for larger view

#10 — Bolster your satisfaction guarantee.

You can’t just throw a graphic on your letter and call it done. You’ve gotta say it, too.

Stand behind your product with a strong, explicit guarantee and you’ve just removed a key obstacle to your fence-sitting prospect who’s ready to purchase, but paralyzed by, “What if I don’t like it?”

Make your guarantee as strong as possible. Few will call you on it.

BONUS TIP: Add credibility to your copy.

Personal stories are a great jumping off point, but then you need to take it to the next level and build credibility and authority, as well — for your content as well as for you.

So try to incorporate outside medical/science evidence for your product claims. To bolster your own credibility, share testimonials from not only e-book readers, but fitness trainers, nutritionists, etc.

My thanks to Baolin Liu for his patience and support of Heifer International. Look for my next makeover in about 4 weeks.

About the Author: Roberta Rosenberg is The Copywriting Maven at MGP Direct, Inc. Find her @CopywriterMaven on Twitter. If you’re interested in a private page makeover, site audit, or other services, please email Roberta directly.

P.S.

If you want more specific advice about what works and what doesn’t in online marketing, be sure you’re getting the Internet Marketing for Smart People newsletter from Copyblogger. It’s free, and kicks off with a 20-part course on the essentials of marketing in the online world.

Scribe for SEO Copywriting


{ Comments on this entry are closed }

17 Easy Steps to Brilliant Blog Posts

by Jill Chivers on May 3, 2010

image of child's blocks forming stair steps

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 we know we’re standing on the shoulders of giants when we follow their advice.

And all that’s good. Don’t get me wrong.

But when I first started blogging about six months ago, I struggled to find a succinct summary all in one place. I spent a full day online giving myself an MBA -– Masters in Blogging (Advanced). I subscribed to this, downloaded that, printed out something else, read everything I could without my eyes becoming permanently crossed.

Because I couldn’t find what I needed — a straightforward checklist-style guideline to getting started as a newbie — I put my own together.

Does a newbie have anything to teach you?

I know what you’re thinking:

What does this Jill person know about brilliant blog posts? She’s just getting started herself.

I’ll readily confess my own lack of experience. My knowledge is growing (subscribing to copyblogger is helping), but my confidence still lags behind what I’m learning.

Does this sound familiar to anyone? I reckon there might be a few others who are in this same boat. And it’s to these newbies (and maybe some more experienced bloggers who are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of info about How To Blog So your Bank Balance Explodes) that I write today.

I broke it down into 17 (relatively) easy steps, so you can find everything in one place. Use this post checklist-style, to start writing the kind of content that attracts links and readers:

Four factors to remember before you start to write

  1. Write a draft headline. You’ll come back to it at the end, and it may very well change and evolve. But a basic proposition and a compelling hook will help guide your content.
  2. Make sure you have one idea per post. My first draft post had about 47 ideas in it. This turned out to be a good thing. Once I got it through my camera battery-sized brain that my post was too complex, I then had 47 possible posts, which should keep me going for about six months. But I did have to trim that first post (and every subsequent one) down to One Idea. When in doubt, leave it out.
  3. Make sure you know your purpose. What are you trying to accomplish with this post? Are you hoping to sell a product? Get referrals? Attract links? Be bookmarked on Delicious? Get lots of attention on Twitter and Facebook? Disclose some irrelevant personal information to a bevy of strangers? (The first five are recommended, the last one should be undertaken with extreme caution.)
  4. Who are you writing to? Come up with an ideal reader, with a full set of personality characteristics. This is a person who loves what you do, buys everything you sell, and tells everyone they ever meet about you and your site. Write to that person, whether fictional or real. My ideal reader is Carolyn, who happens to be a real person who lives in Boston. When I write, I imagine it’s a (semi) personal note from me to Carolyn.

I’ll give you an example for that last point. After the enormous success of her memoir eat pray love, Elizabeth Gilbert was harassed and harangued to write another best seller that millions of readers around the world would want to read. (And as a platform for a movie that Julia Roberts would want to star in.)

No pressure there.

Gilbert says that she tried for months to write that book, and failed. She threw her first attempt at Committed away because she was trying to write to the millions and it just wasn’t working.

She ended up writing the book for a small circle of women who know, love, and support her. The millions who ended up buying and reading the published book came later.

