Whilst big corporations such as Proctor & Gamble and Rolex are fully into the digital marketing revolution and experimenting with new online marketing methods such as content marketing – many smaller business are hesitant to make a first step.

This article is a recommendation for self-learning. I propose a free digital marketing training course from one of the best digital marketing entrepreneurs I know: Brian Clark, founder of copyblogger. Click on the above link to get started right away, or read on if you wish to find out why I’m recommending this course.

During the past years interacting with clients and prospects, I’ve observed that the vast majority of executives need information and support to feel more comfortable about how exactly these many new online business methods play together. And how they can contribute to generate more sales for their organisation.

The objective of this blog is not to “sell” you the latest tool nor the latest trend, but to take a step back, look at the big picture and encourage you to make online marketing experiments in a low risk way. Based on the outcomes – for example the reaction of your customers – you and your company will start to get a grasp of what works – and what doesn’t – for your particular product and target public.

A well thought out digital marketing strategy is not dependent on the latest “tool” or trend – it spells out what’s best for your specific business and will still be valid a few years down the road.

Granted, it’ll need adjustment over time, but the adjustment comes from “doing it”.

Digital marketing – the digital revolution – is here to stay. Don’t miss new opportunities to grow your business because – whatever your personal preferences – your clients too will eventually want to have online access to your company’s products and services. See the latest predictions about consumer behaviour here.

If you’re in Geneva and want to learn more about digital marketing, ask us to come by to your offices. We offer a (free) teaser 90 minute workshop – just for you and your company! Click on the link here below.

Is your website lazy? Shouldn’t it work harder to attract and engage more customers?

Are you so sure? How do you know?

The idea for this article is inspired by a couple of discussions I’ve had recently with professionals who provide high value services in areas such as legal, banking and consulting.

For many such companies, their current online presence simply reproduces – in a digital way – what has always worked for them in the real world: reputation, credibility and prestige.

Their websites are not meant to attract traffic nor convert visitors into high quality leads. As online visit cards, they’re designed to convey authority, elegance and sophistication. Traditional content, mainly text, is delivered through static web pages that reinforce trust, quality and know-how.

Online visit cards are probably sufficient today, but will they work in our favour in a few years time?

Granted, selling sophisticated services is not the same as selling a book or a t-shirt!

But can we be so sure that the target public we think we know so well isn’t (secretly) changing its ways?

Online consumers are learning fast how to make informed purchasing decisions. Rather than being “talked to”, they expect to be granted access to many different sources of information.

And as they learn, they become more confident about making ever more sophisticated purchasing decisions online.

What was once a safe space may escape our control because of behavioural changes we didn’t consider relevant at the time.

When the world’s first railway opened in 1830 (from Manchester to Liverpool) – health warnings were issued by medical men about the dangers of travelling at high speeds  – and the damaging effect this might have on passengers’ health. Speed was an incredible 25 mph!

I am including a few stats that are meant to trigger ideas. Indeed, and at a first glance, the stats may not relate directly to a high end services organisation such as a bank or a legal firm. But who would have predicted – only a few years back – that 47% of Internet users who link into social media platforms are now aged between 50-64?

And then, consider these stats down here. 79% of online shoppers spend at least 50% of their shopping time researching products.

 

Picture Internet savvy John. He is about to buy a new car. His first step – even before he visits a dealer or navigates to a car manufacturer’s website – may well be a discussion with friends on his preferred social media platform; because friends give unfiltered, honest advice about a product they’ve previously consumed.

And this brings us back full circle to the preoccupations of high end service providers: an essential need to preserve and nurture credibility and reputation.

If you want more stats, charts and graphs – highly recommended – here are the sources I’ve referred to in this article.

The state of social media 2012 (slide show here below) and Revealing Stats, Charts and Graphs every Marketer should know.

Buzz words abound on the Internet. And much misunderstanding derives from not understanding what’s behind them.

For example, you may have trouble coming to grips with what Content Marketing is, and what it isn’t.

For one thing, using content for marketing purposes makes sense, but only if it’s part of a continuum that is made up of content (yes) but also of social media and search engine optimisation (SEO).

What good is it, if you write your fingers to the bone as a passionate author, when no one can find the articles you publish?

And once you’re found, does your blog article cater for easy sharing, thus helping enthusiastic readers spread your message?

