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People are venting but is anyone listening?

By Jim Connolly | August 28, 2010

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!

By Jim Connolly | August 25, 2010

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.

By Jim Connolly | August 24, 2010

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.
  • You can publish and sell ebooks or audio programs in your area of expertise, via your own online store or shopping cart.  Side note: On Sunday I blogged about the increased price of ebooks and why you should consider becoming a publisher. On Monday, Seth Godin announced he is moving exclusively to ebooks!
  • 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!

By Jim Connolly | August 23, 2010

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!

By Jim Connolly | August 20, 2010

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!

By Jim Connolly | August 19, 2010

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.

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Jim Connolly

Hi! I'm Jim Connolly and I use creative marketing to help small business owners increase sales, boost profits and build amazing businesses. Read more here.

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