Successful Blog

Social Media: Great Marketing Is . . .

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Tuesday Open Comments Night, The Virtual Conference, and The Blog-to Show

The Living Web

This weekend we had an event that some folks have been calling a success and a few have written me to say what a great marketing idea was. Other things I do have been called masterful marketing too. None of them started out as such.

We all know that promoting an event or a blog looks easier than it is to do. Word of Mouth only works when folks want to talk. I learned that the same way everyone does by inventing great marketing ideas that didn’t take off.

I quit trying to market. Here’s what I recommend instead:

  • Get to know people who stick around and who pass on the word when something cool is going on.
  • Find ways to invest more in the folks who invest more in you and your blog.
  • Make a stage where your readers can connect and show everyone what they know.
  • Celebrate all of the above with as much creativity, fun, and dignity as you can think up!

Open Comment Night started because, on a Tuesday afternoon, I thought it would be fun if we all could just talk. The Virtual Conference for SOBCon07 was invented as a way to include folks who couldn’t come to the first SOBCon. The 25-Words project was a way to share the experience of how limiting our words can change how we think. The Blog-to Show happened because folks said they needed a way to talk about their blogs.

All of those got called “great marketing.” If that’s so then,

Great marketing is connecting and celebrating readers and customers.

Let’s talk about how to help readers and customers connect with each other.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

High Times Shopping In The Sky Mall

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Sometimes I Don’t Get Marketing

Now I’ll be the first to admit that there are some things I just don’t get.

One Way to CC It logo

For example I don’t get most things that have to do with home decorating. When Christmas rolls around my wife will take some classy looking ornaments and, say, arrange them on a side table over a snazzy table cloth with some glass bead strings snaked around the table.

It looks great! But I never would have thought to do that on my own. To my way of thinking ornaments belonged on a tree. Arranging them festively on a table would never have occurred to me.

This sort of thing has become a running joke in our marriage. We’ll see something along those lines and she will turn to me. Do you get that? You don’t get that do you?

Nope.

It looks great and all. But that someone would have taken the time and effort? Don’t get it.

I’m really OK with not getting some things.

I get most things about business. But there are some things about the whole marketing thing that I just make me shake my head. Nope. Don’t get that either. [Read more…]

A 5-Part Interview with Rajesh Setty

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Introducing logo

Which Raj Setty do you know . . . the journalist, author, technology geek, President of ForesightPlus, SOB, mentoring mind behind start-ups and numerous great ideas? You probably know his book, Beyond Code: Learn to Distinguish Yourself in 9 Simple Steps! and his blog, Life Beyond Code. How Raj finds the time to do all of these and still answer my email baffles me.

When I read Beyond Code: Learn to Distinguish Yourself in 9 Simple Steps! I wasn’t far into it when I started thinking I want to interview this man for Successful Blog.

As soon as I hit the last page, I contacted Raj and he agreed. I put together five questions that would take us beyond the book and let the author elaborate.

I’m proud to announce that you can look for the series this week and next week.

Monday, October 30 — Raj’s Story
Wedneday November 1 — The Need to Participate and Differentiate
Thursday, November 2 — The Inner Game
Monday, November 6 — The Outer Game
Wednesday, November 8 — About the Book — How It Happened

Thanks, Raj. This interview series is the best companion to the book!

–Me “Liz” Strauss

8 Sales Rules for Writing – No One Kills a Messenger who Writes for Readers

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Poorly Written Messages

power writing at work

In the olden days when there were kings and queens, way before I was born, a business message was sending a runner with message in hand from a battlefield to the king. If the message was good news, the runner might enjoy a feast. If the message was not so good, the king might enjoy seeing the runner run until his life was over.

Even when I was short, that killing the messenger stuff never made much sense to me. It seems like the guys with the messages might figure out what was going on and run the other way, instead of running to the king.

Had I been forced to run messages back then, you can bet I would have found out what the darn message said. Then I’d have figured out a way to write that same message to the king, based on what the king cares about.

That’s what I do for a living — write messages for readers.

So where do sales rules fit in all this?

Mike Sigers Got Me Thinking about Sales Rules

I was at Simplenomics last night, reading Mike Sigers’ post, Mike’s 8 Simple Rules for Repeat Sales, when I realized that everyone is a sales rep. I know. I won’t tell if you don’t tell my husband either.

I’m not making some smoky analogy here. I was a sales rep for the Philips-Van Heusen Shirt Company with a two state territory.

I had a genuine revelation. It came to me that I use my sales training every day and that everyone else uses sales practices too. Granted some of us are a bit better than others at getting them right, but that includes sales reps with training too.

In an email this morning I told Mike I was going to rewrite his post. I explained my reason as everyone is a sales rep. He said:

Wait a minute ?!

Everyone a sales rep ?

Not a freakin’ chance – even you can’t do magic… or can you ?

Let’s turn the page and see how far off I am. [Read more…]

10 +1 Sure-Fire Ways to Get My Best Work — and the Best Work from Everyone — Every Time

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How to Manage Me While I Manage You

power writing at work

I snuck into publishing through the back door. I freelanced first. People asked me to do things. As fast as they asked was how fast I would learn. I was sure that everyone else already knew them.

Then I got my first job as an Executive Editor, and a whole new world view came with it. I had been learning things few people knew. . . . It worked for me. I kind of liked it.

I also saw that most freelancers weren’t like me.

What I saw was that folks who had full-time jobs did more accurate work than freelancers — even when they were the same people. As soon as we hired a freelancer, that person’s work improved to the full-time work standard. That’s when I knew it was us, not them. There was something in what we were doing.

It wasn’t the work. It wasn’t the people.

It was how we put the two together.

I know how you can get my best work every time. Do 10 things, and I can’t help but do a great job for you. Really. [Read more…]

10 + 1 Things to Make Me Love Your Business Email

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Does Your Email Make People Crazy?

power writing at work

How many emails are in your in-box?

How long does it take you to find one you might want?

Do you think about that when you write an email? I’d be delighted if you would.

You may think that email is easy, but I have to tell you. I’m writing this post for a reason. In the last few weeks I’ve gotten some emails that have really concerned me with how folks are doing email business.

Here’s a quote from one:

Dear Liz,

I don’t know you. I’ve never read your blog. Would you come look at mine and see whether I can be an SOB?

I didn’t love that email.

But that’s a gross point. I’ve also picked up some finer points of managing and sending email to business associates that I bet that even you might not have run into. [Read more…]