How do you keep your business in the forefront of everyone’s mind or ahead of the game in the most effective way?
The most important tip we can give is to ensure that your marketing strategy is kept up to date and that you are reviewing and tweaking it every step of the way. If something doesn’t work – change it! If something is out of date – update it.
This is where your content marketing strategy will come in. Content marketing covers everything from your Facebook posts and advertising to the text on your website. Ensuring that everything is up to date all of the time.
What is content marketing?
According to the Content Marketing Institute: Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.
Therefore content marketing is a planned and strategic marketing aim that concentrates on producing valuable and relevant material with a goal of attracting a clearly defined audience. Social media is an integral part of content marketing.
The most important word within that explanation is ‘valuable’. This means that anyone can write copy or produce social media posts and articles, but the vital component is the value that is produced within that content.
Why content marketing
When planning a marketing strategy, there are points that must be addressed in order to reach the audience you are trying to target. Writing content for the sake of writing will not only give you burnout but it will become a pointless exercise that has no meaning whilst taking valuable time from your business.
So what points can we address to ensure that our content marketing strategy has the correct structure? First let’s understand the buying cycle of your potential customers:
Awareness A customer may have a problem or a need but not be aware that there is a solution for them. This is where awareness of their need begins and what triggers the rest of the cycle.
Research A potential customer is out there researching what product or service will provide a solution to what they are looking for. They will be searching Google for all types of keywords related to that problem. For example, if they are looking to change their hairstyle, they will be searching for hairdressers local to them who meet their requirements. They will also be thinking about the new style they may want by searching for inspiration or examples they can take to the hairdressers.
Comparisons By now, the customer is aware that there are services out there to help them, so they start to compare products or services that tailor to their requirements. They will whittle down services and compare prices against other companies who offer the same deal.
Buy Finally the customer will make a decision to purchase the product or service based on the results of their research and comparisons, completing the buying cycle.
How can I use content marketing for my business
With the buying cycle in mind, it’s necessary to fill in the blanks for the customer as much as possible. If they come across YOUR brand first and like what they see, they will come back to you when they make their decision.
Therefore, you need to make your content:
attractive
to the point
easy to access
In everything you do, ensure that these 3 things are met and the customer has a clear route to purchasing from you.
In order for the client to want to buy from your business, you must ensure that you are solving their problem, which is where YOUR research comes in. You need to understand your customer and target audience and work your material and content into being attractive to them. It may look good to you, but does it look attractive and relatable to the people who are buying? If not, you need to think again. Good and accurate content is key, up to date information, relevant to the now, and in line with the core values of your business which your audience is already starting to get to know and love about you.
Once they start to follow your content and they feel that they have a connection with your brand, you need to make sure you’re providing value in everything that is produced. That is everything from your social media posts, to your newsletters, to your website copy and beyond. Everything needs to give a clear and concise message of a solution for that audience.
Going straight to the point and not beating around bush will enable your audience to know exactly what you are about and that you have nothing to hide by not over-complicating things. If your audience love your business – they will be following everything you say and do – therefore make it worth their while engaging with you.
The final point to help push the buying cycle through is by making everything easy to access and easy to follow. If you’re asking someone to ‘Buy Now’, give them a button to click right underneath your content. Don’t hide it away at the top or bottom of a page where they might not even see it. Ask people to make an action by directing them to where you want them go. Make every step easy for them to follow so they don’t get bored or lost and close your content down. Once they’ve switched off, it will be harder to get them back.
Brand Awareness
Content marketing is all about brand awareness and raising your brand profile – engaging with an audience to provide a service that they need. By keeping your marketing efforts as straightforward, clear, regular and up to date as possible, it gives your brand more chance of being noticed.
When your brand becomes known and loved, your following will start to grow. This in turn will generate leads and then you will start to see business growth.
By pushing your brand forward and providing value in your content, you are showcasing yourself as an industry expert and are expressing your desire to be known within the your niche. Don’t forget that online marketing has a global effect, you never know who you are reaching on the other side of the world!
Conclusion
Remember that you are only trying to reach those interested in your target audience. Don’t spread your wings too wide or try to reach everyone – it won’t work! Be unique and specific in your research and content writing. Write FOR the people that are searching for you. Provide value FOR the people are needing your service. Don’t write for your family or friends, yes they may share your content, but they’re not the ones buying the product. You need to aim DIRECTLY to the people who need to hear what you have to say and provide value and something that’s of worth in everything you produce.
