Get your web copy on target

When you start writing copy for your website – or are about to undertake a revamp – you need to do more than decide what you want to say.

The first thing you need to do is to find out what people are looking for when they come to your website. 

• What keywords do they search on?  
• What are the problems they’re trying to solve?
• What information are they looking for?

If you’re not sure of the answer – and your friendly web designer can’t tell you from the statistics – then you need to find out what your existing clients buy from you.

That might sound obvious, and the answer for most people is knee-jerk – ‘My services’ (or ‘My products’).  However, it’s not as simple as that.  People don’t just buy what you do or what you sell, they buy the experience of working with you or doing business with you.

I was helping a client to get their marketing material focused; he was a business consultant that specialised in the people end of project management.  He thought that people bought his project management skills and understanding of how people approach a project, but, when he asked his clients what they got from working with him, he was astounded at the feedback he got!

“You do what you say you will.”

“You turn up on time, don’t make a big deal and get the job done on time.”

“We know we can rely on you to deliver what you promise – without disrupting our workplace.”

Now he has a completely different focus for how he presents his services.  He’s still delivering the same services, but he’s focused on the experience people get from working with him, not on what he does.

When you’re writing content for your website it’s not about what you do (or sell), it’s about what the reader gets.  That means your content should be focused on ‘you’, not ‘we’.

Third party validation

There’s nothing like someone else banging your drum for you!  People expect you to say you’re good at what you do on your website, but it’s much better when someone else says it.

Most clients are happy to provide a testimonial often along the lines of:

“Working with Susan was a great experience, she was easy to talk to and made the process really easy.”

If you think that’s a good testimonial – think again – that’s therapy!  It’s only one part of the three parts you need.  Most clients are delighted to tell you how much they like you, but they forget the critical parts of the equation – what did you do and what did they get?

An ideal testimonial should look like this:

“Susan took on our recruitment strategy development and not only made the process really easy, but cut our recruitment costs from £500 per new member of staff down to £300.  She’s also reduced the management time spent in interviewing by 40% and the candidates we’re recruiting are much better quality.”

Can you see the difference?  Anything that’s measurable in numbers is like gold dust as most people are very conscious of the return on investment in the services they hire in.

What else should you be asking your clients for while they’re happily completing testimonials for you?  That’s easy – referrals – “Who else do you know who would benefit in the same way as you have from my services?”  They always know someone!  Don’t forget to add “Would you introduce me?” and then watch your business grow without having to do cold calls.

5 tips to make Pinterest work

Pinterest is one of those social platforms that people either ‘get’ or don’t.  People have heard about it, but don’t really know how to make it work.

It’s particularly good if you’re selling products or services direct to the consumer, but it can work for B2B too.  Here are my top 5 tips to make Pinterest work for you.

1: Focus first

Before you start creating content, think about who you want to influence.  When you know that you can do your research to find out what they are looking for.  A good way to do this is to use one of the free SEO tools to see the kind of thing people are talking about.

Try Ubersuggest.org or Answerthepublic.com (the latter only allows you one free search per day, but you could upgrade or just do your research over time).

This will ensure you create content that will attract those people.

If you don’t do this you’re likely to end up taking the approach of ‘if you create enough content someone will notice eventually’.  This means you’ll end up putting a lot of effort in to get a result you might get far more easily.

2: Plan your boards

Consider what subjects your boards will be.  I made the mistake of not doing this when I started on Pinterest and ended up with some random boards. 

Remember that Pinterest is, effectively, like having a bunch of pin boards that you pin images to around a subject.  The subject is important as images tagged with the board will have the board name attached as a tag.

If you have areas of specialism then that’s a good place to start, but always remember that what you DO isn’t what people GET.  If you can come up with a board name that reflects what your potential customers will search for, you’ll get more views.

3: Create a content plan

The biggest challenge for any social media platform is generating great content.  If you want to avoid that ‘blank-screen’ syndrome the best way is to have a plan.

I suggest you make a list of all the things you deliver, whether that’s products or services and then sub-divide these into more specific categories.  So, for instance, I might have a board called ‘Social media’, but that would include subheadings such as LinkedIn profiles, LinkedIn company pages, Facebook pages, Facebook groups, Facebook ads, etc.

Then you need to look at what might make interesting images around each subheading.  It doesn’t have to be just an image - it can include words; infographics work well on Pinterest, but don’t overload the image with content, just because there’s more space!

4: Add a description

When you’ve created your graphic (check out Canva.com for loads of professional templates) you’ll find that there is an option to add a description (that’s the ‘tell everyone what your Pin is about’ section).  Don’t ignore this - write a description that includes at least one of your key words and phrases, and add hashtags too.  This will help your pin to get found in searches.

Also add a destination link - this is usually your website, but, rather than just stick your web address in, link the pin to a relevant service or product page or a blog around the subject.

5: Check out other people’s pins for more great content

Like all social media, Pinterest should not be a one-way street.  Pinterest is good at finding pins that are around the same keywords your boards and previous pins carry  and makes it easy by emailing these to you for review.

Do make it a habit to repin other people’s posts around your core subject boards - it adds depth and variety to your boards and engages other pinners.

Let the system take the strain

You’ve got a list, but how do you stay connected to those people who may have signed up to your list months or even years ago.

Typically, people get on your list because they:

• Have met you and liked what you had to say
• Signed up for your freebie (lead magnet)
• Been on one of your events
• Are in a network with permission to add contacts to your list

So how do you ensure that they don’t forget you altogether?

