Read the rest of the Blogpreneur Series

So you want to go Viral?

Are you sure you haven’t?

When one person spreads your blog or site to another without your direct involvement, you just went viral. When enough people do it at once, you have an epidemic.

What about those 294 hits from Stumble that got you 3 links to your blog? That is the true viral effect of good blogging; the steady spread of good quality posts that will bring a growing flow of readers, which will bring more hits, more readers, more links. The never ending and creeping exponential growth that builds on itself perpetually. This is true viral marketing.

As soon as you realize what viral marketing really is, you’ll realize that what you probably  associated with it, is merely the sensational viral infection. The Ebola level of viral.

Although the Ebola effect is going to be great for your ego the day it hits, it’s going to hit, and disappear. And the traffic you get is probably not going to be based on what you are really about, but more on one single article. If you can’t keep that level, they won’t be coming back for long. The problem here is that the Ebola level isn’t what the smart blogger wants. A blogger wants something that hits, sticks, and keeps spreading.

You Don’t Want to be Ebola, You Want to Be Herpes

Ebola is sensational, it’s a once off event that is hard - if not impossible - to maintain. And since so many are misinterpreting the true value of the “lesser infection” they are all shooting for the sensationalism. Link Bait headlines that are a stretch at best to fit into the article. Fabricating entire stories the list of tricks is long. And it works sometimes, but even when it does, it doesn’t translate to what you want.

You want to target the right people. 100 targeted visitors are better than 1000 random ones any day. Why? because if they are targeted, chances are that you have something they want to see more of. You will get return visits, and referrals, links and comments. As you get those, you’ll get more readers, more people that can spread you to others. That’s viral marketing!

Ebola levels of Viral Marketing are most commonly achieved by creating something amazing that isn’t necessarily well targeted. It’s often funny, shocking, and widely appealing. Which is why it takes off like it does. People like the advertising, but couldn’t care less about the product. Which means that for you to do it again, you have to repeat the feat that didn’t bring you the right people to begin with.

If you shoot for the lower levels, constantly repeating small successes, you will eventually see your spread increasing. When this happens, your chances of hitting those epidemic levels increase every time you post a good article. It goes back to the one percent rule. It’s always better to slowly progress than to have spikes of traffic that quickly disappear.

Instant Gratification - Or Long Term Success?

If you are looking for an ego boost, then it’s great. If you are looking to grown over the long term. It’s better to aim for solid, repeatable quality. When you can bring one person back over and over, you will eventually get passed on to someone else. Repeat readers like RSS Subscribers are your best bet for achieving this.

A company that got it right never had Diggs front page to rely on, for them it was a matter of getting their name out there one person at a time. Every time that person used their service, it spread a little further. No real fireworks, no goofy guy’s home movie to sell them over YouTube.

You might have heard of Hotmail once or twice yourself. They did it by adding their link to the bottom of every email sent from one of their accounts. One at a time, they spread the word.

If you constantly shoot for the Epidemics, you’ll constantly be disappointed. If you aim for a silent spreading infection that perpetuates with every post you make. You are going to see some amazing results.

(Yes, the title of this post is Viral in itself - I’ll let you know how it went)

A little planning. Some basic preparation, and good old fashioned hard work can turn a blog into a money maker. How much? That is really up to you and your determination.

Some ways are easier than others; some will earn you more money than others. But in the long run, it’s all about building a solid brand and a good base of readers before you will see much return.

1. Advertising Networks
Advertising networks such as AdSense, Adready, etc. is the most common way of monetizing.
It’s Important to realize that most ad networks don’t work very well until you have search engine traffic. People who arrive from other sources don’t click as much as you’d think. However, a few cents can always be made on page impressions alone. Never a bad idea, but not the goldmine its painted out to be.

It’s easy to sign up, it’s easy to implement, and in most cases, it’s problem free. It is however not a great way to make a lot of money unless you have serious amounts of good search engine traffic.

2. Direct Selling Ads
You can sell Ad-Space to companies direct. This is not that hard to do, but it does require you to do a little more work on your own. You also need to monitor the ads, adding and removing as contracts expire. Your price and revenue will depend on both your traffic, and your negotiating skills.

3. E-Books
If you have quality material to sell, then you can write an e-book and sell it through your website. You can also upload e-books for sale to Amazon. The E-book is the most common gateway to serious diversified monetization. It is also a powerful traffic builder if used right.

