KaChing: How to Run an Online Business that Pays and Pays (32 page)

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Authors: Joel Comm,Mark Victor Hansen

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Figure 7.2
Carrie Wilkerson’s brand name and image help to place her in people’s minds. Her tweets help her to build that brand.
 
Twitter is particularly strong at doing this, and it’s another good reason to choose a brand that reflects your true personality. It’s very difficult to create a successful timeline that doesn’t show who you are. But when your brand is a positive aspect of your personality—your sense of fun, your love of knowledge, your thoroughness—then that will come across naturally in your tweets.
 
Every time you open your timeline and tell people what you’re doing or thinking, you’ll be giving your brand another little push and burying it a little deeper in people’s minds.
 
Your personal brand will make you known to your target market. It will help to build trust, and it should lead people to like you. Communicating that brand is a process. It takes time, but as you do it, you should find that it creates a very powerful connection with your audience, encouraging them to return to you... and to hire you as a coach, too.
 
Sometimes you need a tool that will communicate your brand in a way that’s much faster, much broader, and much more powerful.
 
How to Do PR for Mass Impact
 
Coaching relies on your image as an expert. Students will hire you, sign up for your classes, and buy your coaching videos because they’re certain that you know more than they do and more than most people do—and that you can share your knowledge. That expertise will form part of your brand.
 
Usually, it takes time to build a sense of the depth and value of your expertise. It happens after your blog has been online for a long time and has consistently posted good content. It happens when your information products are bought, shared, passed around, and most important of all, respected.
 
It happens when you really do know your stuff, and the content that you produce shows that you know your stuff.
 
But you can take a shortcut to build your brand as an expert: You can get your name in the press.
 
When reporters are assigned a story, they start looking for sources. They’ll want to speak to people who are directly involved in the story. That will give the article a human touch and show the reader that what they’re describing does have an impact on people’s lives. But they’ll also want to speak to an expert. That will explain to the reader what’s happening, why it’s happening, and why it’s important.
 
Reporters themselves can’t do that. They’re not the experts. They’re just the ones who ask the questions and pass the information on to the reader. They don’t create that information themselves. The reader assumes that the experts interviewed by reporters are leaders in their field. The reader assumes that if there were a higher authority on that subject, the reporter would have found and interviewed that person instead.
 
If you get your name in the press, you’ll not only be seen by a huge number of people, those people will also regard you as a leading expert on your topic. When they’re thinking about learning how to build a web site, earn money from their illustrations, or create their own babysitting business, you’ll be the person they turn to.
 
Writing press releases is very simple. They’re short—about a page in length—and they follow a strict formula:
• Headline
• Introductory paragraph
• Quote
• Two or three informational paragraphs or a series of bullet points
• Final quote
• Blurb about the expert
 
That’s very simple. More difficult is writing the kind of press release that actually wins attention. Reporters receive dozens of press releases every day. Many of them come from companies and PR agencies they know. Others will be sent to them in the vague hope that they’ll attract the reporter’s attention. Most of them fail.
 
The reason they fail is usually clear. When business owners write press releases, they tend to think about what the reporter can do for them. They think about how they’ll be seen in the report and what effect the publicity will have on their business. What they should be thinking about is what they’re going to do for the reporter. They should be producing press releases that contain the kind of story ideas that solve a problem for the journalist: what to write and how to write it. The solution to that problem is a good story idea that entertains the audience and comes complete with expert, contact number, and quotes.
 
At least, that’s the way things used to be. When winning publicity meant picking up a spot in a print newspaper, it was vital to create press releases that were exciting and that stood out. They had to grab reporters’ eyes and promise them a solid story that would inform their audiences.
 
Today, publicity doesn’t have to mean a page in the
New York Times
or even exposure via your local newspaper or radio station. It can mean something as simple as a write-up on a blog. That won’t deliver as big a pile of prestige as a mention in a major media outlet, but it will still push your name out there and make it known.
 
That means there are now two ways of writing press releases that win attention.
 
The first is to write a press release that contains the basic information you want to get across. Following is an example of a press release that I produced when I launched my AdSense Coaching Club.
 
 
Google AdSense Expert Announces Premier AdSense Coaching Club
 
Edmond, OK (PRWEB) May 9, 2006—With Internet publishers looking for ways to monetize their sites, Google has become one of the most revered sites due to its contextual advertising program, Google AdSense. This text-based ad service is generating four-, five-, and six-figure incomes for many web site owners. With this increased interest in this revolutionary revenue-generating program, site owners are looking for ways to increase their AdSense income further.
 
Today, Joel Comm announced the launch of his Premier AdSense Coaching Club, an exclusive member site designed to help Internet web site owners make more money with the AdSense program. Joel Comm is the Internet’s recognized Google AdSense expert, and as author of the Web’s best-selling AdSense e-book, “What Google Never Told You About Making Money with AdSense” (now in its third edition), Joel is distinctly qualified to teach others how to multiply their AdSense revenue.
 
“Once you understand the basics of making more money with AdSense, you can instantly begin seeing an increase to your revenue stream,” says Joel Comm. “But many people are leaving a lot of money on the table by not taking advanced steps to increase revenue. My exclusive coaching club is designed for people who are serious about taking their AdSense and overall site revenue to the next level.”
 
