This is another addition to our ongoing series of tutorials and case studies on landing pages that work.

Daniel Heuman’s software helps writers, editors, translators, and proofreaders prepare error-free documents with greater ease and speed. He tried and abandoned PPC (pay-per-click) advertising, as he discovered the folks who clicked through weren’t his best prospects. (That’s a technique that almost certainly deserves some more thought and attention another time.)

Daniel is now marketing directly to prospects via email and showing some success, but he feels more can be done.

Let’s see what we can do.

• The Goal: Generate enough free-trial downloads to sell 3 licenses a day.
• The Problem: If folks are downloading a free-trial and not converting, it’s a product vs. value problem. If the problem is growing the numbers of prospects to take the free trial, that’s a traffic problem. If interested prospects are visiting the site or landing page and not engaging with the message, that’s a conversion problem.
• The Current Landing Page (homepage): http://intelligentediting.com
• Value: $90.00

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The Maven’s 10-Point Critique

My personal take is that Daniel needs to generate enough traffic – via organic, SEM and social media channels – to grow his own mailing list to which he can continue marketing to his heart’s content. A stronger, more effective homepage would offer an overall boost to his ongoing marketing efforts.

#1– Make your case in the first screen with a strong, provocative headline.

Why would a professional writer or editor pay $90 for additional proofreading functionality?

The rational reason: Cleaner, error-free documents.

The emotional reason: To look better in the eyes of a boss/client/customers.

Sloppy work reflects badly on the writer and the company represented. Clean work makes everyone feel good and confident.

So while the current headline: “Proofread Faster, Proofread Better” is a clear statement, I’m wondering how we can juice it up a little? How about:

Just One Typo Can Rob You of Credibility and Cash

You’ve just gone from “reasonable” to “irresistible” with a provocative headline that resonates emotionally with the visitor.

#2 — Add more oomph to the tagline.

Again, your tag is very clear on the most basic of benefits: Cleaner, Smarter, Better Documents

That’s a good start, but then I’m thinking … why and for what?

A great exercise for headlines and taglines is to take your basic feature or surface benefit and “Why? Because!”or “So what?” your way through it until the core emotional truth is revealed.

Try working these words (or their variants) into your tagline:

• polished
• presentation
• reflection

#3 — Invite your visitors to take your video tour from the get-go.

You already have a nice little video, yet you’ve basically hidden it from view. Slap it on your homepage and do a voice-over track. I found watching the material without a guiding voice unnerving.

Your voice-over would allow you to expand on the action in the video and highlight those areas of greater interest.

Don’t hide the good stuff. Warm it up and share it.

#4 — Be upfront about who this product is and isn’t for.

The only place I see “MS Word for Windows” is in teeny type under your box illustration. I’d give this more push so Mac users can grunt and grumble under their collective breath and move quickly elsewhere.

#5 — Keep sprinkling the goodies that keep visitors thinking “This is for me!”

Highlight the product’s ability to proof both British and American English. This capability strikes me as huge benefit for writers/editors working internationally.

You also have a strong guarantee. Get it on a homepage badge and show it off.

And you make customized versions — another wow, especially for those working in big organizations.

#6 — Rework your navigation for greater clarity.

You’ve hidden a lot of the product goodies in secondary position in terms of your primary navigation. I suggest the following revisions:

Primary navigation

• HOME
• Features
• Success Stories (Testimonials & Case Studies)
• Reviews
• Resources
• Download & Pricing
• Contact Us

Secondary navigation:

• About Us — FAQ & Tutorials — Forum — Blog — Support

#7 — Build your traffic organically with smarter SEO.

This is your current title tag for search:

<title>Intelligent Editing — Cleaner, Smarter, Better Documents</title>

A tagline, though, isn’t necessarily a good meta title — and it’s the title tag plus the content that Google sizes up and determines your topic and site relevancy.

So let’s adjust and get some primary keyword phrases in the front of the title like this:

<title>Proofreading & Editing Software for MS Word Documents :: Intelligent Editing</title>

I didn’t do the research to determine if these are indeed the best keyword phrases, but you get the idea. Frontload the terms that your prospects are using to find you … and add the product name, too.

#8 — Build your mailing list with a newsletter and a blog.

Since your email campaigns have been pretty effective for you, that means you need to add more names to your list so you can continue doing — and expanding on–– what works for you.

Add a newsletter sign-up and offer one or more of your current resources as a bonus for subscribing. Add a blog, too. It doesn’t have to be fancy or involved. See tumblr.com or preposterous.com for some easy-to- implement ideas.

#9 – Connect with your prospects with social media.

Build your authority in this niche space on this niche topic via Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. If there are writer/editor specific social media venues, make sure you have a presence there, too.

Social media is a long-term strategy to building credibility and a fan base that trusts you and ultimately your products for purchase

#10 — Tweak your homepage with one big Call to Action.

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I’ve tweaked your current homepage to reflect and illustrate the suggestions I’ve made here. (I know you didn’t want me to, but honest, I just couldn’t help myself. ) You could easily flip the placement of the video and headline/bullet/call-to-action sections.

(Mea culpa for the incomplete sentences, dangling participles, and other little idiosyncrasies that make editors weep and gnash their teeth. All I can say in my own defense is this: “I’m a copywriter.”)

My thanks to Daniel Heuman for his patience and support of Heifer International. Look for my next makeover in approximately 4 weeks.

About the Author: Roberta Rosenberg is The Copywriting Maven at MGP Direct, Inc. Find her @CopywriterMaven on Twitter. If you’re interested in a private page makeover, site audit, or other services, please email Roberta directly.

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“What am I doing wrong?” I whispered to the computer screen.

A part of me wanted nothing more than to go to bed and forget about blogging forever.

And yet, there I was, hunched over the computer, as I dug through my traffic stats for the millionth time. Somewhere inside was the answer to why I wasn’t getting more traffic, and I was going to find it.

Some people would have said I was asking for too much.

The blog was already doing decently well, averaging about 100 visitors a day after only two months. I got at least a few glowing comments on every post I wrote. Several people had sent e-mails, complementing me on my writing.

