Denise Wakeman, The Blog Squad  

Denise Wakeman:  Hi, this is Denise Wakeman of the Blog Squad.

Patsi Krakoff:  And this is Patsi Krakoff.

Denise:  And you're listening to "Blogging and Beyond," the show about how to leverage the Internet to attract, sell, and profit.
For the next 30 minutes, we're going to bring you the best expert information out on how to use the Internet to build your business. During our show today, we're talking about how to use a niche blog to corner your market. We're speaking with Shirley Frazier, president of Sweet Survival and SoloBusinessMarketing.com. She also publishes the wildly successful niche blog, Gift Basket Business.

Patsi:  That's right, Denise. And I remember sitting next to you at the BlogHer Business Conference when Shirley was one of the panelists. After listening to her, you said to me, "We have got to get her on the show. This lady really knows what she's talking about."

Denise:  And that's why we're talking to her today. Why don't you go ahead and formally introduce Shirley.

Patsi:  Absolutely. Shirley George Frazier is founder and president of Sweet Survival. She calls herself an excavator who uncovers business and marketing solutions for home based entrepreneurs. She shares her findings on www.SoloBusinessMarketing.com  and www.GiftBasketBusiness.com . Shirley's also a professional speaker who conducts seminars at business and trade shows nationwide. So welcome, Shirley.

Shirley Frazier:  Hello. Thank you so much. It's wonderful to be here, and I really look forward to sharing great ideas and information with the listeners.

Denise:  Great. Well, Shirley, we were really excited to meet you at BlogHer Business and hear what you had to say when you talked about your gift basket business blog and the success you've had. So I want to start there. We know that was the first site that you launched on the web. Is that right?

Shirley:  That's right.

Denise:  OK. Can you give us a bit of background about how and why you started that blog?

Shirley:  Sure. I do have a GiftBasketBusiness.com website, and I started that back in 1998. That was, pretty much as I could see, the first website that provided educational materials and support to the gift basket industry. Gift basket professionals are in a very small niche market, and by that I mean that they are a subsection of the entire gift industry. There was no information that I could find at least on the web that helped them to cultivate their markets, to find new resources and ideas for building a successful gift basket business.

I saw when blogs came online, and all the fury about blogs, and how that brought more interest to your website, or how to start a blog and not have a website. It took a couple of years to decide whether or not I wanted to blog about the gift basket business versus just having a website. After a couple of years when I could see that blogs were not going anywhere, that they were just getting stronger on the Internet, and reading a lot about how blogs seemed to be indexed quicker than websites for whatever reason   we don't know why and you kind of don't even ask why   I decided to start the blog and to bring more awareness of the industry to people who are making gift baskets as a hobby or as a business.

People are coming into the gift basket business from either direction, and I believe that if they could find the blog, then I would have different types of information that would lead them back to the site. So that's why I started the blog.

Denise:  OK, so you started your website in 1998. What year did you start the blog?

Shirley:  The blog, I believe I started it in either 2004 or 2005. The time goes so quickly that I would actually have to look in the archives to see when the blog started, but somewhere around there.

Denise:  So you were kind of at the beginning of the blog for business trend.

Shirley:  Yes, I believe so. Because I think that blogs were more of a personal nature, and then it was for consumers, and then finally things started picking up for the business side of blogs. And that is when, I believe, I did start finally blogging about the baskets and about the business.
Denise:  Right. We started our business blogs in 2004, also, and I think that was sort of at the beginning of the business trend, versus personal trend. So what would you say is the difference between your gift basket website and your gift basket blog? What do you do differently on the two?

Shirley:  Well, the website is a collection of articles and success tips and educational materials to help a person succeed. Whether they want to make gift baskets as a hobby, just sporadically, or turn it into a full fledged business. That's the kind of information that I have there. I also have a complimentary newsletter that's published every Wednesday for a person at either end, as I had said before.

The blog, in a way, brings the website more up to date, with different news stories and specific breaking news information that I would not add to the website as quickly as I would add to the blog. I'm able to find information on the web through different techniques, through different search engine listings. Information that I can tell people about very quickly, give my opinion, and see if anybody else has, either the same opinion, or has a different view on what I've explained.

