Are you a winner?

These days there are many different opportunities to enter business awards, industry awards and other awards relating to specific skills or types of business.  If you haven’t ventured into this area yet, it’s worth taking a look at.

Start local – there are usually business awards for your nearest city, town or perhaps county in several categories.  There are even awards for start-ups, so you don’t have to have many years of trading to call on.

Doing an online search for ‘business awards essex’ (if you’re based in Essex) or for ‘PR awards’ if you’re in the PR industry will produce a good list to start out.

Some awards have an entry fee, while others are free.

Get your entry right

Read the entry criteria carefully.

Enter the right categories.  Don’t enter an award you aren’t well-qualified for or you’re likely to be disappointed.  For instance, if you’re looking to enter marketing awards, ensure they are for businesses, not for the marketing agencies.

Research the last winner and who made the shortlist.  How do you match up to them?

Understand what the process is.  Most awards start with a written narrative or written answers to questions, but some involve a visit from the judges for short-listed entrants.

Answer the questions asked – not the one you would have liked to have been asked.  When you’ve written your answer review it in relation to the question and make sure your answer is well-targeted.

Even if you’re completing an online form always write your entry in Word and keep a copy.  Firstly, it will give you a word count – and if they say 200 words max, don’t send in 250.  Secondly, keeping what you’re written somewhere accessible means that you have material you can edit for future submissions, instead of having to start from scratch.

Plan ahead

Work to meet the deadline comfortably.  Awards are judged and presented at different times of year.  Sometimes this year’s awards aren’t presented until early next year, sometimes they are presented early in the year.  Don’t leave it until the last minute or your presentation is likely to be rushed and not as good as it could be.

Keep a list with the award category, the awarding body, the deadlines, a link to online forms or information pages, the date of the presentation event (if there is one) etc.  This will make it easy to keep up with what needs to be done if you are aiming to enter more than one.

WIIFM

The well-known radio station ‘What’s In It For Me?’!  Why bother going to the effort of entering an award?  Winning an award is validation of your business having reached a high standard for the award category.

• It’s reassuring for potential customers to see you’ve won a recognised award – even a local one.
• It can be inspiring for your staff to know they’re working for a successful company – and may provide an opportunity for a staff night out to the award ceremony!
• It will get you press coverage as a winner (or even if you make the short-list) and maybe an opportunity to be interviewed by local press or industry journals.

Then it’s up to you – you can add it to your stationery, website, email signature, brochures, etc.

Good luck!

7 ways to use an autoresponder

Autoresponders are seriously under-used.  So many people miss opportunities to keep people who have already shown interest engaged and lose potential subscribers.

If you don’t know what an autoresponder is – it’s simply a series of emails that are triggered by an opt-in form and are sent out at the intervals you set, this could be daily or at irregular intervals as you wish.

There are so many ways to build loyal subscribers who love getting your communications and may even, eventually, buy.  These are just a few ways you could use an autoresponder:

1: Post-training follow up

If you’ve run a training event, you want people to use what they’ve learned from you, but as you probably know, ‘life’ gets in the way and even the best-intentions fizzle out.  You need them to take action as soon as possible to get the most benefit from what they’ve learned so ensure you give them reminders.

The day after the event thank them for attending and remind them to put their action list together, then a day later suggest they transfer time to take action into their diaries.  You can remind them of key points over the next days and weeks to job their memories.

People who have put your teaching into action are much more likely to recommend others to attend the training.

2: Post webinar

If you have run an online webinar to promote something, some people will have signed up to buy whatever you’re promoting, but many won’t, it’s the law of averages.

Instead of letting those people slip through the net, add them to an autoresponder series that expands on the points you made during the webinar and gives them enough information to start taking action.

Clearly you won’t give away the in-depth stuff people will get when they pay for it, but most of us have plenty of basic level good practice advice that we can share.

A short ‘how to’ email every few days with the revised offer from your webinar will get a few more sign ups.  Some people just need to think about things for a bit!  Those that don’t buy will still be on your list and getting great quality information – some may become customers in a few months or even longer.  Without the engagement they’d forget you!

3: Free short course

If you are often asked ‘how do you do that?’ by networking connections and social media friends, you could have a short course.  Could you break down something you do into 5 or 7 bite-sized steps?

Create a course and use it to both grow your list and build great relationships with people who want more.

4:  Tips

Create a series of tips – this could be a one-week series My 7 top tips on X or a weekly tip that goes out on the same day each week, or a month (30 days) of useful ideas relating to your area of expertise.

Clearly you will need to create the material – but this kind of email doesn’t have to be long, in fact, the shorter the better.  People are more likely to read it.

5:  eCourse

This may seem to be the same as #3, but this could be something in much more depth – and paid for.  Get people to subscribe and set up your autoresponders to deliver the modules at specified points in their subscription.

