ProBlogger: Use Product Promotions to Add Value on Your Blog—and Others

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Use Product Promotions to Add Value on Your Blog—and Others Posted: 28 Oct 2012 07:09 AM PDT We get a lot of requests for co-promotions here at ProBlogger, and at Digital Photography School as well. Image courtesy stock.xchng user Thoursie No matter what niche you’re in, if your blog has a reasonably engaged audience, you’re probably the target for others who want to promote their new products. On the flip side, you may well target other bloggers when you want to promote your own blog products. But negotiating coverage can be tough—and making sure the product’s promotion reaches the host blog’s audience in a meaningful way can be even tougher. Today I want to show you how to do just that, using a great example from Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income. The post The post is How a Part-Time Blogger Landed His Dream Job—an Interview with Leslie Samuel. Now, let me say up front that I have no idea how this interview came about, although Pat does say at the beginning of the podcast that he a Leslie have been friends for some time. I do know that a lot of bloggers who’d love coverage like this for their products wonder how it’s done—even if they’re not personal friends with any A-list bloggers. So let’s pull this post apart a bit and see how you could replicate this kind of coverage for your next product launch—or to make the most of someone else’s launch on your own blog. The post introduces a podcast—Pat posts regular podcasts on his blog—which contains an interview with Leslie, who tells the story of how he came to enjoy online success. The post points out what’s covered in the podcast, and links to the services mentioned. It also links to the podcast, then mentions a special offer that Leslie’s making exclusively to Pat’s readers for his product. What’s so good about this post? Sounds simple, right? We all see posts like this all the time online. What’s so good about them? The post provides valuable information independently of the promotion: The podcast is free. Anyone can listen to it—you can do it right there on Pat’s blog if you don’t want to download it. So any of Pat’s followers can access the valuable information Leslie has to share, without spending any money. The information in the post isn’t focused on the product offer: Throughout the interview, Leslie tells a rich, deep story that’s packed with advice and tips. He gives it all away. Sometimes you’ll come across posts whose authors constantly refer to their new product or promotion, and some references aren’t always bad—often they’re necessary. But to make the product the focus of the post (or in this case, interview) can turn off more readers than it entices. The offer comes at the end of the post: Pat makes mention of the special discount separately, at the end of his post. Leslie gets to it at the end of the interview. It’s clear, and obvious, which draws it to readers’ attention, and simultaneously lets them know that if they’re not keen, they can skip it. The offer is provided independently of the host blog: While I have nothing against affiliate links (as you’ll know if you read ProBlogger or DPS regularly), promoting an offer in which you have no personal stake can be a great way to add credibility to the product, and communicate to your readers how much you’re focused on them. From the guest’s point of view—Leslie, who has a product to promote—this super-credible approach to his story is great. He gets excellent coverage, which builds his profile regardless of whether people actually take up his offer or not. He also gets to make a great offer to a massive audience he might have trouble reaching otherwise. And he boosts his reputation as a guru without risking being seen as too salesy. Pat, meanwhile, gets excellent content for his readers, and an exclusive deep discount on a product they’re likely to be interested in. This reinforces his position as a guru, too—again, without seeming salesy. The message for host bloggers If someone contacts you about a promotion they want you to mention on your blog, look at the potential value it can give your readers—and not just through the promotion itself. See what gems you can get the blogger to “give away” in an interview, rich guest post, or infographic. Think about free value for your readers, not pushing a product. The message for product promoters Don’t see the opportunity as one for selling—see it as a chance to build authority with a new audience. What can you tell them that the host blogger can’t? That’s what you should share. Focus on what’s unique about you, translate that into advice and help, and readers will automatically be motivated to click through to your blog, and take up your offer. How to do it This post presents great, unique information in a format that’s familiar and interesting to the host blog’s audience. While not all blog hosts will want to run hour-long interviews with product promoters, the path to the best opportunities is to match the key elements of the product that’s being promoted with the key needs of the host blog’s audience. For the product promoter For the product promoter, this means taking your product offer, and focusing on the aspect of it that’s central to your brand. For Leslie, it’s about his journey to become a blogger—what it’s taken for him to build a popular blog from scratch. That’s what he wants to focus on in his coverage on the host blog. So he might come up with a few different ideas for exposure (through a post, a recorded interview, a series—the sky’s the limit when you’re proposing to help another blogger by providing content!) and pick one or two that seem to suit his brand and the host blog’s audience best. Now as I say, I have no idea how this interview came about, but let’s suppose Leslie initiated it. He might approach Pat about the