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Helen Coster, Contributor

I cover entrepreneurs, focusing on global and social entrepreneurship.

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8/05/2009 @ 1:10PM

Compounded Interest: Expanding A Financial Web Site For Women

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Six months ago, Amanda Steinberg, the founder and chief executive of Web design firm Soapbxx, launched a new blog to help working women manage their finances. Called DailyWorth, the site sends out a daily e-mail newsletter on topics like choosing home equity loans and minimizing credit card debt. Steinberg came up with the idea after realizing that despite earning a six-figure income for several years, by age 30 she “had nothing to show for it.”

“I eventually realized that it’s not about how much you earn, it’s about how much you save,” she says. “Many women don’t seem to recognize their own value in the marketplace or what they’re really worth.” Today Steinberg, a Web designer, spends $1,000 a month running the site, which she juggles with her full-time role at Soapbxx. Her goal is to increase DailyWorth’s 1,000-person subscriber base to 20,000. We turned to AKQA’s Tom Bedecarre to offer marketing advice.

Steinberg brings a unique voice to DailyWorth, based on her own experiences raising two young children and running Soapbxx, a 10-person Web design firm in Philadelphia. Her best blog posts offer smart tips combined with honest human insights, and I encourage Steinberg to open up her writing style and let readers see more of her vulnerable side.

To date, the site’s most popular post is also its most personal. “My Weight Watchers-Inspired Money Diet,” a piece about how Steinberg applied weight-loss strategy to her financial habits, drew three times the traffic of the site’s second-most popular post. DailyWorth should also include more posts that include numbers–like “Five Ways to Increase Your Savings” and “Top 10 Ideas for a Stronger Company Web Site promoting your Business”–because blog posts with numbers are 30% more viral than regular posts.

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Tom Bedecarre

DailyWorth doesn’t yet generate revenue, but beginning this fall, Steinberg plans to charge marketers to sponsor branded content on the site. For example, Fidelity could sponsor a piece on retirement accounts. Steinberg might also consider expanding the breadth of the DailyWorth message from e-mails and blog posts to podcasts and columns in mainstream publications. Turning the DailyWorth manifesto into a self-help book might be another way to grow subscriptions. This strategy would turn Steinberg’s strong voice and editorial skills into a cross-media platform for DailyWorth.

Three of Steinberg’s Soapbxx colleagues publicize DailyWorth in the blogosphere, but Steinberg hasn’t yet hired an outside PR firm. However, Steinberg is an extrovert and a power networker. She says that in her twenties, she spent every weeknight networking, and loved to attend Internet-related conferences. Thanks to her thick Rolodex, she’s amassed 2,000-plus followers on Twitter (@AmandaSteinberg), over 500 friends on Facebook and over 250 contacts on LinkedIn. Amanda has also developed a network of bloggers who develop content for DailyWorth. (She pays them with equity or profits from Soapbxx.) I recommend that Steinberg put more of her personal voice into her daily tweets and more unabashedly promote her DailyWorth blog posts every day. Her Twitter following is already twice as large as her current DailyWorth subscriber list.

Steinberg’s ability to manage a business and a family–in addition to launching DailyWorth.com–is a tribute to her work ethic. By spending more time and effort generating free publicity and leveraging her social networks, she will have a better shot at reaching her 20,000 subscriber goal. She might also launch an e-mail campaign around a key interest topic for her audience, such as sharing her own tips on developing a following on sites like Facebook and Twitter.

For more insights from AKQA’s Tom Bedecarre, follow him on Twitter.

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