Category Archives: Marketing

Branding, networking & promoting your business

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Half of Life Is Follow-Up: Networking and Reconnecting

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B2B marketing has changed quite a bit in the past four or five years; Artificial Intelligence has impacted so much—lead generation and scoring, targeting and segmenting leads, content creation and refining personalization are among the functions that AI-powered marketing tools have endowed with significantly more precision and power. It’s all good, but 21st century advancements cannot replace the effectiveness of a marketing tactic that is as old as the pyramids—networking. Life is about relationships and networking—meeting, greeting and connecting with people—has demonstrated that it is an effective way to build relationships that help you to do more business.

In a world increasingly dominated by technology, personal relationships stand out and become more important. While your prospective clients prefer a self-guided buyer’s journey and opt to keep you and your competitors at arm’s length until they are assembling the short list of candidates whose service or product will be chosen by the buyer search committee, those same prospects nevertheless want to work with people they trust, like, and feel connected to. For example, 73% of B2B marketing executives rank word-of-mouth and peer recommendations as the most influential factor in deciding which vendors to consider. Furthermore, findings come from Forrester’s 2024 Buyers’ Journey Survey indicate that 92% of B2B buyers start their journey with at least one vendor in mind, and 41% already have a preferred vendor selected before any formal evaluation.

In other words, if you’d like to get on the radar screen of B2B buyers, it makes a lot of sense to meet a few of them face2face. Getting to know people is how familiarity and trust can develop and trust increases the probability of getting on a buyer’s journey short list that is the pathway to a sale. An in-person introduction from contact that you meet in either a business or social setting can, one day, walk you past the gatekeepers and perhaps accelerate a (morbidly slow) sales cycle. Networking thrives on serendipity and many of the best business opportunities come from unexpected connections made in casual settings. Not only that, but relationship networks are also known to compound; a strong professional network grows and becomes more valuable over time as your contacts advance in their careers. One relationship leads to another; one introduction leads to years of opportunity; one influential connection can open doors to opportunities you never knew existed.

However, keep in mind that healthy and enjoyable relationships are a two-way street. That means, be sure to give your new contact before you ask for any favors—share useful content, make introductions for him/her, offer your expertise—before asking for a favor. Be specific about how you can help: Instead of saying, “Let’s stay in touch and let me know if I can ever help” is less effective than “I have a connection at [company] you should know — would you like an introduction?”

Nurture your relationships proactively by reaching out to contacts new and those with whom you’d like to reconnect before you need anything. Because you want to keep alive the magic of finding a new friend or seeing an old friend again, follow-up within 24 hours after meeting someone at an event. You might want to send a LinkedIn connection invite with a personalized note the next business day. Play a long game: relationships that result in business typically take 6-24 months to materialize.

4 phrases that make you likeable

Finally, let’s launch your networking strategy with four easy-to-remember phrases that will make you stand out as an appealing, smart, interesting (because you are interested in the person you’re talking with) and trustworthy person. Those qualities are the cornerstone of relationship-building. It is why networking is such a powerful marketing activity that should always be included in your business planning.

“I was just thinking about you!” This is a powerful phrase you can use absolutely anywhere. Everyone likes to be remembered. So telling someone, “I was just thinking of you!” immediately sparks connection. It’s a casual relationship-building follow-up phrase that immediately puts someone at ease by reminding them they are top of mind and makes them feel good. 

‘Tell me more!’ Asking people questions, especially follow-up questions, shows that you listen, you’re engaged and interested in the other person’s thoughts and feelings and that responsiveness makes you likable. That you remember what is or was important to that person shows that you value them.

‘You’re so…!’ What makes someone instantly likable? You might think it’s charm or cleverness. But often, it’s this: making others feel valued. In every conversation, people are quietly wondering, Am I being boring? Am I doing well? Do they like me? Your job is to answer those questions before they’re asked. Humans love to be validated for who they are, not just what they do. Frequently. Don’t assume you’ve said it before, or that someone knows how valued they are. We can almost never receive too much validation if it’s genuine. Doing so is simple. If you appreciate something about someone, tell them! Just say: “You’re so…” then you can highlight their humor, charisma, or whatever characteristic that is uniquely theirs. 

“Last time we talked, you mentioned…”Do you want to persuade someone you’ve met before to reconnect? Try saying, “Last time we were talking, you mentioned…” followed by something that lit them up the last time you talked.  You could say, “Last time we spoke, you mentioned you were going to Portugal on vacation. How was that?” Or ask about the big project they mentioned, or a show you both love. 

Thanks for reading,

Kim

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Reputation Management Begins With Credibility

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Information moves faster and its reach is more widespread than at any time in history. Audiences—your clients, competitors, business colleagues and community in which you operate—participate in the 24/7 news cycle and expect transparency in real time. The lightning-fast movement will also include stories that involve your brand. Whether those stories posted by your organization and its supporters and are intended to build and celebrate your brand, or are negative and, for some unfortunate reason meant to undermine the perception and value of your brand, it is imperative that business owners and leaders take a proactive stance and manage information related to your entity as well as potential audience reactions to that information.

Staying out in front of the buzz about your business that’s pinging through the echoverse is essential, primarily because the potential for the appearance of unflattering information, that may or may not be true, is possible. The last thing you want is for a public relations crisis to land in your lap and create a five-alarm fire that forces you into a reactive rescue mission that can only leave you in a position of weakness, no matter how quickly and expertly you quash it. You will no doubt agree that having the luxury of shaping your brand stories and eliminating the need to control a crisis is the best defense? You may already have guessed that creating and presenting relevant and timely information is how the war can be won.

Online search and social listening

The potential for attacks on a business entity is worrisome and the aggression can be persistent. Arguably, the expansion of Artificial Intelligence powered automation has intensified the ability for bad actors to launch dirty tricks campaigns: some may originate from a particularly vicious competitor, or an unknown hacker may enjoy bringing trouble to the life of another human being. The first pillar of reputation management is maintaining consistent awareness. Business owners and leaders who fail to regularly monitor what is being said about their entity and note the prevailing tone of opinions expressed could be doing their brand reputation a disservice. Monitoring the prevailing sentiment is ideally an ongoing practice that informs you of what your customers and other stakeholders say about your brand. About every three months, it will be useful to search your name and the company name, plus your city, in engines such as Bing, Google and Yahoo and read what the AI summary or other search mechanisms reveal about you and your brand.

Quick response to customer complaints found on social media platforms must express empathy and offer a practical solution; apologize and offer your side of the story and make amends when possible. If a customer offers criticism (that might be constructive, BTW), address the matter. Disparaging rumors directed at your business must be met with a polite but firm, discreetly phrased but truthful, clarification. If you see that your business has been reviewed in an excessively negative and/or inaccurate way, contact the reviewing site and request that the offending post be removed.

