Content marketing tools and training.
The white plume of smoke that rose above The Vatican on March 13, 2013 signaled the dawning of a new Pope in Rome.
Meanwhile, halfway across the world, a plume of black smoke rose over Mountain View, CA as last rites were read to a content distribution legend.
Google Reader is dead, put down by the hands of its maker.
The beloved RSS reader will be laid to rest officially on July 1, making the next 3+ months a requiem … for a stream.
Imagine you’re having a discussion with a talkative, hyperactive teenager.
The conversation goes something like this …
We went to the mall, and like, there was this fire in the mall. And we went from there to the movies, but we didn’t have any money and anyway the popcorn machine was broken, and so we didn’t really want to go to the movies without popcorn. But right after that we went to have some pizza and there was this creepy guy outside the store. But listen to this — because that’s not the best part. The best part is that Sylvie dumped Josh, and like, they ran into each other in the street …
Annoying right? Then why do we so often write our web copy just like that teenager talks?
When was the last time you wrote something with the intent to specifically motivate your readers to take action?
Admit it or not, we’re all in the same game.
Whether you want someone to buy your product, join your email list, retweet or +1 your post, you’re doing one thing — leading your audience down a path at the end of which lies the action they’ll take.
You want them to do something.
I gotta say, if Clark would let me, I’d write up one of these theme updates for you every week.
Our StudioPress team has so much cool stuff going on building premium WordPress themes. I can barely keep up with all the ways they’re making WordPress websites better, and your life online a piece of cake.
So, let me try in this quick post.
One of the things you’ve heard from me over and over is to focus on subscriber acquisition as the main focus of blogging. Getting people to voluntarily pay attention to you over time is your goal, because it’s the cornerstone of permission marketing.
Whether you’re dealing with RSS or email subscriptions, not all subscribers are equal. People abandon RSS readers, ignore your content without unsubscribing, or simply don’t check in all that often.
When I first started Copyblogger, I was a huge RSS evangelist. As a long-time email marketing guy, I was sick to death of overzealous filters, deliverability issues and the low-level of trust people had for online publishers thanks to the spammers.
Over two years later, email is still very much alive. That fact is most evident with my other projects, but even here at Copyblogger over 6,000 people subscribe by email and they tend to be the most responsive.
