intergration

How to get Ideas for Blog Posts

October 23, 2014 intergration

One of the issues I come up against most often when I’m telling clients they should be writing new content for their blogs on a frequent basis, is the problem of what to write. And, beyond that, what to write that is actually going to be interesting and engaging for the reader. (Of course, this issue isn’t exclusive to blog posts, with Facebook, Twitter etc posts casusing the same problem for most people – with the same solution, as below).

Once we’ve gone through – and rejected – the usual standbys of:

– corporate info (yawn)
– industry news (yawn)
– product info (essentially a recreation of what’s already on their site, though can be useful done the right way – see below)

we’re left with the sort of thing that most people might come up with when asked to put together a list of titles for possible blog posts that would interest their potential clients:

– Top Ten xyz
– Funny Stories about xyz
– Unusual and interesting info about xyz
– Links to other sites that feature info about xyz
etc

All perfectly suitable and worthwhile topics, but even then there’s usually a bit of a stumbling block between coming up with a suitable title and actually being able to populate the article with content.

So I recommend a particular mindset that works for me and many other people who “write to order” on a regular basis – which is to realise that ideas are simply combinations of previously-existing elements, in order to develop something new (in this case, an idea for an article).

I’ve set out the process I use below, and if you’re interested in working this way for yourself I thoroughly recommend you read a book called “A Technique for Producing Ideas” by James Webb Young – a gold standard classic in the world of advertising. (Though quite short and based on teachings from 70 years ago, it stands up as being as useful and relevant in today’s digital world as it was when newspaper coupons were a marketer’s main tool).

The process I use can be summarised as:

1) Absorb information about your own subject. This is something I do on an ongoing basis through knowledge of the products /services on offer. The internet is obviously quite a useful source of info for other things relating to the particular products / services on offer – eg a site such as https://www.searchenginenews.com/ provides lots of relevant information about SEO.

2) Absorb information about everything else. Seems quite a difficult task, but really what I mean is to read / watch / listen to lots of other things that are seemingly unconnected with your own subject, though such activities as reading newspapers, watching factual television programmes, browsing the internet in a “see where it takes you” fashion etc.

3) Make connections and associations between the 2. This is the key element for coming up with ideas – the making of connections and associations between previously-existing elements in order to come up with something new. This stage of the process can also include elements of “doodling” or “daydreaming”, as it often features the writing down snatches of ideas and simply allowing your thoughts to wander, based on the information absorbed in the first 2 stages.

If you’ve read the James Webb Young book referred to above, you’ll know that he recommends abandoning the thought process at some stage, in order for the subconscious mind to take over. I, too, find this a very useful method for coming up with future ideas. But for the purposes of writing an article at a particular moment, I simply use the 3 stages outlined above.

In my next post, I’ll be giving a practical demonstration of how to go about this process, using the products and services of clients of mine as examples.

The Internet Marketing Sales Funnel

October 20, 2014 intergration

A sales funnel is essentially the path that your customers take from initially becoming aware of your business to ending up making a purchase.

Website_conversion_funnel

Whilst it’s a useful piece of imagery and an adequate means of describing the process, I’ve always thought there was something a little misleading about the use of the word “funnel” in this regard. For instance, when using a funnel to pour liquid from one bottle into another, the idea behind that process is to get all the liquid from the first bottle into the second one, with the funnel acting as a “widemouth” catcher for the liquid, that it then pours directly into the second bottle without spilling any.

However, unless your business operates like no other that I’ve every encountered, you certainly won’t be converting all your sales prospects into customers, and plenty of them will be “spilt” out of the funnel on the way towards making those all important sales.

I guess the origin of calling this sales journey a “funnel” lies in the shape of a funnel, as pictured above. When we look at the volume of people you could describe as sales prospects, then filter them down through the different stages of the sales process, what we see is a kind of inverted pyramid shape, with the largest number at the top and the smallest at the bottom.

OK, all very good, but so what? Well, the point of what I’m saying is that it’s far too easy to neglect each stage in the “funneling” process, simply believing that a large number of prospects at the top is certain to lead to our eventual goal of sales at the bottom. But actually we can help ourselves by making each stage as good as it can be – promoting ourselves and interacting with potential clients several times in order to turn them into happy customers. These stages can include:

– Search engine results or social media posts leading to a site visit
– An engaging website that provides what the visitor is looking for
– An easy method of contacting you
– Possibly providing something of value to the potential client before they pay you anything – thus building up credibility and trust
– Email communication with potential customers on an ongoing basis (being “front of mind” can be a powerful motivator for when the prospect is ready to buy)
– A simple and confidence-inspiring sales process
– A friendly and useful after sales process to keep them on side (whether they are likely to come back for more or not, they can certainly refer others)

So when you think about your sales funnel, you shouldn’t be imagining it will be as simple as pouring liquid into a bottle, so you need to ensure there are no holes in the funnel itself to prevent as much leakage as possible.

