Need More Customers? 5 Ways to Get Them to Know, Like and Trust You

It’s Valentine’s week on Copyblogger! This week’s posts will focus on how to improve reader and customer relationships to grow your business.

Dating and business are both all about forming relationships. You need to get out there and be seen. You need to “romance” potential customers and get them comfortable with what you have to offer.

If you’ve been in business for a while, you’ve probably heard the concept of know, like and trust. Salespeople often talk about it as a lead-generating tactic used before the sale. Good salespeople know that a prospect needs to know, like and trust you before she’s willing to complete the sale. And it’s a key component of good content marketing.

But the most important moment for know, like and trust isn’t before the sale … it’s after.

Creating more love … when it counts

Everything’s all roses and candy during the romantic “does he like me?” courting phase. And any competent salesperson gives “great customer service” before the sale.

It’s what happens the day after that really matters.

Here are five ways know, like and trust works during and after the “transaction” in both business and dating.

(And for any readers who have been striking out romantically, these tips just might come in handy there as well.)

1. Go beyond small talk

I’ve been married for a long time and my husband has given me insights on how scary it is for guys to ask women out on a date. No one likes rejection.

You can go into a lot of bars, but if you actually want a date, eventually you’re going to have to get beyond small talk and ask someone out.

Making small talk in business is easy. You give away all that fabulous cookie content and have a good time chatting up commenters on Facebook, twitter, and your blog.

But eventually you have to ask for the sale. If you don’t, you aren’t in business, you have an expensive hobby. And those don’t pay the mortgage.

2. Don’t mess up the big moment

The person of your dreams says Yes — she actually will go out with you!

You feel fantastic about yourself and walk around like a proud peacock.

Now don’t screw it up. Do not take the object of your affections to a grimy dive bar for your first date. Or to your mom’s basement to watch Biggest Loser.

Go somewhere nice. Make a great first impression.

In business, when someone finally says Yes and clicks the magical Add to Cart button, everything needs to work seamlessly.

A bad shopping cart experience kills sales.

• Make sure your site looks reasonably professional, with user-friendly design that conveys authority.
• Check your links. (All of them.) (Especially the Buy ones.)
• Make sure your online check-out actually takes people through the process quickly and easily.
• And make sure you’ve got a great support system (this might be you, in the early days) in place to handle transactions that have issues.

3. If things don’t work out, be gracious

So you go on your date and discover, Gee, although the guy does have all his teeth, he’s also got the personality of a Western Conifer Seed Bug.

We’ve all been on bad dates. It happens. When both of you agree that you have nothing in common and it’s time to move on, don’t be a jerk about it.

In much the same way, in your business life, some people who buy your products will hate them. Don’t make them hate you too. Offer a strong money-back guarantee, and be as gracious about returns as you were about the purchase.

4. Don’t lie

Almost every woman I’ve ever met has a story about the guy she dated who didn’t opt to reveal some important facts about himself.

Leaving out important information like “I’m married,” “I just robbed a bank and am on the lam,” or “I’m from the future” is a sure way to ensure a really ugly breakup. Bad idea.

When it comes to your business, you need to deliver on what you promised. If you say you are going to provide 10 Q&A calls in your training program, that means you have to get on the phone 10 times.

Don’t promise stuff you can’t deliver. It’s a sure way to kill trust. Word gets out about that kind of thing.

Sure, sometimes it’s really hard to honor your promises. That’s business. (And love.) Cowboy up.

5. Follow up

Assuming you go on a date, and maybe even more than one, eventually there’s that magic moment where you make the big connection. In the movies, we’d just fade to black here, but I think you know what I mean.

Here’s where know, like, and trust gets really important.

The day after, give her a call. If you don’t, you’ll be branded a schmuck forever.

Wham, bam, thank you ma’am doesn’t work well in business either. No customer wants to feel like a one-night stand.

Yes, you can use marketing techniques upsells and cross-sells, but that’s not the only way to follow up. Don’t underestimate how big an impression you can make just by saying Thank you.

When your customers know you care, they stay customers.

After the sale, the customer who knows, likes and trusts you is far more likely to buy from you again.

That’s how you build a business (or a romantic) relationship that lasts.

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The 6 Essential Steps to Writing a Killer Press Release

Think the press release is dead in the age of social media?

No way. A powerful press release can tell a story, report news, or help a cause. Smart online writers know that a great press release can take your message to new channels and reach thousands or even millions of new readers. And a terrific press release has great SEO benefits as well.

Writing a press release takes time, research and some skill. And writing a killer press release, which catapults visibility of the message and drives results, requires adding a few more ingredients to the mix.

