Content Mastery Guide

Editor and Ghostwriter

How Blogging Supports a Launch – With Launch Geek Cristina Favreau

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© vector1st – Fotolia.com

I hear many people talk about how September feels like a new beginning in their life and in their business. And the launch of a new season often comes with the launch of something they haven’t done before in their business.

When you’re already so busy with a launch, where does blogging fit in? It’s often the first thing to go on the back burner, but you may not realize all the ways blogging can help make your launch a success.

To delve into this topic, we’ll hear from Cristina Favreau, the Launch Geek. Cristina and I met online and worked together many years ago, and have launched and relaunched many things in our businesses since then.

Today, she’s in the business of launching stuff online – courses, products and programs, events, businesses, membership sites, podcasts, blogs, you name it, she’ll help you launch it! Best of all, she helps you come up with a launch plan that fits YOU – your product or service, your personality, and your level of technical know-how.

How does a blog enhance your credibility during a launch, and how might that affect your results?

I know this is a given, but it’s important to point out that launching is not the time to start BUILDING credibility. You build credibility, over time, through your articles and blog marketing activities.

During a launch, your blog will help you achieve a few goals (depending on your situation):

  • Building your launch interest list
  • Creating curiosity, anticipation, buzz for what’s coming
  • Improving keyword rank
  • Demonstrating social proof
  • Attracting media or guest opportunities

While all of these elements are important, in my opinion building your interest list is the most important goal to work toward.

That way you’ll have a list of interested people (AKA a warm list) to send launch promo emails (versus sending a barrage of launch emails to your entire list for the duration of your launch).

What shape should your blog be in before you launch?

Because every blog and each launch is different, there’s not one right answer.

I advocate for starting where you are with what you have (“shoulds” just make everything more intimidating).

There are, however a few best practices to consider. I’ll also share some of my suggestions, based on my experience.

First and foremost, no matter how long you’ve been blogging, the most important factor of launching is PLANNING!

I know, I know! Planning isn’t sexy.

I’m sure you have better things to do than create an elaborate launch campaign. So don’t. Create a simple one.

Creating a simple launch plan will give you a clear picture of what blog elements are needed to support your launch (which may affect your timeline and/or budget).

Here are elements to include in your simple launch plan:

  • Important dates (open cart, close cart, teaser period, pre-launch phase, content release, live/virtual events, bonus release, program start/end, etc.)
  • Tasks to complete, when and by whom
  • Teaser, pre-launch and launch content plan
  • Visibility/promotion strategy for each piece of content
  • Teaser, pre-launch and launch email strategy
  • 2-3 launch goals and a way to track them

Your blog plays an important role in each of these elements, but especially during the teaser period (3-6 weeks before pre-launch) and pre-launch phase (5-10 days before you open the cart) where you “prime” your audience for what’s coming up.

Here’s a suggested blog strategy for the teaser period and pre-launch phase:

Write a weekly blog post (or more, depending on your schedule), only about your product/program topic

  • Create a freebie that is directly related to your product/program topic
  • Link to that freebie in each blog post
  • Send a link to each blog post to your entire email list
  • If you’re planning a launch a few months in advance, share “behind the scenes” of your upcoming launch (people love getting the inside scoop)

Keep in mind that during the teaser period, discuss the TOPIC of your product or program; don’t mention the product or program you’re about to launch (not just yet).

What are the top 3 ways that blogging can support the launch of…

An online business:

  • SEO and keyword ranking
  • Builds your list
  • Gets backlinks and shares (links, post excerpts, quotables, shareables, e.g., Click To Tweet)

An in-person event:

  • Your audience sees you being active in your industry (even if they can’t make the event)
  • Acts as your virtual business card where people can learn more about you after the event
  • Gets backlinks and shares (links, post excerpts, quotables, shareables, e.g., Click To Tweet)

A virtual event (telesummit or webinar):

  • Demonstrates your industry connections and expert status by association (interview your event speakers)
  • Gets backlinks and shares (links, post excerpts, quotables, shareables, e.g., Click To Tweet)
  • Offers added value for event participants (convert presentation transcripts and Q&A into blog posts)

A recurring podcast, blog or newsletter:

  • Offers added value and alternative learning methods (post transcripts of audio and other content upgrades like worksheets and PDF reports)
  • Adds SEO value when you turn audio into text transcripts
  • Interviews mean more and content for you and potential exposure to the other person’s audience)

A book or other information product:

