Yes, Writing Blog Posts and Articles CAN Bring You Clients

“I’d like to attract clients by writing articles or a blog, but I’m not sure what to write about.”
“I tried blogging for a while, but it didn’t bring me any business.”
“When I write, people seem to like it, but I have only a handful of readers.”

These are some of the comments I hear from self-employed professionals who think that writing about their area of expertise might be a path to attracting clients… but feel like they don’t have a map. I understand their frustration. It’s easy to make crucial mistakes when using writing as a marketing strategy. But you CAN do this successfully. Here are six guidelines to make writing pay off.

1. Consistency is key. For writing to succeed as a marketing approach, you need to write regularly. Whether you are posting to your own blog, publishing in your ezine, or writing articles or guest posts published elsewhere, you must write frequently. I recommend writing at least weekly if you have your own blog, and twice a month at minimum if you’re publishing elsewhere.

2. Write content, not copy. Articles and blog posts aren’t the place for marketing copy. Write to educate, entertain, or evoke emotion in your readers. That’s what will keep them coming back for more of your material. Write about the same topics you discuss with your clients every day; share that same expertise with your readers. See #6 below for where your marketing copy belongs.

3. Showcase your work. Go beyond just providing information to your readers. Give them a glimpse of how you work. Include phrases like:

• One of my clients had this problem, and here’s what I helped him do
• A student in one of my classes asked about this and here’s how I answered
• I’ve developed the following solution for the clients I work with
• Here’s what I’ve learned in helping my clients with this issue

4. Once you’ve written, promote. Don’t rely on readers finding their own way to your blog posts or articles. Get your writing in front of potential readers in as many different ways as possible. Send your articles or posts via email, mention them on social media, link to them on your website, pass out copies at speaking engagements, and announce them to your professional groups.

5. Position yourself as an expert. Include with your writing – wherever it is published – an author bio that tells people exactly what you do. Be sure to add to it some credibility-boosters like your years of experience, degrees or certifications, where you’ve taught or spoken, or roles in any professional groups. Having a credible bio will give your words more weight.

6. Build a path to sales. Wherever your pieces appear, be sure that a way to contact you and a call to action are visible on the same page. This could be in your author bio, as a P.S. to the piece, or in a sidebar, footer, or floatbox on the page. Invite readers to join your mailing list, download a bonus, follow you on social media, sign up for your program, or call you about working together.

When you follow the guidelines above, writing quality, content-rich blog posts and articles can become a powerful marketing approach for you. You’ll often find that people who’ve been reading your material for a while will be pre-sold before they contact you, and ready to hire you on the spot. Isn’t that the kind of result we’d like to see from all our marketing?

Copyright © 2015, C.J. Hayden

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QuickBooks Scam Emails by the Dozen!

In the course of just two weeks during February, software company Intuit reported the circulation of a dozen fake emails attempting to steal confidential information from users of its QuickBooks accounting program and tax preparation software, TurboTax.

It turns out that this is not unusual. It just happened to be a random sampling we took. A similar level of scam emails seems to be circulating at any one time.

It’s easy to see why: Both QuickBooks and TurboTax handle masses of confidential information – both financial and personal that could be extremely dangerous in the hands of a crook.

Click here to read the full article.


 

©Copyright Audri and Jim Lanford. All rights reserved.

Reprinted with permission.

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Scams Behind Bogus LinkedIn Job Offers

When you use the professional social network site LinkedIn, it’s easy to be flattered when someone you don’t know asks to connect with you.

After all, that’s what LinkedIn is all about growing your network of business and professional contacts.

Plus, of course, it’s perfectly reasonable that someone you don’t know might want to link up with you if you seem to share a mutual interest or corporate activity.

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©Copyright Audri and Jim Lanford. All rights reserved.

Reprinted with permission.

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Is That ID Verification Letter Genuine or Another Tax Scam?

Tax scams have become a year-round activity for crooks, turning them into what is probably the biggest individual con trick of them all.

But once the tax-filing season gets underway, the pace picks up even faster, prompting the IRS, the Treasury, and consumer and law enforcement agencies to issue a stern warning about the risks of being scammed.

