Welcome to Day #1 of the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Challenge. As on each day of this project today I’d like to present you with two things:
- Some Teaching/Theory
- A Task to go away and Do
Teaching
Today’s task (outlined in full below) is to develop an Elevator Pitch for your Blog. Let me explain why.
What is an Elevator Pitch?
“An elevator pitch is an overview of an idea for a product, service, or project. The name reflects the fact that an elevator pitch can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride (for example, thirty seconds or 100-150 words).” – Wikipedia
Many business and self improvement type courses teach students to develop an elevator pitch for their business (and even for themselves). The idea is to have something short and sharp that you can say about yourself when the opportunity arises instead of bumbling your way through explaining what you or your business does (and miss an opportunity).
The goal is both to communicate what you do and to get the person you’re communicating it to to want to know more.
Elevator Pitches for Bloggers
While the idea of an elevator pitch is usually something that start up entrepreneurs are encouraged to do when looking for investors – developing an elevator pitch for your blog is also a smart move also.
One of the most important reasons to do this exercise is that to develop an elevator pitch YOU as a blogger to have thought through and crystallised in your mind what your blog is about.
If you’re fuzzy on what your blog is about it’s unlikely than anyone else will have much of an idea either.
Knowing what your blog is about helps you in developing every aspect of it including:
- Writing Content
- Promotion and Finding Readers
- Search Engine Optimisation
- Networking with other Bloggers
- Branding
- Design…. the list can go on.
In fact almost every task that we’ll be doing in this next 31 days should flow from this task.
Other Reasons for Developing an Elevator Pitch
Of course coming up with an elevator pitch is not just for your own benefit. Once you’ve got one it is brilliant for communicating what your blog is about to readers (both the ones you already have and potential ones), other bloggers, potential partners, media/journalists, advertisers and even to friends and family members who might not get what you’re doing.
Once you’ve got your blogs elevator pitch there’s no limit to the places and situations that you can use it (either part of it or in its entirety). Here are a few that come to mind:
- Your blogs tag line – having a short, sharp and descriptive ‘tag line’ for your blog can be a powerful technique for quickly communicating to new readers to your blog what it is all about. Readers who don’t get a sense for what your blog is about are in danger of leaving quickly – so a tagline that is displayed prominently on your blog can be a great way to hook them in.
- Your about page – the about page of a blog (if you have one) is one of the most read pages of a blog by first time visitors. It is an ideal place to communicate what you’re about and to ‘sell’ to potential readers why they should subscribe and come back.
- Real Life Conversation – whether it be at a conference, in business interactions or just in everyday conversation, the topic of your blog is likely to come up from time to time and these interactions can be an ideal moment to pull out the elevator pitch to describe what your blog is about.
- Business Cards – I get a lot of business cards given to me at conferences and to be honest at the end of the day I can’t remember who gave me most of them. Adding an elevator pitch to a card can help trigger who you are and what you do in the mind of those you chat with at these busy types of events.
- Pitching to Media – One of the things I’ve noticed about many journalists is that they’re very busy people who are constantly being pitched with ideas for stories. Having a thought through and effective ‘pitch’ can help you get noticed and give a journalist a reason to listen to what you’ve got to say.
- Pitching to Other Bloggers – Similarly, I find that if I’m being ‘pitched’ to as a blogger that I take more notice if the person pitching to me gives me a brief insight into who they are and what they do.
- Email Signature – many people have links to their blogs in their emails, but a link can be somewhat meaningless on its own. Why not add your elevator pitch? Similarly signatures in forums can be a good place to have a short description of what you do to motivate people to check you out further.
- Social Media Profiles – the same thing goes for all those social media profiles that you have. Why not use them to not only point people to your blog but to give them a reason to go there!
Where else would you use an elevator pitch? I’m sure there are so many more times to pull them out! Feel free to share other places you’ll be using yours.
Your Task for Today
Take some time out today to develop an elevator pitch for your blog. If you’ve already got one take a few minutes to review and refine it.