To get the results you want, follow these six steps:


1. Craft a hook

If you’ve ever had a song stuck in your head, you know what a great hook is. It’s that chorus or beat that you just can’t shake.

Just like in pop music, a great hook is key to success in writing a killer press release.

To find your hook, spend time before you start writing your release researching the press releases and blog posts of industry competitors, gathering information about which releases and posts have received significant coverage. Use these successes as a guideline for your own release, with an eye toward what types of content your audience is reacting to and/or sharing.

Great hooks pull us into a remarkable story. They engage our curiosity and make us crazy to find out more.

Remember the primary audience for a press release — a journalist. Reduce the basics of your message down to one sentence that answers the 5W’s of reporting – who, what, when, where and why — and find that story hook that will help them write a story their readers won’t forget.

2. Add a great headline

If you’re a Copyblogger reader, you already know the importance of a compelling headline.

You only have a few seconds to grab a reader’s attention, so be sure to craft a headline with the following elements:

• Lead with a concept, not your brand name — your audience (both readers and reporters) probably don’t care about your brand or company name, but they do care about finding a good story. Lead with a compelling concept to draw them in
• Be creative — don’t confine yourself to the headlines you see in other press releases. Use all your Copyblogger-inspired skills to create a headline that stands out.
• Test — test your headlines just like you would any other content. Find the headline that grabs attention and makes the reader want to learn more. You can repurpose a headline that’s worked particularly well for you in blog content or a special report, for example.

3. Avoid jargon

When writing killer press releases remember to minimize technical or industry jargon. Although relevant for certain professionals or groups, jargon may confuse your audience and turn them off to your message.

To engage new readers who may not be as skilled in industry language, write for a broader audience and increase the likelihood the content is shared. Keep it simple, and don’t be afraid to offer explanatory resources if some industry or brand-specific names or words are needed.

4. Provide resources

We don’t live in a one-dimensional world, and your press release shouldn’t look one-dimensional either. Provide added value to your killer press release by including photos, videos, links to source material and any other in-depth resources, giving your readers the assets they need to fully report the news you’re providing them.

A complete “package” of supporting resources makes your story that much more appealing to a reporter looking for something great to cover.

Remember, we live in a digital world, so be sure these resources are web-ready and in the correct formats for web publication. The easiest way to do this is to use accessible cloud-based services like YouTube, Flickr and others that allow visitors to download content. 

The easier you make it for a reporter or editor to publish your story, the more likely they are to pick up on your message.

5. Proofread

Errors in grammar and spelling can kill your credibility and take away from your overall message.

Write your release in word processing document instead of a text file or online submission form. When you’ve got it drafted, print it out and proofread your writing. Correct and rewrite, then proofread again.

Investing additional time before submission is what separates a professional press release from a clumsy, amateurish effort.

6. Share your news

A good news release distribution service will syndicate your news on relevant publisher sites, and it will also attract readers through search (be sure to be strategic about keywords, as with any other kind of content marketing).

And if you’ve done the legwork to build relationships with influencers in your space, don’t shy from sharing your news release by emailing a link or posting a link to your social media outposts.

Keep your audience in mind when creating your message and stick to these 6 tips to help craft your press release. When you put the thought and time into creating a truly killer press release, you’ll find it can drive traffic to your business and help promote your message.

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4 Scientific Tips that Help You Get More Blog Comments

One of the most engaging features of the blogging platform is the commenting system.

Many bloggers believe there is as much or even more value in the discussion than the posts they write themselves. Comments are a classic form of social proof for blogs, and blogs that attract lots of comments appear more authoritative. Comments are also a great way to facilitate user generated content that is perfect for SEO.

Because of all this, comments can become addictive, and many bloggers want to know how to get more of them. While there is a lot of great anecdotal advice out there from experienced bloggers, I thought some might appreciate a more data-driven approach.

Fortunately for you, I’ve spent the past few months analyzing data on more than 150,000 blog posts. And in doing that, I’ve identified four data points you can use to encourage more commenting on your site.

The first thing I noticed is that while articles published during the week generally tend to get more views, articles published on the weekends get far more comments. This may be because users have more freedom on non-work-days to take the time to share their two cents.

Then, when I analyzed the hour-of-day blogs posts were published during, I found that commenting peaked on articles posted in the morning, specifically around 8 and 9AM.

I believe this is because posts released early are in everyone’s inboxes and feedreaders when they check them in the morning and the rest of the day.

I also found some interesting things when I looked at words used in articles and how they correlated with comment numbers.

Posts that mention “giveaways” and “gifts” are commented on more than the average article in my dataset, as are posts that mention “recruiting” and “jobs.” In these tough economic times, everyone loves a present and many people need jobs.

