Successful Blog

In Search of the Elusive Non-blogging Customer

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Last week, in a conversation called Traffic, Readers, and Colleagues — Are They Customers? I asked how you might help a new blogging business connect to customers in the offline world. A comment by SpaceAgeSage was so packed with ideas, that I asked if she might package them up, elaborate a bit, and offer them to you in the form of a guest post. I’m delighted to share this with you.

In Search of the Elusive Non-blogging Customer
by SpaceAgeSage

Liz is on a quest to bring blogging enlightenment to non-bloggers who are a vast and mainly untapped population of potential readers and customers. She recently asked in a post, “How would you help a new blogging business connect to customers in the offline world?” With a small and humble background in the brick-and-mortar world of public relations and journalism, I offer the following ideas:

Contact local organizations in your niche
Talk face-to-face with local groups and organizations associated with your niche and ask politely for a blurb in their online or hard copy newsletter. Offer to be a guest speaker for one of their meetings if applicable. One time, as a martial artist teaching self defense classes, I went to the biggest real estate organization in my area and asked them to send out my flyer in their monthly packet to members.

You can find contact information by looking for the meetings section in the newspaper, finding a national website for an organization and then asking for local contacts, talking to your local librarians (they know a lot), and calling up buildings or facilities where such groups might rent space for meetings.

I come from small town, America, but one of the most productive resources I have used is the “Welcome Wagon” lady. She takes packets of information, flyers, and coupons to every new home buyer or new rental she can find. If no one is home, she hangs the plastic bag full of promotional materials on the door.

Look beside you
As Liz says, “Look to the customers standing right beside you.” Family, friends, bowling buddies, classmates, colleagues at work, and members of organization you belong to, including your local church, could be a rich source of customers or people who can network you to customers.

When you do this, realize that not everyone understands blogging. I just recently spent a weekend changing one friend’s mind who avoided any internet connections because she had relatives endangered by some online activities. Remember, you get to be an ambassador for the blogging world and a business person!

Find non-blogging experts to interview
Write or email top non-blogging experts (authors, professors, business leaders) in your niche area and politely ask to interview them. They will tell everyone where to find the interview.

As a journalist, I was told never to let anyone read my story before it went into the newspaper. Trust me, though, any potential interviewee would love to be able to edit your work before your post goes live. You may want to offer this to the expert to make them more likely to give you the interview. Also, when querying them, let them know what you want to ask them, who will be reading your blog, and how the interview will be conducted (live, phone, or answers returned via email). After you post, send them the link so they can forward it easily to others, and please remember to thank them! They may be able to steer other interviews your way (or my way!)

Utilize press coverage
Write a press release to get coverage in your local paper. Focus your press release on either your blog or blogging. If you write about blogging in general, just make sure to use your site as a highly profiled example. Tell your local press that blogging is a “lifestyle,” and they will perk up their ears.

Online sites exist with free information on how to write a press release, but just remember the “who, what, when, where, why and how.” Also here are three tips:

  • Sending a press release may get noticed, but not as much as having a face-to-face with a reporter or editor
  • Journalists like to eat and may listen better over a meal that you offer to buy
  • During slow news days, reporters fight for news – that’s when you want to talk to them, not when a tornado has leveled a subdivision.

Online forums
Find online Web forums, message boards, discussion boards, discussion groups, bulletin board, etc., in your niche subject outside the blog world and jump in. Be nice, be real, and give as much as you can when promoting yourself. You can find forums often attached to magazines, to newspapers, to activities, to organizations, and to web sites of companies that complement your niche and product.

Become a “YouTuber”
Make a YouTube video about yourself, your blog, or your product. Make it fun, funny, or interesting. I know of a company that sells equipment for autopsying lab rats for scientific study, and even it has “how-to videos.” (No, I did not watch them.) Just one video that “goes viral” can rocket anyone into stardom for a day or month. Be ready to utilize any generated traffic in ways that maintain these new readers to your blog.

Team up with complementary non-blogging businesses
Let’s say your blog is about astronomy, and your product helps people find or see the stars during different seasons. The RV online and offline community is huge. You might be able to team up with them in a mutually beneficial way. Think outside the box. Maybe schools, or home schooling groups, or the local hiking club would find your product interesting, too. It never hurts to ask politely. As my husband says, until you ask, the answer is always, “No.”
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Best wishes with your quest to find the non-blogging reader and customer!
—SpaceAgeSage

Thanks, Sage! You’ve got me busy with an entire list of things we can do.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Revising Your LinkedIn Profile: Who's Looking at YOU?

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I’m on a quest to approach social networking and reputation management in a saner, more organized way. Now I’m checking and revising what I’ve already got out there.