Brands are also turning to social media user comments for market and consumer info when trends and other marketplace developments evolve too quickly for traditional research methods to keep up. Social listening tools like Talkwalker use AI to pull specific brand insights from the vast quantities of data available on social media platforms, in real time. Social listening, another manifestation of that practice, tracks online comments made about your brand, industry and competitors across social media platforms. From an analysis of those comments, a the big picture will emerge of the unfiltered perceptions that your customers, prospects and others have about your brand. Social listening can also capture developing trends that are bubbling up and indicate where opportunities (or risks) that impact your entity are hiding. In short, social listening data can assist all facets of your brand.

Informative and timely content

The second component of your reputation management strategy is investing in your strengths before an emergency develops. Build genuine, search-visible assets steadily, so that when a difficult moment arrives, your reputation has the depth to absorb it. A company that has consistently shown who it is can take a hit that would flatten a competitor with nothing in reserve. That reserve is built in the quiet quarters before a crisis, not during one.

By positioning yourself as a go-to source of useful insights and info, you’ll win audience trust—and that is vital. The quality and timeliness of the information you deliver, whether by text, video, or audio, will enhance your value. Distributing your thought leader content on social media platforms favored by your target audience maximize distribution and help you build a following. You’ll benefit from increased name recognition, eventually acquire trust and influence and, ultimately, you’ll create for yourself a solid brand reputation. Linking your blog and/or newsletter to one or more social media platforms when you publish is a great way to share your compelling content with a wide audience (readers will find my weekly blog at LinkedIn activity/posts.)

Because you cannot manage what you are not watching, those who pay attention to narratives that appear in the digital space or print, whether friendly or unfriendly, are getting reputation management right. A concern caught early on is a conversation; that same concern, if ignored and allowed to fester, is a headline. An effective business leader’s goal is not to respond well to incidents, but to anticipate that, unfortunately, occasional headwinds are inevitable. Building up credibility, which could be expressed as thought leader expertise, client, nurturing colleague or peer relationships and being responsive to any concerns, or participation in community organizations and/or events are the invisible yet powerful and sustainable pillars of reputation management

Thanks for reading,

Kim

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Audit: Is Your Marketing Content Doing the Job?

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Relevant, actionable even, marketing content is the engine that pushes a business entity forward. Marketing (and its tactical sibling, sales) is enshrined as one of the three pillars of a business, along with operations and finance. A range of marketing content can be developed and employed to carry out strategies and tactics that promote the company’s business solutions—its products and/or services—by addressing the pain points, goals and challenges that prospective customers who make purchases on behalf of their organization must resolve.

That content is used to advance defining story narratives that communicate how your company’s products or services produce returns on investment for customers—commonly, financial gain, operational efficiencies, risk management, or achieving a mission-critical goal. B2B marketing content is meant to create conditions that persuade prospects to green-light the sale:

  • Expand the customer list by introducing the business entity and its solutions to prospects who have a problem to solve or goal to reach
  • Generate viable sales leads
  • Establish trust in the perception of the solutions that the business provides
  • Promote the company’s visibility and credibility
  • Distinguish the business from competitors
  • Enhance the brand reputation
  • Position the company to survive and thrive by growing sales revenue and profit

We approach 2027 with the knowledge that for Freelance business owners, implementing a powerful marketing content strategy that is carried out by credible, useful content that is timely and able to address the needs of prospects at every stage of the buyer’s journey has never been more important. Now that B2B decision-makers have made it known that 67% prefer to self-direct their buyer’s journey and only contacting the vendor until they approach the comparative evaluation of solutions that have made it to the short list. Because it is often not possible to add your input to the buyer’s journey until a decision is about to be made, it is imperative that your marketing content is persuasive enough to carry your solution through the vetting obstacle course with a good chance to emerge as the winner.

Adjust to the B2B buying reality

The sales cycles in B2B has become long and perilous, and prospects are known to be demanding. The communication formats you have in place, e.g. presentations, links to webinars or podcasts and case studies, too, exist to show prospects why your solution makes sense. During the buyer’s journey, marketing content must satisfy the priorities of influential stakeholders, gatekeepers and, finally, the decision-making committee. Before any campaign launches, your organizations needs alignment in three areas:

1. Content availability: right time, right place

Ask yourself—when you’re looking for something, whether it’s your keys or some useful information, you need whatever it is to be there when you need it, in a place where you can find it. This basic fact of human nature unfortunately prevents lots of informative marketing content from being noticed and receiving serious consideration by the parties for whom it is intended. So much useful marketing content is created and subsequently clicked out of existence, unable to fulfill its purpose, because the recipient decided it wasn’t worth the time and energy to deal with it when it landed in the inbox. Unfortunate timing condemns good content to suffer the delete button. In other words, good content does not automatically become visible content. Prospects tend to rank what they read:

  • What looks relevant
  • What looks important
  • What looks familiar
  • What can be ignored

Another scenario that drains the power of content is putting a story that could be effective in front of the prospect at the wrong time. Keep in mind that your job is to nurture the buyer’s journey and organically move it forward, toward a successful conclusion—the sale. You cannot force the process. It is imperative to have at the ready informative and persuasive marketing content that informs each stage of the buyer’s journey—awareness, research, decision and post-sale. If you only produce early awareness stage, “top-of-funnel” content, it’s likely you’ll get window shopper prospects who never convert. If you only produce “bottom-of-funnel” content that’s intended to encourage prospects who are evaluating short list candidates so they can finalize the sale, it’s likely you’ll get many prospects to take the journey in the first place. Oh, and your content must not only address each stage of the buyer’s journey, but also stand out and capture attention. B2B buyers keep a trigger finger on the delete button and they’re ready to click.

2. Audience attention

You already know to define your audience and confirm factors that incent them to seek out your type of service or product and what they want to achieve when your solution is implemented. Once you’ve confirmed your prospect’s agenda for doing business with you (or one of your competitors, but we don’t want that to happen!), you must ensure that your marketing content makes viewers stop, read and look. B2B marketing is no longer about competing against other businesses anymore—it’s competing against multiple distractions, sensory overload, fatigue, or doing nothing at all. When a prospect eyeballs your content, here’s the time frame you’re up against:

  • 3 seconds to grab their attention.
  • 30 seconds for a glance.
  • 3 minutes for a full read

Eye-catching

An arresting visual, an unexpected revelation, humor, or emotional honesty are among the hooks you might use to bring audience attention that causes them to engage with your content and read on. Providing a contrarian or surprising fact or statistic that challenges a common belief can likewise be compelling.

Call-to-action

A call-to-action asks the reader to do something — learn, win, sign up, give feedback, for example. Many emails that drop into the average inbox lack an interesting, appealing subject line. It’s so easy for the eye to slide over much that is sent. Devise an amusing, novel, or practical call-to-action that will both grab attention and either inspire or dare your intended reader to read on.

