You will see a CEO come into a company, do great things, move on and then be terrible. It happens because they are great in a certain scenario but aren’t able to adapt to a new scenario.

I’m a guy who can brand by personality. It’s what I did for my company and it’s what I recommend to others.

I’m not the first (or best, by far) person who has done this:

Donald Trump
Richard Branson
Every major sports star
Steve Jobs
Bill Gates

They do this because it adds dimension and life to an inanimate entity. It’s much easier and cheaper to brand by putting a person in front of a company than trying to turn the company into something that has a real feeling of life.

There are many pitfalls with this approach.

The one that comes to mind recently is that I think people often believe I’m the person who is expert at everything. I’ve had several people want to only work with me. They don’t want to talk with my team.

There couldn’t be a worse person to solely run your online campaigns.

While I have been a detail person in the past. I used to easily practice my cello working on a single measure 6-8 hours a day for days on end. But today I am a big picture person. In fact, I continually try to get bigger in my perspective. I do everything in my power to move away from details.

I’m the vision of my company. I am not the product.

I was reminded of this last week when I presented an SEO and paid search review to a client.

I had done the paid search portion of the review.

He specifically mentioned that the paid search portion seemed high level and not specific. He was worried we wouldn’t bring anything new to his paid search. He didn’t see specifically what we would do for his paid search.

He caught me.

I’m the guy with a sledge hammer or axe. I come in to bust things up brutally. I’m not the guy who you want to make things pretty.

But that’s where the team comes in. Everyone else I work with at SageRock is a detail person. I’m surrounded with detail people.

SageRock would be nothing without these people. I believe a little Sage goes a long way. I’m not the turkey. You just sprinkle a little of me on the turkey to give it a little zest.

That interaction during the site review had a big impact on me. It made me realize that my value is not in implementing things. It’s setting up the vision for where things need to go. It’s for inspiring and motivating to move everything forward. I am the person who develops things. I’m simply not the person you want hashing out the details of your account.

With that I’ve made a very conscious decision to stay in the world of helping people with things like the Friday Internet Marketing Show, Digital Akron, writing this blog, speaking.

I want to dedicate my time to being as helpful to the business community as I can. But me running and implementing accounts is definitely not my best use. In fact, it probably is a detriment to my clients.

One of the great values of working with an agency, versus doing everything internally is that you get access to a team. While you don’t get everyone’s time all the time, you get the value of a collective group that together has decades of experience. That’s almost impossible to recreate in a non-agency setting.

SageRock has always been about being honest, straight-forward and the best Web marketing company on the market. The SageRock team, as a whole, achieves those objectives. I, alone, come nowhere close to that.

Post from: SageRock Digital Marketing

An Agency Is Not One Person

But it has a lot to do with marketing (and other things) so… what the hell.

This is a question I’ve actually been asking myself about my own company.

Is it possible to double the size of your company in a year, and if it is possible, how do you do it?

First, I would say that doubling the size of your company is definitely possible in one year. It happens quite a bit.

Here is the list of Inc’s top fastest growing companies.

Growing 1000% in a year (not just 100%) is very possible.

So if it is possible then how do you do it?

If you are a new company this article isn’t for you. It’s quite possible you will double your size in one year simply because you are starting from near zero.

My audience is companies like mine. Companies that have been doing OK for multiple years. But have not had a huge jump in growth.

Quite honestly I’m ready to grow.

I’ve spent the last decade learning how to run an agency, how to provide the most effective service for my clients, how to be a business person. Now I’m ready to move.  

It has become very clear in my mind what I want out of my business. I want to be a $3 million company.

I don’t plan on getting there this year. But I see no reason what-so-ever that I can’t be there in 2013 or 2014.

But if doubling your company hasn’t happened in 5 – 10 years what will make this year different?

There’s only one way to do it. Do something you haven’t done so far.

The other thing to remember is to not stop doing what is working up to this point.

I know what has worked up until now for me:

• Blogging
• Videos
• Speaking
• Tweating

I definitely will not stop those things. But I definitely will add to the list.