But the problem was the blog wasn’t growing.

I was putting out better content than anyone else in my niche. I tried every traffic strategy you can name. I was working on it so hard that my day job was suffering.

And yet the traffic stayed the same. It was like I’d run up against some invisible barrier, and nothing would push me past it. I was beginning to think I’d be doomed to 100 visitors per day forever, and that certainly wasn’t enough to quit my job over.

I sighed and pushed back from the computer. “I’ll figure it out tomorrow,” I said, heading off to bed.

And the next morning I woke up with a peculiar idea that explained everything.

The glass ceiling

What if I told you the blogosphere has a sort of “glass ceiling?”

The idea goes something like this:

Anyone can start a blog. If you work hard, you can even grow it to a few hundred visitors a day or so.

But at some point, the growth stalls out. You reach a plateau.

It’ll be like you’ve run into a glass ceiling — an invisible but bulletproof barrier. You’ll see bloggers on the other side, and they don’t seem to be doing anything different than you are. But for some reason, they were able to break through, and you weren’t.

It took me two years and three failed blogs to figure this out. And the answer is nothing close to what I expected.

The inner circle

The good news about the glass ceiling is there is a door.

The bad news is it’s guarded.

You see, every niche has an “inner circle.” A group of people who command a lot of attention.

Everyone reads their blogs (or books). Their opinions are widely respected. And they often coordinate their marketing to help each other grow.

In the blogging niche, it’s people like Brian Clark, Darren Rowse, Chris Brogan, and Sonia Simone — who, of course, all came together to form Third Tribe. In real estate investing, it’s gurus like Bill Bronchick, Ron Legrand, and Robert Kiyosaki.

It doesn’t matter what niche or topic you point to; you’ll find an inner circle. And if you want serious traffic — and by serious, I mean thousands of visitors per day – the fastest way to do that is to convince members of the inner circle in your niche to promote you.

They’re not going to come find you

The odds are you’re not going to publish a post some day that makes all of the insiders in your niche want to know you. If you want their help, you have to proactively build relationships.

The bloggers who bypass the glass ceiling don’t just do it by publishing more or better content than everyone else. They also do it by working behind the scenes to build friendly relationships with people who can help them.

The question is, how?

That’s the last piece of the puzzle. And it’s one that I stumbled across totally by accident.

The key to building a popular blog

Late one night, I was working on my blog and just so happened to get an IM from Brian Clark. I’d been hanging around in the Teaching Sells forums for a few months, not only soaking up the content, but answering questions from other members. Little did I know it, but I’d caught Brian’s attention, and he reached out to me.

“I really like what you’ve been posting in the TS forums. How would you like to do a guest post for Copyblogger?”

I was stunned. Copyblogger was quickly becoming one of the most successful blogs in the world, and I didn’t think I was anywhere close to being ready to write at that level. But I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity, either, so I agreed.

A week later, my first post went up, and it was the highest traffic day in the history of my new blog.

It wasn’t thousands of visitors, no. I still had a lot to learn about writing a really strong post.

But it was an eye-opener.

Brian’s help didn’t stop there. He gave me invaluable advice on how to grow my blog, and he started connecting me with power users who could help promote my posts on Digg and StumbleUpon.

Within a few weeks, I was up to an average of 2,000 visitors per day, and I had hit the front page of Digg, bringing me 20,000 visitors within a few hours. I was euphoric, and there was no question Brian’s generosity with his connections and advice were the key ingredient to making it happen.

So I started to wonder. “What if I did more of this?”

I started to guest post wherever I could, and before long, I was getting so much traffic that my server started to crash, and I had to switch hosting companies. Performancing even nominated my blog for the Best Business/Money Blog in the world.

I felt like a genius, like I’d discovered the cure for cancer or something.

But then I started to look around. I wasn’t the only one guest blogging. People like Leo Babauta, Chris Garrett, Sonia Simone, and Dave Navarro were doing it too.

And they were reaping incredible benefits.

That’s when it occurred to me: the best way to build a relationship with anyone is to give them something of value. It’s the whole principle of reciprocity. It goes back not just to the work of Robert Cialdini, but to the good old Golden Rule.

And what do popular bloggers need more than anything else?

Great content.

Why guest blogging is such a powerful strategy

It’s hard to fathom when you’re a beginner, but running a huge blog is a lot of work.

You have to come up with something brilliant to post every day, or you risk losing the attention of your audience. No vacations, no holidays, no calling in sick. You have a huge crowd of people waiting to hear what you are going to say next, and it had better be good.

Many popular bloggers publish guest posts just because it gives them a day off. Someone else can take over the show, and they can take a moment to relax and regroup. It’s not laziness; it’s a creative necessity.

And it’s also a big opportunity for you.

Not only does guest posting give you a chance to connect with a huge audience, but it also makes you a sort of understudy. The blogger begins to care about you and how you’re progressing, and they’ll go out of their way to help you grow.

The result?

Lots and lots of traffic.

Look into the history of almost any popular blogger, and you’ll find they guest posted for other popular blogs. In fact, go through the list of 30 bloggers to watch in 2010, and over half of them have written for Copyblogger alone.

It’s not a coincidence. It’s the way the blogosphere works.

Everyone talks about building a relationship with your audience — and that’s critical. But few talk about building those relationships behind the scenes. Not sucking up or trying to exploit anyone, but making yourself useful and valuable.

Becoming a contributor to their success is one of the best ways to build your own success. That makes guest blogging a smart strategy.

Stay tuned and I’ll give you some quick tips for exactly how to do it.

About the Author: Jon Morrow is the Associate Editor of Copyblogger. Get more from him on twitter.

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Everyone loves Pixar.

Okay, maybe not everyone. Let’s just say everyone except that 10% of the human race who enjoy hating on awesome like I enjoy sipping coffee.

Fifteen years ago, Pixar smashed the creative and technical limits of the animated feature film.