Joel’s Premier AdSense Coaching Club contains many features, all of which are instantly accessible to members around the clock. Features include:
• How-To Videos—Narrated by Joel, these videos visually demonstrate strategies for increasing revenue designed for everyone from novice to advanced site publishers. Spotlighted this month are the Blogging and AdSense 101 videos, featuring 30 minutes of easy-to-follow instructions that can get anyone started with content creation and the Google AdSense program within minutes.
• A monthly two-hour telecourse featuring interviews with leading industry experts that are guaranteed to present new opportunities for maximizing AdSense revenue. Past guests have included PR Secrets Expert Marc Harty, and Jeff Walker, the recognized Product Launch guru.
• A monthly members-only special report revealing Joel’s latest strategies for creating wealth online. Current reports include the 30-page instantly downloadable documents, “Getting Started with AdSense and Blogging” and “The Yahoo! Publishing Network Quickstart Guide.”
• Privileged access to Joel’s AdSense Mastermind Group, including opportunities to network with other Premium members and develop joint ventures.
• Real-life case studies, featuring video examples with Joel’s narration. These real-life site critiques demonstrate strategies which can be immediately implemented on any web site.
• Additional bonuses and surprises for Premier Members!
 
The Premier AdSense Coaching Club is the result of high demand from Joel’s readers and is accessed online for a low monthly fee at
www.joelcomm.com/coachingclub.html
.
 
“I am thrilled to provide a wealth of training information and resources to my premier members,” says Comm. “With over 1,000 members currently in the coaching club, many have stopped leaving money on the table and are now enjoying more in their bank accounts!”
 
 
 
 
About Joel Comm
 
 
Joel Comm is an author, technology buff, and entrepreneur who has been successfully marketing products and services online since 1995. He is the founder of InfoMedia, Inc., a company that strives to provide family-friendly entertainment and other useful resources through web sites that include
DealofDay.com
,
WorldVillage.com
,
FamilyFirst.com
, and
FreeBitz.com
. Joel is the author of many books focused on teaching people how to make money online and is frequently invited to speak and teach at conferences and seminars. For interviews or more information, contact InfoMedia, Inc., at (405) 348-2800, or visit
www.JoelComm.com
.
 
 
You can see how this release contains all the elements that a press release should possess. There’s the headline, the quote, a bullet list, a quote at the end to round things off, and a short bio that tells reporters who I am.
 
But this isn’t a media story. I don’t expect my local newspaper to pick up this story and run with it. The newspaper’s readers don’t care that I’ve just launched an AdSense Coaching Club. None of them know who I am, and many of them won’t know about AdSense.
 
The only outlets that are going to pick up a press release like this are those that already know me and understand AdSense. It’s a story aimed at a core audience—an audience of Internet marketers who are most likely to become customers. While it’s unlikely to appear in a mainstream newspaper, it will be picked up by blogs and web sites that discuss AdSense and Internet marketing. I won’t get a great deal of expert branding, but I should get some sales.
 
Compare that press release to the one on the next page.
 
 
Google AdSense Guru’s Breakfast Up for Bid at eBay
 
Edmond, OK (PRWEB) June 8, 2006—No one wants to buy a half-eaten breakfast on eBay ... unless that half-eaten breakfast belongs to a celebrity who is offering 30 minutes of one-on-one personal consulting for the lucky winner of the leftovers! That’s precisely what one attendee of Carl Galletti’s Internet Marketing Superconference decided to pursue when Google AdSense expert Joel Comm took the stage on Saturday, June 3, in Las Vegas, Nevada!
 
Comm, known for his
Amazon.com
#1 best-selling book
The AdSense Code,
took the platform and offered anyone in the audience the opportunity to share his breakfast. Lin Ennis, sitting in the front row, seized the opportunity to enjoy the other half of Joel’s bagel with egg and bacon and roasted potatoes. Little did Comm know that his breakfast sandwich would appear on
eBay.com
, the world’s largest auction site, in the form of an auction!
 
“When I saw my breakfast was up for auction, I thought I would offer the winner the same thing they would receive if they actually sat down to enjoy the breakfast with me,” says Joel Comm. “So the winner of the auction will also receive a free 30-minute telephone consultation providing the opportunity to discuss my best Internet moneymaking strategies.”
 
Ennis, a resident of Sedona, Arizona, has vowed to donate all proceeds from the breakfast auction to the “Young Internet Entrepreneurs of Sedona.” She has also included an additional set of bonuses that would appeal to anyone wanting to learn how to make money online.
 
Joel Comm’s breakfast auction is set to end on June 13, 2006, at 11 a.m. To view the breakfast and bid in this auction, go to
www.adsense-secrets.com/breakfast.html
.
 
To read more about Joel Comm or his
Amazon.com
#1 best seller
The AdSense Code
, go to
www.joelcomm.com
.
 
About Joel Comm
 
 
 
Joel Comm is an author, technology buff, and entrepreneur who has been successfully marketing products and services online since 1995. He is the founder of InfoMedia, Inc., a company that strives to provide family-friendly entertainment and other useful resources through web sites that include
www.DealofDay.com
,
www.WorldVillage.com
, and
www.FamilyFirst.com
. Joel is the cofounder of Yahoo! Games and the author of many books focused on teaching people how to make money online. He is frequently invited to speak and teach at conferences and seminars. For interviews or more information, contact InfoMedia, Inc. at (405) 348-2800, or visit
www.JoelComm.com
.
 
 

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