Over the years I have had the opportunity to work with many different kinds of companies. There is one common trait I have noticed:

Companies are primarily either sales-based or marketing-based. They rarely, if ever, are good at both.

That’s the case with my company. We are marketing-based. We (I) are terrible sales people.

This is a fundamental problem for companies. For my company.

If you get all your new customers strictly from sales or strictly from marketing you are expending too much energy.

You have to work much too hard by not becoming at least adequate at the other discipline.

Sales and marketing are like the ying and yang, ebony and ivory. You need one with the other.

I strongly believe that if you look at your company and can see that you are significantly either a sales-based or marketing-based company, with little capability on the other side you are likely nowhere near as optimal a company as you could be.

Show me a company that is good at both and I’ll show you a company that is successful.

Show me a company that is good at one or the other and I’ll show you a company struggling.

Show me a company that is not really good at either and I’ll show you a company that is in business by mere luck.

Post from: SageRock Digital Marketing

How to double the size of your company in one year

1. I’ve been working on my ability to do events simultaneously in person and online. I did a full day class that way yesterday. It worked great!

So we are going to run this week’s Digital Akron event the same way. The event is totally free and always geared around a particular topic. You can learn more here: http://digitalakron.eventbrite.com

2. It’s possible that I’ve never been busier at SageRock than I am right now. It is so tempting to put off writing this blog. But I attribute all my busy-ness to this blog. 3 posts a week. There is nothing more important to growing my business than making sure this blog gets written. This post comes to you from my phone in bed (in the dark) last night.

I tell you this for a couple reasons. First, I am living proof of the value of blogging. My marketing consists of three thing: Twitter, speaking and blogging. That’s it. Those are the only ways I promote my company. Second, you have time to blog. If I have time you have time.

You don’t have to write the great American novel as your blog post. No one expects you to. Just try to write something helpful.
 
 

Post from: SageRock Digital Marketing

Digital Akron now in person & online

First, if you don’t know, we bought our building going on two years ago. (We’ll be at 15 Broad St. for two years in March)

For most of that time we have shared the space with two other companies.

SKYTECH TRAINING – Public, Private and Virtual IT Training

Archer Retail Construction

The guys at Archer have recently renovated the back building of the property and have moved out of the main building.

This is the floor plan of the entire property:

So, we now have a few areas in the main building that are open.

This is what I’m thinking:

I’d like to setup a Digital Center in Akron.

I’m thinking it would be really cool if we could get several companies in the building that are related but non-competing.

Ideas include:

• Design
• Writers
• General marketers
• Social media experts
• Videography
• Photography (I have a room that has the potential for being a sweet studio for both video and photography.)
• Public Relations
• PHP coder
• ASP.NET coder
• Email
• Print specialist

Those are the ones off the top of my head. But I’m open to others. I would love to have a place where like-minded people could come to work and collaborate.

Every time we have a person like one of the above people come in to our building magic starts happening. People start talking to each other about jobs they are working on. Then someone else says something like, “Wow. That’s really cool. Have you thought about doing this…”

There is something so powerful about getting a group of people together.

Here are my initial thoughts on logistics:

• You could rent month-to-month desk space.
• The rent would be by the desk ($125/month).
• If you need full rooms we have that too.
• Everything is included with that. 
• Free Internet
• Free heat
• Free air conditioning
• Free water and trash
• Everything is included with that rate.
• The only thing it doesn’t include is a phone line. But cell phones and Skype solve that problem these days. And if you are really in need of a wired phone line I’m sure we can figure something out.

We also have a large conference room and kitchen that is included too.

I have more pictures here.

I think this could be a really powerful collaboration center that would help us all make more money.

So, if you are working at home or would like a more flexible office space filled with similar companies that get what you are all about, please let me know. I’d love to talk with you and show you the space.

You can click here to fill out a form that will come to me.

Or call me at: 330-379-9000 ex 5010

I truly believe this could be a  great opportunity for everybody.

Post from: SageRock Digital Marketing

A Vision for 15 Broad St. – An Akron Digital Center

• The best discount on my upcoming search engine optimization certification course.
• Ideas on how to increase the value of your social media properties.