How to Write an Elevator Pitch for Your Blog
I’m sure there has been much written on the topic online but here’s some starting points that I use when doing this type of thing.
- Solve a Problem or Need – I’m a big believer in developing blogs that fulfil real needs and solve problems that people have. The problem need not be a big one (like World Peace) but you should be attempting to create something that people need on some level. Communicate this in your elevator pitch.
- Define Your Audience – who is your blog for? Who are you attempting to attract? IF your blog is targeting a certain demographic or type of person (and it may or may not) – include this in your pitch. If your blog is for teens, don’t develop a pitch for grandparents – target the reader you want.
- Be Clear – don’t leave people second guessing what you mean or interpreting jargon – make your elevator pitch crystal clear.
- Keep it Short – People have limited attention spans and capacity to absorb lots of information. Get to the point, eliminate unnecessary words and make it punchy!
- Stand Out – be willing to use humour or powerful imagery to grab the attention of those that hear your elevator pitch.
- Be Intriguing – your elevator pitch is unlikely to ‘convert’ people to read your blog all on its own – but it should entice them to learn more. You don’t need to say everything in it – but attempt to write something that is still in the mind of those who hear it long afterwards.
- Be Energetic but not Hyped – you convey more than just dry information when describing your blog – but you also convey what YOU feel about it. This is important – if you ‘pitch’ someone with language and a voice that is dry and uninspired you’re unlikely to convert anyone into a reader. Show people that you love what you’re doing, that you’re passionate and that you care about your topic. But don’t go too far and hype it up beyond what it is!
- Consider Using a Question – people are wired to answer and engage with questions. Ask them, even just rhetorical ones, in your pitch and you’ll hook people in.
- Be Ready to Expand Upon Your Pitch – at a recent conference I had someone come up and give me what seemed like an elevator pitch about their blog. It worked really well, they got me interested – so interested that I asked them to tell me more. The problem was that they didn’t really have much else to say about their blog. See an elevator pitch as a conversation opener – something designed to lead into further interaction with people. You don’t have to say it all in your initial pitch – but you should be ready to say more if people are interested.
These are just the thoughts that come to my mind on elevator pitches (what would you add?). Not everyone will be able to incorporate all of the above points but I hope that some of it will help you to develop yours.
My Elevator Pitch
I have a couple of elevator pitches my blog here at ProBlogger. One’s short (just 6 words) and one’s a little longer (a minute or so). I use one or the other of them depending upon the circumstances and opportunity to share.
My short one is very simple – ‘ProBlogger helps Bloggers Build Exceptional Blogs’. I’ve used others over the life of this blog (and continue to evolve it) but have settled on this one for the time being because it is so simple, to the point and clear.
The longer version expands upon this and shares some of the ways that the blog helps bloggers improve their blogs by talking through a few of the main topics I cover.
Write Your Elevator Pitch
Once you’ve got an elevator pitch for your blog write or print it out and put it somewhere near your computer so that as you blog you can be reminded of it. You might also like to start to incorporate it into your blog as a tagline or in your about page – or even to write a post about it on your blog to communicate to your readers what you’re on about (the appropriateness of writing it as a post will of course vary from blog to blog).
Once you’ve done that – feel free to share what you’ve come up with in comments below. I’m looking forward to reading yours.
Tomorrow on the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Challenge – tomorrows task is a writing task that will have you writing a particular type of blog post to use on your blog in the next few days.
Sign up for 31DBBB
If you’re not already signed up for the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog challenge you can find more information on what it entails here.
Update! Get feedback on your results, and see what others are doing over at the forum: Day 1 – Create an Elevator Pitch for Your Blog
Want More?This task is a sample of one of the tasks in the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Workbook – a downloadable resource designed to reinvigorate and revitalize blogs. Join over 14,000 other bloggers and Get your Copy Today. |
Great post! looking forward to building a better blog w/ you!
