Blogging involves much more than slapping some words up on a website. Professional bloggers understand this and offer you content that can more effectively appeal to your target readers. Here are some things professional bloggers bring to the table, some of which you might not have considered:

• A professional blogger knows how to engage with your audience. We get them talking and entice them to connect with your business more directly. That allows you to have more meaningful conversations with prospects and customers rather than simply having them read your content.
• Professional bloggers can invest the time serious blogging demands. You’re busy running your business. Chances are good that your time is worth more in other areas (like closing sales) than it would cost you to hire a pro to manage your blog content.
• Professional bloggers can help you develop a solid blog content strategy. This should be based on your company’s goals for the blog — from search engine rankings to customer support.
• Your professional blogger knows how to craft content for the Web. Good blog content can be very different from other types of writing you might be more familiar with, such as newsletters or sales copy. People read differently on a screen than they do in print. Professional bloggers understand the formatting issues involved in writing effective blog posts.

These are just a few examples of things professional bloggers can do for your business. You might hire a full-time blogger to manage multiple blogs or handle all social networking and community management as well. Or you can outsource blog content to independent professional bloggers (like myself) when you need the content but prefer having in-house staff handle the more direct communications and marketing.

Have you ever worked with a professional blogger? What was your experience like? If you’re considering hiring a blogger for the first time, what kind of benefits do you hope to see? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

If the idea of indie publishing a book to help you build your expert status in your niche or industry appeals to you, be sure to check out my brand new indie publishing blog at AllIndiePublishing.com. It launched yesterday and will guide you through the writing, editing, production, and marketing processes in indie publishing your new book. And don’t forget to follow me on Twitter for more indie publishing news and conversations – @indiepublisher.

So today I want to share some thoughts on email marketing not from the perspective of a business writer, but from the perspective of a subscriber who receives several poorly constructed email marketing messages every day.

Here are three surefire ways to piss me off in my inbox and guarantee I won’t give you a dime.

1. Your email copy is just a bunch of one-liners. Getting to the point is fine. But this is a common spam setup (each sentence as its own paragraph in a poor attempt to make things “pop”), so visually I associate you with spammers and delete the email without reading.
2. You use hyped up headlines making big promises. No one signs up to your email newsletter for the sales pitch. They want real information. Give them that first to hook them, and then pitch your product or service as a solution. It needs to be more subtle than slamming me in the face with promises you very likely won’t ever live up to (you’re not the “best,” “greatest,” or “#1″ anything, except in your own mind — don’t tell me; convince me).
3. Your tone is too personal. When at first you act like you know me, and then I realize you don’t, you tick me off and I leave. It’s one thing to try to connect. But don’t try to act like you’re a pal unless you know me personally. You might get away with it once by making me wonder “how do I know him?” But after that, you become a broken record oozing your best bud tone. I recognize it quickly, and you will be blocked. This might be completely fine if you’re targeting your Average Joe. But if you target a business audience, getting too personal won’t cut it. You aren’t setting yourself apart from the other marketers. You sound just like the rest of them.

As always, know your target market and focus on benefits to them. We don’t care about your company. We don’t care about your product. We might care about something entertaining or educational you have to say. And we’ll definitely care if what you’re offering helps us solve a problem. Remember. It’s not about you. It’s about “me.”

Here are four reasons professionals like you should consider writing and publishing a book.

A Book Sets You Apart From the Competition.

When you write a book, that book showcases your expertise. It’s an accomplishment many of your competitors probably haven’t reached yet. When you’re a published author of a well-received book, you become a recognized authority source. That makes you stand out.

Books Can Help You Land Media Coverage

If your business itself isn’t regularly covered by the media, that might change when you publish a book. If you write about an in-demand topic or something timely, you might be able to run a media tour and land interviews that otherwise would never have come. And that publicity helps both you and your business.

Books Can Help You Secure Speaking Engagements

Speaking engagements can be another opportunity for reaching a broader audience and building a reputation in your industry for you and your business. Having a book under your belt can make you a more attractive prospect when organizations are looking for speakers. You also get a double whammy benefit if you can sell books at the speaking engagement, sending people home with a copy of your book that keeps you fresh in their minds for a longer period of time.

Books Can Bring in Additional Income

While it might not be your primary motivation for writing a book, an additional income stream never hurts. You can earn direct sales if you self publish your book or you’ll earn royalties if you work with a traditional publisher.

Books have business benefits you might not have considered before. But think about it. Would a book set you apart and help you expand your visibility significantly? Then consider publishing. If you aren’t able to write the book yourself, you can always hire a ghostwriter, co-author, or an editor to help you develop a salable product.

Normal blogging rates are a flat $.50 per word for ghostwritten posts (and 10% off that price for by-lined work). But if you place an order this month for work in January and you order a package of at least five posts, you can take advantage of these special rates (note: rates listed are for by-lined blog posts only):

500-600 word posts = $200 per post (regularly $225-270 per post)

400-500 word posts = $160 per post (regularly $180-225 per post)

300-400 word posts = $120 per post (regularly $135-180 per post)

200-300 word posts = $80 per post (regularly $90-135 per post)

If you would like to order ghostwritten blog posts rather than by-lined articles, add $20 per post for all posts greater than 300 words. For posts in the 200-300 word range, add $15 per post for ghostwriting.

This deal is only available to clients ordering five posts or more per month, and as per my usual payment policies payment is due in full before work begins. You can order with up to a three-month commitment taking advantage of these rates (meaning you will get the discounted rates through March 2011). After that time, regular rates will apply.

Posts longer than 600 words will be billed at my regular rates for blogging and Web content writing. Articles must be ordered within the ranges mentioned above — not specific word counts. For example, you cannot order a 399 word post to get a lower package price than the package starting at 400 words or order in the 400-500 word range with a condition such as “but make it as close to 500 words as possible.” Ranges are offered to give me flexibility in the writing while giving you fairly specific length expectations. Any orders placed for specific word counts will be billed at my normal rates.