I am running a 4 Day SEO Intensive Certification Training Course starting January 24.

I’ve run this once before and got a lot of great feedback.

I’ve developed four workbooks that you get with the course. One for each day of the class. And I have crafted the classes in a way that I feel most effectively covers the major topics of search engine optimization.

The topics covered are:

• Key Phrase Research
• On-Page Search Engine Optimization
• Link Building
• Making the Most of Google Analytics.

The classes will be held 9:30am – 3:30pm each day.

The dates for the classes are:

Tuesday January 24, 2012 – Key Phrase Research
Tuesday January 31, 2012 – On-Page Search Engine Optimization
Tuesday February 14, 2012 – Link Building
Tuesday February 28, 2012 – Making the Most of Google Analytics

This is a live class. You are able to take the class either at SageRock in Akron Ohio or you can attend the class online. Either way should be very effective. Online students will be able to ask questions and engage in conversation just as in-person students will.

If you took all four of these classes individually, they would cost $796. But by taking all four classes you save $100.

4 Day Class Cost: $696.

However, I can save you even more money!

I have three discounts of varying percentages.

I have something called the SageRock Institute 15% Forever off code. You simply sign up for the SageRock Institute course update newsletter and you will receive the secret code that you can apply to any SageRock Institute class. So, at a minimum, you can always save 15% by getting the course update newsletter.

You can sign-up for the newsletter here:
http://forms.aweber.com/form/03/171328303.htm
You also get the 34 minute video “2 Reasons People Fail Link Building” when you subscribe to the newsletter.

Next, I’m going to offer a 20% off discount to people on Facebook. If you are a friend of mine on Facebook you will get access to that discount. I will also be sending it to the Facebook page Fans of SageRock. You can like us here:
http://www.facebook.com/sagerockinc

Finally, I’m offering a 25% discount to people that follow me on Twitter. I have already sent out a tweet with that secret code once. So scrolling through my tweets should get you access to that. I will be posting it once or twice more on Twitter as well. You can follow me on Twitter here:
http://twitter.com/sagerock

So clearly the best thing to do would be to get the discount code from Twitter. As you are reading this article that probably makes complete sense. But different people find me (and you) in different ways. By having different discount percentages I’m able to easily see which channels people are following me. And which channels work better.

It should also be apparent to you which channel I prefer. I’m really working my Twitter account these days. My theory is that business people following me more on Twitter (which I also auto post to LinkedIn).

I really enjoy Twitter and I believe that it allows me to connect quickly and personally to people in an ongoing way. I believe the emotional connection is more powerful in social media than in e-mail.

Selling and marketing is so much about connecting emotionally. If you discount that fact because you are selling a commodity or a business-to-business product or service you are creating a major weakness in your sales and marketing defense.

Making complicated buying decisions completely rationally is virtually impossible. I mean, how do you truly know if your accountant or lawyer is the best? The kind of study you would have to create would be cost and time prohibitive.

So people do the only thing they can do. They buy from who they know and who they like. It doesn’t matter if you are selling a TV, a soda, a sweater, a metal fabricated shim, a plastic conveyor belt, an industrial critical cleaning detergent or anything else on planet earth. If you have built an emotional connection with your potential buyer you will have an edge over someone who has not laid that groundwork.

Social media is the accepted medium for connecting personally.

The reason I chose to focus on Twitter over Facebook is simple. When I look at my clients and prospects, more of them are on Twitter and LinkedIn than they are on Facebook. I have nothing against Facebook. In fact I enjoy Facebook very much. But I’m going where the business is. Maybe someday that will change but today that is the fact for me.

Why didn’t I just offer 25% discount on e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter?

If you can get a discount anywhere then the value becomes meaningless. Additionally, while I’m comfortable always getting a 15% discount I’m not sure I’ll always want to give a 25% discount. So by setting up this special 25% discount on Twitter I have given myself flexibility for the future.

