Jim's Marketing Blog

Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business

This post is for bloggers only!

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If you have a business blog, which is not generating the results you want, this post is written just for you!

I received an email this morning, from a reader who has a 12 month old business blog, which he’s unhappy with.  I get emails like this every day.  The problem is so common that I wanted to bring it out into the open and share it, in case it resonates with you and what you are experiencing right now.

He explained that he has published 2 blog posts most weeks, yet the site gets few readers, even fewer comments and no sales inquiries.  He told me he has been using blogging and SEO techniques from some of the blogs he reads, but it’s not working for him.  He asked me to take a look, which I did.  Within seconds, I spotted a number of problems on his blog and was able to tell instantly that he has “had a go” at developing and marketing his blog, with no hands-on, professional help.

The reason most business blogs under-perform is NOT because the blogger is a poor writer or boring.  It’s not because they lack the right plugins or lack killer SEO skills.  It’s because they are applying generic answers, to their unique situation.

Here’s the thing:  You place a very low ceiling on your marketing and business potential, by trying to develop a successful blog using generic, free advice you find online.

Ever wonder why so many blogs from within the same industry are so similar? It’s because they are using the same generic ideas and approach to blogging!  Those bloggers grab the same advice, from the same people, and as a direct result they become invisible.  By being so alike, they camouflage themselves – Which is the exact opposite to what they should be doing.

If you are serious about turning your site into a lead / business generating machine, you need to develop your blog and online marketing, based on your unique needs, resources, business targets and personality.

When I work with my clients, I help them stand out and get noticed, by developing an online marketing strategy that’s clear, easy to follow and designed to get them noticed by their prospective clients or customers. That’s the approach I recommend to those of you who are not seeing the results you want right now.  The generic approach may be free, but it can be extremely expensive.

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

Some blogging magic for you!

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Yesterday on Twitter, someone told me that she thought I was a mind reader.  She said that she was just about to start writing a new blog and that she was amazed when this post arrived in her inbox, with ideas on how to generate more sales and business leads from your site.

The reality is that there was no mind reading or magic in play there.  I write about marketing all the time and frequently share ideas with you, about making your Internet marketing fly.  All that actually happened is that someone with the foresight to subscribe to a marketing blog, received some marketing advice.

The reason it seemed uncanny, is that the information came to her at just the right time!

One of the benefits of regularly sharing information with your readers, is that you will tend to turn up just when they need you.  If you can understand the value of this from a marketing perspective, you may have found one of the more compelling reasons to blog more often.

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

Needles and haystacks

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As regular readers will know, I am in the process of making it easier for you to find the information here that’s most relevant to you.  Last night, I came to a conclusion, which I would like to share.

My original concept, was to create a page here that contained links to my best posts, on certain subjects.

Here’s the problem with that approach: What if there’s a post here on a certain topic, which provides exactly the answer you need, but I didn’t think it was worth including in that section?

Exactly!

So, what I am going to do is recategorize every post on this blog (it’s going to take a while as there are almost 500 to go through) and divide them into a small number of key categories.  Each will cover a particular area of marketing or business development and will be extremely easy to navigate; with a synopsis of each post displayed.  Typically, blogs with as many posts as mine have too many categories and as such, people tend not to use them much as a way to discover the information they need on a blog.

This blog currently has 18 categories (too many) and so few people were using them as a way to navigate the site that I removed the category box months ago.  Anyhow, if you look at the way I use categories on my Tech News Blog, (under News Topics in the side bar) you will get a good idea of what I mean.

Yes, I know there are plugins that allow you to display the most “popular” posts but sadly, the most read or shared posts are not always the most useful to you.  Posts with certain titles spread like wildfire, as do posts that are shared on social networks by people with lots of followers / fans.  This skewers the results and defeats the object, in my opinion.

I hope you have a great day.  Me?  I have a little editing to do! ;)

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

2 ways to grow your blog: Independent or associated?

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In my experience, there are 2 ways to build a successful blog.  Both are extremely powerful.  Although the route to success always starts by providing great content on a regular basis, once you have done that for long enough, I’ve found there are 2 routes open to you.

  • The associated route.
  • The independent route.

The associated route is used by many of the world’s top bloggers.  It’s where a group of bloggers from the same niche or a complimentary one, decide to form a loose (or sometimes formal) agreement, to help each other increase their reach and make money.  They then work to promote the other people they are associated with.  For example; they link to each other regularly in blog posts and will write blog posts about their associates products or services.  They also pass traffic to each other, via links on social networks.  It can be extremely powerful, if you have a number of influential associates, all helping each other.  Read any of these bloggers for any period of time, and you will very clearly be able to see who they are associated with.

The independent route, which I use, is used by many successful bloggers.  It’s where the blogger builds his or her blog without entering into those formal or informal associations with other bloggers.  If we mention a blogger or a product, it’s only because we love the blogger’s work or we believe in the product.  We rely on readers sharing our content and effective SEO to develop our readership.  Independent bloggers are equally easy to spot, because we don’t have the same ads on our blogs or recommend the same ebooks / events / products as the associated bloggers in our niche.