My short elevator pitch is “SeeCents.com – where saving money makes cents” – this also appears on my business card.
longer pitch…”my blog is dedicated to providing you with more dollars and cents in your back pocket, without having to give up everyday necessities and other life indulgences. I take my everyday experiences as a bargain shopper to provide readers with fun, creative and practical ways to save money during these hard economic times.”
well, the long one is still a work in progress… ;)
Thanks for starting this series off with this topic … I, like you, have the short one liner pitch for my NHL Hockey blog “Hockey From The Cheap Seats.” However, I have never sat down and put thought into a 30 second “pitch” about my blog.
I will be updating my “About Us” page shortly – and will start off with my new elevator pitch.
Bill Brister
http://www.dailydeke.com – Hockey From The Cheap Seats!
Thank you for putting this together Darren.
I already had my elevator pitch, although I might refine it as time goes by.
Women Learning Thai… and some men too ;-)
Expat making her way through Thai language and culture
I believe it pretty much says it all.
I already have a short version ‘straight talk about your freelance writing career’ but could do with a longer version, as I think what I use on my about us page is too unfocused. I like your tip about using a question and will incorporate that in the revised version.
How’s this?
[email protected] is A bold, conservative analysis of life issues infusing faith and humor to encourage you. From marriage and parenting to mental illness (short trip sometimes), loss, life trials and politics: I speak with as much clarity and definition as time and research will allow. Replete with true stories of challenges and overcoming them. Reader input adds the illustrious punch, so I welcome all views.
The tagline for my site is just “Law Student and Nerd Extraordinare.” I had somewhat of a difficult time coming up with a pitch since it’s a personal blog and so sometimes I discuss other things. In the end I went with:
I discuss all things legal or nerdy, but my real passion is where the two collide.
Over the past few years, the blog has been pretty much all over the place. I think 31DBBB will help me focus a little more, and thus write a little more.
I feel fresh energy flowing into my blog. Thank you!
Great 1st post, Darren! Here’s what I came up, let me know what you think!
My Elevator Pitch
My name is Kelly Whalen, I’m a mom of 4 blogging about family life, organization, and finances. Follow me on my journey to get debt-free and make our money work for us. I will share my tricks for organizing our big & busy household, as well as frugal parenting tips.
My Tagline
Making Cents of Family Life.
AdminChronicles is a one-stop source for administrative professionals dedicated to helping administrative professionals achieve career success.
At Adminchronicles we provide career advice, skill building opportunities and job search strategies.
Additionally, Adminchronicles share share financial literacy tools, lifestyle management tips and guidance in launching a small business.
Thanks Darren! Great post! I have two blogs:
Luxetips.com-Tag Line- Every Woman Deserves to Live the Luxe Life!
Pitch – Regardless of occupation or budget, every woman deserves to live the luxe life. Luxetips.com offers fashion and beauty tips that are fabulous yet affordable!
IPLAW101 – Tag Line- Practical Tips in solving basic intellectual property legal dilemmas
Pitch- A law blog covering trademarks, domain name issues, and intellectual property issues in new media
I am gald to have some focus developing my blog with your 31dbbb! I did a lot of this kind of PR in my sponsorship mngmt job. It was a wonderful way to spread the word about our program simply and effectively.
Now about my blog:
“Franklin Covey meet Martha Stewart.” A unique blend of functionality and style, my checklists, planning pages, and tutorials will help those inspired to become organized and those who are striving to do it better. Organize your life!
Additionally, I wrote some talking points for those “follow-up” questions! Thanks!
Abbie
Great post.
A couple helpful tips for writing the elevator pitch might be to also define areas and topics you will not write about to help stay on your clearly defined topic.
Also I am reading “Made to Stick” and find the message in this book to be relavent to writing a sticky elevator pitch.
This is a great reminder thanks!
My food blog: Cheat Day Cafe
Elevator pitch: Recipes to keep you on your diet with a few cheat days thrown in for fun!
