You started a blog to boost your business. Smart move. Now you're helping customers get to know the person behind the product. You're sharing stories about your Labrador, Mickey. Or your passion for gardening. Or your volunteer work in the community. Good for you! Because at the end of the day, people do business with people, not businesses!

This is the way to build true loyalty with your customers (and will get them returning to your blog to read more). But while you're talking about your kid's amazing finish at the recent pinewood derby tournament, you've got a nagging desire to start selling. After all, these are your customers, right?! Shouldn't you be selling? Well, yes you should. But instead of risking your relationship with your readers by hammering them at every turn with a sales pitch, here's an easy way to ensure your blogs sells, without selling: Upload a coupon to your blog header!

Your Coupon Does the Selling So You Don't Have To
If you've upgraded to a Plus level blog on YourCommunityBlog, the header of the blog is free and clear for you to post your own eye-catching banner ad. With a Plus blog, not only do you remove the ads from your blog but you've given your business that valuable ad space. So make sure you use it!

Uploading a click'n'print coupon is easy. Here's how:
Just log in to your account and click on your blog like you're making a posting; then click on the Your Coupons tab at the top. Then select whether you want to display your coupon at the top of the blog, or on the side of your blog (what's called a "skyscraper" ad). You should do both, but let's just upload a coupon to the top header for now.

Here's what the Your Coupons screen looks like:

But before you can upload your coupon image, you have to create it. This will take a little more work on your part. So make sure you set aside an hour or so to sketch out and create a simple coupon. (If you know someone who is good at Photoshop, ask them to help out. They'll need the specs listed above - it should measure 470x70 pixels and should be a jpeg, png or gif file less than 250kb in size.)

For the coupon above, I found the photo of my attractive female fitness enthusiast at www.istockphoto.com (a great site for stock photos) and paid about $1.50 to use this image.

Also, make sure to insert text that says "Click to Print" somewhere on the coupon. You might also want to add a dashed line around the edge of the graphic to show that it's a coupon. This way they'll know it's not a banner ad.

Once you've got your banner image created, click the Choose File button and select the file from your desktop (or wherever you have it saved). The coupon will appear on screen. If everything looks good, click Upload to insert it into the header of your blog. To see the finished product, click View Blog. Voila! Your blog now has a coupon above the fold (as we say in advertising) that's promoting your latest sale or offer while you're sharing a story with your customer:


It's a great soft sell, and a sure way to smoothly build your relationship while still making sure your blog reels in more sales!

Well, I hope this posting has inspired you to create and upload a click'n'print coupon. This is just one more feature of YourCommunityBlog that frankly beats the pants off other blog networks and makes sure that your blog is actually boosting your business. 

Happy blogging!
- The Marketing Guru

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