Month: December 2009

Categories
Online Business

10 Top Tips for Publishing a Successful Ezine

One of the systems I help my clients to implement is a schedule for getting on track with their ezine (electronic newsletter) as it’s so important that you have a systematic stay-in-touch strategy in place and a regular ezine is the perfect medium for achieving this!
However, the downside, and where so many solopreneurs fail, is that they don’t get into a regular publishing schedule and they start to lose their connection with their subscribers.

Today I’d like to share with you my top 10 tips for publishing a successful ezine and building that all-important know, like, and trust factor.

1. Create an editorial calendar – this is so that you can plan out in advance what topics you’ll be covering in each issue, and therefore avoid ‘blank screen/page’ syndrome.

2. Create a template – it’s so much easier to put your ezine together when you’ve got a template to work from. Plan which sections you want to appear regularly in your ezine and drop the appropriate content in each time. Hint: there are just two sections that are likely to change each issue – your personal note and your article – that’s it!

3. Keep an ideas section – in your newsletter binder create an Ideas section so that when you come across a resource or topic that you’d like to share with your readers you have a place to store the information, making it much easier to come up with articles and content for your ezine – you simply flick through your Ideas section.

4. Use an article template – when you’re stuck for ideas on what to write about, use an article template. It’s so much easier to write an article when you’ve got the outline done for you and all you need to provide is the content.

5. Use a title template – similar to number four above, but this time you’re just using a title as a basis for your inspiration, i.e. Top 10 Tips to [fill in the blank].

6. Utilize a list management service – this is a biggie! No sending out your ezine via your regular email program; you need to have a proper list management service for a variety of reasons, but the main ones being you need to comply with SPAM laws, signup for your ezine needs to be automatic, and when your list size gets above 50 most ISPs (Internet Service Providers) won’t allow you to send bulk emails via your regular email program.

7. Check hyperlinks – before you hit the ‘send’ button, ensure that you’ve thoroughly read through your ezine and check that all your hyperlinks are working properly. There’s nothing worse than asking someone to click through to a specific page and then find that the link doesn’t work.

8. Don’t include too many calls to action – if you include too many calls to action (i.e. click here to do this, click here to do that etc.) you’ll simply confuse your subscriber as they won’t know what they’re meant to be clicking on. So what will they do … nothing! Only ask your subscriber to do one or two things in each issue.

9. Deliver on time – this is so important. You need to publish your ezine exactly when you say you will each time. Not only does this build your relationship with your subscriber but they will also come to see you as being reliable – you do what you say you’re going to do, when you say it.

10. Seek feedback – And finally, ask for feedback from your subscribers. This is a great way to create one-on-one connections and also get valuable feedback on whether your ezine is providing the information your subscribers want.

Follow these 10 tips and you’ll ensure your ezine success!

