Facebook or not?

Lots of our clients sell to other businesses and I’m often asked, ‘Is it worth doing Facebook?’  I think it’s a mistake to completely ignore it and the secret is in having the right strategy for your business and your target customers.

Facebook is a social platform, now highly optimised for advertising revenue.  So your free-to-post business information isn’t going to appear in individual members’ feeds when an ad for the latest gizmo is delivering revenue to Facebook for every click.  This has made it much harder for business page owners to gain traction without investing in Facebook advertising.

Facebook for B2B business

Of course, there are millions of business owners who are active on Facebook.  The big question is what is their focus while they’re active on the platform.  In most cases the answer is that they’re likely to be looking at personal stuff so:

• Keeping in touch with their friends and family
• Entertainment via video material that appeals to them
• Buying things they want - including lots of impulse buys

This list doesn’t include ‘looking for useful business solutions’!  However, that doesn’t mean that the right posts won’t attract their attention.

At this point you might have to make a decision on your connection strategy.  Do you accept friend requests from your business contacts on your personal Facebook account or not?  Do you ask them to like your business page instead?  My personal strategy is to only connect with people as friends who are actually friends.  Remember that, they see what your other friends and family post on your profile, that may not necessarily be something you want to open to your business contacts

The next step is to consider what material would influence casual browsers to actively engage with your business post.  Then you’ll have to bite the bullet and invest in some Facebook ads to get the traffic you want.

There are two strands to this - firstly, having good content on your Facebook page, secondly, having ads that intrigue and engage strongly enough to bring people to the page.  If you do ads before developing a bank of good content, you’ll spend a lot of money on people who arrive on the page, find nothing useful and leave, never to be seen again!

Facebook likes people to post on the platform, not send posts in from elsewhere.  So your plan needs to include time to post directly, rather than use a social media management tool like Hootsuite or Buffer.

Your ads need to be carefully thought through - and tested - before you jump into a full campaign.

Facebook for B2C business

A successful Facebook page is easier to get right if you’re selling direct to consumers.  They’re open to buying stuff they like and want whether that’s for themselves or as gifts.

That doesn’t mean you should chuck any old stuff in - there is plenty of competition, so your material has to stand out.  Follow the same process of understanding what your target market is looking for and how to hit those hot buttons.  The rules for sales still apply - get attention, engage the reader/viewer, make them want what you’re offering by stressing the benefits and the problems of NOT having it - and then make an offer they can’t refuse.

If you’re thinking, ‘What’s that got to do with Facebook pages?’ - remember you’re running a business and the idea is to encourage people to want to spend time on your page, return to it and - become a customer.

Case studies, customer feedback and anecdotes are great - but don’t forget to entertain them too.

5 steps to get press coverage

Getting a press release published is a very hit and miss activity.  There’s no way to ensure an editor publishes your press release, even with a PR expert on the team.

So how can you get more exposure in the press?

1. What do your target audience read?  While it might be good for your ego to appear in the national dailies, it’s much harder to crack them, simply because they have thousands of people like you also trying to get their foot in the door.  Take a look at what else your audience reads - trade journals, industry magazines, local publications, digital only publications - and don’t forget social media.
2. Quality before quantity.  Don’t get diverted by circulation figures.  For example,  it’s easy to look at the 335,000 circulation of the Telegraph, compare it with the industry magazine for printers Print Monthly with just short of 11,000 and feel that the numbers don’t stack up.  But, if your target market is printers, you can be sure that almost all of that 11,000 are the right people for you, whereas it’s almost impossible to work out how many of the Telegraph’s readers match your ideal client profile.
3. What kind of material do those publications publish?  If you know what the editor wants, giving them material that is close to that is going to have a higher success rate.  If you’re delivering formal, traditional press releases to a publication that features a chatty, information-driven style, you’ll miss the mark.  So both content and style are important.
4. Build relationships.  A good PR executive will actively get in touch with the chosen publication and talk to the right editor.  That’s not the editor-in-chief, but the one responsible for that section of the magazine, although in smaller publications there may only be one editor.  Emulate their strategy and pick up the phone, get to know their process and lead times so you deliver what they want when they want it.
5. What does the editor actually want?  Often smaller journals will welcome good quality articles as they often have a small budget to fill their magazine with good quality articles - and are usually happy to add your contact details at the end of the article.  Know what features and supplements are coming up and, if you have something relevant, ask if they’d be interested in looking at your article.  Typically you’ll need to give them a subject and a two line description of the content for them to decide if it’s right for their publication.

Make the editor your friend - don’t bombard them with inappropriate material.  And don’t take them to task for not publishing what you’ve given them.  They’re doing their job of publishing what they know their readers want.  Never ring and ask if an article is going to be published - read the publication and you’ll see whether your item has made it or not.

Follow the process and you’ll get more of your material in print.

A plan with purpose

At this time of year many business people are winding down and the focus can be more on pleasure than planning.  However, if you own a business and you’re responsible for its ongoing success, the end of a year is often an opportunity for reflection and planning.

Here are a few things to think about:

The financial picture

It may seem obvious, but when your bottom line is healthy, it’s much easier to grow and develop the business.  My accountant tells me that having his numbers in line has been the defining factor of the success of his business.

Being an accountant you would expect him to say that, but he’s more of an entrepreneur than an accountant that only works with what’s gone.  His advice is to know exactly what each month’s, quarter’s, year’s outgoings will be and look at the projected income.  If these two numbers are very close, it will only take one customer leaving to cause catastrophe (as I know only too well).

And don’t forget to factor in tax - it still has to be paid.

The marketing landscape

Keeping business flowing in starts with marketing.  Very few people enjoy the hard sales process, so marketing is essential to keep the ‘sausage machine’ stuffed with warm leads.

This means getting the mix of social media, PR, online marketing, advertising, promotional activity and direct sales right.  Every business is different and the best place to start is with your ideal client profiles, understanding them thoroughly so your targeting is accurate and your marketing appears where they’re looking.

Hot tip:  Check out where most of your clients come from and do more of that!

The people package

Unless you’re a very small business and can do it all yourself, at some point you’re going to need help.  That might be staff, but could also be contractors, outsourced services or a combination of all these.

It’s never wise to try and do everything yourself.  Quite apart from the fact that you’re not an expert in everything, your stress levels will rocket as you work many more hours than you need to.

Decide what you WANT to do and work out how much more you could earn doing what you enjoy, than it will cost to get someone else to do it.  If the idea of being an employer isn’t filling you with joy - book a chat with an HR advisor so you understand what you’ll need to do as an employer and ensure that you’re properly protected.

Hot tip:  Read Michael Gerber’s The emyth revisited.

