Lisa Angelettie

Bestselling Amazon Author

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Article Writing 2011 – Stop Writing So Old School!

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Article Writing 2011 – Are You Ready For The Revolution?

Are you ready to stop writing with an old school agenda and move forward?

I recently wrote and published an article on this site about my article marketing income breakdown and whew! I got a lot of emails from you all with excited comments and questions about how you want to create your own varied sources of income online. And that was really the point of that article.

Article WritingI wanted you all to understand that online article writing is not just a one dimensional activity. The goal is to transform that one article into many versions of information and many sources of income. This is not necessarily a new thing that business owners do online — but it is one that I bet you’re not taking full advantage of or at all. Let me ask you some tough questions that I asked some of the folks who wrote in the other day…

How many articles have you written this year?
None. Two or Three. How do you expect anyone to find you in the sea of millions of websites on the internet?

How much new traffic did they bring you?
None, because you didn’t write much. Or maybe you have no clue. Can you say CHECK YOUR STATISTICS?

How many new subscribers signed up with you?
Not hardly enough. This is all due to the fact that you aren’t driving enough traffic to your site. You don’t have any content out there doing the job for you.

How many podcast or audio articles have you recorded?
None – I can’t even get ones written Lisa! Well, you’re missing out because you can take the same articles you’ve written and turn them into audio articles. Put ’em on iTunes and bamm – instant podcast.

How many video or video articles have you recorded?
One or two. Video is hot! Again, you can produce even more using the same articles that you should have written.

How many free reports have you created this year?
I couldn’t get myself together to pull it all together. Really? If you had 5-7 articles written you could have. Video is hot, so it’s important you take advantage of it.

How many ebooks, ecourses, or other information products have you created this year?
It was one of my plans but time got away from me this year. Publishing your own original content this year will be crucial to your credibility and your success. Ebooks are no longer for amateurs. Best selling authors like Stephen King are focusing on ebook publication now.

How many ebooks, ecourses, or other information products have you BOUGHT this year? Is it the same as the books you’ve created? Is it double the amount? Triple?
No, I buy a lot of information products online. There is just so much information out there. You have to be careful not to slip into the bright and shiny new product matrix! Focus on creation, not consumption.

I see this all the time. People keep investing their hard earned money into product after product, looking for THE solution to their online business — and not really creating creating the types of information necessary to get the message out about their great business (article marketing).

Also I see that people are not creating the types of products (ePublishing) that could create a nice passive income stream for their business. Heck in my income breakdown, you will see that ebook sales (my own books) was my second highest income generator for 2010. So what do you think I’m going to do in 2011? More of the same!

Article Writing in 2011 is going to be about more than simply writing any old thing and submitting it to every directory you can find. That is so old school! It’s going to be about designing content to support your business and branding platform, your message, and what you can teach or show people.

Look for me to help you jump start your New School article writing at the top of the year, and if you don’t mind, I’d love it if you’d share your answers to the questions I asked above about your 2010 article writing in the comment section below.

Email Newsletters Vs. Print Newsletters

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Do you prefer email newsletters or print newsletters?

I have written and published both print newsletters and email newsletters. As we move into a more highly digital world, I was wondering how people PREFER to read their newsletters.

We all get a lot of email, many text or html newsletters, that we read weekly or monthly. I’ve even been contemplating getting iPad versions of my favorite magazines – but not sure if I’m ready to go 100% digital. Are you?

These are my questions:

1. Do you prefer email or printed newsletters?

2. If you prefer email, do you read them on your computer, phone, ipad, or other digital reading device?

3. Do you make a decision on print vs. email based on price? Meaning do you always pick the free option?

4. If you had to pay for both print and digital versions of a newsletter, which would you rather pay for?

Please leave your answers in the comments section of this post and let’s get a good discussion going. It’s one thing to read “stats” about electronic publishing, etc. but it’s another to see what REAL folks are saying in my world.

Personal Branding – Using The Internet To Build A Powerful Brand

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Personal Branding – Using The Internet To Build A Powerful Brand

When building a Personal Brand, the easiest, fastest and most impactful way to do so is online. But be fore-warned, it’s just as easy (and even faster) to destroy your brand if your social media campaign doesn’t have a strategy behind it. Whether it’s blogging, article marketing, tweeting, or posting to Facebook and YouTube, having an effective internet presence is the number one way to boost your brand.

Developing a solid personal brand can have a tremendous impact on your bottom-line if done correctly. Here are some tips to building a stand-out Internet Brand.

1. Know Your Goal

Begin with the end. First determine, what is the goal of being on the internet? Is it to get clients? Is it just for socializing? Do you even have a goal? For purposes of this article, let’s assume your goal for being on the internet is to generate business and get clients.