Denise:  OK. That leads into my next question about where you find information and ideas to share with your audience. You mentioned a couple. Can you be more specific about how you find that information?

Shirley:  Sure. I use the alert systems that are through Yahoo! and Google. Those two alert systems have been very beneficial to me. What I do is go into the alert system under my name, my address, and just put in "gift baskets" or "gift basket." It's amazing that you actually have to both types of names, one without the "s" and one with the "s," so that you actually get all the information about gift baskets delivered to your email.

Different types of news stories from around the world come to me through the alert system about gift baskets. Whether it is about zoning, which is a very hot topic in the industry. Because some people cannot...whether we can make gift baskets at home, if their block is not zoned for gift baskets. So there are different stories on that.

There's other stories about individuals who have stolen gift baskets from retail stores and what has happened. Floods. Good news, of course, comes through, as well. Information that I wouldn't think would be captured by news sources. That's one way that I find my news.

And then, others, just to fill in a bit. If I'm not getting enough news stories, I look through my archives on the website and create different stories to just bring a certain area about gift baskets up to date. So for example, drop shipping gift baskets is very, very popular with individuals who can't make gift baskets, don't have time to make them, and want a quick place to make the gift baskets for them and deliver it and get a percentage of the sale.

So I'll go into my archives and just develop a story about drop shipping to alert individuals about drop shipping, what's going on with it, just some updated news that I might have heard from a person who's using a drop shipper and add that information to the blog.

Denise:  OK. Well, that's great. That's great. Patsi, did you have a question?

Patsi:  Yeah, I did. I know that when you put up the gift basket blog, you had good results. Do you want to share those with us?

Shirley:  Sure. Actually, it's very funny that   well, not really funny   but very interesting that I can tell from my statistics how popular the blog is without anyone commenting on the blog. Gift basket professionals are notoriously quiet. They are so because they are busy with their craft. They are busy working on marketing, getting another sale, going to different events, and putting all the pieces of their business together.

But through Google Analytics, through my blog log, and through   I'm trying to think of the other statistics report that I have. I think it's AW Stats   I can tell how many people were coming through the blog and how they're kind of taking that and going to the website to get more information. So I can track through my statistics, through the three different statistics, which blog posts are more popular so that I can kind of piggy back on that and also determine what else I should develop on the site but through the blog, through different postings that I will place on the blog over time. So that's how I can tell how popular the blog is.

Denise:  Now, you also have consulting or products for these gift basket professionals, right?

Shirley:  Exactly. Yes.

Denise:  So that's what you're driving them to, to purchase your service or products.

Shirley:  Yes.

Denise:  OK.

Shirley:  Very nicely, and that's where I am able to   if I don't see any alerts that are of interest, then I can, like I said, go into the site or go into my own intellectual property, for lack of a better phrase, and develop some information that will then take them to the educational materials that I'm always creating   something on CDs, something on DVD, I have updated books that are coming out on the gift basket industry. That helps to bring people to the site to learn more about those products and buy them online or by telephone.

Denise:  OK. Great. Well, that's the idea, isn't it?

Shirley:  Absolutely.

Denise:  So you have two blogs. Is that correct?

Shirley:  Actually I have three, but I have two serious blogs and one that is, in a way, in training. It's like a test blog.

Denise:  OK. And what's the other serious blog?

Shirley:  The other serious blog is the Solo Business Marketing blog. It's complimentary, as with the Gift Basket Business blog, complimentary to the solobusinessmarketing.com website. And I started both of them, actually, I started the website and the blog at the same time.

Denise:  OK.

Shirley:  And I started them because, even though there is a lot of information for small business owners to find marketing materials and learn more about how other people are marketing, I didn't see anything on the web, and if I'm wrong, then I'm wrong. But I didn't see anything for people who work alone. People who have no staff, who are the chief cook and bottle washer and trying to fit all the pieces together through some outsourcing, but a lot of times doing things on their own.

Denise:  Right.

Shirley:  So that's why I started that blog, because I thought that was, again, a niche within a niche.

Denise:  OK, so which blog has brought you the most recognition and traffic, do you think?

Shirley:  Oh, the Gift Basket Business blog. In a way, I've been very surprised. Only because, according to statistics, there are more Solo Business owners than there are Gift Basket Business owners. And I think that's because I had the most popular and the best selling books in the world on Gift Basket on the business. I think it's because of that.