It would be easy saying they came from nowhere, if it wasn’t for the decade they spent scraping by, sharpening their craft, rewriting broken rules while keeping what was best about the classics in their genre.

People don’t just like Pixar films. They love Pixar films.

How does Pixar do it, again and again and again?

Yes, there is some magic, but it’s the kind that comes from plenty of commitment and hard work. Follow these five steps and eliminate the limits on what you or your business can achieve.

1. Be consistent and build trust

Toy Story 3 is now in theaters, continuing an impossibly solid 11-film winning streak — throughout its history, each of Pixar’s movies has debuted at the number one position in ticket sales.

From the first film to this newest, Pixar never stepped sideways. Their second film, A Bug’s Life, is probably their least appreciated, but still wonderful. Cars is my own least favorite, but it was my son’s #1 for two years straight, and I’m pretty sure anytime Mattel needs money, they can just churn out another fleet of Cars characters.

That kind of consistency creates trust: a trust that has vaulted Pixar to enviable success.

Each of Pixar’s films has been a box office smash, averaging more than $550 million per film in worldwide sales. Add DVDs, fast-food promotional tie-ins and the like, and you begin to understand that it’s Pixar that has made Steve Jobs really, really rich, more than his other company, one that’s also known for consistency, quality, and undeniable brand loyalty.

2. Take the time to do things right

Toy Story re-energized the world of mega-budget digital animation. But unlike the hurry-up-and-render aesthetic of most other studios, each of Pixar’s films is pixel perfect.

Unlike live action footage, every second of an animated feature requires specific articulation, many times over. There are no second takes. Yet Pixar has re-worked entire sections of their films they didn’t deem good enough, and even switched directors midway through the production of Ratatouille.

According to a June 2010 article in Wired, the average frame of animation of Toy Story 3 took seven hours of computing time. There are 24 frames in a second of movie footage.

Pixar would rather be late than shoddy. In a culture where we have timers at the drive-thru, guaranteeing the opportunity to deliver high blood pressure and heart disease in under 60 seconds, that type of care is rare.

And audiences know it.

3. Tell a story that connects

Sure, Pixar movies pop visually right off the screen (even before 3D versions). But it’s story and character that keep the audience coming back again and again.

Pixar has always understood something that most studios can’t seem to grasp — if you want to create highly profitable work, you’re in deep trouble without some amazing writers.

Memorable, lovable characters are a Pixar standard. From Buzz and Woody to Nemo and Wall-E, our affection for Pixar characters lingers. In comparison, characters in most other animated features seem pretty … two-dimensional.

Pixar fosters a connection with their audience through great storytelling. They speak to enduring archetypes, and deliver lessons we’ve all learned (or still need to).

Looking life’s regrets in the eye. Mourning the loss of a loved one. Making room for new relationships. Swallowing fear in the face of adventure.

I know I’m not the only grown-up to regularly quote Pixar characters. Tarantino is the only filmmaker I quote more, and I can only do that after my kids fall asleep.

Brilliant writing and the ability to connect leave a genuine, lasting impression on our memories.

4. Know yourself, your product, and your team

The hidden secret in Pixar’s sauce is its extraordinary team.

Usually, studios assemble a cast of freelance professionals for each project. Pixar houses a staff of writers, directors, animators, and technicians who move from project to project.

I know I’d have my face in the mud if it wasn’t for the remarkable people I work with each day. I admire Pixar for building a team of filmmakers who know, trust, and believe in one another. A team that’s fanatic about quality, and where everyone has a voice.

Steve Jobs, who brought director/screenwriter Brad Bird to Pixar after the studio’s first trio of home runs because he didn’t want the company’s innovation to stagnate, said:

For imagination-based companies to succeed in the long run, making money can’t be the focus.

Brad went on to write and direct The Incredibles and Ratatouille, both movies with strong themes of family and friendship. He agrees teamwork has been paramount to Pixar’s success:

In my experience, the thing that has the most significant impact on a movie’s budget — but never shows up in a budget — is morale. If you have low morale, for every $1 you spend, you get about 25 cents of value. If you have high morale, for every $1 you spend, you get about $3 of value. Companies should pay much more attention to morale.

The relentless drive for superb quality comes from within the team itself. According to the same Wired article, the animation team gathers each morning on comfy couches with bowls of Cap’n Crunch cereal to review and rag the prior day’s work. (The team encourages criticism, even from the most junior team members.)

It’s this sort of healthy creative environment that allows Pixar to correct missteps before they appear on screen, and achieve something close to perfection.

5. Now, make it your own

There is no one else like Pixar, but there is someone exactly like you.

Do what Pixar did. Be consistent, take your time, put out a superb product, build an excellent team, and know exactly who you are.

Your own digital magic awaits.

About the Author: Sean Platt is a ghostwriter and Creative Director at REV Media Marketing. Follow him on Twitter.

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Did you ever wonder why some blogs attract tons of readers and others don’t?

Of course you’ve wondered. We all have. Because if you’re reading this blog, you almost certainly have a blog of your own. You think it’s great, and you want lots of other people to think it’s great too.

So what’s the answer? Why do some blogs become more popular than others?

There are lots of reasons why people flock to certain blogs, but I think one of the most important is that popular blogs are written by popular people — the sort of people who attract others.

And becoming a popular person isn’t just a matter of fate or genes. It’s something you can work on.

I’m not saying content isn’t important when you’re creating a popular blog. Content for the best blogs is almost always top-notch, interesting, and informative — and that takes work.

But a blog isn’t just about work or great content.

Think about the most popular person you know in your personal life. What is it about them that attracts other people? Brains? Skill? Knowledge? These things could be part of it, but don’t you also know popular people who aren’t the smartest, the most skilled, or the best-educated?

When giving the commencement speech to the Vassar class of 1983, Meryl Streep said this:

Real Life is actually a lot more like high school. The common denominator prevails. Excellence is not always recognized or rewarded. What we watch on our screens, whom we elect, are determined to a large extent by public polls. Looks count. A lot. And unlike the best of the college experience, when ideas and solutions somehow seem attainable if you just get up early, stay up late, try hard enough, and find the right source or method, things on the outside sometimes seem vast and impossible …

In other words, success isn’t necessarily about competence. It’s often about likeability. People like to spend time with people they like.