The word “comments” also appears in this list, indicating that directly asking for comments on your post does work.

On the flip side of the coin, I noticed certain words were correlated with posts getting fewer comments than the average.

The list includes many technical, legal and financial terms like “settlements,” “derivatives,” and “franchise,” “investing.” While people are concerned with their own monetary issues, they’re not so excited about discussing the finance world at large.

How about you?

What does your data tell you about the factors that seem to invite more comments?

Let us know (in the comments, of course!) what seems to increase (or decrease) comments on your site.

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Fanning the Social Media Flame for Viral Exposure

Are you a content marketer? If so, you have a choice to make.

You can sit around and wait for your content to go viral.

You can hope you’ll get sudden bursts of traffic, hope your readers will spread the word, hope your content will catch fire.

Or you can bring your own matches and lighter fluid to set the dang thing aflame yourself.

As bloggers and content marketers, which will you choose?

Sure, sometimes the passion you have for a subject will be enough to ignite a spark and compel your audience to share your content with their network. Being able to unleash something with such conviction and power that it combusts on its own is great.

Over at my SEO consulting firm Outspoken Media, we’ve been able to do it several times.

Sometimes we post something like The Power of the Unexpected, something that goes hot without us lifting a finger. As content writers, we live for these moments.

However, they almost never happen.

What is more common is that marketers need to fan their content to help it ignite and go viral. And sometimes that means stepping in when an accidental hit shows signs of life. How do you recognize those signs to take advantage? Here are some methods we use at Outspoken Media.

Identifying the spark

You know what’s normal for your community. You know how many comments an average post gets, how many tweets, how many shares, etc.

When you start to see activity that is double/triple what you’re used to seeing, act.

For example, early on we published a post called It’s Not The Recession, You Just Suck. Almost immediately after hitting the publish button I noticed the post being retweeted and passed through social media at a velocity that dwarfed anything we had seen prior.

Once we noticed we had a spark, we jumped in to add fuel and fan it.

Adding fuel to the fire

As soon as you notice a post showing signs of life, it’s up to you to keep the momentum going.

On the social Web, that means keeping the conversation alive. Find people who are talking about your post and encourage them. Respond to comments, engage, fan the debate, and keep the conversation on a healthy note.

When we called out Robert Scoble last year for spreading misinformation, he was the first person to come and engage on our post, and he did so negatively and aggressively.

The tone he set could have killed the conversation right there and caused people to be fearful of jumping in. But we weren’t going to let that happen. Instead, we went in there to engage Robert and show the community this was just the beginning of the conversation that would ultimately take place. We made it obvious that we were still in the post listening, and that everyone who commented would be heard and responded to.

No one wants to hang out at a party that’s dead or on its way out. Its important people see you’re still there.

Another way to add fuel is to allow readers to subscribe to comments so that they’re alerted each time a new voice enters the fray. This will keep them in conversation mode. It’s good for debate, but it’s also good in terms of SEO. The more page views the post receives, the more time people spend reading comments, the more it’s going to give off positive toolbar data to the search engines and help the post appear on an Alexa hotlist.

Fanning a positive flame

So, let me fill you in on something you already know — it’s really hard to have an intelligent conversation on the Internet.

Things always start out okay. Someone chimes in to offer an intelligent opinion and then, almost before your eyes, it devolves into threats, accusations and commentary about who still lives with their mother.

While it’s 100 percent entertaining to watch people have emotional breakdowns in public, conversations that get too far off track hurt your chances of going viral.

As the owner of that community, you’re responsible for fanning the flame in the right direction. When you see personal attacks being made, it’s up to you to steer the conversation back. If you think people are going too far, moderate.

Be careful, though. Viral conversations are typically rooted in debate. So you don’t want to discourage or squash it, but do keep things productive. You need to be the adult in the room, regardless of how good it feels to throw things.

Hitting the social streets

Once you’ve helped fan the flame, hit the streets!

Make sure your piece has been properly submitted to all the right social media sites, that it’s been Stumbled, that it’s on Reddit, that niche social sites are aware of it, and that it’s hit all of the communities and blogs you know are friendly to you.

Once you complete that, look outside your bubble to find other networks that may find your content interesting. What you’re trying to do here is pull people in from other networks so they’ll go out and talk about it with their community, one that doesn’t currently follow you.

It’s great that your own readers are passionate and involved in the conversation, but you want to use the natural sparks to pick up on other readers to help grow your blog and authority.

Tipping off mainstream media

You’ve covered your bases on the social networks, now look toward news sites and blog aggregators that may be interested in the conversation happening around your post.

