Jim Connolly Marketing

Why bloggers post every day!

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Ever wondered why some bloggers write blog posts every day?  Well, I did too – So I tried a 14 day experiment, and I am going to share my results with you.

Usually, my blogging schedule is erratic; often just a handful of posts in a month.  However, as regular readers will have noticed, I have been updating this blog with fresh posts every day, for the past 2 weeks.

Why?

I wanted to measure for myself, just what the value to a blogger is, of updating their blog every day with new posts.  I assumed (rightly as it turned out) that 2 weeks would be a long enough period, for me to get some worthwhile data for you.  The results have been VERY interesting!

In brief, here’s what I have found:

RSS Subscribers

One of the biggest differences (in percentage points) has been the increase in new RSS subscribers to the blog.  New subscriber numbers are up an amazing 400% on the 2 weeks previous!  I was expecting to see some increase, but this was far, far higher than I imagined.

Blog Comments

The number of comments per post varies all the time, literally from post to post, making it very hard to measure over such a short period.  Equally, comments are often added to blog posts weeks, months and even years after a post is written.

Comments in total during the past 14 days are up by around 300%.  This is less impressive than it may sound, as there were many more posts for people to read and thus comment on than usual.  Also, regular readers have been visiting the blog more often and sharing posts with their friends more often, which increases comment numbers.

This leads me on to the biggest difference I have noticed with the comments, over the past 2 weeks.  The biggest (and most interesting development for me), has been the number of new people commenting here.  I have seen a lot of new commenters, many of whom have said that they have only just discovered the blog.

Blog traffic

The number of unique visitors here increased by just under 30% during the 2 weeks.  That’s a significant increase, especially as most of it came over the past 5 days.

Interestingly, the number of page views here increased massively.  This seems to be from new visitors having a look around and established readers visiting more often, in line with the number of new posts.

There’s no doubt whatsoever that daily blogging, even for a relatively short period of time, has significantly increased ‘traffic’ into the blog.

Conclusion

The biggest revelation for me has been how much fun I’ve had! I have REALLY enjoyed putting the posts together.  More than this, the increased activity on the blog from commenters and those discussing posts on Twitter, has been amazing.  The whole ‘atmosphere’ of the blog has been improved in every way.

However, it is very clear from the significant increases across the board, why so many bloggers post fresh content every day.  Daily blogging has improved literally every metric I have measured – not just those mentioned in this brief post.  It’s also improved areas that are far harder to measure, like making the blog a lot more ‘alive’ and vivid.  These things are harder to plot on a chart than RSS subscribers or traffic, but they are massively valuable to anyone who genuinely cares about their blog and it’s community of readers.

My dilemma

I strongly believe that the only time to write a blog post is when the writer has something VALUABLE to say, which is worth sharing.  I don’t believe in having a blogging schedule. As a professional writer, I have found it relatively easy to publish fresh content each day – but what about the quality of that content?

I see zero point in posting dross occasionally, just so that I don’t miss a day!  That material will live on the Internet forever, with my name attached to it. My 4 year old son will see it when he’s older – I don’t want him thinking his daddy writes pedestrian, generic bullshit occasionally, because I’m a slave to some self-imposed, daily blogging schedule.

I occasionally read posts by people considered to be GREAT bloggers, which seem ‘pretty average’ at best.  The thing is, these guys are NOT average writers; they are the top of the blogging pile.  I always wonder if the reason I find those posts average, is just that the subject is not of interest to me, or if it’s because the blogger wrote an average post, just to maintain his or her daily blogging schedule.

The bottom line for me, is that by blogging here each day, the value of this blog has improved in every way.  So, I’ve decided to aim for blogging here on a more regular basis than before, but only when I have something I believe is worth sharing with you.  If that’s daily, then fine. If not, then I assure you, you will be missing nothing worth reading.

What do you think?

Did you find any of that data useful or interesting?  What has your experience been?

Photo credit: UnSung

Successful blog marketing – 3 things to consider!

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Here’s a quick example of the kind of results that can be achieved with a well-marketed blog.  If you are either thinking of starting a blog or you already have one, but wonder if it’s worth marketing it more effectively, you will find this extremely useful.  It’s based on 3 key areas you need to consider – But first, here’s why I decided to write this post for you today.

I had the pleasure of speaking with one of my long term readers for the very first time yesterday.  The guy’s name is Brent Pohlman and Brent’s the Marketing Director at Midwest Laboratories in Omaha, Nebraska.  During our call, Brent mentioned how he attended a morning meeting that day, for local businesspeople in his part of Omaha.

During the meeting, Brent told the group that he was going to be speaking with Jim Connolly later in the morning.  When he said this, one of the businesspeople there asked;
“Isn’t he that bald marketing guy from the UK?”

Ohama, Nebraska is located in the beautiful Mid West of the United States; 6 time zones away from the small village here in the UK, where I live and work.  Even so, through the effective marketing of this blog, people were already aware of what my name was, who I was and what I did.  What makes that name / brand awareness even more amazing, is that the people attending that meeting were marketing people and business owners; the exact people my work is aimed at.  For those of you, who don’t know, I help market small businesses all over the world.

