Archive for the ‘ Branding ’ Category

Get CONNECTED with your audience

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1. Go out of your way.

2. Make things easy for them to talk to you, then engage in discussion.

3. Direct and guide visitors to where they can go to ask a question, like that bright, shiny new email logo to the right :)

4. Sign up for all the social networking sites you can mange to get ahold of. Then add them to ping.fm to reduce the amount of time you spend using them.

5. Find people in your niche and comment, comment and comment (sincerely).

6. Print business cards and hand them out to people at any chance.

7. Write guest posts.

8. Create videos.

9. Start a contest.

10. Give things away and make it easy to share.

11. Offer and take free advice.

12. Be yourself!

13. Have fun!!

Marketing ideas: allowing your product to advertise itself

We have all seen those great word of mouth campaigns that pay off huge for the creator of whatever was being talked about. The latest of these was The Dark Knight starring Christian Bale and Heath Ledger.

Everyone knows the cast was loaded with amazing actors but due to the untimely death of one of them, the film received a tremendous amount of publicity. The turn of events that took place shot the movie to a huge opening that will remain on the top 10 list for a very long time.

Advertising budget spent on a better product

I mention Dyson on here from time to time because I feel it went the route of product innovation vs. mass advertisement. Dyson’s sell themselves. It’s true. People are completely convinced paying a couple hundred dollars more for a Dyson is money well spent, even the people who only vacuum once a month. What is the cost break down per use at that rate I wonder?

Sacha Baron Cohen up to it again

Every time Sacha Baron Cohen starts a new project, we hear about it. He goes on crazy antics that get him thrown out of stadiums, pulls one over on celebrities, gets sued by college kids, you name it. The fact that his name is in the news only enables more and more people to learn about his upcoming projects.

Lines at Apple stores nationwide

We have all seen the news on the day or night before the launch of a new Apple product with lines that wrap around the block. Everyone gets so excited they can hardly wait one extra day to beat the madness or not be one of the first to own their shiny new ______.

Giving your product legs to walk with

The key is the ability to give your product or service legs to walk with. Some great ways to enable word of mouth to spread is to give people something to talk about. Tie your product in with a charity event or organization. Have an impromptu contest around some special occasion whether it’s a holiday or an internal celebration. Perhaps, allow a specialized coupon to leak to others. Remember when Starbucks offered friends and family of employees a free coffee and everyone forwarded the email on to everyone else in the world? I am sure it was all planned. Be creative and have fun, make people smile, think and share their experiences.

How do your promote your blog and what is your goal?

There are a few different schools of thought in regard to blogging. Which do you fall into and why?
Blogging for the sake of blogging

This is where the person has something they are passionate about and just loves sharing that subject with others. People can easily in time become an authority on that subject and generate a huge following.

Blogging for opportunity

This is when a blogger is using his or her blog as a tool for a different means such as name recognition or networking. You might be using your blog as a leveraging device to help you meet your goals either in business, personal or finance.

Blogging for money

There is no shortage of MMO (make money online) blogs and more are created every day. These are the people who want to sell ad space, a product, service or even the blog. Blogging for profit has become a pretty big business and the short cut to that would be to throw money at it and save time, such as buying an existing blog. This also falls under the paid to blog area.

Blogging for branding

This is a way of quality control on information that you or your business release. This is also how to interact with your customers in a direct fashion, giving people the inside scoop on new products or services.

Conclusion

All of these different forms of blogging have different goals in mind. Sure, some of them can overlap and criss-cross each other. But what blog marketing comes down to is knowing why you are doing it and then direct your efforts to achieving that goal.

Personally, I shy away from social sites like Stumbleupon and Digg because that does not help me reach my goal. A flood of traffic will not make me any more money than I am making now and only leads to headaches with my servers. But if you are trying to become an authority on computer games or a bigger make money online blog, then that type of traffic would serve you better.

In the end, it comes to asking the right questions and then mapping out the best route to reach your goal. If your goal is to make $1,000 online, probably one of the slowest ways to do that is to start a blog. Sure it can happen but if you are new to blogging it can take FOREVER. On the flip side of the coin, if you are writing a book as a new author and want to maximize your exposure to potential readers, then starting a blog would be an excellent idea to get that reach out there. I will leave you with this:

Why do you blog? What is your goal for blogging?