Part of my recent plan is to create as many one way links pointing back to this blog with the keyword “make money blogging”. The easiest way to do so is by submitting articles in article databases. My goal was and still is to submit a total of 45 articles that relate to the topic making money blogging. Every article points back to my homepage with the keyword make money blogging and every 15 will point back to different posts with different keywords in different categories. This allows building link popularity for both the home page and internal pages of this site; having more than two links might discourage webmasters from re-publishing those articles, so I stick to two. A few articles I published a couple of months ago have been republished dozens of times giving a series of very valuable backlinks. If you are going about doing some article marketing yourself, try to out together helpful but basic short articles that other webmasters will like and take for their sites. Some SEO experts say that it is better to have the second link with no keyword and advise to only include the URL. I have read conflicting advice regarding this practice, so I am sticking to links with keywords. In terms of length, I am going for 450-500 words per article and in terms of topics I am writing ‘how to’ or ‘tips’ or introductory articles and hoping for the best. You can read a post I wrote about Blogging Tips that will give you a better understanding of how you can structure a similar article.

To get the most out of this process you need to be focused and put a plan together. Have a few topics ready, do the necessary research and decide how to go about writing. One thing to keep in mind is that search engines do not like duplicate content. Therefore, avoid submitting the same article twice. Try to write it in a way that allows changing the paragraphs around, then re-submit it. There are countless tips out there about article marketing. Do some research and expand your horizons, or just stick to the basics outlined here. If you are interested you can read more about my make money blog seo goals. Stay tuned for more updates by subscribing to the feed. I would I also like to know if you have been actie with article marketing and whether there is something else should keep in mind when following the above steps. Feel free to comment.

Do you have a blog?

If yes, do you comprehend the magnitude of your blogs potential?

This post is about marketing; not only about understanding what you can do to get your blog out there, but what you can do to transform your blog into a powerful marketing tool. This post is not some cheap ass pitch for an affiliate program or product. It is about putting things in perspective; particularly in regards to the relationship between marketing and blogging. I wrote a post not too long ago about Blog Marketing. In that post touched upon the differences between marketing and advertising. Now I want to examine, in a bit more depth, the ways your blog could be an integral part of a serious marketing campaign.

Aside from the fact that I am focusing on grasping my blogs potential and acting on maximizing it… what got me thinking in this ‘marketing’ direction again was a visit to a certain blog, a marketing blog. It is relatively new and the author seems to be enthusiastic enough to get it going and produce results. Before I proceed in the whole ‘Marketing’ thing I want to examine:

Josh’s Unconventional Marketing Blog

As I said, this blog is relatively new, it was started in January. The author, Josh, is focusing his efforts on writing about unconventional marketing techniques displayed online as well as offline. The author of this blog is using social media and networks to attract readers and visitors and is doing pretty well. There are a series of contests that encompass all of the blogs parameters that you are encourage to participate in. One more feature I enjoyed is that readers are always informed and know what to expect because they can always refer to the schedule. Every day of the week there is a post for every category:

Marketing Ideas
Marketing Strategy
Real Marketers of Genius
Unconventional Marketing
Personal Development
Random Rants and Funny Stories

There are also a few good posts about blogging

I like this blog because it clearly demonstrates the benefits of proper marketing.

The author is doing a great job marketing and writing about it. It doesn’t seem as if he is spending money on advertising, he is using Unconventional Marketing techniques. If you want to promote your blog and services and you are on a budget you should definitely visit and subscribe. It looks very promising.

Visiting this blog got me thinking…in the marketing direction. I feel it is important to understand how Unconventional Marketing works and what are the differences between regular marketing and why you should be using it.

Unconventional Marketing

Unconventional Marketing or Guerrilla Marketing is a low cost form of marketing that is used when lacking the necessary budgets to buy advertising or utilize other marketing techniques. Every blogger uses unconventional forms, like word of mouth marketing and viral marketing.

Word of Mouth Marketing

There is not much to say about the word of mouth form. I bet that there has been a time when you found a service or a product that you thought was interesting and though it would be a good idea to share it with your readers. I do it to. When I come across something that I think will benefit you in some way, I will write about it. This form of marketing works really well. Google did it when they came out with Gmail.

Viral Marketing

This form of marketing utilizes pre-existing social networks to get a point across, or to create awareness. If you are part of the StumbleUpon community, or BlogCatalog you might be using it already to get your posts read. I use both these services, I stumble my posts, the ones I think would do well, and I use BlogCatalog to send broadcasts to the over 1,000 ‘friends’ I have. If I was writing about you, about your blog, and used my ‘unconventional marketing techniques’ your blog would be getting exposure to almost 2,000 new readers on one shot. That does not include the daily visits from search engines and other social media. Do you get the idea?

