How to Use Blogger to Build Your Mailing List and Drive Traffic to Your Website

I love my blog. I hope you do too. I love sharing ideas and resources with resume writers (and the occasional jobseeker who wanders across this blog as the result of a search engine).

When you blog, you can connect with your target market and promote your resume writing services in a way that is difficult to do through other marketing tactics. Blogs allow you to share in-depth information with jobseekers -- you can post about frequently-asked questions and then simply direct clients and prospects to the blog when they need answers.

While Wordpress gets a lot of the attention nowadays for bloggers (and there are some cool tools -- like LinkedIn's integration with Wordpress -- that are exclusive to that platform), I like using Blogger.

Blogger is a free, easy-to-use blogging service offered by Google. Using this Blogger to host your blog can be a great way to market your business. You can write a blog post and, at the end of the post, you can add a line, "For more information, [link to your website.]" This can drive traffic to your website.

Once you start creating information products to support your career services business, you can promote the special reports, membership sites, and ebooks with your blog posts. People are more likely to read a blog post (which comes across like an article) than a sales letter.

Blogs serve as a great communication tool.  You can keep your readers up to date with any changes you have made to your site, provide information on new services you are going to be introducing (i.e., LinkedIn profile development), and receive feedback on the types of services your customers wish you would develop.

Another way to communicate with your target market and position yourself as an expert is to establish a "Question of the Week" feature to your blog.  Simply have your readers send in their questions, and then, one day each week, choose one of the questions to answer. Your readers will look forward to this interactivity and will take note to visit each week to see if their question was chosen. The archive of questions you build up on the blog also serves as a powerful reminder of your expertise as a professional resume writer.

You can also use Blogger to increase the size of your mailing list by adding a sign up form to your newsletter or other autoresponder list. (You'll note I have a signup form on the right-hand side of this blog page!) Once people are subscribed to your newsletter, you can continue to market to them.

As I mentioned earlier, you can also create links back to your website on your blog that will also help your website gain search engine traffic. The search engines crawl the Internet, and when a site has a lot of links coming into it, the search engines take notice.  This can help your website rise in the results pages when someone performs a search using one of the keywords on your page.

These are just a few of the reasons why it is important to have a blog and how you can use a service like Blogger for marketing purposes.  As you get more familiar with blogging, you can add an RSS feed to your blog, which will notify your readers that you have created a new post.  This will keep your readers coming back regularly, and further help your marketing efforts.

Career Thought Leaders Conference Goes "Virtual"

Big announcement from Wendy Enelow and Louise Kursmark today -- the Career Thought Leaders Conference and Symposium in 2013 will be a "virtual" event. Here is the email (with my thoughts below):

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RE: 2013 CTL Conference & Symposium - March 18, 19 & 20, 2013

We heard you! In fact, we heard you 10 years ago, 5 years ago, and just months ago. Conference expenses have gotten out of hand. Between registration, travel, hotel, meals, and miscellaneous, you've spent $1000-$2000, and it's just too much anymore.

The question then becomes ... How can CTL create a new conference experience that lives up to the standards of the past? A conference with outstanding educational and professional development programs in an environment that fosters networking, opportunities, partnerships, and other collaborations.

Our solution ... Create precisely what we've been doing all along, but bring it to you so that you don't have to travel to us!

What does that mean to you:

1. There are no plane or train tickets to buy, no hotel rooms to book, no meals to pay for, no tips to bell captains, no extra expenses at all, and that is a wonderful thing!

2. You'll be part of the first-ever, full-fledged, full-video conference within our industry. It's so exciting! As the careers-industry thought leaders, we should also be the careers-industry conferencing thought leaders. We need to take the lead and move forward, and that's exactly what we're doing.

Wait until you see all that this technology can do, from the video presentations to the live Q&A after each presentation, to your briefcase that automatically downloads and saves handouts and slides, to the numerous chat and social media venues. It is an extraordinary user experience (and an EASY one at that)!