The question is what is the point of having a list?  Realistically, your list is part of your marketing collateral.  Hopefully, the people on it have signed up because they’re interested in what you do and, potentially, are future clients.

That means your job is to keep them engaged, give them content that keeps them interested and ready for more.  When they’re ready to buy they won’t have far to look!

This is where an autoresponder is worth its weight in gold.  Instead of trying to respond individually to everyone who signs up and communicate appropriately with them, you just set up a series of messages that are automatically delivered starting from the date they sign up - for as long as you want.

You’ll need an account with one of the email marketing platforms like AWeber.com (they’ve just launched a free account for up to 500 contacts), MailChimp.com (paid version only), ConstantContact.com, SendFox.com, GetResponse.com, etc.  Then you’ll need to write your messages to upload (or have someone write them for you).

Say I sign up to your list today - L-Day!  Your autoresponder would be set up to send me a welcome message that would refer to how I got on the list and give me a thumbnail of the kind of content I can expect to get in future.

L-Day + 5 Then you might send me another message after a few days asking if I’ve read your free download, maybe offering a tip or more information around that subject.

L-Day + 14 A week or so later you might then invite me to like your Facebook or LinkedIn company Page and ask if I’ll write what I thought of the free download.

L-Day + 25 Time to send me an invitation to join your LinkedIn or Facebook group.

L-Day + 35 Case study - told in a conversational style e.g. ‘Have you ever had this problem?  One of my clients (or better still, give them a name, not their real one i.e. ‘Jane was totally frustrated as she kept …)  suffered …’ etc. etc.  Tell the story, explain how you worked together to solve the problem - don’t forget to outline the results and how the client felt.  Then the call to action … who do you know who is going through this right now?

Then ‘rinse and repeat’.

These can all be scheduled so, regardless of the date a person lands on your list, they get the messages in the same order and at the same timeframe.

Do it once and it will carry on as long as you want it to.

… With love from me to you

If you’re of a certain age, or into 60s music, you’ll recognise that phrase from a Beatles hit.  So why am I writing about song lyrics?  I’m not, but it was a great hook to hang my thoughts about email marketing on!

A lot of people resist email marketing - after all, nobody wants to get sales messages in their inbox.  Most of us get off lists that just sell stuff.  Some people simply delete the emails unread; others bother to unsubscribe.  As the list owner you’re probably anxious not to get unsubscribes from your list, but think of this another way - people who unsubscribe aren’t interested and that means they’re not potential customers.

A list of people who signed up on a whim and never read your emails is not a list worth having.  The other side of this coin is that the people who open your emails and stay on your list are telling you something really important - they like what they’re getting and are still interested.

Where does love come into it?

If you are proud of your service or product, you know that there are people out there who will really benefit from receiving it.  If they don’t know about it, they’re missing an opportunity that could make a significant difference to them.  It’s your job to ensure that they don’t miss out.

Yes, you want to sell your service or product, but that doesn’t mean you have to try to get people who aren’t that interested to buy.  Ideally, you want to be helping those people who really want and need what you’re offering to buy.

There are lots of ways to describe this approach - and the one I like best is Bernadette Doyle’s ‘heart-centred selling’.  It is all about helping the people who need your kind of help - it’s hardly selling at all, it’s more about showing them they’re worth it.

Email marketing is about education

Part of this process of finding the right people is to educate your list about how you can help them.  This isn’t a sales pitch that screams ‘buy - buy - buy’; it’s a drip feed process where you explore an issue/challenge/problem and outline a potential fix - along with what the fix delivers in personal or business benefits.

If you do this in a conversational way and let your enthusiasm show, you’ll find it comes over less like a sales pitch and more like an ‘I love helping people with this’ approach.

An email series would take a number of issues/challenges/problems that your ideal client suffers from - and following the same solution - benefits process.

Think of it as chatting to someone over coffee, rather than a formal sales pitch.  The tone and style of your email will come over as much more personal - and will work much better.

Facebook: business or personal?

I’ve been using Facebook since it started back in 2005 - and while I wouldn’t call myself an expert, I know a bit about it.  I have a personal profile and I drop in a few times a week and read what my friends and family share.  I like things, I comment sometimes, I share things myself occasionally.  I also have a business page and I share daily tips, advice and useful bits and pieces.

Do I use my personal profile for business?  Not until now.

Jokingly, I have always claimed to use Facebook to stalk my grown-up children - and it is a good way to stay up-to-speed on what they’re doing, especially as one lives thousands of miles away.  Facebook was how I discovered he’s injured himself yet again doing one of his adrenalin-generating sports activities.

My approach to my personal profile on Facebook has always been that I use it for friends and family - not business.  However, through a number of conversations recently I have begun questioning whether that’s a good thing.

I understand when people don’t want to mix personal and professional, but isn’t that like saying you are a different person in professional engagements to the ‘real you’?  There’s some issues around authenticity that may arise.

My Facebook profile is pretty middle-of-the-road, I don’t have any weird hobbies or post controversial stuff, so perhaps there is no reason for me not to connect with business people I know.  When I meet people face-to-face we talk about our families as well as business, and sometimes our hobbies, so why not online?

I do have some concerns about inappropriate posts that my kids might add to the mix, and I have no intention of using my Facebook personal profile to ‘sell’, but my views are moving towards maybe accepting connection requests from business associates and letting them see the real me.

This is a personal choice - what do you think?