Marketing Materials In a Rut? Keep the Pen To The Paper!

If your business is stuck, it may be because you're not writing enough. Many marketers claim that you need to produce one original piece of content per day. Most people’s jaw drops a little bit when they hear that number. I am the first to admit, I don’t come near that goal. I do try to produce as much as I can, however.

There’s no question that the more content you produce, the better position your business is in, with its marketing. Content educates your customer, and gets the word out about your industry. It can also help strengthen your position in the search engines. It keeps your business in the forefront, and can generate you money.

It needs to be good, though. Don’t ever sacrifice quality for quantity. That means spelling and grammar count. Have a strong, original idea, and articulate clearly. Make sure your online marketing content doesn’t suck.

If you’re a small to medium-sized business trying to knock off larger competition, you want to produce as much content as you can. It’s not as overwhelming as you might think.

There are a few ways to get there. A piece of content per day does not always mean 1,000 word articles about the complicated nature of your business. It can mean something as short as a Tweet.

Here are a few writing ideas to help you from large, to small:

eBook Writing

eBooks don’t have to be as intimidating as you might think. You can write a 10-20 page summary of how people benefit from your services in general. A couple things to keep in mind, however: 1) It’s not sales material. Keep it to how they benefit from your industry, not what happens when they buy from your company. They’ll see through that. 2) Make it interesting. Someone who’s agreed to read your eBook is making a large commitment.

Article Marketing:

Article marketing has taken a severe hit after the Panda update from Google. Many of the article websites don’t carry the weight they used to. You can always contribute articles to industry publications, however. Or write a column for your local newspaper about your industry. These things will always help, and score you some free press.

Writing Press Releases:

Press releases can help you score some invaluable free press from any news organizations, or on the Internet. Got a new product, service, idea or location? These are all good reasons to notify the press.

Blog All About It

Blogs are still the easiest way to get the word out. These should not be salesy either. They’re similar to an eBook, except shorter. The main principle should be to educate those interested in your industry.

Facebook Posts or Notes

Don’t quite have enough for a blog? A simple Facebook post, or note can be effective. This addresses your Facebook fans specifically and can be an effective way to get a simple thought out.

Tweet, Tweet

It was Mark Twain who said he’d write less if he had more time. Producing a piece of content in 140 characters or less, can be more complicated than you think. It’s still a good place to put out a few quick industry tips that potential customers may find interest in.

These are just a few ideas if you’re overwhelmed with the idea of putting out frequent content. There are other social networks, and more ways out there to reach your customers than just this. Keep thinking, and experimenting with new ways, and find what works. Make sure you are finding ways to reach out on a regular basis. 

Writing Marketing Copy That Doesn't Suck

Many DIY business owners want to write their own copy, and some succeed. I’ve watched a lot fail as well. The businesses that fail usually fall into one of two camps. Either they have their business’s voice down well, but are not competent writers, or they are competent writers with content marketing that does nothing to make their business stand out from the competition.

Many businesses understand that they need to establish an authentic way to speak with their customers. They understand that deep down, their customers want someone who will speak to them with a genuine, yet professional voice. Where these businesses fall flat is in the technical aspects of marketing copy.

Nothing will turn off a grammar savvy customer faster than the wrong use of the word its: “Its Time For Our Spring Sale,” etc. Make sure you’re using the right word: “It’s Time For Are Spring Sale,” etc. That’ll be a quick way to lose customers as well. Lastly, make sure you are spelling words correctly and there are no typos: “It’s Tiem For Our Spring Sale,” etc. This happens a lot. Use spell check. It takes two seconds.

If businesses insist on writing their own copy, they better do the detective work to make sure that their grammar and spelling are right. Before publishing, you can always have someone look over it.

Many businesses also fall into the other camp. There are plenty of competent writers out there producing the same content that all their competitors are coming up with. Give your content a voice. Go ahead, speak authentically.

A lot of times, this is something that can be accomplished easily through your content. You're establishing your brand. How would you talk about this subject in person? If you write about it in the same voice, with the same passion, that can produce an authentic feel. Go ahead, and show a little of that passion in your writing. It’ll make it stand out, and give you that stronger personal brand.

You can also spend more time answering the “What makes my business different than the competition?” question. I know, it can be painful, but your customers need to know why they should go with you over the next guy. If you can answer that question satisfactorily, you’ll keep people reigned in longer, and create a stronger value proposition.

Another way of accomplishing this authentic voice, is through posting about your hobbies and passions outside of your work. Many of the social media greats have perfected this balance. Gary Vaynerchuck frequently posts about the Jets. Guy Kawasaki posts about nearly everything, but if you follow him for long enough you learn about his passion for hockey. At first glance it may look off subject, but really it gives them something that you can identify with them over.