Please note that I only accept business blogging projects (so projects in non-business niches or areas I don’t feel I can competently cover will not be accepted). I also have only a few open client spots available for January. This deal will last until the end of January or until those spots are filled, whichever comes first. Also, these rates are for writing only. Ongoing comment management, social media promotion, or other services will be negotiated on an individual basis and start at a $300 per month minimum rate, covering two hours worth of additional work. If you request social media promotion, you must have your own social media profiles for use in that promotion. My own social media presence is not for sale and will not be used to promote client projects.

If you would like to take advantage of these special rates, contact me as soon as possible to make sure you don’t miss out. Open client spots will be filled on a first come, first served basis. To review samples of past business blogging and Web content writing work, please visit my online portfolio.

Visit the e-book page to learn more or to order your copy today for just $9.97.

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is when you create, distribute, and encourage the sharing of content with the intention of reaping marketing benefits for your business. Those marketing benefits might be direct sales or greater audience engagement with your business through that content. Content might be text-based as in articles or it might involve other content formats such as data collections, audio, images, and video.

15 Content Marketing Tools

Here are fifteen tools you might use in your company’s content marketing strategy:

1. Blog posts
2. Infographics
3. Web-based articles for article marketing
4. Guest blog posts / feature articles
5. Online video
6. Reports / white papers
7. E-books
8. Podcasts / audio
9. SEO articles
10. Newsletter content
11. Webinars / e-courses
12. Social media profiles (tweets, updates, etc.)
13. Widgets
14. Databases
15. Feeds

Create a Content Marketing Strategy

Whether you’ve ever thought about the concept of “content marketing” or not, chances are good you’re already using one or more of these tools in your overall marketing strategy. The key to creating a true content marketing strategy is to find ways to use content in new and better ways to achieve those marketing goals. As with any other strategy or plan, it’s important to choose the tools that offer the best ROI for your individual business — ones that will have the most impact with your target audience.

So start working on your company’s new content marketing strategy today. Make the content you already create and distribute in your business work even harder for you. And if you need help creating that content, contact me with your project specs. I might just be able to help.

If you’re interested in hiring me for ongoing business writing work such as blogging or press release writing, or to write your next e-book, please review my rates, service pages, and FAQs here and then contact me to discuss your project details. There is no guarantee that these two new openings will still be available in January. They may be booked during December. So don’t wait too long. Send me your project details and let’s find out if I’m the right business writer or blogger for your project.

And do you know what? There is nothing wrong with starting out small. If you need a quicker solution to business plan writing, consider an abbreviated business plan such as the one page business plan template I give away for free here on my site.

When you use one page business plans, or a slightly longer abbreviated business plan, you can probably hash out the basics of your new business plan in just one day.

Why Use a One Page Business Plan?

• One page business plans are quicker to put together than longer business plans.
• One page business plans give you a basic roadmap for your business (which is better than no guidance at all).
• One page business plans can serve as a base for a long-form business plan that you’ll write later — similar to using an outline to write up a report.
• One page business plans might be enough for a micro-business, with no need to take the plan further.
• One page business plans are easy to update.

Downsides of One Page Business Plans

• You might forget about important details.
• You can’t include a very thorough marketing plan in the mix (although I also provide a separate one page marketing plan template to help with that here).
• As a road map, it will tell you where you’re going, but it won’t give you detailed directions on how to get there (meaning you’ll have to figure a lot out for yourself along the way).

Is a One Page Business Plan Right for You?

Abbreviated business plans like my one page business plan template aren’t the best option for all entrepreneurs. They can be used as a framework for writing a larger business plan later no matter what business you’re in. But if you plan to use a one page business plan as your only business plan, I’d recommend only doing so if you run an extremely small home or online business or perhaps a freelance career. If you’re running a larger brick and mortar business — and especially if you have to think about things like inventory and product placement concerns, I would recommend having a more traditional business plan put together before launch (or as soon as possible if you’re already in business without one).

Here are three reasons you should consider pre-scheduling blog posts on your business blog:

1. Improve Efficiency

Sometimes you’re simply in the mood to write, you have a lot to say, or you have a nice flow going and you don’t want to waste it. At other times you need to get a blog post up but nothing comes to you. If you do most of your blog writing while you’re in one of those productive and creative stretches you can cut down on the overall time you spend blogging. But being virtually yappy one day doesn’t mean you need to send all of the posts live right away. Schedule them for future post dates instead (unless, of course, they’re incredibly timely and really need to go live right now).

2. Improve Quality

No one has “fresh eyes” immediately after drafting a blog post. That means you’re more likely to miss things when you proofread the post before publishing. The only way to get those fresh eyes is to walk away from the project between the writing and editing phases. If you’re writing evergreen content or at least something that can go up in a day or two, consider writing your posts a day or two before they’re scheduled to be published. Then you can proofread them and catch more errors before they go live to your customer base or other target audience.

3. Improve Consistency

When you pre-schedule blog posts you don’t have to worry about making sure you publish things at the right time each day or each week. Because things are written and scheduled early you can make sure each post is published as consistently as possible so readers know when to expect them (and you don’t have to rush out a blog post at the last minute, trying to stay on schedule).

Pre-scheduling blog posts could be a great idea for your business. But it doesn’t apply to every blogger or every blog post. If your blog is about timely stories (like a news commentary blog), you’ll need to put posts up shortly after writing them. But for most business blogs there’s a mix of content. So even if you can’t put up something like company news a few days in advance, your tips and advice can enjoy that cooling off period and you’ll still reap some of the benefits.