Malika Bowling is a digital marketer and the Editor of Roamilicious. She’s the author of Culinary Atlanta: Guide to the Best Restaurants, Markets, Breweries and More! and Food Blogging 101. She has been featured on HGTV, Chowhound, Playboy, TravelGirl and has been a contributing writer to USA Today. Malika has also served as a judge at various culinary competitions and food festivals, including Taste of Atlanta. She is also co-founder of the Association of  Bloggers.

Follow them @Roamilicious on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest for behind the scenes content. And don’t forget to subscribe to their newsletter and never miss a contest, giveaway or the latest must visit restaurant!

Website: https://roamilicious.com/
Association of Bloggers: https://associationofbloggers.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Roamilicious/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Roamilicious
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MalikaBowling
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Roamilicious

Malika is a published author, runs a lifestyle blog, and the co-founder for the Association of Bloggers. We talked about what it takes to create and run a food, travel, and lifestyle blog. Her insight into the world of media management, blogging, and PR is very impressive and it shows in how she manages her blogs.

When you’re starting your blog, focus on the “WHAT” rather than the “HOW”. Shut down that ‘analysis paralysis’ …

Here are a few points of what we talked about:

• Malika started about 10 years ago after being laid off from her job in marketing. From there, she started writing a blog.
• She started out as “date nights” and slowly morphed into reviews and photos and a lifestyle blog
• She wanted to help manage others social media and newsletters and evolved into blogging as a business
• Social media is primarily used to drive traffic to her blogs. From there, she get clients, companies, brands, etc to partner with her
• Recently changed to include travel about a year ago. Immediate feedback from locations who wanted to partner with her
• Her books!
• You grow your equipment with your business, flowers, etc
• Include multiple multi-media content into your blog
• Analytics to test and respond
• Instagram TV (IG TV) strategy for your brand. Vertical for IG TV and landscape for YouTube
• Business vs Hobby
  • Market yourself. You have to put in that effort
  • If people are included in post, use back-links, mention in post, and send a request to
  • Media kit (canva.com for inspiration or resources)
  • Consistency
• Advertisements, Affiliates, and Traffic help you build your revenues
• Influence Network helps bring traffic to you and partner with brands (https://associationofbloggers.com/)
  • PERFECT turnkey solution to match influencers with brands
• ‘Exposure Bucks’
• Association of Bloggers
  • Any level of bloggers can join the association
  • You are now part of a network that will partner you with brands
  • Exclusive resources for bloggers include help building a profile, private support group, and coaching sessions
• Is this a business or a hobby? If you want a business, treat it like a business!!
  • If you’re looking to make money, you need to invest time, energy, and money into your blog
  • You will grow there where you need to start spending money in investing in yourself
• Planning and scheduling is important!
• Be consistent with your lifestyle blog content and release!
• There is a lot of work when it comes to growing and building a blog. Partner up with other blogs and people to get help.
• Work on documenting your processes. You will grow and having things written down will be your blueprint on how to run your business
  • Helps you focus on your lifestyle blog rather than getting down in the weeds
• Tools Malika uses
  • SEM Rush – Used for Keyword advanced research and related keywords ($100/month)
  • Keywords Everywhere – Basic keyword research (Chrome extension)
  • Google Trends – Helps you find trends with relational keywords
  • Yoast SEO – WordPress blog audit for SEO (Free)
• Content with Accessibility – 2 birds with one stone that can help with SEO tactics
• Use analytics to help guide you
• Social Media Tools:
  • Hootsuite – Schedule you social media posts
  • Missing Lettrs – Pulls in content, images, and information from your existing post and creates a drip campaign on social media
  • Post Planner – Used for topic research and find content
  • IfThisThenThat – Automate your life!
• Schedules on posting content should be consistent, but you don’t have to always hit exact dates
• Be mindful of the content that you create and use. You’re content is a reflection of you and your work
• Work on your craft and don’t be afraid to approach brands you want to work with
• Weave the product into a story revolving around you
• Grow and build your network by interacting and being involved
• Focus on the social media accounts that you are more comfortable with
• People want to know what is behind the blog – People want buy from a person and not a company
• Start a newsletter and use free giveaways to entice signups – Direct funnel to your audience
• Go to events and build connections
  • Meetup.com to find like-minded people and groups
• Common mistakes when blogging 
• Crafting your message 
• Favorite places to visit (so far) 
• Income from blogging? 
• Any other topic you’d like to talk about

Quick Picks

Malika

• SnapSeed.com app lets you edit images on your phone to give your images a polished look
• Perspective change options, update color scale, make colors pop!

Marion

• Goodreads.com Book Challenge
• Goodreads is a digital library of what you’ve read or want to read. Get recommendations from other people and can connect to your Amazon.com and Audible.com accounts

The post FHS 38 Lifestyle Blogs ft Malika Bowling appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.

Marketing Your Services with 6 Effective Strategies

I recently read an amazing book that helped me reach a 40% increase in my revenue. Get Clients Now (by C.J. Hayden) has helped me identify a rhythm of marketing and promoting my services. This basic guided outline takes you through the different types of effective marketing strategies.

From MOST Effective to LEAST Effective Marketing Strategies:

1. Direct Contact & Follow Up
2. Networking & Referral Building
3. Public Speaking
4. Writing & Publicity
5. Promotional Events
6. Advertising

Direct Contact & Follow Up

This involves making a person-to-person connection with a prospective client through email, phone call, in person, fax, text message, etc. This tactic can include cold calling, warm calling, and lunch/coffee with potential clients. I touch on a few steps that I’ve done personally to land some of my first clients as well as some of my most lucrative clients.