That's what draws so many people to the Gift Basket Business blog, whereas my Home Based Marketing book will come out in November and possibly, and hopefully, will draw more people to the Solo Business Marketing blog.

Denise:  Right.

Shirley:  So I think it's not bad, it's the Solo Business Marketing blog at all. A lot of good traffic, not only organically, but from other blogs that mention the host on the Solo Business Marketing blog.

Denise:  Right. Now, I'd imagine that the Solo Business Marketing blog also supports your Gift Basket customers.

Shirley:  It does, somewhat; there is some crossover. When I publish the Gift Basket Business newsletter, I'm able to site some of the posts on the Solo Business Marketing blog within the Gift Basket Business newsletter. And that does bring quite a bit of traffic to the Solo Business Marketing blog, so they, in a way, do work in conjunction with each other.

Denise:  Right. Good. So, what message worked the best for you to attract people to visit your blogs? What do you do to get traffic?

Shirley:  One thing that I do when I post, when I see information on another blog that is of interest to my readers, first of all, I will post some type of comment on that particular blog. And I don't post as my name, Shirley Frazier.

I do post as "Gift Basket Business", because that brings more people to that blog, and then possibly gets people who are reading that to share the blog's contents with someone who's thinking about starting a Gift Basket Business. Or folks who don't know what to do with their creativity.

Denise:  Right.

Shirley:  So that's one thing that I do. Another is that offline, I have post cards that I put into the orders that come in through my shopping cart. Post cards encourage either the new or veteran Gift Basket designer to visit the blog. Because sometimes, you will think that a person knows that the blog exists, but as far as I can see from the coding, the post card does bring in more traffic through the blog that way. So, I don't overlook direct mail tactics.

Shirley:  Don't just do everything online. So this post card just tells a person about the website and about the blog and what information that they can find to kind of whet their interest, whet their appetite, and bring them to the blog.

Denise:  Right.

Shirley: And then from the blog, I have very, they are usually, short posts maybe four paragraphs at the most; nothing that's too lengthy. And if there is a lengthy post, then I will break it up onto the next page so the person can go to the next page to read the information if they are interested in it.

Denise:  Right. So you break up your posts, so that they're just a short snip on the front.

Shirley:  Exactly.

Denise:  Excellent.

Patsi:  Well, I'm sure learning a lot here and I'm sure our listeners are, too. We're going to take a brief station break. That's because we want to remind you that you're listening to "Blogging and Beyond" with the Blog Squad with Denise Wakeman and I'm Patsi Krakoff.

And on today's show, we're talking with Shirley Frazier of Sweet Survival. She shares her findings on www.solobusinessmarketing.com and www.giftbasketbusiness.com . You can find information about the Blog Squad at www.blogsquad.biz  and read our blogs at www.buildabetterblog.com , www.biztipsblog.com , and www.coachezines.com .

So, if you have a question for Shirley, you can call in and ask it. That would be at 718 508 9559 and you can also send an instant message via Skype to "Dwakeman." And now, back to "Blogging and Beyond" and our conversation with Shirley Frazier.

Denise:  Thanks, Patsi. Before the break, we were discussing your Gift Basket blog and how you're attracting clients. Shirley, are there any other social media tools that you're using that maybe work on one blog, but maybe not necessarily on the other?

Shirley:  Actually, the social tools that I'm using, I just actually started using some and I'm looking into adding a few more. As I said, Gift Basket Designers are pretty quiet, but then again, I thought to myself, "They may be quiet on the blog, but they might want to comment or post about some other information in another format.

Denise:  Right.

Shirley:  What I've done is add a bookmarking feature just in case there is a blog post, or even something on the website that a person is interested in finding again right away, or sharing with someone else through the web. Another product that I am getting ready to add is a comment area right below each, other than the blog post, actually on the website, I like to have a new comment box so that a person can post and see their comments right away.

I don't remember the company that I'm using for that, but it seems to be a very easy box for a person to use. That's all that I have in line right now. I'm still determining what else is going to be really good to use and not really spin my wheels so much, and without adding a whole lot of things so that a person would really get confused. [laughs]

Denise:  Right.

