Digital Marketing Guide for Authors & Online Entrepreneurs | Denise Wakeman

How to Get Better Visibility on the Web

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Lead Generation – 5 Easy Steps That Will Grow Your Prospect List

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Lead Generation - 5 Easy Steps That Will Grow Your Prospect List

I was taking a walk the other day, thinking about lead generation and how to express the concept and essential processes required to attract new leads for your business.

What came to mind is fishing. It’s not an original metaphor and I don’t even like fishing, but I do understand what it takes to catch a fish and it’s a pretty good way to illustrate lead generation.

When I was a kid, our family went camping a lot during the summer. Cheap vacations! And, living in California, there are lots of state and national parks that are perfect for family adventures. 

One year we camped at Mineral King in the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park. We were with my grandparents, aunt and uncle and cousins. I have no recollection how old I was – maybe 7 or 8, but this was the year I learned how to fish. Paw, my grandfather loved to fish.

I was not crazy about fishing. And, when I caught a fish, I immediately threw it back in the water much to the dismay of my parents who were anticipating a fish dinner. I digress. [Read more…]

Why You Are Afraid to Sell on the Phone – A Fairy Tale

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Why You Are Afraid to Sell on the Phone - A Fairy Tale - Guest post by Ellen Britt

If you had told me a few years ago that I would be advising you to learn how to sell your high-end products and services over the phone, much less that I would be ultra-comfortable doing phone selling myself…well, the truth is, I would have thought you were as mad as the March Hare! And maybe even madder!

Even though I had been in the marketing world for a long time, I never considered doing any phone selling, because for one thing, I’m fairly introverted and I just thought to be a successful phone salesperson, you had to be, well…slick or fast-talking or something. And that, I was definitely not!

I also associated phone sales with sleazy high-pressure tactics or having to read a sales script non-stop as soon as some unsuspecting prospect answered the phone and a myriad of other unsavory things. All of which turned out to be fairy tales by the way!! [Read more…]

How to Get Your Business Seen with Online Content

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BE SEEN WITH ONLINE CONTENT

In a recent interview on the Thriving Launch podcast, I addressed themes that will be familiar to you if you’re a regular reader of this blog…how to get seen with your online content.

I talked about how to grow your following through adding value to your content and how having value and being clear on your message helps leverage your online presence. [Read more…]

How to Win More Attention with this Awesome Video Checklist

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How to Win More Attention with this Awesome Live Video Checklist

In The Checklist Manifesto, Atul Gawande asserts that the simple checklist is the key to taming a high-tech economy. Malcolm Gladwell in his review of the manifesto says,  

“…he [Gwande] is really interested in a problem that afflicts virtually every aspect of the modern world–and that is how professionals deal with the increasing complexity of their responsibilities.” 

If you haven’t read The Checklist Manifesto, I highly recommend it. A checklist is not a to-do list, but a written guide that takes you through the key steps to get something done… correctly, without missing important steps that contribute to the success of the whole.

In the realm of digital marketing, from creating your marketing assets to promoting your program, product, book, service, etc., there are myriad steps big and small and missing any can impact the success and outcome of what you want to accomplish.  [Read more…]

How to Promote Your Blog Post with a Simple Video Trailer

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How to Promote Your Blog Post with a Simple Video Trailer with Lumen5

You just can’t argue with the statistics. We are firmly entrenched in the age of video marketing and you ignore it at your peril. 

Social video generates 1200% more shares than text and images combined. (Wordstream)

If you want more eyeballs on your content a.k.a your business, then you need to promote your blog posts with video. There are a couple of ways you can do this: talking head style announcing your new blog post or a simple video trailer featuring images and quotes from your article. Both are relatively simple to create.

FYI… this is yet another way to repurpose your blog content.

[Read more…]

How To Repurpose Your Content Without Running into Duplicate Content Issues

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Want To Repurpose Your Content? Here’s How To Do It Without Running into Duplicate Content Issues

Let’s get one thing straight: There’s no such a thing as a duplicate content penalty which existence would confirm any Google representative. There are two possible issues associated with non-original content:

  • The removal of a search result based on a DMCA notice. Google is said to be receiving around 75 million DMCA-related takedown requests, so this issue is bigger than you may think. The good thing is that this option of filing a DMCA notice with Google is a way to fight content scrapers who steal your content, so it’s a useful option to have.
  • The loss of rankings due to the fact that there is a web page that has the same (or almost the same) content as yours, so Google decided to rank that page for the sake of variety. For the obvious reasons, Google wants to show people varied search results, so they have to choose one result out of many copies. It’s hardly a penalty, but it’s not a pleasant thing to deal with: Having to compete in search with yourself.

When you want to syndicate your content on a popular blog for the sake of authority building and referral traffic, that is the risk you are running into: You may one day find that syndicated content over ranks yours. [Read more…]

Showing Up, Modeling, and Taking a Leap of Faith

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Life doesn’t always go as planned or expected. I’ve been running (actually “wogging”) since 2007. I’ve had my share of trips and aches and sprains, but never any serious injuries. The worst physical injury I’ve ever experienced was a torn ACL in my right knee in 2013 that happened as I was attempting to get out of a boat on Lago de Sandoval in the Peruvian Amazon. That was excruciating and set me back for months.

Two weeks ago I was near Bass Lake, just south of Yosemite National Park, three miles into a half marathon when I tripped and fell flat on my face. I knew I was going down and was cursing all the way. Thankfully several runners stopped, helped me, and called the sweeper truck to come get me.  [Read more…]

Are You Afraid of Doing Live Video?

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Denise Wakeman and Lou Bortone - Are you afraid of doing live video?

What’s stopping you from experimenting with live video for your business? I’ve been asking this question on various networks.

It puzzles me that more people aren’t jumping onto the live video bandwagon. It’s never been easier to shoot and stream video. The only equipment required is your smartphone. 

You could go one step further and use a webcam on your desktop, and you could invest in a desktop tripod, but you don’t need any of those things to shoot live streaming video. [Read more…]

What Do You Do When Your Live Video Sucks?

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What Do You Do When Your Live Video Sucks?

Have you ever published a blog post or status update, or video and then realized it was terrible? Maybe not the content, but the format or presentation of the content? What do you do? How do you handle it?

In the case of live video, on Facebook, for example, you may not know the video sucked until after the fact. Like the video below.  I’m sharing with you to share a lesson and a point. Under normal circumstances, I would never put this video on my blog.

But when I realized that I wouldn’t normally share it, I also realized you may have experienced this too and that I could share some ways to “turn a lemon into lemonade” — to paraphrase a bit. [Read more…]

How to Quickly Repurpose Your Facebook Live Videos

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How to Quickly Repurpose Your Facebook Live VideosDo you ever feel like you’re listening to a broken record when you are getting advice about social media marketing? How often have you heard and read that video is what you should be doing? Or, how important video is for connecting with your audience and that Facebook Live videos are the best way to get better visibility and reach on your Facebook page?

Well, sometimes, the record isn’t broken. In the case of video, you’re getting a message that is true and you’d be wise to listen.

Ok, you get it. You are committed to creating more videos for your business. You’re even on board to do LIVE video on Facebook so you can create deeper relationships with your followers. Now what? [Read more…]