Here are the points I want you to take away from this article are:

• Go to Twitter and get 25% discount for this class, if you are interested in going.
• Realize that your true strength in sales and marketing is connecting emotionally not intellectually. The smart marketer will move intensely into social media to build emotional connections with their clients and customers.
• Make your social media followers feel special. Don’t just throw an incentive, special offer or discount around to everybody. Make following you or your company on the social media platforms something special and worthwhile.

If you’re interested in taking the four day SEO Intensive Certification Training Course I would love to see you there. You can learn more about it here:
http://institute.sagerock.com/classes/4-day-seo-intensive-certification/

Post from: SageRock Digital Marketing

The Best Discount You Can Get for My SEO Certification Course

The interesting thing about doing this is that you often don’t anticipate which articles are going to be the big influencers.

I’ve heard many bloggers say the same thing. “I pine for hours over an article and I get no response. And I throw something up in 20 minutes and people love it.”

The admissions director of my kid’s school, Spring Garden Waldorf, brings this up to me almost every time I see her.

One of her all time most engaged Facebook page posts is this:

It was a quick post she tossed up about an upcoming children’s festival. She shakes her head about it every time the topic comes up. Of all the really interesting, useful, “important” posts, this one gets the most engagement.

I’d like to say “because I’m the expert” it happened because of X,Y and Z. But I have no clue why people like what they like.

If I were going to pick some of the articles I thought would make the biggest impact, this would be my list:

4 Free Web Marketing Tips To Netflix

Journalism in 2011 – Information Wants To Be Free

Why You Should Never Use Google’s “Free” AdWords Service

How To Find 20 New GOOD Twitter People To Follow

SageRock SEO Pricing Guide Revealed

Let’s Skin This Social Media Link Building Cat

Google+ Resource Guide

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

These are the 10 most viewed articles for 2011:

The most viewed one, written by Greg, is 20x’s the amount of traffic of anything else on our site. It drives more traffic than the other 10 top pages combined. Maybe even closer to the 20 top pages, now that I look at it.

There are two particularly interesting pieces of information that jump out here to me:

1. Only one of those articles was written by me. That’s concerning to me simply because I’m now the primary writer of the blog. I don’t particularly care if I’m not the best writer (which I’m quite sure I’m not, in our group), I just want the best, most interesting content for our blog. If other people’s content is better than mine it makes me think that maybe I should be doing something else with my time and get one of these people to write the blog.
1. That said, most of these articles were written at a time when I wasn’t the primary writer. We were all writing for the blog. (Also Greg’s idea.) Maybe people enjoyed seeing the variety.
2. But why would they care about the variety now? It’s just an article in a sea of articles.
2. All of these articles, except for that last one were written before 2011! 7 of those 10 articles were written in 2009. Only one was written in 2011. That means that this blog has been years in the making.

I have three possible theories for why this has happened:

1. It takes time to build up links to an article. And then it takes time for those links to be given weight by Google. I think I might put on my calendar this time next year to compare these stats with the stats of 2012. If the winners of 2012 continue to be these articles then we can assume they are just better articles… or are better optimized for the search engines.
2. These are just, plain and simple, good articles. They resonated with the audience and continue to do so.
3. These articles were marketed well. I know, for example, that Brian had an in with a big design blog. He wrote a series of articles for them and they linked back to us. Greg also does a good job of posting his stuff to places like Digg and Stumble.

We might be able to gain some more knowledge if we take a step back.

Here is a list of the top 10 articles of all time:

Every single one of those articles was written in 2009. And every single one of those was NOT written by me.

Why was 2009 such a good year for our blog posts? More people writing? More variety? But that shouldn’t matter in these stats. These articles continue to get traffic because of search traffic. But they are getting the search traffic because people linked to them.

I don’t know. (Don’t think you are going to get to the end of this article to find some big “ah ha!” moment. I don’t know why this is happening.)

And while we are slicing and dicing facts, here are all the users that have posted to the blog over time, including their total number of posts:

I have posted 10 times more than Greg. Yet he has been in the top 10 articles WAY more than me.

Looking at these numbers, I would say that he is, by far, the better writer, or better said, he is the writer people appreciate the most.