coverage, explain what he has to share, how it’ll help Pat’s audience, and mention the offer he’s willing to give Pat’s listeners if Pat’s open to that. For the host blogger For the host blogger, the challenge is to match that central element of the product promoter’s brand with the needs of the audience. So Pat would need to make sure that Leslie’s focus could be framed in an appropriate and really compelling way for his readers and listeners. Of course, since Pat’s podcasts often include interviews, he may have approached Leslie about the interview himself, having spotted the solid fit between Leslie’s site and his own. He might have been the one who came up with the ideas for the interview coverage, including topics and questions, and approached Leslie with them. We bloggers are always looking for great content, after all! An hour is a lot of time to take out of a busy blogger’s week, so Pat may also have offered the opportunity for Leslie to promote his product as part of the interview. Finding the right fit As you can see, getting great coverage of a person and/or their product on a blog is a matter of fit. The two brands need to align on some level, and the two bloggers need to work to make that alignment work in the best way possible for the host blog’s readers. If you can do this as a product promoter, you’ll find it much easier to get really deep promotion on others’ blogs. And if you can do this as a host blogger, you won’t have much trouble coming up with posts that really provide massive value to your readers, and position you as your niche’s go-to guy or girl. Have you promoted someone else’s product through a post on your blog? Or had your product promoted through another blog? Tell us how it came about—and why it worked—in the comments. Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger Use Product Promotions to Add Value on Your Blog—and Others

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“How to Handle Guest Post Rejection” plus 1 more

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How to Handle Guest Post Rejection Posted: 27 Oct 2012 01:07 PM PDT This guest post is by Tapha Ngum of MyAppTemplates.com. So, you agreed on a topic to write about for a blog with the blog owner or editor, and you’ve just spent eight hours writing and editing it. You’ve done all the right things—read the submission guidelines, and double-checked your post for spelling mistakes, and you’re sure you’ve done a good job. You’re confident and excited, though a little apprehensive about sending it over. Because, after all, it could still get rejected, right? But you send it out anyway. Two days later you get an email back from the blog, and it tells you that the post has been rejected. Inevitably, you feel terribly deflated. I know this feeling—and if you’ve been guest blogging for a while, then I’m sure you know it too. It’s really frustrating. People don’t often talk about this aspect of guest blogging. But it’s a very real part of the equation. The fact is, you can spend hours working on a post and just like that, it can be rejected—deemed useless by the site you wrote it for. All that blood, sweat and tears for nothing. Even after you have discussed your post idea with the editor! So what do you do? Well, in most cases, that post that you wrote would probably end up locked away in some random folder on your computer. And with your confidence dented, you would probably not be too eager to write another guest post for a while, let alone make any revisions to the current one. But this, in my mind is the worst possible way to deal with guest post rejection. The right way to deal with guest post rejection is to treat it as a stepping stone. Guest post rejection, just like any other form of rejection, has within it the seeds of an equivalent benefit, if you know how to spot and effectively use those seeds. In each case of rejection, there will be some variability, and the benefits that you can take out of the situation will differ. But in the main, there are some key benefits that I have seen and used to good effect every time one of my guest posts has failed to be accepted. I specifically mentioned the word “seeds” above, because the benefits that can be gained from guest post rejection are not always immediately apparent. A lot of the time you need to dig them up for yourself. So, to help you along with that process, here are the three steps that I take when a post of mine has been rejected. You can use them to help you unearth the benefits for yourself and ultimately get more of your posts published. Step 1. Get specific feedback from the person who rejected your post Getting your guest post rejected is a brilliant opportunity to find out how you can improve your guest posting approach. Was it the way you wrote it? The lack of references in your article? In some cases you can even find that it was the way that you approached the person in the email that put them off and caused them to reject you. Don’t be afraid to ask why your post was rejected. More often than not you’ll get useful feedback that will help you in your future guest posting endeavours. When you’re armed with this knowledge, your future attempts will only be more successful. Quick tip: In your first email with the person who accepts the guest posts, let them know that you are willing to make revisions as necessary. This makes it easier to request a second submission later on if the post is rejected. Also make sure that you do your research and find out how the blog that you’re dealing with likes to accept submissions. Often, you will find that your post has been rejected because you failed to discuss the ideas with them first. ProBlogger, for example, prefers bloggers to send their pitches over to them before you go ahead with your guest post. Step 2. Try to resubmit the guest post Once you have had a chance to analyze the feedback that you have been given and implement