I have a confession to make, and it’s by far the biggest online marketing mistake I ever made. I had an email list with thousands of people on it. My email marketing was pretty good: I enjoyed above-average open rates (between 13% and 40%) and click-through rates (up to 26%). But then I had a…
Category Archives: Open Discussion
Open Discussion: Can You Weave Idealism into Your Business WITHOUT Losing Money or Looking like a Phony?
Profitable Idealism (affiliate link) is open for pre-registration. This is a program that many business owners are hungry for, perhaps without even realizing it: If you weren’t sure how to go about choosing, starting or creating a charitable or altruistic project, exactly… If you weren’t sure how to make it fit naturally with your business……
Open Discussion: Should You mention religion or politics on a business blog?
The headline says it all for this one. Should you (do you) mention religion or politics on your blog? I’m not talking about religious or political pundit blogs (durr…), but rather a business blog selling products and services. Personally, I see no need to mention religion or politics on my blog. Sure, it would be…
Open Discussion: 3 Wishes for Your Blog
If you suddenly found a magic lamp and out popped a genie who grants you 3 wishes about your blog or your skills as a blogger, what would you wish for? Tell us in the comments! Let’s have some fun.
Open Discussion: What’s the Toughest Aspect of Business Blogging for You?
Business blogging comes with many challenges. You have to accomplish all the goals of a non-business blog plus capture leads and make sales on top of that. I’ve found that most online entrepreneurs get stuck in these areas: Traffic Search rankings Subject matter Increasing reader engagement Capturing leads Getting sales Finding the time Any of…
Open Discussion: What Would Your Blog Report Card Be?
If you had a report card on your blog suddenly delivered to your inbox, what would it say? What grades would you get? A C+ in Headline Writing? An A- in posting consistency? A D+ in traffic? A C- in SEO? Of course, asking you a question like that is asking you to grade yourself, and…
Open Discussion: Do Your Customers Actually Have Any Money?
Because if they don’t… why on earth are you still trying to sell to them? Why are you spending countless hours creating free content on your blog to market to people who ain’t got no money? (Sorry for the terribad English but really there’s just no other way to say it as far as I’m…
Open Discussion: Dealing with Personal Gaps
We have many personal gaps in our lives: There is a gap between what we intended to do and what we did. There is a gap between who we are now and who we wish we were. There is a gap between what we tell others to do and what we do. There is a…
Open Discussion: Are You a Freelance Whore?
I got an email yesterday from someone seeking my blog consulting services. This person’s site was about hypnosis, a field which some people feel is legitimate and has real-world beneficial applications, while others see it as a way to cheat in their efforts to deal with people by gaining unfair control over them. This person…
Open Discussion Thursdays are Back: What are the Demands (and Rewards) of Greatness?
Welcome back to Open Discussion posts every Thursday! This is something I was writing about to myself in my personal journal (for which I use Penzu, and damn does it rock). As I wrote, it suddenly occurred to me this would be an awesome topic to restart Open Discussion posts. Greatness is within us all,…
Open Discussion: When to Redesign Your Site?
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while (thank you) and you visit it now (thank you again), you’ll notice th look has been refreshed. My take on site redesigns is that they need to happen with a lot more frequency than we’re probably comfortable with. Why? Because things change faster than we notice…
Open Discussion: How do You Handle Competition?
The thought of entering a crowded market can be daunting. When another business/blog suddenly gains audience and traction, do you worry? When somebody else comes out with a very similar product to yours right before or right after yours, how do you feel about that? Does that army of freelancers out there all doing what…
Open Discussion: What Do You Call Yourself?
I was feeling a bit burned out so I took a little break from posting, but now I’m back and it’s Thursday and that means Open Discussion time! I’m always concerned about how to best serve independent business owners, but I realize that we’re an eclectic and diverse group. People pay attention to what speaks…
Open Discussion: Does Marketing Ruin Everything?
There’s an old saying (I don’t know where it came from) that goes: “Marketing ruins everything.” I think there’s some truth to that, but by no means is it the entire truth. Does marketing really ruin everything, or is that an oversimplistic way to try and describe something else? And if so, what is that…
Open Discussion: If You Could Change One Thing…
If you could change one thing about your blog or your blogging that seems impossible right now, what would it be? Looking forward to your responses!