For instance, someone might pay £10 a month and receive a module every two weeks.

You could offer the basic course and a version with feedback as a limited offer – a much higher cost (as you’ll need to invest time) and add rarity value by only have 5 places available for the coached version.

6: Promotion

If you’ve got a special offer, the launch of a new product or service or something seasonal you want to promote, set up a series of emails maybe to go out on day 1, day 4, day 10, day 18 and day 25.  Then let the autoresponder do the work once you’ve hit the ‘go’ button.

7: Combinations

You could combine some of these.  For instance, if you offer a free download on your website, you could funnel opt-ins to not only get the freebie, but also get your tips series as a bonus.  You can also give them your free short course too.

Be creative, you can be making sales while you sleep!

Grow your list on social media

If you know how to use it effectively email marketing can be a powerful way to create ongoing sales. 

If you’re on any of the ‘big boys’ lists you’ll get regular emails promoting the latest products they’re offering.  Tescos, B&Q, Wilkinsons, etc. all email their subscribers regularly to let them know the latest offers and promotions.

So if you’re not a ‘big boy’ how do you get a list of people who have demonstrated an interest in what you offer and given you permission to send them information?

Something for nothing

We all like a freebie, especially if it’s something useful.  Regardless of what your core product or service is, you have a wealth of information that could help potential clients.  All you need to do is to create either a ‘how to’ free download or a slide series demonstrating something useful.

That’s just step one. 

• Create a landing page where you can send people to download their free download with an opt-in form (that’s GDPR compliant)
• Then you need to write an article that tells people about this free download
• Find or create an attractive image that represents what your free download is about 
• Start the article with instructions on how to claim the free item – ask people to comment, maybe by asking them a question about their challenges around the subject area of your article.  Add how it will help people who download it and why it’s important information for them to have.  Repeat the instructions on how to claim their free item at least once more
• Add the link to your download page
• Load it on your LinkedIn account and publish it on Facebook
• Post on all your social media in the first hour after the download goes live and your article is published to let people have the link to the article

Building connections

Don’t forget to check into your LinkedIn and Facebook accounts and respond to comments if you want to build loyal followers.

If you really want to get more sign ups quickly, make it a limited time offer – and run it for a specified period – a week, until the end of the month, etc.

Adding value

Don’t forget to email your current list first to let them know about it – and invite them to share the link with their friends and contacts.

Consider investing a small amount in a Facebook ad campaign – you could be surprised at how many additional clicks you can generated with just £20-50.  And with a considerably bigger list that could be well worth the investment as some of them will buy your products later on.

You could also ask some of your close network to promote it to their lists too.  There’s nothing like giving other people a freebie to generate positive vibes!  Everyone wins.

You could also post the link in those Facebook groups that allow self-promotion.

At the end of the exercise your list should have swelled considerably.

Get expert help

Before I get started – I am NOT a Facebook expert.  I admit that it’s not my preferred platform for business, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know its value.  That’s why I have a Facebook expert in my team.

If you’re selling products or services directly to the consumer Facebook is a fantastic platform to use, but it’s not magic – it requires a plan and effort.

If you’re using Facebook for business remember that it’s a business strategy and avoid getting side-tracked with dancing cats and your friends’ holiday pix (you can find an hour vanishes quickly if you start wandering through social posts!)  Put a plan in place that includes:

What you want to achieve

Do you want to build an audience or a community?  How many people would give you the kind of start you think will give you traction?  What do your audience/community want?

How many likes, follows, comments, testimonials will measure your success?

The activities will help you to achieve your goals

What kind of content will you post?

Do you have images that will enhance your posts?  Better still do you have short (30-90 second) videos that will put your message across well – or the facility to create these?

What are the core subjects that you will post about?  How will you stay topical and up-to-date (if this is relevant)?

How often will you post?

How often will you monitor your Page to respond to comments, questions, etc.?

Who will be responsible for keeping the Page up-to-date and managing it?

Will you use Facebook Ads to help grow your audience, send people to your website, promote a product, a giveaway (to grow your list) or an event?

Schedule time in

If it’s not scheduled in as a business activity it’s going to be much easier to push it down the to-do list and soon it will fall off the bottom and just not get done.

Most business activities get done when they become habitual.  That means that your Facebook marketing needs to become a habit.  I was once told that the easiest way to learn a new habit is to attach it to an existing one.  Most of us do email every day so tag your Facebook marketing onto your email habit!

You’ll need to include planning time and doing time.  You might have:

• A monthly plan to decide what the themes or subjects will be this month and to resource some of the material so it’s ready for posting. 
• A weekly review of likes, follows, comments, engagement, testimonials, etc.
• A daily post and monitoring comments. 

Put your marketing time into your diary and try to stick to it.

Taking a structured approach to Facebook marketing will enable you to have a much clearer idea of what works and what doesn’t.