Branding Yourself – Part Two

Posted by The Mad Ape as Blogging 101, Traffic Building

Today I want to continue on the topic of branding yourself. Last time I talked about creating a mailing list using an autoresponder. If you have taken my advice with respect to that article I would love to hear from you. Please post your comments or send an email to chiefape@gmail.com.

RSS Feeds are convenient for your site visitor

We have all heard of RSS feeds right? If not then I suggest you read my post ‘RSS – Bring your favorite sites to you.‘ RSS is a very powerful tool for increasing your readership. It keeps your user updated with every post, without actually visiting your site.

They get your blog postings through which ever RSS reader service they choose to use. Personally I use Google Reader. The beauty of it is that the user can stay informed with the latest info from multiple blogs simultaneously. It saves them a lot of time having all of their favorite information in one spot. The alternative is to visit each site to see if there is anything new going on. This can be time consuming if they are fans of a lot of blogs.

A Blogger Dilemma

Have you seen a pattern here? The benefits of RSS feeds seem to slant toward your readers, not toward you. Sure you can get loyal viewers but what do you know about them? I will tell you what…diddly squat that is what.

When building brand it is important to know a little bit about your audience, in particular contact information. In the traditional sense of registering for RSS feeds, you do not get any contact information. Having the contact info of your audience is the single most important marketing tool at your disposal.

Switching to email RSS feeds

I will discuss the ‘selling’ of this concept in a moment, right now I want to tell you about which service I recommend.

Getting A Quality RSS Feed Subscription Service

So now you are asking yourself ‘Where do I get a service like this?’ The answer is Feedburner RSS Subscription Service. These guys will provide you with everything you need: An easy and powerful subscriber management system, feed stats, and a whole lot more. The best part of it all is it is completely free.

They do have a pay section to upgrade your account to ‘Pro’ Status that will give you more bells and whistles, but thus far the freebie version has satisfied my needs.

When you sign up for the email RRS feed subscription service, you will be given code for to create a form that you insert into your blog. I recommend creating a new text widget and placing the code in it. You will want to place it in a high position on your blog (see top of right sidebar for mine) to gain maximum exposure.

The ‘Sell’ job

The next thing you have to do is convince your readers to sign up for this feature. Unlike using an online RSS reader, with this service, the subscriber will automatically receive an email version of each blog entry on the day they are created. It is better that they get an html version of it because they will see the blog entry exactly the same as it appears on the blog.

I convince people to join by offering a contest…you can use your creative genius to do your own thing, but I find that a offering a small weekly prize to your subscriber base works for me. Currently my promotion offers a free ‘Ape Head’ t-shirt to one lucky subscriber Incentives are a great way to build your subscription list.

The important thing to remember is that you are offering your readers convenience and in turn you are getting a loyal reader who you then can market yourself to. You can always stay fresh in their mind. Chances are they will check their email daily but not your blog or their online reader service.

In other words you are branding yourself into their mind.

Technorati Tags: brand, branding, RSS, rss feed, feedburner, feedburner rss feed, google reader, Ape Head, marketing, rss feeds, loyalty