Now, I have no idea how many millions it would have cost me, to generate that kind of targeted, international name awareness via old-school, paid advertising.  However, I do know what it cost in order to achieve this using the blog.

There are 3 investments you need to consider:

Blog marketing – The FINANCIAL investment

I use a premium WordPress theme for this blog (it’s called Headway and I love it so much I am an affiliate.)  This theme allows me to make all changes to the blog myself and have it look exactly how I want it to, with the functionality I need, without requiring a web designer or CSS expert.

Then, there’s the financial investment for hosting this blog.  However, as I already host 2 other sites with my server people, this one actually costs me nothing.  I recommend to everyone that they get the best hosting they can afford – not the ‘cheapest.’ When it comes to hosting a site, avoid the bargain bucket providers.

Blog marketing – The TIME investment

The biggest investment required for successful blog-based marketing is time.  For example, there’s the time it takes to write the kind of compelling copy (articles/posts) that people will value and want to share. Like many successful blogs, this one doesn’t grow its readership  thanks to Google; it relies on people sharing what they find here with their friends and contacts.  That means the information here needs to be good enough to regularly motivate people to want to share it with their friends on social networking sites, bookmarking sites and via their blogs.

Another time investment that I believe is essential for marketing your blog, is to read other people’s blogs.  I read around 10 marketing-related blogs every day and about 50 others semi regularly.  This is a great way to keep abreast of what people in your industry and marketplace are talking about.

There’s also the time it takes to interact with the people who comment on your blog, and those, who share your content.  If someone comments here, I always try and find the time to thank them.  I do this either on the blog or, if they use Twitter, I will often thank them on Twitter – sometimes both.  There are a few posts here with over 200 comments and one with close to 700 comments, which were impossible to keep up with, but I do regularly connect with everyone who comments here.  The people who comment on this blog and those, who share my content, are of FAR more value to me, than the blog itself.  I can start a new blog tomorrow, but those relationships are pure gold dust!

Blog marketing – The expertise investment

The final investment you will need to consider, is the investment in expertise.  You will either need to invest in learning how to produce inspirational, compelling posts and market them, or you will need to buy that expertise in.  This could have been placed in the time investment or financial investment section – but it’s so important (and neglected) that I wanted to give it special attention.

You see, some of the most interesting blogs out there are among the least read!  The thing is, from a marketing perspective, having a ton of great content on your blog is of little real value, if your prospective clients aren’t aware of it.

You must find out how to create content that will motivate people to; call you, buy from you, visit you, email you, subscribe to your mailing list, etc. You need to know how to inspire people to want to share your content.  You need to find out how to build an active community of people around your blog. You need to know how to make people feel great about you and your business / brand. This requires considerable expertise.

In my experience, most business bloggers decide not to invest in at least 1 of those 3 key areas.  If there’s any 1 area listed above that you are neglecting right now, I strongly recommend you give it the investment it deserves.  Your business will thank you!

5 grand a month, every month & quickly please!

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I received an email over the weekend from the owner of a website, which I want to share with you. It’s a great example of how people think the normal rules of marketing do not apply to the Internet.

The emailer wrote to me, asking if I could just do a quick marketing job for her.

All she wanted was for me to make her website generate $5,000 a month, every month, without her having to do much; because she’s too busy to update it. She went on to say; “I don’t think it will take much to reach my goal,” before asking if I could do all this as a quick, one-off project.

The site this lady contacted me about is over 4 years old and is really dated.  Despite her efforts over the years, her site gets very little traffic.  It also has very few inlinks for a site of that age.  Oh, and it’s competing for business in one of the most competitive, professionally marketed marketplaces on the Internet; personal development.

Even if the emailer threw thousands at advertising (and there was no suggestion of a marketing budget), to make it profitable would require a total overhaul and a VERY effective short, medium and long term marketing strategy.  It would require ongoing testing and measuring (like all successful marketing.)  The bottom line here is that generating a $5,000 per month income, competing alongside some of the best marketed organisations on the planet for every one of those dollars, is not a quick project.

Internet marketing benefits

There’s no doubt that the Internet and digital communications offer unprecedented marketing, sales and business development opportunities; however, you still need to apply an effective strategy if you want your Internet marketing to succeed.  For example, this blog attracts an average of just over 50 emails for my marketing business, each day (7 days a week.)  It has generated 6 figures in income for my business in the past year –  BUT, this didn’t just happen. It was the result of an effective marketing strategy.

Google announced back in 2008 that it had already indexed over a TRILLION unique URL’s.  That number will have increased massively since then, and it gives you an idea of how many other pages and sites there are, that YOUR prospective clients or customers could be looking at rather than yours.  They may be wasting time on some of those sites or listening to music or tweeting or spending money.  The thing is, you need a strategy if you want to capture their imagination.  You need a strategy if you want them to ‘discover’ you and see how brilliant you are.

Just ‘being online’ is not enough!

Quick Internet marketing tip!