Horses for Courses

October 17, 2014 intergration

If you run a business, you’ve no doubt been told that you need to be utilising social media, as “everyone is” and if you don’t, you’ll get left behind.

No doubt you’ve setup a Facebook page and a Twitter account (you may even have been persuaded to put a Google+ page together, following all the hype about its value for businesses over the last couple of years), and have waited for the customers to roll in.

And waited. And waited…

An interesting article on SiteProNews – http://www.sitepronews.com/2014/10/17/email-vs-social-media-marketing-facts-2/ – raises the same point, then goes on to suggest that email marketing is “where it’s at” in terms of promoting your business.

Certainly, there is far more value to a business in having a quality email list of potential clients than having a few hundred (or even thousand) Facebook Likes and Twitter Followers; for the simple reason that the key word in the description “social media” is the word “social”. ie people use Facebook to learn what their friends are up to and find out which Game of Thrones character they would be if they’d been born in Belgium (or something).

Similarly, Twitter is a means for making short observations about news stories and finding out about cool websites that your favourite member of One Direction has visited in the last few minutes.

So is there really a place for business in social media? If you’re like 90% of businesses, you’re almost certainly wondering what all the fuss is about. However, when done the right way, social media can be a great means of targeting prospective customers who you would never have been able to reach any other way.

Essentially, it’s a stepping stone to getting people to visit your website, then putting them into your normal sales process as you would do with anyone who makes an enquiry. There is an added bonus, too, in that Google is keen on sites having links from other sites, and social media provides a great medium for you to promote your website – thus acquiring links from bloggers etc over time. (Links directly from Facebook are not of any value for search ranking purposes – though Twitter links can be of some value in this regard).

So you should certainly include social media as part of your online marketing mix, but you need to play to its strengths – eg immediacy, shareability – rather than expecting it to provide a constant stream of new business through regurgitating the same old boring corporate rubbish that people have come to Facebook and Twitter to avoid.

Another Step Closer to Minority Report

October 15, 2014 intergration

If you’ve seen the film “Minority Report”, you might remember the nature of some of the future advertising that was featured – ie specific targeting of the individual characters from the animated billboards by name based on their likes etc.

Well now it appears as though we are a step closer to that sort of thing, with the news that an American software company, Ditto Labs, has developed image recognition software for social media images.

The software will recognise specific brand’s logos that feature within the images, then scan the rest of the picture to see what other brands are visible.

The idea is that they can then build up a set of data about which brands happily “co-exist” in the minds of consumers – ie if there are lots of people in the social media images wearing a particular brand of clothing, that also tend to wear a certain brand of watch, this information can be useful for advertisers in terms of who they target with their advertising.

Apparently, one of the significant pieces of data they’ve gathered so far is that 13% of the people who feature the Adidas logo in their social media images are also “interested in Justin Bieber”…

Pay Per Click Social Media Advertising

October 11, 2014 intergration

Each of the main social media sites that businesses should be aware of – Facebook Twitter and LinkedIn – offer a Pay Per Click advertising service. So what does this actually mean and how can you go about promoting your business online? Here’s a quick overview of some of the options available:

1) Facebook Promoted Posts

Once you write a unique, engaging post on Facebook, you can then promote it to other Facebook users. (If you use Facebook, you’ve almost certainly seen these promoted posts in your timeline). You can target the type of user to show it to using several demographic factors, such as age, location, gender, likes and interests, education level etc.

This means that your ad will only show to the type of people who you determine are your main target audience – thus generating more interest from the people you want to know about you and ignoring people you don’t want to target.

2) Twitter Promoted Tweets

Similar to the idea of promoted Facebook posts, as outlined above, this service allows you to get your Tweets in front of your target audience. Just like with Facebook, you can target the type of people to show the Tweets to using various demographic traits including location, gender, interests etc, as well as by device – ie you may wish to only target people viewing the Tweet on a desktop machine, or on a mobile phone.

3) LinkedIn Ads

You may not be as familiar with LinkedIn as with Facebook and Google. It claims to be the “..world’s largest audience of active, influential professionals.” So it’s generally going to work well for you if you target businesses with your products or services – though many companies have also reported success selling consumer-related products, as after all, businesspeople and professionals are people too!

LinkedIn ads are similar to AdWords ads in the way they display on the page, though they can also incorporate video clips for increased engagement. The targeting options are more detailed than for either Facebook or Twitter, as they also allow you to target via job title and skillset.

Pay Per Click

If you’re wondering what this means, it’s the process whereby you only pay an advertising fee when somebody actually clicks on your advert having seen it on one of the sites above. You can set a maximum figure per click, as well as a maximum amount you’re prepared to pay each day, to ensure you don’t spend more than you wish to if loads of people click the ad.