However, I am the “Long Tail” of this story. I actually still win in total traffic.

If you look at the total number of views of articles that I have written and Greg has written here are those stats:

• Sage: 188,140 views
• Greg: 119,748 views

I beat him on brute force.

Here are a couple bar graphs representing views and posts comparisons of Greg and me:

An aside:

So this has actually turned into an analysis that represents the fundamental role I play in the world.

As I look at the people in our business and my friends, I can’t think of one person who I would consider myself equal to on smarts, intuition, emotional intelligence. I consider all of them (every single one) more advanced than me.

If I were to let other people who are better than me do the work I would have nothing to do. I’m pretty sure I have someone around me who could do pretty much every single thing I do better than me.

The only reason I think they agree to hang around me at all is because I don’t quit. I am an endless wave of pressure. That’s my one and only gift.

So the mystery of this analysis is: If Greg wrote 256 articles for us would he be able to out do my total amount of 188,140 views. I would say that’s probably no mystery at all. Of course he would.

But Greg has many talents. And some of his talents surpass me so far that I shouldn’t be allowed to ever go near some of the things he does (Quickbooks, payroll, overall operations organization, etc.).

There are some areas that I’m trying to get him to let go so that he could do other things… like write here at the blog. But he is a methodical person and wants to make those transitions carefully and slowly (another skill I completely lack and can’t even really comprehend).

 Conclusion

While I can’t tell you why things are happening here, that doesn’t mean there aren’t things we can learn. This is what the data tells us:

• Who cares what people like. Give the people what they want. The longer you try to stuff a square peg into a round hole the longer you will make your life harder for yourself.
• Take a moment and look at the total page views of your site. See what people have liked the most from you and give them more of that.
• Appreciate the long tail. I am very comfortable in admitting I’m not as compelling as someone like Greg. But I also don’t totally suck. Don’t feel like you need to be a Pulitzer prize writer to put out a blog. Just Do It. It’s the “doing” and “trying” that will make you successful.
• Trust the stats – not what you “think” and “believe.” This drives me crazy. I see focus groups, committees and C-level executives making decisions completely in a vacuum. Don’t trust your intuition. Trust your stats. Test everything!
• I could go on and on about this one point (and maybe some day I will). But just because you are the “expert” and know your industry better than anyone doesn’t mean you know shit. In fact, you probably know less than most everyone else. Your perspective is myopic and warped. You actually should be the last person making any “executive” decisions on what your customers want. (Phew. I had to get that out. I feel better now.)
• People usually look at stats and then change things to get visitors to do more of what they want them to do… like increase conversion rates on a form. What if you looked at your stats as a public survey? “The visitors say they like this. Let’s give them more of that.” It’s a reverse view than the one we most often take. But it’s probably the view that will give us a better return ultimately.

There you have it: The Top 10 most viewed SageRock blog articles and what the stats mean to you. I’m excited to start digging into 2012.

Post from: SageRock Digital Marketing

The 10 Most Viewed SageRock Blog Articles of 2011

Over the years I have been working on a Web site for an Akron divorce attorney. But it just so happens that she is moving on to another business.

She isn’t moving on because business is bad. Business is actually really good. She just wants to do something else.

She told me that she wanted me to just turn off her site. I SO didn’t want to do that.

So I convinced her to let me try to sell it for her.

The reason is because we have been working on optimizing this site for the search engines for years.

Over the past year, here are 80 of the 687 different key phrases the site came up for in the search engines:

how to pay less child support
how can i pay less child support
divorce attorneys in akron ohio
akron divorce lawyer
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how to pay less in child support
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how to pay less on child support
how to terminate shared parenting agreement
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ohio child protection law
ohio shared parenting modification
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akron ohio family law
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how do you pay less child support
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akron ohio domestic relations attorneys
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can child support modifications be denied
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On average

• people view 2.35 pages per visit.
• They  spend, on average, 1 minute  49 seconds on the site.
• 87% of visits are from new people.

Here is how the traffic breaks down by sources:

This site is a referral machine.

It was built to get business in the door.