Put the plan on paper

This might be digital paper, but I’m a big fan of having something on the wall to remind you what you’re aiming at.  At the least you should have a chart of target income per month and the monthly outgoings, so you can see your profit line.  However, the marketing plan showing activities to be carried out in view will ensure things get done rather than forgotten.

Your people plan will show at what point you’ll need another pair of hands so that recruitment - whether of a member of staff or an outsourced service - can be done in plenty of time.

Good luck!

Not-working or networking?

If you do business networking you’ll be familiar with the concept of meeting other business people, getting to know them, building relationships, educating them about how your business helps people and seeing if there’s synergy between you to become a customer or a supplier.

Of course, there are some people who think you can attend one networking meeting and sell at everyone and come away with an order.  It doesn’t work like that!

So why do many of these same people complain that LinkedIn doesn’t work?  When I ask a few questions they:

• Haven’t optimised their profile to help other members to really understand what they do, or better still how they help their customers.
• Don’t open conversations with the people they connect with.
• Open conversations with a sales pitch - often pitching something that the contact already does themselves (I can’t count the number of times a web company has pitched ‘copywriting services’ to me - haven’t they read my profile?)
• Don’t continue conversations beyond ‘thanks’ or the automatic LinkedIn responses (and, yes, I know when someone has pressed the button and when they’ve bothered to type something).
• Don’t actively look for the kind of people who fit their ideal client profile and make connections.
• Haven’t found out which groups their ideal clients are active in and haven’t joined them OR
• Have joined a group and proceeded to pitch the members instead of being helpful and knowledgeable.
• Don’t refer other connections where appropriate.
• Don’t engage with posts on the home feed by liking or commenting.
• Don’t post updates on the home page.
• Don’t post articles on their profile.

There’s more - but this is beginning to sound like a serious rant.

At present all these things are possible with a free account.  If you’re not using them to their utmost, don’t pay for a Premium account.

The customer has landed

When your customer lands on your website how easy is it for them to understand what you do/sell/provide?

Web surfers are impatient, have the attention span of a gnat and finding an alternative that’s ‘easier’ is - easier - than struggling with anything that doesn’t deliver what they want fast.

Here are 10 things that will send your traffic running to your competition:

1. Faded video in the background that takes up the whole of the first screen with no indication of what you do.
2. Stop-start images visible anywhere there’s content - don’t distract your visitor from your message.
3. No headline or ‘Welcome’ or ‘Home page’.  You need a proper headline to engage your reader and get them to want to read more - on every page.
4. Leaving it to the third or fourth screen before presenting your products or services.
5. Scrolling marquees with text (e.g. testimonials) that move too fast for people to read all the text.
6. Black backgrounds with light coloured text (e.g. Black/white, dark blue/pale blue, maroon/gold).  It‘s much harder to read than dark text on a light background - and results in a big drop in comprehension - not good news for you.
7. Justified text - that’s where all the lines are forced to be the same length.  People often lose their place in the paragraph.  Centred text isn’t great either, left-aligned is the easiest for people to process.
8. Very wide paragraphs.  Anything longer than 100 characters (including spaces) in 10-12 point gets uncomfortable for the reader as they have to move their head to scan from the end of one line back to the beginning of the next.  They probably won’t realise it consciously, it just feels ‘wrong’.
9. Light grey text on a white background - it needs to be at least 90% black.
10. Too many things in one screen.  Stick to 3-6 services on your home page, but don’t put testimonials on one side and other text in the middle or a video next to a sign up form (that can go underneath).

This may sound fussy - but anything that is a barrier between your message and your audience makes no sense at all - no matter how beautiful it may look!

You’ve got mail

What’s the difference between a newsletter and email marketing?  Some people will tell you that a newsletter should be information, while email marketing is promotion or sales.  However, there’s information - and ‘information’.

I’ve said this many times before - but people aren’t interested in your new mission statement, your move to new premises, your latest team members, promotions or even new products and services - unless there’s a clear benefit for the reader.  So a newsletter that’s mostly company information is going to get either deleted or unsubscribed from altogether.

When it comes to email marketing it tends to be a series of messages rather than just one, but if these are a straight sales pitch you’ll get more deletes and unsubscribes than sales.

So, you’re probably wondering if emailing potential (and existing clients) and other connections is worth it.  The answer is ‘yes’ if you get your messages right.

Crafting a great email

1. The subject line needs to shout ‘open me’!  That means you need to know what your readers’ problems are and address this in your subject line.  If you haven’t got a crystal clear, detailed description of your ideal client, this is your first task (TIP: there’s a template you can use in the Treasure Chest)
2. The first paragraph needs to engage your reader by either talking about a pain they have or telling them about something of great benefit to them.  It also needs to be conversational.
3. Paragraph two builds on the first part, either contrasting the pain with the benefits or vice versa.
4. A subheadline is a good strategy to re-engage their attention (just in case, they’re not big readers!)
5. In the next paragraph give them something of value - a tip, a strategy, a 3 step process.
6. Close by delivering your promise and call to action.  This could be the promise of more information of value, a discount for earlybirds or a limited period or a code to enter to get a special price.  Then tell them what to do next - and provide a button that links to the sales page, your phone number or easy-to-follow instructions.
7. Sign off
8. Add a PS - ideally with more value.

TIP:  If you write blogs that give great information - use these to lead your newsletter with valuable content.

How social is your media?

Social media seems to be the answer to everything these days - whether you’re trying to build up your business, recruit staff or reconnect with people from your past.  I use it to stalk my children, stay in touch with people who aren’t just around the corner, promote my business, build relationships with interesting people and much more.

Social posts come in many flavours - do any of these ring a bell with you?

‘Let me share my life’

This poster shares every detail from a picture of the coffee they’ve just bought to their latest purchase on ebay.  You get to know their partner and all their idiosyncrasies, their kids achievements and lots of cute (and not so cute) pictures of them in action, their pets, their hobbies - nothing is overlooked.

‘I want to inspire you’

This is the serial quotation poster.  They love a good quote and they seem to have an endless stream of words of wisdom from both well-known names and total unknowns.  Some of them are great, but the daily deluge of good thoughts can be a tiny bit overwhelming.

‘I love cats’

… or dogs or dancing or music or [enter your current passion here].  Like one of these posts and you’ll find you’re getting lots more similar posts appearing in your feed - and, while I have time for the occasional cat video, it’s all too easy to find they’ve sucked an hour out of my day.

‘I’m going to persuade you …’

This is the poster on a mission to get you involved in their latest campaign - whether it’s to banish plastic from the world or save a child in Africa.  I’m a big believer in charity, taking action to improve our planet and helping others generally, but I hate being told I ‘have to’ do something.  My rebel comes out in force!