The same applies to blogs. Success often depends on likeability. How you come across. Your vibe. Your attitude and personality.

And if I were to break this down into specific tips, I’d say there are 7 secrets for making your blog (and you) more popular.

1. Have a conversation

People don’t like to be lectured or talked down to. They just like to talk. And a blog is really a form of conversation between you and your readers. Even if people don’t always directly communicate with you or leave comments, the tone of your posts should be more or less conversational.

Don’t write like you’re delivering a sermon. Write like you’re chatting with a friend. Keep it easy and informal.

2. Lighten up

You don’t have to tell jokes, but it’s smart to keep things light-hearted. Consider the Men with Pens blog. James always has a lot of fun when writing a post, and her sense of humor makes the information more readable and entertaining.

Your readers are probably having a tough day. Their desk is groaning under the weight of all their projects. The economy is crappy and their life is full of responsibility.

If they read your blog and come away feeling just a little happier, they’ll keep coming back.

3. Be yourself

After all, people are not coming to your blog just to acquire knowledge. They’re dropping by to visit you.

Which means you have to be there.

That means revealing a little about yourself, sharing the occasional personal photo, posting videos where you talk to your readers, letting people know what’s going on with you.

For example, in a recent Pro Copy Tips post, I mentioned that I visited Las Vegas for my sister’s wedding. I show a photo of me standing in front of the famous welcome sign on a sweltering afternoon. I mention playing the slots and losing a little money. (Only a buck. I’m not much of a gambler.)

And all this served as an introduction to thoughts about how writers take risks, so it remained informative and focused on the reader.

4. Be nice

Yes, your mom was right. You have to be nice.

Don’t be a diva. Answer your emails. Respond to comments. Be polite even when a reader makes the occasional stupid remark or a troll flames you for no good reason.

The people who are rude to you are having a bad day, or a bad life, and they want to share their frustration and anger with you. But it’s their problem, not yours. They want to provoke you. Don’t let them.

If anyone gets out of control on your blog, don’t bicker about it. Just delete the comment and move on.

5. Get over yourself

When you think about it, blogs are really kind of egotistical. You have to think pretty highly of yourself to assume other people want to hear what you have to say day after day.

There’s nothing wrong with a healthy ego, but your blog really isn’t about you. It’s about your readers.

It may seem counterintuitive, but the more you cater to your readers needs, the more popular and profitable your blog can become. The more you give, the more you get. The world is full of self-centered and stingy bloggers. Don’t be one of them.

(I realize this might seem to contradict #3. There’s a delicate balance there. You want to share enough of yourself to make a connection, but still keep your focus on your audience.)

6. Help people

Isn’t this the whole point of a blog, especially one that’s wildly popular? Why do you visit Copyblogger or Lifehacker or Chris Brogan, or any of the other top blogs?

Because they offer you lots of stuff without necessarily expecting something in return. The people who run these blogs are constantly thinking about how they can help you.

Again, think about the people in your personal life. You probably know that one person who is always willing to help, no matter what you need.

Why do you keep going back to that person? Because you know they’ll say “yes” when most others will say no. Helpful people are popular people.

7. Stop trying so hard

Yes, you need to work at your blog. You should write good posts. You should offer solid information. You might even put in long hours.

But don’t push too hard. Relax. Enjoy it. Make it part of your life. If you’re desperate for success, that desperation will show.

It’s like dating: there’s a fine line between wooing someone and stalking them. I mean, have you ever had someone get a crush on you and start trailing you like a puppy? It’s annoying. And a little creepy.

No matter how much you want success, just remember that it comes fast for some and slower for others.

There’s a moderately popular blog I used to enjoy. Then the people who run it announced a product. From that day forward, every post was about their product. Every link pointed to a sales page. The blog was no longer a conversation. It was a relentless sales pitch. I don’t visit any more.

Meryl Streep was right. Life is like high school. And success has a lot to do with being popular. So … be popular.

About the Author: Dean Rieck is one of America’s top direct marketing copywriters. He shares his writing and freelancing know-how at the wildly popular Pro Copy Tips.

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When I was fifteen, I wrote a novel. I thought it was pretty good, and daydreamt about literary stardom.

Fast forward ten years. I recently found my old notebooks and read that novel over again. And … let’s just say it wasn’t as good as I remembered, and leave it at that.

It’s amazing what a difference perspective makes.

Usually, you’re not going to be revisiting work from a decade ago. You’re going to be busy trying to get that new website copy done, or that sales page written, or that ebook finished.

Problem is, when you’re writing, you’re working at a zoomed-in level. You’re so deeply into the words that you can’t get a grasp on the whole piece. You’re emotionally attached to your work, and even if it doesn’t seem perfect, you simply can’t see any way to change or improve it.

Here’s how to zoom back out and get the big picture.

1. Let it rest

Ever since I started writing as a teen, I’ve heard this piece of advice. Put your first draft aside for a few days (or at least 24 hours). Leave it alone.

Yes, it’s hard; you’re itching to get your piece finished. You’ll need to plan ahead: give yourself a few days in the middle of a project to take a break. Your unconscious mind will carry on mulling over that project while you’re away from it.

When you pick it up again, you’ll come to it afresh. You’ll have new insights. You’ll see different possibilities. Mistakes will jump off the page at you.

How long should you put your work aside for? I’d say, the longer the piece, the longer you let it rest. For a blog post, leaving it for a day is probably enough. For a novel, give it at least a couple of weeks — preferably a month.

2. Read as a reader

When you pick up your piece again after a break, try to get into the mindset of a reader. Imagine it’s the first time you’ve read this.