4. Print Books
If you are a blogger, you might have it in your to write a full book for print.
Print on demand, Google, Amazon and other services have great ways to market print books alongside your own blog. A book has the additional benefit of being a perpetual money earner. Once it’s out there, you can reap the benefits for a very long time.

5. Merchandise
You have a blog? Maybe there is a market for some t-shirts, posters, Coffee Mugs or other ideas. Cafepress has made it very easy to make merchandize with zero cost. You can of course do it the traditional way too. Which gives you better profit per item, but has the problem of finding a manufacturer of your products, stock and shipping.

If you are already producing something, you can of course add a web shop to the blog. But that’s really not about blogging. That’s more a traditional e-business approach.

6. Affiliate Marketing
Some businesses will make you their sales person. Either by just advertising, or by actually doing the sales work for them and earning a commission (see point 7.) This is one of the most popular ways of monetizing, but it has also become a bit of a scourge of the blogging world. Be careful since this can damage your brand.

7. Build your own Amazon (or other) shop
Amazon allows you to advertize a specific product. You can choose the exact ad you want to show. This can allow you to make a product review, and advertise the sale through Amazon. Doing this tastefully can actually be a very good way to earn a living, I’ve seen some very sophisticated applications of this approach.

8. Member Services
Provide a subscription based part of the website that gives access to VIP information, services etc. If you are trying this one, make sure that the value given is worth the investment. Or you will get plenty of bad reviews written about you and your service.

9. Consulting / Coaching
If you are a specialist, or have a business where you can give advice, you can leverage that by giving either online advice or channeling customers to your real world business. This works especially well for Consultants and Personal Coaches, but designers, programmers, and other computer oriented blogs can make good money this way too.

10. Paid Posts
There are plenty of companies out there that will pay you to make a post on your blog. You’ll need some traffic and basic notoriety before this becomes an option. Be careful! You might lose credibility if you do not disclose that you are making a paid post. There are enough bloggers out there that get the same offers as you do. Your readers will know what’s real and whats been paid for sooner or later.

11. Links
Another common offer is to get paid for links from your page. This only becomes viable once you have a decent pagerank, and since this is frowned upon by Google, you might get that pagerank taken away. Not something I’d advice on doing.

12. Sell it
Blogs are being sold all the time, once you have designed your blog and brought it up to speed, there might be a market to sell it. However, building a blog and traffic etc just to sell it rarely is a very effective way to spend your time. If you are a great blogger, that has all the tricks of Traffic building down. Then you might be the person to have this as a goal. Otherwise, time/value is just not there.

Blogging for a living is not as easy as many advertisers out there might want you to believe. But it is possible for those with drive, determination and a firm grasp on the difference between leveraging, and selling their brand name down the tube.

Good Luck!

Managing a sales force is different from almost any other kind of team management. A person who is great at sales rarely if ever follow a specific mold. Since a technique or approach that works for one person is not necessarily the right for another, management of a sales team becomes more about motivating them to find their own strength. Even in sales teams, these achievers are loners - Racehorses that should be gently nudged in the right direction so that they aren’t harnessed in and lose momentum. Mentally, a sales person performs much better in a relaxed state, and does also work better from a stance of confidence. To harness a salespersons individual power, the key notes have to be motivation, support, and development. Control is only bound to be counterproductive since it removes the individuality that great sales people rely on.

Number Crunching Kills Sales

We can measure pure sales, which is the norm. A sales manager who has the basic approach of dollars per minute is often popular with management, but is inevitably shooting him or herself in the foot. You can achieve a certain level of sales by putting pressure on sales per time period, but it automatically stifles the best salespeople to climb out of the curve and make the big numbers. In order to develop the super-salesman, failure has to be part of the equation. As they constantly look for an edge, they will attempt new approaches and some of those approaches will fail. This is where the sales manager can chose to be a hindrance, or a help. The best producing sales managers I’ve seen are extremely rarely dealing with the numbers when they talk to sales people. They are methodologists. Talking to and evaluating the approaches of the staff. And helping them find out what is, and isn’t working.

Always Motivate

Talking down to any staff member is bad management. But to make a sales person feel inferior is a death blow. As you break their positive attitude, you inevitably stifle their productivity. A sales person who is not performing up to par is normally stressed and disillusioned as it is. Adding to that burden is not going to help the numbers that management wants to see. This is where the support and motivation comes into play. Even if the sales person is underperforming to the point of being let go, advising them of this can be a bad mistake. Negative stress and increased doubt might instill a sense of urgency in a sales-person. It will however take away their confidence, something that immediately will show up in their numbers again. You are creating a self fulfilling prophecy in their constantly declining sales numbers. In order to be a motivator and a coach, the sales manager needs to always consider the basic premises of the sales itself. Assume that the sales person wants to achieve and train them to trust their instincts. Before you can do this, you need to realize and discuss external factors influencing performance.

