As part of our continuing conversation discussing using Adwords and Analytics to aid in marketing a product with a low price point, which was sparked by the inquiry from the publicist for The Ethical Executive, Sally Shields has offered to share her experience.
Sally is an Amazon.com Best Seller and author of The Daughter-in-Law-Rules
101 Surefire Ways to Manage (and Make Friends with) Your Mother-In-Law!
Amazon.com Best Seller: Sally Shields
Create a Media Calendar
One of the things that I learned at the Publicity Summit was the quickest way to get publicity is to be timely. So creating a media calendar for yourself can be an invaluable tool for getting publicity online. That is, writing down all the times of the year that your topic could be relevant to pitch the media in your niche market. You can even check Chase’s Directory of Annual Events to see if there are any holidays that specifically relate to your topic.
For example, after finding out that the 4th sunday in October was “Mother-in-Law Day,” I googled “Wedding Blogs” and “Mom” related blogs, and sent this pitch around to a few of the top ranking ones:
October 26th is Mother-in-Law Day How To Turn
Your Mother-in-Law From Your Biggest Critic into
Your #1 Fan in 3 Simple Steps!
… and asked them if they would like to post a review or a pre-prepared Q&A and do a giveaway on their site (I offered a few eBooks - doesn’t cost me anything and gets the word out and the buzz going about my book.) I got several responses, and got a bunch of traffic this month so far.
Here’s one example of the result of this effort:
http://www.mommyland.com/the-daughter-in-law-rules-review
Setup a Google Alert
Another example: I set up a google alert for “Mother-in-law” and I was alerted to the fact that Joe Biden’s MIL passed away a couple of weeks ago. So I emailed this pitch to a high-ranking site (30,000 on Alexa.com) for moms called MomLogic.com:
Joe Biden’s Mother-in-Law Dies How to Make Peace
with Your Mother-in-Law, Before it’s Too Late!
They did an article and quoted me as an expert and mentioned my book as well. To view:
Make Peace With Your Mother In Law
Learn Article Marketing
Of course, then there is the whole world of article marketing. One of the best people teaching this great thing is Jeff Herring, who provides a couple of free templates to get you started. I wrote my first two articles in about 20 minutes using these templates. One of the best places to submit your articles is to Ezine Articles. Here are a few other places to try:
GoArticles.com
ArticleDashboard.com
SearchWarp.com
About.com
Squidoo.com
Helium.com
EzineMarketers.com
SubmitYourArticles.com
You want to make sure not to mention your book in the article, but rather deliver great content in the form of tips, dos and don’ts, top 10 lists, etc. You then make sure that you utilize the resource box to your advantage. Be sure to have all of your information, and something that really helps is to offer some sort of free giveaway as well. Here is the example of the bi-line that I use at the end of my articles:
Please visit Sally “The Mother-in-Law Manager” Shields, speaker and author of The Daughter-in-Law Rules on the web at www.TheDILRules.com for contest giveaways, free bonus gifts,The DIL Rules newsletter, 44 Top Tips Cheat Sheet, free music … and more!
A big thanks to Sally for sharing some of her expertise with us. Now I ask…
Do you have any great tips that have helped to develop publicity for a product, attract traffic to a website, or garner attention to a great cause?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Barbara Whitlock 11.11.08 at 9:18 am
Hi Sally!
Great overview! I’ve written a lot of articles based on my research and experience writing on the web and working at Helium.com. These may help other writers too: http://www.helium.com/users/13060.
I’m also here to toot Helium’s horn, because we’ve made some changes and expanded in ways that really distinguish Helium as a (perhaps) best choice for web writers.
Our unique Helium Freelance Marketplace http://www.helium.com/marketplace?placement=CL13060 is getting noticed by magazine, website and even newspaper publishers. Professional writers find it a great place to moonlight and add to their monthly income (one reported $1,000 a month) and newer writers appreciate the exposure, experience and portfolio-building opportunities!
Helium now offers upfront payments in addition to ad revenue share for informative articles, with minimal community participation.
Newer writers appreciate the portfolio-building opportunities here and professional writers use Helium to expand their freelance options — all enjoy the rising earnings on the site.
We have also been called “the most supportive writing community on the web.” If you’d like help write to me directly, and I’ll get you connected and speed your way to success on our site.
We accept non-exclusive content, so you can bring over your already published articles too, and turn a quick profit!
Barbara Whitlock
Community Development Manager
Helium.com
bwhitlock@helium.com
Eric Werner 11.12.08 at 11:49 am
That’s great Barbara, thanks for sharing that information. Helium does look like a first class shop - I noticed that some of the articles have outbound links and some do not, and I noticed that those that do are using a nofollow tag so that they won’t pass Pagerank.
It would seem to me that one strong way to get more people to develop content for this site would be to let the outbound links in their articles pass Pagerank. If they did then there would be some SEO value to writing an article for Helium.
That’s especially interesting that Helium takes non exclusive content and that you can get paid for submitting something that you may have already published elsewhere.
Thanks Barbara,
Look forward to talking to you again sometime.