Social media marketing Archives - Page 29 of 60

3 Things to focus on if you want to quickly see amazing results

By Jim Connolly | March 9, 2013

How is business?

If you would like to attract more high quality clients or make more sales, here are 3 areas that can produce massive, immediate results. They are based on 3 of the areas I work on, when I start marketing a new clients business.

1: Why should someone hire you or buy from you, rather than one of your competitors?

Failing to answer that question correctly, is the most common mistake small business owners make, yet it’s the single most important element of your marketing.

Why? Because unless you can answer that question correctly, you’re wasting your time trying to market your business. Until you know what sets YOUR business apart from the others, you have no marketing message. There’s no compelling reason for someone to buy from you or hire you, rather than one of your competitors.

If you sound just like your competitors, the only way someone can judge your value, is to compare your fees or prices to your competitors. Remember, your competitors all promise a great service and they all have impressive testimonials. What sets you apart, needs to be something that not everyone else can claim.

This is the very first thing I would work on with you if you were my client, because it improves every element of your marketing. It also helps you attract the best clients and the most rewarding fees. Getting this right can be a game changing moment for you. This is especially the case, if you find people are fee sensitive when you speak with them or you find you attract too few word-of-mouth referrals. If this sounds familiar, fix it now.

2: How compelling is your written marketing or copy?

Maybe once a month I see a piece of small business marketing, which has been written correctly. The rest is clearly written by a keen amateur and is failing the business horribly. What’s the point of going to the time and expense of having a website, brochure, blog, email campaign or newsletter and then wasting the opportunity with ineffective marketing content? None!

If you want to motivate people to buy from you, hire you, visit you, email you or call you, your written content needs to compel people. It needs to inspire them. It needs to be so much more powerful than the average marketing message. I’d work with you on this at the very start, because it’s so extremely important. It’s almost certainly losing you business on a daily basis right now, as it stops people contacting you. You and I would review your marketing messages and work to make them perform massively better for you and your business.

When applied to your online marketing, the copy you and I produce could lead to great results very quickly – as all those readers, whose inquiries you are currently losing, feel compelled to take action and get in touch.

3: How effective is your website, at attracting new client inquiries or sales?

Within an hour of this post being published, I will start attracting inquiries from people who want to know how or when I can start helping them and their business. They will read this post, click on the link about how to hire me and then get in touch.

YOUR website or blog should be doing the same!

Your website should be a regular source of highly targeted business inquiries or sales. As mentioned above, it should be expertly written, so that when people find your website they are compelled to take action. It should inspire them to go from being a reader, (passive), to being someone who gets in touch with you, (active).

If your site is attracting people but they are not getting in touch with you, it’s failing on one or all of the above points. In other words, your lack of a compelling difference between you and your competitors and your lack of effectively written copy, is hurting your business. As a new client, I would show you how we can apply to your website, the same ideas that grew this site from zero, to one of the most popular marketing sites in the world.

Now what?

Those are just 3 of the things you and I would work on, if you were one of my clients.

If the opportunity to develop your business with the help of one of the world’s best known marketing professionals appeals to you, I currently have just ~~3 spaces~~ ~~2 spaces~~ ONE space available on my Marketing Mentor Program, where you and I work together for a whole year, on the development of your business. Here’s how it works. I recommend you get in touch as soon as possible, to avoid disappointment.

Stop writing for Google. Really. Stop it.

By Jim Connolly | February 19, 2013

As a passionate advocate for small business owners, I want to make a plea to you: Stop writing your blog posts and web copy primarily for Google.

Earlier today, I spoke with a business owner who wanted to know why the ‘traffic’ to her website and blog was not converting into business or sales leads. According to her analytics software, around 400 visitors arrive on her sites each day, then leave again without making a purchase, making an inquiry or subscribing.

She wanted to know what was wrong.

As her problem is extremely common, I thought I would share what I found with you, along with how to avoid falling into the same trap.

Keyword stuffed nonsense doesn’t convert people into customers

Within seconds of seeing the sites concerned, it was clear why they were so ineffective, why they had not attracted a single sales inquiry in 9 months. It’s simply this: They were primarily written for Google and not for people. Her content was keyword stuffed – here’s Google’s definition of keyword stuffing.