1. Have the Leads changed?

A salesperson who gets new leads, may have gotten a bad batch. If so, discuss the leads with the sales person. Don’t discuss the results. Removing blame at this point is more important to the overall result and development of the staff.

2. Has the target changed?

Sometimes, the target of the sales call is new. A customer that always used to buy x dollars per month all of a sudden stops, if the purchaser has changed this could very well be the reason for this. Discuss the problem as being separate from the sales person.

3. Has the approach changed?

A sales person that attempts to change their approach or their overall goal (increased amounts over number of sales etc) may encounter a drop in sales initially. If this is the case, discuss it with them and see why they are trying for different results. Maybe they are on to something that can be more productive given time to come to fruition. Discuss the new approach, help the sales person trim their sales methods before making a determination on whether it is working or not.

4. Has the Market Changed?

If the entire sales staff is seeing a change, the market probably is changing. Discuss what the new exit points for the sales call are. What new needs or wants does the customer have that needs to be met before the sale can close.

5. Has the persons own life changed?

Even the best salespeople experience drops when their personal lives are in turmoil. When this happens, look to find supporting functions for the sales person. You are a coach, as such a simple "I understand, don’t worry" can be a much better result generator than anything else. Any person who is dealing with a problem outside of work can benefit from work being a stable and safe location. Even though their overall numbers may be down a little. Providing a support instead of additional stress will inevitably limit the negative impact this has. A person in turmoil will never react well to additional stress.

Sales managers although they are "managers" are really the support function for the sales staff. These corporate loners are athletes in their own right. And unless support and motivation is needed, the best option is often just to stay out of their way so that they can run the race.

Learn to be the motivator, coach, and support function for your sales team, and you will have no problem getting your raise when they shoot your numbers through the roof.

Generating Quality Traffic with StumbleUpon

Stumble can bring you a ton of traffic, and opposed to many of the others, you have great control of how targeted that traffic is.

Stumble creates traffic , that’s how it works. Participating in the network means actually viewing a lot of sites. Many of the other networks provide listings, where a snappy title and witty description is the only thing that brings in the hits. Yes, you can submit to specific topic areas, which will target it a little. But that’s about as good as it gets. Great articles are constantly lost on the social bookmark sites that use lists because someone posted about Britney Spears latest antics 2 seconds at the same time.

Stumble is different; your submissions will go through your network of fans and friends. And you don’t even have to annoy ask them to do it. If they are your fans, Stumble makes sure that they eventually sees the pages you like.

You Decide

You get many of your fans based on your stumble history, people who like sites you have submitted will find you, and they will find you through their other friends, who may have found you through the sites you have submitted and stumbled. In other words, people will add you based on what you like, not based on your ability to write a snappy title only.

Relevance

So your stumbles, if they are relevant to your own site or blog, will attract people who like what you write about too. Making them more likely to thumb you up, this will drive more people that like what they like… And the chain continues. This chain can bring you traffic for weeks and months, not just hours like so many of the other social bookmarking sites.

This spreading of information through your networks is almost like a pyramid scheme, the more powerful you are the more people will see your stumbles. If they have a lot of fans, you will quickly be reaching a very large network of people, all of whom will see your actual site, as opposed to just reading your snappy headline on a list where it drops to page 39 before you have refilled your coffee.

This is the brilliance of Stumble, not only does it drive traffic; it gives you the control to focus your network and bring you quality traffic that is actually interested in what you do. Not just those that got lured by the snappiest headline.

Once you have your target audience on your site, it’s all up to your content quality to get that Thumbs Up.

Is your approach bringing, or stopping traffic?

Both StumbleUpon and Digg have the potential to be real traffic boosters for your website or blog. They can also put an effective roadblock on your attempts to make it anywhere if you and your friends are not using them the right way.

You have to remember that these networks were not designed to drive traffic to you; they were designed with their own well being in mind. Not yours. Users who want more than they give are not going to be very successful.

Digg and StumbleUpon both rely on people to submit and vote on content. They have complex algorithms for calculating what stories should be promoted to popularity status and which ones shouldn’t. The common thread for these calculations is that they attempt to stop users from manipulating the system, and they are pretty successful at it. Far too many users are trying to manipulate the system to get traffic, this will be hard to do and is the primary reason why it isn’t working. There is a much easier way to use the system that will inevitably get you traffic - and a lot of it.