  • Gets backlinks and shares (links, post excerpts, quotables, shareables, e.g., Click To Tweet)
  • Creates buzz with free chapters and other book excerpts
  • Generates content for your book or info product

A course or training program:

  • Demonstrates that your program works (blog about success stories/case studies of students)
  • Gives people value while they wait for the course to start
  • Generates interest in the program with “behind the scenes” posts as you create your program

A membership site:

  • Attracts new members with a sneak peek of course content
  • Provides subtle ways to mention your membership site
  • Demonstrates value of site when you write profiles of member success stories

Wow, if I wasn’t already a blogging evangelist, I would be now! Thanks, Cristina, for showing us how integral blogging can be when you’re launching anything in your business.

P.S. If you liked this post, you might enjoy the Blogging Tips newsletter, delivered weekly to your inbox! Sign up here.

How to Delight Your Guest Bloggers and Yield Better Content

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© Rawpixel.com – Fotolia.com

I’m invited regularly to submit guest posts, and I’m grateful to have been featured in some of my industry’s top publications like Content Marketing Institute, {grow}, and Social Media Examiner, along with wellness-focused sites such as IONC, Canadian Chiropractor, and Massage Therapy Canada.

As a long-time user of WiseStamp, an email signature tool, I was excited to hear from Simcha Lazarus (social media and community manager), with a request to contribute to their blog for small business owners.

I noticed right away that I felt highly valued and well cared for during this process. I knew exactly what was required of me and by when, and that made it easier to plan and complete the task within my busy schedule.

Just how did Simcha and her team achieve this magical effect? I asked her to take me through how they manage guest posts.

1. Why does WiseStamp use guest bloggers?

Hosting guest writers is a great way to build relationships with bloggers and industry influencers and to provide your readers with content on a variety of topics by experts on those subjects.

And when you have other writers publish on your site your blog gets discovered by that blogger’s readers, which can give your traffic a boost.

2. How have your guest posting guidelines evolved over time?

Our guidelines are actually pretty new. Before we had them, we had been editing the guest posts that we were receiving, and repeatedly emailing our guest writers to ask them to add links or provide images. Finally we realized that it would be a lot simpler if we just wrote up a set of guidelines and provided them to anyone who wanted to write for us.

3. How do the guidelines help things run smoothly?

Having the guidelines saves everyone a lot of time and effort when we prepare the articles for publication. In the past we used to get a lot of articles that were too short or weren’t formatted in a way that’s easy to read. Now this happens a lot less.

Our guest writers know what our expectations are and can create the blog posts with those in mind. And the articles that we now receive are pretty much ready to go up, with just the occasional tinkering here and there.

4. How do you find your guest bloggers?

I usually start with someone that we already have a relationship with. This can be a WiseStamp user or someone who has written about us in the past.

Since they are already familiar with WiseStamp, and are probably a fan, they are likely to be interested in contributing to our blog.

5. How do you build and cultivate good relationships with your guest bloggers?

If I would like to invite someone to write for our blog who I don’t yet have a relationship with, then I will work on cultivating one.

I will follow them on Twitter and retweet and comment on their tweets. I will read their blog posts and comment on them (Simcha stopped by the Content Mastery Guide blog and commented on this post about attracting new clients without Google). I might also follow their Facebook page and comment on their posts.

After a while this person will become familiar with me and we might have engaged in a few conversations. I will then email them, tell them how much I enjoy their articles (which I do, because otherwise I wouldn’t want them writing for WiseStamp) and ask if they would be interested in writing a post for our blog.

And I was – thanks, Simcha! I’m thrilled to have my first guest post on the WiseStamp blog, How to Use Your Blog to Develop Valuable Relationships.

For a wellness practitioner or clinic, ideal guest posters might be other experts in your field, vendors (supplements, food products, mobility tools, spa products, body care products, etc.), retreat destinations, related charities, or local community partners. Here are more tips for who to feature and how to write about them.

Guest posts aren’t the only way to spotlight other people on your wellness blog. You can also publish Q & A interviews like the one I did with Simcha, or write about them in your own post.

P.S. How healthy is your wellness clinic blog? Subscribe to my free e-course to learn about the top 5 myths that may be sabotaging your blogging efforts.

Social Media is Meant to Be Social – A Chat With Nicole Holland

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Nicole Holland is on a mission to help experts grow their audience, impact, and influence quickly and easily by leveraging podcast interviews.