So Josh`s unconventional marketing blog does just that. Uses and writes about unconventional marketing techniques that could bring in nice results. It is one thing to use Unconventional marketing to get visitors and traffic to your site and another to use your site as a marketing vehicle. However, both ways are related and they are very important when wanting to succeed in the blogging world. To understand how unconventional marketing has become very popular lately and how it relates to blogging it is important to understand blog marketing.

Blog Marketing

Why do you think is blog marketing works so well?

Marketing is a Multidimensional Societal Process

Many people think of marketing as advertising. Well yes, advertising is a part of the marketing process. However, marketing has many other aspects. To get a better understanding of marketing and why blogging and marketing online should go hand-in-hand, one must grasp the notion of the 4 P’s of marketing.

Product

Pricing

Promotion

Placement

The 4 P’s are pretty standard in every definition of marketing from the online encyclopaedia to every business text book written after the 1960’s.

So after you decide on a product, you price it, you promote and you need to figure out a way to sell it, somewhere to place it so buyers can buy. Pretty straight forward…For almost 4 decades, things did not change that much. The theorists had to re-examine their theses when the internet started picking up. So they did what they did best. They added more P’s. 3 more and then 4 more.

The first 3 are:

People

Process

Physical Evidence

People are the salespeople; the process is the selling process which is essential for customer satisfaction and then you have physical evidence. Physical evidence is evidence provided to help make a sale for an intangible or intangible good.

Blogs and Physical Evidence

Before I spent $2,500 to buy my new laptop a couple of months ago, I read reviews, testimonials and consumer opinions on many different products. I spent a good 10-12 hours reading, comparing taking notes and asking questions before I made up my mind. Most of that time was spent on technology blogs; I read reviews, compared products and was actually pretty happy to find out that this information was readily available online. It helped my make the purchase.

Even if the company I bought the laptop from provided me with the reviews I might had been weary and perhaps not taking it seriously. The bloggers that reviewed the products, even if they where paid to do it, gave me a completely different perspective; a perspective that actually helped that company make a sale without using any of its own resources to do so! I was impressed, and still am; particularly of the effectiveness and direct nature of this media, blogging.

So, back to marketing…

As the internet has been picking up the past few years, to say the least, the Marketing theorists continued P’ing. Adding P’s to their theories. The latest 4 P’s are:

Personalization

Participation

Peer-to-Peer

Predictive modeling

Personalization is the customization of products and services through the use of the Internet. Have you ever bought something from Dell? If you have then you know how useful personalization can be for both the seller and the buyer.

In terms of participation, the internet has allowed customers and future customers to participate more in product development even in the selection of marketing campaigns sometimes. Corporations, allow customers to have a say in what the brand should stand for; or what future products should be like. The 3rd new P is Peer to Peer. This P refers to customer networks and communities where advocacy happens. It is like the earlier Physical Evidence aspect but enhanced. Lastly, predictive modeling refers to the mathematic algorithms that are applied to the marketing data collected, mostly online.

What does your blog have to do with all this?

Personalization/Participation and Blogging

Well, the problem marketers have had and still do, in some media, is that marketing can be perceived as interruptive and negative in nature. When I watch my favourite show on TV, or a Film and I see a brand name product being used, I do feel as if an idea is being imposed on me. And I don’t like it at all. Sometimes I take it as an insult to any intelligence I might have. Well, in the end it is up to you stop watching and you could even tell the advertiser to go fuck himself but no one will hear you. In blogging you can do the same; you can let them know what you think. The difference is that your opinion counts. Aside from the whole opinion thing that I can write a whole book about how important it is, blogging can be very useful to getting your point across. You can write about something you like or don’t like and encourage other to participate. This information is valuable to the advertiser and you as a blogger can profit from it.

Ethical Considerations

Peer to Peer and Blogging

For the longest time businesses of every kind tried to determine what their customers wanted. Businesses used focus groups, surveys questions focus groups for feedback but all this stuff started dissipating as competition increased. At the same time the internet grew larger and stronger, and as more users logged on the playing field changed. Web 2.0 is the new force that allows those who can to capitalize on the vast amounts of information out there including on blogs. As blogs become more influential, as bloggers rush blogging’s transformation into a powerful force in the marketing process; the information presented on blogs can become increasingly valuable. Ok, yes, you can profit from it. But at what cost? P2P networks have become increasingly profitable and successful because they capitalize on this information.