What is the Right Way?

1. Participate
This is the base for all Social Networking success. Be an active part of the network so that you add as much as you hope to receive. However, as you will see later in this post. Mindless participation doesn’t do much.

2. Think about what the network wants
The Networks both want users to submit and vote on GOOD content, they have checks and balances to make sure that the votes counted are worth something.

3. Comment
Commenting shows the system that you are giving this article more attention, which automatically will make a comment worth more than just a vote.

A Closer Look at Digg

Digg has the option to shout pages to your friends. Since Digg wants to promote good content. Do you think they are going to give a vote where the reader isn’t looking at the article first? For Digg, the key is to either submit the vote from the page with a button on the article, or use that hyperlink before you click digg. If you vote without looking at what you are voting for; Digg will know and compensate accordingly.

When I have shouted a Digg article to friends, the total amount of traffic is directly related to how many hits I get from that shout. I’ve had articles with 30 diggs but only 4 actual hits. In other words, the people that dugg the article didn’t read it. The total amount of traffic there was about 20 hits.

Then I have had articles with about as many hits and 20 hits from the shout. Which gave me a total traffic of over a hundred. Digg’s algorithm saw that people were actually reading the article before voting and kept it higher on their pages for longer.

StumbleUpon

Stumble is different, when you thumb up an article there, the best "value" of a vote is when the user arrived at that page because of the Stumble button. Not if they vote from the article itself.

A stumble always happens from the page or article, so the problem encountered at Digg with users not actually reading the page isn’t present. What I am fairly sure about thought is that Stumble will look at how long you spend on a page before voting. A lot of testing has shown that Votes inside of a couple of seconds after arriving don’t count for much there.

Commenting for Traffic

If you really want to be an active part of the community and become a powerful voter, you have to comment. Your comments are worth a lot more than your clicks. Comments on your post will drive it up the algorithm scales much quicker than votes will. If you comment on others, they will comment on you. It’s that simple.

Choose your friends wisely

It is easy to just go ahead and slam on as many friends as possible, thinking that it will boost your power and traffic as a result. This is not necessarily true at all.

On Digg for instance. Having a lot of friends will actually make articles you submit and shout harder to get promoted to popular. There are reports that people with a lot of friends are seeing this effect clearly although it is not documented on their site. Also votes inside your network aren’t worth as much as votes that are completely unrelated to you. Having a lot of friends that aren’t’ reading and voting is actually slowing you down.

On Stumble, You are limited to 200 friends, this seems like a lot, but if those friends are added randomly without understanding what they are looking for, they might actually not be your best option.

Chances are that if your friend isn’t interested much in your topic, they are not going to vote you up when they get to your pages. If you aren’t getting thumbs up, then you are not getting the benefit of them promoting it to their networks. This will immediately show up in your numbers.

Avoid the temptation of adding anyone and everyone that you can find, add the people that show interest in your items already, if they vote on your articles, they are likely to want to read more of them in the future and do it again.

Make friends in your own topic area, they are also looking for your information and will have friends that are doing the same. This is where your traffic will come from.

Finally never underestimate the power of good content. The same old story will always be true, good content will always do better than bad. Work on your writing and the results will show up.

Good luck, and if you liked this, I hope that you will Digg or Stumble it as well.

How to get your customers to do the selling for you

Sometimes, what everyone else is doing isn’t necessarily the right thing. Many businesses have fallen into following the leader when it comes to high pressure sales tactics. Trying to keep up by copying their methods. A person that broke this mold is Australian media commentator and motivational speaker, Craig Harper - who also owns a personal training center.

Craig says in this article that he has no marketing budget (note that he doesn’t say he doesn’t do any marketing.. there is a huge difference), he does no hard selling and he has no memberships for his gym. No upfront commitments or high pressure tactics like most of the competition does. He also states that this is against all his marketing connections advice.

But what traditional marketing, and especially the “gym mold” is missing is exactly what Craig has been doing. What so many businesses today have been trying to create is exactly the situation that allows him to be successful. When every big player in the area is doing the same thing, (and in this case that thing is to force the customer to to sign a long term membership that Houdini couldn’t get out of),the simple answer is to do something different…

What’s the key to creating this success?

He DOESN’T SELL! … no hard sales ever. He also does something completely moronic if you were to look at the approach of his competition. He LISTENS !