The fastest way to grow your readership is definitely the associated blogger route.  Of course, there is a price to pay for this kind of fast track success.  You need to be OK about promoting your associates and their offerings to your readership and social network.  Yes, you will be able to write about what matters to you, but you will also need to write posts that name-check your associates and push their latest offerings.  Is that a small price to pay?  It’s your call.  There’s no right or wrong here.

Conversely, the independent blogger is free to recommend anything he or she wishes.  For example, although this blog now has a significant readership, I have just 1 affiliate product here; which is the Headway theme I use to design the blog.  However, I’m not associated with Headway or any of the bloggers who use their theme.  I read Danny Brown’s blog and he uses Headway, but I also read Seth Godin’s blog and he doesn’t.  I know Grant Griffiths, who owns headway, but I get no special rates from them; nothing which you wouldn’t get if you were one of their affiliates.  Here’s the thing: If I switched to another theme tomorrow, it wouldn’t be an issue for Headway or me.  That’s the freedom I enjoy, by being independent.

The associated route is powerful and many of the blogs I read are written by associated bloggers.  It doesn’t bother me.  I know why they promote what they do and I’m 100% fine with it.  These guys have businesses to run, bills to pay and many are doing so VERY effectively, thanks to the massive reach of their combined associate network.  Make no mistake – It’s amazing!  This is why I believe that for many people, if they get the chance to take the associated route, and it is an association of great people, they should really consider it!

So, why do I take the independent route?

The answer is simple:  For my business model, it’s more valuable for me to have the total freedom that comes with independence.

I am in a very different position to many bloggers in my niche.  For instance, I am not part of the speaker circuit and many of them are.  They have seats to fill at events and need a massive reach, in order to promote their gigs.  I don’t.  I have no ads here and don’t push affiliate sales, so I have no need to drive up page views either.

For me, the independent route is best.  I write for you.  I show you my work.  You call me if you want great marketing, because you know my work and my approach.  I like it like that.

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

Marketing magic: The illusion of words

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Several times recently, I have read people describing an income they receive as being enough to pay their mortgage each month.  Of course, depending on the size of their mortgage, this figure could be £50, £500, £5,000 or more – It’s completely meaningless.

It reminded me of an advertisements we had in the UK for a brand of milk chocolate, which had “a glass and a half of full cream milk” in every bar; however, they never told us how big the glass was!  Again, it was meaningless.

Marketing magic

A skilled marketing copy writer can use their words much like a skilled magician uses their hands.  Magicians use slight-of-hand to create the illusion of magic.  They guide our attention so that we only see what they want us to see.  If their trick works, we believe we have seen something, which actually never happened.

In marketing, we can use slight-of-word, to create an illusion too.  We can guide people’s thinking, so that they believe what we want them to believe.  If the marketer’s trick works, most people will assume the mortgage fee is five hundred or five thousand a month and that the chocolate had a pint and a half of full cream milk in it.

Use marketing copy writing that makes your product or service sound as attractive and valuable as you possibly can, but leave the illusions to the magicians.

You see, we all know that the guy with the magic wand, who pulls rabbits out of a hat, is deliberately trying to trick us.  That’s what he or she is supposed to do!  However, unless you are a paid illusionist, your reputation could take a hit, if people find you tricking them into believing something that is, in essence, false.  That’s why the most skilled marketing copy writers embrace clarity.  They use words to enhance, rather than conceal.

Where do you think the line should be drawn?

Would you rather know that the bar of chocolate had half a pint of milk in it, or “a glass and a half”?  Would you rather the marketer told you that he or she made several hundred dollars a month from their wonder product, or that it “pays their mortgage”, which could mean anything?  If you bought into the marketer’s pitch, and then found he or she was actually referring to fifty dollars a month, would you feel they had been honest with you?

Let me know what you think!

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

People are venting but is anyone listening?

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When you get bad service from a provider or a product lets you down, what do you do?  Increasingly, people are venting their frustration or anger via social media.

For service providers, who care about their customers (which is more than you may think) this presents an opportunity.  Using very simple, freely available tools, they can track mentions of their brand, service or product names and learn from what their customers are saying.  They can interact with their customers before greater damage is done to the relationship.

Of course, in order for this to work, they need to be listening.

The brands that elect not to listen, are not only missing out on some incredibly valuable feedback, they are also missing out on the opportunity to reach out to their customers and retain their business.  It’s a lot less expensive to retain a customer than it is to win a new customer or motivate someone to switch brands, so it makes sense on many levels for companies to monitor and interact with their marketplace.

The savvy business owner is always listening

He or she not only monitors what their own customers are saying, but also what their prospective customers are saying.  They know that if they spot a common problem among their prospective customers, which is causing people to want to vent their frustration, they can adapt their offering to answer that problem and stand a real chance of winning that slice of dissatisfied people.

