Coffee Break Blogging

If you’ve not yet read my flagship blog post on The Redwood Strategy, I recommend you do now. It should be very clear that I’m big on the long-term use of a blog post. I like to build leverage… not a hamster wheel. In that post, too, you will see a content upgrade. A content upgrade is simply a lead magnet which is highly specific to a single blog post. As of this writing, that content upgrade is converting at 11.27%. This is a simple, concrete action you can take to more effectively build your list. Pick one post. Preferably one already getting some traffic. And make a content upgrade for it.

This week's (and the first) Weekly Update. :) On the docket this week... The latest on The Daily An update on the Coffee Break Blogging podcast. Is it coming back? What's new inside THE LAB #AskBMA For #ASKBMA this week, I'm answering: Third party landing page creator (like LeadPages) versus Wordpress landing page builders. Which is better? Should you put your customer downloads behind a login, or send it via email? Thrive Themes and SumoMe? Should you use a pop-up on your site to build your list? What (in my experience) works even better than a popup but isn't so annoying? Quick Links: THE DAILY - http://www.blogmarketingacademy.com/daily/ PODCAST - http://www.coffeebreakblogging.com THE LAB - http://www.blogmarketingacademy.com/lab/ ASK BMA - http://www.blogmarketingacademy.com/ask/ Thrive Leads - http://www.blogmarketingacademy.com/go/thriveleads Thrive Architect - http://www.blogmarketingacademy.com/go/architect 

“Subscribe to our Newsletter” is quite possibly the dumbest call to action ever to litter the internet. It might have worked back in the 90’s when “You got Mail!” made people feel special. But, today? Ha! Today, you need to give people a damn compelling REASON to subscribe to your email list. And that reason is simply an opt-in offer, otherwise known as a lead magnet. Now, for most of you, I would imagine the concept of a lead magnet is nothing new. However, ask yourself this… Do you have only one or two lead magnets? If so, then time to get busy. Because… The more lead magnets you have, the easier it is to grow your list.

It has been a long time since we've done a new episode of Coffee Break Blogging. I've had many people ask if I had any plans on bringing it back. With this short episode, I explain what happened. And, what's coming.

Do you run a service business? Are you a consultant or a coach? If so, then you’ve likely thought about the issue of how to scale. The idea of trading time for money is something many people grow allergic to. There’s nothing wrong with it at all, however every service provider eventually starts to look ahead at how to evolve the business beyond that. How can you scale a service business? How can you turn it into a product? How can you begin to set things up so that it isn’t simply a trade between time and money? In this episode of Coffee Break, I’m talking specifically to people who run service businesses. We’ll be discussing 7 specific strategies to begin executing so that you can begin to scale a time-based business. This isn’t a transition one just jumps into. And I’m not going to recommend you just jump into the world of membership sites and online course creation. There are certain systemic things you need to be doing internally to strategically AIM your business toward more systematization and productiz

In this episode of Coffee Break, we're taking a little side road off the usual fare and discussing the issue of money itself. Specifically, Bitcoin. The reason I think this topic is important is because we have to understand the very medium we deal in when it comes to generating money with our business. Most of us deal in the US dollar and we tend to think that higher quantities of dollars is automatically better. But, when you look at the nature of the dollar itself and it's colossal lack of purchasing power over the last few decades, we see that more isn't necessarily better. We run our businesses - or seek to build them - in order to provide purchasing power to ourselves. So, we discuss Bitcoin here as something new. We'll discuss the cryptocurrency and its advantages. Plus, we're talking about 6 specific reasons why I think all business owners (but, especially online businesses) should be considering accepting Bitcoin payments as a payment option on their checkout pages.

For the longest time inside The Lab, my private community was running inside of a closed Facebook group. My thinking was this: My members most likely are already on Facebook They find it easy to use It saves me hassle Notifications will mean they see conversations As I now sit here a couple years later, I realize I was mistaken. In this episode of Coffee Break Blogging, I share with you 7 specific reasons why I decided; after a couple years of having my member community on Facebook, I switched to a privately hosted forum for our Lab Community. I also recommend that anybody else looking to have a private community inside of their membership site should set up from the start on a private forum that you own and control. Make time for this episode... and learn from my mistakes.