We’ve written about most of the tricks several times before. It’s worth checking out a couple of our earlier issues because they’re still totally relevant.

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©Copyright Audri and Jim Lanford. All rights reserved.

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Bogus Drone Registration Sites Target Hobbyists and Commercial Users

The Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) calls them small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) but most of us know them as “drones.”

Meanwhile, scammers and other opportunists know them as a chance to make money.

Drones (as in miniature “quadcopter” flying machines, not military aircraft) are becoming increasingly popular both among hobbyists and professionals — such as photographers, real estate agents, and perhaps soon, delivery operators.

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©Copyright Audri and Jim Lanford. All rights reserved.

Reprinted with permission.

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Why Your Marketing Recipes Need the Right Ingredients

I use a cookbook metaphor in my Get Clients Now! system to illustrate how to go about creating an effective marketing plan for a self-employed professional. An essential element of that plan is what I call Success Ingredients — the missing ingredients your marketing and sales activities need in order to be successful.

Why is this important? Let’s say you decide you’re going to market your business by attending live networking events in your area. You’re not sure where to begin, but you’ve just received an email invitation for a Chamber of Commerce mixer, so you decide to go.

Arriving at the mixer, you discover that everyone you meet is either a salesperson for a local corporation, or a solo professional who is looking for business from those companies. But you are (for example) an acupuncturist. The type of people you typically serve are individuals looking for relief from a current health issue. While there might be people in the room who fit that description, it’s hard to even turn conversation in that direction with everyone focused on business topics.

As a result, you leave the event feeling like it was a waste of time, and decide that in-person networking is probably not a good marketing tactic for you. But other people seem to find clients from it. What do they know that you don’t?

To make good use of a recipe requires that you start with quality ingredients. Before walking out the front door with business cards in her pocket, what our acupuncturist should have done was to make a shopping list of what she needed.

First of all, she needed to carefully select some networking venues that made sense for her type of business and target clients. When she started to do so, she would likely find that she also needed a clear definition of her target market. With those two Success Ingredients lined up, she would be much more likely to find herself at a networking event that would suit her. This might be a speaker program on alternative health or stress relief, or a professional meeting of other like-minded practitioners.

Would you like to determine what your Success Ingredients are? Pick any marketing tactic that you feel may not be working as well as you would like. Then ask yourself: “What’s missing that might make it work?” and keep asking until you identify one or more specific missing elements that you could create or acquire.

Here’s a sample dialogue our acupuncturist might have with herself:

Q: “What’s missing that might make networking events work better for me?”
A: “Better events to attend.”

Q: “What’s missing that might help me find events that would work better?”
A: “A list of events to choose from; some networking venues.”

Q: “What’s missing that might work better to help me choose events?”
A: “A clear picture of the type of clients I want; a target market definition.”

With two Success Ingredients defined, our acupuncturist might stop there to work on them, or she might ask the first question again, just to see if there’s anything more:

Q: “What else is missing that might make networking events work better for me?”
A: “More confidence when introducing myself to strangers.”

Q: “What’s missing that might help me be more confident when introducing myself?”
A: “A comfortable way to introduce myself; a ten-second introduction.”

Our acupuncturist has now identified three Success Ingredients to boost her networking success. When she acquires these ingredients and uses them in her marketing recipe, she’s going to produce much improved results.

Try this for yourself. Take any marketing approach that’s not working for you as well as you’d like, and ask: “What’s missing that might make it work?” See if you can define some Success Ingredients of your own. Once you do, it’s my bet that your marketing recipes will start turning out better.

Copyright © 2015, C.J. Hayden

Read more free articles by C.J. Hayden or subscribe to the GET CLIENTS NOW! E-Letter. 

Dangers of Digital Life After Death

Although death isn’t something most of us want to think or talk about, especially when it involves those near and dear to us, the simple fact is that after death, an individual’s virtual life goes on. It doesn’t automatically end.

This has serious implications for those of us left behind to pick up the pieces. For instance, all the data, images, accounts and other information that remain online about a person can be used for fraud, identity theft, Social Security and other scams.

Or they may have left behind regularly deductible payments associated with them that will continue for as long as the accounts remain active.

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©Copyright Audri and Jim Lanford. All rights reserved.

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