Go through your content again. If people are clicking away from your website, or not commenting on your blog, ask yourself why. If you follow the grammar rules, and inject your personality, things should improve.

            

Rework The Way You Do Business

Sometimes less is more. That’s exactly the case when the owners of a Chicago software company Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson teamed up to share their ideas on running a business in Rework. Fried and Hansson own 37Signals, a software company that has been profiled in Time, Newsweek and Wired.

The book is filled with short insights into the business world, geared toward helping small business owner find the right balance in their operations. They offer solid advice for anyone looking to run their own operation in today’s world. Most of their insights are extremely helpful.

Consider the idea of working smarter, and not harder. Some workers who work harder create their own problems in order to solve them, and it’s not always practical. Your company isn’t always benefited by a hard-worker. This is what the authors of Rework had to say in their chapter titled Workaholism:

“Workaholics aren’t heroes. They don’t save the day, they just use it up. The real hero is at home because she figured out a faster way to get things done.”

The authors talk about teaching as an alternative to advertising. Big spending companies can afford to advertise. There are plenty of savvy businesses out there out teaching their competition however, and doing just fine. It’s another way to forge a relationship with potential customers.

“Earning their loyalty by teaching forms a whole different connection. They’ll trust you more. They’ll respect you more. Even if they don’t use your product, they can still be your fans.”

In business, sometimes the simplest ideas win. Sometimes it’s the clearest, easiest path to the objective that people need to concentrate on. Many of the ideas in this book are so simplistic and basic, that as a business owner you have probably overlooked them at some point. Or in some cases (such as Workaholism) society wants you to shift your focus.

Rework helps you keep your eye on the prize. It is a powerful tool in helping your business stay efficient in a lean economy. 

Linking Up With The Outside World

So you have a beautiful website. It's a great tool to attract new business, but only if people can find it. You have to put your great product out there. 

No matter your business, chances are, the web is clogged with potential competitors. You need to start finding ways to stand out. This means search engine optimization, and trying to establish as many links back to your website as possible.

The spreading of back links is a large reason why social media became such a marketing craze. It’s not only building relationships (which is still the most important part), but the links back to your website are also invaluable. Have you written a blog? Do you have a new product, or offer? Links back to your website for these things help.

Directories

You’ll also want to list your website in as many directories as you can find. There are plenty of great websites out there that can help you find great directories to list your website in. There’s no real reason to pay for directory listings, however. The main purpose is usually to establish the SEO help, and not always adding website traffic. You can almost always find ways to get that for free. 

Link In Your Blog

When you blog about your business, that’s also another great place to include links back to your website. You can link to pages on your website, other blogs that you’ve written, and other great sources that you want people to find. When you link to your own material in your blog, however, it’s still best to keep an educational tone, and not make a sales pitch.

When you link, you’ll also want to consider the text that you’re linking. If you can find a way to use keywords in the text, that will give your website a boost. It’s also more explanatory than “click here.”

Shareability

It’s also a good idea to make sure your content is shareable. I preferred this button on my website because the buttons were not too intrusive. Yet they were obvious enough that the desired action is obvious. Sharing is the social networking version of links. While you won’t get a bump in Google simply for putting buttons on your site (like you would a link), it makes it easier to spread your content through Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.

Producing Marketing Content On Your Own Platform

“What do I need a website for, if I’m on Facebook?”

That’s a question I hear all the time, so I’m going to take a stab at it, via blog. First, it’s awesome that you are on Facebook. It’s good to put yourself out there in front of your base of friends to tell them what you, and your business are doing. It’s good to show them that you are human, and to interact, and build relationships, while at the same time educating them.

But it’s not enough. It’s not enough to play in somebody else’s sandbox. If you are serious about capturing your share of customers via the Internet, then you need to have your own platform. You need to build your own sandbox and make it a more appealing sandbox than your competitors’. That’s how you win on the Internet.

Marketing With Websites and Blogging

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus are good for developing relationships, and pushing them toward your website. There are plenty of upcoming social networks that are still worth your consideration. Your website however, is where you control the game. It needs to be strongly designed and look sharp. You wouldn’t neglect your store front. You shouldn’t neglect your site either.

Your navigation, and call to action need to be crystal clear. Your content needs to distinctly and creatively tell people why to buy from you. What makes you a better option than your competitor? It’s this content that should help complete the sale. Your customers want efficiency. They want to find the answers to their questions through your web copy, and complete your call to action with minimal trouble. Distractions mean they click away.

Education Is More Important than Sales

Your customers have questions. If they knew how to do what you know how to do, they wouldn’t need you. If you can help answer their questions, and provide an educational avenue of benefit to them, they won’t forget you in the end.