‘I’m only here to promote my business’

This person has been told that social media is a great marketing tool (and it is), but they don’t engage with people unless they’re showing signs of parting with some money.  They post loads of sales messages, but don’t actually talk to their ‘community’.

‘Isn’t this a numbers game?’

The aim of this person’s game is to make as many connections as possible and then tell people how many ‘friends’, ‘contacts’ or ‘followers’ they have.  They don’t read their home feeds, answer messages or have conversations.

Of course, you know some of these people - but you don’t fit into any of these categories do you?!

Why bother blogging?

As a business owner or a consultant your blog is where you show off your knowledge, expertise and experience.  It’s the platform where people who are looking for your kind of expertise can see how good you are - even before they part with any money.

Given the choice between an unknown supplier and one that clearly knows their stuff, which one would you choose?

Of course, a blog on your website has all kinds of other advantages:

It helps your website get seen by the search engine spiders

I have to admit that I imagine lots of little black 8-legged creatures running around the world wide web when I mention them, but every search engine reaches out and checks over the websites of the world to see if they’re worth ranking.  New content means that your website registers higher on the spiders’ ‘interesting’ scale, so they keep coming back.  If nothing on your site has changed since their last visit, they’ll just leave it longer before looking again.

It’s good for SEO

Providing the blogs on your website are relevant to what your company does you’ll be using the keywords that you want your site ranked for.  This aids SEO and helps to push you up the ranking (although there are lots of other things that an SEO expert will want to do to improve things even more).

It feeds your social media

Given that all the people you know aren’t going to keep rushing off to your website to see if you’ve written a new blog, it makes sense to promote it on social media and link back to your website.  You can take soundbites from your blog to post on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and use the image on Pinterest and Instagram.  These can be used more than once - as long as your blog is still relevant and isn’t topical.

It gives you material to use elsewhere

If you’re invited to write an article for a business publication - review your blog first.  You could have something that needs only a little editing already written.  Even taking a couple of blogs on the same subject and combining them would work.  You can also take a few blogs around a subject and edit them into an ebook that will help potential clients.

A blog written regularly can turn into a treasure trove!

Goals, dreams and to do lists

If you’re running a business you almost certainly have a to do list, whether that’s a daily list of actions, an ongoing list of project activities to complete or a mix of the two.  People use all kinds of devices to manage these, from complex project management software to a bit of scrap paper.

But the to do list is only the sharp end of a bigger goal.  If the items on your to do list are not helping you to achieve something, then why are you doing them?  You know the rule ‘do it, delegate it or dump it’.  To achieve goals you have to stay focused on doing the things that get you there - and not getting side-tracked with the trivia that could be done by someone else (or just not done at all).

So how do you decide what your goals are?

There are two exercises involved here:

1. Your personal goals - what you want from life - financial goals, material possessions, educational aspirations, health and fitness, family and career.
2. Your business goals.  If you’re a business owner what do you want your business to grow into?  This might be a vehicle that allows you to work a few hours a day and enjoy life, or you might want to grow into an empire that earns megabucks and provides employment for lots of people.

You need to do both of these exercises to ensure that your business goals and personal goals are congruent.  That might sound obvious, but it’s surprising how many people’s personal goal is to travel the world - while building a business into a big success.  It’s not impossible to do this, but it will depend on what kind of business your choose.

Dreams only become goals when you take action.

So now it’s time to take each goal and break it down into the actions that will achieve it.  These actions need to be prioritised and given deadlines - and some may be allocated to someone else to do.

If you put your actions to take in your diary and allocate time to them, you’ll achieve your goals - almost without making much effort!

Time to turn your dream into a goal and then into a to do list!

Do you dream of being an author?

Everyone has a book in them and, as a business owner or consultant, you’ve probably got more than one.  Your expertise and experience have value and being able to claim the title ‘author’ has a certain kudos.

The problem with daydreaming about becoming an author, is that it requires you to write.  Yes, of course we can all write, but not everyone does it well enough to write a book (at least not without a lot of editing).

If you’re one of those people who likes the idea, but can’t imagine sitting down for long periods of time to actually get their thoughts down on paper, you could work with a ghost writer or professional editor in a variety of ways.

Notes and other material

A ghost writer will want to talk to you about the focus for your book, but if you have existing material (like blogs and articles) and some notes you’ve made they will almost certainly be able to produce a reasonable first draft.

Record your thoughts

If you’re happy to talk into a recording device, you could talk your book and then get it transcribed for your ghost writer/editor to work on.  Ideally, you would need to have worked out a plan so you talk with purpose around specific subject areas, rather than just ramble on for a while!

Interview

Some ghost writers will sit down with you and literally conduct a series of interviews to extract the information they need to develop your book.  This is more time-consuming and is likely to be more expensive.

Contract it out

You could just give your chosen ghost writer a brief and let them do the research and write the book.  This is possible, but less authentic as they won’t have your thoughts and ‘voice’ to create a book that sounds like you.

These are all ways that books are written, so you can take your pick.  Before you start talking, jotting notes or getting involved in interviews, it is a good idea to map out your book.  This means working out what each chapter will cover - maybe a few bullet points to provide structure and then organising the chapters into a logical order.

If you’re planning to work with someone on your book make sure that you choose someone who you feel comfortable with and who ‘gets’ you and what you’re trying to achieve.  It will make the experience much easier and help you enjoy your journey to authorship.

The list building magnet

We all like something for nothing - particularly when that something is of value to us.  On the other hand we don’t want yet another boring newsletter landing in our inbox.  What have these two facts got to do with each other?

They’re both common approaches businesses and consultants use to build their lists.

A free valuable document is an easy ‘sell’.  People are willing to part with their email address to get their hands on a document that will help them in some way.

Very, very few people will give you their email address if they think that all they’ll get is a boring newsletter.

If you want to build your list you need to:

a) Understand your potential clients biggest problems
b) Create a document that shows them how to resolve those problems
c) Give the document an attractive title that tells them enough to make it irresistible
d) Create a form using an online data management site (e.g. Mailchimp, AWeber, etc.)
e) Place the form near the top of your website’s home page
f) Provide a hidden page where people can download their document.

So now you’ve got your lead magnet, or ethical bribe, set up.  You need to promote it on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest - all funnelling people to sign up on your website.  You could even invest a little and run a Facebook ad campaign to drive traffic to your website to build your list quicker.

Now your list will grow.

So you’ve got a list of people who have demonstrated an interest in your area of expertise, now what?

Well, you don’t want to send them a boring newsletter - but you could send them a newsletter full of value, with more high-quality content.  If the material they get from you is consistently high they won’t hit the delete button and they won’t be unsubscribing any time soon.

These are the people who you can also target with useful emails helping them with those difficult challenges - and, of course, offering your help.  Some of them will turn into customers.

