Here are 3 strategies you can start using today to get more listening to what you have to say.

1. Give away information – If there’s one thing everyone loves, it’s free stuff. While you can’t give your product or service away for free (or can you?), you can give some information away for free.

Dan Miller is a successful career coach and author. Having multiple nationally published books, Dan isn’t afraid to give information away on his blog, website, or podcast. In fact if you listen and read his content long enough, you can basically figure out the content of his books before ever turning a page.

He’s very open about this and routinely mentions it to his audience. But that hasn’t stopped his success. In fact, he’ll be the first to tell you it has actually fueled his success.

2. Be controversial – This may not be for everyone, but if your goal is to get people talking there’s no better way than to say something controversial.

John C. Dvorak is a tech-journalist who makes his career out of being controversial. Whether he’s raising doubts about the aptitude of the U.S. CIO, or claiming Apple should’ve pulled the plug on the iPhone before it was released, John will say anything to get people talking… And it works. Millions read his blog every month and he’s a highly sought-after author and news-correspondent.

If you’re brave, get out there and speak your mind. Whether good or bad, people will be talking about you.

3. Make Mistakes – There’s a widely-held misconception that you have to be perfect in the eyes of your audience. While true in some arenas,in the arena of digital marketing this simply isn’t the case. The goal is to create dialogue. If you’re providing all of the answers, what is left for your audience to say?

ProBlogger has a great take on this subject:

Play dumb or make mistakes. If you write a fabulous, seamless post, you will likely get comments like “great post.” If you demonstrate that your knowledge is slightly lacking or ask a question of your readers directly or fumble around a bit, you will have people (women especially) clambering to help a poor soul out. There’s a reason women talk a lot… we like to give advice. Open yourself up to be the receiver of some advice, and you’ll get more comments.

Your audience won’t view your humility as a sign of ineptitude or weakness, but rather will see it as a strength that you’re willing to listen to what your customers have to save.

Keep these tips in mind and you’ll have more eyeballs viewing your marketing. Keep in mind, these strategies aren’t the end of your marketing, but only the beginning. Attracting an audience means nothing if you can’t turn them into happy customers. Stick with us and we’ll explore the rest of the marketing process in the coming months!