When it comes to online conversion rates, email still dominates. Email is the vampire of the online marketing world – old-school, eerily seductive, and packs one hell of a bite.

The recent numbers from the DMA show email’s conversion rate is still the highest, bringing in $40.56 for every dollar spent on it this year. Although this is down on previous years, it’s still miles ahead of the next highest converter – search-based marketing, at $22.24 per dollar spent.

Email marketing is a powerful thing. When customers give you their email addresses, they’re giving you permission to send your message into their home. Emailing a customer is a bit like walking into their home and glueing your business card onto their cat’s forehead.

NB: I don’t advocate glueing business cards to felines as a viable marketing tactic.

But you can’t just go emailing people willy nilly – you have to get their permission first, much like a vampire can’t enter a home without permission. Vampires are gentlemen – they only go where they’re wanted. Your business is like a vampire …

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I’ve been utterly blown away by the response to my new writing packages. You guys were so enthusiastic I spent nearly every waking moment before we left for Germany creating press releases and writing blogs and talking on Skype at all hours of the morning and night. (That’s the only problem with doing consulting from New Zealand – we’re so far ahead of the rest of you, I’m always having to wake up at 4am to talk to someone. It’s all good, though.)

I’m still taking orders for new writing packages, but keep in mind I am on holiday. And it’s a real holiday too, meaning I’m not working till I get back to New Zealand on the 16 August.

Some of you have been emailing asking why I decided to create writing packages. “Surely,” someone said, “you’d be better off sticking with your old services page?”

After reminding him my name is Steff, not Shirley, I assured him I’ve had a much better response to the packages than I ever did to my “hire me” page, even when I promoted my services quite heavily.

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I‘ve got vampires on the brain.

I blame it the kobo website, who has cottoned on to the fact I like books about bloodsuckers, so sends me daily emails about the latest fanged thrillers. I blame Poppy Z Brite, whose book Lost Souls restored my love of erotic horror, after it had been shattered by the Twilight books (which, to be fair, had a lot of the erotic but not nearly enough horror). And I blame today’s guest, New York Times Best-Selling author of steamy vampire urban fantasy, Jeaniene Frost, for getting my vampire on four years ago with Halfway to the Grave.

But Jeaniene Frost isn’t just an author, she’s in part responsible for bringing vampires and urban fantasy back into the mainstream, and her legions of fans worldwide (her novels have been translated into seventeen languages) attest to her remarkable ability to write amazing books and get them in front of the people who want to read them. I’m thrilled to sparkling bits to have Jeaniene here today for an Epic Interrogation about how she kicks ass with her creative business:
Firstly, we’d just like to know who you are, what you write, and what’s new in the world of Jeaniene Frost?
Thank you so much for having me. I’m the author of the Night Huntress series and Night Huntress World novels, which are urban fantasy romances containing vampires, ghouls, ghosts, demons, and a sprinkling of black magic. The most recent novel to hit the shelves was This Side of the Grave, and my next novel is One Grave at a Time, which releases August 30^th.

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La Carmina says it best: ” I love every aspect of my work; it feels like play, so I don’t mind the long hours … For example, Sebastiano and I are going to Hong Kong, where we’ll be having “fun” at a Macau hotel-resort opening, cute cooking lessons, and an art fair. But the trip and apartment are sponsored, and these activities are material for paid AOL Travel articles, my blog, and other projects.”

If I could be so bold (what? Me? Bold?) I’d say personality branding is probably the biggest marketing innovation brought on by the internet – and, in particular, Web 2.0. Many bloggers have built full-time businesses by embracing the concept of personality branding.

So what is personality branding? Basically, it’s creating a caricature of yourself that’s saleable. This means, you put yourself “out there” as a particular type of person, you attract readers/viewers/customers who WANT to be the same type of person, and you sell them things that will help them become that type of person. They might be things you’ve made yourself, or they might be things from companies who see

La Carmina, this week’s Epic Interrogation victim, is one of the best examples of personality branding I’ve ever seen. The La Carmina we see through her blog and her other projects is outgoing, fun, quirky, upbeat, stylish, and an advocate for alternative subcultures the world over. She sells herself and her lifestyle through her TV work, collaborations with companies and her books. But what she’s really selling is her lifestyle (and personal style). Thats why she can make money with adverts on her site.

The real-life La Carmina is much more complex. She probably has grumpy days, and walks around the house in her pyjamas, and yells when her boyfriend eats all the peanut butter. She’s probably interested in things that have nothing to do with gothic subculture or Japan.

But you won’t see her writing about any of these things. Why? Because she knows her blog isn’t a personal diary – its business, and insanely fun business, at that. But even though her readers probably don’t realise it, the La Carmina they see on the blog has been filtered with a selective eye. What works with her personal brand is put up – what doesn’t work, is kept to herself. We see the cumulative effect of all her efforts, and we fall in love.

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If you run any kind of business online, you’re probably attempting to capitalize on the aweosmeness that is blogging. And why not? It’s pretty cool having a loyal following of readers who eagerly await the next update from your life, and constantly send you cool emails filled with interesting facts. But if you’ve just set up your blog, you’re probably wondering how to bring people to it.

The truth is, if you want to give blogging a real shot, you need to dedicate a YEAR of your life to getting it started. That’s 12 months to write tons of content, find readers, meet other bloggers, and get a real community spirit going. After a year, you should be able to take a step back and look at your blog and say “yeah, I’ve got the hang of this blogging thing.” You can’t simply spam a few sites with your URL and expect to see an instant spike in traffic.

I know. Odin save me I know. I have received very few “lucky breaks” in my blogging career. I’m under the radar of my A-listers. I’ve never had a link that tripled my traffic overnight. I’ve worked my ass off for every single reader. This shit is hard work, yo.

So, if you’re blogging away in your little bloggy world, how do you get people to pay attention?

Read On…