However, before diving into all forms of social media head-first, you must indentify some objectives to reach your goal. Consider this:

Do you know where your clients are?
On which social media platforms do they engage/ participate?
What is the message you want to convey to them?
Will your objectives boost your brand awareness?

The true test of your social media campaigns’ effectiveness will come from your ability to create an online community who will become cheerleaders for your brand.

2. Identify Your Target Audience

Knowing where your customer is will save you lot’s of time and energy. It will also help define your marketing message.
In addition to knowing where your clients are, you need to identify who they are. You may think you know your target audience, but when it comes to building an online community, ask yourself this:

What benefits do my products or services provide?
What do I want to say to that audience? (Your communications shouldn’t always be a sale or a “call to action”; in other words, a one-way conversation. Start by building a relationship and creating 2-way conversations.)
What type of person needs my product or service?
What is the best way to reach them on the internet that will showcase my company’s culture and generate sales?

Once you have answered these questions, then you can begin to create a strategic social media campaign to reach your ideal audience. (More on that later)

3. Personality + Passion = Purpose

Put passion and personality into all of your online profiles and be consistent across the board.

The most important reason for businesses to have an internet presence is to build a powerful, compelling brand. The only way to make that brand stand out amongst the crowd is to filter through all of the fluff for your target audience. Take advantage of the opportunity to showcase your personality and passion in all of your communications. By doing so, your audience will see your authenticity and get a clear understanding of your purpose.

You also have the opportunity to make an emotional connection with your audience. The majority of sales are made based on emotional connections. Why wouldn’t you use this platform as a vehicle to build a fierce Brand reputation?!

Your brand should communicate the following:

Who you are (Personality)
What makes you unique; The only one who can deliver (Personality & Passion)
Your expertise in your niche (Passion)
What service/ product you provide (Purpose)
What motivates you to do what you do (Purpose)

All of these components is what makes you you! If you are truly passionate about what you do, your audience will identify with that passion and understand your purpose for doing what you do. It not only adds value and credibility; it makes you the go-to-guy (or girl) in your industry.

Imagine reading a blog or Facebook post about a single mother’s struggle to raise her autistic child. Because of her experiences, she is now coaching other parents who are facing the same trials and tribulations. Not only would her story resonate with thousands of people, it would most certainly add value to her offering? This is not a manufactured brand. This Brand clearly and authentically communicates her passion, personality and purpose!

4. Develop a Strategy

Now that you have your goal, your audience and know where to reach them, you can develop an effective branding strategy. Each interaction you make with your audience should be strategic and accomplish at least one of the “5 E’s”

Engage
Educate
Evoke (an emotion)
Entertain
Establish (your Expertise)

You can use all social media platforms the same way or use different platforms to convey different messages. But decide early how and when you will use each. If your audience has come to rely on your blog posts as humorous anecdotes, you can’t suddenly decide to be an advocate for abused children using the same platform. You will not only lose your audience, but you will lose credibility.

The purpose of strategic online engagement is to define your Personal Branding. In order to increase your Brand awareness, you will also want to be strategic with:

Timing – How often will you engage? Will your communications correlate with current events? Have your customers come to expect information from you at specific times? Be consistent!

Content – If your objective is to stir up controversy, that’s perfectly fine, that is the value you provide for your audience. However, please don’t mix in touchy subjects with your content if that is not your intention for your brand. Nothing will dilute your message faster and turn off your base!

Placement – This goes back to knowing where your customers are. How are you going to communicate with them? Knowing that will boost your online presence for your community and create value for your clients. Make sure your brand is easily understood on each of your online platforms. If you do decide to switch tracks with your marketing messages, use a different social media marketing approach and explain to your audience why you’ve done. (Remember, make the emotional connection!)

All in all, you get the biggest bang for your buck using social media and the internet to build your brand. When you are clear on your message, the customers will come!

Kelly Green (Brand Coach Kelly) empowers new entrepreneurs and career transitioners to build a powerful Personal Brand, clarify their marketing message, identify their target audience and attract more money, clients and success! For your FREE Personal Branding strategy session, contact Brand Coach Kelly at: http://ThePersonalBrandBlueprint.com

*Special thanks to Philip for requesting this article topic for today’s article marketing spotlight.

Email Marketing: How To Get Your Emails Read

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Learn Email Marketing & How To Get Your Emails Read…Especially If They Feature Articles!

One of the #1 things that I recommend to my members is that they write and publish content consistently to their own sites, AND promote those articles to their lists via email marketing. Now of course there are pros and cons to any marketing strategy, and it makes sense to analyze them, before you commit to them. So today I want to talk about using email marketing as a part of your overall article marketing promotion strategy.