In an excellent article (link here below), published by the American marketing software company Hubspot, the author develops 4 reasons why content marketing isn’t just about content.

1. Content needs search engine optimisation.

In order to attract people to your blog to read your content, you need to take the necessary steps to optimize that content for the keywords that potential customers are likely to type when searching for the product or service you offer.

This is why it’s important to have in your mind a buyer persona: you need to be able to picture the people you want to reach online, what they value, what their purchasing habits are, whether they’re early adopters or wait-and-see types, etc. Research indicates that businesses that blog 16 to 20 times per month generate over 2 times more traffic than those that blog fewer than 4 times per month.

2. Content needs social media

There’s no question that your potential customers are increasingly using sites like LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook and Twitter to connect and gather information. This is why your business needs to participate there where your target audience is likely to hang out!

There’s no need to be present on every platform. Again, it pays to know your buyer persona. Figure out where they’re likely to hang out and then go and meet them there.

3. Content needs lead generation

One of the core functionalities of content is its ability to generate leads. Research shows that businesses with over 200 total blog articles generate 3.5 times more leads than those with under 20 blog posts.

4. Content needs email marketing & lead nurturing

Despite all the hype about social media, email marketing remains a business’s most valuable asset. An email marketing list that you’ve built up, based on the practice of permission marketing, is worth it’s weight in gold.

Because people who have given you permission to add them to your list are your most valuable business leads. By signing up, they’ve expressed their readiness to listen to you and what your company has to offer. A well thought out next step will transform these faithful subscribers into buyers.

The gist of the original article is about taking a holistic approach to content marketing. Click here to read the complete and original text.

 

 

Social media survey results from Hubspot, just out (August 2012): How marketers use social media – Infographic, reveals that 44.4% of survey respondents self-professed either “advanced” or “expert” level social media ability.

This might be you. However, your boss or the executive team (if you work in a larger company), might well not share your expert level.

Social media remains an enigma for many executives and what’s more, there’s no single measure of it’s financial impact that is likely to satisfy their need for straight forward return on investment (ROI).

Not surprising then that superiors are hesitant to devote significant resources – financial or human – to an activity whose precise effect remains unclear to them.

If the above is true in your company (big or small), it’ll be difficult for you to push through the social media strategy you’ve in mind and (you know) – needs to happen over time.

There’re two reasons why senior business leaders must open up their agendas and recognize the importance of supporting and even undertaking social media initiatives that may traditionally have been left to staff members such as IT, HR, Senior Assistants or, indeed, marketing professionals.

1)      Social media influences every element of the consumer decision journey, and hence calls for involvement of all departments across the company. The decision making authority can no longer be left to one staff member alone.

2)      Social media requires leadership, authority and structure. A holistic approach will yield best results and needs to be inspired and coordinated by top management, and across all functions.

If you’ve trouble convincing your boss or your senior management team of the above, put some credible information into their hands.

For example the reports which inspired this article:

McKinsey Quarterly April 2012 – Demystifying social media at the Executive suite

and

McKinsey Quarterly July 2011 – We’re all marketers now.

You’re the proud owner of a new website. It’s gone live last week and you’re excited about attracting lots of traffic – after all, your web pages are looking great!

Maybe your webmaster (or yourself) has already installed Google analytics? All you need now is to sit back and watch how Google’s charts climb, in a never ending upward curve.

Well, that’s the Walt Disney version.

In reality – and of course you knew this already – you’re competing with many other businesses to grab those few privileged first positions on the Google results page.

And yes of course, you’ll want to be there!

In the good old days (only a couple of years back), techy SEO pundits recommended spicing up web pages with as many repetitive keywords possible, more often than not to the detriment of the text’s readability.

This approach no longer works because Google and other search engines are becoming more sophisticated. They know how to weed out low quality content pages.

Search engines have a clear objective: they strive to present searchers not only with relevant information but also with the best user experience.

Google’s new commitment is a great opportunity for business owners to promote what they’re good at in an authentic and consistent way.

When we publish recurrent, valuable and relevant content to our target audience, we’ll be friends with existing customers, potential clients – AND with search engines.

So, great SEO copywriting doesn’t read as a list of key words, but instead balances keyword usage with creative writing that appeals to the reader, thus educating, influencing, and inspiring action.