So, to sum it up: come up with a solid headline, for a post based on one idea, with a clear purpose, and for a single ideal reader. Now you’re ready to start writing this sucker!

Eight idea sparks for more compelling content

Here are some tried-and-true techniques that can help you write stronger posts. Try igniting one or more of these idea sparks when your fingers are on the keyboard but your brain is drawing a blank.

  1. Make it eye-friendly. If you use them wisely, a nice bunch of fascinating bullets is a great way to break up your copy and make it easy to read.
  2. Embrace the list post. Building a post around a numbered list is still one of the strongest ways you can organize content. If you’re skeptical, take a look at those “popular posts” to the right. See a few numbers in those headlines?
  3. Examples and stories. What has your own journey been? What light bulb moments have you had? Where do the themes you write about show up in the everyday? (Seth Godin is the master of this; study how he does it.) And how does this relate to what you do and to the products/services you are selling?
  4. What are you reading and watching? Articles, news stories, research papers –- all good stuff to refer to and comment on, drawing a connection back to what you do.
  5. NEWS FLASH! Is something in your world new? Have a project launch in the works? What about a speaking gig or workshop you are running? Perhaps someone well-known in your field is coming to town? You can use your own news flashes or “borrow” other people’s, they both work.
  6. Interviews. Who’s fascinating to your readers and willing to give you some time? Ask them some good questions, write their responses down, then wrap it all up with a jazzy conclusion.
  7. Challenges and bugbears. What’s bothering you or your (potential) customers? Offer input to help them with their real or imagined problems, or talk about how you overcame something on the dark side.
  8. Who do you admire? Pick a famous person and write about the link between something about them (their work, their interests, their charity appearances, their drug rehab story of pain) and how it relates to your own work.

Five last things to check before you post

You’re nearly done! You’ve created some killer content (well, it just about killed you, anyway), so now it’s time to wrap up.

Let’s finish off with some style! Five quick things to remember here:

  1. Hyperlinks. Linking out is an important part of developing relationships with other bloggers, and it’s also helpful for SEO. Try to include a hyperlink about every 120 – 200 words.
  2. Make your last paragraph sing. Give us a call to action (tell us what to do), make us an offer we can’t refuse (and put a ticking clock on it), or reach a surprising conclusion.
  3. Come full circle back to your title. Does it need any tweaking to reflect your content (your one idea, your clear purpose, and to speak to your ideal reader)? Is it compelling? Is it something your readers will want to bookmark, link to, and share?
  4. Do a final check for structure. How does the post look on the page? Have you broken all that text up so it’s easy for us to read?
  5. Say something about yourself. You know, it could start with “About the Author:”

How about you — what’s on your own personal “checklist” for creating brilliant posts? Let us know in the comments.

Want more easy steps to online marketing success? You’re in luck — Copyblogger has a free online newsletter to help you with that. Click here to find out more about it.

About the Author: Jill Chivers is a quick study. Since starting her blogging career six months ago, she has made many fine mistakes. She intends to use this terrific checklist to improve her own blog posts. From her home base of the Sunshine Coast, Australia, Jill presides over her new online business, which helps her customers resolve tricky problems of all kinds.

Scribe for SEO Copywriting


{ Comments on this entry are closed }

How Your DIY Attitude Is Keeping You Poor

by Johnny B. Truant on December 17, 2009

image of hammer and nail

The way people talk, you’d think there are like four customers in the world. Maaaaybe five if you look around really hard — but that’s about it.

So whatever you do, if you’re lucky enough to have one of those customers, you’d better not do anything that minimizes the income you receive from them.

You’d certainly better not share them. You’d better cut your expenses to the bone on the back end, and hey . . . if you know that a competitor is courting one of the other three or four customers? Well, then you’d better get over there and work on stealing them away.

Right now, you’re rolling your eyes at this dumb picture I’m painting. But just for fun — just to see if I’m totally off base — ask yourself the following:

  • Are you willing to partner with someone if it means that you’ll make less profit per customer, but have access to more customers?
  • Are you willing to pay handsomely for referrals — 50% or more in some cases?
  • Would you be willing to share your business with a competitor who does the same basic thing as you do?