Answer the question

I used to belong to the Institute of Management (now the Chartered Management Institute) and one of our branch meetings took place in a brewery.  That may seem a stretch for a management group, but actually the brewery in question had recently won a business award and we were there to listen to their story about how they’d done that.

They had only been operating for a couple of years and it was impressive that they’d won an award, not for the beer, but for the business.  I was intrigued as to what they thought the secret of their success was and asked one of the partners that question.

She replied, “I did what my teacher told me - I answered the questions that were asked.”

At first, that seemed obvious, until I realised that people often DON’T answer the question that was asked, but the one they would have liked to have been asked!

The brewery has gone on to become bigger, very successful and has now won many other awards for their beers (find out more at www.mightyoakbrewing.co.uk).  It was at least 20 years ago that I visited - and yet that comment has stuck in my mind.

I’ve written many awards presentations for clients since then and edited rough drafts - and that comment is always front and centre in my mind.  It’s surprising how easy it is to go off at a tangent, especially if it’s your baby you’re writing about.  Of course, you want to tell the judges all the great things about your business - but, the narrative needs to be relevant to the question.

Judges like statistics rather than stories so the operating figures, staff increases, number of products and services must be provided, but the ethos and values of your business are just as important, so make sure that these are clear from everything you write.

Whether you are answering a question or providing a narrative (e.g. give a brief outline of the company history) keep reminding yourself of what the instruction was and ensure that every word counts.

TIP:  Most awards forms have a maximum number of words, often for each question - don’t exceed this.  My advice would be to write your answer in Word and then paste it into the online form.

Follow up your event

Whether you’re doing a free webinar to generate interest in your products or services or speaking at a business event or even exhibiting at a trade show, you’ll have a list of attendees.  (Most event organisers share their list of registrations with exhibitors and speakers).  So what do you do with this list?

As part of your event planning you should be thinking about follow up.  If you’ve got a series of autoresponder messages ready your follow up can happen the minute the event is over.

Building an autoresponder series

If you’re running your own event, people who register should be entered onto a list for that event as part of your registration process.

If you’re exhibiting or speaking at someone else’s event you need to know when you will receive the list of attendees.

Then you’ll need a series of messages to keep them engaged.  These need to reinforce what you originally delivered, but can also be seeded with opportunities for the receiver to get more from you.

For instance - and this is just an example:

Event + 1 day:  Thank you for attending, I hope you found it useful.  You can find a workbook/notes/more useful information here (link to somewhere on your website) P.S. Ask for feedback - ideally a simple online form with a link.

Event + 5 days:  Remind of a key point or two.  Ask them to take action so they use their learning/experience.  If it’s an exhibition then it might be a general reminder to sort out the mass of paper they’ve collected.

Event + 10 days: What have they done so far?  Remind them of the key points.  P.S. Offer an opportunity to attend something else/get a low-cost item/join your Facebook group/like your Facebook Page

Event + 15 days: Have they experienced a challenge in relation to putting their learning into practice?  Give some advice.  P.S. Remind them how to contact you and offer something (discounted price/free session/something useful - but different to the last PS)

Event + 30 days: How are things going?  Ask for feedback on their progress.  Ask if there is anything you can do to help them.

Autoresponder series can be short or long.  Certainly for events where you are sharing learning they can be long with reminders of individual key points in each one.

Clearly each message will need crafting to appeal to the reader and have an ‘open me’ subject line.  But once they’re all loaded into whatever online marketing system you use, they will just keep being delivered and leave you free to get on with running your business.

Picture perfect

A picture is worth a 1000 words!  But the picture has to be good enough to deliver the right message.

Platforms like Instagram and Pinterest feature images and some people have done very well from these and grown substantial businesses.  So what makes a great picture?

1. People - we like humans, especially when they’re doing something interesting or are particularly attractive - or unusual in some way.
2. Animals - why do you think so many people watch cat videos on Facebook?  However to work for your business it must be relevant!
3. Intriguing pictures - if there’s a picture that’s a great image, but needs a bit of help to ‘see’ what it really is that often works well.  That might be an unusual angle on a piece of equipment or an image that shows a part of something rather than the whole.  The secret is in a well-shot image.
4. Clarity - the picture needs to be sharp, not too ‘busy’ and look professional.
5. Information - presented in pictorial form.  This would include infographics, diagrams, charts and graphs - as long as the information is easy to process and they’re not stuffed with too much information.
6. Colour - bright colours attract attention - as long as the image isn’t overloaded with colour. A focal point that draws the eye is perfect.
7. Words - a quote or statement on a coloured background with a little decoration can be effective.
8. Aesthetically pleasing - we like looking at beautiful things so if your image includes something attractive, or is particularly well balanced, it will attract attention.  Look at décor images to get ideas of how ‘things’ can work well in particular juxtapositions.

Don’t just dump images into your feed, do some thinking and planning first.

Email magic

When you’re trying to generate sales, there are two things you need:

1. People who are interested in what you have to offer
2. Information that gets their attention

If you don’t already have a list with permission to contact them, you need to generate that first.  The most straightforward way is to create a lead magnet.

However, assuming you have a list, you should be able to tick number one.  Your list should include people who have already expressed an interest in what you sell, whether they’ve downloaded a free lead magnet, completed an enquiry form, attended a free event or may even be a former client.

Then you can concentrate on number two.

And there lies a challenge - what will get their attention?

The right headline

You probably have Clutter and Junk folders in your email that are bursting at the seams - and you will never have time to read all those trivial messages.  But if you skip through them before deleting them you’ll probably read the odd one - usually because the subject line makes you curious.

So you need to know what will attract people who already have an interest and just need pushing over the edge.  Your subject line is your headline and the number one place to concentrate your creative attention.

For instance:

Fantastic offer!  Don’t miss out

Or

Will you hate yourself tomorrow?

The first one may sound exciting - to you, but the second one creates curiosity.  People need to know what it’s about, it’s intriguing, there’s  a fear of missing out there too.

Planning pays off

One email doesn’t make a campaign.  If you send it on a Tuesday morning, what about all those people who are rushed off their feet on Tuesdays?  What about those who are out of the office?  What about the people who are on holiday this week?

Plan a campaign with at least three messages.  Each message should be different, but hold the same information.  Different headlines and approaches may connect better with those who didn’t open the first one.

Send them on different days of the week and at different times of day.

Work on short and succinct for business people, they appreciate not having to read miles of text.  Yes, there are long emails that work, but the art of writing these is another blog!

Think about whether you need to have a html email with images and sales material, or are you better off with just text and your professional signature?  This is where it’s important to see things from your customer’s perspective, what might connect with them - and what will turn them off and get your message deleted?