My family blog; Save the Home-Save the World
Elevator pitch: Using environmentalist tactics to improve and save the HOME environment.
Adminchronicles is a one-stop source for administrative professionals dedicated to helping them achive career success.
We provide career advice, job search strategies and skill building opportunities.
Adminichronicles also shares financial literacy tips, lifestyle management tools and guidance for launching a small business.
Great stuff, Darren, thank you. And it was fun reading everyone’s comments and ideas so far.
I am going with what I have below. Might be at risk of “too big” so am open to suggestions from everyone.
AutoConversion – Creating Possibilities for Efficient Business
AutoConversion is about putting people and technology to work for you and your business so that you can have a fast-growing and efficient business. It’s about being aware of the opportunities surrounding you and learning how to harness them to your profit.
You convinced me Friday to start thinking about who I was writing for…now, how I am writing? Writing with a mission? I think about this when I talk (I am a REALTOR) but have only been writing babble I guess. THANK YOU for the direction. This month is going to be awesome.
someone asked me what an ‘elevator pitch’ is, and as I typed away my answer, I began to clearly understand and appreciate the concepts and theory you presented here.
Great work.
Keep it up and I do hope I can learn further with your 31DBB :-)
I modified mine with a question :
Are you using Google Chrome ? We have answers for all your questions !!
howz that ?
OK: Here’s my first attempt:
Want to know how to write from anywhere and get paid? Get Paid To Write Online answers your questions about building a successful freelance writing career. It includes straight talk about writing skills and resources, self promotion and writing markets that will help you to launch yourself as a freelance writer.
Being ultra new to the blogging game, I was looking forward to today and I must say the 1st task makes sense!
Tag line:
We design soundscapes for a target audience.
Pitch:
Sunzoo Studios, we are proud to represent your unique identity and the valuable benefits of your products or services one melody at a time.
1. First effort to creating great blog content. √
Thank you Darren!
Great first day!
Sometimes I think that we tend to lose focus. It’s good to sit back and have a clear road for your visitors.
Looking forward to the 31 days.
Tag Line: Finding Safe Food Should Be Simple
Longer Version: Find Safe Food is for people with food restrictions who want to live normal, healthy lives. The site’s motto is finding safe food should be simple. Its goal is to provide tools that make it easy to find things to eat at home and on the road. I hope that if we can pool the knowledge of the people and families dealing with food allergies we can all live healthier, safer lives.
What serendipity! Only 12 hours ago I wrote up a new ABOUT page for my blog at Becoming A Writer Seriously. I’ll be uploading it later in the week. And my blogging partner Eva Hunter wrote about this same concept a week ago from the point of view of a writer working on a book.
Yet, even though we’re swimming in these waters already, I found some stimulating new ideas in your first lesson. You’ve taken the ordinary admonition, repeated to ad nauseum at writer’s conferences, and fleshed it out with very specific and practical details. I will implement some of them this week.
THANKS.
I have 2 blogs, actually.
ECStewart Designs
TagLine: Elegant Lines, Sophisticated Image
We provide sophisticated art & design solutions for your business.
ecstewart.com
CREATIVEGoddess
TagLine: The Talent of Living Creatively
Creative Inspiration & Ideas for Life.
creativegoddess.wordpress.com
Isn’t there an important distinction between a tagline and a pitch?
My tagline–Upgrade Your Healthstyle–is worked directly into my logo and is not something I often say to people directly. If I ran into Darren in an elevator I would like to have a quick, effective way to explain what this means and why he should care. That is my pitch (which I will work on!), right?
Looking forward to the forum so I can get everyone’s opinion on this distinction.
This is great!
My blog is IncreaseSalesCoach.com
My tagl ine is “Gets Results Sales training can’t… because it’s never just a sales training issue.
Just wanted to comment some of the blog names and tag lines I read above are outstanding.
I love SpudontheRun and StartupRoach kudos to you both. Fun and informative!