If you’re looking to get ahead of the game in your content marketing or you simply don’t have the time that this needs to put into your business, we’re here to help at the click of button – get in touch today!
The word strategy might sound a bit daunting but putting together a business strategy and a marketing strategy is a vital part of any business success. To see business growth and success over a period of time, it’s vital to plan out everything that needs to be done in order to achieve this.
The same goes with a social media strategy. This will fall into your marketing planning but social media is such a large part everyday life that it needs to be incorporated into the mix. People are mobile and people carry their mobile devices with them wherever they go. In order to reach a target audience directly – you need to be at the heart of where they are.
What is a social media strategy?
The basis to a strategy is a summary and plan of everything that you plan to do in order to see a result or achieve a certain goal. It will guide the way that you manage your social media, the way you engage with the audience and will allow you to see if you on track or need to change direction.
This will play a part in every post, tweet or comment that you do within all your social media platforms, keeping the same tone of voice throughout.
Here are 5 ways to get you started with a social media strategy:
Get SMART
Each of your goals should be:
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Relevant
Time-bound
This is the smart framework that will align your goals with real achievements, rather than guessing or taking things by chance. Every goal or action you take should be measured against the smart framework knowing that you will keep everything tied together – with a plan for how to execute details.
The social media plan needs to align with your overall marketing strategy. This can be started by establishing 3-4 goals that you want to achieve and then working out a plan of how to achieve these.
Love your audience
The most vital stage of your social media plan comes down to understanding your audience. In order to meet their needs and provide a service that they will actually want to buy into, you need to fully understanding them. When you start to understand and love what they love, sharing tips, advice or general information that they are actually interested in – then they will start to engage, share and comment – giving you ground to be able to give great customer service and to build working relationships.
If you love your audience and they know it – they will start to love and trust your brand, making it so much easier to build your business and see growth for the future.
Conduct a social media audit
If you’ve already been using social media for your business but are finding it difficult to grow or establish a connection with your audience, then perhaps it’s time to do a social media audit in order to find out what’s going on.
What does this entail? Try answering these questions…
Look through all your social media channels – Facebook, Twitter, instagram, Google+, Pinterest, YouTube, Quora and make a list of all of them.
Next to each one, write down the number of followers
Who is connecting with you on your social media platforms?
What is working – what is not working?
Is your target audience present on these channels?
Do text or image posts create the best engagement?
Am I providing a level of customer of service on every channel?
Are all my profiles branded?
How does your social media compare to your competitors accounts?
Answering these questions will give you a good overall analysis of where you currently stand within your social media marketing. You can then use this to better plan out your social media strategy as you now know what is working and what’s not. You now know where you main target audience is based and which channels will help you reach them quicker and more effectively.
Create engaging content
Work out what works for your audience in terms of content. Does their demographics determine what type of posts they would like to see?
In most cases, visuals catch the attention of the target audience. If they are presented with something that is eye-catching and immediately says ‘wow’ to them, they are more likely to engage or to share your content.
Depending on what social media platform you are using, see what works best by testing different mediums, the posts that create the most amount of feedback and engagement are the types that you need to build into your social media strategy. You could be the best copywriter in the world but if your posts are not grabbing the attention of the audience, they are not going to be effective. Test, test and test again to see what works. Create images that are powerful and have impact. Create images that speak directly to the customer – giving them solutions or advice that they want to hear. Text can be incorporated into the images and of course any text or wording alongside these images need to be just as impactful as the visuals. Give depth and knowledge, provide value in every post you create.
Learn from your competitors – find inspiration
Yes your business is unique and you need to come across as providing a unique service to every customer you come into contact with. But this doesn’t mean that you can’t learn from other experts in your industry. Establishing your audience and finding what they engage best with will give you grounding for your strategy. Finding inspiration from others can provide you with valuable insights that will help boost your brand awareness. Don’t forget that the key to social media is engagement – it is SOCIAL for a reason!
If you’d like help in putting together a social media strategy for your business or brand, we’d love to chat with you. Get in touch to find out more.
In a busy chaotic world there is so much competition with brands trying to be heard, that it’s vital you offer something which is unique and engaging to your audience.
If you provide a service or a product where there is a lot of choice to obtain that particular service, then YOUR brand needs to stand out and be seen. You could have the best product in the world but if you don’t have an audience, you won’t see the sales.
1) Understand
Understanding your audience and truly getting to know them will give you edge in the competition. Find where they hang out, what their interests are, where they engage the most. Speak to people in those areas and ask questions (we would call it research!) and all the time learning more about them.
