by Skellie
Photo by Tengis
This post is a lesson borne out of a challenge I’ve been facing at the moment: a growth plateau. It started at around the time I began to experiment with an inward growth strategy without external promotion: I would write good posts, new audiences would find them through links and social media, and the blog would grow on the back of its content and existing audience alone — or so the theory goes.
It’s a strategy that goes against common advice — that you should constantly be searching out new audiences and promoting externally, whether by guest-posting or by calling upon social media networks.
The result of my experiments? They haven’t worked for me. My old promotional strategies yielded more subscribers in less time, and while the inward method is less time consuming, it seems to yield significantly less results.
The experience has taught me that good content, even with an established audience, needs to be shared with new audiences on regular basis, whether that’s by guest posting, asking for links, writing easily linkable posts or promoting content on social media. If you only look inward, your blog or website becomes a walled garden, and it’s much harder for new audiences to enter that space.
Nomadic marketing
Another valuable lesson I’ve learned through this experience of slowed growth is that promotional methods are like pastures. The rewards yielded by each method are finite. When I started writing for ProBlogger my byline generated a considerable amount of targeted traffic, but after a handful of posts, it started to decline until it petered out almost to nothing (even though some of my later posts were very popular). If you expose yourself too much to the same audience, you saturate that audience.
Imagine a hotdog seller at a baseball game. She targets a particular section of the stands, and calls out: “Hotdogs, two dollars each!” The first time she does so, she gets a few takers who leave their seats to get a hotdog. Once they’re finished, she calls out again, and a couple of stragglers who didn’t hear her the first time shuffle over to her cart. The third time she calls out, there’s only one taker — someone who had just arrived to hear her call for the first time. The fourth time she calls out, there are no takers. The fifth time, people start to grumble with annoyance. Everyone who has the desire for a hotdog has already bought one!
Consistently marketing yourself to the same audience begins to use up the attention the finite attention that audience has to give to you, just like grazing the same pasture for months will leave it barren. Like any nomad, you must continually move to greener pastures, and new audiences. Are you riding the same old promotional methods into the ground?
But it takes time…
The inevitable truth, though, is that marketing your content to new audiences takes time — probably several hours a week, in fact. This is time not everyone feels they have. My advice, and what I intend on doing myself, is to subtract the needed time from my inward looking strategies and focus it once again on reaching out. You might write one less post per week on your own blog and write a guest-post somewhere else instead, for example.
Never forget to look outwards
- By guest-posting on popular blogs or well targeted blogs.
- By writing list posts designed to please social media and your existing audience.
- By asking for social media votes from friends and contacts. Let’s face it — social media is not as organic as it used to be.
- By pitching links to your content at other blogs and websites in your niche.
- By becoming genuinely involved and active in the social media service you’re most likely to be successful with.
But remember: while powerful for a certain period of time, the above examples are all vulnerable to ‘empty pasture’ syndrome. Spread out your guest posts on specific blogs, or don’t guest-post more than a few times in the same place. Mix up your content and don’t keep on repeating the same formulas. Don’t ask for social media votes too frequently, and don’t always ask the same people. Don’t always pitch the same kinds of links at the same people, and again, don’t ask for too many favors unless you’re confident you can do something meaningful in return.
Navel-gazing promotional strategies are less time consuming, but the time you save is disproportionate to the diminishing returns.
Do you need to explore greener pastures?
I know I do. Maybe I’ll see you around the place? :).
Skelliewag features daily discussions on content creation, great ideas you can use, and design tips. Join the community by subscribing!
rss feed
27 Comments, Comment or Ping
Monika Mundell
I know exactly what you mean Skellie. What helped me was to step away from exposing myself only to blogger blogs and morphing into the freelancing industry.
This was the best thing I could have done since it has helped me to make new friends and getting more work.
Personally I’m not comfortable in asking for social media votes. I feel we should aim to vote for others regularely without expecting anything back in return.
Constant promotion is important for any business. This also includes blogs since they often become our business voice. By reaching out and connecting with others via different means, we will always have a stream of traffic to our blog.
With the way blogs are setup, I don’t think we could ever stop to reach out as long as we want readers.