One thing I always say to PPC clients of mine, is that you actually shouldn’t be afraid of spending a lot of money on PPC advertising anyway, as if it’s setup and managed properly, the more you spend, the more customers you attract and thus the more profit you make.

Some Other Definitions of SEO

October 8, 2014 intergration

We’re all (probably) aware that SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation – the process of making your site “search engine friendly” such that it attracts multiple visits from people performing relevant search queries – but there are some other definitions of SEO that have been somewhat overshadowed by the internet marketing version.

For instance, there is the term Senior Executive Officer – a rarely used term that is probably more commonly replaced nowadays with Chief Executive Officer (possibly in order to differentiate the role from the more famous search related term).

South Eastern Ohio – self-evidently a region in North America.

Seasoned Equity Offering / Secondary Equity Offering – a further offering of shares from an already publicy traded company.

Society of Education Officers – a group that was merged into the Confederation of Education Service Managers, a UK-based association for those involved in education.

Special Exemption Order – a legal term denoting a special order from a district council regarding land access rights.

Obviously, none of the above have made it into what might be called “common usage”, so I’m happy to stick with the definition of SEO that I know the most about. (ie driving traffic to websites through the major search engines).

Diary vs Blog

October 5, 2014 intergration

In the olden days before the internet was quite so prevalent in daily life as it is now – ie around 15 years ago for most people! – when you wanted to record your innermost thoughts, you might have kept a writtern journal or diary. At various stages of my life, I have kept a daily record of activities and thoughts I’d had, sometimes expanding these thoughts a little so they were more than simple jottings and factual records of events that had taken place.

There has, indeed, been a long tradition of people writing diaries, with some people (usually those with some claim to celebrity) publishing them for mass consumption – eg Samuel Pepys, Tony Benn, Michael Palin etc. And certainly, it seems the appetite for people to record their daily lives is undiminished in the 21st century, though nowadays you are more likely to keep up with people’s thoughts and activities on a perpetual basis through such social media sites as Facebook and Twitter.

So do people still write what was originally known as a “weblog” – blog – in the same manner as they were writing diaries? Of course, as with most things to do with the internet, the answer is “yes and no”. From the earliest days of people keeping an online journal using things such as usenet in the 80s and early 90s, through to the advent of services such as Blogger and eventually the microblogging services such as Twitter, there is clearly an appetite for people to write down the things they get up to and the thoughts they have about these things.

But my own belief is that, if you wish to write down your thoughts for private consumption, you should indeed keep a private journal (which can, of course, be an online one that is set to private so only you can read it). Whereas the 2014 version of a blog is primarily for providing info for public consumption, rather than a simple record of activity. Certainly, from a business perspective, this is how you should be viewing your blog and thus populating it with content accordingly.

Do Your Marketing

October 2, 2014 intergration

A recent giveaway section in The Times newspaper (www.thetimes.co.uk) was called “Successful Modern Entrepreneurship”. It featured mostly interviews with UK business owners discussing how they manage to run their business successfully, whilst also making time for other activities in a work / life balance manner.

Several of the interviewees discussed how they were not only the MD / CEO of their business, but that they were also the people primarily responsible for marketing and promoting the company to others. This is a far from unusual situation – one I’ve come across very many times over the years I’ve been helping businesses to promote themselves over the internet.

As well as several other useful tips, one of the main ones that caught my eye was the instruction to “Do your marketing” – featured in their Top Ten list of things to do in order to achieve the best balance for running a successful operation. Their recommendation is based on: “..marketing takes time to work. Relationships take time to develop. Customers take time to know, like and trust you. Be the one who shows up regularly, not just when you’re desperate..” (As suggested by productivity guru, Grace Marshall).

Relating this to social media and blog writing, it’s clear that the recommendation would be to ensure you actually keep on top of these elements of your marketing, by doing them on a regular basis. I’m well aware that many businesspeople will concentrate on “day to day” activities and continually put things like updating their blog and posting on Facebook to the bottom of the “to do” list – often performing this action so often that they eventually decide they’re never going to have enough time to write anything worthwhile, so they may as well simply give up.

Hence the enormous number of “ghost town” blogs and social media accounts that serve little purpose other than to clutter up the web with nothing of any value. And certainly, an empty blog or social media presence is not especially likely to encourage potential clients to contact you. So if there’s one thing I always say is the most important factor in terms of maintaining your presence online, it is to actually do it. Write the blog, Facebook post, Tweet and get them online so people can see you actually do exist and are not only active, but worth contacting.

Making time for this isn’t something you should put off – as reinforced in the newspaper pullout referenced above – as it should be viewed as an essential part of your business activity, rather than something you can leave for another time. (And, of course, if you feel you really don’t have the time to do it yourself, you can always utilise the services of someone like me to keep on top of things for you!).

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