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Let Your Personality Show On Your Website To Attract A Bigger Audience

Posted: 26 Aug 2015 04:50 AM PDT

What’s missing from most people’s websites? A personal touch.

Business often has an impersonal feel to it, but it doesn’t have to be that way. You can share who you are with your audience, and you’ll probably be better off for it too.

The hardest part about this is being vulnerable. It can be difficult to open up to your followers and share who you really are. However, overcoming that fear is all part of growing your online business.

Here are four steps you can take to let your personality show through on your website and begin to attract a bigger audience.

Step #1 – Identify Your Values

What do you stand for? What drives and motivates you? What is most important to you in your life?

When you know what your values are, difficult choices become much easier. You’ll always make better decisions concerning your business, your life, and your family if you make them with your personal values in mind.

As you are in the process of identifying your values, remember that there are no right or wrong answers. There is virtually no limit to what you can include on your list (but it is good to keep your list on the shorter side).

Here are some examples of common values:

  • Achievement
  • Family
  • Challenge
  • Freedom
  • Creativity
  • Integrity

If you aren’t sure what you value, then take some time to think about what makes you happy. That’s usually a pretty good indicator of what’s important to you.

Finally, there is some value in prioritizing your values too. Some might be more important to you than others. If you resonate with that, then take a moment to order your priorities.

Step #2 – Make A List Of Your Passions

What do you like to do with your time? What are your hobbies? How do you spend your days off?

Identifying your passions shouldn’t be hard. In fact, it should be a lot of fun! After all, this is the stuff you already care about and spend your time doing. You would probably do these things even if you weren’t paid to!

You might be passionate about technology and gadgets, playing guitar, watching your favorite basketball team, going to movies, or spending time with your family.

Guess what? Other people are passionate about that stuff too! Sure, you and your audience might not have everything in common, but the more you let on about your passions, the more you’ll give your followers an opportunity to feel a sense of connectedness with you.

It doesn’t matter if you’re marketing affiliate products or selling your own resources; if you’re open about who you are, your audience will grow and you’ll sell more.

Additionally, some people like to separate personal passions from professional passions. That might be a good thing to do, depending on what your goals are. For example, if you started a blog to land your ideal job, separating your passions might be helpful in evaluating offers that come your way.

Step #3 – Talk To Those Closest To You

Do you want to know who you really are? Do you want to get a sense of how your audience views you?

Although it’s a good idea to look yourself in the mirror (both literally and figuratively), it’s the perception of others that matters. This isn’t to say that your view of yourself isn’t important, but in business, you also need to be thinking about how you’re coming across.

Who knows you better than those closest to you – your family and friends? You should spend some time with these people. Share your values and passion with them and ask them what they see in you.

Who knows? You might discover some rough edges that you need to smooth out. You might find that your values aren’t totally in alignment with your actions. Or, maybe you’ll discover that you’re exactly the kind of person you thought you were.

Regardless, this is a valuable exercise. Asking what other people think of you requires a certain amount of vulnerability; the same vulnerability that will be needful of you as you are in the process of building a bigger audience.

Step #4 – Determine Your  Goals

By now, you should have a much better idea of who you are. Now it’s time to take a look at where you want to go..

What do you hope to achieve in your personal and business life? What activities have you found to be the most rewarding in your life so far? Where do you see yourself ending up; five, 10, or even 50 years down the line?

It’s entirely possible that you already have goals for yourself and your business. If so, do you have them written down? And, if they are written down, are your goals in alignment with the person you’ve identified in the last three steps?

Congruence is important. It seems obvious, but when who you are matches up with where you want to go, getting there is going to prove much easier.

Now that you know what your life vision is, don’t forget to take the time to think about the steps you need to take to get there. You have to break your goals down into smaller steps; otherwise, your dreams are merely wishes.

Conclusion

The steps outlined here might seem overblown. It may seem like a lot of trouble to go through just to attract a bigger audience.

But there is a lot of power in knowing who you are and sharing that with others. When they know what you’re after, it makes it easier for them to rally behind you.

More than likely, you’ve taken the time to find out who your audience is. You’ve figured out what age they are, what their interests are, and where they like to hang out online. This is marketing 101.

Personal branding 101 is knowing who you are. If you’ve taken the time to get to know your target customer, then you should take the same amount of time and effort in understanding your own desires and motivations.