If you’re part of the marketing community, you want to watch aggregators like TechMeme and TweetMeme. If you have a hot social media story, you want to tip off someone at Mashable. If it’s Google or heavily tech-related, tip off TechCrunch. If it’s a broader tech story, tip off more mainstream outlets, as well.

For example, our post about what we perceived to be brandjacking by Seth Godin received coverage from Business Week. My partner Rae Hoffman’s post on Google’s Real Time Spam Problem was noted in USA Today. And my other partner Rhea Drysdale is often featured on CNN.

These don’t happen by accident. They were opportunities created by tipping off the right people at the right time. This is where having a linkerati list comes into play. It helps you know who to contact for what type of story.

Making sure the post is optimized for SEO

The final thing you want to do is properly SEO your post to capitalize on search.

Going back to our Robert Scoble example, when we saw that taking off, we went back and edited the title tag to include Robert Scoble’s name. It was a small tweak that allowed us to take advantage of Google’s freshness factor and appear in his News results.

It’s a temporary rank, but it made sure that anyone who searched for Robert Scoble that day found our post. Sometimes that’s all you’re looking to do, to help keep the momentum going and get eyes to the page. You have to build awareness.

Content marketers don’t have the luxury of sitting back and hoping something goes hot. It’s up to you to help things take on a life of their own, whether it was planned from the start or you picked up on early signs of success.

Savvy content marketers always have the matches and lighter fluid ready for when a spark presents itself.

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The Easy-to-Use Tool that Helps You Build a Breakthrough Blog

As a digital branding and marketing agency, our company has encouraged, coached, and cajoled clients over the years on the importance of blogging for building traffic, buzz, and organic search.

We watched some clients grow by leaps and bounds, attracting hundreds of thousands of blog visitors per month.

And we watched others clients stumble along without ever gaining the momentum we were working for.

Of course there are a lot of factors that drive success or failure. But among the blogs that succeeded on a huge scale, we noticed two common factors.

First, the breakthrough blogs had a strong editorial calendar. And second, they used a thoughtful, strategic approach to managing editorial content.

What is an editorial calendar, and why do you need one?

An editorial calendar is just a fancy term for a publishing schedule.

If you blog regularly, you should look ahead at least one month and make some decisions about which posts you want to publish on what dates.

It’s really that simple.

An editorial calendar is the foundation of strategic blogging. That little bit of planning goes a surprisingly long way toward getting the most audience reach from your blog content.

1. An editorial calendar lets you plan ahead

By planning your posts ahead of time, you drive perseverance.

An editorial calendar encourages blogging as a habit, wards off writer’s block, and ensures that you never miss another deadline.

It’s a small, subtle thing, but you’ll be surprised at the difference it makes in your mindset.

2. An editorial calendar adds structure to your creativity

Many bloggers worry that an editorial calendar will straitjacket their creativity. Actually, the opposite is true.

Writing comes to many of us in waves. Struck by a bolt of inspiration, a blogger can write two or three posts in an afternoon.

That’s fine — keep writing about what inspires you. Then use your editorial calendar to publish each post according to a plan that keeps your target audience in mind.

Staring at that blank screen and trying to come up with a topic can be one of the most stressful aspects of blogging.

But you’ll find that when you make those decisions weeks in advance, you actually come up with more and better ideas. You’ll be more creative, not less.

3. You can take a great concept further

An editorial calendar is a powerful tool for maximizing the reach of your content, while removing the pressure of having to generate new concepts for each post.

Say you’ve got a great topic in mind, one you know your readers care a lot about. There’s no reason to blow it all in one day.

Would it make a valuable series, parceled out over a period of time and then gathered into a content landing page? Could you run some interviews or line up some guest posts on the topic? Or go multimedia and round up a few engaging videos or cartoons on the subject?

Whether you write everything yourself or use guest writers, planning ahead lets you group your content more effectively. Once you start looking at your blog a month at a time, you can develop patterns and make sure your content is well-balanced among all the readers you serve.

4. You can be proactive and capitalize on search trends

When you pair planning with a strong foundation in SEO, you start to build your audience highly efficiently.

An editorial calendar helps you pay better attention to key outreach strategies, such as blog post titles and link building. At a more advanced level, you can use it to plan and time posts related to your target audience’s search behaviors.

Capitalizing on search activity can be as simple as timing posts and topics to synch with public holidays or product launches. Or it can be as complex as doing deep keyword analysis and planning content around trending search terms that will deliver maximum traffic to your blog.

Why Stresslimit developed the WordPress Editorial Calendar Plugin

After years of hacking together editorial calendars for our clients, using Excel spreadsheets and Google Docs, we wound up in a long discussion with our close friend (and brilliant engineer) Zack Grossbart.