Every blogger on the face of the earth wants more traffic. But, what are the most effective ways to get it? What are the best promotion strategies that are working in 2017? In this episode of Coffee Break Blogging, we dive into the world of blog promotion yet again... this time covering the top 10 most effective strategies for promoting your blog. What Works... What Doesn't. We are most definitely leaving behind the content "hamster wheel" that most bloggers run on to try to promote their blog. You know the one. It goes like this: Post a new blog post. Share it on social media. Rinse and repeat as often as you possibly can. Simply put... this technique doesn't work. Not anymore. Content volume shouldn't even be a thing in your mind at this point. What IS working are things such as: The Redwood Strategy Paid Advertising Guest Posts Guest Podcast Interviews Facebook Live Building Your List Link Building (correctly) Content Worth Sharing Product Launch Webinars I discuss each of these strategies in much more

In this informal episode of Coffee Break Blogging - and the first episode in some 6 months - I cover the question of... What happened? This episode is primarily an internal look at the Blog Marketing Academy itself, this podcast, and some general news. I discuss: Why the podcast was originally discontinued Why I'm bring it back now What I've been working on behind the scenes

Continuing our topic of webinars, this episode is a walk-through of a general layout for a 60-minute webinar. You can download the reference for this episode at: http://www.blogmarketingacademy.com/webinarplan We talk about a general plan for: Introduction (10 minutes) The Content (40 minutes) The Close (10 minutes) And we'll be discussing a lot of tips and strategies for how to execute each section of your webinar.

In just about any webinar you will ever do, the guts of it will be a content-rich presentation of some kind. How do you put this together? In this episode of CBB, we're talking specifically about the content portion of the webinar... that 30-40 minutes of "pure content" that you will deliver to educate your attendee and provide a transformation that they can walk away with whether they buy from you or not. How do you determine what the topic of your webinar should be? What should be in the webinar? How can you build in trust and likability? How do you make the slides? How can you help increase the chances that they will stay until the end of your webinar? These - and more - are all discussed in this episode of Coffee Break.   So today, we are going to continue talking about webinars; because the last couple of episodes we have been talking about webinars and various aspects of them, today specifically, I want to talk about how to plan out the actual content portion of your webinar.

In this episode, we get into specifics on how to set up an evergreen webinar. This one is chocked full of tips and advice on how to properly set up an evergreen recurring webinar. We'll be discussing: Tips for the presentation of your webinar for recurring use How to set the schedule of your evergreen webinar How to set up the registration landing page (and how I personally do it) How to set up the video recording itself so it plays properly How to handle the questions, chat, and the fake attendee list Setting up the pre-event and post-event emails What happens AFTER the event is over Tips for how to present the offer on your webinar This is a highly tactical episode of CBB, going into a lot of the internal details of running a webinar on automatic so that it is literally going 24/7.   Okay, so today we are continuing on our series here about doing webinars. At the last two episodes here, we talked about various aspects of webinars. In the last one, I talked about doing a live webinar versus doing a pre-rec

There are two ways to do a webinar: doing it LIVE, or pre-recording it. Which should you do? In this episode, I walk through the basic process of doing both. First, I walk through the process of doing a live webinar, offering up a number of tips as well as some of the reality of what goes on behind the scenes. Next, I discuss the pre-recorded - or evergreen - webinar. Typically, after you have done a live webinar a number of times, you'll begin to think about automating it. What is different about it? What are some of the specifics that go into a pre-recorded webinar? Going evergreen on a webinar is the secret to scaling it and turning it into an automatic business builder. But, there's some things you need to know before going into it. And that's what this episode will cover. :-)  

Ever done a webinar before? If not, then after listening to this episode I hope you will consider doing so soon. :-) In this installment of CBB, we're discussing the benefits of webinars and 8 specific reasons why you should be doing them. This episode gives some "inside scoop" on my own personal history with webinars, starting all the way back in the days of my tech site. Then we discuss 8 specific reasons - with advice throughout - on why webinars are great for list building, relationship building and sales. Also why webinars are AWESOME for building leverage in your business and allowing you to make more income while spending less time doing it. This is the first of a multi-part series where we will be discussing webinars. Want a plan to get started? Check out the 6-minute webinar plan, which you can download in PDF at: http://www.blogmarketingacademy.com/webinarplan   By the way, we are going to start a new series  starting from today. So for the next few episodes, we are actually going to be discussing t

