Is information marketing effective? Does it really work to attract clients and income? Let’s look at Steve Pavlina, one of my favorite bloggers.

For almost four years, Steve has been writing about “personal development for smart people” and posting the articles on his blog. Today, his first book is among Amazon’s Top 100 in sales — three months before its release!

“It currently has a sales rank of 94. It also sits at #13 in the self-help category, #4 in the personal transformation category, and #5 in the motivational category. Those rankings are adjusted hourly, so they may be different by the time you read this.”

Steve has posted about 700 articles. That’s it. No outside promotion or advertising. Just quality content and word of mouth buzz, which have generated an incredible number of incoming links. Even his Google pagerank is a modest 4.

Not only has his writing attracted a publisher, Hay House, (yes, they came to him), but Steve claims the advertising and affiliate links on his blog earn him over $10,000 a month income.

It’s not the mere fact that he’s writing that has brought him this success. It’s the quality of his material.

Clean up, fix up, paint up” used to be the springtime motto. After a long winter of laziness and neglect (or was that just me?) the air is warm, the sun is shining, and everyone feels energized to spiff things up.

For the past day or so, I put a scaffolding around this old blog and started making some long-needed repairs and and improvements. Have you noticed? Let’s see…

• I finally got around to putting rounded corners on the top image. Now it matches the graphic below it.
• A drop cap (i.e., an oversized first character) has been added to the first word in each post, thanks to a nifty plugin by Rodney Campbell (Remorhaz). Elegant, no? Like a magazine… (Update: Hey, it didn’t show up in this post!) (Update #2: Got it!)
• I changed the body font to Calibri and bumped up the size one click. I liked the font that came with the theme, but this one is much easier to read. And hey, this blog is all about your comfort!
• I finally got the Photo Dropper plug-in working. This is a terrific blogging tool that lets you to search for Creative Commons-licensed photos on Flickr by keyword, right from your Wordpress post page. Highly recommended!
• Technorati tags now grace the footer of this and all future posts, via Will Garcia’s plugin. (I installed and auditioned about five others before finding this one. Nice work, Will!)
• Finally, I added a Share this button so you can email my posts, or send them to any of the big social networking sites. Ahem. Of course, that’s assuming I ever write something worth sharing.

And that’s coming, too. Buckle your seat belt. I’ve got big plans for this old blog home!

Photo by… me!

Andy Sernovitz at MarketingProfs offers six WOM tips, gleaned from his experiences with Holly Suttmann, a former schoolteacher who has effectively been promoting her Black & Light Candle company.

“Holly really understands word of mouth,” Andy says. “She’s proof that every business can master these inexpensive techniques. There are a lot of global companies that should study what she’s doing.”

I’m going to extract and paraphrase a few of Andy’s gems:

1. Cultivate key talkers. But use personal notes and e-mails, NOT not press releases, to build a personal relationship with the writer or blogger. As Sernowitz aptly put it, “Not sales calls, just friendliness.” [Note: there is a time and place where press releases are appropriate, but not with bloggers! More on that in a future post.]
2. Give away free samples. People can’t talk about a product they haven’t seen.
3. Make it easy to spread the word. Think coupons, discount codes and other pass-alongs.

Question: What is missing from this list? It’s an essential ingredient for any kind of effective marketing, conventional or viral. It’s mentioned in the MP article, but it’s not on my list. Can you spot what it is — without looking at the original article?

Tell me in the comments.

If you’re hot for blogging and viral marketing — or any other narrow marketing channel — it’s easy to forget that many of the traditional methods are still thriving. It’s the old Nobody I know is still doing THAT mindset. Understandable, but often inaccurate.

Take Direct Mail marketing: postcards, sales letters, catalogs, magalogs, etc. Sure, it may be old fashioned, intrusive and environmentally uncool. It’s also thriving. No, make that BOOMING, according to a new study published in DM News, the industry trade journal.

As copywriter Bob Bly noted on his blog:

“If social media and other forms of electronic two-way communication are making traditional “dead tree” media obsolete, why hasn’t direct mail — perhaps the most intrusive of the paper-based marketing media — disappeared?

“According to the Winterberry Group, total U.S. direct mail spending in 2007 was $58.4 billion, an increase of 18.2% over the $49.4 billion spent in 2004.”

Since DM’s mantra is “test, test, test,” it’s safe to assume that the only reason that kind of loot is being spent is because it sells.

So why the perception that direct mail is dead and gone? Answer: Because so much of it is poorly done. Ugly design, lousy copywriting, wrong mailing list, etc. Like most things in life, DM is easy to do badly, and hard to do well.

How the heck did Time mag miss this one in their list of Top 25 blogs? (No, I didn’t forget a link — I’m talking about the blog you’re reading!)

I mean, really, what has the Huffington Post or Lifehacker got that I don’t got? Besides worthwhile content, I mean. Which is sooo overrated.

You honestly think TechCrunch and Boing Boing are better than my crummy rag? I suppose you also think Godiva dark chocolate tastes better than Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, too. God, there’s just no accounting for taste.

Obviously, there’s some hanky-panky going on. I mean, I was assured I had a lock on Time’s stupid list. I mean, hell –  they cashed the damn check.

Heads will roll for this. I guarantee it. Stay tuned.

Seth says write like a blogger. Good advice.

The two biggies on Seth’s list that hit home for me were:

#3: Drip, drip, drip. Bloggers don’t have to say everything at once. We can add a new idea every day, piling on a thesis over time.

#9: Say it. Don’t hide, don’t embellish.

I’m always making the mistake of expanding and reworking and polishing my posts to make them as complete and “stand-alone” as possible. Must be the ex-journalist in me. As a result, a single post can take me an hour, or two or three. Not necessary. And who’s got the time?

As a result of all this pseudo-perfectionism, I don’t manage to post very often. Seth has something to say about that, too:

#8: Show up. Not writing is not a useful way of expressing your ideas. Waiting for perfect is a lousy strategy.

(Slapping myself in the face) Thanks for the reminder, Seth.

PS: Success (sort of)! I managed to write, edit and upload this post (with a photo, no less!) in about 20 minutes. Is that good? It is for me!

Photo by lapideo

No, not me personally, of course. I’m nearly perfect just the way I am. (cough-cough)

But after nearly three years on Blogger, it was time for this blog to get a facelift. (No Botox shots, however.)

So now this baby has a whole new look, a sporty leather interior and fuel-efficient hybrid engine. It even has its own domain, www.attract-more-customers.com. So gentlemen (and ladies), start your engines and adjust your bookmarks.

Don’t forget, you can also subscribe via RSS by clicking the icon in the right sidebar. That way, every post will come waltzing into your feed reader with no effort on your part. Life is good.

Now if only spring would arrive… (sigh)