Beyond our mutual excitement about blogging and the power of editorial calendar strategy, we shared a passion for open source projects and wanted to give back to the WordPress community. We also wanted to develop a tool that would make our lives and coaching our clients more efficient, easier, and simply cooler.

Our clients were excited about the idea of using an editorial calendar. But there was no single tool that enabled us to eliminate “busy work” and free up more time for strategizing and creativity.

We were also in synch with Zack on our love for creating simple, intuitive interfaces that help people manage complex behaviors.

An eight-month collaborative project was born: co-developing, co-designing and re-iterating the WordPress Editorial Calendar.

We’re excited to announce the launch of version 1.0 of our editorial calendar plugin, which is (in our humble opinion) the killer tool for managing and driving the success of any blog — from the small and personal to the large and corporate.

We invite you to take the WordPress Editorial Calendar Plugin for a spin at this link. It’s free, and we think you’re going to get a lot out of it.

Here are some of the things you can do with the plugin

• See a month’s worth of posts at a glance.
• Juggle your calendar by simply dragging and dropping posts from day to day.
• Quickly edit your posts’ titles, contents, and publishing times.
• Publish posts or manage drafts.
• Instantly see the status of your posts.
• More easily manage posts from multiple authors.

And you can do all of that right from the calendar interface itself. It’s simple and intuitive.

No plugin alone can make you a brilliant strategist. But the WordPress Editorial Calendar is a tool that will encourage more strategic habits, thinking, and behavior. Check it out here.

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The Freakonomics Guide to Making Boring Content Sexy

It’s easy to write about certain topics, like celebrities, or technology, or even social media. Everybody wants a piece of it.

But what if your passion is botany, supply chain logistics, or cognitive psychology?

How do you get noticed with a compelling story when your subject is … well … boring?

In the summer of 2006, an economics book was on the New York Time Bestseller list. The title was provocative and promised to be anything but a boring read.

Even my hero Malcolm Gladwell said, “Prepare to be dazzled.”

Since I really can’t stand economics (hated it ever since college), I skeptically handed over my $25 and took Freakonomics home.

From the very first page, I was treated to a wild ride through the most bizarre stories I’d ever encountered. I learned about cheating schoolteachers and self-sacrificing sumo wrestlers. Why drug dealers still live with their moms and how the KKK is like a real estate agent.

Every story taught a boring economic principle in a way that made me want more.

I realized that Freakonomics was an instruction manual for transforming boring blog posts into sexy must-read masterpieces.

Check it out:

People love “dot connectors”

Our world is getting more complicated by the second. Every day your readers are trying to get a handle on what happened yesterday, what’s happening now, and what will happen tomorrow. If you connect the dots for them, you can get popular in a hurry.

Freakonomics is built around connecting dots in an interesting way. For example, it’s long been an economic principle that almost every choice we make is connected to incentives. Pretty boring stuff — until author Steven Levitt used a story about daycare centers to show how some incentives backfire.

Since parents were showing up late frequently, the daycare center started a policy of a $3 fine to incentivize parents to show up on time. Unfortunately, the fine wound up incentivizing parents to pay $3 for an hour of babysitting and not feel guilty for showing up late!

Giving your reader’s these “aha” moments is a great way to keep them reading a so-called boring topic and have them asking for more.

Headlines still matter

Even with all of our shiny social media tools, good ol’ standby skills like writing a great headline still matter.

You can be a masterful storyteller and write killer posts, but you still lose if no one reads them.

Titles are the closest thing us writers have to a “silver bullet.” Don’t waste ‘em. Do you think that Freakonomics would have been a New York Times Bestseller with the title Aberrational Behavior and the Causal Effect of Incentives?

The quickest way to give your boring blog a facelift is to put some eye-hijacking power into your headlines. In fact, write your headline first, before you even start the rest of the post. It’s that important.

Numbers are a blogger’s best friend

One common complaint of blogs is that they can’t be taken seriously. We are accused of playing fast and loose with the facts and being weak on proof. It’s easy to avoid hard numbers and focus on writing the soft stuff, but Freakonomics shows that this is a mistake.

Many bloggers are afraid that statistics, equations, and hard facts will scare away our readers, but that’s not giving our readers enough credit. The problem isn’t the numbers — it’s that we stick numbers out there without a story.

Freakonomics uses numbers to reveal a hidden story. Levitt looked up the numbers on standardized tests for Chicago students. On the face of it, this was pretty boring data. This district got such-and-such a score, this district got such-and-such a score. Yawn.

Until those numbers revealed that teachers were cheating.