Look up the term social computing, read about Web 2.0 to get a better understanding. All I want to ask you is which end of the stick would you like to be? Ok, the picture of the all Seeing Eye might be a bit of an exaggeration but still. All the information online is gathered, compiled and sold for a lot of money. I am not buying or selling information directly or you or any blogger, don’t get me wrong, I am just saying that some people do. They are making a killing off of it. Nevertheless, if you have a blog, like I do, you have made the compromise already. By having a blog, writing your thoughts online, you have made your concessions.

It is like buying a CD, an MP3 of a song that talks about freedom of speech rebellion or even worse not selling out…I find those songs hilarious, especially when I listen to them from a store bought CD or MP3…. Ok there is a difference here; the internet does allow you to express your self freely to some extent. You can write whatever you want…The only thing is that if you want other people to read it, you will have to start providing your information to the companies that will help you attract these readers. People who claim that blogging is a form of free speech should reconsider…

What I am saying is that, if someone is going to profit from the information on your blog, you should take a cut; don’t let them walk all over you. Do what you can to set up a blog, write, attract visitors by paying `the price` but do not hesitate to make some money for your self, start acting now and make money blogging.

I like Josh’s Unconventional Marketing Blog, because he is doing just that…Josh is one more smart blogger that makes money blogging with different ways including capitalizing on he social network craze.

For Tips on ways you could do the same you can read an older post of mine titled: Make Money with Entrecard.

If you want you can subscribe to my feed., that’s fine its up to you.

If you liked this post, link to it.

Here is the link:

<*a href="http://http://www.ideasandmoney.info/2008/03/blog-marketing-unconventional-marketing.html"/>blog Marketing<*/a>

Just delete the * in the beginning and the end and you are good to go. If you are a member of Entrecard and you link to this post I will pay you 250 credits. Just message me through my profile on Entrecard.

My profile

Are you achieving your full marketing potential?

I don’t have much experience blogging, just over two months to be exact, but I am starting to realize the immense potential of these great marketing vehicles…our blogs.

I work in media, television and radio mostly. Among other things, producing, writing hosting… I do sales…advertising sales. I plan marketing campaigns that extend between the two media and have over 5 years of experience doing so.

When it comes to selling, I do sales the good old fashion way. I get a lead, call them up, talk to them about their business, see how it is going, learn about what they feel needs to be improved and make my suggestions on how to spice things up with some advertising. I have seen advertising successes and failures first hand. For some, advertising on television and/or radio can be very profitable and for others a waste of time and money.

I focus my efforts on getting someone on board for the long run. Keep a customer satisfied, and he will come back. High retention levels mean easier sales, more money for the business and more money for me. A customer will come back, an advertiser will renew his/hers contract, when they see results. The easiest sale to make is to someone who has already seen what you can offer and liked it! The hard ones are the new ones. How do you persuade a potential advertiser to buy? How do you get new customers?

If you have read up to here you might be wondering why I am bothering with writing all this stuff. Well….because I want to prove a point; just bare with me for a little bit…

Most new customers/advertisers will be a reluctant to spend their money right away. They want to see demographics, statistics; they want to be certain that their advertisement will be seen by people that might buy their product or service. Nevertheless, my experience has shown that even if you have the most accurate data about who is watching or listening at a particular time, there is still a huge possibility that the advertisement won’t work. The advertisers know that, that is why they are reluctant in the first place. Even if you advertise here, on this highly targeted blog, it might work or it might not…In the case of television your ad will have a better chance to work when it is placed in the right slot, during the right show and the right time.

When someone places an advertisement on a blog they do so because they know what kind of readers that blog attracts. If it is a recipes blog, then the most successful advertisements will be those revolving around food, cooking and so on. If it is a make money blog like this the advertisements should be about money making opportunities or about how to increase ones traffic. The great thing about blogs is that they have readers that are interested in a particular topic.

This blog has readers that also have blogs, like you, and perhaps are interested in making more money blogging. One third of this blogs readers came from Entrecard and they might be interested in making money with Entrecard. Another third of the readers came from StumbleUpon and they might want to learn how to increase StumbleUpon traffic themselves. Aside from interlinking my blogs posts what I am doing here is using this post to `market` my older ones. I created a context in which older posts became relevant again…I could go on and write one more paragraph about the importance of increasing traffic when building a solid marketing vehicle for contextual products for your advertisers….Or even better how to run an advertising campaign and make money at the same time with Entrecard. Do you see what I mean?

