How To Lose Customers, In One Easy Lesson
So you’re looking to promote your business. It’s purely an online thing – as a random example, let’s say it’s a knowledge depository, like reachnetwork.com – and you know a bit about branding. So you create sub-networks, on more searchable domains. Need another random example… how about GuideToArtSchools.com, which just happens to be part of that same network?
Curious coincidence.
Now you just need to promote your site. How to do it? One of the best ways is to contact people in the same market. You could, for example, ask them to link to your content or organise some kind of advertising. You could, perhaps, send them an email that might, by a bizarrely fortuitous turn of events, look like this one I received today:
Hello,
As a photography hobbyist I found your site particularly useful. I recently published an article which I think all the photography enthusiasts who visit your site will be excited about – “The 11 Best Free Photo Editing Programs”. I’m with [site name removed] and our article provides a thorough review of the top 11 photo editing programs, and includes links to tutorials and software all in one place. Your users will be excited about this resource because they will be introduced to the best free photo editing programs and the tools to take advantage of them.
We’d love to be able to promote this article on your site with a link or reference. Please get back to me if and how you’d like to go about promoting this, and any of your feedback. I look forward to hearing from you,
Thank you,
Sara Nolte
Marketing Manager
[network name removed]
Now all you have to do is sit back and wait for people to contact you. Your marketing plan is in motion! Success lies waiting only for the clicks of the masses huddled in front of their computers!
Oh, but wait. There’s a problem.
Yes, that’s right: you just sent an email promoting your photography site to a blog that has absolutely nothing to do with photography. And you tried to pretend you’d visited the site. Not only that, but you chose to send it to someone who publicly ridicules people who spam with this kind of thing.
Oh dear. That wasn’t very smart, now, was it?
Lesson: Don’t spam people. It’s bad for business.
Golly! Talk about zigging when she should have zagged. Swift and cold, revenge is thine! P.
Well, you gave them a link so who’s the bigger fool?
Jason: They are, of course. Bad publicity is never a good thing, but the right to respond is only fair!
Your blog is dying my friend. Are you losing steam? Getting frustrated? I’m writing my own look back on blogs and the blogs that die.
Check this guy out. His blog is fairly young as well, but he’s the consummate professional: http://timetowrite.blogs.com/weblog/
Maybe his advice can help you, too!
)
There’s something about the phrase: ‘Your blog is dying my friend’ that doesn’t sit quite right.
Or is it me?
P.
Steven/Paul: “Find the time,” they say. Funny thing is that, when sitting in front of the PC and looking at web pages, we all assume that the person at the other end of the line has eight hours every day to do their job. You know, they get up, go to work, do their thing and come home. Unfortunately for me, my days are not so simple and depend very much on the health/condition of someone else for their definition. It’s a rough time, which is perhaps the subject of my next blog entry.
Running a good blog is not a piece of cake. Not for you, me, or anyone. But there’s something to be said about working so hard to gain an audience, only to lose it due to inactivity for a few weeks. Then, it becomes even harder to push yourself into the blog. I think Deb did a nice post awhile ago about following other blogs and keeping a list of topics that she can pull out from time to time. Then there are the lists that she puts together.
That guy Jurgen Wolff is just some kind of dynamo right now when it comes to writing. But, he’s the real deal. I’d like to get into his secrets – something I’m pondering requesting of him in the next little while. Deb’s good – but I’m one of those anti-list people. I hate seeing lists, even while I find them useful. Maybe you could say I love/hate them.
Anyways, I hope your blog doesn’t die. Up until the last month, it’s been very enjoyable to follow. I understand, though, as much as anyone, how hard it is to set aside a certain period of time to do something every day. I, the Czar of Procrastination, can honestly say that I am not one of the few who has that discipline. In fact, I’m still working to find that niche that I might possibly belong to.