In some districts, teachers received salary boosts when their students performed better on standardized tests — motivating them to fill in a few additional correct answers for their students.

The story makes the numbers interesting. The numbers make the story credible. Give it a try.

Everyone loves a mystery

Why would a successful sumo wrestler throw a match? The obvious answer would be that he’s getting paid to do so, but Levitt quickly discovered there was a much more mysterious motivation that drove who won and who lost in Japan’s sumo contests.

The answer is buried in psychology, probability, and incentives, but the only thing that I care about is that there’s a mystery. Any mystery begs for gumshoe detective work. We can’t leave well enough alone and we want to know why — especially if someone else is going to do the legwork of figuring out the answer for us. That’s why the CSI series has spun off more offspring than a jackrabbit.

You can use this quirk of human nature to make your topic enticing. Look closely at your topic and uncover some old-fashioned mysteries. Now write a post that presents the mystery and leads your reader through the investigation to its incredibly satisfying conclusion.

Provide a better way to solve common problems

Freakonomics uses a powerful set of tools to explain the way the world works. By the end of the book, you can’t help but think that every problem imaginable can be solved with the right incentive, data analysis, or storytelling. When you’re finished you feel that there is a better way to tackle your problems.

This is what “added value” means. Simply restating a problem is boring. Offering new tools and perspectives to solve problems helps your reader get closer to their goals — and that makes you someone whose content they’ll want to read every time you come out with something new.

Freakonomics: The Movie is coming out soon, and I’ll be first in line — because reading the book was so valuable to me I can’t wait to see what else the authors have to offer. To get devoted fans who’ll anticipate your every output with the same enthusiasm, give them some solutions.

Time to get freaky

Have you ever used any of these techniques to make your content sexier? Can you see how to apply some of them to your own blog?

And if you read Freakonomics yourself, tell us in the comments about any other blog-enhancing tips you picked up!

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The Force that Powers Persuasive Content (And 3 Ways to Intensify It)

You hear it from us all the time…

If you want to engage and influence, connect emotionally and then justify logically.

That’s still true.

But there’s a Force more powerful than logic or emotion…

And it’s you.

 

Same as it Ever Was

First, what do we know about effective persuasion?

• We can now scan and record human brain activity in controlled tests, and the results continue to verify decades-old social psychology studies on persuasion.
• Those same social psychology studies confirmed the effectiveness of centuries-old persuasion techniques practiced by sales people, savvy politicians, and smart parents.
• And those very techniques originate with the observations of the ancient Greeks and Romans over 2,000 years ago, who developed the art of rhetoric to effectively persuade the masses of the day.

It’s a cliché, but the more things change, the more they stay the same. In other words, technology, media, and cultural context are dramatically different and ever evolving, but human beings respond fundamentally the same way we always have.

And when it comes to persuasion, people respond to a person’s perceived character way more than logic. Strong character can even defeat an eloquent emotional appeal in many persuasion duels.

So let’s take a closer look.

The Origin of the Force

The ancient art of rhetoric is based on three compelling components:

• Logos is an appeal to pure logic and reason.
• Pathos is an appeal to the desires, fears, passions, and other emotions of the audience.
• Ethos is an appeal to the authority, honesty, and credibility of the person speaking or writing.

Of the three, Aristotle said ethos may well be the most effective means of persuasion a person possesses. And while general reputation certainly comes into play, Aristotle further said that ethos is best demonstrated through the tone and style of the messages you deliver.

That’s right – the content of your character is determined by the character of your content. Here are three powerful ways to strengthen the force of your ethos.

The Force is Strong in Those Who…

1. Show Some Decorum

Ethos is driven first and foremost by virtue, with a twist. Rather than an inherent trait, virtue is perceived by the audience when they believe you share and uphold the same values they do. You connect with them when you satisfy their expectations.

The ancient Romans called this meeting of audience expectations decorum. It’s not necessarily about being prim and proper – after all, the best person to persuade a gang of drunken bikers to sleep it off is likely one of their own, not the local schoolmarm.

In short, you can’t lead a tribe that thinks you don’t belong – and it’s totally up to them to decide if you fit in. So if the idea of changing to meet the expectations of an audience doesn’t sit well with you, you’ll have to attract an audience that naturally fits with who you already are.

Luckily, that’s what the Internet is famous for.

2. Have Han Solo Authority

There’s no doubt that Han Solo is a pragmatic bad ass. Whether you’re raiding the spice mines of Kessel, rescuing a rebel princess, or seeking just-in-time help at a murderous moon-sized space station, Solo is the likable, talented, practical pro for the job.