Categories
Sales & Marketing

5 Tips for Social Media Efficiency

As you may have seen, Denise Wakeman and I are running a social media usage survey to help define what people most want to know about social media. We’ve gotten over 200 responses so far (and please feel free to add yours, if you wish!)
The results are interesting so far, with one of the biggest complaints being how much time social media takes. Even more than that, people are wondering how to monetize their social media efforts. And this combination of factors got me thinking.
What appears to be happening is that people are investing lots of time on the social networks, but not enough time using social media as a content sharing and distribution mechanism. Most of all, people want a process and system for using social media more efficiently, and for seeing more returns from it.
In the interest of saving you some time, and increasing your social media efficiency, I have 5 tips to help:
1) Schedule regular time for social media. I’m fond of saying that social media is a time suck. This means that, without boundaries on your time, chatting on Facebook or tweeting on Twitter can take up your entire day. This will have negative impact on your business. So, instead, schedule time to attend to social media each day, and resist the urge to network all day long, especially if you don’t have a clear and definite business outcome in mind. I tend to schedule an hour in the morning to connect with my social networks, and I have one of my assistants handle all the daily friending back, following back, processes, reducing my time commitment and letting me focus on conversations and connections.
2) Let technology do the heavy lifting. You can be more social media efficient if you use technology to help you. One example would be to set up content distribution and syndication processes. (Denise & I will be sharing tips and ideas for this in the near future.) Another way is to use software programs to help streamline your efforts. I like and use Tweetdeck, for example, which lets me monitor Twitter, Facebook, and now, recently, LinkedIn. No matter what you need, there is probably a piece of software that can help you do it faster or better.
3) Reduce the noise. There are just three main things you need to focus on in social media. The first is gaining attention. The second is making connections. And the third is being consistent. You can do this without any technology at all. It’s fine to be interested in new gadgets and new advances in technology (and I confess, I’m a girl geek at times)- but don’t allow yourself to get overwhelmed and forget the basics of marketing. You must be noticed, make connections, and show up regularly.
4) Repurpose, repurpose, repurpose. The better you are at repurposing your content, the easier your social media marketing will be. Aim to get at least 10 uses out of every blog post, every interview, every video you make. Stay in touch with what your target audience needs, and provide it for them faster, and easier, and quicker than anyone else. Seek to create dialogues and conversations around your content. You’ll learn what people most want to know, and you’ll always have good ideas for new content to create.
5) Tie your social media efforts to your business goals and optimize for them. What this means is that you need to have an idea of what you want social media to DO for you. Do you want to become the household name in XYZ industry? Do you want to get 10000 people on your email database? Do you want to be picked up by major media as an authority or expert? Like any other business arena, you have to know what you want to achieve and lay out a strategy to achieve it. And then you need to do the work. If you’re spending a lot of time in social media, but not feeling like you’re getting enough return, I would suggest that maybe you want to step back and reassess your goals. Don’t take part in social media waiting to see what will happen. Have an idea of what you want to create, and use the social media tools to create it. The clearer your objectives, the faster you’ll reach them, helping balance out your time and return on investment.
Social networking is not the only facet of social media you should be paying attention to. Use the social media sites to build your platform, drive your brand, and send visitors to your website. These kinds of results are trackable and monetizable.
RachnaJainPhoto.jpgDr. Rachna Jain is Chief Social Marketer at The Mindshare Corporation. Rachna works with speakers, consultants, authors, and small business owners to develop and execute effective social media marketing strategies. Her proprietary persuasive social media process (sm) focuses on building influence, credibility and visibility online. This translates into greater recognition, increased website traffic, faster lead generation, a shorter sales cycle, and more opportunity for her expert clientele. She blogs regularly at The Mindshare Blog

Categories
Online Business

Podcast Creation in 3 Easy Steps

podcastimage.jpg

For a long time I was reluctant to add podcasting to my list building arsenal thinking it was simply another task on my already long To Do list and, to be honest, it sounded tedious… manually submitting my podcast episodes to the various podcast directories so that people knew they were there; I didn’t have time for that!

Little did I realize how easy it was to implement this strategy, and reach a whole other audience too – those who prefer to learn by listening! But now that I know how easy it is to create a podcast, I want to share that information with you!

What is a podcast?

A podcast is a collection of individual audio recordings saved as a digital file, such as an Mp3 or WAV audio file. Each individual audio recording is called an episode. People can listen to your podcast (collection of episodes) on the Internet, on their PC, or transfer the file to their portable device such as an iPod or MP3 player. You can also create your own radio show through using podcasts… think about all the Internet Radio Shows you’ve listened to online or read about.

People can subscribe to your podcast using RSS feeds and therefore receive new episodes automatically whenever they become available.

You can easily create your podcast episodes from your newsletter articles and once you’ve recorded several articles you’ll have a well-stocked podcast.

So now you know what a podcast is, let me tell you how you can create your own podcast in three easy steps!

Step 1: Create your template

When you record a podcast episode (i.e. your article), you need to include an introduction and a closing paragraph. It’s not enough to simply record your article without any beginning and end – even though the article itself has a beginning and end!

You need to tell your listener who you are, what you do, what your podcast is about, and at the end tell them where they can go for further information, i.e. your newsletter sign-up URL.

Step 2: Choose your recording medium

If you’re already using one of the online streaming media services check out their services. I’d been using my service for over a year before I realized that I could use the same account to create my podcast.

And the best bit… my service will automatically syndicate each new episode to the various podcast directories meaning that my episodes are published and accessible immediately – even to iTunes! I don’t need to manually submit each episode to the various podcast directories.

Step 3: Use a cueprompter

Now, I could just print out my podcast template (complete with article) and read off that into my microphone and record my episode. But the danger here is that you might not sound natural; in other words, you may sound like you’re reading from a page. What you want to do is let your authentic self come through to your listener.

And the best way I’ve found for doing this is to use a CuePrompter – like newsreaders do when they’re reading the news, or presenters when they’re presenting a TV program. Search “cue prompter” and you’ll find several to choose from!

So now you’ve created your podcast template, chosen a recording medium, and loaded everything into a cue prompter, you’re ready to record and create your very first Podcast episode!

The whole process takes me about 15 minutes tops! And reaches a whole new target audience too.