Mar 20th, 2008
Sarah
Very good observations. This kind of flies in the face of something I had read a while ago that after you reach a certain threshold, you no longer need to promote yourself all over the place. I guess experience is worth more than “theory” any day, right?
Mar 20th, 2008
Caroline Middlebrook
I’ve been finding exactly the same thing Skellie. My preferred promotional vehicle is commenting on other blogs and what I notice is that when I comment on the same blogs over and over, the traffic slows down for the reasons you mention above.
This week I have been making a deliberate effort to find some new blogs (which is interesting in itself as it exposes me to more diverse writing) on which to comment and I have even started to branch out of my niche a little to see if that works.
Mar 20th, 2008
Scotty
A very helpful post, Skellie, for both experienced and new bloggers alike.
As a soon-to-be blogger, I’ve recently come across countless (and I mean countless!) tips and strategies on the “hows” and “whys” of blog promotion. The combinations are mind boggling.
Reading your review has re-inforced to me the idea that every blog is unique and it’s ok to change and adapt what you do- better that than stay blinkered on what worked yesterday… nothing ventured, nothing gained.
The bottom line is that there will always be an undiscovered audience waiting to lap up quality material- and they won’t be within your familiar circle.
They might even be fresh-faced bloggers without a blog!
I guess the skill is in balancing an existing readership’s expectations while also appealing to a new one.
Mar 20th, 2008
Mrs. Micah
Indeed. I’m looking to branch a bit out from personal finance to mom bloggers…they’re probably my next most relevant area, since a lot of mom bloggers skim the line with PF. However, I’m not a mom myself so I’m not positive how to approach it. We’ll see.
Mar 20th, 2008
Amanda Linehan
It’s interesting that you said the inward approach takes less time than the outward approach. I would almost think it would be the opposite. What made you try the inward experiment in the first place?
Mar 20th, 2008
Mary Jaksch I GoodlifeZen
I’m grateful for this post. It has really hammered home the importance of guest posting.
Mar 20th, 2008
Detlev Tesch
Thank you, Skellie, for this post.
That is valuable information for a beginner like me. Have been wondering about the value of the strategies you mentioned. Now I know more.
Mar 20th, 2008
Selene M. Bowlby
What perfect timing for this post, Skellie! I’m really just getting a start in my promotional efforts, especially as far as commenting on blogs and forums, participating in social media, etc.
This comes at such a good time because you’ve helped me to “learn from your mistakes” and that I’ll know to vary my commenting on different sites to different audiences, etc.
I’m far from being at the point of guest posting (my blog itself is so new, lol, I’m working at creating my own useful content). Anyway, though it is something for me to keep in mind, and will help me for future planning.
Thank you!
Mar 20th, 2008
Jeffrey Kishner
I have been so resistant to the social media game. I recognize that it does require hours of work to build contacts, vote on other people’s content, ask for votes. Do I vote for content I don’t like simply to get a vote in return? Surely there must be a better way.
Mar 20th, 2008
plonkee
Ever think that we’re too growth focussed? Not that I’m any different, but it’s a bit like growth, for growth’s sake - maybe we should be thinking outside the box.
Mar 20th, 2008
Brian Auer
You know Skellie, you’ve been about one step ahead of me for quite some time now (at least as far as traffic and subscriber count goes). I’m also in a bit of a plateau with my blog growth, but things seem to be getting better lately. I think the slow-growth periods just happen sometimes. I’ve noticed it in the past too.
It’s like blowing up a balloon — at some point you have to stop blowing up the balloon to take a breath. Same thing with blogs I guess… they seem to grow, then slow… grow, then slow… etc. Keep trying to blow up that balloon without taking a breath and you’ll run out of air.
Sure there are things you can do to increase growth rates during the slow times, but I don’t think a month or two of plateau behavior will do much harm. Besides, it gives you a chance to strengthen the connection with your loyal readers — which is something that’s sure to pay off in the long run.
Mar 20th, 2008
Bob Younce
Well put, Skellie. This is true of almost any sort of small business. When I ran my computer repair shop, I had to create ever-increasingly large concentric circles to find new clients, until I was out past a point, geographically, where the cost of doing business exceeded the income.
Good Form!
Mar 20th, 2008
Kelley
My blog is still relatively new and while I have gained a very loyal audience I have stagnated. I have a policy of returning comments on my commenters blogs and now as the blog is getting bigger I am spending all of my time returning comments. With no time to actively promote my blog. So preaching to the converted so to speak.