It helps to make a clear physical break between your writing mode and reading mode. Depending on your project and how you like to work, that might mean:

• Printing out the whole thing and reading it in a coffee shop
• Turning it from a word document into a PDF so that you can’t keep changing the text as you read
• Creating a “real book” version of your manuscript on Lulu
• Reading through the whole thing in one session

While you’re reading, watch out for:

• Anything vague. Have you assumed knowledge which your real readers might not have?
• Anything extraneous. It might be interesting to you, but if you can cut it out without losing any meaning from the piece, it should go. In fiction, I ask myself “Is this part of the story?”
• Anything redundant. When you’re working on a project over a long period of time, you’ll often end up with two similar sections, or very similar phrase or word choices close together. Next to impossible to spot when you’re writing, glaringly obvious to readers.

3. Ask for feedback

However great your imagination, you can never truly put yourself in the position of a first-time reader. You know your writing and your topic too well.

There’s an easy solution, however:

Find some actual readers

Ideally, pick people in your target audience. You could try:

• A writing circle — either a group that meets in real life, or an online one
• Regular commenters on your blog
• Participants in a forum or membership site which you belong to (I’m sending out my ebook draft to some fellow Third Tribers this coming weekend)

Unless she happens to be a writer too, or typical of your readership, your mom is not the best person to ask for feedback. Ditto for your spouse. They’re likely to be kind rather than constructively critical.

When you ask for feedback, be clear about what you want

If this is a first draft, you’re not primarily concerned with typos or the occasional clunky sentence. You want to know if whole sections should be cut, or whether your angle works, or if your call to action is clear.

I always give my guinea-pig readers a free copy of the finished piece, if appropriate. It’s also nice to offer to reciprocate if they ever want feedback on a writing project.

4. Proofread

Once you’re past the revisions stage and into the final version, you’ll need to proofread. Although you can get away with the occasional typo, spelling mistake or grammatical slip in most blog posts, you’ll want to avoid any embarrassing mistakes in your shiny new ebook or your slick sales page.

I find that I’m great at finding typos in other people’s work … and awful at spotting them in my own.

Usually, I find a long suffering friend to proof-read for me, but if I’m proofreading my own material, this is what helps:

Proofread on paper

For some reason, it’s easier to spot mistakes on paper than on the screen. Perhaps it’s because we’re more prone to skimming on the screen, or because our eyes glide over any mistakes which the spellchecker hasn’t picked up.

Regardless of why, it works. Print out your piece, and go through it slowly with a red pen in hand.

Proofread backwards

When we read, we rarely take in every word. Uur brain fills in what it expects to see — even if that’s not quite what’s there. (Ever mis-read a headline? Or a billboard?)

Reading your work backwards deals with this. You’re forced to look at every single word. It’s a slow and tortuous process, but if you have a piece of work which absolutely must be error-free, it’s the best way to do it.

How about you? Do you find it hard to get perspective on your writing? What methods work for you? And have you ever written something which you thought was perfect … until you looked at it again a few months later?

Let us know about it in the comments.

About the Author: Ali Hale writes about productivity with perspective alongside Thursday Bram on their newly-launched blog Constructively Productive: you can grab the RSS feed here.

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There’s a scene in the animated series Futurama that cracks me up every time I think about it.

The show’s characters are at the horse track of the future, but there’s controversy when a race ends very, very closely — so closely that the race officials need a powerful electron microscope to judge the “photo finish.” The track loudspeaker eventually announces, “And the winner is … Number Three, in a quantum finish!”

And Professor Farnsworth, who had bet on the other horse, tears up his tickets in a rage and yells, “No fair! You changed the outcome by measuring it!”

Didn’t get the joke? Don’t worry, neither did most of the viewers.

I’m quite sure that the writers laughed out loud when writing that scene. They were a bunch of nerds, and thought that applying the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle to horse racing was the height of hilarity.

But 99% of the viewers probably didn’t find it the height of hilarity. I’d guess that 75% didn’t even know that the line was a joke.

So why did the writers include the gag? Because the remaining 1% who did get it became fans for life.

How to lay eggs (like a platypus … they don’t do much, you know)

I call hidden gems like this “Easter eggs” — a video game term referring to hidden areas, rooms, or events that developers add to games to amuse themselves.

Animated humor shows like Futurama, The Simpsons, and many others are absolutely stuffed with Easter eggs, and they’re an important part of building the massive cult followings these shows enjoy.

When I recognized Farnsworth’s line for what it was, I felt like I was part of an exclusive club. In fact, I felt like that joke had been placed there for me and me alone.

I could immediately imagine hanging out with those writers. That Easter egg made me feel like we were buddies, that we had so much in common.

I became hooked on Futurama. I never missed an episode. I told all of my friends to watch it. I bought all of the DVDs.

Then, when I realized how effective those obscure little jokes had been on me, I started including them in my own writing.

If something amused me, I didn’t worry about the people who wouldn’t get it, unless not understanding it would ruin the reading experience.

So I let those oddball references fly … and I credit them with a lot of my recent growth.

Here are two examples of Easter eggs I’ve placed recently here on Copyblogger:

• In a recent Copyblogger wrap-up, I made passing reference to “ruling the tri-state area,” “setting fire to the sun,” and “big laundry.” All three were lines said by Heinz Doofenschmirtz, the ridiculous villain of the children’s animated series Phineas and Ferb.
• In an earlier wrap-up, while recapping a story about how overcoming purchase paralysis is like saving people from a burning building, I mentioned hanging from the arm of Kurt Russell while he says, “You go, we go!” in a heroic fashion. That’s a line and scene from the firefighter movie Backdraft.

Luckily, Brian is in that small group of people who finds most of my Easter eggs, and he lets me continue to hide them. And when I wanted to be replaced by Johnny Marr, his comment was, “It doesn’t matter if anyone else gets it. I think it’s hilarious.”

I thought it was hilarious too. A small group of people who read it thought it was hilarious, and proceeded to swap Smiths and Johnny Marr references in the comments.

If you’re thinking, “I don’t want only 1-5% of people who read my writing to appreciate it!” I have a clarification to add:

As long as your post works without the Easter egg, people will still read you and like you even if they don’t get your hidden gags.

