As the WordPress Blogmistress grows gently, all the while with none of this “Get your Kick-Ass WordPress Website Here!” or suchlike, I constantly see otherwise quite sane and personable people selling in what I call the “Awesome Rock Star” way. You know what I mean – every blog post or article is “7 ways to knock the competition into next Tuesday” or “87 secrets that you cannot ignore”. It’s only if I respect the writer, or if someone I respect suggests I take a look, will I bother. I hate that kind of marketing with a passion!
But! People don’t buy from the nice guys (or girls), or not many of you. It seems that we all do need to be slapped in the face with immediate “pain” or easy rewards for us to even bother reading something these days. Our time is precious so we need to know immediately what we’re getting.
- Image via Wikipedia
So, do I have to use **** words in my blog posts for you to take notice? It seems that I’d sell more if I did, and if I added one of those sign-up boxes that suddenly flits across the screen or rises from below, or pops up when you’re just about to read (I hate these too – can you tell?). It’s true – my colleagues have tested it – they work. Having a gentle, discreet sign-up option in the sidebar, timidly awaiting your attention should you happen to glance that way is useless from a marketing point of view. You want it to jump in front of you and tempt you with an irresistible “kick-ass” tagline.
And if I want to buy my little smallholding in a few years, I need to stop trying to beat them with my holier than thou approach and just get on with it! Even one of my heroes, Ian Lurie, is doing it – I’ve noticed, Ian – including a number in your blog post titles with snappy “pay attention” topics.
So watch out for my awesomeness – I’m going to rock your world!
(really – stop laughing now!)
Babs
I am not laughing… *runs for cover*
No, no and thrice no to the pop up boxes that glide across your screen! It’s the quickest way to make me exit the page in question.
Oh this touches my heart. I am SO FED UP with marketing. Facebook/twitter/blog… no, actually, I like my blog (even though it’s not wordpress 😉 )! Just discovered stumbleupon…I just wish it was possible to be visible without all this stuff.
a big YESSSSS to this one! Couldn’t agree more.
Even bigger pet peeve is (usually sensible!) twitter contacts sending out links to interesting-sounding articles which have actually been auto generated by the dreaded SEO-bot. I wish there was some way of publicly blacklisting any site that does this, so none of us have to waste time loading them ever again!