If you can understand what would make a client purchase from you rather than another brand, then you can work towards achieving that and providing a service that is 100% accurate.
2) Address the needs
What are the needs of your ideal audience? Are you able to fulfill that need? If so, that’s where you need to start. Understand the audience and address their needs. Once you understand what they need, you will be able to provide a better level of service targeting exactly where they need it the most.
3) Be honest
The worst thing that a business can do is promise something that they cannot deliver. Therefore, always ensure honesty and transparency. If you’re clear from the start in what you can provide and how you can provide it, people will know where they stand.
If you’re struggling to meet a deadline date – let the customer know.
So many businesses fail because they are not upfront with their clients. Just be honest and clear in all your practices and your clients and potential clients will thank you for it.
4) Provide excellent customer service
Customer service can make or break a brand. And people remember from experience once they’ve had a bad one! Therefore your customer service is so important to ensure good client retention. Always be on hand to help. Always be on hand to answer questions. Always be ready to get stuck in and solve a problem. Your customers will see what you do for them and whether you care and this will result in them purchasing from you or going elsewhere.
If you provide a memorable and reliable customer service experience, people are more likely to recommend you to others.
5) Be personal
At the end of the day, what’s going to make your brand unique is by being personal. Just be yourself. People learn to trust and like a brand that they can relate to and can engage with on a personal level – a brand that makes them feel special and unique and gives them time and energy to communicate. When you offer a service like that where people can rely on your service, THEN you will see your business grow.
When you get down to the details of what your business is about and what you have to offer, this can really be broken down to a human level. You can use your personality and strengths to provide a 1st class service that people won’t easily forget!
How do you get your brand to be known? Get down to be being personal!
Love your business, love your brand, love what you can be and show it off – and let people learn to trust and respect the real face behind your business. Be true to what you believe, don’t go with the flow because you think it’s the right thing to do, but stand out and be different and follow your dreams and the plans that you have for your brand. Every step you take is a step in your journey. You can make the choice to either make that step count or to get lost in the crowd.
We’d love to help you get noticed in a busy digital world where every post or comment matters. Let us help you get the engagement and reach you need to target your specific audience and don’t waste time doing an ‘ok’ job – do it right and do it GOOD!
Get in touch if you’d like to find out about our social media marketing packages.
When you started your business, you had passion and drive to see something happen, to see something achieved. You recognised a need and aimed to set out to achieve the solution.
What were the passions that got you started? What were the dreams that you had when you first created your business startup?
And more importantly, are you still heading in the same direction that you first set out in and achieving the goals that you wanted to accomplish?
How often do we start something and don’t see it through to completion?
How often to we get excited about a subject that we love but something gets in the way and we don’t finish?
Now is the time to get your head in gear and to reaffirm those goals and targets and make a plan on how you’re going to achieve them. Get your business back on track and take ownership of where you wanted it to go, where you are now and where you want to be in the future.
What things could help you get back on track?
What were your initial dreams?
Go back to basics, go back to the beginning when you first decided to start your business. What were the things that motivated you? What were the things that inspired you and gave you passion to want to make a difference?
What were the needs that you saw? How did you think you could achieve to solve them?
Write these things down. Keep a note pad or a section on your mobile device where you can keep looking back at these first passions and reasons why you wanted to start a business. Don’t lose sight of your passion. Don’t let go of what got you started in the first place.
Where are you now?
How long have you been running your business? Has it been 2 months / two years? Put into perspective what you have achieved in this period. Have you made the most of what you have accomplished? Have you become lazy in your efforts and lost the desire to make a difference or to help others?
Write these things down. Make a list of all the things that you have accomplished, all the things that matter most to you and what you have done with everything that you’ve started.
Don’t lose heart. Even if your list isn’t very long and you haven’t accomplished everything that you thought you would by now. NOW is the time to get back on track. NOW is the time to recoup and move your path back to the direction you know it should be heading.
If you’ve accomplished everything you planned to – well done! Congratulations on being able to adhere to a plan and sticking to your strategy. How have you achieved these points? How have you got to where you are today? Write these down too – these things are just as important as you may need them later on in life. And if you have achieved everything you set out to, what’s next? What plans can you put in place to reach even higher limits and aspirations?
Who do you aspire to?
We all have people that we look up to or perhaps think “I’d love to achieve what they’ve done!”. Are there people that you listen to you regularly on podcasts or read their books to gain insight? Having a mentor is an amazing thing and a way that we can have someone to help us along the journey and motivate us going forward. Having inspiration and motivation and learning how to stay positive helps us in both our business and personal life. It keeps us going and gives us hope. It gives us something to work towards and allows us to be open to suggestion or guidance of people that have ‘been there and done that’.