In terms of ethos, you want to display similar practical wisdom to increase your persuasive mojo. Be the likeable street-smart authority whose content helps get things done, not an aloof academic expert looking down from the lectern.

You don’t have to be perfect (Solo sure isn’t). In fact, letting your flaws flow increases your authenticity and strengthens the bond with those you’re trying to reach. When it comes down to it, all that matters is you know your stuff and deliver.

A Wookie sidekick is nice, but optional.

3. Exhibit Jedi Leadership

The final key element of an ethos that persuades is the goodwill and receptivity cultivated between you and the audience. This is usually best accomplished when people feel you are acting out of selfless leadership, without a vested interest or ulterior motive.

“Wait a minute Brian,” you’re saying about now. “I do have a vested interest. I want to sell stuff and build my business!” Okay, I hear you (and these voices in my head are freaking me out a bit).

That’s where we come back once again to valuable free content. Even while naturally promoting you and your business, great content with independent value is nonetheless a gift to your market. As long as you’re transparent (and unapologetic) about the reason you’re providing the content, you’re exhibiting effective leadership that entitles you to pull Jedi mind tricks at will.

Put the audience first and you’ll get what you want in return. Everyone wins.

Jedi Mind Tricks Without Going to the Dark Side

A strong perceived ethos is powerful stuff, which is why many have faked congruent character for fun and profit over the centuries. Church, state, and aristocracy have all seen healthy amounts of character manipulation thanks to the persuasive power of ethos.

Social media seems ripe for similar shenanigans. But great content can’t be faked, and a worldwide reach means you can be you and attract like-minded people who think you rock just the way you are. So there’s no need to go to the dark side of the Force to fit in.

Freed from the tyranny of geography, the Internet allows us to avoid being character chameleons and be authentic instead. Smart online marketers realize they don’t need a tiny niche topic to lead a tribe, because they themselves are the niche.

Never forget it’s all about the audience. But it’s you who has the appeal.

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and co-founder of Thesis and Scribe. Get more from Brian on Twitter.

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Want More Readers? Try Expanding Your Internet Universe

Ever notice how everyone on the blogs you read seems to agree on everything?

We all know that content is king, that transparency is good, that sleazy sales pages are bad.

We even seem to know the same people: Brian, Sonia, Naomi, Johnny, Dave N, Chris G.

What we forget is that this little galaxy we’re occupying is only a tiny sliver of the universe. And if we want to expand our audience, we need to start boldly going beyond our own safe little corner.

I was recently exploring some strange new worlds on the Internet, places I hadn’t ever been before.

On this particular journey, I wasn’t looking for content, but for patterns and themes. Here’s what I found:

• Blog and site designs in the rest of the Internet universe are quite different. We might think that Thesis, Headway, and Frugal themes are everywhere — but they aren’t.
• Their presentation patterns are different. There are many more implementations of left-column, three-column, and, occasionally, one-column layouts.
• The way they display banners and advertising is considerably different.
• Highlighter much? The fake yellow highlighter we make fun of here as being ridiculously old hat is a common, accepted tool to focus attention.
• There are far, far fewer comments on posts, even on “big” sites, than what you’re used to seeing in our galaxy.
• The blogs you see on “everyone’s” blogroll simply don’t appear.

Their trends and pattern are different. They’re not necessarily worse, and they’re not necessarily better.

We’re in a hot, flat, and crowded galaxy

We often forget that the Internet is a network of data. Instead, we focus on sites that are just individual nodes in that vast network, and we mistake the part for the whole.

We don’t really understand what’s going on, because we don’t have a good mental picture of it. It’s too big to get our heads around.

The particular galaxy that we’re in is pretty dense, heavily-populated, and interconnected. We read each other’s stuff, link heavily, and have backchannel conversations. This interconnectedness and density creates a strong gravity well of ideas, patterns, and themes.

We’re just one galaxy, though.

Some galaxies are as tight as ours and others aren’t. But there’s so much space between us that what we do here hasn’t quite reached them yet, like the light from distant stars that takes millions of years to reach the earth.

We’re prone to assume that if we don’t perceive something, it doesn’t exist. Bad assumption.

Seeking out new civilizations

If you’re reading this, you’re probably a bit more on your game.

People who write effective copy that’s SEO-friendly do better both in search engine results and in getting readers engaged.

If you’re here reading this, it’s probably because you want to make your site better, and because you know where and how to find good information about that. That makes you different than most inhabitants of the other galaxies.

Just remember that what’s known and common here isn’t known and common elsewhere. In other galaxies, there’s no launch fatigue as we know it. There’s no third tribe. (Or first tribe, or second tribe.) Hell, there might not even be a Seth Godin.