How to Email Busy Bloggers and Get Response - DailyBlogTips

How to Email Busy Bloggers and Get Response - DailyBlogTips


How to Email Busy Bloggers and Get Response

Posted: 25 Aug 2015 07:37 AM PDT

Do you know what happens after you click send an email to a busy blogger?

Well, you guessed it right. It gets ignored. Most top bloggers are busy. They're extremely busy.

At an average, every influential blogger receives anything around 150 to 200 new emails every single day. Unless and until he's a superman, he won't get enough time to read each and every email he gets.

So what busy bloggers generally do? They ignore most of their emails!

How do they decide which emails to ignore and which ones to respond? And how can you write emails that get response?

Are you curious to find out? Let's figure out what makes busy bloggers to read and respond to your emails. Before diving into the details, we'll first talk about the need of sending emails to busy bloggers.

If you're blogging for a while, you already know that, connections with top bloggers play a crucial role. If contacted correctly, influential bloggers can change your blogging career completely.

If a top/busy blogger in your niche responds to your email and does a favor, you'll get the following perks.

  • You'll increase your sales
  • You'll increase your traffic
  • You'll get more social shares
  • You'll attract more quality links
  • And most importantly you'll connect with the awesome people

Emailing influential bloggers and getting response is a science. Sending good emails to others will not only open the doors for you to create great relationships but you will drive more traffic and sales to your websites.

So how to approach busy bloggers through emails? Let's find out.

Using nudges to get response

Want to get a link from top blog in your niche? Instead of directly asking for a link, use nudges.

Nudge #1: Ask them for a tweet or share

Asking others for small favors can persuade people to do big favors in the long run. If you want to get something done, instead of seeking help in the first place, do favor for others first. So when you are asking for a tweet from someone, it's always better to build a connection with them. Follow the bloggers who you want to contact, connect with them and frequently share their stuff. That way you'll be able to build strong connections with them and once you have posted something awesome on your blog, ask others to tweet about your stuff.

Nudge #2: Ask them for feedback

Once you are succeeded in getting a tweet from your favorite blogger, it's time to persuade them into jumping another hoop. Ask for an honest feedback about your content.

Most bloggers won't say no and they are always happy to help others to improve their blogs. Take this step to improve your quality of your content and keep engaging with them.

Nudge #3: Ask for a link

Now that you've already built good communication with your favorite blogger, ask for a link after publishing a problem solving post on your blog. Make sure the content is top notch and is very detailed that will help their readers to gain something.

What happens when you ask for a link?

Mostly you'll end up getting a link (viola) from them because they already know you and possibly know the quality of your stuff.

It's easier to get a link from a friend rather than a stranger, right?

Refine and repeat the process until you succeed.

All the above nudging process will be done by emails. So it's advisable for you to hone your email writing skills. Let's now talk about how it can be done.

What captures the attention of busy bloggers?

It's important to know what makes a busy blogger to respond. Let's find out what are the things that will make an influential blogger read and respond to an email and include them while writing emails to busy bloggers in the future.

Short and sweet emails

Don’t waste others time by writing long and boring emails. Brevity matters when writing emails that get response. Be concise and your email response rate will be high.

Writing short emails that convey your whole ideas and message is really hard especially if you're a beginner. Just like anything, by practicing and learning few effective email writing strategies will help you write your emails like a pro.

Here are few suggestions for writing shorter emails.

  • Don't beat around the bush. Just come to the point. Introduce yourself in the first line and directly talk about the subject you want to discuss.
  • Never ever write your whole story. It is the surefire way to turn off anyone with your emails. No one is interested in reading your life story in the emails.
  • Proofread thrice. Sending emails without proofreading can do more harm than good. Edit before you send the emails. And make sure your emails are grammatically correct.

Interesting subject lines

The first thing that gets noticed on any email is the subject line. If you are mailing to busiest people, you need to make sure that you have compelling subject lines that immediately grab attention. Unfortunately, most people don't know how to write subject lines that will dramatically increase their email open rates.

If you're one of them, don't fret much here are few tips for writing stunning subject lines that increase your email open rates.