Shirley:  It's one thing to go from, "I don't know what to post to. Oh my goodness, there is too much to do here!"

Denise:  Right. Well, that's probably a good strategy. I was wondering if you were using podcasting or anything like that.

Shirley:  You know, actually I do have that on the back burner right now. I did go to a pod camp NYC event just some weeks ago in the New York area. It helped me to understand more of how other people are podcasting and how it might fit into what I'm doing for Gift Basket Business owners. Again, I didn't want to add it on if I didn't have a clear schedule for doing so.

Denise:  Right.

Shirley:  So, I do have some things in the works; gathering information about who could be a guest, what kind of information I would have, and how long the podcast would be.

I didn't want to go into anything without having a clear cut focus on it. That is something that I encourage for others who are in a niche, or thinking of developing one, not being so overwhelmed with everything, and just paring it down to determine what's going to be best for the people that you're trying to reach.

Denise:  Right. Well, I think that's good advice. Now, you just mentioned about someone going into a specialized niche. What kind of advice would you have for somebody who's thinking about starting a niche? How do you go about researching that niche? How did you get involved in your niche?

Shirley:  Well, the way I got into my niche, for lack of a better way of saying it, I guess it would be as strange a way as anyone else would get into a niche. I have entrepreneurs in my family that go back into the 1890's, where a great grandmother of mine in Virginia grew strawberries and shipped them to Manhattan during that time.

And I have other entrepreneurs in my family and I've always been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug. My husband ended up putting a gift together for a friend. He just used a small bottle of liqueur and took a shot glass and glued rocks to the bottom, put Saran Wrap around the whole thing, and that's how I got into the whole Gift Basket Business.

Shirley:  Just by looking at a little gift that had nothing to do with a basket. From there, it was a whole lot of research that I did. Research meaning, I went to trade shows to help me understand about gift baskets and what went inside of them, and the players in the industry. Who were the people who were at the top of the industry at that time?

I not only went to trade shows in town, but then I started traveling to learn more about the business before entering it. Once I did that, I found myself not only creating gift baskets for entertainers and politicians and everyday people, but also sharing information through newsletters and articles in trade magazines and gift industry magazines.

And that's what helped me build who I am today, along with my books and appearing on some television shows: Food Network, and CNBC at times, to share information about this particular niche and how a person would go about getting into it.

What I would advise other people to do for any type of niche that they're going into, is first of all, even if you have not participated in the industry, it goes without saying that you want to know absolutely everything you can know, small or large, about the industry that you want to focus on. And information that you want to share with other people.

One thing that I have thought, and I finally stopped thinking it the beginning of this year, is that people know as much as I do about certain things in the industry. And the more that I consult with people who are getting into the industry, or have been in it for five years, the more I realize that people really don't see things the way that I see them.

Which is a good thing for them, because then they can run with the information that I share with them and turn it into a profitable business. So, knowing as much as you can and never giving up on finding information, whether it's statistics   so many people want to know about statistics in a niche blog. Sometimes you have to go to the IRS, or some part of the U.S. government to find statistics about a niche.

Denise:  Sure.

Shirley:  And it's something that people love to take to their banker so that they can possibly get funding for the kind of business that they want to go into. Any other little nitty gritty information.

Denise:  Right.

Patsi:  That's the deal. I just wanted to add something to your perfect example of what Chris Anderson talks about in his book, "The Long Tale." Are you familiar with that?

Shirley:  I am, yes.

Patsi:  Well, this is perfect. In other words, Solo Business Marketing has a large audience and a lot of people in that niche. And Gift Baskets has clearly defined specific targets of smaller groups of people, but has great potential, especially in light of the fact that you're probably the only one or the primary person in that field.

Shirley:  Very true. There are really three, of what I would call, legitimate blogs on the gift basket business, or targeting themselves to the gift basket business. The rest are, of course, blogs. But there's another blog, which is giftbasketbusinessworld.com.

And another one, which is published by a wholesaler called Apex Gift Foods. They are a supplier to the gift basket industry, and because their niche is supplying professionals with the food, the gifts, the baskets, the shred, and everything like that, one of the owners decided to have a blog to, again, just share information to bring more traffic to the site and to increase their sales. And it's working wonderfully for them.