This can be done through blogs, eBooks, Youtube video, and more. Think outside the box. Find ways to produce original content, and spread that content online. Yes, it will involve a time commitment, but it will also involve an increase in traffic for your website, and hopefully customers.

They may not be knocking on your door right away. But six months from now, when they are in need of your services, maybe that is when they’ll come knocking. As marketing changes to involve more intimate communication, relationships are currency.

             

Show A Little Follow Through

You may be the charismatic, smooth, life of the party-type person, but I have news for you. The things that people do have a lasting impact—more so than the things that people say.

Tell me that rocks are animals and the sky is green, I’ll dismiss you as an idiot. Give me a $20 tip while waiting on you, I’ll pull the chair out for you next time you’re seated in my restaurant. All this may seem obvious, but too many businesses just spout out their strengths, and that’s not all a client or customer should be interested in anymore.

Take a perspective employer, and your resume. They don’t want to know that you got straight A’s in school. Good for you, but it doesn’t mean that you’ll work better in their company. They want to know what makes you different than the next resume they’ll look at. They want to know that you have done the job before, and are capable. That’s why your portfolio matters more, in this case.

The sooner you adapt this mentality as a business owner, the better off you’ll be. Why not take a proactive customer service approach? Why not use your marketing materials to show your customers that this is the type of business that you operate?

Here are some ideas:

Testimonials Tell Your Story

You can walk around and tell people how great your business is all day long. Of course you think your business is great. Of course you think what you do is important. You better. You do it all freakin’ day long.

Let your customers market your business. Do you have a LinkedIn page? You better be collecting recommendations. If you’re looking to put these front and center, consider creating a testimonial page on your website using them. Or you can put one or two on the bottom of your home page. Somewhere your customers will find.

Show, Don’t Tell

One of the classic writing rules is to show, not tell. Don’t be afraid to show potential customers the lengths that you’d go to make them happy with a promise. Domino’s 30 minutes or less delivery. Geico is willing to save you money in the 15 minutes it would take to switch. They’re not telling you they’ll save you money, and give you fast service. They’re showing you how they’ll do it.

Talk Directly To Your Customer

Most websites are set up as the business owner spoutin’ their mouth off about just how great their services are. Why not take the opportunity to make your customer feel a little more comfortable and at home? David Meerman Scott calls them buyer personas. You’re better off knowing what yours are, and setting up your website so that you’re talking directly to them.

Do you do business with more than one type of person? Why not set up a page that speaks to each kind? This’ll make them more comfortable reading your copy, which is never a bad thing.

A Portfolio Helps

It’s a good idea to make your portfolio readily available. Potential clients will want to see what you offer them. Show them what you are made of. If you have made the decision not to make your portfolio available, they better be able to quickly glean your skill set from your marketing materials. Your copy will needed to be worded that much sharper. 

SEO For Blogger

I recently began reading a lot more about SEO for blogs and what some of the best practices are. I was a little disturbed to find out how much better WordPress is for SEO than Blogger, since Blogger is my platform.

I was disturbed to find that Blogger lowers your SEO when you export your blog from Blogger to another platform. The SEO for Blogger should be a lot better, especially considering that this is Google’s blogging platform.

I did find some ways to boost your Blogger SEO that are out there. The Blog Know How blog is extremely informative on this issue and gives some great insight on how to boost your Blogger SEO.

Utilize Heading Tags

Make sure that when you post, you are using the h1 and h2 tags for subheads. If there are keywords in the headings, this also helps.

SEO Friendly Tags

By default, the title’s that appear on your browser for your Blogspot blog give Blogger’s information, before any information about your blog. Blog Know How offers some simple code to plug into your template that will reverse the order on your blog’s titles. If you provide keyword-rich titles, they will now be better optimized and have a stronger impact in the search engines.

Home Page, and Individual Post Meta Tags

Blogger does not have a place to input Meta data the way that WordPress does. This makes for an automatic disadvantage. You can however add some code to your template that will provide Meta data to your home page. There is also code to add to your template for individual post meta. You can’t do every post however, or it will become far too sloppy. It’s best to pick a handful of your strongest blogs and strengthen their SEO pull.

There are a few other modifications that can also be found if you do a simple Google search. It’s disappointing that Google’s platform isn’t a little stronger for SEO. Hopefully some of these changes can help.

What Do American Idol and Small Business Marketing Have In Common?

I’m writing this post plugged into my laptop with headphones as my wife watches American Idol.

The parallels between online marketing and the hit reality show are actually quite striking. American Idol became a way to achieve success and fame without going through the traditional L.A. gatekeepers to the music industry. Instead you just had to prove your worth to the show’s judges, and ultimately the American people.

Marketing your business online with websites, social media, articles, and blog writing is done the same way. It’s a way for you to have a conversation, and interact with potential customers. No longer do you have to buy newspaper, magazine, radio or television advertising to be seen.