As host of The Business Building Rockstars Show, she interviews successful entrepreneurs about what it really took for them to reach Rockstar status. She also hosts The Business Building Rockstar Summit, a free online event for service-based entrepreneurs.

After Nicole and I started following each other on Twitter recently, I received this:

Then a few days later, Nicole got my attention and impressed me again:

When I replied with the news about my new free e-course for wellness professionals, Nicole was kind enough to share it with her audience.

In a recent chat I asked Nicole about her approach to social media, and some of the results she’s seen. Aside from building up an impressive 8,500+ followers on Twitter in just over a year, she’s also made important connections.

Social media should be social

Nicole and I also had a lot of fun comparing our social media pet peeves, which above all were people who used automation to be everywhere, without making any time or effort to actually engage with people.

Think before you post

Business bloggers and wellness bloggers often tell me how excited they are to discover tools like Hootsuite, Buffer and CoSchedule that let them promote new blog posts instantly across multiple social media platforms.

“Hold on there,” I usually say, because blasting the same message at the same time is not usually the best strategy. First of all, there are character limit differences between what you can share on the sites (Twitter is the most restrictive as 140 characters). More importantly there are cultural differences, e.g., a message for your Facebook profile might not work for your LinkedIn company page.

Here’s what Nicole had to say about automating your social media engagement across multiple platforms:

Batch the tasks, make the time

There’s no doubt that authentic social media engagement takes time. That’s why Nicole says she is most impressed when highly successful, influential and busy people still take the time for personalized – not automated – interaction.

I’m a big fan of templates, structures and processes that help me remember important steps and be efficient and consistent with tasks in my business, such as this template for blog post publishing and promotion.

Nicole batches tasks AND messages. For example, she included several new followers in her original message to me, but there was still a beautifully personal touch in how she added a visual message.

Once a week, she and her assistant identify and thank her new followers. This is a manual process, so they can weed out any fake accounts or others she wouldn’t want to be associated with. Then, they further hone down the list to people Nicole might particularly want to connect with, whether for collaboration and networking, to be a potential guest on her podcast, or some other reason related to her business.

That’s where Nicole’s own template comes into play – a list of 20 or so conversation starters she’s compiled in a Google spreadsheet. They don’t just rotate them automatically, though. They review the person’s Twitter bio (also making every effort to find the person’s first name, if it’s not in their Twitter handle) so they can match their question with the person’s background, business, and interests.

nicole--hollands-template
Listen as Nicole distinguishes carefully between using automation for putting content out, but never automating or outsourcing her own engagement once people respond to her.

Thanks so much to Nicole for the wonderful chat. Check out her podcast and upcoming telesummit for strategies and motivation for your own business. And if you want your own personalized welcome message, follow her on Twitter!

P.S. If you liked this post, you might enjoy the Blogging Tips newsletter, delivered weekly to your inbox! Sign up here.

Blogging About Sensitive Topics

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© astrosystem – Fotolia.com

“I have always thought blogging is perfect for people running ‘sensitive’ businesses [such as family law and divorce], where someone may not want to admit even to themselves that they have problems.

It is highly likely they will start trawling the internet for advice or to understand where they stand. A blog is a really good way to create empathy long before the reader is ready to pick up the phone.”

Victoria Tomlinson is the chief executive of UK’s Northern Lights PR, an expert on social media, business and education, and author of a number of e-books on social media.

The above quote is from PRiME, a career site for women in their second act, where Victoria’s guest post recommends 20 business blogs for women over 50.

I thought her point about sensitive businesses also applied perfectly to wellness clinics, whose prospective clients are grappling with health concerns, or trying to transform deeply ingrained day-to-day lifestyle habits.

I asked Victoria to share her thoughts on this, and she graciously agreed.

[This] most definitely [applies.] And there are two sides relevant to this as far as health bloggers go. Our client, Pat Chapman-Pincher, just wrote this blog post last week and she said:

“I learned an interesting lesson when my husband had a major, but rare, operation. The moment the diagnosis was made I started to research the operation. The results were not encouraging, the survivors (who were very vocal) seemed to have bad side effects and an impaired quality of life.

What I learned in the next few months as he made a full recovery was that the information was very selective. Doctors of course are required to tell you everything that might go wrong and those who had no side effects were too busy getting on with their lives to bother with complaining about them online. Happy people don’t post.”

So this is an opportunity for professionals to provide clear factual information, the good and the bad and put it in perspective. But also to provide commentary on what patients/carers/families might find if they were to search – recognising what is coming top of Google and then providing independent, impartial comments to balance the negative.

