Great video interview by marketing powerhouse Lee Odden with Brian Clark, founder of Copyblogger.  If you’re interested in blogging as a business, you have to think like a media property, says Clark.  Lee Odden does a terrific job of getting a fast primer on how do you use content to build a business.

Highlights:

In creating content, ask yourself, what are you trying to achieve.  What’s the action you want a reader to take? Start there.

Think like a media production company and have an editorial focus. Look at the many niche publications or productions in traditional media.  They know how to focus in on their audience.  Look six months down the road.  Have a vision for six months out.

Now, I’ve paraphrased Brian’s thoughts. Watch this 7-minute video.

Hey Email Marketing Managers and all Marketing types and Small Business Owners:   MarketingSherpa has offered my readers a special discount to the upcoming Email Marketing Workshops

Seattle Thursday, May 13      Chapel Hill Monday, June 21

Atlanta Friday, June 25      Minneapolis Tuesday, July 20

San Diego Tuesday, August 10     Phoenix Friday, August 13

There’s no catch.  This is just a good price I can offer thanks to my work in the small biz and startup markets.

Learn more about the MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Workshops

I’ll likely be at the Seattle event and if you will be, look me up, I’d love to meet.

Laine Cunningham is an author and professional speaker on native cultures and ways.  It all started when Laine Cunningham spent six months camping alone in the Australian outback.

She has been featured in MSNBC, Women’s Day, and the Sydney Morning Herald and a variety of other media outlets.  She identified these three challenges for Sales Rescue Team members to take a look at. 

From Laine: My top challenges:

1.  Finding a way to have more detailed information on the workshops and seminars to interest people without ending up with a messy website.

2.  Driving “buyer” traffic to the site:  Organizations who will want to book the speaking engagements/workshops/seminars.

3.  Finding ANYONE who does publicity work who actually has connections in my field (metaphysical/self-help). This doesn’t sound like it’s web related but that means I’m having trouble getting the right kind of media contacts to go to the website.  I have had some very small successes and have been quoted in national name-cache outlets (MSNBC, Psychology Today, some women’s mags) but those are all coming through separate efforts.  I don’t know how to get shows to consider my website as a resource when they need a talking head or a quote.

]]> http://www.salesrescueteam.com/2009/10/review-laine-cunningham-author-and-public-speaker/feed/ 5 http://www.salesrescueteam.com/2009/09/review-its-in-the-stars/ http://www.salesrescueteam.com/2009/09/review-its-in-the-stars/#comments Mon, 28 Sep 2009 04:19:38 +0000 TJ McCue http://www.salesrescueteam.com/?p=221

It’s In The Stars is a personalized keepsake gift company. They have loads of positive testimonials from real customers. The site has good energy and a positive design. The director/owner paints a pretty clear picture of what areas she’d like help on. Right out of the gate, Elizabeth demonstrates she knows and cares about her customers.

“My best sales (and that’s not many) have come from publicity appearing in magazines and newspapers. Unfortunately that is not often possible to achieve every quarter, let alone every month.

The LoveStars (30-35 pages) and BabyStars (45-50 pages) bound reports are unique, personalised gifts that are ideal for anniversaries, birthdays, Christmas, dating couples, engagements, Mothers Day, new babies, Valentines Day and weddings. Overall, 83% of my customers are women, with most buying BabyStars but a fair number of women buying LoveStars overall. Curiously, we still get a lot of men who buy the LoveStars reports – perhaps they have run out of romantic gift ideas and want to please their partner with a tangible gift that literally says something about their relationship!

According to the stats, the vast majority of visitors come to my site looking for a free monthly horoscope. They can read that, and are invited to sign up for the free monthly horoscope which contains additional information, the 2009 annual forecast, a 10% birthday discount on any report, and to receive special offers and surveys. I have grown my email list organically.

I sell my reports through my website and also through 20+ gift websites in Australia, New Zealand and recently, the UK. After each report, I send my customer an online survey to fill out. To date I have 60+ testimonials – I had one customer tell me they’d bought their report after recognising the name of their lecturer in New Zealand so she knew they were genuine customers. I hope you can help me!”

– Elizabeth Ball

Gift of Happiness is a kids-oriented site with a big mission and a big heart. The site sells educational type materials for children and offers resources for parents.

I am about to offer my first product for sale.  It is an educational animated DVD.  I am more of a teacher/artist, and less of a business man.  My site has been up for some time but unless I pay for clicks, I don’t receive much interest.  Although kids seems to enjoy the characters and parents typically report it has great potential, there must be some technical issues I’m not quite getting.  Any help would be fantastic.

Thanks for your consideration.  John Lawrence, owner