You can start a Facebook page and find your fans, or a Twitter account to find your followers. Casting a wide net now involves many one-on-one interactions. In American Idol as well as online marketing, the gatekeeping walls are knocked down.

There’s another similarity as well. The early season episodes of Idol are filled with people who cannot sing, yet still strive for illusive fame. The show airs these tryouts to showcase just how desperate people are for this success. Yet some of them are terrible. The judges (sometimes ruthlessly) toss them, the audience laughs, and they all move on.

Having a poorly designed website, or content that is full of gaping errors can be a lot like going on Idol without the ability to carry a note. Best case scenario your website viewers move on. If the marketing materials are bad enough, they may have a little laugh at your expense along the way.

Think about it this way. If you had a brick and mortar store in the heart of Chicago, L.A. or New York shopping districts, you’d do everything you could to make sure the store was in tip top shape for the foot traffic out there. Businesses need to realize that that foot traffic is stopping into their website, many times via some other form of marketing material.

If your goal is to win the show, better make sure you can sing.

Does Your Website Content Stack Up?

Your website copy can be one of the most underestimated weapons in your marketing arsenal. Businesses often put a lot of resources and care into the design of their website, and rightly so. It’s the copy, however, that will take that viewer and turn them into a customer.

Every few months or so, you may want to take a quick read through your website content, to see if it is still a good representation of your business. At this point it’s a good idea to consider whether you have new products or services available, or something posted that you no longer offer.

Your website content is pivotal to your business. A beautiful design with a weak approach to content will fall short of the goal every time. It needs to make your website viewer feel warm and welcome. It needs to answer questions before they even know they have them.

Your content should be friendly. It should draw people in and make them want to do business with you. It should make them want to complete your call to action, whether it is to contact you, purchase online, or drive to the store.

Here are a list of five things that will help your viewers through that call to action. It’s a list of five things that will help show them you are ready for their business.

Is Your Header Engaging?

Think of newspaper headlines. The whole point is to grab your reader’s attention, and pull them in. You want to do the same thing here. This should be the place where you tell readers exactly what it is your business does. If you can, use your keyword phrase in the same headline. If not, two headers is generally OK.

Is Your Content Timely?

Nothing shuts a viewer off quicker than clicking on an events page, to see that the lead item is a preview for an event that happened three months ago. It’s important to stay current, and pull that type of information from your site right after it happens.

Consider the Voice

It is possible to use a distinct voice, and still be professional in the way that you present your business. Sometimes a little personality is what makes your business stand out from the competition. Go ahead, give yourself a little flair. It may just be what propels somebody from point A to point B in your copy.

It’s OK To Brag A Little

This is your website, and you are trying to increase sales. Go ahead, tell us about the awards you’ve won. Tell us what the satisfied customers think of your business, with a testimonial section. You’d do the same thing if you were looking for a job with a resume. It’s the same principle here, only you are looking for customers.

Give Some Value

Think about that viewer who doesn’t intend to buy today. Did they still learn something by going through your website? Your website is the perfect place to take a minute and explain what it is you do, and why it is important.

Marketing Smarter

Online marketing is continuing to evolve. The days of setting up a website, and calling that your online marketing strategy are over. There is so much more to a comprehensive marketing campaign. It’s time to put your marketing efforts out there, and interact with your customer base if you expect to see results. There are some easy ways to do that.

Next time your eyes are glossed over at your computer and you don’t know what else you can be doing to put your business out there, keep some of these simple tricks in mind. Any of them can help you build up the online prowess of your website, and revamp your online marketing strategy.

SEO

You need to make sure that your website is ranking well in the search engines. The best thing you can do is make it easy for the search engines to find and rank your site. Have you submitted it to them? You can also fill out the meta data at the top of the page. It’s the code that tells the search engines what they have found on your page. If this sounds like more than you want to tackle, you’ll want to hire someone.

Blog All About It

People seeking services or products in your industry may also be looking to learn about your industry. The more they can learn from your website, the more likely they will be to become your customer. A blog offers a great way to showcase your knowledge. It establishes you as an expert in your field.

Go Mobile

More and more people are accessing the web through their smart phones and tablets. Now is the chance to make your website as accessible as possible. You can offer your customers incentives for checking in on their mobile devices, or simply access to coupons and deals they won’t find anywhere else.

Social Media

Social media puts you in front of more people. It gives you the platform to interact with potential customers and show them why you deserve their business. The best approach is still to interact and engage. The more you go for the hard sell the harder it will be for you. Just be you.

Video

Video continues to be a hot commodity. Even if it’s one single video, giving an overview of your business, it can bring hits to your website. You don’t need to be a professional. You can use the camera on your phone or your computer. Throw the video on Youtube to try and bring some extra hits.