Emotional relevance

You will be mistaken if you think that the decision-makers for your sale are ruled by the logic of facts, figures and potential outcomes. most decisions are emotional first and rationalized second. Humans naturally pay more attention to things connected to:

  • Identity
  • Safety
  • Status
  • Belonging
  • Aspiration
  • Fear
  • Pleasure

Humans remember what we feel and this is why emotionally relevant marketing consistently tends to outperform purely informational marketing. Facts matter but feelings determine whether those facts are noticed.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: © Liquoricelegs

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Bring Visibility to the Value You Deliver

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Is the value of your B2B products and/or services fully recognized and acknowledged by your customers and prospects? You may assume that if sales get within striking distance of your annual revenue target, the answer is yes—yes, prospects trust that your solutions will resolve their pain point or achieve an important goal. It’s great when customers understand their need for what you sell and they’re willing to pay to use it. However, there may be a hidden negative action that has the potential to undermine your sales. Yes, you have a roster of paying customers, but some may have a casual attitude toward your offering. These customers fail to fully appreciate the significance of the outcomes derived from using your service or product. The failure to grasp the good stuff your service or product brings to the table is called a value gap; although customers improve the position of their company in one way or another when they use your offering, they don’t exactly count their blessings for being able to do so. Those customers do not objectively measure, document, or communicate to their company leaders and stakeholders the user case that explains why doing business with you is good business.

You might suspect a value gap if it appears the enthusiasm customers once expressed for the results produced when using your service or product diminish and leave your solution to fade like a wallflower, instead of sparkling like the belle of the ball. Maybe social media engagement is drifting downward and few customers are singing your praises and making referrals?

The existence of a value gap typically weakens future sales (including repeat business), shrinks the number of customer Word-of-Mouth referrals you receive and some customers may even find it acceptable to bargain down the selling price for your solution. Meaning, a value gap kills growth opportunities and you’ve got to reverse it. Doug May, founder and managing partner of Value Sherpas, a go-to-market advisory firm, and Wendy Wise, founder and CEO of Profitwise, which provides pricing and go-to-market services, are co-authors of Bridging the Value Gap (2015) and they can show you how to climb out of the quicksand.

Based on their experience, May and Wise recommend that companies make demonstrating customer value foundational in all relevant customer touchpoints across the organization to successfully when looking to overturn the value gap. Business owners and leaders should research, evaluate, confirm and integrate value that matters into customer-facing business operations to receive the greatest reward from interactions that are visible, and therefore memorable, to customers. In this way, the business owner will have the best opportunities to create competitive advantages that are unique to your organization. 

Your job is to discover what motivates prospects and customers to seek out products or services in your category, and then determine what customers and prospects value most highly about the solution they intend to purchase. Finally, you must decide how your company can consistently deliver highly impactful value and simultaneously enable customers and prospects to see and appreciate that value. The authors define the process as a sequence—research and understand, verify, operationalize and scale.

May and Wise point out that addressing the value gap is most efficiently managed when you align the benefits and outcomes associated with your solutions with quickly recognizable, easy to explain and highly valued business outcomes such as increased annual revenue, cost reduction and risk management. You do this by clearly identifying how customers capture value when they implement your solutions.

In your marketing messages and sales pitch, articulate and reinforce those defining, problem-solving, goal achieving outcomes to ensure that recognition of the value you bring to customers is the foundation of the sales journey. In all aspects of your sales and marketing functions, emphasize and explain the value that a customer will receive when s/he buys from your company, from implementation, to outcomes, to pricing and after-sale customer service. Organizations that make customer value not only visible, but also measurable, will make the value memorable and therefore better positioned to sustain growth and strengthen the competitive advantage.

Research, verify and understand

You can begin building a customer-value focus almost anywhere in the organization. Be advised, however, that this work cannot be done with surveys, or casual conversations that focus on “What do you value about doing business with us?” To understand the wins, losses, pain points and the use case, it will be necessary to identify a subset of customers who represent these varied contexts—and conduct deep, one-on-one conversations to understand how your solution affects their costs, revenues and risks and how it aligns with their strategic priorities. Document the most common benefits and begin to build a model to enable sales.

Operationalize it—starting with sales

 According to the authors, sales is the place to begin, because the impact is fastest and most visible (pricing is a close second). Apply the customer-value approach directly to live, in-progress sales opportunities. Embed value that is recognizable, measurable and coveted by the prospect into the sales process itself. Value messages must be woven into sales presentations and sales content. Develop business-case models—a good case study could work—that will allow the sales team or specialist to measure the customer’s current challenge or pain point and project the future value your solution can deliver—grounded in real customer data and benchmarks. One step is essential: the customer champion must be involved in building the business case that will ultimately land with senior leadership. Without that co-creation, the case will lack the internal credibility it needs.

Cascade the perception of value throughout the organization

Once the foundational models are in place, extend the customer-value mindset beyond sales to achieve a holistic approach—embedded across customer success, product, pricing and the C-suite—needed to drive higher margins and a sustainable competitive advantage.

  • Marketing: Ensure that messaging conveys customer impact for primary use cases and that demand generation focuses on outcomes, not just product capabilities.
  • Post-sale: Guide a meaningful portion of your customers to deepen their use of the capabilities and products you offer that are most differentiated—and that they are aware and can articulate the business value they are capturing.
  • Service/Product: Eventually embed customer business value thinking into product planning, using it to drive innovation priorities and feature sequencing.
  • Pricing: Evaluate your pricing against your use cases and the business value they deliver. Ensure that you are incentivizing the right customer behaviors such as adoption and retention of adjacent products while capturing appropriate revenue.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

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Transform Your Brand’s Customer Experience

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Have you figured out that bringing a new customer into your business and keeping that customer as an active member of your roster are two different marketing functions? I’m sure you have! Freelance professionals must build and guide the entire arc of the sales process, from reassuring prospects who’d like to discuss follow-up questions about the capabilities of your service or product, to developing an efficient and welcoming onboarding procedure for new customers, to devising post-sale services or training that anticipates the type of support that will be helpful. Really, B2B selling is about presenting a positive customer experience at relevant (but not necessarily every) touchpoint.

It is well-known that B2B customer expectations are rising as they become more selective about vendors they trust and where they spend their highly scrutinized budgets. It may be too harsh to say that B2B customers have become jaded, demanding and fickle, but many are confronted with dozens of sales pitches in an average week as vendors compete for attention. But there is good news: 1.) You know that a well-designed and implemented customer experience matters to those with whom you do business; and 2.) It’s possible to distinguish your brand from competitors by delivering an exceptional customer experience (CX). In fact, a first-rate CX, as your market segment defines it, is one of the most powerful business growth accelerators and brand builders available today.

As products and services become more indistinguishable, and proliferate into a mass of “me, too” offerings, Freelancers and other business owners are in search of meaningful competitive advantages and CX has emerged as a potential deciding factor that can impact either customer loyalty or customer churn. Freelancers will do well to examine how your customer experience operates in real time, so that you can identify any lapses, improve efficiencies and create a consistently reliable and seamless experience that represents the best of your brand. Read on to learn the steps you’ll take to devise a successful CX transformation.