Whilst most of the marketing emphasis regarding social media, seems to be about building your follower / friend numbers, it’s also important for you to listen to your marketplace.  The rewards can be amazing.

Do you monitor what your marketplace is saying via social media?

What tools do you use and recommend?

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

Your Marketing Goldmine is almost ready!

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To mark the 2nd anniversary of this blog, I’m about to make it easier for you to find all my best posts, on the areas of marketing and business development that you are most interested in.

Think of it as your marketing goldmine!

My challenge

I was recently thinking about how the typical date order format of a blog is far from ideal, for people like myself who seldom write time-sensitive posts.  I have posts here, for example, which are just as relevant today as when I wrote them 18 months or 2 years ago.  However, because of the date format used to present blog posts, with the new posts added to the top of the pile, some really valuable marketing material gets hidden away under hundreds of newer posts.

Yes, you can use the blog’s search box to find posts on a particular subject, or click on a category section, but surprisingly few people use them.  I removed the categories tab from the sidebar months ago because it wasn’t getting used.  Most people either find the content here via their RSS feed, a social bookmark or a Google search.  As a result, many readers will be missing out on some of my best, most valuable content.  This is especially the case for newer readers and those who only visit here occasionally.

So, I’m creating a free Marketing Goldmine for you

I’m working on developing a new section for the blog, which will provide you with an index of my most popular posts on certain subjects.  Rather than a category section, which displays everything with a certain tag, this will only include my best posts in each section.

So, keep an eye on the blog!

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

Making a passive income from your site, like I do.

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One of the many amazing business opportunities open to most people these days, is that our sites / blogs can have all kinds of extremely valuable options added, at little or no cost.  These can open up not only new marketing opportunities, but whole new income streams too!

For example, I have an audio program, which is available exclusively from this blog and has earned me a regular income for more than 5 years.  The reality is that most people reading this can develop a product, based around their own expertise, and sell it via their site too.

A few ideas:

  • You can have a private membership site, where people pay you to access premium content.  Your site will deliver your content and process the payments for you.
  • If you are a photographer or graphic designer, you can sell your photos or designs direct from your site.
  • Trainers, who want to share their expertise with an international audience, can deliver their work direct from their sites, via; video streaming, video or audio downloads or ebooks etc.

The truth is, most service providers will have something from their expertise, which they can develop and market from their sites, producing an additional income stream.

Just as important, these options allow you to make money whilst you sleep; what some people call passive income. They will all require some additional, effective marketing if you want to see some serious income from them.  However, if you already have an existing client list, newsletter list or a well read blog, you may be able to hit the ground running.

If you would like to know more, get in touch.

What elements of your business could you transform into a new income stream, via your website / blog?

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

Convert your readers into clients!

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Would you like to convert more of your readers into paying clients or customers?  If you would, then this post might be just what you are looking for!  That’s because I am about to tell you one of the most common reasons that sites have poor conversion rates and also, how to fix it.

Convert readers into clients

In order for a site to convert readers into clients or customers (herein called clients) it first needs to be attracting the correct profile of readers.  You might be the best widget maker in the business, but if your site doesn’t attract people that are interested in buying widgets, it’s never going to convert.  When people think about attracting the right profile of people to their sites, they usually think exclusively of SEO.  So, they get their site’s optimized for the key words and phrases that they believe their target client profile will be looking for.

So far, so good!

However, in many cases, the site owner then shoots themselves in the foot by writing content for their site, which is written for totally the wrong audience!  For example, web designers often have blogs that are filled with posts about the latest coding tricks or the most useful piece of specialist design software.

Here’s the challenge with that approach: The only people interested in those subjects are their fellow web designers. NOT prospective clients!

Keyword density

Not only is that kind of content only going to appeal to fellow web designers, it’s also going to miss many of the words or phrases required, to help them attract the right search engine traffic.  Part of the process Google uses, when determining what words to rank your site for, is something called keyword density.  This is the number of times keywords are repeated within a page of text, in relation to the other words.  When you write your web pages or blog posts for the wrong audience, your keyword density will score too high for the wrong terms and too low for the correct terms.  As a result, your search engine traffic could be largely from the wrong profile of people.

I just saw a web hosting provider’s website, packed from page to page with technical specs, hardware combinations, buzz words and industry slang; rather than messages that their prospective clients will be interested in.  They should be primarily speaking about how their services will help businesses to maintain a fast, reliable online presence.  The software and hardware they use is important, but it needs to be worked into that message.  They should be clearly stating the commercial benefits of using their services and giving people a call to action.

The marketing value of focused copy writing

If you are reading this blog post, there’s an extremely high probability that you are a business owner.  Moreover, you probably own a small to medium-sized business too.  That’s because 100% of the material here is written for business owners.  As a result, this blog ranks highly on search engines for many phrases and terms relevant to business owners, who want to improve their marketing.  Equally, people share the posts here with business owners via social networking sites, because my posts are all written for my prospective client profile; which are small business owners.