The Email Marketing Advantage

The great thing about using email marketing is that it is free and easy. All you need is a connection to the web, an email address, and you can send pretty much any message to your list. Normally you would have to pay for this type of access in the offline world. For example, direct mail. At best it will cost you the price of a stamp, at worst a direct mail campaign can run you hundreds of dollars per campaign or per month. That’s what makes email marketing such a great deal.

Having said that, there are business owners out there who have abused email marketing and really taking advantage of the system by spamming, etc. Also, now that reading emails is practically a normal activity for many people at home or work – folks are starting to become a little desensitized to email marketing messages. I mean consider your inbox. How many email lists are you on? And how many do you actually read? When I look at my inbox, I read emails based on level of importance, urgency, and interest.

So people that read your emails are hopefully going to be:

1. People that requested and confirmed to be on your list. Email/autoresponsder services like Aweber make sure of this.

2. People that are highly interested in your topic.

3. People that need answers or information that they are depending on you to provide

4.  People that trust you, your advice, your recommendations

But this does not happen overnight. It takes work to get people on your email marketing list. And then it takes even more work to get them to actually read your emails. But here’s a few tips to help get your email read – especially your articles…

#1 – Write An Eye-Catching Subject Line

The first think I look at when I see an email in my inbox is to see who it’s from. There are certain entrepreneurs and marketers who have gained my trust – so I read everything they send. But if you haven’t built that bond of trust yet with your list, your subject line is the next best piece of email marketing real estate.

Your subject lines need to capture the attention of your readers without being spammy. The best way to do this in my opinion is to model your subject lines after emails you actually opened because of the subject lines. What worked on you will probably work again. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel.

Avoid Spammy Email Marketing Subject Lines

Using these types of email subject lines might get you noticed at first, but readers will quickly designate you as a slimy spammer and your credibility will be ruined. Trust denied. Also these types of subject lines can get your emails marked as spam and get you banned from your email provider.

  • RE: or re:
  • Your [insert company] account has been Cancelled / De-Activated / Terminated
  • From admin
  • Notification of payment received
  • Fwd:
  • I read your ad or I saw your ad
  • Please Verify Your Account

#2 – Set The Stage For Your Articles

There are many ways that you can introduce your articles to readers via email. Some like to include the entire article in an email (I don’t use that one). Others like to introduce the article and include a link to the full article (I do use this).  Another strategy is to list several articles with article titles and summaries and allow the subscriber to pick and choose which articles they will read (I do this in my newsletter).

However you decide to promote or feature your articles via email marketing, you need to make sure you capture the reader’s attention. Speak to their quest for knowledge, for answers, for help. But be classy about it. Don’t spam. Don’t “sell”. Just send informative, interesting, and content that speaks to your community of readers and your email marketing campaign WILL get read.

Traffic To Website: Top 10 Ways To Get It

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traffic to website

How To Get Traffic To Your Web Site

No matter what niche you are in, if you are online, you are constantly thinking about how to attract traffic to your website. But I’m sure that you’ve recently noticed, that getting traffic to websites is no easy feat. It’s not a quick sprint – but rather it’s a slow and steady marathon. It’s also nothing that you need to spend hundreds or thousands of your hard earned dollars on either. It’s not rocket science! It’s simple, I’ve done it for years, and this is what you need to do…

Traffic To Website Strategy 1 – Build A WordPress Blog

There are so many statistics proving that Google loves blogs. Blogs, especially WordPress blogs are built on a structure that makes it easy for search engine spiders to crawl. Which means they can find and rank your content quickly and easily.

Traffic To Website Strategy 2 – Write About Stuff People Search For

If you write articles on topics, strategies, or solutions that people search for on the web, you will get traffic. It’s a basic supply and demand theory. If you supply the information which is in demand – you will get the traffic to your website.

Traffic To Website Strategy 3 – Select The Right Keywords

Getting traffic to your website is sooooo much easier when you select keyword phrases that REAL people would use to find information on your topic. Get those right – and the traffic wouldn’t stop no matter what you do. I like the free keyword tool over at  Wordtracker to conduct main and long-tail keyword research.

Traffic To Website Strategy 4 – Write Consistently

I pay close attention to my traffic statistics and my traffic steadily increases every time I publish. I can’t say it any simpler than that. Publish more and you’ll see more traffic. Especially if your site is on Google’s radar.

Traffic To Website Strategy 5 – Build Your Buzz

Beginners online have it so much easier than us oldies but goodies! How? Because you can use the growth of social media sites to create a “buzz” or a strategic conversation around your biz. All for free! The key is to not try and do everything and overwhelm yourself. Strategically pick a few social sites that resonate with you and build your buzz at those places.