Test your message

If you have a strong network of business friends you might run a test mailing and ask for feedback.  Failing that try testing two different headlines (subject lines) for the same email and see which one gets most opens.

Review your opens and clicks data - and see if, over time, there are some common factors that perform better than others.

The more you learn, the better you will make subsequent campaigns.

Build a community

If your business has a Facebook Page, you’ll need to work at it for it to be successful.

Likes and Follows are important - and often others will judge you based on your numbers.  However, there’s much more to a successful Facebook Page than big numbers of likes/follows.

To really make your page work you need engagement.  That means people who see your posts and like them or comment.  The challenge for most Page owners is that, unless you pay for boosts or ads, few of your posts will appear in the home feed of those who’ve liked your Page or followed it.

In truth, even the posts of the people you’ve accepted as friends don’t appear in your home feed.  Facebook filters posts so you only see the posts from the 20-25 people you interact with the most.  When it comes to Pages the filter is virtually zero.

Let’s look at it from the user’s point-of-view.  If you use Facebook at all, as an individual, you’ve probably liked quite a few pages.  How many of these do you actively visit?  How many of their posts turn up in your home feed?

In order to get people to keep coming back your posts need to have a big engagement factor.  So your first task is to work out what your audience will be interested in.  This might include:

• Hints and tips around your area of expertise
• Short videos showing people a simple step-by-step process
• Interesting pictures
• Fun things

The sad truth is that people are more likely to watch something entertaining than something enabling on Facebook.  The secret is to find content that ticks both those boxes!

This is a challenge for most people and it takes time so here are a few ideas to build your content up.

1. Open your eyes,  When you’re online keep looking at the things you find as potential material.  Sharing other people’s content is fine as long as it’s clear that it’s shared.
2. Convert things to visual images, like infographics or diagrams.
3. Get comfortable talking to a camera.  Video is far more popular than text only or even images.  What could you create?  Videos need to be short, so it doesn’t have to be a painful process, the secret is prepare well and the actual video will come over effectively.  It doesn’t have to be perfect, just easy to watch.
4. Have a place where you keep useful links and material.  Sometimes you may find things that aren’t relevant today, but might be later.  Keep a OneNote or EverNote page with all these links to refer to when you need material.
5. Pinch other people’s ideas!  I don’t mean literally, but when you find something that really works, think about how you might do something similar about your own business.

When you start getting likes and comments you’ll find you’ve built a community.

When is a press release an article?

You’ve probably been told that sending press releases to your chosen press list is a good idea and will help your marketing.  But a press release is typically about something that is happening in your business that the readership of those publications will be interested in.

With the best will in the world, few companies - especially small ones - can come up with newsworthy material on a weekly, or even monthly, basis.  So, if you don’t have news, how can you get into print?

Be proactive

Take a look at your press list.  Are there any industry journals for your target audience on it?  If you help property investors, then what do they read?  If you offer services to engineers, what publications are on their desks?  If you specialist in fitness training, what do your ideal clients read?

When you’ve identified a handful of publications contact the editors.  You’ll often find that industry journals don’t have an office full of paid journalists and may welcome a regular article that will appeal to their readers.

Be ethical

You’ll need to provide examples of your articles for the editors to read and it’s wise to submit articles to ONLY ONE editor.  If you write well and find it reasonably easy, then you can submit different articles to different editors, but don’t duplicate.

Don’t use your articles as a sales platform.  This is the fastest way to alienate editors and get your articles ‘spiked’ (journalese for ‘binned’) or heavily edited.  Most editors are happy to have your byline and contact info at the end of the article.

Aim to write useful material that the reader can put into practice.

Get help

If you find writing hard work, but have plenty of ideas, outsource the article writing to a professional copywriter or freelance writer.  You can usually get your ideas over in a short phone conversation and then simply polish their draft to your requirements.

You can find a good writer through your network, recommendations or on freelance sites like elance, PeoplePerHour or Fiverr.  Always ask for examples before you choose; cheapest is not often best!  Your chosen writer should be able to capture your voice as well as your ideas.

If you’d like some help we’re always happy to help!  Give me a call on 01245 473296.

Banner stands that work

If you’re attending a business event you may have the opportunity to display a pop-up banner stand.  They can be very effective in drawing attention - but they can also be a poor investment if you get your information in the wrong places.

Here’s a template for a great banner stand.

Three strategies to grow your business

Most people consider that this means getting more customers, but you’ve probably heard the saying that it’s harder to get a new customer than to increase sales to existing customers.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be looking for new business, but that your strategy needs to have more than one ‘spoke’ to your wheel.

Here are a few things that will grow your business - or at least your profit:

1. Networking - online and offline.  But beware of randomly contacting people, have a clear idea of who would be a good match as a client and start building relationships with people who match that description.

The secret is to get to know people, to ask about their business and understand what their challenges are.  How can you help? If you don’t have the right skillset, could you introduce them to someone who has (and who you trust to do a good job)?  Being known as a connector is also valuable and creates reciprocity.  They won’t forget you (and neither will the company you’ve referred in).

Ask better questions of your contacts as your relationship grows and help them to understand what a good client for you looks like.  Even if they’re not ready to buy they may know someone who is.

2. Get recommended.  Happy clients are usually also happy to refer you to others.  However, there’s a big difference between ‘you should contact X company’ and ‘let me introduce you to my buddy, John, at X company.’

Have conversations with your existing customers and ask them who they know who would value your skills/products and ask them to introduce you.  This might be an email introduction, better still a phone call or, best of all, taking you along to meet the new contact.

3. Play the numbers game.  You don’t need to get new clients to improve your profits, you just need to know how to play the numbers game.

When was the last time you put your prices up?  If it’s more than a year ago, now would be a good time to add 10%.  That means you’ll get more income for the same effort - and most customers don’t mind paying for good value.

Do all your customers know about everything you do?  If you educate them they might purchase more from you.  Even a 10% increase in purchases from each customer will make a difference to your profit - and with very little effort.

Small changes in your pricing and pitching will result in big differences in your bottom line.

These aren’t either/or tactics - do them all and you’ll be surprised at the difference.

Does your LinkedIn website link get clicks?

Your LinkedIn profile provides you with a section where you can add your contact info - and one of the options is to add your website link.  When you put the URL in you’ll be asked if you want to designate your website as:

• Personal
• Company 
• Blog 
• RSS feed
• Portfolio
• Other

Most people choose ‘Company’ if they’re using LinkedIn for business.  However, by doing this you’ll end up with a website link that shows up as:

Acmewidgets.com (Company Website)

If you’ve looked at my LinkedIn contact info, you’ll see my website link says:

insidenews.co.uk  (Reputation marketing and copy)

How did I do it?