So, if you want to convert more of your readers into clients, start off my making sure that you are actually writing for the correct profile of readers.  This means writing in their language, about topics they are interested in and likely to be looking for; such as common challenges within their industry and how you can help them.

[If you are a business owner and you want regular free marketing advice, remember to subscribe to our RSS feed and never miss another post again!]

Business blogging: The “get rich slow” approach!

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A successful business blog is a great marketing and communications asset.

It’s no surprise then, that so many business owners start blogging.  However, many of them stop blogging after a few months, because they have not seen the kind of results they had hoped for.

It’s like a farmer planting her crops and then trying to harvest them too soon.  The farmer may have planted the crops correctly and tended the soil perfectly, but her crops might take 6 months or more before they’re ready for harvesting.

Building a blog that generates regular sales, leads or opportunities for your business often takes up to a year or more.  Pulling the plug on a blog after just a few months is like giving up on your crops before your seeds had a chance to grow.

Blog development takes time

My first blog post here was read by just a handful of people on the day it was published.  Over the next 2 years, I worked hard to make Jims Marketing Blog as valuable as I possibly could.  I wrote several hundred blog posts, replied to comments, improved the blog design and marketed it to new readers.

Why?  Over the past 12-months alone, this blog has repaid me, by generating over £100,000 in profitable, new business.  Had I stopped after the first few months, because I only had a relatively small number of readers, none of this would have happened and I would have missed what’s become one of the most fun elements of my business too!

Numbers are less important than quality, but you do still need the numbers.

How many readers do YOU need?

That’s easy.  You need enough targeted visitors to your blog each week or month, in order to provide you with a steady, predictable stream of high quality sales or business leads.  Now, in some industries, that may be 5,000 a day.  In most industries you will need nothing like that many! Lots of successful business bloggers do amazingly well with 500 unique visitors a day and others with half that number!

To get you from wherever you are right now, to that magical place, aim for developing a growing, targeted readership, through providing useful, focused content and embracing a good Internet marketing strategy.

The bottom line: Don’t get disheartened by comparing your visitor numbers with anyone else and allow your blog the time it needs in order to grow. If you are looking for a quick fix, business blogging is probably not for you.  However, if you are looking for a way to build an amazingly powerful marketing and communications asset in the medium to longer-term, I suggest you embrace blogging.

What have your experiences been of starting or growing a business blog?  I would really love to hear your feedback!

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

I’m all ears!

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Here’s a quick communication tip, based on my observations of some amazing communicators over the years.  All of them shared a common characteristic, which is essential if you want people to REALLY connect with you.

Your undivided attention

In every instance, these masters of communication gave 100% of their attention to the person they were speaking with, whilst they were with that person.  They maintained eye contact, nodded in agreement in all the right places and never once looked around the room.  They listened a lot, and spoke a little.  When they were with that person, they WERE with that person – 100%!

Some of the least effective communicators, like those you often meet at networking events, do the total opposite.  You can see them looking over your shoulder for their next networking victim, as they say; “tell me about your business” or “tell me how I can help you.”

Business is all about people

Business is all about people and the way they feel.  If we take time to show genuine interest in; our colleagues, our clients, our prospective clients and our contacts etc, we can massively improve our relationships and make business a lot more enjoyable and profitable.  Notice I said; “take time to show genuine interest”?  I know you are already interested in these people, but just like those expert communicators I mentioned earlier, it’s important to show people clearly we are interested in them and what they have to say.  Let them know you are listening, with visual feedback.

Dead trees and a powerful copy writing lesson!

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Writing marketing copy or sales copy that really works can be a challenge, especially for people with little or no experience.  One of the best ways to learn how to write great copy, is to read great copy and then study what you have read. Why did that particular message compel you to click a link?  What was it about the specific offer you just read, that made you follow-up on it?

Copy writing and Dead Trees

One of the best pieces of copy writing I have seen over the past few years, is just a simple, short phrase.  It’s often used when online publications refer to paper-based; newspapers, magazines and trade publications etc.  The term is dead tree media.  For example, when referring to a headline on the front page of the traditional paper version of The Times, a blogger will often refer to it as the front page of the dead tree edition of The Times.

The reason this is such a clever phrase, is that those 2 words, dead tree, are extremely emotive:

  • The phrase dead tree immediately focuses our mind on the fact that in order for paper to be made, trees not only need to be cut down; they have to be killed!  Even recycled paper was once a tree.
  • By calling the traditional version of a newspaper, magazine or whatever the dead tree edition, we start to think of it as out-dated.  When we see the term applied regularly enough, it can be a very powerful way to reinforce the belief that paper-based media is either dying or dead.
  • When there are 2 options available to the reader; either a dead tree edition of a magazine or an online version, the online version is automatically made to sound more attractive, simply because it isn’t being referred to negatively.

A quick copy writing tip

If you are serious about the success of your marketing, you need to get serious about copy writing too.  Here’s a tip.  Collect all the; emails, marketing letters, articles or blog posts that motivate you to take action and study them.  Study what it was that compelled you to click their link, visit their store, call them or email them.

