Following on from my first, second, third and fourth installment in this series on the marketing mix, I would like to introduce you to the fourth and final ‘P’ of the 4 P’s series.

Placement

As with some of the previous P’s place or placement is open to interpretation. To a normal product, it is an outlet where that product is sold, whether thats on the high street or online.

For a blog or website, this is like the external links to your homepage. They are the doors to your business, the more you have, the more potential exposure you can generate. Therefore ultimately leading to more traffic.

One word is used to describe these links, Backlinks, a pretty self explanatory term.

But how do you generate these backlinks?

1. Hope people link to your site, due to the great/useful content.
2. Persuade other people to link to your site.
3. Methods discussed in promotion.

Writing high quality or unique content often takes time to master, some are great from the start, but the bottom line is anyone can create that killer post. All you got to hope for is others agree and reference it from there websites, therefore generating the all important backlinks.

Exchanging links with others on ‘blogrolls’ is quite common practice, partly due to the perceived increase in search engine rank. But primarily it is a great way of getting your link in front of people again. The challenge is in finding high traffic sites who would be willing to exchange links.

As with many of the 4 P’s there is a bit of overlap, most of the methods described in the post on promotion would equally fit here on placement, such as using signatures in forums, which has to be one of the best techniques available.

Ultimately point No.1 is the most important, as is often written, content is king. This is also the hardest to achieve, especially if no one has found or is visiting your blog yet. Therefore 2 and 3 must be done well, as No.1 is partly out of your hands. But if you get placement working in harmony with the other 3 P’s, then hopefully your blog will grow into a big success.

Finally, Place is only one of the 4 P’s, why not check out the other P’s. As before Place is an essential ingredient but it must also be blended with the 3 other P’s in order to gain the maximum effect.

That brings us to the end of the series, hope it was useful to you,

Cheers,

Martyn.

Post from: Money Making Student

The 4 P’s of Marketing and your Blog, Place!

Related posts:

1. The 4 P’s of Marketing and your Blog, Price!
2. The 4 P’s of Marketing and your Blog, It’s all in the Mix
3. The 4 P’s of Marketing and your Blog, Promotion!

Following on from my first, second and third installment in this series on the marketing mix, I would like to introduce the third ‘P’ of the 4 P’s.

Promotion

Essentially if no one knows about a product it will never sell. Same with a blog (or website), if no one knows it exists, then no one will read it.

Firstly promotion is all about getting noticed, there are basically two ways to go about this-

• Stand on a box, shout and scream.
• Politely go round introducing yourself to everyone.

Ultimately what you do is up to you, there are many different ways such as -

• Forums
• Commenting on other Blogs
• Join Communities (e.g. MyBlogLog or Blog Catalog)
• Advertise
• Email people
• Submit to Search Engines.

The list goes on, but one thing to remember is blog promotion can be as time consuming as actually managing the blog. It can be made a lot easier if you have content that appeals to the market audience you target. Working in harmony with the other 3 P’s will give the greatest result and will hopefully catapult your blog to grater things.

Finally, Promotion is only one of the 4 P’s, the last installment – Place will be appearing soon. As before Promotion is an essential ingredient but it must also be blended with the 3 other P’s in order to gain the maximum effect.

Best of luck,

Martyn.

Post from: Money Making Student

The 4 P’s of Marketing and your Blog, Promotion!

Related posts:

1. The 4 P’s of Marketing and your Blog, Place!
2. The 4 P’s of Marketing and your Blog, It’s all in the Mix
3. The 4 P’s of Marketing and your Blog, Product!

Following on from my first and second posts in this series on the marketing mix, I would like to introduce the Second ‘P’ of the 4 P’s.

Price

It is very unlikely you are charging for the privilege of reading your posts. Price is easily defined when we talk about real products, for that scenario, price influences peoples perception of the product. A high price can suggest quality, a low price may suggest it is an inferior product. Ultimately it is up to the consumer to decide whether the product is good value for money. This will influence repeat sales.

In terms of a blog or website this can be seen as analogous to new visitors gaining the information they want. If they come to your blog hoping to find useful information and leave having not found what they are looking for, the visitor will perceive their visit as ‘poor value for money’ and may not return.

On the other hand if the content is better than expected, the visitor is more likely to return and spread the word.

Two major points arise from this-

• Don’t over sell your content
• Display it as well as possible

Over selling your content includes search engine optimization (SEO). So many people try different SEO techniques in order to gain traffic. But if the content is poor you will get a high bounce rate, therefore unlikely to convert in to loyal readers. Same goes for trying to get a post stumbled, the traffic may be good, but how many will return / convert in to loyal readers if your post is a load of rubbish?

Second point is to display your ‘goods’ so it entices visitors to read more and possibly return. A well layed out blog with poor content can easily compete with a poorly designed blog with great content. Ultimately you want both design and content to be the very best. But if you struggle with your writing skills you may benefit just from an aesthetically pleasing design. Always try to avoid the temptation to clutter.

Finally if you sell advertising on your blog, you will have to try and set a price that accurately reflects the value of your blog, too expensive and no one will touch it, too cheap and everyone will want a slot. This is why systems like Project Wonderful and Adtoll are good as the price is set by the market, although this tends to devalue the price that should be charged.