Another tangential comment about YOUR COMMENTING SYSTEM. I’m surprised you are not using some kind of comment threading set up, such as the new Word Press 7 capability, Disqus or Intense Debate. There are some comments here that I’d like to respond to, but my responses will be lost among your flood of comments.
There must be some reason why you have not added the threading feature. Why is that?
Elevator Pitch for http://www.finediningathome.com:
finediningathome.com offers free recipes for delicious, nutritious food to please family and friends to build an interactive community of women and men who enjoy sharing recipes and their enthusiasm for cooking healthy gourmet food.
Elevator pitch for my personal blog would be my tagline:
Being a Happy Mommy with Depression….
I want women/people to understand that having depression is perfectly acceptable and more common. I am documenting every step along the journey to stabilizing my mood and my life….
Reading through the comments for today’s post, I saw elevator speeches that were great and made me think, “I want to check out this blog.” For others, it was “eh”. I hope to rewrite my “about” page with the former feeling in mind. Going back to jot down the items that gave me that oh-this-is-good feeling.
Looking forward to the further growth and inspiration that I’ve already seen with this initial task.
Thanks!
Darren, Wow! We don’t know what we don’t know!
Thanks to this 1st post, I was able to go in and see lots of new features I didn’t even know that were available to me.
My blog is Online Storybooking Tips.
Here is my short and long elevator tag lines.
We Bring your Stories to LIFE!
Got photos? Of course you do. We help you take your photos from shoebox to showpiece. Why not turn your pictures into Page Turners? Oprah thought enough about our beautiful bound storybooks to add us to her “All Time Favourite Gifts List”. Let us help you create one of a kind keepsakes.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while, I went through a creative void earlier this year and my blog changed from my original vision for it. It took me a while to get back where I want it to be and I’ve been trying to put it into words for a while. I’ll try harder today.
My current blurb reads
I hope that I am able to share with you my life, as I see it through my stories, pictures, and occasional vents. I am able to share the details of the world around me through my photography. It’s not just pictures (ok, well sometimes it is just a picture) but most of the time it is a piece of time, frozen forever just as I saw it. Enjoy the clicks!
My tagline says My world, my life with a click.
It was just last night that I swapped them both out. I’ll polish them some more today.
As many others have said, Darryl, a great first post. I just came up with a pitch for my blog a couple of days ago, when I got the chance to be listed in a book, with a short description. I worked out a short and a long… and then I get your first email about this. What do you think?
The Shy Singer-Songwriter: Champion of the Creatively Introverted, Amazon of the Socially Terrified; opera-howling Blogger and Aquarian Cyber-Geek extraordinaire.
The Shy Singer-Songwriter: Champion of the Creatively Introverted, Amazon of the Socially Terrified, opera-howling Blogger, procrastinating Painter, housework-hating Vocalist, power-napping Composer and super Aquarian Cyber-Geek extraordinaire.
The elevator pitch I have been using for my blog/podcast is:
“The Amateur Traveler is an online travel show that focuses primarily on travel destinations and the best places to travel. It includes both a weekly audio podcast and a twice monthly video podcast. It also includes travel news and resources. We cover everything from what to get on your Chicago dog to swimming with whales in Tonga.”
Excellent start Darren, I’m excited to see what’s coming out the gate tomorrow!
For me, I write articles that help bloggers and web site owners understand the technology they run on. Be it HTML, CSS, design guidelines, do’s and don’ts etc…
I’ve used “Blogger Help and Assistance” since the start of my blog, and love having the keywords ‘blogger help’ in there. So, if I were to get the ball rolling, I think I’d start with “Providing bloggers and web site owners with helpful tips and tricks”, or something like that. Like I said, from the hip. I obviously need to refine that a bit, and will do so over the rest of the day.
Thanks for doing this Darren!
Darren,
I hadn’t really thought about the need for an elevator pitch in the context of blogging, but now that you mentioned it I see the obvious need I’ve been overlooking. Thanks for that reminder. Looking forward to this series!