For example, look at the box below this post, with a call to action.  Every hour of every day, people click the link in that box to find out how they can work with me.  Look at the message and think about how you can apply something similar to YOUR site; something that will provide you with sales leads all day every day.

The bottom line: Your site should (and could) be a relentless, lead-generating machine for your business.  If it isn’t, you could well be missing out on more sales and higher profits than you currently believe is even possible.

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

How long should your blog posts be?

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Some of the best blog posts are also the shortest.  Blog posts that offer information rich copy, with all the unnecessary fluff stripped out, get to the point quicker and save the reader valuable time.  This post about social media experts is one of the most read on my blog and it’s just 112 words long!

Why do many commercial bloggers write mainly longer format posts?

From what people tell me, there seems to be 2 reasons. The first reason, is that it’s believed by many that unless a post is more than 300 words long, it will not rank well on search engines.  I have seen enough evidence of this to believe there’s truth in it.  However, if you are in the UK right now and you ask Google: “What is a social media expert?”, you will see that 112 word post I mentioned earlier on page 1 – Out of over 42Million results.

The second reason, which I am going to focus on in this post, is the belief that the longer a post is, the more valuable it will be, and the more people will want to read and share it. My experience over the past 24 years in Marketing, is that the quicker you can make a valid point, without all the fluff that typically weakens a message, the more impact your message has.  Because of this, I think it’s worth adding some shorter blog posts to your commercial blog.

Seth Godin understands the value of brevity

One of the reasons Seth Godin’s blog is so popular, is that his posts are never any longer than they need to be.  Seth’s blog posts are focused, information rich, but never too long.  That’s because Seth understands the power of brevity.  This means some of his posts are just 1 or 2 paragraphs in length.  With Seth’s blog, you get all the juice, without having to wade through acres of bloated content.

Interestingly, I noticed a post on Seth’s blog recently, which is apparently his longest post of the year.  If you look at the number of times people have ReTweeted that post, you will see that it was actually less popular (from a sharing perspective) than many of his very short posts.  BTW: It still achieved over 900 ReTweets, which is amazing!

I’m not suggesting you ONLY write short blog posts

There are good reasons for writing longer format posts, (including SEO.)  I wrote earlier this week about how to write more great blog posts, and it’s almost a thousand words long.

Here’s what I’m suggesting: The next time you have an interesting point you want to make, but you think it may be too short for a blog post, try publishing it anyway!  You may be pleasantly surprised with the feedback you get.  Don’t waste all your short, insightful ideas and opinions on Facebook or Twitter – Write them on your blog and then share them across your social networks.

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

Not all spam is created equal!

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I was just thinking how the term spam is being used right now, for a lot more than unwanted, unsolicited emails.

For example:

  • If someone sends you an unwanted sales message via a social networking site, we call them social media spammers.
  • When they leave comments on your blog, purely to build links or sell us something (rather than contribute), we call them comment spammers.
  • When they fill forums with cut and paste marketing messages, we call them forum spammers.
  • When they send you unsolicited text messages, we call them SMS spammers.
  • When they subscribe you to their newsletters without asking, we call them newsletter spammers.

Not all spam is created equal!

What you may not have known, is that some of the people who use the kind of techniques outlined above have NO IDEA that we regard them as spammers!

In many cases, they are often acting out of ignorance.  They see others using one of those techniques, so they think it’s OK.  They assume that it must work, to some degree.  They forget that even if a small number of people visit their site after they did any of the above, they may have just ruined their reputation with thousands or tens of thousands of other people in order to get those few clicks.

Whilst it may be popular to assume that everyone who you consider a spammer runs a suspect business, I have found that in many cases the businesses are legit.  The businesses look dubious, simply because they are being marketed using dubious techniques. I’m not talking about those who send automated spam emails to millions off people every day.  I’m talking about poorly informed business owners, who send you messages you never asked for, newsletters you never subscribed to and Tweets that read like a sales pitch.

The bottom line is that anyone, even legitimate people with a great service, can be written off as spammers if they pester or pursue people with their online marketing.  No one needs that kind of reputation, if they are serious about developing a long term, successful business.

So, you want to write more, great blog posts?

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I regularly get email from people, asking how I manage to write blog posts most days and still keep the ideas and content flowing.  It’s easy to see why, when you consider that a regularly updated blog with useful content is more commercially valuable, than one with fewer, valuable blog posts.

So, here are a few of my tips.  Enjoy!

Don’t SEO every post you write

Most of the posts I write here, are not written with SEO (search engine optimization) in mind.  Yesterday’s post is a prime example.  It breaks just about every SEO rule. It’s too short, doesn’t target keywords or use a title tag or have any headings etc.  However, it was a fun post that made a good point very quickly.  Interestingly, most of the bloggers I know, who publish on a very regular basis, do not optimise everything they write either, such as; Seth Godin, Robert Scoble, Danny Brown and Louis Gray.