Her content was over ‘optimized’ for SEO and not written to appeal to prospective customers. For example, her website had the same 3 word phrase repeated 41 times on the home page alone! The services page on her blog has the name of her service repeated 39 times in just 350 words. It read horribly. It reflected poorly on her and her business. It was toxic and she has been paying the price.

In her eagerness to get ‘traffic’, she forgot about customers, prospective customers and what they would find when they actually arrived on her sites.

Effective SEO should be based around making great content easier for search engines to find and read. It should not be about producing keyword stuffed junk, which people can’t understand or connect with.

Writing for people

It’s hard enough to write compelling content, which will motivate people to buy from you, call you, email you, visit you, link to you or share your work. If your content reads poorly because it’s stuffed with keywords and key-phrases, you stand no chance.

Learn the basics of good, professional SEO.
Write as well as you can.
If you write a blog, also write as often as you can, being as useful as possible.
Always write with your readers needs and wants in mind.
Keep your content clear.

You may get fewer visitors from search engines then those who stuff their content with keywords, but you will engage your readers. That’s what attracts customers, generates sales leads and (ironically) motivates people to link to and share your work – which massively improves your search engine rankings, anyway.

7 Benefits of business blogging

By Jim Connolly | February 13, 2013

Here are 7 benefits of writing a business blog. Some of them may surprise you!

1. Blogging is a great tool for building a tribe

Blogging is the best tool I’ve ever known, for building a community or tribe. Blogging allows you to show your leadership, rather than claim it. By being brave enough to write YOUR point of view, you demonstrate your ability to lead – rather than follow.

This is, of course, a double-edged sword. Most bloggers simply amplify what the most popular opinion is on their subject. However, for those who genuinely are prepared to show their leadership to people, via the work and words they share on their blog, it represents an amazing opportunity.

2. Blogging and relationship building

Blogging allows people to get to know you, before they call you, email you or hire you. I get calls and emails daily from people I don’t know, who tell me they feel like they already know me. This has massive commercial value and leads into the next point…

3. Blogging helps you attract new clients and sales inquiries

Blogging is a great way to attract highly targeted inquiries from potential clients and customers. By blogging regularly about your core areas of commercial interest, you position yourself in the mind of your readers as an authority in your field. Then, when they need expert help they can trust, you become a very attractive option – far more attractive than going to Google and looking for a stranger or taking a chance on someone they don’t know, who’s recommended to them.

4. Blogging helps you communicate

When you write a blog post, you really need to think about what you are going to publish. You need to question the information you are about to share, for value, accuracy and clarity. I’ve found that by writing regularly for small business owners, it has massively improved my copy writing, when writing any commercial communication.

In short: Blogging is a superb communications training asset.

5. Blogging gives you an enormous reach

Blogging allows you to share ideas with an almost unlimited number of people. Your blog gives you the potential to build your own media asset – your own publication, with as large a readership as you are capable of building. This is an opportunity that was unthinkable for small business owners even a decade ago.

This alone makes blogging a wonderful business investment.

6. Blogging is amazingly powerful for market research

Blogging is a fantastic market research tool. You learn the topics your readership is most interested in, very quickly. Thanks to inexpensive or free analytics tools, you can see which of your posts are read the most and shared the most. You also see the posts which generate the most emails from your readers. By learning what your readership is most interested in, you can develop new products and services or adapt existing ones.

You can also improve the effectiveness of your marketing messages, knowing what your readers are most interested in.

7. Blogging allows you to prove your reliability

By showing up on your blog regularly with useful information, you are doing more than showcasing your knowledge. You are also showing prospective clients or customers that you can be relied upon to turn up.

It takes commitment, durability and a great work ethic, to regularly update a blog. Once you have been blogging for a few years or more, you also have a body of work that shows your longevity. We live in an age where people often set up a website and some social networking accounts, with no track record – and claim to be experienced professionals. Many of my clients told me that the fact they could see years worth of my work on Jim’s Marketing Blog, made them a lot more confident that I was an experienced professional.

How to protect your business from Freebie Seekers

By Jim Connolly | January 18, 2013

Image: Charles Deluvio

If you use free offers as a way to generate genuine interest from prospective, paying clients, it’s essential that you take freebie seekers into account.

Freebie seekers are those people who grab every free offer in sight, with zero intention of ever becoming a paying client or customer. Their actions can discourage you and cause you to make incorrect assumptions when you check your marketing feedback. Here are a few thoughts on freebie seekers, to help you protect your business from the damage they can cause.

