It’s only a failure if you don’t learn from it, to paraphrase Malcolm S. Forbes. And that’s a good way to sum up how I feel about my birthday PLR giveaway now that it’s over. It was a success on some levels because I learned a lot, but it wasn’t as successful in terms of hard results as I’d hoped it would be.

In the end the lack of hard success boils down to one major issue: lack of promotion. Even though I emailed, tweeted, and blogged about the giveaway I didn’t do all the other stuff that my coach suggested I do to get eyeballs on the pages. I didn’t social bookmark the daily posts; I didn’t mention it on facebook after about the first day or two; I didn’t do any article marketing (which is kinda touchy when PLR is the subject matter anyways); and I didn’t do video after the first one. Yes, I know better. Yes, I know that in reality the ratio of promotion to content creation should be 80/20. And yes I know I should listen to my coach because he’s a success and I’m not… yet.

But I’m going to rectify that. The blog is staying up (with the freebie links removed, but more on that in a minute). My next challenge is to take the promotion aspect of things more seriously than I have been. So I’m going to be doing the social bookmarking, creating some squidoo lenses, and definitely some video marketing. My new goal for the PLR blog is to get the daily visitor count up to 100 a day.

My second big mistake was that I didn’t ask for help. It wasn’t that I thought I could do it all alone… I knew that it was a lot to take on. It was more a case that I’m not very good at asking for help even when I know it’s necessary. It’s also that I’ve been away from IM for a long time and so having no list or other asset to leverage, didn’t feel like I had anything to offer in return. This giveaway was my way of re-introducing myself to the community and making a fresh start.

Lesson learned. As soon as I’m in a position to start building a team of helpers and partners, that’s what I’ll be doing.

There were a lot of positive aspects to the experience too, and these are what made it a success for me.

• I discovered that I can stick to a topic and a blogging schedule when I really put my mind to it.
• I discovered that I really love sharing information and resources that have the potential to make a difference in someone else’s life. I always suspected this but was too afraid of being a failure at it to really try.
• I learned that I still have some work to do to overcome my fear of failure.

I also learned that I’ve come a long way from the last time I tried to build a list and run a newsletter. I don’t take things nearly as personally as I used to. I used to cry and hurt for days whenever someone unsubscribed or sent me less-than-flattering email. I know now that I saw each unsubscribe notice as a personal rejection and a validation of my former abuser’s claims that I was worthless and that no one liked me or cared about anything I had to say anyways.

If you don’t know my story (an you probably don’t because it’s not something I’ve really talked about much) I am a survivor of domestic abuse, both physical and mental. By the time I got out of my last marriage, my career was in tatters, I had absolutely no friends left, and I thought that I was lower than pond scum. It’s taken me ten years to claw my way back to feeling even a smidgen of the self-confidence I used to have. So for me to look at the unsubscribe column and not feel like the world is ending is a major accomplishment. And for that reason alone this last month has been a huge success for me on an emotional and psychological level.

Would I do it again? You betcha! In a heartbeat. I had a blast finding things to write about and choosing the products to give away every day. I’m actually thinking of making this an annual thing.

As for what happens next, I’m planning on moving all the download links into a password protected area this week. You will get the password as soon as I get it set up, and it will change every month. I plan to keep adding to the gifts collection whenever I can. I’m also planning on setting up an affiliate program and you’ll be the first to know about that as well. I have the software, I just have to find the time to install and test it.

I want to thank you for being a part of this for the past month and hope that you enjoy all the experiments yet to come.

Thanks for being here!

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This post is part of the Article Site Makeover series.

Okay, as promised, here’s the highlights of my content creation plan for the new article site blog.

I followed Dr. Mani’s plan here and answered the questions that were applicable to this situation to create my plan. You can find a link to his site in the previous post. (I don’t want to spam him by linking back there twice in one day. )

Section 1: Who creates the content?

Content will be created mostly by me using both original research and private label materials. Once the site is established and can provide benefit to others authors, there will be a manual submission process that invites others to contribute. In time I may also outsource some of the content creation, but other things have priority in my wish list for when the budget for outsourcing becomes available.

Section 2 was about outsourcing, so doesn’t apply at this time.

Section 3: What kind of content will I offer?

Articles, of course, since that’s the main focus of the site. But I also recognize that people have different learning styles and so will include audio versions of articles, interviews with experts, and videos.

Since I’m building an authority site I want the content formats to appeal to as wide an audience in my target market as possible.

Section 4: What are the details of my content?

Mindful of becoming stuck in a posting rut, I have decided that content length and detail will be varied. I don’t want readers to get bored, and they will if all they find when they visit is heavy reading. So based on that here are my content details:

• Feature articles will be longer (500-1000 words) and be very detailed.

• Tips and short articles will be from 250-500 words and provide general information.

• I’ll also be using audios, videos, humorous stories, and interactive elements to provide information in different ways.

Section 5: Frequency of Updates

The initial blog business plan calls for content to be added three times daily. I can see there being postings more often depending on the news stories of the day.

Section 6: Who will add the content to the site?

Again, for the time being I will add the content myself. News items, videos and podcasts will be added daily as they occur. Feature articles and tips will be written in advance and set up using the wordpress post-dated feature.

This was a really useful exercise for me to do. In the past when I’ve started a blog, I’ve never really given a lot of thought to where the content would come from or what it would look like. I’d just pick a topic and go off and write a few articles. I think by having a [tag-tec]content plan[/tag-tec] this time, and knowing exactly what kinds of content I want, I will have a much better chance of creating a successful and long-lasting blog.

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That’s not necessarily true in many cases, but I am finding a definite advantage to doing Dr. Mani’s course after the initial postings. For sure I don’t get the benefits of doing it as part of a group, but that’s okay. One of the nicest things I’m finding is that I have the time to read the comments and follow the links to some really great content left by the original participants.

Just as an example this morning I followed one of the trackbacks and found Pat Doyle’s list of 23 great ideas for blog posts. Not only are the ideas excellent, but she makes a really good point about varying the type of posts that you do. It is really easy to get stuck in a run and to only do one type of post all the time. (Yeah, I’m speaking from experience here.)

That list will come in very handy now that I’m working on the content section of the course. Which is another thing I’d never thought of before — having a content plan. With an extra 23 ideas for posts to complement the full length articles, there will be something on the new site  to appeal to all the different information processing styles.

Side Note: If you’re looking for Day 2, there isn’t one. I spent yesterday running errands and enjoying the sunshine, and last evening watching movies with my son. I’ve learned that when your 20-something child wants to spend time at home with mom, that it’s a no-brainer to turn the computer off and enjoy it.  I think today he’s taking me golfing, so I’ll be back later tonight to show you an example of my content plan.

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