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If you want to create stacks of leads, fill your client base or sell more widgets, you need to do the total opposite of what the vast majority of small businesses do online.  You need to be original.

That’s because there’s a serious problem with the generic, copycat approach to Internet marketing:

It doesn’t work!

It’s easy to see why so many people just copy the marketing they see on other sites.  After all, the ability to develop an effective Internet marketing strategy and write copy that compels people to take action, is very rare.  Knowing how to motivate someone to click your links, send you an email, subscribe to your newsletter, call you, visit you or buy from you is perhaps the rarest, most valuable skill in marketing today.

For example, I was called earlier this year by one of my readers, who is a marketing consultant.  He wanted to know if I would quickly review his blog, (quickly meant do it for free, apparently!)  I don’t work for free, but I did take a quick look at his blog out of curiosity. I was unable to figure out what his service was, let alone why anyone might need it.  His blog was packed with buzz-words, marketing bullshit and stacks of rambling, pedestrian copy that went nowhere.  In the time it took me to finish my coffee, I was able to spot well over a dozen, serious, marketing-related problems.  It was easy to see why he needed free advice!

Why your business needs its own Internet marketing strategy

So, this is the part of a blog post were an Internet marketing guru would give you a list of; “killer Internet marketing tactics that are guaranteed to work” – And that’s part of the problem.  Business owners are being told all the time that there’s a generic, one size fits all way to maximise the potential of their sites or blogs, when the reality is the complete opposite!

An effective Internet marketing strategy differs massively, from; industry to industry, country to country and business to business.  It needs to take many factors into account, like; the size of the business being marketed, what they want to achieve, where their prices or fees are pitched, who their target customer is and if they are selling business to business or business to consumer etc, etc.

It’s really important that you don’t make the same mistakes.  If YOU want YOUR blog or website to be a business generating machine, use an Internet marketing strategy that’s been developed for YOU and YOUR business, based on YOUR unique situation and YOUR unique goals.

Highly recommended – Danny Brown’s blog

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DannyLarge-239x300In an age where there are so many blogs, often repeating the same information, it can be a real challenge to find blogs with content that’s worth shouting about. So, when I find one that consistently delivers the goods, I like to recommend it to you.

In the past, I have recommended blogs by; Seth Godin, Robert Scoble, The BBC and Leo Laporte.  Today, it’s the turn of PR professional, Social Media maverick and fund raiser extraordinaire; Danny Brown – From dannybrown.me.

First off, you do not need to be interested in PR to really enjoy Danny’s blog.  His writing style is engaging, refreshing and original.  Danny opts for a bullshit-free approach to blogging, with the occasional use of strong(ish) language; as is often the case when passionate people speak.

Did you notice that I used the word ‘speak‘ in the previous sentence and not ‘write‘?  That’s because Danny’s writing style reads as if he were having a chat with you face to face.  I’ve never spoken with Danny myself, but I feel like I know him.  That’s a skill that very few bloggers possess.  In fact, one of the main reasons I am recommending Danny Brown’s blog to you, is that many of my readers are students of great copy writing and Danny’s copy writing is superb.

The 12for12k challenge

12412k imageDanny is also a passionate fund raiser for good causes all over the world, which he assists via the 12for12k challenge.  The challenge is a BIG one; to raise $12,000, for each of 12 different charities, over a 12 month period.

You can find out more about the 12for12k challenge by visiting their site.

So, why not take a look at Danny’s blog and see what all the fuss is about?

Stephen Fry, critics and a business lesson

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As Stephen Fry demonstrated on Twitter a few days ago, it’s easy to allow a vocal critic to screw things up for you.

In Stephen Fry’s case, one of his followers told him that his tweets were boring.  Fry then threatened to quit Twitter and sever his ties with the million people who actually DO enjoy what he has to share.  Whilst Stephen Fry’s lives with some well documented mental health challenges, his reaction to this criticism is common among many business owners; who allow fear of criticism to hurt their businesses.

Fear of criticism

I had an email today from a reader, who wants to add a pop-up box to her website; to encourage people to subscribe to her newsletter.  She explained how she was concerned that some of her readers might not like it. In my reply, I explained that her decision should be based on what’s the correct thing to do and not what’s the easiest thing to do.  If there’s a chance that by adding a pop-up box, she will get more subscribers and as a result make more sales or win more clients – then it’s worth testing and measuring it.

She then sent me a 2nd email, which said how she was worried that a few hyper-critical readers would complain.  Apparently, her readership is over 3,000 and she’s seriously considering missing out on a potentially effective way to grow her readership, because of what 3 or 4 readers (not customers) might think or say!

This got me thinking:

  • I wonder how many great ideas have never seen the light of day, for fear of criticism?
  • I wonder how many opportunities the average business owner or entrepreneur misses each year, for fear of what the vocal minority might say or think?

Here’s a question to ponder:
What changes would you make to your business, if you knew for certain there would be no negative criticism?

Criticism: What do you think?

I would love to hear your feedback on either the people who criticise or those who allow fear of criticism to govern their decisions.  Let us know what you think!