This is an important point, so I’ll make it one more time. The post has to stand alone. It has to work even if they don’t get the Easter egg.

That Johnny Marr post on Copyblogger? While a small group got the gag and joined in on it, a much larger group read the wrap-up the way they would read any post, and clicked through my teasers to read the full posts.

The post did what it was supposed to do, whether or not you know (or care) who Johnny Marr is.

If you place your Easter eggs well, you’ll get a cloud of people who read your stuff the way they would read anything else they were interested in. But at the center of that cloud will be your core fans. Your insiders. Your “club of you.”

I love my club. The people who truly “get” me with all my oddities and foibles are like old friends. I bond with them. They bond with me. We interact in my comments and on Twitter.

But they also want to read more of what I write, wherever and whenever I write it. They spread the word, tell their friends, become ambassadors and raving fans … and often buy everything I sell (as well as taking advantage of my free offers, for that matter, like my current free blog setup promotion.)

The smaller the group who takes something from your writing, the more exclusive those people feel. You don’t have to settle for a small audience, but there’s a lot of value in having a nucleus of core fans surrounded by what I might call an “interested horde.”

You can build both the nucleus and the horde at the same time. Here’s how.

Six rules for hiding Easter eggs

1. Don’t confine yourself to humor

I’m an animation geek and have always liked humor in most forms, so the Easter eggs I hide tend to be jokes or references that are meant to make the reader chuckle.

But anything obscure will work. If you’re an alternative music fan, you might observe how Darren Rowse looks a little like Moby. If you’re a Starbucks barista, you might mention that tech skills need constant adjustment and sharpening — just like a burr grinder that processes a lot of low-quality beans.

2. The post has to work even if they don’t get the reference

I know we already said this. It’s important.

The Farnsworth line in Futurama wouldn’t have worked if the rest of the episode had revolved around the intricacies of why quantum uncertainty had foiled Farnsworth’s horse bet.

It worked because it was a throw-away line. You either caught it or you didn’t. Either way, the action marched on.

3. Don’t be a pretentious jerk

A few Easter eggs are fun. A diet of Easter eggs will give your readers heartburn. If you stuff your writing full of references and jokes that are so obscure that nobody will get them, you’ll just come off as pretentious.

(An example of someone who doesn’t listen to this rule: former comedian Dennis Miller. Yeah, he used to be funny.)

4. Don’t over-explain

If you have to explain it, it’s not an Easter egg, it’s just a joke that fell flat.

You’ll have to walk a fine line to balance clarity with inside jokiness. Sometimes you’ll need to add a few clues, but don’t overdo it.

5. Make it natural

I’ve failed here if all of a sudden, we see a rash of blog posts into which writers have used a crowbar to insert obscure references and inside jokes.

Don’t think of them as something you add; think of them as something you allow to remain. It should feel natural. Write what comes to you — and then stop yourself from editing all of the gems out.

6. Amuse yourself first

I use Easter eggs because I love finding them myself. It’s a game. If something doesn’t make you chuckle or smile or think when you write it, don’t include it.

Some things are meant to be edited out because they simply don’t work. Let those go; no one likes a bad Easter egg.

The name of the game is connection, and like so many other pieces of advice in the blogosphere, much of this boils down to finding your right people. Using Easter eggs is kind of like when a punk fan wears a shirt with a certain band’s logo on it. Other punk fans will see it and will say, “I know what that logo is!” And if those two people strike up a conversation, there’s likely to be instant rapport.

Think of your Easter eggs as a way of creating specialized rapport.

Great content builds a wider audience. But leave in a couple of Easter eggs, to build your “club of you,” too.

About the Author: Johnny B. Truant is setting up self-hosted Wordpress blogs for free until July 23rd. Learn more about Johnny at his blog, JohnnyBTruant.com.

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Ever wonder why conversion rates are so low?

A “good” sales page will usually convert between 1 and 5 percent of its readers. Those numbers vary wildly depending on about a zillion factors, but that’s the middle of the bell curve.

So that means between 95 and 99 percent of people reject what you’ve got to offer. Seems a little depressing when you look at it that way, right?

So are those 95–99 percent just a write-off, a necessary cost of doing business? Do you have to do the work and/or spend the money to get nearly prospects to make 1 sale?

Not necessarily.

Note: No actual statistics were harmed, or even used, in the writing of this post. In other words, these numbers are theoretical. Use them to illustrate the principle, and for back-of-the-envelope planning. The real numbers always come from your own business and your own individual situation.

The desperate buyers strategy

According to sales strategist Chet Holmes, at any given time, about 3 percent of your market is in active buying mode. So if you sell furniture, about 3 percent of adults in your town are looking for some piece of furniture right now. If you sell fancy cages for naked mole rats, about 3 percent of naked mole rat owners are in the market for a new cage.

Traditional internet marketing is all about finding this 3 percent. The smartest Adwords, SEO, and affiliate marketers are all trying to selectively find that 3 percent and weed out the other 97. You can call this the Desperate Buyers Only strategy, which is the title of a very solid program by Alexis Dawes on writing and selling ebooks.

The trouble is that the desperate 3 percent are expensive, because everyone wants them. What are called the “converting keywords” (the keywords that are proven to attract the 3 percent who are ready to buy today) are expensive to buy with pay-per-click. Those same keywords are usually highly competitive for SEO, and getting more so every day.

You’re competing with thousands of hungry internet marketers for that 3%. It can be done, but you have to be at the top of your game.

But there are more buyers out there, if you know how to treat them.

The conquer-the-universe strategy

Holmes’s research goes on to say that about 7 percent of any given market is receptive to the idea of buying, even if they aren’t actively looking. Given the right offer, they could be talked into it. We could call these our Not-So-Desperate buyers.

If you can pull them in, you’ve more than tripled the size of your potential buying pool, going from 3 percent to 10 percent.

Another 30-ish percent will buy one of these days, but it’s not on their radar right now. Call them the Not Yets.

About 30 percent are mildly turned off on the idea of buying your product. Holmes calls them the Soft No.