Planning: strategy and blueprint

Break down the steps of your typical buyer’s journey as lived by a prospect, starting with determining how most prospects find you. A Word-of-Mouth referral from a colleague has been revealed as the beginning of most B2B buyer journeys—have you determined who are your most enthusiastic referral sources?

It’s also been revealed that B2B prospective buyers prefer to avoid interacting with vendors until a particular service or product appears emerges as a strong candidate. At that point, the prospect will contact chosen vendors and confirm impressions about the product or service, Finally, a decision will be made about which brands will be added to a short list for an assessment by the decision team. CX marketing experts say that in the planning phase of your CX transformation, you should answer three questions:

  • What do you want customers to feel or how do you want them to react at the most important moments in their buyer’s journey your brand?
  • What behaviors or decisions influence those feelings or reactions?
  • How can you amplify or reinforce those factors that positively impact how a prospect feels or reacts to pivotal moments in your buyer’s journey?

Finally, as you devise an implementation plan blueprint for your CX transformation, keep at top-of-mind the following objectives:

  • Attract: Win more customers through distinctive value propositions and smarter targeting.
  • Serve: Deliver seamless, experiences.
  • Retain: Engage customers meaningfully at moments of genuine need to promote loyalty, repeat business and Word-of-Mouth referrals.
  • Grow: Drive sustained growth by meeting more customer needs that stimulate repeat business and referrals.

CRM Platform: the foundation

Using a Customer Relations Management platform provides many benefits, such as the ability to effectively and efficiently manage decisive aspects of customer behavior— which can reveal a better understanding of customers and give you insights into which buyer journey factors are most relevant to prospects, so that you can upgrade and transformed those experiences. With CRM, you can manage customer relationships more effectively and build a more customer-centric business. The primary benefits of using CRM include improved customer satisfaction, enhanced customer retention, increased sales efficiency, streamlined business processes and better data insights.

CRMs with AI capabilities include intelligent automation, predictive insights and AI agents that can take autonomous actions to further amplify these benefits. That data will show you a 360-degree, comprehensive view of your customers and guide you to build a personalized customer experience that will resonate. You’ll also can be positioned to develop stronger customer relationships and drive business growth—repeat business, enhanced customer lifetime value and brand advocacy that promotes loyalty.

Process: the operational aspects

What process transformation actually requires is an operating rhythm that’s advantageously timed to support each phase of the CX transformation rollout. You’ll verify the timing with performance outcome metrics, that are ideally powered by AI, so that you can evaluate customer responses. Weekly monitoring of key touchpoints such as customer engagement and drop-out rates will keep you on top of the process. When an effective process is in place, CX transformation benefits multiply. When it isn’t, you can quickly make the correcting adjustments.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: © Disney Food Blog. Riding the teacups at The Mad Tea Party in The Magic Kingdom Walt Disney theme park, Lake Buena Vista, FL

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How To Encourage B2B Referrals

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When it comes to influencing B2B buying decisions, few marketing resources are as powerful as a referral made by a customer who had a good experience working with your organization and is happy to recommend those in his/her business network to investigate your brand if there is need of a service or product that matches yours. Customer endorsements, also known as Word-of-Mouth referrals, are a crucial ingredient of an effective customer acquisition strategy. It’s been documented that Word-of-Mouth referrals positively affect 20% to 50% of purchasing decisions and 84% of B2B buying decision-makers report that their buyer’s journey typically begins with a referral. Foundational to Word-of-Mouth referrals are good customer experiences and good relationships.

The term Word-of-Mouth marketing refers to an informal sharing of opinions, experiences and recommendations about a brand, product, or service between colleagues and friends. Whenever people speak about a business, they are participating in Word-of-Mouth marketing. Long before social media marketing existed, business owners and sales professionals relied on the trusted opinions of business colleagues and other reliable sources to guide their purchasing decisions. Word-of-Mouth endorsements continue to be sought after and trusted, even as business (and personal) communication has gone beyond telephone or face2face conversations to encompass digital formats, including social media, online review sites, webinars and podcasts and/or online professional communities.

There are few marketing strategies that are as potent or as cost-effective as endorsements made by satisfied customers and the power of Word-of-Mouth referrals is supported by metrics. According to data published by ThinkImpact, a platform that provides business and career related information, 78% of B2B referrals create viable customer leads for the business and 63% of B2B revenue comes from existing clients and referrals combined.

Credible, verifiable and sharable

In the increasingly complex B2B marketing landscape, Word-of-Mouth referrals are considered credible and verifiable business intelligence. In spite of, or maybe even because of, the dominance of professionally produced marketing materials and campaigns, prospective buyers are acquiring a growing respect for boots-on-the-ground, real world user experiences—and that evolving perspective has caused some to look skeptically at corporate-concocted marketing messages.

In stark contrast, Word-of-Mouth referrals are seen as unquestionably real and born of bona fide knowledge and/or experience and they have the power to significantly amplify your brand reputation and annual revenue. The problem is they are an unpredictable gift. Waiting for personal endorsements made by satisfied customers to materialize leaves too much to chance in a hyper-competitive marketplace. It should come as no surprise that a Freelancer must take charge and devise a strategy that will keep positive Word-of-Mouth opinions circulating through your networks.

The key driver of B2B Word-of-Mouth customer referrals is trust that is the outcome of consistently providing an excellent customer experience, encouraging customer engagement and inspiring brand loyalty that advances into advocacy and culminates in Word-of-Mouth referrals. Encouraging customer feedback through various channels and touchpoints, such as surveys, polls and calls-to-action that invite customers to produce a testimonial that describes an example of customer service or customer experience that they found especially meaningful—can put your customers on the pathway to making Word-of-Mouth referrals on your behalf.

You will find it useful to expand your Word-of-Mouth referral network to include professional colleagues. Cultivating a reputation as a thought leader by developing relevant educational marketing content, combined with taking an active role in local business associations, can become a launching pad for establishing thought leader credibility. Devise a strategy that thoughtfully showcases your subject expertise and capabilities as it subtly promotes your unique value effectively and generates a positive buzz that results in Word-of-Mouth referrals. See below to find possibilities to expand your visibility to customers and colleagues who can become your brand cheerleaders and reward you with Word-of-Mouth referrals.

