(Astroblogging) Let’s face it. Many of us are blogging astrology to build our astrology business. Yet I’ve notice a lot of us are not making use of our blogging visibility by promoting our businesses on our sites. Now you can go back and forth between the esthetics of having too much versus too little personal promotion and much of that is a personal decision.
As someone who has spent much of her professional life selling print products I can tell you marketing professionals spend a lot, and I mean A LOT of time figuring out response rates and the best way to increase them. Marketing professionals zero in on not just the message, but the elements that will get people to respond to the message. In fact, you can have the most compelling message in the world, but if you do not provide to your customers a fast and easy way to respond to the message, it won’t do you a darn bit of good.
As a real world example, the marketing manager of our circulation department set up a promotion that featured a discount on the subscription price if the customer responded on a certain day. Discounts are no brainer in the print circulation world. But he also set up the promotion so that the customer would have to call into the call center to get the discount. Here all the little details that go into a subscription gets attention, from the start date to the payment arrangements. And all the customer had to do was pick up the phone and make the call.
Let’s translate that into building your business from your blog. Take a look at it right now:
Is there an easy way for your potential clients to contact you?
Is it readily visible on the page or does the customer have to click on something else to get there? If it doesn’t smack them in the eye, than that point of contact is doing you little good. Its time to take it up a notch.
Is there an invitation for the potential client to contact you?
The last thing a potential customer want to appear is foolish and most likely won’t reach out to contract you if it isn’t obvious you want them to do so.
Or, (shame on you) is it absent all together?
Some might make the argument that comment sections are all that’s needed, especially since you want to build your up your blog, and comments crank that up. However, my opinion and experience is that when it come to a potential client and their problems they don’t want to share with the world that they are talking with an astrologer much like many don’t admit they are talking with a therapist. At least not at first.
So what’s a solution here? A contact form. much the like you see on the sidebar here. For WordPress users there are a selection of plugins to use as a contact form.
For Astrology Media Press I chose the Word Press Plug In Custom Contact Forms 4.0.1 by Taylor Lovett. This plugin is not connected with a paid service and can be easily changed to suit the look and feel of your site. Since “free” and “customizable” are what I look in a good contact form, it does the trick for me. You do need to take some time to learn the features, so it is not an “out of the box” type of app but it is easy to use even if there is a plethora of features to navigage.
If you use a Google BlogSpot blog you can create your own form and insert the code in your blog.
On the other hand I found this site–Wufoo that lets you create any type of form whose code you can pop into your website. It promises to always be free, though the number of forms you can create are limited to three, so make them some good ones!
Image from user Simon_lwc on Photobucket.
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Beth Turnage authors Astrology Explored as well as being publisher of Astrology Media Press. Beth is available for private consultations. You can contact Beth at starrynightastro@aol.com.
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