3. Attendee registration pricing will remain the same! That is also a wonderful thing!

4. Our international colleagues will be able to attend! How fortunate for our Brainstorming Day team in the UK, our RWA students in South Africa and Lebanon, and our vast network of associates around the world. We're no longer limited by geographic boundaries, and that is the true value of our new virtual conference. We can ALL congregate, learn, share, brainstorm, and create an extraordinary experience.

What does this mean for our sponsors and exhibitors?

Instead of the traditional, 3-day, live exhibitor experience you're accustomed to, your new CTL Conference Exhibitor Hall is open for 6 months! Six months to reach out, build relationships, promote your products and services, and so much more.

The Exhibitor Hall opens January 1, 2013, and remains open until June 30, 2013. As soon as people register for the conference, they'll have immediate access to your booth so you can start to reap the benefits long before the actual conference begins!

For those of you who are tech-savvy exhibitors, wait until you see all that you can do with videos, downloads, interactive tools, social media, and more. It's very cool! For those of you, like me, who are less tech-savvy, creating simple signs and uploading pdf files is a snap.

If you already know you want to sponsor and/or exhibit, get in touch with me and we'll put things in motion. Some of you may want to begin thinking about and building your exhibitor booth now, with plenty of time before the beginning of the year.

The conference website will be live in a few weeks, and we'll begin the registration process for those of you who want to extend your payments. In the meantime, here's a quick overview of our conference program:

Monday, March 18, 2013 - Entrepreneurial Day

• Netweaving: Thought Leadership in Networking & Paying It Forward (Bob Littell, Netweaving International & The Enrichment Company)
• Sales, Marketing & Business Development: The 3 Essentials for Entrepreneurial Success (Denise Hedges, Business Breakthrough Institute)
• 4 P's of Profitability: Pricing, Packaging, Partnerships & Product Development (Wendy Enelow & Louise Kursmark of Career Thought Leaders & Resume Writing Academy; Amy Gubser of Careerlaunch USA)

Tuesday, March 19, 2013 - Resume Day (Resumes, Cover Letters, E-Notes, LI Profiles, Career Bios & More)

• Writing Resumes for Senior Management & C-Level Executives (Cheryl Simpson, Executive Resume Rescue)
• Writing Resumes for Graduating Students: Traditional & Not-So-Traditional (Chrystal McArthur, Senior Associate Director, Rutgers University)
• Writing Resumes for the "Average Joe" (Cathy Alfandre, Catherine A. Alfandre, LLC)
• Writing Resumes for Technology Professionals (Stephen Van Vreede, ITtechExec)
• Writing Resumes for Military-to-Civilian Transitions & Federal Opportunities (Diane Burns, Career Marketing Techniques)
• Writing Resumes for Career Changers (speaker pending)

Wednesday, March 20, 2013 - Coaching & Career Management Day

• Thought Leadership in Social Media for Career Professionals (Joshua Waldman, Author of "Social Media for Dummies")
• Career Planning, Development, Reinvention & Renewal (Carol Vecchio, Centerpoint Institute for Life & Career Renewal)
• Thought Leadership in Personal Branding for Your Clients & Yourself (Susan Chritton, Pathways Career & Life Strategies)
• Necessary Endings in Jobs, Careers, Industries, Professions & Life (Michelle Carroll, University of Maryland & Career Development Alliance)

As always, each day will be followed by Colleague-to-Colleague discussion groups on very specific topics centered on each day's theme. These are always popular programs, allowing you to share your knowledge and your voice with others in small, facilitated group discussions.

There is so much more to share about the conference, and I will do that over the coming months. Today's message was simply to let you know about the 2013 conference and all it has to offer.

Change can be difficult. I'm certain that some of you are reading this and questioning the whole virtual conference concept. Let me assure you, virtual or not, the conference will be filled with networking opportunities and the "touch and feel" that is so important to all of us. We need the time each year with our colleagues, to renew and re-energize, and we WILL make that happen!

Feel free to contact me (wendy@careerthoughtleaders.com) or Louise (louise@careerthoughtleaders.com) with any questions you may have.
Wendy S. Enelow, CCM, MRW, JCTC, CPRW
Author, Trainer & Career Consultant

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Here are my thoughts:

• Conference attendance is expensive. Wendy and Louise say $1000-$2000 -- my research indicates an average of $1200 for a resume writer to attend an in-person conference. That's approximately $400 for conference registration; $300 for travel (airfare); $400 for a couple nights at the conference hotel; and $100 for meals and incidentals. Cutting your cost to get access to great information by 1/3 can be a significant incentive for more careers industry pros to attend. And, as Wendy and Louise point out, this has the potential to draw more attendees from outside the U.S.