  • Social media and online review sites and communities.  Social networks are ubiquitous and enable participants to make many business and social connections. Invite your happy customers to share their enthusiasm for your product or service by posting user generated content that explains how your product or service made their life easier, enabled the company to achieve an important goal and what factors motivated them to choose your company instead of a competitor.
  • Case studies. Particularly if your service or product resolved a particularly vexing pain point for a customer, invite him/her to tell the story in a written or video format case study. A good case study allows prospects who are making final selections to envision the problem-solving capacity of your product or service and demonstrate thought leadership.
  • Webinars and podcasts. Laying the Groundwork for Word-of-Mouth Success for your webinar or podcast appearance by developing content that listeners will consider to be valuable. Address and offer effective solutions to problems that your listeners are likely to encounter—identify themes that your audience already has problems with and is searching for better ways to solve them. If you are the program host, your speakers should be someone who has proven credentials in developing valuable content. Finally, like an email subject line, create a catchy title for your webinar or podcast, it’s important to both communicate the benefit while creating curiosity.
  • Speaking engagements. Getting involved with local business associations such as the chamber of commerce, is a great resource to help you build your way to thought leader status and receiving Word-of-Mouth endorsements. If you haven’t done so already, get to know the leadership and membership by volunteering to manage programs. Volunteering to introduce a featured speaker or moderating a panel are pathways to an invitation to present a workshop that you’ve developed. An incubator for testing the reaction to a topic you’ve developed, or to polish your public speaking ability, is to explore speaking opportunities at your local library (where you may find a less demanding audience).

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: © Deposit Photos

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Content Gets Competitive

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Freelance friend, you are a working professional who knows the environment in which you work. You know all too well that the B2B marketplace continues to become more saturated and, as one would expect, more competitive, as the years go by. B2B buying decision-makers, who are your prospects, have also become more demanding. The 2026 B2B Global Pulse Survey by McKinsey found that today’s buyers expect …consistent information and immediate access to expertise. When those expectations are not met, research shows, they move on.

In order to reach the planned revenue target, Freelance professionals, as well as small business owners and other marketers, must keep up with the growing expectations of prospective customers and get smarter about the strategies devised to promote and explain the case for using your product or service. As you do, keep in mind that your prospects have begun to consult B2B influencers to guide their buyer’s journey, as posts in this diary have recently indicated. The influencers are perceived to be both highly knowledgeable and independent. That’s a trend that will no doubt inspire you to create more authoritative content. Memorable and impactful will be your guiding stars.

B2B brands are investing more in editorial excellences, in-depth guides, and contributions from subject matter experts to provide real value.

Thought leader level content

Buyers want substantive proof of the business case that supports your service or product; enthusiastically delivered promises are not enough. Buyers are in search of informational marketing resources that ensure they’ll be able to make informed decisions when evaluating potential purchases. As a result, expectations continue to rise, making it more difficult for Freelancers to stand out as a professional who has a solution that has the potential to solve the problem or facilitate reaching the goal. Measurable outcomes and Return on Investment are prioritized, making case studies, industry reports, and original research the drivers of engagement and trust in your marketing content. Letting the quality of your supporting data confer to you thought leader style expertise is now a must-do for B2B Freelancers, because your prospects are being seduced by influencers. However, the research you quote is most likely to have been sponsored by a well-respected marketing research platform. As long as the data refers to the point you’re making, you’ll be taken as credible.

Interactive

Here’s the blistering truth—B2B buyers don’t want to talk with salespeople, as confirmed in a 2025 sales survey conducted by the business and technology research platform Gartner; 67% of B2B buyers indicated that they prefer a rep‑free experience. They’re up to here aggravated by avalanches of cold -calling mass marketing emails. Prospects on a buyer’s journey do like the opportunity to evaluate products or services anonymously by using digital tools before they engage with a vendor. Interactive explainer videos that include embedded clickable hotspots that adapt to the prospect’s learning path are a favorite resource, as are webinars that facilitate live chat and interactive infographics.

As the buyer’s journey heats up, prospects are happy to speak with a vendor (maybe you!), to confirm the self-guided research and discuss negotiable matters, such as the possibility of customization and price. To help reel in your sale, Gartner recommends the following:

  • Provide content that demonstrates your brand understands the pain points, goals, priorities, concerns and questions that prospective buyers need to make the right decision—
  • Help buyers quantify the benefits of your product or service for their organization (e.g., including solution performance data and other details). Consider creating free DIY interactive digital tools, such as interactive images, infographics, or surveys, that will help you present a memorable user experience for prospects who are on a self-guided buyer’s journey.
  • Help prospects feel confident and in control of the purchase decision (e.g., by providing a choice of tailored recommendations based on prospect input).
  • Encourage prospects to advance step by step as appropriate through their buyer’s journey by including compelling calls-to-action.

Brand storytelling

Humanizing your organization by inviting customers and prospects to get to know you is the reason to develop a brand narrative. Sharing customer success stories, divulging your motivation to become a founder and other mission-driven details can make your brand feel more relatable and relevant to current and prospective customers. Sharing relevant backstory details about your company—starting with what inspired you to launch your entity—can have enormous benefits for your business, including capturing consumers’ attention and helping you truly connect with customers. Ultimately, a strong customer relationship can help drive growth and increase sales. Brand storytelling is a marketing strategy that involves using authentic narratives to connect with your audience and build genuine emotional connections. It’s more than just promoting what you sell — it’s a way to share your values, purpose and background in a way that resonates and sticks. A company’s brand story should include certain key factors: 

  • Company mission statement: Your company mission and vision statements must be included in the telling of your brand story. You want people to support and feel connected to your company and what it stands for; not just the products or services you sell, but for your values. Ensure your company’s vision and mission statements are visibly accessible on your company website. 
  • Specifics: Include customer testimonials to verify how highly customers think of your brand. All-purpose, generic statements such “many people love our products” are just empty platitudes. Your storytelling will ring true when you mention a customer’s (first) name and describe their review in specific terms, such as, “This product saved me money and made my life easier.”
  • Simple and meaningful language: Potential customers should be able to easily read and understand your brand story in all its forms. Don’t exclude your audience by using words or phrases that are buzzwords or jargon that may not be understood and therefore will not resonate or show your authenticity. Instead, use meaningful language designed to evoke emotion and build brand intimacy.

Redesign/ reuse

Marketing experts call this “recycle-repurpose,” but I think redesign – reuse illustrates the task better. You might like to think of content creation like a traditional Sunday dinner that many American households probably still adhere to. When I was growing up, most American mothers would put a roast of some sort into the oven, peel potatoes or cook macaroni or rice, trim the spinach, shell the peas, or whatever and if energy allowed, or if guests were expected later in the afternoon, a cake or another dessert would be baked—from scratch. The kitchen would have a hunger-inducing aroma!

Like content creation, a big, traditional Sunday dinner is expensive to produce in terms of creativity, time and money. To maximize ROI, my mom cooked extra food on Sundays so that leftovers would be available for our Monday night supper. The Sunday dinner strategy can also be used to maximize the ROI of the marketing content that you create. For example, take a look at at the case studies you’ve developed. It’s almost certain that some clever editing will give you two or three sentences that can be dropped into your next newsletter or email marketing letter or become a social media post on its own. Effective repurposing of your long form content. Meaningful quotes that were first heard in a podcast, webinar, or panel that you participated in can be included in a video that gives an overview of one of those appearances. Recognize that your content is a valuable resource is an important aspect of your marketing strategy that is worthy of repackaging and is an enabler of the consistent publishing that prospects expect.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: © Breya Jones. Bridge tournament in Louisville, KY (2024)

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Don’t Get Too Personal

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Personalized marketing defines the future of marketing. Personalized marketing has not delivered on its promise. Got it.