Freebie seekers and free offers

When used correctly, a free offer can be a useful marketing tool. However, it’s extremely important to understand that the second you attach the word free to an offer, you will immediately attract the attention of people, with no interest in ever buying anything from you. Whilst free offers are of some interest to prospective paying customers, they are totally irresistible to freebie seekers. They are mesmerised by the idea of getting anything for nothing.

I was prompted to write this post, after hearing a story that happened in a London supermarket recently. A member of the public had to receive medical attention, after eating half a plate of ‘free cheese samples’. This free cheese was in perfect condition and contained a sign explaining that it contained nuts. The customer had a nut allergy! The store manager waited with the customer until the paramedics arrived and could not believe what he told them.

He explained that he felt compelled to risk eating the cheese, knowing it contained nuts, because it was there and it was free. It turned out that the customer wasn’t homeless or broke, he said he saw the FREE sign and couldn’t resist a free lunch, before returning to work!

Whilst an extreme case, it’s a mindset that I see all the time as a marketing professional. As a small business owner, you need to be aware of it so that you can factor freebie seekers into your marketing numbers, get a more realistic picture of your feedback and avoid them wasting your time.

Common freebie seeking behaviours

Freebie seekers are usually the first people to respond to a free offer. Sadly, your highly motivated prospective clients will also often reply quickly, which means the freebie seekers can make conversion rates look far lower than they really are. If you make a free offer in an untargeted way, for example, via messages on a social network – expect a high percentage of freebie seekers. You can reduce the percentage of freebie seekers, by making the free offer in a more targeted way, such as through your blog or newsletter.

On the subject of newsletters, freebie seekers are almost always the first to unsubscribe, when you specifically market your paid services. Just as they are quick to respond to a free offer, they are equally quick to run away, the moment they are asked to pay for anything.

Some small business owners make the mistake of not marketing their products or services often enough in their newsletters or blog posts, because they see people unsubscribe. People seriously interested in what you have to say and what you have to offer, will not unsubscribe just because you mention your products or services. Freebie seekers will. Factor this in, when looking at unsubscribe rates.

Stopping freebie seekers from wasting your time and money

The best way to defend yourself against the problems caused by freebie seekers, is to accept that they exist. The only way to avoid them, is to look at alternatives to ‘free’ offers. There are many ways to attract the attention of genuine prospective clients and customers, other than offering freebies. Any good marketing professional can show you what to do and help you avoid a costly mistake.

Facebook friends: Don’t expect too much from them

By Jim Connolly | January 17, 2013

I have always found it odd that Facebook use the word ‘friend’ to identify the people we connect with. Yes, there are true friends we know, who we ALSO connect with via Facebook, but there’s no classification for those who we have never even met face to face, yet find interesting enough to ‘friend’.

Friends… really?

If we ever doubt the chasm between our friends and Facebook friends, we need only look at the way they interact with us on Facebook. Imagine Bob or Barbara is your Facebook friend, they read a Facebook update of yours and find it useful or they agree with whatever you said – so they ‘like’ it. One click. Done. Simple.

So, as they like it enough to click ‘like’, why didn’t they share it with their ‘friends’?

I asked this question once and had lots of replies (dozens) – almost all of which said that something has to be AMAZING in order for them to share it. If it’s just useful, interesting or something they agree with, they won’t make the extra effort to click the share button and maybe insert a handful of words to explain why they are sharing it. It’s just too much effort. It requires more work from them.

A Facebook friend may have never met you or even spoken with you, let alone shared the kind of experiences with you that builds true friendship. They need a lot more motivation than a real friend, if you want them to go to the extra effort of sharing your work. Otherwise, it’s a ‘like’.

Friendship that goes beyond a ‘like’

A true friend is someone you know well. Someone who supports you and who you support in return. Someone you can confide in. Someone who you know will be there for you if you needed them. A Facebook friend is often someone you have never even met. Don’t expect too much from them. Don’t be like the guy I saw earlier, who was going nuts because his Facebook post got 50 ‘likes’ and not a single share.

Rather than get frustrated with Facebook friends for their lack of true support, maybe this is a better way to look at it: A click of the ‘like’ button, from someone you have never met, is actually very generous.