If you are an Akron divorce attorney, or you know one (or you are thinking about getting into the area) this could be a great opportunity.

You can’t just break into this market instantly. We’ve been working on this site since 2005.

On top of that it’s an amazing url.

She is asking $10,000 for the site.

Additionally, I will give the new owner 3-5 hours of consultation. This can be used to understand what has been done so far and what should be done next.

If you are interested, or know someone who is (please forward this on), I’d love to talk with you.

Honestly, I would charge you more than $10,000 to build this site in its current form.

It’s all WordPress so it’s very easy to add content. It was meant to be self-sustaining and also be a search engine powerhouse.

Oh, and if you are into this sort of thing, the site currently is #1 in Google for the phrase “akron divorce lawyer” beating out Findlaw and everybody else.

If you would like to learn more about the site just fill out this form and we can talk:

Post from: SageRock Digital Marketing

Akron Divorce Attorney Web Site For Sale

It is today (and every Friday) at 3:15pm Eastern time.

You should note that we have moved. It is now here:
http://www.sagerock.com/live/

Today is particularly special because we are having a guest presenter: John Heaney.

You can find John on Twitter here:
http://twitter.com/johnheaney

John is deeply involved in social media for himself and his clients.

Today he is going to talk about:
How to Create A Social Business

I have a sinus infection. So I can’t make it. But John and I have got everything up and running. You are in for a treat.

Once again, go here at 3:15pm Eastern time every Friday:
http://www.sagerock.com/live/

We hope you can make it!

Cheers,
Sage

Post from: SageRock Digital Marketing

John Heaney To Do Today’s Friday Internet Marketing

I’ve been continuing to think about different kind of ways to be valuable to the business world. Last week Greg and I were talking about different kinds of tools we could make.

Our conversation then moved to SageRock Places. We got to discussing who SageRock Places is for and why a person would want it.

If you don’t know, SageRock Places is a really easy to use Website and blog tool. The idea is to give anyone a place to set up a site or blog that meets these criteria:

1. First and foremost: It’s incredibly easy. Anyone should be able to use it.
2. It is rock bottom affordable. It is the most affordable option you can find.
3. It is setup to make your business more successful. It is made to get you more leads coming into your business.
4. It is optimized for the search engines right out of the gate.
5. It is instantly connected to all the important social media sites to help you reach those people.
6. It has the best support you can find anywhere.

Since starting SageRock in 1999 I have seen the same thing over and over again: Businesses want to know how to use the Web to benefit their businesses. But it is an endlessly complicated process to know who to trust and what to do.

SageRock Places is here to help.

And to motivate you I’ve setup a special offer in honor of Cyber Monday. You can try out the SageRock Places tools completely free for 90 days. You don’t have to enter a credit card. You are under no obligation. You just have to fill in 4 fields in the signup page.

If you don’t think this is the easiest way to get a Website with the best support you can get anywhere let me know and I’ll give you a $5 gift certificate to Amazon.

GO HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT SAGEROCK PLACES.

You have absolutely nothing to loose and everything to gain.

Oh, and if SageRock Places is nothing else, it has tons of support.

Here are an ongoing series of In-depth video tutorials. (There are currently 15 of these.)

And here is a list of quick tips video tutorials. (There are about 40 of these.)

I’d really like for you to try SageRock Places for your Website or blog. I’ve tried my best to make this as easy to use and valuable for you as I possibly can.

GO HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT SAGEROCK PLACES.

Post from: SageRock Digital Marketing

Why I’m Late Getting This Post Out

I honestly thought I was going to tell you this secret in that post. But I got going on how effective all of this has been for our company. So I thought it would be fun to hold out on you before giving you this insight I’ve come across.

Let me tell you a story:

I have run 3 marathons: Chicago, Pittsburgh and Akron.

One of the tricks to running a marathon is that you have to put in A LOT of training time. Near the end of your training you are running 12 miles each day during the week and 20 miles on Saturday. Forget the endurance that takes. It’s boring as hell.

You are out there for hours at a time with nothing to do. You can’t read. You can’t talk on the phone. Sure. Your legs are busy. But your mind and hands are doing nothing.