SEO is important.  Really important.  I optimise a great deal of the content here and as a direct result, I get hundreds of new, targeted readers every day from Google and Co.  However, I can achieve all my SEO goals without the need to fully optimise everything I write.  So, don’t feel you have to optimise everything. You don’t.

Make time for writing blog posts

One of the reasons people find it hard to publish blog posts on a regular basis, is that they just don’t have the time.  It takes time to come up with an idea for a blog post and then to write it in as interesting a way as possible.  So, if you are a poor time manager, it’s going to be tough finding the time required to write regular, good quality blog posts.

Here’s a quick tip, which has given me several hours each day, or over 130 EXTRA DAYS a year, of extra time.

I don’t watch TV!  Yes, as a fan of boxing and football I will watch the big fights / games, but there are no TV shows I must watch.  My mindset regarding TV changed, when an elderly man once told me; “son, when you reach my age you won’t look back on your life and wish you had wasted more time watching TV shows!”  Interestingly, I recently discovered that Seth Godin feels the same way as me about TV.  He put it like this: “I don’t watch TV. At all. There are so many other things I’d rather do in that moment.”

Play with your kids.  Go to the gym.  Take the class.  Spend time relaxing with your friends.  If you want some more time each day, reducing your TV time is one of the less important things to cut out from your schedule.

Give yourself permission to get it wrong

One of the biggest hurdles facing many bloggers, is that they fear publishing a post that isn’t perfect.  In their search for the perfect blog post, they find that it takes them several hours to write a post; instead of 30 minutes or so.  Give yourself permission to write the best posts you can at the time.  Remember that blog posts can be edited and updated, if you later find you missed something important.

Capture your ideas

We all have ideas flow into our mind, but most people fail to capture them.  As a blogger, if I see an interesting article that gives me an idea for a blog post, I save it.  If I get an idea when I’m out walking, I capture it using an audio recorder.  Make it easy to capture the ideas you have and then put some time aside to get these ideas written down.  Flesh them out a bit.  You will be able to tell very quickly if the idea is good enough to turn into a post for your blog.

Learn to deal with critics

Often, when you make a point on your blog about something that is a matter of opinion, your own opinion will be criticised (and rightly so.)  Fear of criticism stops a lot of people from writing about certain subjects that are relevant to their industry / readers or expressing their opinions.  Both of these will limit the volume and (in my opinion) the value of what you publish.

For example, I wrote a post last month about my positive experience with Dell customer service.  I knew at the time that it would attract comments from people, who either strongly agreed or strongly disagreed with me.  If you check out the comments, you will see a number of really pissed-off Dell customers, telling me how wrong I was!  Those comments add balance to the post and allow people to see a far wider range of experiences.

People disagreeing with you or being critical of your view point, are a key part of blogging; however, many people really struggle with it.  This is why I wrote the following post on how to deal with blog critics and criticism.

Publish your best content on your blog, not on Facebook etc

Many people who have blogs that they seldom update, have Facebook accounts that they regularly update with insights, ideas and useful links.  There are many reasons why this is a really bad strategy for a commercial blogger.  One of which, is that it sees you investing your content development time building content on someone else’s platform, whilst yours is being neglected.

Use Facebook, but not at the expense of your own commercial blog.  Some of the info you post on Facebook could be slightly expanded upon and turned into a great little post, which you can THEN share on Facebook!

So, what would you add to that list?

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

Are you sure you do it often enough?

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I have 2 quick questions for you today, which can help you massively increase your sales:

  • What is the single most powerful form of marketing that you use?
  • Why don’t you use it more often?

2 million in extra sales, with 1 simple idea!

Back in 1997, I spoke with the owner of a building supplies company.  Their biggest source of new business was a highly profitable catalogue, which they sent out every 6 months.  These 2 catalogues were responsible for the vast majority of their sales.  I asked him why he only sent out 2 a year and not 4; 1 per quarter.  He told me that he assumed 2 catalogues a year was the right balance.

I explained that he shouldn’t assume anything, until he had tested and measured the results.  At my suggestion, he gave it a try and saw an immediate, huge increase in business.  He later told me that our 10 minute conversation earned him almost £2 million over the next 18 months, for which he was extremely grateful.

Whilst it’s very important to ensure that you are using the correct forms of marketing (use this marketing check list), and using them in the correct way; it’s just as important to use them regularly enough.

Of course, with marketing there is always a balancing act.  If, for example, the business owner I mentioned a moment ago had sent a new catalogue out every week, the cost of production and distribution would have massively increased.  It’s likely he would get too few additional sales, to justify the massive additional cost.  However, by slowly increasing the regularity of your marketing, you can find the sweet-spot; the point where your marketing is being used with ideal regularity.  Not too frequently and not too infrequently.

Why not take a moment to review the most effective forms of marketing you currently use and see if there’s a possibility, that you are not using it frequently enough?

Marketing messages: It’s all about THEM!