Your LinkedIn Profile: Who’s Looking at YOU?

LinkedIn is an important bridge between the online and offline business communities. Both groups use this tool to connect and share their professional expertise. This cross-cultural nature makes LinkedIn more than a social media resume file and management tool. Because of it’s far-reaching membership, LinkedIn can serve as a research tool that shows whether our professional profile is working for us.

Have you noticed the box on your LinkedIn home page called Profile Views? You’ll find it in the right column under the flash ad — I’ve circled it in the screenshot below. (UPDATE: THIS APPEARS ONLY ON PROFESSIONAL ACCOUNTS.)

LinkedIn Profile Views

Profile Views is a statement of and a link to who’s been looking at your profile or looking for someone like you. If you click the link, you’ll see something that looks like this.

LinkedIn Who’s Been Looking

This list is compiled based on the visibility settings of the people who came to look. The options are three and offered this way:

What will be shown to other LinkedIn users when you view their profiles?

  • Show my name and headline
  • Only show my anonymous profile characteristics, such as industry and title
  • Don’t show users that I’ve viewed their profile

[To check or change your settings use the “Change your settings” link below the box.]

Click through on one of those links, and you’ll see the folks in your network who fit the same description as the person who stopped by to check your profile. NOTE: The person who actually came may not be in this list.

Looking Back and Saying Hello

At first it seemed silly to look at list of people who hadn’t looked at me. Then I realized this list was representative of someone who had been a visitor. I got curious about who they were. Now I look back regularly and sometimes I reach out to meet them as well.

  • I check the list of “who’s been looking” for a possible match in our goals or a connection to people close to me. For example, right now I’m working on a training program called “Models and Masterminds.” So, “Someone in the Executive Leadership function in the Internet industry from Savannah, Georgia Area” might have similar goals to my own. I also might find a connection to my colleague Chris Cree.
  • I click through on the match I find and concentrate on the Level 2 connections. I read down the list for many things.
    • The words that people use to name their jobs
    • The companies they work for currently
    • The companies they’ve worked for in the past
    • Their current location
    • The number of recommendations and connections they have

    I only click through on those that look like a possible fit.

  • When I click through on a possible fit, I read that person’s profile and see who connects me to him or her.
  • If there really is a place where our goals could meet, I write a brief (6-8 sentence email) that explains what I’d like to learn and invites a conversation. I use that to ask a friend to introduce us or send a direct in-mail message on my own. The key is to be specific and guarantee a limited need for commitment on the receiver’s end.

I had a wonderful conversation yesterday with someone I met in this fashion. I expect that we’ll be doing business soon.

On the other hand, I sometimes look to find that something in my profile has attracted a list of folks with whom I might never have the right skill set to form a partnership. If people from the same group keep showing up, I look to my profile for the words that need editing.

Do you pay attention to the folks who are viewing your profile? The more you know about who finds you, the more easily you can adjust your profile to bring the partners who are right for you.

UPDATE: I WAS UNAWARE THAT THIS FEATURE WHICH CAME WITH THE NEW DESIGN IS ONLY ON PROFESSIONAL ACCOUNTS.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
Check out Models and Masterminds too

Seth's Book and Reaching the Reachable

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Reaching You

The Living Web

During my trip to the UK, I was rereading “Meatball Sundae,” Seth’s book about the New Marketing. Certain pages have become thoughts that I like to share with folks who are new to the blogosphere. Seth’s book is one that folks helps bridge the gap to the blogosphere through a lens they understand.

Of course, I was rereading Seth’s book for me too. I find every time I revisit a favorite book with a new problem on my mind, something I hadn’t seen before shows itself to me there. Once again, that proved true. . . .

My thoughts were on how easy it is to have ideas and build products without knowing how to reach the customers those products will serve. My instinct kept pointing to the folks who sit right at our doors.

Do we overlook the customers we already know? Or do we surround ourselves with people doing the same things that we do?

My memory kept returning to Dave Bullock’s declaration at SOBCon08, “You have the community and the relationships . . . I want what you have.”

While reading, I stopped at a passage from Seth’s book (also on his blog)that shone brightly like it was brand new.

. . . start making products, services and stories that appeal to the reachable. Then do your best to build that group ever larger. Not by yelling at them, but by serving them.

Dave and Seth were saying the same thing. Recognize what you already have. Reach out to the folks you know. Make products and services for them.

In response to that idea, I started Models and Masterminds, and it’s getting a fine response. (woo!hoo!)

Glen Stansberry and Leo Babauta have launched an ebook publishing house for the folks they know best.

Reaching the reachable also means keeping fresh and keeping up with them . . .

Roger von Oech has published this generation’s

A Whack on the Side of the Head!