It’s one of those clever little hacks that you either know or you don’t!  I didn’t discover it by accident, someone showed me how to do it about 10 years back!

The secret is to choose ‘Other’, instead of ‘Company’.

This pops out an additional box where you can write a limited description.  It’s only about 30 characters, but if you choose the right words it’s much more appealing than ‘Company Website’.

There’s more

You can list three websites on your profile.  But if you don’t have more than one, don’t miss out on the opportunity to send people to three different pages on your main website. 

These might be the home page and a couple of products or services - again choose ‘Other’ and add an interesting description.

For instance, my other two website links go to the ‘Writing a book’ and ‘Treasure Chest’ pages on my main website.

insidenews.co.uk/commercial-copywriting/writing-a-book/  (Want to write a book?)

insidenews.co.uk/treasure-chest  (Free goodies!)

Be creative, use this clever option to make your LinkedIn web links attract more people to explore your website.

Case studies and testimonials

There’s nothing like third party validation on your website to underpin your pitch.  Everyone expects your website to paint a glowing picture of your business and the skills or products on offer, but when someone else says your good, it has more power.

That means that testimonials and case studies are good to have as they demonstrate your expertise.  The problem is where do you put them?

You could have a ‘Testimonials’ tab on your menu, or a ‘Case studies’ tab.  You could even have ‘What clients say’.  But then your website visitor has to click, go to the page and read a few testimonials before they find one that’s relevant to their needs.  Do you do that?

No, probably not.  Most people will read two or three short testimonials, then lose interest.  Remember that our attention spans have reduced to a nanosecond and that finger is quick to flick to something else.

Case studies are an even longer read, so they’ve got to look appealing.

Here are some ideas to power up your third-party validation on your website.

Testimonials

1. Don’t have a separate page for testimonials.  Pick your best one for each product or service and put it on the page where that product or service is featured.  This means that people read the relevant testimonial as they’re checking out your product or service.  
2. Feature testimonials in the same way you would a quote - like a magazine pulls a quote out of the article and puts it in bigger text in a box or between two lines to make it stand out.  (This is known in the publishing industry as a ‘ragout’.)  
3. Avoid a scrolling marquee.  That’s where testimonials are shown, then a new one replaces the last one.  Firstly, something that keeps moving is distracting, especially if it takes the reader’s eye off the information they’re actually looking for.  Secondly, most scrolling marquees are set too fast and it’s not possible to read the content before it’s gone and a new one comes up.  That’s very frustrating and frustration is not the emotion you want associating with your website.
4. Don’t publish long testimonials in their entirety.  Pick the sentences out that tell the reader ‘what’s in it for me’.
5. Always attribute the testimonial, either with the name/company (Don Smith, Acme Widgets) of the writer or with the position/company (Finance manager, Acme Widgets).  Where there are confidentiality issues, consider initials and industry type (DS, parts manufacturing company).
6. Remember to ask your clients for their feedback!  Make it easy for them by asking specific questions, such as ‘What was it like working with us?’ and most important ‘What changed as a result of what we delivered?’  Measurable results are powerful.

Case studies

1. Try creating blog categories for each of your core services/products and post your case studies here.  
2. Link each blog category to the relevant service/product page so people go straight to where all the relevant case studies are for the page they’re looking at.
3. Use a consistent format for your case studies.  For example:  The brief, the solution, the outcome, what the client said.  Adding the measurable results and the client’s feedback make case studies very powerful.
4. Pictures are worth their weight in gold.  If your particular business lends itself to before and after shots, use them.
5. Keep your copy short and to the point.  Avoid long rambling descriptions.  At the end of the day their purpose is to persuade the reader that you know your stuff and get excellent results.

Using some of these tips will help your testimonials and case studies to work harder for you.

What’s your newsletter for?

Some people decide newsletters aren’t useful, while others think a monthly, or even weekly, newsletters are essential.  Before you jump on the newsletter bandwagon, think about what you want the newsletter to do for you.

There are many goals you can set for a newsletter:

1. To share your expertise
2. To entertain the reader
3. 3To demonstrate your knowledge
4. To update the reader about your company
5. To help your reader learn about something
6. To introduce your team to the reader
7. To promote your products or services.

There are certainly more reasons, but these tend to be the main ones - and, if you’ve read the list carefully, you’ll realise that numbers 1, 3 and 5 are virtually the same thing - just with a slightly different angle!

So when you receive someone else’s newsletter, what do you want to read?  What would make you read the next newsletter from that company or person?  What would get it deleted without opening?

I don’t know about you, but I find anything that has a boring subject line is destined for the deleted folder.  Unless I know the person concerned or have actively requested to be on someone’s newsletter list a boring subject line equals a boring newsletter in my head!

This may sound self-absorbed, but I’m not really interested in the happenings within a company (unless there’s a very good reason and/or it has some impact on me and my business).  However, I do want to learn things and am interested in anything that may help my business.  That means that I don’t want to know what your company news is - unless it’s that you’ve developed a new service that will directly help my business (and the news is presented as ‘about me’, not ‘about you’).  It also means I’m not interested in who your team are, until I actually start dealing with your business - unless you’ve recruited someone with specialist expertise that will actively help my business.

The trouble with these scenarios is that a newsletter goes to a wide range of contacts - and only a very few will tick those boxes.

I’m happy to be entertained, but not if there’s no substance to the message.  Actually, I want to be entertained, not to read dry-as-dust text that could be found in a text book.

I don’t mind getting your latest offers or promotions - as long as there’s some value in the newsletters alongside this.  In other words give something free before something for sale.

What action do you want people to take after they’ve read your newsletter?  Is it a relationship building tool, a marketing publication or a sales tool?  Do you want people to develop a respect for your business or delete it?

Getting the goal sorted out will dictate the kind of newsletter you develop - but remember you need to give, before you receive.

Are you active or passive on social media?

The social media platforms that are available are many, but the big six are:

• LinkedIn (2003) (now owned by Microsoft since December 2016)
• Facebook (2004)
• YouTube (2005) (purchased by Google in November 2006)
• Twitter (2006)
• Instagram (2010) (taken over by Facebook in 2012)
• Pinterest (2010)

There are others, of course, and if you include the messaging platforms like WhatsApp, Messenger, WeChat, Snapchat and Skype you could be forgiven at being overwhelmed by how you can possible be active on all these different social media.

The good news is that you don’t have to be active on all of them.  The secret is that you first identify where your target market hang out.  Are they busy on Facebook or more likely to be found looking at LinkedIn?  Are they big video consumers or more likely to be in discussion groups?  Are they into looking at great images or more likely to be delivering soundbites in just a few words?

When you know where your audience is, then, logically, that’s where you need to spend your time.