Traffic To Website Strategy 6 – Build Backlinks

Creating a one-way link back to your site from another relevant site is good for two things. One – it builds your importance and relevance to the search engines like Google. Two – it funnels traffic to your site. When you build backlinks from sites that are relevant and get traffic (such as a high-trafficked article directory), some of that traffic will start visiting you. So think of it in this way. If you establish one backlink from a site that sends you 100 visitors a day, and you establish just 9 more links like that, you will receive over a 1000 new visitors and potential clients/customers to your site – a day. For free! Just by establishing a one-way link a.k.a. backlink.

Traffic To Website Strategy 7 – Rinse And Repeat!

Complete and repeat steps one through six over and over and watch your results double and triple over time.

If you have a simple traffic to website strategy that you use to build traffic to your site, please share with the community here in the comments section below.

How Does She Do It?

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How Does She Do It Article Series

How Does She Do It?

Do you really want to know?

Everyday this month, the International Association of Women In Business Online is featuring an interview in an article series titled: How Does She Do It?

In this article series you will learn the secrets, strategies, productivity tips, etc. of women who are making a living online. This is THE series to catch.

I will be featured as a guest on September 20th.

Check out the entire series here: How Does She Do It? Lots of great tips!

Ready To Win An Apple iPad Plus More Goodies?

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iawbo virtual gift bagThis is going to be so much fun!

Have you heard about the free Virtual Gift Bag that IAWBO is giving away to 10,000 women entrepreneurs? If not, that’s okay – I’ll tell you where you can get yours in a second…

To see this mission to fruition IAWBO is hosting it’s 2nd Annual build the buzz to win contest… This means that by helping us spread the word about the gift bag you can win an Apple iPad, everyone’s favorite – CASHOLA, lifetime membership to the association and a lot more!

Okay, now back to the gift bag…

More than 30 successful women (including me) have contributed their wisdom to a complimentary Virtual Gift Bag devoted to supporting – and accelerating – the success of women in business online like you.

It’s available – for the month of September only – through IAWBO, the International Association of Women in Business Online. And it’s SO much more than your average “give-away”!

You’re really going to love this…

Each item in the gift bag is an EXCLUSIVE resource not available for-free anywhere else and also includes access to a special interview series that will unfold on IAWBO’s blog… the How Does She Do It? 2.0 series. You’ve watched and you’ve wondered. Now you can KNOW what these women do to achieve MEGA success.

And, you’ll appreciate this too…

You’ll get immediate access to all 30 gifts with just ONE opt-in! (You do not have to subscribe to any other list – unless you want to).

First, get your gift bag here: FREE IAWBO GIFT BAG

Then, check out the contest here: http://iawbo.com/buzz

There are so many ways to win… like I said, it’s going to be really fun!!

Marketing Help: Create A Powerful Joint Venture

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You are going to be hearing from me over the next few weeks (sparingly though:) about a powerful joint venture that I have the pleasure to be a part of. One of my favorite organizations for women in online biz — IAWBO (International Association of Women In Business Online) is celebrating their first birthday and doing it with a bang!

Instead of the typical “I’m going to put one of my products on sale for you on my birthday”, they are really doing something special. They hand-picked 30 amazing women who are leaders in their respective niches and created a virtual gift bag of 30 FREE resources that you cannot find anywhere else online. So I obviously want all my folks to go over and grab all the goodies. I will be grabbing them too:)

IAWBO virtual gift bag experts

But I also wanted to mention this particular event for another reason…

One of the BEST ways to truly gain visibility, traction, and more important credibility in your marketplace is to be a part of a powerful joint venture like this one. While I absolutely love the idea of new entrepreneurs gaining access to all these cool resources, I must admit that I also love that I am a part of a joint venture that has been a powerful class-act from beginning to end. Needless to say the professionalism and pure value of the freebies in this offer will more than give me my share of street cred’.

I’ll also build my list effortlessly and gain sales that I normally wouldn’t have made due to my exposure to the people viewing this offer.

Okay – Lisa so how do we find these sorts of great joint venture partnerships?

Well here’s the thing. I didn’t seek this project out. Nor did I seek out any of the last successful 5 joint venture projects that I have participated in. The organizers found me and requested my participation.

How did they find me? My content. Pure and simple. My articles.

So here’s my advice. Do not waste your money on joint venture ebooks, systems, coaching. You don’t need it. Because no matter how hard you research joint ventures and no matter how much information you read about it – the fact is – is that the person with the power needs to find something “worthy”about you to even be bothered. No one really knows the size of another marketer’s list. No one knows truly the income of another entrepreneur. What we do know is what’s transparent. What’s visible. And that’s the type of content, the type of information that you share with the world.

So keep writing! If you’re stuck and haven’t been able to get article marketing to work for you or fit in your marketing schedule. Learn more about my article marketing training course for beginners – Articology.

Also – if you’d like to gain instant access to all 30 of these great free resources [Hint: my resource is about duplicate content secrets!] then please go over to IAWBO and grab yours today. They aren’t celebrating their birthday forever:)

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