by: AskPat 292 Episode Transcript
Pat: What's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 292 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Alright, now let's get to today's question from Matt
Matt: Hello Pat, my name is Matt Broderick and I have a blog called “Why I Wet Shave and Why You Should Too” at WhyIWetShave.com. My question pertains to the community I am targeting. This is a very active online group with multiple Facebook groups, online forums and online stores. I am specifically concerned about the balance of trying to promote my blog versus alienating these established groups. I have had the pleasure of meeting with quite a few of these individuals in social settings and would like to build upon this to promote my brand. I am focused on building a long-term authoritative site with long-lasting pertinent information. I'm a big fan of your blog and I just started digging into your AskPat archives. I want to thank you for your time. Have a great day and a smooth shave.
Pat: Hey Matt! Thank you so much for the question and WhyIWetShave.com. I think this is a great idea. A lot of people don't understand what wet shaving is versus dry shaving and, you know, what the process is and that sort of thing. And it's really cool to know that you sort of validated this niche already by understanding that there are these amazing and very active groups and forums and communities out there. And you said it yourself here on your about page, you said, “Why am I writing a blog about wet shaving when there are already multiple online communities to search and ask questions? The resources currently available seem to fall under two broad categories.” And then you eventually state that there is no one easy, quick resource for people to learn how to do all this stuff. Something that perhaps collects all of those conversations or the best questions and puts them into a single spot and that's why you exist.
So I don't feel like you should have to worry about alienating yourself from these groups. In fact I want you to come at it as if you were enhancing them. You're giving them more exposure and you are able to work together with them to create a resource that can be available for everybody across all of those different platforms. And so at any point in time in your blog you should absolutely mention all of these other communities and not think of them as competitors. No, not at all. You want to think of them as companions, as colleagues, as people and forums and groups and other communities that can help you but you are also going to be there to help them.
This is how a lot of communities and a lot of blogs are started online. It's these relationships that you have. And you said you've already gone out there. You've already met some of them in person. And I think the next step is making sure that you're there showing them that you're providing value for them and their community and they are going to come around and do that again for you and what you have going on. So if you are providing value on your site and for them, they are going to come around and do the same thing for you.
And one quick easy thing to do that I recently shared in an episode SPI podcast, or maybe it was on AskPat before, is because you have these connections with forum owners and groups, and even if you don't you want to reach out to the form owners and the group owners. Maybe on LinkedIn, although I don't think maybe that platform will be best for this particular audience, but Facebook groups, community leaders, forum owners. Reach out to them and interview them. And then feature that interview, all of their answers to their questions, on your site. Maybe it's an audio file. But it could just be simply a list of ten questions that you asked each of them. And then you feature their answers on your site.
Do you think that when you feature that person on your site that they're going to be more than happy to share that post with their own community? Of course they are because you're the one featuring them. I mean they have . . . they're going to look like they're more authoritative. They're going to be featured on this other site which is all about wet shaving, which is right up their alley. So of course they're going to share it. And that's only going to get more traffic to your site, more potential subscribers and people to understand that, “Wow, there's this other great resource here that's a blog.” And, “Wow there's all this organized content here that I missed that I can now find in this one spot. Where do I sign up?” So that's how I would go about it.
And again coming at it's not like you're going to be alienating yourself but that you're going to be even getting more involved with them as the owner of this site that you have. And hopefully they'll be getting more involved with you as well. And then maybe you could even do post that highlight the benefits of each of the different communities. You can highlight power users in each of these communities on your site as well. And get into the stories of people who are in those communities. I bet, because this old school form of shaving, there's a lot of people who have some amazing stories or pictures to share of their old sets and things like that. I mean there's a lot of opportunities here and those things do get lost in forums and online social media communities. But if they are nicely archived on your page, that's something that could be a definite value bomb for those people who come across your site. But also the forum leaders who want a place to share that has all their archived content and features some of their stuff or their users’ stuff. So that's how I would go about it.