Here’s my elevator pitch…
The Resolution Solution blog offers business owners simple, time-tested methods that experts use to help their business survive and prosper in a recession.
Good start day. I know who I am as a food blogger, but not sure if I am really conveying this. My tag line is “food a woman will love and a man will marry you for.” My name, Spinach Tiger conveys, health, strength, and a flexitarian approach (I hope), but another big part of what makes me unique is my artistic food styling, and improvisational style of developing my own recipes. Not sure how to get all of this in my “pitch” or if I should change my tag line, but it gives me much to think about.
A great start to this series. Love the advice and the comments are great.
The tagline for my blog has always been “A place for moms of preteen girls to chat, rant & freak-out in privacy”.
In recent months however, I’ve really begun to move the blog in the direction of not just a ranting, chatting place, but also a place for moms to get informed about companies, people and organizations that really have their girls’ best interest at heart. This has been highlighted by some really cool interviews and giveaways of targeted girl-friendly product.
Your prompt to formulate a sharp pitch has come at a perfect time.
I’ve already submitted mine, but what I’m finding out that is really neat is all these blogs I’ve never heard about, now I do! What a great idea you had!
I knew tag-lines were important to briefly describe your website intentions, but I never thought about them like this. Thanks for the first day “get going” tip. I look forward to the next 30 days!
Like A Warm Cup Of Coffee – a place to curl up and begin your day
Too bad my blog title and tag line say nothing about my blog! Guess I’ll have to think about changing it…
:)
SocialFishing…
Association/non-profit blog on social media, community building, strategic imagination.
The bad thing about this is everyone who participates in the challenge will get better so all of our blogs will get better and we will still be in the same place we started
Very excited 2 get started. You can check out my progress at http://www.askbinc.com. For now this is the pitch I have come up with
AskBINC highlights major events in the web/software marketplace, their effect on the movement of talent within the marketplace, helpful posts for a candidate’s career and helpful tips for companies to attract, hire and retain top talent.
Any thoughts
I have started a new blog for people looking to sort through the confusion of taking classes online. The Elevator pitch is what inspires me to post how and what I do.
This series is going to help me drop some of the old habits that I have been using over the last 4 years to make this new blog great.
Here’s mine!
Autism From the Outside: Information and Community For Those On All Sides of Autism
Going to write one. Thanks for the first tip.
Hi Darren – I tweaked my pitch a few ways this morning, and looked at a new sig line as well. So, here it is –
“I teach brain-friendly content writing for the practical blogger.”
Another version:
“I use a brain-friendly method to teach people how to write effective, practical content which attracts a loyal community to their blog.”
Or another short one:
“I teach brain-friendly blog content writing.”
I like having the word practical in there, because it adds to my branding, using brain-friendly and practical. My audience is the Boomer entrepreneur, or “digital immigrant,” who is easily overwhelmed by tech learning curves. Brain-friendly is quite specific and becomes clearer as soon as people go to my blog. Practical is a word my peers as baby boomers tend to like and relate to. And I have a talent for boiling things down to practical terms.
Thanks for offering this. It’s interesting as I am at the point of launching info products, and your guidance helps me dial things in and develop much stronger, cleaner verbiage. (Which also builds confidence!)
Cheers
Suzanna B. Stinnett
Brain-Friendly blog content writing
http://www.GreatAdaptations.org
Wow – so much action already! Thanks for providing the impetus to improve and tighten up my thinking….
“Vistas from Afar – a European gardens blog with a view from the past and an eye on the future.”
I’m so glad I found this today on Twitter! It’s advice I totally needed. Will subscribe to your feed!
Still working on the pitch… http:Silversmyth.com/blog is about what’s happening on the Art Scene in Fort Worth Texas and what’s happening in my Jewelry Workshop. You should check it out I give away free Silversmyth jewelry!
I’m @Silversmyth on Twitter!