Have a strategy created of when and how frequent you will followup with potential clients. Keep them thinking about you and they’ll remember you when their project is ready to move forward.

Create a mailing list of your customers/clients and keep them updated with a monthly newsletter. This will help top-off their memory of your services and will greatly increase the opportunity to work with them. By having that mailing list option on your website, you are inviting people to raise their hand and directly tell you that they are willing to listen to what you have to say and potentially buy. Win-Win for you!

• Mailchimp.com – Free for first 2,000 subscribers
  • Mailchimp is my go-to email marketing tool. They have some slick automation, triggers, and feedback loops to let you know what’s working and what isn’t. You can use the free version for a long time before you need to bump up to their $10/month version. Create your newsletter with ease with Mailchimp.

Networking & Referral Building

Meeting people face to face at networking events is just a drop in the bucket for this strategy. Building a list of contacts that you can tap into for referrals, clients, resources, ideas, or information should be the goal of networking.

My strategy for networking events is to just go and meet people. I rarely use a sales pitch or push a product. 99% of the time, what I can do for clients comes up organically in a conversation. When was the last time you enjoyed talking to someone who was just trying to sell you something……..?

• Meetup.com – Free
  • Meetup is going to be your go-to to find events to attend. Meetup lets you find link-minded people or categories that matches your audience. You can search based on a product, idea, or other categories. If you can’t find groups that meet your criteria, why not create your own group of common interests and goals?

• Eventbrite.com – Free
  • Eventbrite is where you can find events and conferences all over the US. They can even be online. You can search based on categories or for a specific event. Eventbrite is perfect for grabbing those tickets to the conference or event you want to start networking.

Public Speaking

Positioning yourself as a expert to your potential clients can start from public speaking. Public speaking will help you become more memorable and noticeable than if you were in the crowd. Find already established groups and participate on any level. Whether it be a M.C., sitting on a panel, making a presentation, or just facilitating classes, you will be viewed as the expert more often than not.

Community colleges, local meetup groups, or small events are perfect to start your speaking engagements.

Writing & Publicity

Writing about your expertise can also be a powerful marketing strategy by gaining visibility and credibility among your peers and potential clients. Start small through social media, blogs, or your own website. Reach out to other blogs as guest writers can quickly lead you to more and more opportunities to show that you’re an expert.

My choice of marketing, at the moment, is writing. I have a blog, newsletter, and other publications that I contribute to. I also frequent forums and chat rooms to help position myself as a SharePoint and WordPress expert.

• Buffer.com
  • Buffer is a must-have in my wheelhouse of marketing tools. Buffer allows me to schedule and manage social media posts across my profiles. You get 4 social media accounts for free (LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter, and Facebook). Pintrest and Instagram are paid features that require a monthly subscription. You can pre-schedule my social media posts to go out at specific intervals during the day. This allows me to easily create a posting schedule where I don’t have to physically sit in front of a computer.
• Medium.com
  • Medium is a popular blog/website that hosts thousands of articles for millions of visitors. The content is usually very polished and informative. The potential of you reaching thousands of people is pretty great and they allow almost everyone to contribute to the site. Create an account and stalk a few popular posts to learn the ‘rhythm’ of Medium to get a sense of reaching a bigger audience.

Promotional Events

Creating an event such as a trade show, fundraiser, or a conference can put you in direct contact with potential clients and bring the audience to YOU. This also holds true with participating in an existing event by owning/renting a booth. Cost is very real on both end at with this strategy: participating in an event or creating an event can be a very expensive cost per head experience.

Advertising

There are generally two different types of advertising: organic and paid.

Organic advertising is essentially word of mouth and low/no-cost advertising. Advertising by talking about and promoting your goods and products on social media or withing your mailing list is an example of organic advertising. This is the lowest cost engagement and can have some of the highest returns. Referrals are very powerful and builds trust.

Paid advertising can help fill your pipeline with paying customers, but they don’t necessarily build trust in your product. Treat advertising as a way to increase your visibility and awareness to potential customers. The trust and eventual sale will come with them interacting with you directly.

• Google AdWords
  • Google is one of the largest advertising companies around. They have reaches into almost any online platform from videos with YouTube, phones, other website, or other online sources. Based on your audience, keywords, and ad type, your cost will fluctuate. I would estimate $200 would help reach almost 5,000 people with a basic ad. Google goes above and beyond to help you target your audience and stretch your $$$.

What works and what doesn’t work?

One strategy that I personally use is to pick 3 marketing strategies that I am comfortable doing and be consistent with them.

• Direct Contact & Follow Up
  • Every business card I take, I take because it serves a purpose. I don’t collect cards just because.
  • I followup within a week of meeting or talking to someone by email that funnel the conversation back to my portfolio if its appropriate
• Networking & Referral Building
  • I am part of the Cobb County Chamber of Commerce
  • I participate in 2 other business to business networking group
  • I am active in various online communities
• Writing & Publicity
  • I have my blog, a newsletter, and various other publications I participate in.
  • All of my publications funnel back to my portfolio site, increases Search Engine (Google, Bing, and Yahoo) ranking, puts a fingerprint on the web

Keeping those sales pipeline filled is the goal of marketing. Pick three marketing strategies that work for you and stick with it for about a month or two. But you’ve got to put in the work to see the results. If you’re not getting the goals that you’ve set for yourself either adjust the goals or adjust your strategies. No one said you couldn’t choose a different strategy.

I was able to gain 40% more clients revenue through various marketing strategies that worked for me. Marketing your services may be different than mine but you will notice an increase in engagement. Your potential customers won’t know what you have to offer if you don’t position yourself in their cross hairs. Marketing your services with various strategies greatly increase ROI and turn around.

The post FHS 7: Marketing Strategies appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.