  • The best email subject lines are always short and they give clear ideas to open your emails.
  • Never sound like a sales guy. Don’t use cheesy words (or capital letters) to grab the attention of others. They won’t get you any attention, they often turn off the people.
  • Using names on the subject lines is always better. It adds personalization and originality to the emails you write.
  • Keeping your subject line to under 60 characters or less is one of the best email subject line writing strategies to boost your open rates.

Personalization is key

When writing emails, use names of the people. This adds extra value to your emails. People always love when someone mentions their name.

Never send an email by pitching something like "Hi there" etc., It's always better to use names from the beginning of the email to the end. Why should anyone respond to your emails if you don't have enough time to even find out their name?

Win/win approach

“You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.” – Zig Ziglar

No one will help you by default. You have to help others before you seek out help.

Blogosphere works on win/win approach. If you help others, they will reciprocate. In the beginning, when you have no real online connection with others, offer help without wanting to get anything in return.

This strategy works like a charm if you are focusing on getting massive results in the long run. If you want a tweet from your favorite blogger, instead of asking him directly, follow him on twitter and frequently retweet their stuff. If you want to get a link from a blog make sure to frequently linking out to the blog you are targeting.

Before asking for any help, make sure to do it first from your end.

End every email with a proper call to action

Want to get the response from busy bloggers? Make sure to include a clear call to action at the end of every email you write.

If there's only one effective thing that bring you great results from your emails, it is the "effective call to action". Never end your emails without including a call to action if you want to get a response or help.

Include social proof

If you want to immediately grab the attention of other bloggers, make sure to include social proof in your emails. For instance, let's say you want to write a guest post for a top blog in your niche, instead of randomly pitching the top blogger, you can send few of your writing samples to add more value to your email pitch.

Few email samples that are proven to get response

Here I'm going to give you few email samples that got more email responses. Just observe the pattern and you can use these email samples for almost anything from asking a tweet to landing a guest post on top blog.

If you're asking for a tweet or link:

Hi [name],

Just linked to you from my blog [include the post URL]. If you like it, I'd appreciate a tweet from you. If you think the post is highly relevant to your blog readers, you can even link to it.

Cheers,

Your name

Why it works?

The above email is really short and you're not beating around the bush to get a tweet or link from the bloggers you have linked it. If they really like your post, they will tweet about it. If they really read your post and find it useful, they may even link to it.

If you're seeking help:

Hi [name],

My name is [name] and I blog at [blog url]. I'm a regular reader of your blog and I'm really inspired with your writing.

I need a feedback from you. My blog is [mention the problem, lack of traffic or sales or anything].

I hope I'll get an insightful suggestion from you to solve this.

Awaiting for your reply.

Why it works?

The above email pitch is super short and you're directly asking for the feedback. If the busy bloggers in your niche find your problem painful, they will either create a specific blog post for you or they'll email you about solving your problem. Both are good!

If you want to send a guest post pitch to a busy blogger

Hi [name],

My name is [name] who blogs at [blog name]. I know you're a busy blogger so I'll directly come to the point.

I've noticed the blog readers mostly enjoy [type of content]. And I've written a detailed guest post solving [a particular problem], I hope your readers would find it really helpful. If love the guest post idea, please see the attachment for the guest post.

Just in case if you want to see my writing abilities.

[2 to 3 writing samples]

Let me know what you think.

Why it works?

The guest post pitch shared above is short and really effective. You've introduced yourself and you also said that you're a loyal reader to the blog you're going to pitch. You're also sending your writing samples by including a detailed post on particular problem. Mostly, you'll get a yes if they think your post is unique and really helpful for their readers.

Final thoughts about emailing busy people to get response

Your online success largely depends on creating great emails. If you don’t learn compelling email writing strategies, you will suffer later. Effective email writing also helps you connect with the great people in your industry.

But the only problem with emailing busy people is that your email gets ignored most of the time (especially if you don’t know how to write emails).

It doesn’t matter whether if you want to set up a skype call or ask for an advice from an influential blogger in your niche, if used proven email scripts, you’ll definitely get a response.

As you can see, I've included a lot of interesting things that capture the attention of busy bloggers. So make sure to use most of them to get a response from the top bloggers in your niche. Also use the email samples shared in the post to your advantage. You can directly use them or make some changes to your needs.

Hopefully the tips and strategies mentioned in this detailed guide will help you approach busy bloggers.

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