So I started tweeting.

I would tweet from the trail all the time.

The other thing about endurance running is that it does crazy things to your mind. You are sometimes reaching a point of hallucination.

So you connect exhaustion, with entering a point of spiritual awakening and you can get some interesting tweets.

People loved these!

By far, without a doubt, my running tweets have been my most followed and discussed social media engagements I have ever done.

People would come up to me and talk to me about what I tweeted over the weekend.

If you read Monday’s post, did you come to the point where I started talking about statistics? I put a graph of traffic patterns from the SageRock blog. I then reiterated some traffic numbers.

Did you find yourself glazing over? I know I did.

Reading statistics is the most dry, boring kind of writing.

Reading about someone’s journey towards training for a marathon is engaging.

Think about what you remember from stories, movies and the Bible.

• Jesus turning water into wine.
• Luke Skywalker destroying the Death Star.
• Indiana Jones running away from that big huge round bolder.

It’s the stories we remember.

We struggle to remember dates and figures.

• What were the years of Vietnam?
• What were the years of WWI?
• What were the exact years Ronald Reagan was president?

We remember images from those time periods. But we struggle to remember the statistics.

Content marketing is exactly the same way.

In Monday’s post I mentioned that I have been keeping up on this blog even though things have gotten really busy. 3 posts a week come hell or high water.

But I’ve really slowed down blogging on my personal blog, SageLewis.com. (That actually has more to do with the anti-depressant medication I’ve started taking than being busy. But I’ll be talking about that more over there in the next week or so.)

I firmly believe that it’s the personal stories that create the engagement. It’s not the Web marketing tips I put out.

Now don’t get me wrong. I think I need both ingredients. If I didn’t write this blog talking about Web marketing people would quickly lose touch with the fact that’s what I do for a living.

However, without the personal stories I can’t get a serious level of engagement.

It’s a delicate mix of stories and information. And ultimately I think they probably become one. The stories convey the information. Every major spiritual leader in history knows this truth.

I would encourage you to spend some time reading James Altucher’s blog. He is a well regarded hedge fund manager and author on the same topic.

But his blog has nothing to do with finances. It’s all about his personal life. He goes very deeply into some of his most intimate parts of his life.

I also recommend spending some time at the Zappos CEO’s Twitter feed. 1.8 million followers and never a mention of buying shoes.

One of his most recent posts is:

Want happiness? Don’t buy more stuff – go on vacation! Time Magazine article: http://ti.me/oJTbCR

He is actually advocating not buying stuff.

We all have to come to terms with our lot in life:

No one needs the shit we are selling.

You can tell people all day:

• How you are going to make them more money.
• How you are going to save them money.
• How you are going to make their lives:
• Happier.
• Easier.
• More fun.

But it’s all bullshit.

More often than not you are complicating peoples’ lives by injecting yourself into their routines.

Do you know how much money and effort I would save if I just stopped drinking Diet Coke? And don’t get me started on drinking alcohol and smoking. That’s like having a marketing director take over your entire body and mind from the inside.

We have to sell our stuff to people through their heart, not their mind. We sell through the connections we make.

We sell by being real human beings.

I drink Diet Coke because it’s refreshing and a little bit of a pick me up. But why do I not drink Diet Pepsi? I mean I’ll gladly drink Diet Pepsi if that’s what’s being served.

The Diet Coke people have gotten me at a very deep level.

Think of every Coke commercial or ad you’ve seen in your life. It’s telling a story of being:

• Happy
• Young
• In-love
• Beautiful

Never once have they tried to tell me statistically why I should drink Diet Coke over Diet Pepsi. It’s impossible. They have sold to my heart by telling me a story.

If you want content marketing to work for you the secret is to reach peoples’ hearts not their minds.

Tell a story. Be real. Be vulnerable.

When you start to feel nervous about whether or not your should post something that’s when it’s about to get good.

Go down that path. Get to the truth. The truth will set you free. The truth will make you successful.

Post from: SageRock Digital Marketing

The Secret Key To Content Marketing Revealed