Advertising on the other hand does not necessarily utilize the notion of the `context` in getting a message across. Marketing does!

There is a down side to advertising, even on blogs. Sometimes you can place an ad on a high traffic blog and never make any sales or even get any clicks, it happens. Your 125x125 ad might not be enough to do the trick. It might not have been the best day/week/month to advertise or perhaps your ad plain and simple, flat out sucked. Who knows? To get a few things straight…Lets limit this discussion to blogs that get moderate amounts of traffic. Let’s say 5,000 to 10,000 unique visits per month, like this blog. That means that almost 10,000 people check out the pages of this blog every month. Most of them come here for tips and advice. Wouldn’t it be nice to have lets say, half of those people read a post about something you wrote and follow a link to your site? I know I would love to have an extra 2000 visitors! It would be nice because I know how I can convert those visitors into dollars. Do you?

In order to fully grasp the magnitude of the wonders a blog can do for the advertiser is to comprehend the difference between the term marketing and advertising.

Wikipedia defines marketing as a societal process which discerns or, in other words, distinguishes consumers' wants. Once those needs and wants are distinguished, marketing focuses on a particular product or service to fulfill those wants, attempting to mold the consumers toward the products or services offered.

Marketing is a process, a societal process. Advertising is just one part of the marketing process. You can buy advertising on television, radio, a website but that will not necessarily mean that it will be effective. What will be more effective than advertising is building a community around your service or product. So, in my opinion advertising is effective when it is combined with an interactive process of community building.

That is why advertising on a blog can be more effective that advertising on some other kind of website or even TV show for that matter. Advertising on TV might get you more sales, depending on the reach however it might not be as effective in creating a community around that product. Also it really does cost more.

Advertising on a blog can be easily combined with other forms of marketing, like a contest, a post, a review an intriguing article that describes what is being offered and creates a `context` of validity that will intrigue the reader to follow a particular path.

Why is it great to market your product on a blog?

Highly Targeted Marketing

There is an 80% chance that you are here because you want to read about things you can do to make money blogging. The majority of blogger out there will at some point think about monetizing their blog, or get a better service to do so. Therefore there will always be more visitors. The down side is the competition, but it is not that hard to get 10,000 visitors a month and build an above average blog.

Blogs are interactive

Readers will post comments, participate in discussions, talk about their experiences about particular products/topics draw their conclusions and possibly write about the same topic on their blogs. Aside from the extra exposure an advertiser can get it helps build a better presence for their website with more backlinks. If you don’t know what I mean there are a few older posts of mine that will clarify any potential questions you might have. Read more on Keywords and Backlinks

Write Sponsored Reviews

If you are a blogger then you should be considering using your blog to market products and services of your choice. I would suggest you do so selectively so you don’t compromise your content. Be prudent and not greedy and it will pay off in the long run. Don’t think that you can trick your readers, they are smarter than you think, probably smarter than you! If you proceed on the writing for money path, make sure your reviews are honest and helpful. Get paid to write, there is nothing wrong with that; but always have the reader in mind. Don’t forget that it is because of the readers you are able to write for money.

So how can someone go upon writing for money?

Well I am pretty sure you have some across the different services out there that take a cut to connect advertisers with bloggers. Pay per post is one, and Sponsored Reviews is another one. I am active in the second one. They also have a referral program through which you can make a few dollars for referring other bloggers and advertisers. If you join through my referral links I will make 5 dollars for the first 50 you make and 10 for the next 200 or something like that.

Buy Reviews

Sponsored reviews keep 35% from what you charge the advertiser which is pretty decent. You can set your price anywhere from $10 to $1000 per review. What I like about Sponsored reviews is that the pay through PayPal and on a bi-weekly basis.

You don’t necessarily have to go through a `middle man` to get advertisers you can do it by yourself as well, talk to potential advertisers, make them offers and bargain. Make a move, act now think before you act and you should be ok. When I say think, I mean think! Don’t read what others are saying about a method a topic, don’t follow instructions blindly not even mine. See what is best for you, what suites your need, change things around and apply what you think will work best for you, for your blog.

If you have found this post helpful, then write a comment, if you only want me to read it, then specify so I can moderate it.

If you want to take this one step further, I will help you get started with writing for money. If you want to write about this blog, I will sponsor you! I will pay you with Entrecard credits to write a review for this blog, or a post you enjoyed reading. Post here or contact me through my Entrecard profile

http://entrecard.com/details/6436

For those who found this post helpful subscribe to this blog because there will be way more to come!