How do you see the relationship between empathy and trust?

Empathy is all about the reader going ‘that’s me’. I think trust comes when you see consistency and empathy over time. That the blog posts you write are always written with the best interests of the reader in mind. And never do you go ‘salesy’ and spoil that brand. It takes time to build trust, empathy can be achieved from one post.

What are some of the steps wellness bloggers can take to express empathy for their readers and prospective clients?

The best way to create empathy is to listen to the questions that their patients/clients are asking them. These are their gems and treasure them. They are what readers will be searching online.

The blogger then needs to talk to the reader as if they were in their clinic or at a meeting and answer their questions honestly, without jargon and giving lots of examples to bring the points to life (storytelling).

Referring (anonymously) to patients will help this, e.g., ‘I had a family in my clinic last year and the thing that worried them most was ….’ So you are making the blog a fantastic repository of discussions from the clinic. A brilliant resource for any patient and creating lots of empathy in this way.

What do you think has to happen for people to move from anonymously trawling the internet and reading blog posts to actually reaching out by phone or email?

Blogs need personality and ownership. There are still blogs where companies post anonymously – these do not engage. But if you put a name to it and people can find out more about you online (Twitter, LinkedIn, articles about you, etc.) and it is all consistent and really helpful, this builds a relationship. And it happens quite quickly online.

People don’t create relationships with faceless corporates; they do with a named and pictured individual.

How can wellness bloggers increase the odds of this happening?

Give plenty of options to contact directly. These would include a direct email (not a contact form which feels so faceless and impersonal), a mobile number, and ensuring people can leave comments on blog posts. Everyone is individual and some will prefer mobile, others email and so on.

The key is that whatever contact details you leave, someone is answering every day. People may have had to pluck up a lot of courage to make this contact step – and not replying for days or weeks could be really damaging.

For readers with sensitive health issues, blogging is a very effective way to show empathy and build trust. Be sure to nurture these building blocks of a long-term relationship with clients and prospective clients.

Thank you so much to Victoria Tomlinson of Northern Lights PR for sharing your expertise with us!

[Update: In a guest post for Victoria’s site, I wrote about the process I use to find and connect with new people like her on social media, and how that leads to new content for my blog. Click here to read the post.]

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How to Expand Your Food Blogging Vocabulary With Tips From Dianne Jacob and Julia Child

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© Innovated Captures – Fotolia.com

A recent episode of the Canadian sitcom Schitt’s Creek featured a hilarious exchange between actors Catherine O’Hara and Dan Levy. Watch at 1:14 in this video as they try to make sense out of a recipe direction to fold cheese into an enchilada filling.

(Canadians can watch the whole episode at CBC for free, or anyone can purchase via iTunes.)

In a recipe or any blog post, it’s important to choose words your readers can relate to and understand. Using big words or technical jargon may make you feel smart, but it’s not a smart move for connecting with your audience.

Recently I had the opportunity to chat with Dianne Jacob, a popular food writer, speaker and author. Her book Will Write for Food is a complete guide to writing cookbooks, blogs, memoir, recipes, and more, and the chapter on food blogging is full of practical tips for any blog.

I asked her how food bloggers can keep their recipes accessible to everyone, even when describing techniques that usually come with more cooking experience.

“You have to know your audience,” she explained. “If they understand the term ‘fold,’ then use it. It’s not about dumbing down the language. It’s about successfully communicating with your readers.”

Yet in trying to keep language simple and straightforward, do we risk bland, boring writing that always sounds the same? This is a particular challenge for recipe writers, says Jacob. “I got frustrated by starting so many sentences with ‘Add’ in the method. I figured there had to be a better way.”

Her solution? She pored over her copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking to create a list of 100 powerful verbs for recipes. “It was a pleasure to thumb through Julia Child’s cookbook and see her mastery of language, how she was so specific in her instructions.”

When I notice I’ve repeated the same word in a post, I use the synonym finder in Microsoft Word or the research tools in Google Docs for other ideas. I’ll also type my word plus “synonym” into Google, or go right to an online thesaurus.

(For a fun way to expand your vocabulary while helping people in need, check out Free Rice. Caution – this site can be very addictive!)

Whether you’ve been blogging for years like Dianne and I, or you’re just starting out, challenge yourself to use new and different words in your blog posts. Just keep it simple so your readers stay with you.

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