Personalized marketing was supposed to revolutionize how you communicate with prospects, build and strengthen relationships with customers and promote your services and products to target market segments. Its purpose is to tailor your marketing messages, customer experiences and other communication with individual customers based on their unique attributes, purchasing history and preferences. Higher customer retention rates, increased sales revenue, increased customer lifetime value and decreased customer churn are among the most valuable benefits associated with personalized marketing.

Marketers were highly enthusiastic. But then came trouble in paradise, as consumers signaled concern about the privacy of their personal information and browsing behavior, which caused some turbulence in the digital sector. A reset occurred, as certain leading internet browsers instituted a ban, or allowed users to restrict, the use of third-party cookies, the mechanism that enables tracking of online behavior. As a result, marketing leaders (and that includes Freelancers and small business owners) have had to rethink their marketing personalization strategies, just when they were wrapping their heads around Customer Relations Management software and how Artificial Intelligence capabilities refined and optimized the effectiveness of personalized marketing strategies. Sigh.

So, it was necessary for brands to go back to square one marketing and shore up collection of first-party data that customers were willing to share. That information is more valuable than ever now—-and isn’t it better that you own and control your customer data, that customers and prospects know what you know about them; and they also know that you won’t sell their personal data? There’s a lot of upside that results from expanding your collection of first-party customer info—the process helps you strengthen relationships, because you’ll have more opportunities to better understand customers and you’ll be better prepared to improve their experiences with your brand.  You can apply personalization on any digital channel if you have access to customer data — often unified through a customer data platform put into place by your CRM service, which will use AI and algorithms to tailor customer experiences based on his/her data and behavior.

Realize that your customers expect and appreciate a personalized experience from the brands they regularly engage or do business with regularly. A McKinsey research study found that 76% of customers are more likely to purchase from brands that personalize. Customers want to know that the brand understands who they are and their needs and does not bombard them with unwanted sales offers.

The benefits of successful marketing personalization

  • More consistent and relevant customer experiences. Personalizing customers’ experiences shows that you understand their preferences and interests. This makes them more likely to engage and remain loyal to your brand, since they know you won’t pummel them with unwanted info.
  • Increased sales conversion rates. The more relevant your offers, the more likely that prospects and customers will value and accept the call-to-action you’re prompting them to, whether that’s purchasing a service or product, signing up for a subscription, or scheduling a consultation. Personalization enables you to entice customers with offers based on their past purchases, interests and real-time behaviors, since you’ll know what matters to them.
  • Higher customer loyalty, retention and lifetime value (LTV). Personalization sets you up to deliver relevant marketing messages and content, as well as the context in which to make recommendations for services or products, add-ons or upgrades, that are likely to resonate. When your organization demonstrates to customers that you are paying attention to their priorities, customers are more likely to give you repeat business and extend the customer lifecycle, which is vital for retaining customers in the long term.
  • Maximized marketing efforts and budget. Personalization ensures you’re always targeting customers with highly relevant offers. This means you’re not wasting your (and your customers’) time and resources. Coupled with the increase in conversion rates and revenue, this makes personalization an incredibly powerful tool for maximizing marketing spend and return on investment (ROI). It can even apply to your broader branding efforts, such as choosing the best name for your YouTube channel in order to engage a specific niche audience and earn more returns from your multimedia content.

 Types of personalization

Marketing personalization can be expressed in different ways, depending on what you want to achieve. For example, some personalization is one-to-one, meaning it’s directly related to the customer’s specific information — a technique increasingly powered by AI personalization. Think email marketing, from blogs or newsletter to special offers or events. Other times, personalization is applied using a targeted approach through customer segmentation, where you choose specific characteristics or customer attributes for a customer group based on their buying history or other interaction with your brand puts them into the segment receive a certain personalized experience.

Personalization can be as simple as having a person’s name in an email rather than an all-purpose general greeting, or as detailed as including the details of a customer’s recent purchase or web browsing in that email. It could also include showing particular product promotions on a website based on a person’s past purchases, or sending special promotions via SMS or a mobile application. Customers expect personalization on every channel, a continuity across website, mobile, SMS (text) and email communications.

Other examples of personalization include:

  • Product recommendations based on past purchases or online browsing
  • Product promotion info based on the website pages visited
  • Email offers to a segment of customers who own a particular product or receive a certain service
  • Communicating with a customer post-purchase to ensure they are happy and have no difficulty using the product or service and accessing its benefits

Boundaries matter

While there is no doubt that customers and prospects expect and appreciate personalization, they want to ensure their privacy. When, where and how much your brand personalizes the customer experience deserves consideration. It is imperative that you avoid making those who’d like to engage with your brand feel that you’re getting too personal, that they’re being closely watched. The feeling that business owners and marketers want to communicate is “I matter to this brand.” Build your personalization strategies around that thought and avoid activities that may feel like a violation.

When inviting those who engage with your brand to share certain info, you can take an important step in relationship-building by demonstrating that transparency is a policy you live by. Customers worry about brands collecting too much data, using information in unexpected ways, or creating experiences that feel too close for comfort. How data is used, confirming that it will not be shared with third parties and demonstrating that cybersecurity measures have been installed to discourage data security breaches will go a long way toward earning the trust of your customers and prospects. Clearly stated privacy policies, explicit consent mechanisms, giving customers control over their data and only personalizing in ways that genuinely add value to the customer experience you provide are must-dos.

Tools for effective marketing personalization

To effectively personalize your marketing efforts, implementing data analytics tools is necessary. Analytics tools track customer behavior that reveals website interactions and email responses, for example, so you can accurately tailor your strategies in response. Utilizing a marketing Customer Relations Management platform will optimize those capabilities by centralizing customer data to facilitate targeted, personalized communication. N.B.–maintain the quality of your customer data by taking steps to ensure that it is updated and accurate.

CRM analytics serve as the foundation for both customer journey mapping and sales forecasting by providing the behavioral data needed to understand how prospects move through your sales funnel. Every touchpoint, interaction and transaction recorded in your CRM becomes a valuable data point that reveals patterns in customer behavior and purchasing decisions.

Customer journey mapping relies heavily on CRM data to identify which channels, types of content and engagement lead to conversions. This info helps you understand which activities are most likely to indicate a purchase, or make the prospect more likely to make a purchase. You’ll also learn where in the buyer’s journey prospects are prone to abandon—or accelerate— their buying decisions.

Finally, your marketing CRM platform will greatly improve sales forecasting and ensure the data will be accurate when you analyze historical CRM data to predict future performance based on current sales funnel activity and even seasonal trends. CRM reporting tools enable you to track every interaction across the customer lifecycle, providing the comprehensive data needed to create reliable revenue projections and identify which touchpoints contribute most to creating sales.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: © The Everett Collection. Jean Porter and Jimmy Lydon in the film Sweet Genevieve (1947)

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And the Winner is User Generated Content!

