BusinessBlogAngel

Say What? - Audio Comments on Your Blog

There's lots of talk in the blogosphere at the moment about 'bling for your blog'. Added to your blog, these little 'widgets' enhance it in some way.  It might be about building a network or community, or encouraging conversation or it could be about engaging people. In a minute, I'm going to tell you about one that does all three, but first let me tell you why you need to know about this.

As you may know, my background is in corporate marketing - specifically 'experiential' marketing and 'brand experience'.  Now, I don't know the stats off the top of my head, but when selling a product or service - particularly a new one, the clincher is to get that product into consumers' hands, homes and/or lifestyles. That's why brands are so keen to 'engage' their potential customers. If I get your attention but don't engage with you - I'm just making you aware that I exist. If I get your attention and we engage - then we are building a relationship with each other and there is more chance that a sale will follow. That's also why I had food company clients spending between 350k and 3.5m UKP per annum on cooking and tasting demos and free samples outside supermarkets!

So how does this relate to business blogging?

Well, this is a major part of the 'blog marketing' story. It's not all about traffic and Google results, you know. As I said, it's about brand experience, engagement, trust and rapport.

Blog + Shopping Cart/Autoresponder = Open For Business

To get the most from your business blog, add a few bells and whistles which'll instantly turn it into an eCommerce platform.  For example, you see that 'sign up box' for my Blog Digest mailing list there on the right?  Well, that's generated by an 'autoresponder' which also delivers it (when I actually get round to writing it). The 'autoresponder' functionality is just one element of a 'shopping cart' system I use called TotalBusinessCart, a UK version of 1ShoppingCart.

If you are starting a new venture and recognise that using the Internet as your main marketing vehicle is the smart way to go, then you want a shopping cart system.  I've seen a few similar products over the years, but this is by far and away the most comprehensive - along with the only other eCommerce solution I can recommend - ValuedClientSystem. And guess what? They are essentially the very same product rebadged!

Practical Tip for Business Bloggers

My bed is calling, but I want to share this practical blogging tip with you while I think of it...

Have you ever experienced that thing where you put your post together, carefully formatting to get the paragraph spacing right, and then once you publish it, the paragraph space seems to have vanished? And no matter how many times you hit the enter key to create new paragraph spacing, the space always gets swallowed up?

Or you find that something which looks fine in the 'Compose Post' box before you publish, somehow changes to giant or teeny size letters as soon as you publish it?

Well, chances are that when that last happened to you, it was because you were using text copied and pasted from another source,

How to build your own business blog - new telecourse dates

Now I'm settled in Cardiff, I've finally put some dates in the diary for the first DIY Blogsite Telecourse of 2007.  This blogging course is for you if you want to learn how to configure your own business blog. (Syllabus details here.)  There are only 5 places to guarantee a good 'student:tutor ratio' and although I haven't announced it to the wider world yet, I already have 2 bookings - so don't hang around if you want to reserve your place.

The course will run on 5 consecutive Thursdays at 7.30pm GMT.  That's 2.30pm in New York and 11.30am in California.  (Get the equivalent time where you are here.)

The dates are: 15th February, 22 February, 1 March, 8 March and 15 March.

The entire course of 5 lessons costs just $357/£187.  We'll be using Typepad, so you will be required to start an account with them for $8.95 a month - that's less than a fiver in UK pounds. You will be calling a US bridge line, so if you don't already have a cheap international call rate provider, you might want to get an account with www.1899.com which will mean calls cost just 1p per minute when you dial 1899 before the number.

To book your place and pay using a credit card or PayPal account, just click on the following button:

Business Blog - before and after

It's been a while since I shared any of my work with you...  Many of my clients need a little time to get into the swing of things before they reveal their business blogs to the wider world, but not this one!

  Click on the image (left) to enlarge these before and after pics.

Debbie Bissett is an inspiration! She runs at least three businesses, invests in property and is currently learning about stocks and shares. She wants her blog to act as a traffic driver to her businesses as well as to document and share resources on her wealth creation journey.