• In-person opportunities for resume writers and career industry practitioners to meet up are declining. One of the primary benefits of in-person attendance is the networking component. I'm not sure how the virtual format will facilitate this, although Wendy and Louise do reference the use of social media tools, Live Q&A feature, Colleague-to-Colleague discussions and other "networking opportunities." But there's no substitute for the time spent meeting new colleagues at breakfasts, lunches, dinners ... or in the hotel elevator! Many a subcontracting relationship has begun at a resume industry conference.

• There's something to be said about exposing yourself to new places. One of my favorite parts of attending a conference is traveling to someplace. Many of my conference experiences have been to places that were completely new to me (Philadelphia, New Orleans, Toronto, Tampa, Savannah, Scottsdale ... and now Charleston.) I don't know that the CTL conference benefited from this, though, because it was always held in Baltimore. The Professional Association of Resume Writers and Career Coaches (PARW/CC) conference was similar -- every three years, it was held in Tampa, because that's where the organization's headquarters are. It may be just a coincidence that neither of these organizations have in-person conferences anymore, but there is something to be said about going new places and how it can energize your work and your business. (Having a conference in a new place each year is a huge burden for the conference planner, however!!)

• The decline in in-person conferences is a concern for the resume industry overall. While the loss of trade shows and conferences has been significant since 9/11, the resume industry is now down to two major conferences -- the National Resume Writers' Association conference (coming up Sept. 19-22 in Charleston, SC) and the Career Directors International (CDI) conference in San Diego in October. Both of these in-person conference are held in the Fall; it will be interesting if either of them change their dates in the future to fill this gap.

• There are lots of online training opportunities. There is already a lot of "competition" in this space. One significant difference between conferences and other training programs used to be that they were held in person. There are certainly a lot more online training and certification programs than there were in the days when there were four industry conferences (NRWA, CDI, Career Masters Institute/Career Management Alliance, and PARW/CC). The advantage of keeping the conference in the three-day format (with single-day registration options available) is that it focuses the training, rather than having it held over multiple weeks, as is the case with many online certification training programs (including Wendy and Louise's flagship training program, the Resume Writing Academy.)

• Technology is improving. Susan Whitcomb's organization, The Academies, is having it's second annual virtual bootcamp (in November of this year). By all accounts, it's a well attended event. And technology has improved to the point where you can get many of the five senses fulfilled with an online training. (Although the technological requirements for webinar/video can be quite steep -- cross-platform access can be a challenge. For example, you may need to install certain software or plug-ins to access some of these services, which some folks might not want to do. Not saying that's the case with the CTL program...) I'll be interested to learn what technology Wendy and Louise are using to fulfill the virtual conference. But the fact still remains that there is a lot of "clutter" when using technology -- and it's subject to unexpected glitches. I've conducted dozens of teleseminars, and the distractions of everyday life (barking dogs in the background, resume writers who are working on other things while they "participate" online) are definitely a challenge to deal with. That brings me to my next point...

• For you to get the most out of the conference, you need to devote time to it. I've been in conferences where a few resume writers are on their computers writing resumes during the conference. This format may benefit those who find it difficult to be "out of the office" for days at a time. It sounds as if the programs may be recorded, which would be useful as well. You'll get more out of the virtual conference if you participate "live." Again, another value of in-person programs is the live feedback and participation. (I can tell you that, as a presenter, you get a lot more out of programs with active participants than when you feel like you're talking to yourself.)

• Content is still king. There's no doubt that Wendy and Louise put on content-rich programs. And I can guarantee you, it's not much less work for the "dynamic duo" to have to put together a rich schedule of training online versus in-person. Looking at the program lineup, it's evident there is a ton of value in the 2013 program. What will be interesting is the lineup in future years -- there is a certain segment of the speaking community that prefers to do in-person trainings versus online. (Conversely, however, you might have access to even more speakers who are less expensive or more available for online trainings than in-person events.)