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All too often, small business owners market their services based on what is most appealing to them.  They make offers that they think are great.  They focus on benefits that they think are important.

Here’s the challenge with that approach: It’s very ineffective!

Your prospective clients buy for their reasons, not yours.  If you want them to become clients, you need to be able to see things from their perspective and adapt your marketing messages accordingly.  You need to write in terms that are native to them, not you.  You need to inspire them to call you, email you, visit your store etc, and they will only do that if you give them a good reason to.  This means using their language, to demonstrate the benefits of what you do, based on their most pressing needs.  It’s all about THEM.

I saw someone recently trying to encourage small business owners, to attend a free talk he was giving, about how to use foursquare.  Here’s what his primary marketing message was:

“Learn how to geosocialize with your local commercial spectrum!”

Now, for 99% of the small business population, that phrase will be more likely to turn them off, than convince them to check out the service.  He was talking in HIS language, not his intended audience’s.  He failed to explain in clear business terms, what the benefits of attending his talk would be.  He failed to explain why a busy business owner should take time out from running their business, to go and listen to him.

One of the fastest ways you can improve the effectiveness of your marketing copy writing, is to review your material and ask yourself:

  • Is this written in the language I use, or the language of my prospective clients / customers?
  • Does this message clearly explain, in as few words as possible, compelling reasons why they need my product or service?

If you find your copy is failing on either front, rewrite it.  This time, place all the emphasis on them and their needs.

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

Business blogging experts?

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Over the past 24 hours, I have seen 2 people advertising their services as business blogging experts.  In both cases, I decided to check THEIR blogs out.  As a marketing guy, I was curious as to what kind of blogs these expert business bloggers had. I’m really glad I did, because it motivated me to write this “buyer beware” post and hopefully, will stop people from wasting their time and money.

Business blogging experts?

One of them has a blog, which has not been updated since last year!  This blog expert wants you to pay him, to coach you on the benefits of business blogging, yet his primary business blog looks like he has just given up on it.

The other blogging expert was even worse!  Her blog is not even configured correctly.  I was on her blog for 5 minutes, and was unable to find anything, other than the most recent blog post, because the navigation was so poor.  Equally, the blog was almost unreadable, (even on my 24 inch monitor), because it’s written in a tiny font. It looks a total mess and lacked even basic social bookmarking options.  I have seen many new bloggers, with far more professional looking blogs.  Unbelievably, she is currently offering a free talk on successful business blogging, via a local networking group.  Clearly, no one bothered to check her out before allowing her to talk.

Researching a business blogging expert: The basics

Both of these self proclaimed business blogging experts, have thousands of followers on Twitter.  This is not an indicator of how good they are at what they do, yet many use the size of someone’s social network as a short-cut to their decision making process.  If you want a better indicator as to how good a blogging expert REALLY is, check out their blog!

Here are a few of the basics to look for, before you decide to take any advice from them:

  • Check that their blog looks professional.  If it isn’t, do you really want to take blogging advice from them?
  • Check that their blog has an active community.  A quick look at the number of comments their posts attract, will give you an idea as to how well they are engaging THEIR readers.  Look at the last 10 or so posts, as some posts get a lot fewer comments than others.  Bottom line: if their blog doesn’t have an active community (which is the heart of a great business blog) they are hardly going to be able to show you how to build a great community on YOUR blog!
  • Check that their content is valued by others.  When people find something on a blog or website interesting, they will often link to it.  For example, there are around 20,000 links pointing to this blog right now.  You can check how many links point to any site, using Yahoo Site Explorer.

Even if someone is offering you free advice via a local networking group or webinar, ALWAYS check them out, before you waste your time and money following what they say.  Just because their advice is free, does not mean it will not cost you a great deal, if you use what they say and it’s based on bullshit.  Sometimes, free advice can be very expensive!

How dependent is your business on Twitter, Facebook etc?

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If your Facebook or Twitter account got suspend or deleted, what impact would it have on your business?

I ask this question, because I’m seeing more and more people invest huge amounts of their valuable time building social networks on 3rd party sites, which they have very little real control over.  Conversely, I see remarkably few people invest anywhere like enough time on the development of their own social media platform – namely, a commercial, self-hosted blog (like this one.)  I’m sure you’ve seen it too; people who only manage to put new content on their own blogs a couple of times a month, yet they update Twitter or Facebook on and off all day long.  Their blogs are being neglected, yet their Facebook stream is packed with interesting posts, great ideas and useful links.

In other words, they are building their primary social networking hub on something they have little real control over – Something that can be suspended or deleted without their consent, at any time.

Twitter account suspensions

I was prompted to write this after receiving an email this morning from a reader, who has just had his Twitter account reinstated AFTER Twitter suspended it, without warning or reason, for 8 days!  Although I no longer follow him, I do read his stream occasionally and it is a very typical Twitter account, which doesn’t spam or abuse anyone.  By the time his account was restored, 2 new prospective clients had unfollowed him.  Apparently, they saw the “account suspended” sign and assumed he was a scammer!