If you don’t currently follow anyone in that way or you have a mentor or coach, take some time to search online for industry leaders, for thought leaders, for motivational speakers, for business coaches in your niche. All these people will push you in the right direction and will help you to stay on track and focus in your business.
Let’s get back to basics. Let’s go back to where your business began and really delve deep into what it was that started you off. This is not a quick process and not something that you can do on a whim. Any business owner that wants to be successful has to take time to work out what their dreams and passions are and to plan and make a strategy of who to achieve those dreams. Don’t start something and give up; if you have a passion, use that to get results.
If you’re looking for someone to coach you back into loving your business and giving you a way to realise your full potential again, we’d love to chat with you. Don’t go it alone. Don’t think that if you’ve tried once, you’ll never succeed again. Love yourself, love your business and watch process unfold as you come back to basics and see business growth.
With the new year just starting out and a new chance to make a difference – now is the perfect time to make some adjustments and make some fresh and exciting decisions for your business.
January is usually about new year’s resolutions and making a choice to do something differently. But how often does this end up falling flat after a short period of time? So, this year, why not decide on something that has been on your heart for a long time and you know that you will achieve?
What can you do this year that will make it your best year ever? What one thing will ensure that you achieve your goals and make your dreams come true that you haven’t tried before?
We’d like to inspire you to get out of bed and make this year YOUR SUCCESS year!
1) Expand your knowledge.
Do something new. Over the next month (use January as an ideal time) try something new – something that you’ve not done before. And then try to do something new every day. This could be something small like going for a walk, or reading an interesting article each day. Or perhaps it could be something like planning your week’s diary or setting yourself to-do lists. Small things that you can keep up every day for a month – and really commit to doing them every day for the whole month of January. You’ll be surprised at what this will accomplish. It will expand your knowledge in so many ways and open up your eyes to new ideas and fresh inspiration.
2) Push yourself.
You know what you can and can’t do, you know what is within your comfort zone and the things that you’ve stayed away from to stay ‘comfortable’. This year it’s time to step out of your comfort zone and try new things. Life is easy if it’s comfortable but how much more will you get out of life and the things that you want to achieve by pushing that little bit harder? Think of something that perhaps you’ve wanted to do for some time but it’s been just out of reach or not an easy thing to do. Why not try to accomplish this task and surprise yourself at what you can achieve. Once you’ve done one thing that you thought you couldn’t achieve it will be easier to do more. Keep this up throughout the year, use January as the starting point but don’t stop next month… Keep pushing on towards your goals and you will accomplish bigger and better things for both you and your business.
3) Believe in yourself.
Easier said than done, right? Believing in yourself and pushing yourself to go further, reaching for the goals that you’ve only dreamed of will build your confidence and allow you to do more – and achieve more. Believing that you can do something is the first step in actually achieving it. Self doubt and worry will only delay success which is easier to say than to actually put into practice but is worth the effort. Love what you do, love the dreams that you want to achieve and believe that what you set your mind to do – you will achieve!
4) Focus on your goals.
Know what you want and go for it. Daily chores and tasks have to be done but always set aside time to focus on your targets. Make lists, write them down, stick post it notes where you can see them every day and really allow yourself to focus on your goals. Seeing them written down whether that’s on your mobile device, in your diary or on the fridge – seeing the physical target words written down will allow your mind to keep them at the forefront of your thoughts. If you lose focus on your goals, your business will lose its competitive edge.
5) Commit to success.
Many businesses fail after a very short period of starting up. 70% of business fail within 10 years. A lot of these could have been prevented if the business owner committed more to making a success rather than accepting the way things went or pushing through on their goals. Commit to delivering real value to your customers. There are probably a large number of businesses providing the same service as you, so with this in mind, you need to commit to providing real value in order to compete and beat competition. And knowing your ideal audience is a good place to start. Commit to finding out more about your customers, your ideal target audience, your demographics, consumer’s needs… only then will you have a true idea of what is real value and then be able to provide that professional, outstanding service.
Looking ahead into the new year of 2018, spend some time working out what it is you really want to achieve this year and create a plan of how you’re going to achieve it. Plan, preparation and action is the best way to create success and be heading in the direction of your heart and your dreams.
We’d love to hear from you if you’ve got a clear vision on how 2018 is going to be successful for your business. Comment below. And if we can help or advise in any way, get in touch!