What new offer have you made to the reachable customers you already know? Go ahead. Promote it here.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
Check out Models and Masterminds too

Traffic, Readers, Colleagues — Are They Customers?

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Reaching Customers in the Offline World

The Living Web

As I put together the SOBCon materials for Models and Masterminds course, I’m thinking about the folks we call visitors and whether they’re really customers.

When I first started my writing blog, I had one reader, a friend who likes to read. Then I joined a “click traffic group” and as long as I clicked other blogs I got a related number of pageviews. Those clickers became the first visitors to my blog. I’m fairly sure few actually read anything.

At day 21, a comment appeared. Shortly after that a few folks started coming back. I had regular readers. Then I had 10 subscribers. I even knew who some of them were. When page views reached 1000/day and comments were plenty and regular, I put up some ads. I thought I’d make some holiday money.

I was confused.

I hadn’t really been looking at who was visiting my blog.

Traffic, Readers, Colleagues — Are They Customers?

When you look at the people who visit your blog, what do they do and how long do they stay?

  • Traffic – If they come in swarms following a link or bookmark and leave in a few seconds flat, it’s traffic. If someone stumbles a page and thousands come only to go away, isn’t that the same as people visiting a store because they were downtown to watch a parade? Traffic is noise unless convert it to readers or customers.
  • Readers – If each visitor reads 1.5 pages or more, you’re building a community of readers. If an audience is your goal, you’ll well on your way. If selling is what you’re about, you’ll need to convert readers into customers. Readers ignore ad that sit in the sidebar. To sell to readers, talk about what they want. Be helpful in solving their problems with products and services that naturally draw from the content you discuss.
  • Colleagues – Being helpful and solving problems can convert readers into customers. But look closely at your audience. Are they potential customers? If you run a “trade” blog — one that discusses the ideas, trends, and people in your industry — your discussions might be with an audience of colleagues not potential customers. Colleagues are unlikely to buy your products and services, at least not long enough for your business to thrive.

We can build a thriving blog that knocks everyone’s socks off, but it can be an investment of love and time that has no customers.

In a world where mostly bloggers read blogs, it’s a good habit to watch our audience. Unless we’re selling specifically to bloggers, our businesses will grow faster if we connect to customers outside the blogosphere.

How would you help a new blogging business connect to customers in the offline world?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
Models and Masterminds begins with offline connections to customers.

Is It Time You Rewrote Your Blogging Goal?

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My Blogging Goal Updated May 27, 2008

The Living Web

It was a turning point for this blog when I took up Darren’s Challenge and wrote my blogging goal. Friom that day forward, every decision I made was easier, faster, and more purposeful. I knew the direction I wanted to go.

People who succeed are directed and “in with both feet.”

We built an online community on conversation. But we’re having most of that conversation with each other . . . and the occasional random folk who join us along the way.

Now it’s time to open up the conversation to the offline world — to reach out and invite them to join in.

Business online is affecting offline business models. At the same time, we’re at risk of ignoring business wisdom collected up to now.

Online and offline businesses have so much to offer each other, yet we don’t compare notes nearly often enough.

As Terry and I build out SOBCon to a yearly conference and a Models and Masterminds business, my blogging goal has grown. I work with businesses, universities, and entrepreneurs who are welcoming their online communities into their culture. I work with individuals who are fitting their jobs to their strengths rather than the other way around.

My blogging goal is to connect the online conversation to offline businesses so that we can work together in a profitable way.

What are you doing to connect your online conversation to readers who work offline? Is it time you rewrote your blogging goal?

Drinks and snacks are still available in the sidebar.

Thanks Todd Jordan for the conversation that inspired this post.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
Check out Models and Masterminds too

Great Find in Chicago – Bridge2Growth: UK Market Opportunities

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Mitch Arnowitz emailed me about a meeting being held June 4 in Chicago. Small and medium Businesses can gain a foothold in the UK market with the help of this upcoming seminar. So I offered Mitch this opportunity to extend this invitation.

Bridge 2 Growth: A Quick Start, Low Risk Program for Pursuing UK Market Opportunities by Mitch Arnowitz

Bridge2Growth is a new UK government sponsored program designed to facilitate and complete the UK company start up process for small and medium sized Chicago companies with European expansion plans. The program brings together UK bankers, lawyers and property advisors, giving you access to them for your evaluation, questions and consultation. And it’s free! Join us on June 4th at Intercontinental Hotel. Register now to learn how to grow your business in the UK.

Visit the Website Bridge2Growth, contact info@bridge2growth.com or call 866-625-5136. There is no cost or obligation to attend, but advance registration is required.

You can now check us out on Facebook and Twitter!

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=14645057982

Twitter @Bridge2Growth
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Thanks, Mitch!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!