Writing for the web is a skill you can develop.

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Want to try? Here are 3 best practices to integrate into your web writing today and at all times.

Motto: think of topic relevance and reader comfort first whilst – at the same time – remaining search engine-friendly.

	WORDS
	Use the words that matter most to your customers in titles, links and body text to inform and inspire them to take action.
	Text used in titles should make it easy for readers to understand the topic of the page quickly. Allocate 10 to 15 words. Place the most relevant key word(s) at the beginning of the sentence.
	Example: Smoked Salmon – Best prices, All Sizes and Free Shipping – company XYZ
	NB: writing great headlines and titles (combined with SEO needs) is a critical skill. Check out my Job Skills video blog and specifically the article entitled The art of crafting headlines that make you stand out in a crowd. If you’re into self-learning, download my highly recommended reading references.
	Text used in the body should contain the relevant key word(s) phrases three to five times per 500 words or so. Use variations and synonyms for better copywriting. Body text should contain about 300 words.
	Example: Smoked Salmon is an elegant way to seduce your guests at a festive meal. (Exact keyword phrase). When salmon is smoked, it has a particular taste… (variation)
	LINKS
	Links text (also called anchor text) should give the readers an idea of what they’ll find on the destination page. Links are good for your readers, for your web page/post and for the destination’s web page/post:
	1. For your readers because you extend the reach of the topic discussed.
	2. For your web page/post because Google too thinks that links enhance the quality of the content. NB: links you integrate need to be relevant to the topic you discuss.
	3. For the destination website because your source link will boost its page rank.
	NB: when you exchange links with partners, make sure all concerned understand these implications. If you’re smart about it, both websites will gain in page rank and visibility. The examples here below further illustrate this point.
	Smart link example: John B. created a wonderful video documentary about how How to manufacture smoked salmon. Bad examples: John B. created a video about how to manufacture Smoked Salmon.
	See the difference?
	PAGE-, POST- AND IMAGE FILE NAMES
	Configure your web system – I use WordPress and the Genesis framework – to give a descriptive name to your page or post. Include relevant keywords and separate with hyphens.
	Example: www.JohnB.com/smoked-salmon-video-tutorial rather than www.JohnB.com/documentary.php?id=23456j789.
	Attribute relevant keywords to images you insert in your pages or posts. Slide your cursor over this image, to see what I mean.If you work with WordPress and Genesis (recommended) this is very easy and doesn’t require any specific technical skill.

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Do you too want to transform your website into a (non lazy) sales prodigy?

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Visit your website and view it through your new eyes of the SEO savvy business owner.

Then change your hat and look at your website again, but this time as a customer or prospect: What do you feel? What’s your first impression? Are you enticed, tickled, seduced, inspired – or bored, confused, overwhelmed?

Can you see room for improvement? Maybe you do, but don’t have the time to take this on?

Please get in touch with me for a chat. There are many different ways to help you transform your lazy website into a hardworking sales resource.

Also, please let me know whether the above tips are helpful. Shout if you’d like more of the same.

Do you think this article is useful for your colleagues and business partners? If yes, please share it freely on your favourite social media platform. You don’t need to leave this page. Just navigate to the top and select your favourite sharing button.

Much of the above has been inspired by Lee Odden’s book Optimize – a highly recommended read.

This book by Seth Godin – he calls it a manifesto – is a call to action for anyone who ever cared a lot about something.

Seth argues that the choice to push all of us towards a universal normal merely to help sell more junk to the masses is both inefficient and wrong.

What does it mean to be weird?

Who would join a santa club, or spend every spare penny on scuba equipment or surf well past the age most guys give up golf?

The thing is, these people have a life. They’ve chosen one. They pursue their passions. They embrace their dreams instead of following the path laid down by a mass marketer or a clever, controlling politician or tribal leader.

Sure, they’re weird. So are you. So are all of us. A good thing too!

The opportunity of our time is to support the weird, to sell to the weird and,
if you wish, to become weird.

Seth puts forward the idea that the interconnected nature of the Internet ends up influencing everything that’s made and sold and distributed and discussed.

We’re no longer limited by geography. Today, it all comes to us with a click. You can go on a raw food diet without living near a health food store or join a home grown yoga class without living in India. It also means you can support a political party with no activist in your neighbourhood.