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Human beings are, most of us, risk averse. Before trying something new, many of us will do a background check to find out how those who’ve had occasion to use the service or product feel about the experience; and how do those who’ve used the whatever rank the degree of satisfaction it delivers? How does it look, feel, sound, taste, operate, or entertain you? Was the level of satisfaction 5-star excellent, a 10? Or was it 3-star not bad, a 6?

Before committing to try something new, many prospects are inclined to feel safer when they learn how those with user experience feel. So they find the book review, watch the movie trailer, see the celebrity chef cook during a TV guest spot; they’re on a decision-making mission. Similar behavior occurs in the B2B sector, with Freelance professionals, business owners and marketing specialists working on the creator side to manage responsibility for delivering informative, persuasive and memorable experiences to current or potential clients and others who visit company websites, social media accounts, podcasts, newsletters, or other marketing platforms that can influence a buyer’s journey decision-making mission. First person user experience reports can be influential when they are memorialized in comments or stories on social media platforms or as ratings on ranked reviewing sites; and their reach is long. It was recently reported that approximately 98% of consumers read online reviews before making a purchase—meaning that first-person user experience narratives can contribute to the decision-making process associated with the B2B buyer’s journey.

The level of website page views and social media site visits and engagement have long been a reliable barometer of audience interest and approval. Ranking sites such as Angi’s List, Google Business, Amazon or Facebook Reviews and Yelp that invite users to express how they feel about the service or product by awarding (or withholding) stars and/or personal comments have been another trustworthy barometer of audience approval. Not long ago, those who seriously contemplated doing business with a particular company were sure to check in with a go-to ranking site to obtain what they considered trustworthy feedback. But that was then and this is now.

You may have noticed that “grade inflation” has infiltrated popular ranking sites? Prospective buyers have become increasingly suspicious. How many of you have heard rumors about companies that pay advertising agencies to generate untrue reviews that award 5-stars for experiences that never took place? Furthermore, it was recently leaked that Artificial Intelligence-generated “customer” reviews are tainting ranking sites and diminishing trust. According to data from Pangram Labs, nearly 74 % of AI-generated reviews are fabricated 5-star fantasies. As you would expect, the credibility of review site rankings is dropping, the outcome of an unusual number of reviews on some sites that have received 5-star rankings. Freelancers and other marketing leaders are waking up to the fact that they must restore the credibility of user reviews. Enter User Generated Content.

UGC is original, from-the-heart, content that’s created by real life users of your service or product who are motivated to express what they consider an important assessment or other message about doing business with you. The primary creators of UGC are long-term clients and brand cheerleaders. Usually posted on social media accounts, UGC communicates deep admiration and trust for the product or service. It’s most often expressed in reviews or testimonials and presented in text or video format along with images.

In a B2B buying environment that a growing number of prospects don’t quite trust, thanks in part to the misuse of AI to create fake product reviews, plain-spoken UGC is like a breath of fresh air. Its presence can drive up to a 137 % higher purchase likelihood than slick and scripted agency produced content—because UGC is unquestionably authentic. In today’s digital marketplace, UGC has demonstrated that it is an effective component of brand credibility and capable of influencing buyer journeys and purchases for as long as it remains posted, establishing trust that stimulates positive word-of-mouth endorsements, repeat business, referrals and an increased customer lifetime value.

That’s why right now, Freelancers, business owners and marketing leaders would be wise to press the start button and introduce UGC reviews to your digital marketing strategy. What follows are tactics that digital marketing experts recommend to build a UGC campaign that will not only persuade your current clients to share their UGC success stories, but will also help participating clients to tell a story that resonates with site visitors who appreciate UGC content.

Make UGC seem easy and valuable to clients

It’s possible that a couple of clients will, without prompting, post UGC that is useful to your product, service and/or organization; but the impact will be more persuasive when there are several UGC posts that describe the positive and trustworthy experiences that result when doing business with your brand. To move things forward, you will benefit from outreach—specifically, a UGC recruitment campaign that invites happy clients to share the good news about your product, service and organization.

You can explore digital marketing agencies to discuss the scope and pricing of their UGC services, or you may choose the Do It Yourself option to build and manage your UGC marketing campaign on your own. Marketing experts recommend that a successful UGC campaign be presented as email marketing and that the most effective recruitment tool is a UCG review request, which is attached to the email. Develop a list of clients with whom you’ve recently done business and that you are fairly certain have had a positive experience with the product or service that was purchased. Ride the wave of good timing by inviting requests from those whom you expect the memory of their good experience with your brand is fresh, making the motivation to talk about the experience strong. A detailed, clearly expressed and enthusiastic narrative that is presented as text plus an image or two, or in video format, has the potential to become a powerful marketing asset for your brand.

Moreover, a good UGC recruitment strategy must be personalized and designed to make the client’s participation efficient and even empowering. Be certain to use a mobile-friendly, customizable UGC review response form that is easy for participating clients to complete and submit to you. Devise a simple but elegant email and review request form that enhances successfully completed and submitted responses.

You probably guessed that successfully persuading a client to participate is a thrill, but it’s only half the battle. The submitted review must tell a persuasive story in order to influence prospective clients. To create enthusiastic and clearly expressed content, it will be a smart idea to provide participating clients with editorial guidance. Define expectations by including some content suggestions that could enhance the quality of reviews. You don’t want a slick and polished description of the experience; rather, you want to help clients to remember and clearly express what mattered most to them. Consider suggesting the following:

  • Beyond the stars: Instead of a bland question to use as a suggested client response starting point for the UGC, such as “How did you like using (the product or service)?,” suggest instead a more personal and specific question, such as  “Did the product/service resolve your problem?” or “Did the product or service help you achieve your goal or fulfill your purpose?” Good questions help clients recall specific details that can demonstrate the credibility your future clients are looking for.
  • Visuals: Nothing is more powerful than seeing a product in a real-time setting. Client photos and/or videos are highly desirable and known to build trust and demonstrate authenticity. Client videos and images are significantly more effective than photos or videos produced by advertising professionals. Your review collection process should actively encourage the inclusion of visuals and simplify their uploading.
  • Incentives: Offering a small discount or loyalty points for contributing a review can increase participation in your UGC campaign. However, be transparent about it. The goal is to encourage feedback, not to “buy” positive reviews.
  • Reminders: Many clients intend to leave a review but may forget to complete the process. Who among us doesn’t need follow-up? A single, polite reminder sent 5-7 days after your initial email request can significantly increase the total number of reviews collected.

Review, manage, moderate

Once the reviews start rolling in, you will need a management system. Effective moderation gives site visitors, whether new clients or a devoted brand cheerleader, a trustworthy resource for current, prospective, or returning lapsed clients while enabling you to engage directly with your clients and build relationships. Avoid the mistake made by AI-powered reviews and post more than just 5-star reviews that are received. Displaying honest criticism that may arrive shows that you’re a transparent brand. The key is to have clear internal guidelines for moderation. You should publish nearly all legitimate reviews and only edit out spam or reviews that are off topic.