If the answer to any of the above is no, then you’re suffering from a scarcity mindset.

You don’t really believe there are a lot of fish in the sea. You believe there are only a few fish. Or, maybe there are more fish way out deep, but in order to get to them, you’ll need to charter a boat, which means trusting some skeevy boat captain. And what happens when you get into a boat with someone who you can’t trust? You get whacked while baiting your hook, like Fredo in The Godfather.

I’m going to suggest getting over that perception.

There are a LOT of fish in the sea. And the sooner you learn to work with other people to help you get them, the faster you’re going to get ahead.

Anatomy of a successful partnership

One of the things I do in my business is set up WordPress blogs for clients. Just a few months ago, I met Genuine Chris Johnson of Flat Rate Web Jobs. Now, Chris does something interesting in his business. He sets up WordPress blogs for clients.

So what did Chris and I do with this apparent conflict of interests? We teamed up, of course.

See, if you do business in the way I tell readers and consulting clients alike, you’ll soon realize that there are “your people” and there are “not your people.” And once you figure that out, you’ll see that most of your seeming competitors really aren’t competitors after all. Even if your services are the same, your people probably are not.

Yes, Chris and I both set up blogs, but our audiences are very different. Chris’s customers come mainly from the offline world and are learning the power of blogging for the first time. My customers usually already understand the internet and the blogosphere.

The way he finds and contacts clients (often including a phone call) is very different than the way I do (social networking and blogging, never using the phone). The questions and pain points that he addresses for clients (”What’s a blog, and how will it help my business?”) are different than the ones I address (”How quickly can I get my blog off of Blogger?”). His packages include a ton of training material. My customers don’t usually need much training, at least in the basics. Accordingly, our prices are fairly disparate.

Lastly, our personal strengths are different, and complementary. Chris is very good at sales and would rather that someone else handle customer service and implementation. Conversely, I don’t want to sell. I’d rather implement and do customer service.

We could pretty easily have decided that we were competitors. Chris could have kept selling his packages, and been bogged down each time with building sites, answering emails, and so on. I could have stuck solely with “my people,” and worked to sell each job I did.

But instead, the partnership has allowed each of us to make thousands of extra dollars a month.

Now, that’s a dramatic example (side note: it gets more dramatic when you realize that Chris dated my wife before I met her, a fact that caught both of us by surprise), but there are a few ways that you can increase your business through strategic partnerships that don’t necessitate seeking out apparent competitors.

Here are a few ways to start small:

1. Get a team

Or at least get an assistant. You can only do so much as one person, and insisting on holding all of the reins yourself ensures that not only will your business not grow past a certain point, but also that you’ll be stressed out and unable to take time off.

2. Start paying for referrals

A lot of people are reluctant to pay for referrals (or to start an affiliate program) because it means shrinking your profit margin.

That’s short-sighted thinking. If you offer commissions to people who send you business, those people send you more down the road.

Remember, a referral is business you would otherwise not have gotten. So be cool and kick a thank-you to the person who sent it your way. For services and tangible products, 10-20% is a good commission rate. For digital products, it should be 50% — or even more.

3. Bundle your products with other people’s products

If you sell your Widget Buster Extraordinaire for $50 and another person sells Widget Smashing Secrets for $50, consider making a deal to sell both products together for $80 and split the profits.

Yes, you’ll make $10 less each time you sell a Widget Buster. But the new Buster + Secrets offer is so much more attractive to customers that you’re almost certain to sell enough more to make up for it.

Don’t be short-sighted. Assuming your margins still support it, 50 sales at $40 is better than 25 sales at $50.

Getting beyond doing it yourself

There’s a certain romance in “going it alone,” especially for bloggers. But taking the DIY (do-it-yourself) mindset too literally just ensures that your business will never be able to grow beyond the capabilities of one person.

Trust me, other people are cool. Partnering with them is fun. And doing so is absolutely the way to accelerate your progress. So have a little faith and try it already.

About the Author: Johnny B. Truant is a website builder and consultant extraordinaire who wants everyone to know that he’s raising his rates on January 1st — so if you’d like to work with him, now’s the time. (Contact him now and he’ll even build you a free blog.) You can also follow him on Twitter, where he’s moderately amusing.

Thesis Theme for WordPress



{ Comments on this entry are closed }