Now I will say that if you want to do this I really would look to enhance the experience that people have on your website. I mean, I like the logo but beyond that everything else just seems kind of, you know, a little bit bland. Like I think for something like this I would love to see some really high-quality images of the razor on a face. Something that we can all relate to. I mean you're already getting comments here which is great. This is a good sign. Now you can take it to the next level. This looks very stock blog-ish. And I'm not trying to be mean, I'm just trying to be real with you. If I come across a site like this from a forum community only if I had a conversation with you would I continue reading these things. If I had a relationship with you already or somebody else who had some authority told me to come here and read something. If I just saw a link for it somewhere else in came here I would just believe that this was just some person’s side gig. Yeah, maybe that's the way it is but that's not how you want it to come across. At least when people first come across it.
So there are a lot of things out there that you can get that could completely enhance this. I would recommend checking out ThemeForest.net for some. And just imagine what your logo might look like on those pages, and what images might be featured, and what different sections could be added on there. It's very very plain right now. It's off to a great start and that's it exactly how you want to start. You don't want to worry too much about the design. And it works, it works now but you're at a point now, especially with these relationships that your building, where you could take it to the next level. The content is amazing. Now it's time to make the first impression and the website and the design around that content that you've put out there amazing as well to highlight all those dates.
It's just pretty crazy what you've done here and I think it's great. And again like I said, it's off to a fantastic start but you can take it to the next level. I would also for this email list—I think the email list is going to be important as well as it is for every website that's out there. Right now I see on the right-hand side it says, “Sign up below to be kept informed of new posts on whyIwetshave.com.” So essentially people are subscribing to the feed to get new post. That's not really a good incentive to have people sign up. People don't want to be delivered emails and be forced to read things that they don't necessarily want to be forced to read. And there's a lot of . . . you know, if the incentive is more email that's not really a good incentive which I'm trying to get. That should be a byproduct of signing up for something specific like a giveaway. And it doesn't have to be fancy, it doesn't have to be a long ebook like my book at EbookstheSmartWay.com. In fact it would be better off if it was just one or two pages of PDF file that people can easily download. Maybe they can download that on the first follow-up email immediately after they subscribe or maybe it's through LeadPages that have a digital delivery asset delivery service.
But anyway you do it, you got to give them some incentive or reason to subscribe beyond sign up to get new post. I mean you have to do that. Maybe it's a compilation of your best posts and that's it. Or maybe it's a history on the top five razors. Or maybe it is the top five razors that people are using right now. Or what if you found out what razors certain celebrities were using and pop them into that giveaway. Five razors that five celebrities use and why you should use them to. Something like that. I mean those could be . . . I mean even any one of your blog posts could be turned and put nicely into a PDF file that just has a little bit more value to it or perceived value where people would want to subscribe to get it. So, again, you could ponder that. But hopefully that gives you some direction as well, Matt.
And I appreciate your question. I hope this helps out. I wonder if anybody else out there has any suggestions as well. Again, Matt's website is WhyIWetShave.com. And you could use the hashtag #AskPat292 to continue the conversation. So #AskPat292 and will continue the conversation on Twitter. Matt, thank you so much for the question today. I wish you all the best of luck. And an AskPat t-shirt will be headed your way for having your question featured here on the show.
I can't believe, coming into Episode 300, we’ve given away almost 300 shirts which is awesome. And we've only seen about 50 or 60 come in back our way through photos of people who've had their questions featured. So if you had your question featured . . . this isn't just for you Matt but for everybody else out there who has had their question featured, please send us a picture of you wearing it. We love to see those and we love to know that you got those. And for those of you listening, if you have a question you'd like potentially featured here on the show all you have to do is head on over to AskPat.com and you can ask right there on that page thanks to the widget from SpeakPipe.com.
Thanks so much for listening today. I really appreciate it. And here's a quotes to finish off the day by Andrew Carnegie. He said, “If you want to be happy set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.” Cheers. Take care, and I'll see you the next episode of AskPat.