Display UGC reviews for maximum impact

  • Integrate social proof at every key touch point of the buyer’s journey. Don’t make prospects hunt for it.
  • Product pages: For e-commerce, product detail pages are must-have locations for UGC review visibility. Your product detail pages must feature a prominent reviews section. Key placements include a star rating summary directly under the product title and a complete review plus widget further down the page.
  • Homepage: The homepage is your digital storefront. Use a review carousel or a gallery of visual UGC reviews to build immediate trust with first-time visitors and showcase your most popular products through the eyes of customers.
  • Category pages: When a prospective client browses a category with dozens of options, reviews can be the deciding factor. Displaying star ratings directly on product listings on these pages helps users compare items and click through to products with strong social proof.
  • Checkout & cart pages: Even a small display of your overall site rating on the cart or checkout page can provide that final nudge of reassurance, helping to reduce abandonment rates.

Responding to reviews: Turn feedback into relationship-building conversations

Your job isn’t done when a review is published. Engaging with positive and negative feedback is an essential component of responsive, exceptional customer service; transparency and the willingness to address what needs to be improved builds relationships and loyalty. Responding to a negative review, while perhaps stressful, can turn a dissatisfied client into a loyal advocate.

  • Acknowledge promptly and publicly: Respond directly to the negative review so others on the buyer’s journey can see you’re willing to engage.
  • Apology and empathy: Show that you understand the client’s frustration. A simple “We’re so sorry to hear about your experience” goes a long way to overcoming disappointment and repairing a rift.
  • Offer a reasonable solution: Don’t just apologize; make it right. Offer a refund, a replacement, or a discount on a future purchase.
  • Take the conversation offline: Provide a direct contact email or phone number to resolve the specific details of their issue privately. This shows you’re taking it seriously while keeping sensitive information out of the public eye.

Finally, search engines love fresh, relevant content and what’s fresher than a constant stream of new client reviews? UGC is an excellent, often updated source of Search Engine Optimization goodies like long-tail keywords and natural language that real people use to search for products.

Thanks for reading and Happy Independence Day (July 4) to those in the US!

Kim

Image: © Alamy

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Newsletters Are Back

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Marketing mavens have rediscovered the newsletter. After a period of what could be called benign neglect, when this once standard marketing tool fell out of favor and was sidelined, the reappearance of newsletters represents a long overdue acknowledgement of data-verified performance results. Without question, the newsletter has for several decades been among the most effective promotional and relationship-building resources in a marketer’s arsenal.

Some of you reading now may have once looked forward to receiving a favorite newsletter that was delivered by your postal service. Then, in the early 2000s, your humble newsletter demonstrated its agility and responded to the new technology known as email, and seamlessly adapted from hard-copy to digital format. In fact, it can be successfully argued that the multi-faceted, hard-working newsletter was the original email marketing content. The format has again demonstrated that it is an effective, and therefore valuable, component of well-conceived marketing strategies and campaigns. Marketing thought leaders have joined the cheering section, calling digitally distributed (i.e., email) content marketing as foundational to long-term business growth.

Newsletters by definition are communication tools that facilitate engagement and relationship development with readers—that is, current clients, past clients, prospects and also colleagues and peers who’d like to familiarize themselves with your business—and you. According to a 2026 report published by Newsletter Industry Statistics, 78% of B2B marketers use newsletters to generate leads and 60% say newsletters are their top driver of customer retention—which, BTW, invites repeat business. A well-composed newsletter can showcase your entity, and you, in many ways:

  • A platform for you to tell your brand story
  • Cultivate client relationships, inspire trust in prospects, re-engage past clients
  • Demonstrate your thought leader expertise
  • Nurture brand loyalty
  • Make announcements and updates
  • Present product or service spotlights
  • Generate website traffic and sales

Because your newsletter is capable of influencing more people than you may realize, and in more ways than you might imagine, it is imperative that you make it a good read. You have a story to tell; ensure that the information you share is relevant, timely and compelling. Spice up the text with a splash of appealing visuals that aligns with your narrative, using both still images and (short) video clips. Be sensitive to reader attention spans as you compose your newsletter: three pages, or about 500-600 words, is probably suitable for most but still images will expand the page count. Furthermore, your newsletter (and all of your marketing emails) should adhere to mobile device specs, because 60% will be opened on mobile. As for scheduling your newsletter, monthly is an acceptable frequency known to build and maintain reader engagement.

Make it relevant, visually interesting and personal

Before you commit to producing a newsletter for your Freelance entity, decide what you’d like your newsletter to do for your business? Would you like to increase brand awareness, generate leads, nurture relationships, or boost sales? In most cases it’s all of the above, but it makes sense to know your destination before you set off on a journey.

When you’ve clarified the purpose, you can confidently choose topics for articles and other content that will guide your creation of an effective marketing tool. Your customer relations management data will reveal what your clients want to know and, even better, can segment clients into groups based on relevant distinguishing criteria, such as for-profit or not-for-profit designation, pain points or goals that motivate clients to seek out your solution, purchase history, or frequency. By segmenting your audience, you can then tailor certain elements of your newsletter content to each group and in that way enhance the relevance, personalization, engagement and, ultimately, sales revenue generated. Artificial Intelligence software will optimize the insights provided by your CRM data, that can accurately pinpoint client preferences, priorities, behaviors and challenges. Moreover, AI software such as ChatGPT, Grammarly, Ideamap, or Microsoft Copilot, for example, can facilitate the brainstorming and idea generation process and present to you potentially dozens of interesting newsletter topics that would address the focus of your target newsletter reader groups.

According to data reported by Exploding Topics, approximately 72% of newsletter subscribers are motivated by a desire to either stay up-to-date with company happenings or learn about a topic of interest when they choose to subscribe to a newsletter. Surprisingly, when given the option of receiving updates about your brand by way of social media or an email newsletter that slips into their inbox, 90% of readers choose to receive your newsletter.

So there is your mission—identify headline topics that will be segmented by personalized interests and priorities and made available to readers based on what resonates most, as a way to encourage relevance and value that readers will associate with your newsletter, as well as your company. With assistance from your CRM and AI resources, you will learn which topics that a critical mass of readers would like to take a deep-dive exploration into, and also topics for which they’ll be pleased to receive just basic info. Lastly, readers will appreciate quick and visible access to links that announce upcoming events, perhaps some in which you’ll have a featured presence, such as a podcast, webinar, or teaching assignment. Ideally, your newsletter will function as a portal for conversation with your clients and prospects. Make it interactive by including a mix of content that they’ll anticipate reading every month, such as:

  • Links to your blog or other useful articles
  • One deep-dive article
  • Poll or survey
  • Product or service spotlights
  • Call-to-action
  • Special events—your speaking or teaching engagements, participation in charity events

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: courtesy of the Louvre Museum, Paris, France. Muse Reading Greek (Boeotia) circa 435-425 BC