Just remember, Price is only one of the 4 P’s, the 2 remaining (Promotion, Place) will follow later in this series. Price is an essential ingredient but it must also be blended with the 3 other P’s in order to gain the maximum effect.

Best of luck,

Martyn.

Post from: Money Making Student

The 4 P’s of Marketing and your Blog, Price!

Related posts:

1. The 4 P’s of Marketing and your Blog, It’s all in the Mix
2. The 4 P’s of Marketing and your Blog, Product!
3. The 4 P’s of Marketing and your Blog, Place!

Following on from my first post in this series on the marketing mix, I would like to introduce the first ‘P’ of the 4 P’s.

Product

Traditionally this refers to a product or service provided by a business.

Relating this to a blog or website is quite easy. Your blog (website) provides a service in that it educates, informs or entertains visitors. If it does not do this for your visitors from your target market, it may fail to achieve any notable growth or maintain existing readers.

Remember content is key, therefore has to be created with your target audience in mind. Failure to do so, is likely to not generate repeat visits. This being crucial inorder to obtain a loyal (and growing number of) visitors.

Trying not to go off topic to is often the best bet, your readers are probably only interested in your main topics, so writing off topic can put people off. A little variety to spice things up, can’t be condemmed, just do it sparingly.

Another point worth considering is to make your blog differentiated from the many ‘me-to’ blogs in your niche. Building a brand or unique identity differentiates you, therefore making your blog more memorable to visitors. Allowing you to stand out in a crowd.

This can be achieved in several ways or by a combination. Some of the most important include using a unique design to your blog, e.g customise your theme, by changing colors or the header, or for the more advanced/adventurous try building your own theme/site from scratch. Also you could try writing in an interesting writing style, although just being yourself can lead to a writing style that is unique. They are just a couple of ideas for now.

Ultimately remember your content must fulfill the wants and needs of your visitors; research, find out what they are, investigate how competing blogs target your niche. Find weaknesses and try and fill the gap.

Finally remember, Product is only one of the 4 P’s, the other 3 (Price, Promotion, Place) will follow later in this series. Product is an essential ingredient but it must also be blended with the 3 other P’s in order to gain the maximum effect.

Best of luck,

Martyn.

Post from: Money Making Student

The 4 P’s of Marketing and your Blog, Product!

Related posts:

1. The 4 P’s of Marketing and your Blog, Price!
2. The 4 P’s of Marketing and your Blog, Place!
3. The 4 P’s of Marketing and your Blog, Promotion!

Exchanging links, can and is one of the best ways to get a new blog (or website) off the ground.

Potential visitors are highly unlikely to accidentally stumble on to your site unless they are led there from a link. But gaining those initial links can be difficult, top bloggers are not going to link to you, unless you have stunning content. So gaining traffic sources to a new blog will need a proactive attitude.

But who to exchange with and why? Well the general rule is, for bloggers targeting a certain niche, will need to get bloggers from within their niche to link to them. This is mainly because Uncle Google wants you to do this as links from similar sites help Googles crawlers as well as tells Google that your site is important to that niche. In other words it’s like a recommendation to them. Whereas links from sites that are not similar or beneficial to visitors gets marked down by Google.

You may now be wondering why I’m writing this, well I’m looking to exchange links with other bloggers who think that they have content that may be interesting/beneficial to my readers. I’m still new around the blogosphere so exchanging links seems a natural way to make those so important initial connections.

So if your interested I’m going to be actively seeking 5 link exchanges with blogs that are either ’student’ or ‘make money’ related over the coming two weeks.

If your interested, drop me an email with a link to your blog, see the contact page to find out how.

I can’t guarantee I will take up everyone who asks, but I look forward to any offers.

Cheers,

Martyn

Post from: Money Making Student

Connect with the World

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1. The 4 P’s of Marketing and your Blog, It’s all in the Mix
2. The 4 P’s of Marketing and your Blog, Place!
3. The 4 P’s of Marketing and your Blog, Product!

The Marketing Mix that is, You may or may not of heard about the 4 P’s. They are essentially the 4 most important points to consider before launching a product, except I’m going for a slight twist, the product is a blog, your blog (or website).

So time for some clever marketing,

the 4 p’s are:-

• Product
• Price
• Promotion
• Place

So how do they apply,

Product

Your product blog or website must serve a need or want of customers/readers. There is no point creating a blog aimed at no-one. Research your target audience, the likely popularity of your subject/niche and decide what they need or want. There is no point on a ‘make money online’ blog to go and discuss keeping hamsters as a pet, because your readers are not expecting this sort of content. But on the other hand if you have a personal blog you may be able to discuss a wider range of topics, as your readers are not expecting content concentrating on a single subject. In many ways the person behind the blog is the product, in the same way celebrities are in ‘real’ life, the interest is in the actions of the person/blogger.

Price

Unlike normal products, you don’t set a real price on accessing your blog (unless you sell a product). Therefore this part of the marketing mix is open to interpretation to some extent. But for every action for a reader costs, e.g reading your article is costing them time so ultimately they want/need to gain something useful, if they don’t gain from your blog, they may not return. Hence writing valuable content target at your market, therefore your readers, is essential for success. As the average time spent, plus the number of return visits rise, so does the value of your blog.

