This contest announcement made me really stop and think – what AM I doing with my blogs? I've just been going along, doing what seemed to come naturally, without stopping to think about it.
My primary means of staying in touch with past, present, and future clients is my ezine. Or rather, my ezines, because I have 3 different ones for 3 different sets of people. One is general marketing, and that's the one most closely tied to the blog on my website.
The other two are more specialized, for real estate and for fund raising. But “marketing in general” applies to all forms of promotion – whether you're promoting your services as a real estate agent, your products, or your non-profit cause.
Sometimes, when writing my ezines, I do reference a specific blog post in my ezines, but I think they come most into use for my clients when they write me with questions.
Often, people who are new to my ezines or my blog have questions that have been covered before. For instance, they may ask about ways to build their SEO and I can send them to a post with tips that will increase their chances of being found. Many ask how to get started in real estate self-promotion, and I send them to several different posts dealing with that problem. Of course I always have something to add, depending upon the particular situation they've described to me.
I don't use my own blogs exclusively. You know how some real estate clients don't always want to listen to your advice. Well, copywriting clients are sometimes the same way. So when I can't convince them of something (for instance, the need for a call to action) I use someone else's blog to back me up. Sometimes it works.
I offer a lot of free advice in both the ezines and blog posts – and some say that's foolish. If I tell people how to write their promotions, they'll just do it themselves and won't need me.
But I don't believe giving away information hurts my business a bit.
People who truly want to write their own materials can use my tips, and people who truly can't afford a copywriter can be saved from some damaging mistakes. Meanwhile, those who don't want to write their own copy can see that I know what I'm doing. I think it's a win-win situation.
One more thing... Since reading an AR post a couple of weeks ago, I've started building a good list of blog post titles and their links and sorting them by subject matter – so that I can quickly reference them in new blog posts as well as have the information at my fingertips when I want to answer a question. 
That project has been halted momentarily, however. Last week I had a crash and when I went to my external hard drive to get my back up files I found that they looked like something out of a nightmare. Compare what I found to what you'd see if you took all your paper files, opened the lid of a big trunk, and just tossed them all in.
I decided to quit searching until I found out if my computer lady could retrieve my files. She says she can, so I'm putting that project on hold until I get my “real” computer back. Then I'm going to learn a better way to do back-up.
So far, I haven't printed and mailed or hand-delivered any of my blog posts. Every one of my clients contacts me via e-mail, and I seldom meet any of them in person, so links are the fast way to get people the information they want.
Thanks for offering a contest that made me think about this - so that I can do even more of what's working!
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