it into your post, send the guest post in again. Try your best to make sure that you have incorporated as much of the feedback as you can. I’d also suggest you read the last ten guest posts that were accepted onto the site, to get a feel for what they like to publish. Step 3. Try another blog If you have really made an effort to make the post great, but are still not getting through with it, then maybe it is time to see if it can be placed on another site. You should understand that every objectively well-written post is an asset, and even though it may not be valued by a particular site, it still has a lot of inherent value if it is used. So don’t let it end up on a folder, unused on your computer just because the rejection of it decreases your perception of its value. Not all posts are necessarily the right fit for all sites. So you have to accept that in some cases, your post will just not work for a particular site—and move onto another one. A rejected post is not a useless post, although initially it can feel that way. In fact, if you have gone through the first two steps outlined above, and you’ve edited the post and submitted more than one revision, the chances are very likely that you will get accepted by another blog of similar standing. Quick tip: Again, make sure that you know how the blog that you are dealing with likes to accept submissions. If you have to discuss the pre-written post with them before you send it in, make sure you do that. In the end, you want to make sure that you give yourself the best chance of having your guest post accepted and published. So complying with the host blog’s guidelines is a must. Rejection can make your post better A lot of people who have experienced rejection of their guest posts end up thinking that it’s just not worth the effort—it’s just too risky for them to put in the all that work for a chance that it may not even pay off. But in my mind, that’s where the value in guest posting lies. If you learn to deal with this uneasy part of the guest posting process, then it will become an asset, not just to you, but to your business as well. Have you ever had a guest post get rejected? How did you deal with it? Let me know in the comments! This is a guest post from Tapha. Founder of MyAppTemplates.com, a site that provides custom iphone app templates to people who cannot afford to spend $1,000′s on their iphone app design. Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger How to Handle Guest Post Rejection

Why My First Blog Failed … and What You Can Learn from My Mistakes Posted: 27 Oct 2012 07:09 AM PDT This guest post is by Ali Luke of Aliventures. Where do you hope blogging will take you? I'm thrilled that blogging's got me to where I am today—with a successful full-time business, a bunch of ebooks, a membership site, guest posts on major blogs, two speaker appearances at BlogWorld, and a published book Publishing E-Books For Dummies). To other bloggers, it might look like I've been successful. And I have definitely had my share of success … but, like every single blogger you can think of,I've also had my share of failures. Today, I'm going to tell you about my very first blog. It failed … but I learned a huge amount from the experience. Here's how it happened, and what you can learn from my mistakes. Where I began Like most new bloggers, I had a day job when I started out. I wasn't too happy in my day job, and for a while, I'd been thinking about ways to make money doing something I loved—writing. I came across the idea of "pro-blogging" online—and promptly devoured most of ProBlogger's archives. I was fired up with the idea of becoming a blogger, and immediately pictured a book deal and a six-figure income. But I made three big mistakes… Mistake #1: Too much of a focus on money Instead of thinking up a topic I could write on for years and years, I chose one that I was sure would make money: healthy eating and weight loss. This was back in late 2007, when the conventional blogging advice was to choose a niche – as narrow a niche as possible. I named my blog The Office Diet (if you're really curious, it's still online—www.theofficediet.com) and focused on writing about healthy living for office workers. For me, this was too narrow a niche: I was starting to lose interest after a few months. Learning point Money matters—but so does love! Don't just choose a blogging niche because you think it will be commercial … choose one that gives you room to grow. You might even want to go for a blog title that gives you scope to shift and change your perspective, in case you start to lose interest in your initial topic. Mistake #2: No real business plan I was very keen to monetize my blog … but I didn't have much idea of how to go about that. I'd been reading Steve Pavlina's blog at the time, and he made most of his money through advertising, so I decided to go down the same route. I signed up for Google Adwords, popped some ad units into my blog's sidebar, and waited for the money to start coming in. And waited. And waited. In the end, it took me eleven months of blogging—five times a week at first (I later dropped to three posts a week) before I got my very first check from Google. Since then, I've become much more business-savvy. Instead of seeing my blog itself as something that will produce money, as if by magic, I've realised that I need to use my blog as a marketing tool to support my business. Learning point Blogs are a wonderful way to market and grow your business—through writing great content that draws people to your products or services. Advertising can bring in some extra cash, but it's not going to be a big revenue stream unless you have a massive blog. For most of us, it's much easier to build a successful small business than to build a blog with hundreds of thousands of subscribers. Mistake #3: No interaction with readers When I began my blog, I decided to switch comments off. I'd