As soon as we remove physical proximity as a gating factor, the only barrier to weirdness is choice.

This in turn spells the end of a one-size-fits-all factory-oriented world. On the contrary, we’re witnessing the rise of mini-communities and people obsessed with causes, hobbies and passions which is changing politics, economics, marketing, manufacturing and everything else.

Seth’s sometimes provocative and non-conventional views are manifold in this book. I retain 2 key points:

	About society and education: “Seen up close, normal disappears” – The simple alternative to our system of education is to embrace the weird. To abandon normal. To acknowledge that our factories don’t need so many cogs, so many compliant workers, so many people willing to work cheap.
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	The challenges of the education system are driven by our distance from the problem, not by money. The disconnect is caused by our fervent desire for a return to ‘normal’, a normal we actually never had.
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	About the business or any other passionate venture you’re in or about to start: rather than to a mass market, cater to the weird instead. The challenge of your future is to do productive and useful work for and by and with the tribe that cares about you and you care about. Tribes are groups of people aligned around an idea, a community and a mission.

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This single shift in our culture has opened the door for a huge outpouring of creativity, innovation and art.

At SoYouWantAChange, I encourage you to make a difference by
starting your own weirdness today 🙂

Follow @DorisEdwards7

How can you connect with future buyers if you don’t know who they are or what they care about?

Picturing your customer in a personalised way is key in (at least) two major business phases:

1. When we start a new business.

Clearly define your target public and focus on your customers’ needs before spending lots of money and time on developing a new product or service.

The Lean Startup principles are an excellent way of testing and experimenting whether the product or service we’re developping has the potential of seducing our potential customers into buyers

Testing and experimenting means leaving your office and talking to customers face to face, listening to them and adjusting your product or service based on real life feedback.

2. When we sell an existing product or service.

Businesses – even if they sell traditional products – will increasingly require online marketing to replace traditional advertising methods such as the Yellow Pages. Online marketing implies attracting clients to visit our website and connecting with them. Google handles 11 billion queries a month (ComScore October 2011) ; to redirect a small slice of this traffic to our website, a miminum of Search Engine Marketing (SEO) is necessary.

Most SEO efforts are focused on creating and optimizing content against a list of keywords.

But keywords don’t buy products and services –customers do!

Based on discussions with your potential customers, we can picture them more easily by creating buyer personas. According to the Buyer Persona Manifesto, a persona is an archetype, composite picture of the real people who buy, or are likely to buy products or services like the ones you sell.

Here is an example of a Buyer Persona:

John Banker might represent a 52 year old man who is married with children and owns a house. He has a high level university education which includes an MBA. He works hard at the bank where he has held various management positions over the past 10 years. He travels at least once a month to international destinations. He worries about the long-term prospects of this job and at the same time is considering a change of career which corresponds more closely to his personal needs.

John owns an iPad, a smart phone and several computers at home. He connects to news, entertainment and friends digitally but rarely uses social media channels for professional sharing. John’s preferred search engine is Google. He rarely clicks on ads (but does so occasionally when one is relevant).

He’s busy and doesn’t spend much time on any social network other than LinkedIn and when he does, it’s usually via his iPad. He consumes social and online news content daily but briefly, early in the morning and in the evenings.

John is increasingly interested in finding alternative ways to making a living. He is consulting business startup websites and is looking into personal development coaching. He also buys – online – numerous books on the above topics, most often from Amazon.

Based on what we know about John Banker, we can make preliminary decisions about our product or service. And as we understand where John is coming from and what he cares about, we’re able to present what we sell in a meaningful way online. Picturing John Banker clearly in our minds points us in the right direction to reach and connect with him (or her).

Have you already created a buyer persona for each of your products or services?

This post has been inspired by Lee Odden and his book Optimize, a book I highly recommend.

This article is heavily based on work done by Lee Odden. Lee is a recognised authority on search, social media and content marketing. His latest book Optimize is fresh from the press and an indispensable read for anyone starting or running a business today.

Many businesses approach online marketing with an egocentric perspective, promoting messages in which they try to persuade audiences instead of empathizing with customer needs and interests.

Yes, granted – it’s not that easy to curb back our own drive for creative self-expression and reorient our attention towards a more altruistic goal: uncovering what’s bugging our clients and fixing it for them.

