Blog Marketing: Monetize The Comments On Your Blog
February 8th, 2008 by Vishen Read more about Online Community, Creating Trust OnlineI stumbled upon Ramit Sethi’s blog IWillTeachYouToBeRich.com. Ramit is the the co-founder & VP of Marketing for PBwiki, a wiki startup in Silicon Valley and he blogs about personal finance.
Ramit runs a great blog with some excellent content and a wicked sense of humor. But I was most impressed with a little conversion trick he’s running on his blog.
When someone comments on a post they are taken to a page that invites them to signup to Ramit’s mailing list and to visit his discussion forum. The copy and look of this page all make it seem like Ramit is rewarding the visitor for the comment and granting access to private, top-secret info. Check out the screen shot below.
Why do like this idea?
The visitors who comment on a post are usually ones that are most interested in your content. They are, in other words, “hot leads”. But with most blogs, these visitors will often move on and never revisit unless they’re hooked up to your RSS feed. But RSS feeds are not enough.
To keep your visitors coming back, why not offer them a newsletter subscription or an invitation to join a forum.
Ramit does this and improves upon the idea by using the sense of ‘exclusivity’ to make the visitor feel that they earned the right to access the forum and subscribe to Ramit’s newsletter due to the time they spent commenting. I bet this aura of exclusivity boosts the value of his forum and newsletter in the visitor’s mind and should lead to more returning visitors.
Ramit’s Blog is here. (make a comment!)
About the Author
Vishen is a co-founder of MindValley.
Before MindValley, he was an exec in Silicon Valley and New York for several internet and technology firms. He turned bedroom entrepreneur at 27 and by the time he was 31 had founded 6 web businesses and never had to work a conventional job again.
Check out other posts by Vishen
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[…] Blog Marketing: Monetize The Comments On Your Blog - Awesome technique and a great find from Vishen over at MindValleyLabs! Share It: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. […]
What an interesting idea. I think that may incorporate well into what I am trying to build. thanks
[…] Cool way to build your mailing list - use comments Posted in Blogging by jspirko on February 10th, 2008 I just came across this post by Mind Valley Labs. In a nut shell here is the way to go about building your mailing list with your blog comments. When a user comments on your blog customize the results page to prompt them to opt in to your mail list. […]
[…] I picked this up from a blog I read about making money online called, MindValley Labs. The technique is pretty strait forward and should be really effective. All you do is create a “thank you” message so that anyone that comments on your blog is then immediately asked to join your email list. That is a nice passive add on form of email marketing isn’t it? Now to me this is sort of the type of thing we should have all been doing a long time now. I mean when you get a comment that person is engaged with you there is no better time to ask them to take action then while they are in action. […]
So any ideas on how to do this on a word press blog. Not the free one but the one you host yourself?
I think it is a pretty damn cool idea. I could have a plug in written to do it on Word Press but if you know a way or of an existing plug in I would like to know about it.
I think is a great idea. But a little obtrusive.
This is a great concept. We do get visitors but only a few take time to comment. Even if they comment, only some of them come back to see the feedback. Getting the visitors to subscribe is a great way to keep them informed about the updates of the blog and gain traffic.
Great idea.
Great idea!
This is something I’ve never thought of.