seen some big bloggers do this due to being overwhelmed with comments—and I figured I might as well do it at the start. I was convinced that before long, I would have tons of traffic, and hundreds of people commenting on every post. Looking back, I can't quite believe I was so big-headed! Of course, my blog didn't take off overnight … and I lost out on a potentially very useful resource: reader feedback. Believe it or not, I managed to take this mistake even further. By this point, I'd realized that I was making just pennies with Google Adwords (partly due to my niche – weight loss ads don't pay well – and I hadn't thought to research this before starting the blog). So, I launched an ebook. It didn't occur to me to ask my readers what they might want to read. I just wrote the ebook that I thought they needed. Of course, it went down like carrot sticks at a chocolate-lovers' convention. I made a few sales, but nothing like what I'd hoped for (even after I cut the price from $10 to just $4). Learning point Your readers are the lifeblood of your blog. Treasure their comments—especially in the early days of your blog. Seek their feedback when you're deciding what to post about, and always survey them when you're at the brainstorming stage of creating a product. You might well find that what they want is very different from what you thought they'd want! As you can imagine, by this point, I'd become a bit disillusioned with my blog. I was struggling to come up with ideas for new posts, because I was losing interest in my topic. I'd tried pitching a book idea, but (unsurprisingly) the publisher just wasn't interested—my readership stats really weren't impressive. And, of course, I wasn't making much money. The blog had failed. But … that's not the full story. Because some very good things had come out of my blogging, despite all those mistakes I'd made. This is what I'd managed to get right. #1: Guest posting led to freelance blogging I started guest posting very early in the life of my blog (about a month after launching it). By the luck of being in the right place at the right time, I landed two paid blogging gigs. I managed to build on these to get more paying, regular writing work … and about nine months after launching that first blog, I quit my day job. My blog itself wasn't making money, but my blogging for other people had resulted in a steady income. While I had a bit of an advantage here over some bloggers – I have an English Literature degree, and I've always been a confident writer—I strongly believe that paid blogging is accessible to anyone with a good standard of English. #2: Freelance blogging led to my first successful ebook I found that people were very interested in how I got paid blogging work, so I wrote an ebook about that – and this one was much more successful. (I updated this ebook last year—if you're interested, it's The Blogger's Guide to Freelancing.) By this point, I was beginning to get a name for myself as someone who wrote about blogging and writing, which led to… #3: My ebook led to my blog In 2009, I launched a new blog, Aliventures. I already had the domain name, as Aliventures was the name of my business. Of course, I made plenty of mistakes with that blog too – but I managed to apply all the things I'd learned from my first blog, The Office Diet, and from my second blog (that lasted all of a couple of months), which was called Alpha Student. I was able to get readers much more quickly, plus I had lots of strong connections through guest posting and through Twitter. Even better, I now write about topics that inspired me. To begin with, I focused on personal development, but then I switched my focus to writing, blogging and publishing. Because the blog had a brand-style name, Aliventures, rather than a keyword-rich name like The Office Diet, it was easy for me to make this shift. And four years on from starting my very first "pro" blog, I finally got that book deal I'd been hoping for. My book Publishing E-Books For Dummies came out last month, and it's wonderful to be an author for such a major brand. What I want you to remember This post has been very much about me, so I wanted to end with what's important for you. If you don't remember anything else from this post, remember this part: It's always frustrating when things don't go as well as we'd like, and if you're struggling to get more than a handful of readers, you might well be tempted to give up. Don't. Even small successes count. If you only have ten people on your mailing list, or ten subscribers to your blog, that's still ten people who are enjoying your writing. Imagine sitting at them with a table in a restaurant—it's not such a small number! And every time you step outside your comfort zone and try something new—from joining Twitter to writing your first guest post—you take a step that could lead to somewhere amazing. Thomas Edison, who invented the lightbulb, didn't get it right the first time. Or the tenth time, or even the hundredth time. But he didn't give up. He said, "I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work." Whether you've been blogging for a few days or a few years, you'll have had some successes—even if, like many of mine, they were a bit unexpected! Even if you've made a few mistakes, you'll have learned a huge amount. Share your best blogging experiences with us in the comments, so we can all learn from one another, and celebrate our successes together. Ali Luke is a writer and blogger from the UK. If you'd like to take your writing and blogging further, join her newsletter to access her library of free mini-ebooks, including Ten Powerful Ways to Make Your Blog Posts Stronger, Ten Easy Ways to Attract Readers to Your Blog … And Keep Them There and more! Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger Why My First Blog Failed … and What You Can Learn from My Mistakes

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