This post has confirmed to me that I need to tweak my strategy.
Thanks.
Mar 20th, 2008
skellie
Thanks for your comments, everyone. Firstly, I want to apologize for not being as active in the comments lately as I usually try to be. I’ve been exceptionally busy, but I know that’s a lame excuse, so I really have to take responsibility for it.
@ Monika Mundell: I can really identify on being uncomfortable asking for votes. I have email contacts, people I like, who seem to do it every second day, and it doesn’t really bother me… so I’m sure people wouldn’t mind if I did it once a week or something, but still, it just feels really unsettling! Maybe we just have to step out of our comfort zone and do it. It does seem to work well.
@ Sarah: I actually think what I wrote in The Butterfly Growth theory is true — it’s how I implemented it that was incorrect. I didn’t write posts that were aimed at social media, I didn’t ask for links and I didn’t take part in social media networks. I think anyone who is going to succeed with a content-focused strategy will do all those things, whereas all I did was the content part. Not because I believed I was doing the smarter thing, but because I stopped seeing the details and texture in the strategy, in light of a lot of distractions.
@ Caroline: Very good idea. I think once people start to ‘know’ you, anyone who is interested in your comments will have clicked through already. The advantage of having to move around is that you get to discover cool new blogs :).
@ Scotty: Wise words!
@ Mrs. Micah: That could be difficult. It seems like having a kid is your admission ticket into a lot of groups, but without them, it can be difficult to write authentically for that audience. Would women who work at home be another possibility?
@ Amanda Linehan: It takes less time because all you really need to do is try to write good content, whereas in the outward approach you have to do that, plus a whole bunch of other promotional methods. I experimented with an inward approach (implemented incorrectly) due to some difficulties in managing multiple projects. That’s still something I’m learning how to do.
@ Jeffrey: No — I’m talking about a genuine engagement. If you take part in the community on a superficial level it will seem like a chore. I think if you like a person’s content, there’s a good chance they’ll like yours too, because it indicates a (possible) shared taste.
@ Plonkee: Maybe, but the only growth metric I put a lot of stock in is subscribers, because for what I’m trying to do with this blog, it requires a large and engaged audience. It’s easy to be pretty hard on yourself about growth, though.
@ Brian: Some great thoughts — the balloon metaphor is particularly elegant. I agree in that I think the key way to deal with plateaus is to persist. The worst thing you can do is take the foot of the pedal. And the chance to reconnect with loyal/long-time readers is very welcome :).
@ Kelley: Don’t think that you’ll lose your readership if you change this strategy. If you explain to them that it’s unsustainable, I’m sure they’ll understand. You can compromise by still leaving 3 - 5 comments on reader blogs a day, or something. But I think the purpose of a strategy like that is to make growth easier, not more difficult. Some strategies that work fantastically well in the beginning become unworkable as you grow, and I don’t think anyone would expect you to persist with them in spite of that.
Sorry to those whom I couldn’t respond to, but I did read and enjoy your comments. Thanks!
Mar 21st, 2008
Cath Lawson
Hi Skellie - thanks for sharing your experience. It seems that one of the most difficult things about marketing a blog, as opposed to marketing any other type of business is the time taken. Most of the activities have to be done by the blogger personally and that is what makes it so difficult.
If only someone would come up with some less time consuming methods for marketing a blog on the Internet.
Mar 21st, 2008
skellie
@ Cath Lawson: I agree. Most of us don’t have the money to outsource blog related tasks, so we need to do almost all of it ourselves, and if you want to do it well, you really need to devote 5 to 10 hours a week to your blog. If you run two blogs, that’s like having a part-time job in addition to full time work. It can be tough! That’s one of the reasons I have dropped the ball somewhat with growth lately — the sheer volume of work involved in considerable. One thing I’ll need to think about is strategies for reducing that workload without reducing ‘the good stuff’ :).
Mar 21st, 2008
Chris Brogan...
This couldn’t have been more timely. Thank you. I’m at EXACTLY the point where I need this advice. Thank you so very much.
Mar 21st, 2008
Tom Beaton
Promoting is always more successful when you are pro active. You need to determine what your goals are, but “you build it and they will come” rarely works.