Open Discussion: What is Great Content?
The day almost got away from me before I realized I hadn’t posted this week’s open discussion topic, and this week it’s a good one: My question/discussion topic this week seems very simple, but the more you dig into it, the more difficult it becomes. Everything you read about how to make it online pays…
Open Discussion: What Side of the Other Digital Divide are You On?
You are not normal. If you’re reading this blog or any blog about marketing, blogging, and social media, you’re not normal. If you spend more time on the computer than watching television, you’re not normal. There’s a chasm separating folks who are fluent in the web and digital media from those who are not. If…
Open Discussion: What Do You REALLY Think is Happening to the Economy?
I don’t think we’re in a recession: I think we’re in the middle of a permanent adjustment. For that same reason, there isn’t going to be a “recovery.” There’s going to be whatever’s next. I don’t believe the jobs are coming back. Ever. Because everything is actually different now, but most people don’t see it….
Open Discussion: How Long Should You Wait Until You Stop Replying to or Disable Comments?
A friend sent me this question a couple days ago: How long should you wait before you stop replying to comments? He said he had un-replied-to comments from last November he still hadn’t gotten around to. My thoughts are: if it’s gonna bother you that much that you don’t reply to a comment, then just reply,…
Open Discussion: Where are You Stuck?
Some things in our blogging & businesses are easy and we love to focus on those and ignore where we’re stuck. Thinking about where we’re stuck makes our heads hurt. It feels like the gears are spinning in “neutral,” but not engaged in anything real. You look stuff up online about your problem but it…
Open Discussion: Where Do You Draw the Line on Deleting Comments?
I got a great question from Marc the other day in a comment on my post Ten Ways to Crank Out Killer Posts in Ten Minutes or Less: Hi. I’d like to suggest a blog post topic for you. It has to do with where a blogger draws the line about posting someones comment. This…
Open Discussion: What are You Most Afraid of about Blogging?
Here’s an interesting question: what are you most afraid of about blogging? What scares you silly? Is it something you’re afraid to do? Or is it some catastrophic event you’re afraid will happen? Is it something you think is so ridiculous you’re afraid to even say what you’re afraid of? If that’s the case, then…
Open Discussion: The Pace of Change
I found myself grumbling a little bit with the advent of Google Buzz. This isn’t like me: normally, I’m an early adopter and I’m gung-ho about new tech for its own sake. But even I have to admit to being a little exasperated at the pace of change, sometimes. How about you? Are you fed…
Open Discussion: Where Would Your Business Be Without a Blog?
Can we even succeed online anymore without a blog? Certainly many websites are successful without blogs. There are still some thriving retailers and artisans out there who don’t have blogs (but their number is shrinking, as a walk down any small town’s Main Street will show you by all the empty storefronts). But you have…
Open Discussion: Why Do You Read Remarkablogger? What Do You Get Out of It?
There are SO many blogs about blogging and online marketing out there. Many of them are much bigger than mine. What I want to know is: Why do you read this one? What do you get here that you can’t get anywhere else? In what ways do I help you that no other blog helps…
Open Discussion: What are You Measuring?
They say that what gets measured, gets improved. So what are you measuring? Because if you’re not measuring, you’re not paying attention to the forces that affect your traffic, influence, and income. And how can you expect to succeed in marketing your business if you’re not doing that? Here’s where you come in: what are…
Open Discussion: How Do You Come Up with Ideas for Blog Posts?
Here’s what I want to engage with you on for this week’s open discussion post: How do you come up with ideas for blog posts? I’ll reveal my strategies for this later on in the comments. I want to hear from you guys first. Are you reactive to current events, or do you follow a…
Something New! Open Discussion: Tawk Amongst Yaselves
Gonna try something new, here at the Remarkablogger Ranch. Every Thursday, I’m going to toss a topic out for you and we’ll discuss it in the comments. Now that we have these nifty commenting systems that allow for replies and even cross-posting to Twitter and Facebook, this will be really cool. Plus, it will really…
