Want An Effective Digital Marketing Presence?
Keep It Fresh
Dan Kennedy is one of the foremost marketing experts of our time. His track record includes taking entrepreneurs from, well, entrepreneurial dreams to seven-figure incomes and multi-millionaire wealth. He edits six business newsletters, and influences more than a million business owners every year.
Kim Walsh-Phillips is the CEO of Elite Digital Group, and an award-winning speaker, author, and marketer. She makes her entrepreneur clients wealthy by insisting they focus – like lasers – on results. On the all-important Return On Investment (ROI) of every marketing dollar they spend.
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So if these two highly-regarded experts say you should keep your web presence fresh by establishing and maintaining a great web log (or “blog”)… you probably should.
And in their blockbuster book, the No B.S. Guide To Direct Response Social Media Marketing, they say exactly that.
“A blog?” they ask. “Yup. It’s not optional,” they then answer.
“It is the core foundation of an effective (online) marketing strategy.”
First, Be A Friendly Resource
Does your website hit visitors over the head with sales messages… and pretty-much nothing else?
How’s that working out for you?
Not surprisingly, that’s not what the experts recommend.
“Start with value,” says the No B.S. Guide (emphasis added), “and only then ask for the sale.”
Engage your target audience. Make them followers. Build trust. Nurture them.
“Raise your relevancy by offering great content to identify your target market,” the experts say. “Only once they have been nurtured should you sell.”
In other words, if your site includes an effective blog – regularly-refreshed content your ideal prospects would find unique and useful (to them), your site’s chances of helping you turn strangers into prospects and prospects into customers go up dramatically.
The idea is to create a series of escalating “micro-commitments” for visitors to your website.
Eventually, you want them to buy from you, repeatedly, and tell all their friends and acquaintances how wonderful your business is. Before that, they’ll buy just once. Before that, maybe they’ll take a low-cost (or free) “trial” sample of your product or service.
And before that, all they’ll want is content.
Useful, free, happy-to-have-it content.
Written pieces that inform, involve, intrigue, and inspire them.
Content that influences them.
And that’s why you need to provide a top-notch blog on your site.
But how?
What makes for an effective, powerful blog?
The Experts Suggest These Best Blogging Practices
Kennedy, Walsh-Phillips, and other experts have a few ideas for you.
Your website wants to help you sell your products and services.
But it can’t help you if you try to “set it and forget it,” leaving nothing there but the sales messages you added when you first published the site. You have to keep it fresh. If you unleash the power of your blog, your readers will appreciate it. And they’ll be much more likely to become your customers, too.