Writer, Entrepreneur and Life Coach offers

Greetings and welcome back dear readers. I would like to start todays post topic with four simple statements:

1. If you don't tell anyone about the things you have for sale or offer nobody will know about them.
2. You can't force people to buy anything, but you can offer it to them in a polite manner.
3. Most people are turned off by "hard sales".
4. Nobody likes to feel as if they are being scammed or sold a lemon.

Now what does this have with my marketing tips via blog posts? Those are the most important things to keep in mind when composing your next fantastic post.

Find the middle ground!

If your readers would want to read a sales ad they could simply click on one of the hundreds of Google generated and read those instead. A good blog post needs to have more than just the marketing text, but offer some sound advice, interesting information or even simply be entertaining.

Don't write while you are overtired or stressed out!

This may seem a bit odd to you at first but once you think about it, it will make sense. When you are already overtired or stressed out you become desperate to get your writing done and over with. You may be a little pushier than usual. Trying to phrase things just right becomes a lot more difficult as well.

Let plugins help you out!

Once the blog post is written you have to get it in the right hands or just out there period. For some people finding the right keywords is difficult, for others it is finding the time to actually tag them correctly etc. WordPress plugins are available in a wide range these days and some of them can do an amazing job in automating your marketing. Consider this the behind the scenes work. I just recently came across these free plugins which you can find in the wordpress add new plugins page:
Simply tags
Simply tweet
Simply google sitemap

You may want to check them out as well. They are awesome and like I said free to use. If you feel the way I did and you want to thank you to the creator of those plugins he has a donation button you can hit.

Stick to the facts!

This may seem anti-marketing to you, but one of my policies is sticking to the facts. If a product or a service I introduce, review, associate myself with has flaws, makes ownership not for everyone, is only for a particular price range etc. I state it in my posts as well. Everyone sees different things as a priority. To me a product costing $50.00 may be enough to stop me from buying it but that doesn't mean someone else won't see that as cheap. By giving my readers all the facts as I am aware of them allows them to make a much more informed decision and they don't feel as if I tried to hoodwink them. Nobody likes the "lemon car salesman".

Always remember whom you are talking to!

Manners, manners and more manners. I can't stress this enough! Just think about how you feel when you go into a brick and mortar store and the sales person either talks to you as if you are an idiot on a stick, a walking wallet, or becomes overly pushy. In basic marketing they teach you to use "call to action phrases". What they don't tell you is to soften them a little bit. It doesn't hurt you one bit to say: "If you are interested in buying this product please click this button now!" See how much softer it sounds than "buy now". This may seem like a waste of time since your reader isn't going to push the buy no button unless he or she is interested, but it does say that you realize they do have an option here. It is just a little courtesy and doesn't hurt anyone.

Give free samples where applicable!

Everyone likes free right? Some of the products I market from time to time are my self published books. In this case giving parts of a chapter or even a sample chapter might not come amiss. If you are selling a product and you have free samples available you may want to offer them. A tested for satisfaction product ends up selling a lot easier since the customer has already been able to "test drive" the product.

Don't make every single blog post a sales pitch!

Lighten up just a little. Even most brick and mortar stores are closed at least one day a week. Unless you are a pure review site, people want to feel as if they are still being treated like human beings instead of cattle being led to the slaughter. Not every single blog post has to be a sales pitch, you will find that your readership will increase if you are more personable from time to time.

Not all links are created equal!

In order to rise to the top pages in search engines you often need to implement the use of incoming links to give you a boost. Think of it as a popularity contest in school. The more popular a person already is the more others are going to want to follow them. Yet even there if they are popular with the wrong types of people, it will keep others away. Be careful when exchanging links with other websites. Look at their content first and see if you feel comfortable sending your readers their way. Remember that your readers trust you! Don't destroy your reputation for someone else. I have written a little post on social media marketing if you are interested you can find it by clicking here!

Give yourself time!

The internet these days is flooded with blogs and websites. Being seen and heard is no longer as easy as it once was. Readers often find themselves overloaded by too much information and even the most avid among us can get tired trying to wade through our favorite blogs. You are not going to start a blog today and make thousands of dollars tomorrow via your blog posts and marketing efforts. No matter what the guru's are trying to sell you, the only ones getting rich on those are the ones who sell you the program. Marketing, sales and creating a network and a reputation for being a reliable source takes time. Be patient, keep working at it, fine tune it as you go along and in due time you will see results.

Remember every little success is worth "celebrating" because it shows you that you are going in the right direction.

As always I would like to thank you for taking the time to read my blog and if you enjoyed the information please take a moment to hit the facebook like button for me.

Regina Sunderland