Forget about “fields of opportunities.” There are whole galaxies of opportunities for you out there. While the particular aesthetic styles might be different, the principles of effective copywriting and SEO are universal. You don’t have to lower your standards just because the new galaxies you’re exploring seem to have less-evolved ideas of what makes a good blog.

To put it another way, visiting Rome doesn’t turn you into Caligula.

Instead of waiting around for the citizens of other galaxies to come to you, go to them instead.

Tips for interstellar explorers

Instead of using StumbleUpon in the usual robotic way, actually stop at a promising new website and get engaged. Hang around. See who they’re connected to. Be useful, relevant, and helpful there rather than on your own website or in your usual galaxy.

Click through to a commenter’s website, then click an interesting, unfamiliar link there. Repeat that a few times.

Follow your curiosity and you’ll probably find yourself in a third- or fourth-degree network from yours. Which pretty much puts you in the land of painted green dancing girls and monsters made from scraps of industrial carpeting.

It’s in those networks that you’re going to find your new readers. It’s also in those networks that you can really become next years’ A-lister, because A-lists are all relative to particular social networks.

If you’re happy where you are, then, by all means, stay put. Keep farming your own home planet.

But if your curiosity and ambition aren’t satisfied with that, consider this:

Someone out there in the Internet-universe is struggling with something you learned three years ago. What do they need, where are they, and how can you help them?

About the Author: Charlie Gilkey writes about meaningful action, creativity, and entrepreneurship at Productive Flourishing. Follow him on Twitter to get bite-sized slices of mojo.

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It’s the Simplicity, Stupid

I’m a cartoonist. This is my tenth year blogging. My work has been mentioned in big media including Wall St. Journal, Financial Times, New York Times, and The Guardian. It’s been mentioned in bestselling books like Groundswell and Tribes. And it’s been mentioned on thousands of blogs, including many of the big, A-Lister ones.

That’s all well and good, I suppose. We artist types can use all the PR we can get.

But looking back, it occurs to me that none of that “hot PR media action” has moved my business forward nearly as quickly or effectively as this one simple thing:

My newsletter subscribers telling their friends about my newsletter, and suggesting that they sign up.

No, really, that’s it. That is the money shot. When that happens, my business grows, end of story.

More traditional media PR … well, that can work, sometimes.

You never know. The results are always foggy at best, and it’s always a lot of voraciously time-consuming, pain-in-the-ass work to make something happen. And even then, it may not actually increase sales.

I know getting mentioned in huge media outlets is sexy and all, but seriously, hear me out. I’ve been at this for a while.

Traditional PR works, when it works. Most of the time though, it doesn’t. Same with traditional advertising.

But my list telling their friends — that never fails.

Ever.

Make it easy

Another thing I’ve learned the hard way is: I cannot make my subscriber list tell their friends about the newsletter, no matter how hard I try to apply my Jedi mind tricks.

All I can do is make it easy for them to share. All I can do is make it as friction-free as possible.

So this is what I did to achieve that: I created a simple link on the bottom of the newsletter.

Hello from Hugh: Please share this link with your friends.

If their friends get the link and click on it, the page has a personal message from me.

Hello!

One of your friends sent you the link to this page, and so here you are. Welcome!

My name is Hugh. I’m a cartoonist. I have a newsletter, “Hugh’s Daily Cartoon,” which I send out five mornings a week. A wee chuckle in your inbox, to start your day off on the right foot (so to speak). I hope you will subscribe.

That’s it.

Nothing fancy. Nothing complicated. Just a short and sincere message from me. I also threw in a few cartoons, just to give them something fun to read, other than my sales pitch.

A recommendation from a friend carries more weight than a hundred media recommendations.

It’s the simplicity, stupid

If my subscribers aren’t telling their friends, I’m doing something wrong, end of story.

If I’m not making it as easy and friction-free as possible to get my list to tell their friends, I’m doing something wrong.

You read Copyblogger, you’re a member of The Third Tribe, and you probably read a bunch of other savvy marketing folks. Great! They have a lot of killer stuff worth knowing about. Tons of it.

But just for a minute, forget all that and let me ask you two simple questions:

1. Is your list telling their friends about you? I mean, really telling them?
2. Have you made it as easy and friction-free as humanly possible for your list to tell their friends?

Until you can honestly say “Yes” to both questions, you have a severe marketing problem that no cutting-edge marketing theory — Copyblogger’s or anyone else’s — will ever solve.

About the Author: Hugh MacLeod is a cartoonist who blogs over at gapingvoid.com. He makes his living by selling fine art prints, doing Cube Grenade commissioned art work and sending out daily cartoons on Hugh’s Daily Frickin’ Newsletter.