For those who choose to display advertising, charging too much is not going to encourage repeat business or positive referrals, but charging too little can lead to poor returns. Trying to get a good balance is essential. You may have seen I have added Adtoll and Project Wonderful ads to this site, they are great as the cost of advertising is set by demand and number of readers therefore leading to a fair value for advertising for both parties.

Promotion

If no-one knows about a product it wont sell, If no-one knows about your blog it wont get read.

Promote it, tell the world about your wonderful blog and how it can help them or why they need to read it.

This can be accomplished by many ways, such as web directories, search engine listings, forums, commenting on other blogs, social marketing, exchanging links, widgets (entrecard, blogrush) and word of mouth (tell friends and family) e.t.c.

Placement

Again open to interpretation, for a normal product it describes how many outlets you have got for your product. For a blog this could be seen as how many incoming links you have got, as mentioned within promotion. Network with other bloggers and try to exchange suitable links with your blog. If your link compliments their content, the visitors you get are more likely to be interested in your product, your blog. Therefore could become potential readers/subscribers. A link from a random site will not give you ‘customers’ for your target audience. Targeted traffic is essential.

Overall I hope this has given a useful introduction to the marketing mix and applying it to your blog. Applying all 4 P’s will give you synergy or to rest of us 1+1+1+1 = 5. I will discuss further the 4 P’s individually in future posts, so stay tuned!

Cheers,

Martyn.

Post from: Money Making Student

The 4 P’s of Marketing and your Blog, It’s all in the Mix

Related posts:

1. The 4 P’s of Marketing and your Blog, Place!
2. The 4 P’s of Marketing and your Blog, Promotion!
3. The 4 P’s of Marketing and your Blog, Price!

Initially my plan was to get off the ground as quickly as possible, but as with many new blogs I put little thought into the direction I was taking. In many ways I jumped in with my eyes shut. So learning to blog effectively has been a steep learning curve, but worth it.

Now I have decided to try and push this blog to the next level by modifying a ‘off the shelf’ theme to personalise it, make it unique and most importantly give a professional look to this blog.

But most importantly I am trying to differentiate this blog from the thousands of ‘Make Money Online’ blogs that have appeared over the last 5 years or so, hence this market has become so overcrowd with blogs that regurgitate the same material week in, week out.

For me this is still an exciting experiment and testing ground for future projects, but one thing I have learnt is you are not going to become rich overnight. You also need to put a lot of hard work in to get anywhere / get noticed.

So what’s changing?

• Martyn’s Blog will become Money Making Student, nothing wrong with ‘Martyn’s Blog’ but it sounds to much like a personal blog about life in general. Money Making Student is more concise and to the point.
• Theme is personalised and more professionally looking, although not finalised, I plan to tinker with it over the next couple of weeks, bear with me it could get messy. If you have any suggestions or criticism please let me know!
• Personalised domain name, the current address is clumsy and was only planned as a stop gap. The gap seemed to have got very big!
• More adverts, hopefully I don’t end up giving the impression of a free ads newspaper, but by placing the ‘useful’ stuff on the left and ads on the right, I won’t confuse or mislead anyone intentionally!

Any feedback is most welcome, I discuss the changes in more depth once I have completed them and visitors and me are happy with the result!

Cheers,

Martyn.

Post from: Money Making Student

Blog Re-design Underway

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2. Oops! Better Time Budgeting
3. Connect with the World

Some may have noticed a little change. ‘If it ain’t broke don’t fix it’, but if it is, hoping things will get better won’t solve the problem. So I have decided to remove BlogRush, the concept was good, but as I explained previously, the results were poor and have continued to be poor. But rather than remove a valuable connection to other similar blogs, I have decided to replace it with another blog network.

Entrecard

The basics, well think of it like a virtual business card. As in real life you can hand your business cards around to other businesses/blog owners who have the Entrecard widget. For this you earn credits, 1 for you and 1 to the person you give your card to. This is done by clicking on ‘Drop yours’ at the bottom of the widget. Feel free to do it on mine, but first you must create your Entrecard. You don’t need to be creative as there is a ‘card creator’ using some simple templates. The usual option of uploading your own is available to you also.

But also you can use your business card as an advert, you can place it on different blogs, this costs you credits. The amount depends on the popularity of that blog. Sadly it is not all that simple because thankfully the blog owner gets to review your card, before it gets displayed. Therefore cutting out spam and we should be pleased with that!

The reverse is also true, other bloggers can advertise on your site earning credits for you to spend!

Whether it will gain me valuable traffic, I will wait and see. Unlike BlogRush it is going to be more labour intensive, but that may be key to its success as it will be more of a ‘network’ of bloggers interacting.

Fingers crossed for Entrecard!

Martyn.

Post from: Money Making Student

BlogRush Gets the Boot, Hello Entrecard!

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1. The BlogRush Effect
2. The 4 P’s of Marketing and your Blog, It’s all in the Mix
3. Connect with the World