Mar 23rd, 2008
BillinDetroit
Skellie - there is an old saying that applies here, today, right now, just as well as it did when the first wag took pen in hand:
He who has a thing to sell
and goes and whispers in a well
will not gain half the dollars
as he who climbs a tree and hollers
There are four conditions implicit here:
FIRST acquire “a thing to sell”. For a blogger that means, by and large, creating original material worth reading. Unless you absolutely exude talent from every pore and have been immersed in a topic for the bulk of your long life, that is work. But, if you haven’t done that part, the second part won’t meet with much success. P.T. Barnum pointed out that there was a sucker born every minute. And he was probably right. But there is a blog born twice a second; so you’ll probably have to work your way to the front of the que by sweating over a hot keyboard. Don’t worry, you can do it. If you can’t, what are you doing here?
THEN “climb a tree”. That is, find an advertising platform (or several!) that your proposed audience / customers frequent. This could be other blogs, paid advertising, postcards within a niche (such as a specific trade, geographic / economic grouping or profession) … even a newspaper ad. Despite our love affair with electrons, there are still a lot of people who read dead trees. A 1/8th page adv. could catch a lot of eyeballs and start the buzz-ball rolling. The key point is that your potential customers / visitors will be able to find it and use it to find you. And that’s the point that I think some of us skip … we don’t even try to figure out where our real ‘money in the pocket and likely to click on a link’ readers are going to come from and then-go-there-to-invite-them to read our blogs.
THIRDLY, -after- having given consideration to what message we want to broadcast, we need to actively put it out there. Again and again and again.
FOURTH, are you certain you even want money from your blog? Most of us do … and that justifies the exertion of marketing / advertising. But, if you are not willing to do the advertising, you are treating this like some sort of magic wand to wealth and aren’t likely to provide much value to your reader. It is NOT a magic wand, it is an honest way to earn an honest living using your own creativity.
That said, I am of half a mind (according to my wife) that the total amount of exertion from ‘blank page to blank check’ is about the same for every one and that most of us can pretty much choose our own balance between the amount of writing and the amount of marketing we do.
As long as we do plenty of both.
(I’d use this as a fresh post to my own blogs except that none of them are remotely related to this topic.)
Mar 26th, 2008
kristarella
I can’t agree with the hotdog analogy. If you had only written one good post and it got a load of hits and then traffic to that one post plateaued, then the analogy might apply.
It’s entirely natural for growth to plateau at times, and it’s not necessarily bad. If subscriptions have slowed or plateaued it means you have a group of loyal readers. If link-throughs from ProBlogger have stopped it’s because so many people have already come here and subscribed via RSS. So their presence isn’t as obvious, but it’s still there.
I’m sure branching out is all well and good, but don’t underestimate the value of the people you’ve already attracted… the people who can barely keep up with your posts and then wonder what’s going on when you don’t post for two or three weeks.
Apr 16th, 2008
Jerret
I agree with Kristarella. There has to be some kind of balance between “inward” promotion and “outward” promotion.
The hotdog seller stays in the same place day after day, season after season to establish himself as “the” hotdog guy. Not because he’s afraid people will get tired of him.
I see more and more guest posting and, honestly, it’s getting “stale”. And, frankly, unless you have a strong editorial team (which most blogs do not), the writing is all over the place.
If I go to a Bon Jovi concert (which I haven’t), I want to hear Bon Jovi, not an hour of opening acts and 30 minutes of the main act.
My two cents I suppose
Apr 19th, 2008
Hendry Lee
Right on. Like Caroline, I observe the same thing with comments and forum signatures.
However, I learn this from networking in forum: change your sig.
In guest blogs, the readers are curious about the new blogger. Some of them visited your blog. That’s great but others who didn’t respond is less likely to respond in the future too, unless you’ve written something they can relate to very well.
The audience comes for content. I think the strategy of pitching links will not wear out, unlike byline. If the readers are interested in the content linked from a blog, they are going to click on it.
They don’t care whose blog it is…
I like your list. Quality posts will help accelerate the growth of a blog, but you need to reach out to trigger it.
Jun 21st, 2008
Reply to “Nomadic Growth: Moving to Greener Pastures”