Engagement drives traffic

There’s a big difference between broadcast and interaction.  My recommendation is that you maintain a presence on the major platforms, but choose the platforms where your audience is to be interactive.

• Do have useful tips and advice and links to your blogs going out on all the platforms.  But don’t invest your time where your client base aren’t active.
• Do spend time posting directly onto the platforms where your audience are active - AND engage with them.  So comment on their posts, get into conversations and build relationships.
• Either set up email alerts so you know when someone has commented or messaged you or make sure you visit your chosen platforms daily to ensure you respond to these promptly.
• Don’t sell at your audience.  Share you expertise and they’ll come to you when they’re ready to buy.
• Find out what they want to know about and share as much useful content as possible.

Remember, it’s not a numbers game, it’s about relationships.  People buy (from) people they like!

9 subjects to blog about

If you know that content is important, but sitting down to write a blog results in a visit to the coffee machine, a couple of biscuits (or popping out for a bar of chocolate/doughnut/your-choice-of snack-here), a bit of filing, a non-urgent phone call, replying to a handful of emails - and other delaying tactics, read on!

Not knowing what to write about is the biggest block to writing a regular blog.

First here are my top three tips:

1. Prepare for your blog writing session 
2. Put it in your diary every month
3. Write more than one article at a time

And to get you started here are things you can write about:

1. Answer a question that your clients (or people you meet networking) often ask.
2. Feature a testimonial you’ve had from a client - as part of a case study

• What the brief was
• What the solution was
• What the outcome (measurables) were
• What the client said.

3. Describe a problem and how people can solve it (with a footnote that you can help).
4. Explain how to … something you help your clients with.
5. Create a checklist and explain why each item is important.
6. Highlight the 3 (or another number) biggest mistakes people make in your specialism - and how to avoid them.
7. Search online for the latest news on your core subject and discuss that, with your opinion.
8. Feature a quote from someone whose name is known and comment on why their words are important.  This can be a quotation that’s frequently used or something someone has recently been quoted as saying in the media, as long as it’s relevant to your business.
9. Put together a list of your tops tips - it can be any number from 3 to 103!

These articles can be written, recorded as a podcast or even created as video material - whichever you feel most comfortable with. 

The plus is that each of these strategies can be used again and again, each with a different focus.

Happy scribbling!

How to sharpen your arrow

When you’re in business you need customers (or clients).  Without them your business will fail.  That means that you need to put your message in front of people who need what you’re offering.

Before you rush off to write a new website or launch a PR campaign, stop.

You don’t take a bow and arrow and fire arrows off willy-nilly.  It doesn’t win you any prizes - and could hurt someone.  You aim at a target and, ideally, want to get a bullseye.  So what is the business equivalent of your target?:

Your ideal customer 

Any marketer worth their salt will ask you a long string of questions to find out exactly who it is you want to reach.  They’re aiming to create an avatar that identifies exactly who your ideal customer is - industry, job title, size of business, number of staff, turnover, personal style, age, gender (perhaps) - and what their problems are.

A detailed profile of your ideal customer will be a massive leap closer to your target.  Instead of trying to hit a metre-wide target from a kilometre away, you’re now a mere 100 metres off.

Where to find them 

When you know who you’re looking for it’s a lot easier to work out where they hang out.  Are they Facebook fans or chatting in a LinkedIn group?  Are they Instagram mad or Pinterest fanatics? 

Are they in your local Chamber of Commerce meeting, in a weekly networking group or the local branch of a professional institute or association?

When you’ve tracked your audience down you’ve got the bullseye in your sights.

Craft your message 

You know what you want to say, but do you know what they want to hear?  Getting out of your business and seeing it from the customer’s perspective is essential to create a message that will engage them.  Address their problems and outline the benefits they’ll experience - not what you do and how good you are.

Getting your message right will send your arrow flying right at the gold.

10 tips for budding authors

If you’re thinking of writing a book to underpin your expertise, here are ten top tips that will help your book be successful.

Due diligence 

1. Check out the market.  What other books similar to yours are out there?  Don’t guess or limit your research to the ones you have on your bookshelf, harness the power of the internet and do a proper search.  Ideally read as many as you can. 
2. Establish your USP.  What sets your book apart from others in the genre?  What makes you/your book different? 

Publishing 

1. Decide how your book will be published.  Will you be looking for a contract with a mainstream publisher or planning to self-publish?  Your choice will impact on your budget, control and success of your book.   
2. Ebook, paperback, hardback or a combination.  Your choice of publication method will affect sales and also how you use it as a marketing tool.  If you want real books in your hand, either as paperback or hardback, you will need to explore the difference between offset-litho printing and print-on-demand. 
3. Get your cover and any graphics done professionally.  A publishing company should provide the graphics, but don’t approve anything that doesn’t feel right to you.  If you’re self-publishing you’ll need professional help unless you’re a graphic designer - check out some of the online resources like Fiverr, elance, etc.  Always check out the designer’s previous work before agreeing to work with them. 

Writing 

1. Plan first.  Invest time in planning the content of your book out.  What will each chapter be about?  What anecdotes, case studies, quotes, models, processes will you include in each chapter? 
2. Get your book professionally edited.  If you get a publishing contract they’ll do this for you.  If you’re self-publishing you’ll need to invest cash in this - but it will be worth it when you’re getting reviews. 
3. Aim for at least 40,000 words.  This isn’t because people won’t read a shorter book, but, if you’re planning for a real book in hand, the spine will disappear into a bookshelf if it’s a skinny little book! 

Marketing 

1. Don’t wait until your book is published.  Marketing is essential and you’ll have to do this whether you self-publish or have a contract.  You should be thinking about how you will get your book in front of readers from the moment you decide to write it. 
2. Don’t stop marketing.  To keep sales going you’ll need to keep ‘restuffing the sausage machine’.  How will you keep promoting it over the months/years following publication? 

Of course, this is a very simple version of a complex process.  If you really want to explore the process of writing a book you can get the Pipedream to Proposal document here.

‘Just a few words …’

If you’ve entered for an award, you’ll keep your fingers crossed until the short list is announced.  If you’re on it you’ll almost certainly want to celebrate - that’s a real achievement.  But what happens when you attend the awards presentation?  Are you ready to win?

In most cases you have time to prepare your awards entry, you can draft and revise it right up to the deadline for submission, but if it’s your name that’s announced on the night are you prepared to say a few words?

We’ve all seen Oscar winners who ramble on at length and thank everyone on the planet, also those who say almost nothing (often despite being talented actors) and clearly haven’t been prepared for the possibility of winning.  You don’t want to be either of those people!

Preparing a short speech is not egocentric, it’s professional.

Start with due diligence 

Find out from the organisers about the plan for the evening.