Many people who create information products have looked to the potential of publishing on Udemy.com. And, sure, Udemy is an attractive place. They have a lot of traffic from people who are actively looking to learn things. Plus, they make it easy since they provide the platform and take care of all the headaches. But, SHOULD you publish on Udemy? And if you do, how should you go about it? In this episode, we'll talk about Udemy and the pros and cons of publishing courses on this popular platform. I also discuss the best ways to use Udemy to build your own business. If you've ever looked at the potential of earnings from Udemy, be sure to make time for this episode. But before we get started with our discussion for today, let me first tell you about a couple of changes I am going to make here in this podcast...  

You've probably heard it a number of times by now... "The money is in the list". Great. Cool. But, what does that mean? And why is it true? Does it mean you're just constantly pitching to your list? No, not at all. If you back up to the last episode (#148) where I once again gave the bird's eye view of how this whole business works, you'll see how the primary purpose of the email list is to move people through your sales funnels. Those funnels are like pipes.... and the more people you can keep inside those pipes, the more money you make. And the email list is literally the force which flows people through those pipes or gets them to re-enter those pipes. In this episode of Coffee Break, I walk you through how this works. What happens when people get onto your list? What do you do with your "general list"? Are you constantly pitching? Let me show you how this works.   So today let's talk about how to use your email list to move people through your profit funnel; your sales funnel. The whole purpose of the ema

Periodically, I feel I need to go back and revisit the "big picture" about how a blog actually makes money. See, most people who start a blog with the intention of monetizing it do it with certain expectations in mind. Usually, it has to do with talking "about" something they find interesting, building a big community and audience, getting famous and getting a following.... THEN monetizing using ads and affiliate products. That's cute.... but it rarely works. It is what most people try.... and it works for some, but definitely not most. In this episode, I revisit the TRUE function of the blog and how a blog actually fits into the scheme of things. This episode will provide a "bird's eye view" of the business model, where a blog fits into it and what the purpose is.... and you'll see how a blog actually makes money. If you understand this, you'll save yourself a lot of time and effort chasing unicorns. ;-)

In the 4th (and last) installment of this 4-part series, we will discuss conversion triggers. In other words, we will talk about the psychological principles behind much of the marketing you see today and why they work. Today we discuss: Sense of Belonging / Community Current Events Scarcity Controversy Understanding these "triggers" will allow you to move people into action.... whether that be to buy something, to opt into your email list, to open an email, to click on an email, to post a comment, to click on a tweet.... whatever it may be. Moving people into action is the name of the game, and these conversion triggers are a very important part of doing it. In this series, we will discuss many different conversion triggers, why they work, and examples of using them. And perhaps you'll even learn something about yourself. ;-)   So like I said, what we are about to do is Part 4 of our Conversion Triggers series where we have been talking about various psychological components that you could build into your

In the third installment of what will be a 4-part series, again we will discuss conversion triggers. In other words, we will talk about the psychological principles behind much of the marketing you see today and why they work. Today we discuss: Anticipation Status Social Proof Reference Points Understanding these "triggers" will allow you to move people into action.... whether that be to buy something, to opt into your email list, to open an email, to click on an email, to post a comment, to click on a tweet.... whatever it may be. Moving people into action is the name of the game, and these conversion triggers are a very important part of doing it. In this series, we will discuss many different conversion triggers, why they work, and examples of using them. And perhaps you'll even learn something about yourself. ;-)

In the second installment of what will be a 4-part series, we will discuss conversion triggers. In other words, we will talk about the psychological principles behind much of the marketing you see today and why they work. Today we discuss: Stories Simple & Easy Common Enemy Curiosity Understanding these "triggers" will allow you to move people into action.... whether that be to buy something, to opt into your email list, to open an email, to click on an email, to post a comment, to click on a tweet.... whatever it may be. Moving people into action is the name of the game, and these conversion triggers are a very important part of doing it. In this series, we will discuss many different conversion triggers, why they work, and examples of using them. And perhaps you'll even learn something about yourself. ;-)