And about 30 percent are highly turned off. They hate something about your company, or they never pay for information, or their spouse has threatened them with grievous bodily harm if they spend any more money on what you sell. They’re the Absolutely Nevers.

What happens if you start creating marketing communication that entices the Not-So-Desperate, the Not Yets, the Soft Nos, and even a few Absolutely Nevers?

You can scoop up all of those potential buyers and keep them close until they’re ready for you.

• You can develop enough trust and rapport to warm up the Not-So-Desperates, and even light a bit of a fire to get them moving today.
• You can make yourself the natural choice when the Not Yets are ready.
• You can answer objections and reverse the risk for the Soft Nos, which often turns them into Yeses.
• And you can even get a handful of Absolutely Nevers to act as your unpaid salespeople.

While Absolutely Nevers might never buy themselves, if you’ve set up your marketing correctly, a surprising number of them will pass the word along to someone else who will buy. The product may not be right for them, but they know someone who can use the content.

The key is the content net

What kind of marketing attracts all the potential buyers, rather than the ones who are hot to buy right now?

It has to be marketing that doesn’t look like marketing. Advertising that’s too valuable to throw away. Communication that delivers a real and compelling benefit, with the sales message presented only after you’ve earned the right to sell.

And what kind of marketing keeps them around and engaged until they’re ready to buy from you?

It has to be marketing that’s delivered over time. Advertising that arrives on a predictable, regular schedule. Communication that’s repeated enough times to develop trust and rapport.

And the two best tools for that at the moment are probably a blog combined with an email autoresponder.

A content net weaves a nice, friendly web of communication around all the categories of buyers, and keeps them interested.

It’s a terrific tool for your Desperate 3%, because it educates them about why you’re the unquestionably perfect choice. But it also takes the other 97% and nurtures them, training them to become your ideal customer.

About the Author: Sonia Simone is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and the founder of Remarkable Communication.

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Your bottom line is bottoming out. Your customers are looking elsewhere. Your well of new ideas has run dry. What can you do?

You could turn to your accountant for money-saving schemes, or hire a lawyer to re-structure your business. You could bring in a salesperson to drum up customers.

I’ll bet you wouldn’t think a technique used by designers could help you out of a bad spot.

The technique I’ll outline here is the secret to creating products and services your customers will buy. It’s a powerful way to keep your well of ideas overflowing.

It’s a three-step process anyone can do. And when it’s done right, you can expect impressive results.

The fountain of youth for your business

When your well of new ideas runs dry, design thinking will get it bubbling up again.

Design thinking is a technique that turns your business challenges on their heads, allowing you to see them from a different angle. It helps you discover new products and service that meet the needs of your market. And when your ideas meet a need, they sell.

The secret to creating stuff your customers will buy

Tim Brown of IDEO gave a lecture on design thinking at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and explained design thinking with a great analogy.

Brown said that most new business ideas come in through one of three doors:

• The technical door, which is led by research and development thinking.
• The business door, which is led by standard value-oriented thinking like return on investment.
• The people door, which is led by design thinking. Design thinking is a human-centered process.

If you focus on your customers when you’re developing new ideas, you’ll create products and services catered to them, and dramatically increase your chances of success.

Inspiration: Design thinking starts here

The first phase of the design thinking process is inspiration, and that comes from your customers.

Find out what their struggles are, and discover what their daily lives are like. You can gather inspiration through:

• Observation: What can you see your customers struggling with? What do they complain about on Twitter and Facebook? What questions do you hear again and again?
• Interviews: Whether face-to-face or on the phone, speaking directly to your customers and asking for candid information about their challenges is invaluable. Speak to users on either extreme: power users and beginners. Your most valuable observations will come from the far ends of the spectrum.
• Role Play: Ask a friend to “mystery shop” your business, going through every interaction as a customer would. What’s their first contact like? How do they perceive the process? What would improve their experience?
• Surveys: Online surveys are easy and fast.

Your goal in this phase is to understand the cognitive, emotional, and physical world your customers live in. Gather this information, and use it in the next step.

Ideation: Brainstorming gone wild

In this phase, Brainstorming Rule Number One applies: no idea is too outlandish to consider.

Use a white board, large paper, or a computer file to field ideas. If you’re a solo entrepreneur, gather colleagues for this process. Feed them the initial data you gathered in the inspiration phase, and set them loose.

Narrow down your ideas and pick the strongest one by prototyping.

I know what you’re thinking: prototyping doesn’t sound like something a small business can afford to do, right?

Prototyping your best ideas can be as simple as:

• Videotaping someone going through the motions of using your idea for a new product or service.
• Building quick models of physical products using cardboard boxes and tape. Create your product to size and see how it might feel in use.
• Build a mini-product that gives a taste of the benefits of the full thing. If you’re thinking of creating a membership site, build out a tiny sliver into a teleseminar or a $7 ebook to test the waters.
• Writing down stories about the journey your customer takes from the moment they realize they have a need, to the moment they discover your new product or service, to their interaction with it, and their post-purchase experience.

Prototyping allows you to visualize what your idea would be like in use. It makes it “real,” and will give you strong clues about whether or not an idea is viable.

Implementation: Make it so

You’ve been inspired by your customers, and you’ve developed a new idea they will love.

The last phase of the design thinking process is about implementation. This is where you will nail down your costs, determine your production needs, and figure out how to execute your best idea.

As you set up a system to deliver your idea, think back on those customer stories you gathered, and the prototyping exercises you did. Use these experiences to develop a marketing story around your product or service that will tap into your customer’s needs. And of course, always focus your marketing around the benefits your customer will experience after purchasing.

A three-part technique that helps businesses soar

Gaining inspiration from your customers, developing ideas based on their needs, and making those ideas a reality are the three phases of design thinking that every business can implement.

Harnessing this creative force will keep your well of ideas overflowing with products and services that connect with your customers needs, and help your business grow.

About the author: Pamela Wilson helps small businesses grow with great design and marketing tips. Learn the basics with her free Design 101 e-course at Big Brand System.