• What are their expectations of the winners?  
• Will you be expected to say more than ‘thank you’? 
• How long have they allowed for winners to speak? 
• Do they have any advice if you should be lucky enough to win? 

Doing this means that you know whether they expect the winners to talk for one minute or three minutes - and there’s a big difference.

Avoid boring 

Of course, you want to thank your team for their contribution to winning the award, but you don’t need to name everyone.  Acceptance speeches can quickly become routine with long lists so make sure yours is different.

• Why did you enter?   
• What will winning mean to your company? 
• What does winning mean to you personally? 

Speak from the heart and don’t use clichés.  The more human you appear and the more interesting your presentation, the better chance you’ll have of being mentioned in the press reports later (more positive promotion for your business!)

Notes or not? 

Many people think notes show arrogance, but no notes and nerves can wipe the memory.  An index card with your three key points should be enough to ensure you don’t miss anything or anybody out.

Do practise, run through what you want to say so that you don’t open your mouth and say “Errrr, ummm, just want to say a few words …”  That’s probably long enough for most of your audience to disengage - especially if you’re towards the end of the presentations.  You want to open your mouth and say something that will capture their attention.

Keep it crisp, short and light - and well done!

Let IT take the strain

I’ve been reading a lot of Gerry McGovern’s blogs and he’s on a mission about making technology and IT systems do the drudge work - so that the people in your business can actively help customers.  It makes sense, but it’s not what happens in many big organisations.

When your business is just you - or you and a couple of staff - the customer gets to talk to you directly.  You build relationships with your customer and talk to them on a one-to-one basis.  Logically, as the business grows, you just can’t stay in touch with every single customer.

That means that you need to employ people who really get customer service - but it doesn’t mean that they should spend all day long in email conversations with them.

Customer service works best when it’s in human being form - either face-to-face or voice-to-voice.  Email is useful, but doesn’t work nearly as well for relationship building.  However, it’s an excellent tool to maintain contact with interested people and customers who are happily using your products or services.

Here are a few situations where an automated email series (autoresponders) can maintain your business visibility:

Sales follow up:  When someone has bought your product - or services - what useful information can you drip-feed to them in the three months following the sale?  As long as the messages have value for the receiver they’ll appreciate them.

New contacts:  If you’ve met someone networking or at a conference or exhibition, it can be hard to keep up with everyone on a regular basis.  The first contact post event must be done personally, but invite them to join your ‘free’ tips and hints community and set up a services of emails that deliver value regularly (maybe once a week or fortnight).

Keeping them interested:  If you’ve built a list of people who have downloaded a free tips sheet or white paper from your website, you’ve got a list of people who have said ‘I’m interested in what you offer’.  They may not be ready to buy just yet, but if you can add value by sending them additional free information that will help them, they won’t forget you when they’re ready to purchase.

Post event:  Whether the event is a webinar, seminar, training course, business breakfast, trade show or exhibition - staying in touch with your attendees can be a challenge.  A series of emails set up to remind attendees of actions they should be taking or useful links (books, blogs, tools, advice) that are relevant will help to keep your name in their minds as someone who delivers tons of value - even before they become customers!

Just remember that a series of email should not be your only contact with your existing customers or people who are actively interested in doing business with you - that needs a human being.

Picture Power!

You know what they say about a picture says a thousand words?  I may be a writer, but even the most compelling copy needs images to enhance the message.

Think about it - a blog like this with no image to decorate the top and attract the eye would look pretty boring.  What about a web page that was top to bottom text only?  Social media used to be text-heavy, but today images and video rule.  Text only posts get far fewer views.

Both Pinterest and Instagram use this maxim very effectively.  And they’re brilliant for promoting products, as long as you don’t sell too hard.

Instagram is an excellent platform for engagement and building awareness and visibility.  In fact, Instagram is actively encouraging businesses to use the platform to promote their businesses with the proposed new Shopping channel.

As Insta have IGTV it makes short videos easy to share and lets your audience see the human side of your business too.

Pinterest is a very different animal - and lots of people just can’t see the point, but I’ve listened to more than one conversation where one of the people says ‘… and I go on Pinterest to check out products and get ideas for things I want to buy’.

According to Omnicore:

• 93% of active pinners said they use Pinterest to plan for purchases and 87% said they’ve purchased something because of Pinterest.
• 40% of Pinners Have a Household Income of $100k+
• 87% of Pinners have purchased a product because of Pinterest.
• 72% of Pinners use Pinterest to decide what to buy offline.
• 50% have made a purchase after seeing a promoted pin.

Even if you are selling a service rather than a product, infographics are a fantastic way to share your expertise and build your reputation as the ‘go-to’ person for your specialism.  A good infographic gets shared a lot, providing it’s got useful information in it.  Think 10 ways to …; 7 facts about …; How to …; The Ultimate [subject] Checklist.

Pinterest is simple - you create your image and pin it to a board with a relevant name.  It’s not a conversation, you literally just pin images … and you can follow other pinners and repin their images too.

So don’t underestimate picture power as a business promotion strategy, you may be surprised at how effective it is.

What’s the point?

Email campaigns are supposed to be some kind of magic bullet, but do you want a load of sales spiel in your inbox?  No?  I thought not!

I bet you’ve signed up for some download that looked interesting at some point only to discover you’re getting a daily sales pitch from someone in America!  If it’s in your face ‘buy my stuff’
you’ve probably unsubscribed by now.

However, some of these gurus do write well and are very good at writing email content that makes you feel like they know you and are talking directly to you.  I can quote a few myself and some of them give away lots of good advice and encouragement.  I’m on a few lists myself and choose to stay on those lists, because I find the email content useful and interesting.

So what is that magic formula that defines successful email campaigns?

This is just my opinion, but I think it depends on these three key factors:

1. Know your audience inside out
2. Know what they’re suffering from, what keeps them awake at night and understand what kind of help they WANT (never mind what they need, most people will sacrifice a need to a big WANT - ask anyone who has skipped lunch to afford a new pair of shoes!)
3. Be entertaining and human.

The three most compelling email lists I’m on are Kim Roach, Nick Stephenson and Peter Thomson.  Each of them talks to me in conversational language and ALL of them share their personal journey, warts and all.

Although of course they are selling products, services or membership of a group, I don’t feel ‘sold at’, I feel they genuinely want to help me, to share their knowledge and experience.

If you’re planning an email campaign, first decide on what the call to action will be, then work out how to engage the readers.

• What will get their attention?  That will be your subject line.  
• What will give them value?  That’s your lead paragraph.  
• Where is their pain point?  That’s the lead up to your service or product presentation.
• How will their life be different when they’ve got your solution?  There’s your call to action.

Focus on value, benefits and outcomes and think like your customer and you’ll find your email campaigns will start to write themselves.