In fact, of the 30 or so people I know of, who have had their Twitter accounts suspended, I can’t think of any that were actually doing anything wrong.  By the way, one of those I helped get their account back, via a conversation on Friendfeed, was non-other than Chris Anderson; Editor of Wired Magazine and creator of what we now know as the freemium marketing model.  Again, a completely random suspension.

Free blogs get suspended too

Just over a week ago, 70,000 people, (yes seventy thousand) had their Blogs shut down without notice, when the blogetery blogging platform they were using was closed down.  Some of these people will have invested months of their time, developing content for that platform, only to see it erased without warning.  Had that same time been invested in developing on their own self-hosted blog, it would still be there.

Even WordPress.com, which I consider the best free blogging platform by far, can suspend or remove your blog if, for example, one of their moderators believes you have Search Engine Optimized it, so that it’s too Google friendly and does not read well enough for people.  In a list of blogs that are not allowed on WordPress.com, they list their now famous SEO clause:

Blogs that are written for search engines instead of humans. These blogs are dedicated to trying to fool Google and other search engines into ranking them or the sites they link to highly. WordPress.com is not meant for this type of activity.

The challenge here, is that many people would consider that “type of activity” to be nothing more than SEO!  It’s a very grey area.  What you or I consider a legitimately optimised blog post, one particular moderator at WordPress may consider to be too SEO friendly.  If so, and someone reports it, you are at best suspended or at worst, the blog is deleted.  I have to say here, that typically, the moderators at WordPress are very good these days and only want to block scammy blogs.

Your marketing on your platform

However, why give someone who knows nothing about you or your business, the power to suspend or delete your business blog, when you can build a self-hosted WordPress blog, like this one, which you control and direct 100%?  In my opinion, this alone is a great reason for business bloggers to consider owning their own platform.

My point is that whilst social networking sites are a brilliant idea and a great opportunity for you to reach new people, you should also consider investing in a central Internet space or hub, which YOU control and can develop with total freedom.  No 3rd party should have the power over you or your business, to be able to pull the plug on your primary online platform.

But I put at least 95% of my social media time into producing content for this blog and connecting with the reader community here.

Because of this, if any of my social media / social networking accounts were suspended, I would still have a thriving community of readers, commenters and people who regularly email me via this blog.  I would still be able to reach new prospective clients every hour of each day.

Seth Godin Vs Bob the Blogger!

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As a marketing coach, I am always studying the power of influence and influential people.  For example, we all know the power a celebrity can have, when they give their personal endorsement to a politician or their paid endorsement to a product.  This is because a large chunk of the general populous, uses what a well known or well-respected person says, as a short-cut to their decision making process.

A while ago, one of my favourite writers, Seth Godin, made a couple of statements that were widely accepted as fact – Despite them simply being his opinions.  Fans of Seth heard what he said and then looked for things that would support it.  It’s actually a very good piece and as always, delivered with passion and power.

Here’s what Seth said:

“Blogging is free, it doesn’t matter if anyone reads it.  What matters is the humility that comes from writing it.  What matters is the meta cognition of thinking about what you are going to say.  How do you explain yourself to the few employees you have or your cat or whoever is going to look at it?  How do you force yourself to describe in 3 paragraphs, why you did something?  How do you respond out loud?  If you are good at it, some people will read it.  If you stick at it, you will get good at it. But this has become much bigger than are you boingboing, are you the huffington post.  This has become such a micro publishing platform, that basically you are doing it for yourself, to force yourself to become part of the conversation, even if it’s (Seth gestures with his index finger and thumb, to denote a tiny amount) just that big and that posture change, changes a huge amount.”

Here’s the clip of Seth saying this on YouTube – It’s powerful stuff.

If Bob the blogger (I just made that name up) told you that it didn’t matter if anyone reads your business blog, most of you would disagree.

You might remind Bob that a blog with 5000 unique visitors a day will out perform an identical blog, with just you and your cat reading it.  This is why every blog development program and every leading blog development site, focus so much on developing a targeted readership and increasing your blog’s visibility.

If Bob the blogger told you that as a busy small business owner, you should be writing a blog for humility, you just may question that too.  Here’s why:

  • Bob is not Seth, so we question what Bob says.  With Bob, we are a student.  We study what Bob says and ecology check it, to see if it actually makes sense.  Then, and only then, we accept it.
  • Seth is not Bob, so the temptation is to accept what Seth says, without question.  At this point, we cease being a student and miss much of the learning that people like Seth offer.

The challenge here, is that when we fail to study, we fail to learn.

Blindly accepting something, turns the student into a sheep.  Even when the person is as intelligent and honest as Seth Godin, we owe it to ourselves to study what they say.

This is NOT a post about whether or not Seth is right or wrong with what he said in this one instance.

It’s about whether more people would have questioned what Seth said, if he was “just” a normal guy, like my fictitious friend, Bob the blogger.

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!