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With all the beads, prayers, affirmations, “laws of abundance,” and other woo-woo business accoutrements flying around these days, you’d think there’s some fire sale promotion going on spirituality.

Maybe it’s the rough economy, or the unsettling pace of change. Business seems to be getting more and more difficult, and support is hard to come by. When you’re struggling, the idea of having the unseen realms backing you is pretty appealing.

But can getting more spiritual really help your business?

For some of us, spirituality is everyday stuff. It’s how you relate to the world, in business just as in all other things. It’s what’s for lunch. As the Zen master Suzuki Roshi said, it’s “Nothing special.”

For others, spirituality in the realm of business can seem profane, inappropriate, or just plain bizarre.

So which is it? Is spirituality the missing leverage point in business — or is it just plain wrong to use spirituality to get what you want?

What the Heaven is spirituality?

Spirituality is one of those words that can be tricky to define.

The Oxford American Dictionary defines it as:

… of, relating to, or affecting the human spirit or soul as opposed to the material or physical things.

I would define spirituality as any connection we feel to a greater purpose, existence, or reality than ourselves. It means there is a core Oneness that everything comes from and everything returns to.

Ever been in love? You know what I’m talking about.

Things spirituality doesn’t really work for

On a power trip? Spirituality is not going to get you world domination.

If you want to manipulate people into doing something that’s not in their best interest, your connection to love and all-that-is ain’t gonna help you.

Because spirituality isn’t a tool or technique, you can’t “use” it like that. When people describe their spiritual experiences, they tend to use words like:

• “awe-inspiring”
• “humbling”
• “connected to everything”
• “full of love”
• “deep trust and peacefulness”

If you’re trying to trick people into spending money on something worthless, it’s pretty doubtful those words describe your state of mind.

But hold on … something seems familiar here.

Copywriting, business, and spirituality

Here are a couple of key themes about copywriting and sales that you’re probably familiar with if you’re a regular Copyblogger reader:

• You’ve got to believe in yourself and your product.
• You need an attitude of service.
• Rather than talking endlessly about yourself, you have to listen to your readers and engage them in conversation.
• You have to care about your audience.

Great salespeople and marketers, the ones you feel good about and look up to instead of feeling slimed by, have this combination of confidence and humility, caring and willingness to deliver on their promises.

Are you starting to see what I’m seeing?

Maybe this spirituality thing could be helpful after all

I don’t know about you, but that sounds like an amazing way to spend my time.

To be awe-inspired by the presence of the people you are wanting to help, to be humble and not distracted by trying to be something or someone you’re not, to feel connected to everything and full of love. And to have it all grounded in deep trust and peacefulness.

If your blog posts, tweets, products, content, conversations, and connections reflected that sort of approach, what would that do for your business? Or for that matter, for your life?

Spiritual teacher soup

Listen, I may have been designated as a master teacher in my spiritual lineage. I may have years of spiritual practice behind me.

But let me tell you, all I need is a bunch of cool people to launch cool things while I’m sitting on the sidelines and all my internal voices get going.

I’m an incompetent booby. I’ll never catch up with those guys. Maybe what I do doesn’t matter anyway.

I get worried and upset and angry.

The usual things that I’m tempted to do in moments like that (work harder, be brilliant, eat too much ice cream) tend to be completely ineffective.

In fact, they leave me feeling even worse.

Maybe you’re the same. You end up doing crazy things. Like buying yet another high-priced program when you already know what to do. Or launching a sales page that feels like it was written by a sleazy car salesman. Or retreating into a corner, too paralyzed and overwhelmed to do anything at all.

That’s one of the very useful things about spiritual practice. My practice allows me to drop all of those thoughts very quickly, saving me from acting on those impulses, from sabotaging myself or scaring off our clients.

It allows my heart to drink the love, peace and groundedness it thirsts for.

That’s the real payoff. The side effect? I’m more on-point with what I’m doing. Efficient, effective, connected.

Mother Teresa — you know, that once-unknown little nun who mobilized tens of thousands of people to care for the poorest of the poor, and trotted the globe bringing in millions of dollars and creating a legacy that has lasted far past her death?

She insisted that everyone associated with her Missionaries of Charity spend precious hours in spiritual practice every day, even when there was the pressing need of dying and starving people all around.

Why? Because getting stuff done simply wasn’t enough.

Ticking items off a to-do list is draining. But understanding that what you do and who you are into the world is an expression of profound love and caring — that’s when miracles happen.

It worked for her. It works for my business and our clients. It can work for you, too.

Have your spirit call my spirit, they’ll do lunch

As the great Sufi sheikh Ibn al Arabi said,

All streams lead to the Ocean.

There are a million ways to connect to spirit. Some are organized, some are eclectic. Some are communal, some personal. All, hopefully, are grounded in love and service.

I share my Sufism with two poets you may have heard of, Rumi and Hafiz. Sufis talk about Remembrance as a spiritual practice. That this connection with spirit is not something to cross off a to-do list or a technique to be mastered, but an essential part of who you are that is simply to be Remembered.

What if you were to stop in the middle of your busy day, right in the middle of your never-ending task list, right in the middle of the sales page copy or blog post you’ve been pushing uphill, and took time to speak to your heart and ask it to remember?

To remember that love and connection are essential to your business.

To remember that you aren’t alone, and that you don’t need to be anyone other than who you are.

To remember that it’s okay to be humble and in service, and that you are cared for deeply.

No one has to watch you do this. If you want help, I did a short audio to guide folks, Ack! Where’s My Heart?

Stop working so hard. Use all of that tremendous will power and individual force that you’ve been given to ease off the gas pedal and just stop. Stop. Breathe. Remember love.

When you step on the gas again, you just might find it easier to do whatever you were struggling with before, and making bigger ripples once it’s out there. Who, after all, can resist love?

About the Author: Mark Silver helps entrepreneurs and small business owners who want to make a difference, but also need to make a profit. Check out his website and blog at Heart of Business, follow him on Twitter, or take the free Remembrance Challenge.

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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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