This part from his article is very telling as to why he is successful.

“I spoke to an older gentleman recently who was interested in being trained by one of my team. I spent twenty minutes with him, had a few laughs and he booked in for three sessions per week.” … “Why did he choose Harper’s? Because he had visited eleven centers (we were number twelve) and I was the first person who listened, didn’t ’sell’ and spent more than two minutes with him. I would have happily spent the time with him no matter what the outcome was. If the first eleven businesses had half a clue, we would never have met.”

Craig has grasped the basics of relationship marketing and turned it into an art. He knows that in his case, just doing what the opposition isn’t doing will go very far in earning him a client. He also knows that in his particular case, a happy and satisfied customer will be the best advertising he can get. In the business of personal training, getting satisfied customers creates more business because it creates a walking, talking advertisement for you.

As Craig puts it

“Get a fat bloke in shape and ten things will happen:”

1. He’ll be a slimmer, healthier, satisfied customer.
2. People will want some of what he’s got.
3. He will sell you and your business (verbally and visually).
4. He will create ‘brand awareness’ for you.
5. You will have more people walk through the door.
6. He will boost your credibility.
7. He’ll bring five of his fat buddies, who in turn will bring fifty of their buddies.. and so on.
8. Your business will grow.
9. You’ll make more money.
10. You’ll buy a boat.

There is an old saying that sales is 90% listening and 10% talking. This is what the Hard Sell promoters out there have been missing. They aim for quantity, not quality. They strive to hit as many customers as possible in order to cover the ones that are ready to buy or prone to be pressured into buying a standard sales pitch. Then move on and find another one. They don’t spend enough time to make sure that the customer is getting what they are looking for. Which is why they lock them down into contracts and payment tricks. Since they don’t care about customer satisfaction, they have to ensure repeat business in other ways. For these businesses, return business is the same as repeat billing.

Do you think their customer satisfaction rating is high or low?

Next time, try to sit down, and actually listen to a customer. Maybe you are not that far away from becoming a Craig Harper, who gets business without spending a fortune in advertising because people want to deal with him, not because they got pressured into a contract they can’t get out of…

Or think about what kind of business you would like to run in terms of taglines.

“Your business” - #1 Because once we get you to sign, we own you!
or
“Your Business” - #1 Because our customers come back for more

If you are currently employing the Hard Sell, trying to lock down your customers into long term contracts, you should ask yourself this.

If I met the customers’ needs and expectations, would I need to enforce ironclad contracts? Possibly ruining dissatisfied customers credit and creating bad will for myself in the process?

I would venture to guess that the answer to that question is No!
I would also dare to guess that in the long term, your business will be growing way past what skinning dissatisfied customers out of can ever accomplish.

Not to mention that you will spend a lot less money on call centers trained in how to tell the customer that they can’t stop doing business with you.

Money that you could actually spend on bringing more first time customers through your doors so that you can listen to them too.

Or you could buy a Boat.

Press Releases are becoming popular marketing tools to many businesses. Not only does it provide a chance to get some great and low cost coverage through news outlets. It also helps accomplish what most businesses are looking for right now - Search Engine Optimization.

The SEO Angle

A well written press release provides you with increased visibility for your Website. Once it gets posted, it will add a series of keywords to your listing on search engines. Do this enough times and you will be much more likely to end up on the front page of Google, Yahoo and the others. Because it is a relevant text, this is a perfect White Hat approach to SEO.

An Image of importance

When you release news, you are projecting an image of importance about your company to the public. News are by definition about something that people should know, the mere fact that it is a press release makes it appear more important than basic Ad Copy. It becomes a matter worth noting. Press releases are powerful because of just this tool. It is information that in itself isn’t trying to sell the reader anything. When you are not trying to sell, the reader will drop their guard and note the information much more readily.

Communicate and Motivate

Press releases are a form of communicating, if you post them on your own website, chances are that customers will read them and know more about your company and what you are accomplishing. By having a steady stream of Press Releases appearing, you are showing that your company is on the move. This creates an image of success that will not be lost on your customers.
You can also use press releases to communicate milestones, new hires etc. When this happens, you are sending a strong message to the employees. Showing employees that they are important and that their accomplishments are noteworthy is a great way to build moral.

Get going
Press Releases are powerful tools, well written and newsworthy releases can give you more bang for your buck than most other forms of marketing activities. You will build awareness, improve your brand and build your business without having to spend a fortune doing it.
There is little or no reason to miss an opportunity like the press release, the cost is low and the rewards potentially very high.