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  • Never Blog Alone

    WIth an admitted nod to Keith Ferrazzi’s fantastic book – Never Eat Alone and other secrets to success one relationship at a time, I want to reveal a networking/referral strategy that I have employed with great results for a number of clients.

    Blogging as a marketing tool is dynamite. But, you knew that already, right? What about using this same tool as a referral community building tool?

    Let’s say you are an accountant. What if you went to an attorney, financial planner, insurance specialist and banker (all of whom serve your target market) and offered them a guest expert spot on your blog? First off, if you did this, your blog would get a lot better and lot more active but, you may also cement a relationship with these other referral sources and publicly be seen as the hub of a powerful network.

    There’s no reason a plumber couldn’t do this with an electrician, HVAC, painting and roofing network. If they did, they would quickly dominate their market.

    Most blog software makes the set-up and management of such a network of guest authors a snap. TypePad for instance has this feature build right into the dashboard of your account. (You can also set-up multiple blogs with a pro account.)

    If you already have this type of network built anyway you better add this strategy before one of your competitors steals your referral sources.

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    Posted by: John Jantsch on Mar 23, 06 | 8:08 pm
    Category: Blogging | Tags:

    Comments
    • John .... suggestion .... make your text size larger. I am a young guy and still find it hard to read. I know I can increase the size of text in IE7, BUT not all your visitors know or will want to do it. I am sure I'll enjoy your blog with a larger font size.

      Do it .... do it now John. (how is that for persuasiveness? )
    • I am completely excited by this idea, John. I am in the biz of packaging solo pros, consultants etc on line so they attract national media. A practice which involves other experts as well -- the WP coding guy, the headshot expert, the podcast editor, etc.. Never thought to bring them all online with me. Now THERE"S a big idea. Thanks, John!
    • Hi John,

      This is really a great idea. I have a question; for this idea to work, does my blog have to support multiple users function? or is there a special technical feature that needs to be there?
    • John Jantsch
      Khalidah,

      Ideally, multiple user or guest author functionality would make this work the best, but you could still accept contributions from other authors and post them or you could set up multiple blogs and link them together with a look and feel.
    • John,
      I am an Accountant - and have a ton of referral sources as you mentioned.

      I've been using my blog to promote my marketing services division with great success, and have added the blog feature to my professional website. and considered doing what you propose - even creating a local version of "the duct tape channel" for local professionals -

      The question is: how to find great candidates who will run with the opportunity?

      I know.... just ask! SW^4, some will understand, some wont, so what? someone's waiting...

      Heck, could even do a seminar: "should you and How to promote your business with a blog?" That would generate some leads...
    • John Jantsch
      David,

      I suspect you are a very successful accountant!

      Use your blogs author invites as an intro excuse to some referral sources that might not even return your calls and see what happens.

      John
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