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Don't Hide Behind Your Blog! How To Stop Being Invisible and Really Connect With Your Readers.

Guest post by: Mike Saunders

Article Overview: How many times have you been to a blog or website and seen some interesting info and spent 10 minutes searching for the contact info for the web/blog owner to contact? Then when you get frustrated and give up you move on.... It shouldn't be this hard and if we were smart you'll find ways to be available (without being TOO available!) and then connecting and communicating with the readers and visitors in unique ways!

Don't Hide Behind Your Blog! How To Stop Being Invisible and Really Connect With Your Readers.

I was guilty of this until recently, so let's get this out of the way right up front! I would use email, blog and mail to communicate with clients and prospects. Call it "Call Reluctance" or pure laziness....but sometimes we can all find ways to stay busy without getting anything meaningful done!

Then one day I was looking for a certain marketing tool online and did some research to find just the right one (or so I hoped). I signed up for the 30 day trial, and started going through the tutorial videos to get it set up.

This was Labor Day weekend and on Saturday morning, I get a phone call from Canada, and it was the owner of the service! Now I had seen his profile and read about his success online before taking this step...so you can imagine my shock when he's on the phone with me!
He asked if I was getting things started the way I needed and if I had any questions. We spent about 20 minutes talking and I hung up the phone feeling like there was a 1,000% bond there just from one phone call!

Keep in mind that this person is known for creating businesses online and now he's stepping out from behind his computer, so-to-speak, and communicating with a customer on the phone.
I took this to heart and began to reach out to people who opt-in to my list by creating a personalized video email to send them and than them for stopping by.

Here is the Result:
The person I did this for this week watched the video postcard 14 times!
(the service I use isTotalVideoEmail.com) keeps a count so you can see activity.
This is because there is a new movement in marketing which is called “Relationship Marketing” and it’s ties all the “Old-School” methods we’ve all read about that actually work together with the “New Media Marketing” tools we now have access to.

There’s a new BUZZ in the marketing circles recently, and it’s all about deepening relationships with your clients and prospects. It has taken on the name of Relationship Marketing. Corporations are spending millions on Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM) programs that monitor personality profiles of its customers. They realize that they need to get more into the heart of their customers if they hope to create a loyal following. The challenge that todays CRM programs have is they do not have an effective way to deliver their message to their customer….

They rely on email, collateral and form letter communication which has proved to be ineffective. They also focus on promoting themselves instead of creating genuine relationships. Need an example: go buy a new car and watch how the car company attempts to create relationship with you….. it won’t happen!

Here’s an example, let’s say someone visits your blog, and makes a comment…rather than let it stop there, why not post a reply thanking them and adding a thought…as well as emailing them personally with a video email thanking them too (of course with a link to your blog or product you offer). Not this 2nd step will be too much to handle if you start getting dozens and dozens of comments and opt-in’s a day….but that’s a great “problem” to have!

Here is the Takeaway:
Have a "Connect with me" section where there's a form they can fill out to ask you a question. This should not show your email address because of spammers who will grab it and abuse it.
Also, this section should list all the social media ways they can connect with you like Twitter, FriendFeed,FaceBook etc.
(I have some resources and training videos on using these that I give away)
This will allow your readers to follow you and get to know you on a personal real level!

Step out from behind your blog and email, and communicate with your visitors, and list members in a personal way, it will pay huge rewards!

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Article Tags: buzz, circles, corporations, labor day, labor day weekend, laziness, mail, marketing tool, marketing tools, new media marketing, old school, phone call, prospects, relationship marketing, relationships, reluctance, saturday morning, shock, video email, video postcard



Related Forum Posts
Re: Best Internet Marketing Strategy - Hi David, I agree about the Blogosphere. You have a smaller group that Blog, but do so on the premise that they think they should, but have never really considered the purpose of their Blog. Then I think there are a few SEO or Internet Marketing types that see Blogging as just another link building strategy. But the largest group of Bloggers, tend to be people who enjoy writing and discussing their topics of interest. Blogging is good for link building, but the true Blogger is a breed apart from the rest. They want to dialog, to debate, to have feedback and they are very willing to link to other worthwhile conversations that are relevant to their topic. I agree with you. These group of Bloggers obviously are passionate about their writing and together, they create huge conversation trails interactive and travel from Blog to Blog. But the evidence is clear with this group that loves what they write about. With comments enabled on a Blog and having a Blog tuned to a specific purpose you already have the evidence of original Social Media.
Re: Alexa Ranking Goals - That's great GT! What method did you use to put up the Entrepreneur Blog Network in your Wordpress Blog? We're always looking for the easiest methods to help bloggers who are not techies get involved.
EvanCarmichael.com suggestion - Maybe I missed it but I would like to suggest that a Blog be created to support the Forum. The idea is that in the blog you put in snippets of some of the biggest conversations with a 'read more' link to the forum itself. Setting up the Blog and clipping some conversations onto it wouldn't take very long.
Jen's Blog - Spam protection - Jen, I like the Blog and just posted a comment to one of your articles. From my experience you need to implement some sort of SPAM capture tools. i use them on my Blog and it's been a life saver as I'm getting hit by spam atleast 5 times a day. I use Wordpress and they have plugins like Captcha and SPAM Karma installed.
Decide your market first - Stop for a second and decide exactly who it is that you want to sell your product to. Once you've done this you'll have a far better idea of where to find them and what it is that they're interested in Cheers


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