Denise:  Yeah, that's another perfect example.

Shirley:  That's perfect, yeah.

Denise:  So, one final question before we wrap up, another question asking for your advice. So the person has their niche, they've done their research. How would you advise going about starting a blog that would cater to an industry?

Shirley:  Oh, yes. Well, first of all, I don't want to start with a "don't" but try not to become as fastidious as I was with the blog. I was so overwhelmed with trying to get the blog online, that I didn't know a post from a message from a page. Within the back of the blog, I would say, first of all, before starting the blog, not only understanding your market, but understanding the type of information that you're going to share with the market.

And have a list, just like a brainstorming list, of the kinds of information you're deciding to put in the blog. Because just like any other space on the web, after six months if you have not drawn a map to the kinds of information that you're going to share, you may lose speed with sharing information, with posting.

And then you'll get a bit frustrated, especially if no one comments on your blog. Therefore, you want to have kind of a road map of the types of information that you will place on the blog, types of links that you will have, and your vision. Whether it is just sharing information or selling your educational materials, DVDs, and other things that you want to do to make money from the blog.

So that by deciding what you're going to do, say in a nine month to a year process, that will really get your blog going and keep your motivation high, instead of sporadically saying to yourself, "I'm going to write about this, and I hope somebody comments because I'm not going to write any more if no one else does."

They don't really know where you have your niche blog. Really have things mapped out.

Patsi:  Right. I think that's really important.

Shirley:  Yes. And if no one comments, that doesn't mean that no one is reading it.

Patsi:  Exactly.

Shirley:  Look at the statistics, look at what the most popular posts are, according to the analysis that you have. And piggyback on that.

Denise:  Right.

Shirley:  And that could be the starting point of something very big    to more materials that you create, to quick ebooks or anything else that you assemble.

Patsi:  Right, absolutely. Well, Shirley, this has really been informative. I have a couple of announcements before we wrap up and say goodbye. I'd like our listeners to know that next week on Blogging and Beyond, we are interviewing Jim Turner, of One By One Media and Bloggers For Hire. And he's going to talk to us about the emerging trend of hiring professional bloggers.

So, tune in on May 10 at 3 pm Pacific time, 6 pm on the East Coast for the show. And one more important announcement before we sign off, I'd like to invite listeners to go to http://www.theblogsquad.net/mentor  and check out our mentor program.

Denise:  And remember, you can find Shirley Frazier at www.solobusinessmarketing.com  and www.giftbasketbusiness.com . Is there any other URL you want to add there, Shirley?

Shirley:   a fun photography blog.

Denise:  OK.

Shirley:  It's www.laughingchow.com  and that's named after Pepper, my chow chow. It's www.laughingchow.com  and it's just a great unwinding blog about taking photographs without worrying about aperture and all the other technical words that come into photography. It's like an irreverent blog, and I have another gift basket blog coming out there.

Denise:  Oh, my gosh.

Shirley:  The site and the blog will be www.giftbaskettutorial.com .

Denise:  Excellent.

Shirley:  It will show video tutorials and have many tools, too, for people to comment on, what created the videos that I'm showing on the site.

Patsi:  Great.

Denise:  Excellent.

Patsi:  So, Shirley, thank you. This has been a great discussion today and we appreciate you sharing your experience about blogging.

Shirley:  Thank you so much, it's been a pleasure to share information with all the listeners.

Patsi:  OK. So, you've been listening to "Blogging and Beyond" on BlogTalkRadio. Remember, the time is now.

Denise:  The time is now to attract, sell, and profit. Blog on!

About the The Blog Squad:

Blogging experts Patsi Krakoff and Denise Wakeman are known as The Blog Squad™. They have teamed up to help professionals Attract, Sell and Profit by harnessing the power of blogs, newsletters, and ecommerce systems. Between them they have 17 years of Internet know-how, write on 10 blogs and publish 2 ezines.

Patsi and Denise have co-authored, "Build a Better Blog: The Ultimate Guide to Boosting Your Business with a Professional Blog" and many other blogging programs to address niche

They host a Blogging and Beyond, a weekly Internet radio show. You can get their free weekly ezine Savvy eBiz Tips at www.SavvyeBizTips.com.