What do you think? Did I miss anything? Feel free to leave a comment below.

Smart Ways to Create Passive Income in Your Resume Writing Business

In just two short weeks, I'll be speaking at the National Resume Writers' Association conference in Charleston on the topic of "How to Create Passive Income and Recurring Revenue For Your Career Services Business." 

What is passive income? It is a form of income that keeps paying you after the initial effort to establish it is done. Unlike writing resumes, where you customize each document for each client, with passive income, you can create one single document and sell it over and over again.

The goal of passive income is to capitalize on what work you have already done. It frees you up to spend time with family and friends. It also allows you to make money while you sleep. (See the cute graphic designed by my husband, Jon, for the presentation.)

Passive Income Strategies
Here are just a few of the passive income strategies I'll be talking about in my presentation.

• Affiliate programs. You can have one -- or many -- affiliate programs that you promote. Many resume writers choose resume distribution services -- like ResumeSpider -- or reference checking services like Allison & Taylor. These are natural tie-ins with your existing services -- and you can market them to your existing clients!

• Write content. Sites like Constant-Content allow you to write articles that buyers can then purchase rights to use. They can buy "usage," "unique," or "full" rights. You can sell the same article several times.

• Advertising. This can be Google AdSense or another service where you promote other products and services through advertising on your site or blog and get paid per click or conversion. Choose a program that works best with your business. 

• Create information products. Information products can include ebooks, special reports, tip sheets, manuals, home study courses, teleseminars and more. You create it once and sell it over and over again. (If you're interested in an easy way to create information products, check out Pass-Along Materials from BeAResumeWriter.com.)

If you like the ideas in this blog post and want to know more -- and you're planning on attending the NRWA conference in Charleston in a few weeks, check out my breakout session on Friday afternoon on   "How to Create Passive Income and Recurring Revenue For Your Career Services Business." 

Secrets of Getting Free Coverage in Your Local Area

Buying a full-page ad in your local newspaper would cost more than most resume writing businesses could afford. However, if you got your local newspaper to cover you for free, that's exactly what you might get: an entire page (or at least a portion of a page!) dedicated to you.

Here's how to leverage the power of the press to get massive free publicity in your local area.

Pay Attention to Subsections
People often make the mistake of only trying to make "The Big News" (i.e., the front page of the paper or the front page of the Careers section). When you're trying to get attention locally, often it's better to focus on smaller sections.

For example, instead of trying to get an article in the Careers section, you might try to get a story in the "Money" or "Business" section. (Plus, you'd be attracting the attention of readers who aren't necessarily looking for a new job right at the moment.) Or how about trying to get a story in the "Living" section about a client who made a career transition in order to spend more time with his kids?

Each newspaper uses a different name for their various sections. Look through the various local papers and pick the sections you want to try to get stories in.

Don't Just Target Newspapers -- Think Magazines

Large cities often have magazines as well as newspapers. For example, San Francisco has the "7x7" magazine, dedicated just to San Francisco. New York, Chicago, Boston and many big cities also have similar circulations. My hometown -- Omaha, Nebraska -- has a couple of different city-oriented magazines, including Omaha magazine. The same company also publishes magazines called "Omaha Home" and "B2B Omaha."

Do a Google search of your city + magazine and see if you can find publications that are city-oriented in your area.

Reaching Out to Journalists
Remember that newspaper editors need to fill pages. Find the editor or journalist who's responsible for the specific section you're targeting. Try to pick people who've written about similar stories in the past. Then, send them an email pitching your story. Wait about 24 hours, then contact them by phone to follow up. Add them to your news release distribution list.

You might not land the story your very first try. Keep coming up with interesting angles and soon enough you'll get your first mention in the newspapers. Publicity begets publicity -- the more you're quoted, the more you'll be asked to be a part of future stories.

For more information on how to get free coverage for your careers industry business -- including sample news releases, dozens of story ideas to pitch, and more -- check out the Feed the Media Special Report (available to Bronze Level members during the month of September on BeAResumeWriter.com).