We delight a customer or prospect when we make her life just that little bit easier – for example by revealing a better way of doing something. If we can do so in a genuine and useful way, people are more likely to remember our business and award us with one of their most precious assets: their benevolent attention over time.

Littering the social web with scheduled tweets, status updates and blog posts alone may be fashionable but it has –  more likely than not – the opposite effect: when we suffer from information overload, our minds close down and true connection and engagement is no longer possible.

But how do we go about creating helpful and relevant information? Here are 20 ideas for types of content that is useful to your potential customers, assuming of course, you know who your Customer Persona is and how you can make him happy. But that’s another story.

Grab these 20 content marketing tactics for businesses who are searching true engagement with their audience.

Articles. (1)

Use articles similar to those that would be found in a newspaper or magazine, article marketing includes the creation of content with the intention of distributing and syndicating it via various means, including article aggregator websites.

Blogs. (2)

Publishing original content using blog software such as WordPress which organises pages sequentially and/or categorically.

Case Studies. (3)

Case Studies are a written description that tells how a problem was successfully solved with a product or service.

Digital newsletters. (4)

These online newsletters are often published according to a schedule and regularly provide a source of useful information, promotion and links to web pages that further engage readers.

E-books. (5)

Longer than a blog post or online article, an e-book provides a more in-depth analysis of a particular topic of expertise.

E-mail. (6)

From timed sequences of articles to special promotions, messages via e-mail continue to provide the highest conversion rates of any online marketing tactic.

Images. (7)

Content need not be overly verbose. Like the old saying, a picture is worth a thousand words – and sometimes a few thousand clicks.

Infographics. (8)

Just as the name implies, the field of infographics translates information, data or knowledge into graphic visual representations. For example, why talk about percentages in the usual boring meetings when a pie chart and textual facts can get the point across in a more interesting way?

Microsites. (9)

These types of websites are dedicated to specific campaigns or promotions. They may also be created to serve as a social hub for content that doesn’t fit on the corporate website or blog.

Mobile content. (10)

Content and applications specifically created and formatted for mobile consumption are increasingly valuable in some markets.

News releases. (11)

Press release format, application and distribution have changed so that press releases reach beyond journalists – they can be effective for directly appealing to consumers, too.

PDFs. (12)

Many of the types of content mentioned here, such as articles, case studies, white papers, and more, could be converted into PDFs and easily distributed.

Podcasts. (13)

Though not practical for all industries, audio files provide an effective promotion opportunity for some markets. Such audio files are often formatted as interviews, news reports, or infomercials. Like newsletters, podcasts are often distributed according to a schedule.

Research. (14)

Surveys, studies, research, and statistical data that provide insights can be very engaging and shareable. The information provided by them can work in tandem with many of the content types listed here.

Slide shows. (15)

Digital slide shows are often used to make presentations and pitches in person to make B2B sales, but they can just as easily be uploaded to the Internet to appeal to a wider audience.

Social. (16)

Content created exclusively for social networks like Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn have significant impact on awareness and engagement.

Traditional media. (17)

Content marketing can also be carried out through traditional digital media, including newspapers, magazines, television and radio.

Videos. (18)

Not everyone is engaged through reading or static imagery. Some of the most engaging and rich content is in video.

Webinars. (19)

One of the more advanced content marketing techniques to be sure, webinars are audio combined with presentation slides, often done in real time with a question-and-answer session and the opportunity to chat. Once a webinar is finished and has been recorded, it can be stored in an online archive for future audiences to view.

White papers. (20)

White papers are used to educate readers and help people make decisions. These authoritative reports or guides dive deep into a specific topic and can be very persuasive.

As we are going towards the sunny and balmy days, imagine yourself for a minute at the beach, reading through Cosmopolitan magazine, with a rum cocktail at your side and a serene smile on your face.

The survey here below is to remind you of those gorgeous days when you read easy things that make your life sweet.

And yet, if your business has a website, it pays to take my proposed website personality test seriously. Because lazy websites are a luxury you can no longer afford!

As you surf through the Questionnaire here below – 3 questions, won’t take you a minute – you’ll recognise immediately where you need to make adjustments.

Stay with me and be one of the first to subscribe to my new series of Hints & Tips about “The Art of attracting visitors and converting them into customers” – here to the right.