Category Archives: Marketing

Branding, networking & promoting your business

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Fight Back Against Recession

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Economists and other thought leaders predict that 2023 will be a recession year and if the prediction holds, many Freelancers will see a decrease in sales revenues. Diminished revenue has the potential to bring on many unpleasant outcomes, among them the imperative to reconfigure how you can best allocate your shrinking funds. Belt-tightening isn’t fun, but do it right and you might survive or even, eventually, thrive. Take these three actions:

  1. Defend cash reserves
  2. Identify most profitable business activities
  3. Guarantee the optimal delivery of products and services

Conserve cash

You may not have a large amount of cash on hand in your business, but make a point to locate where you might find revenue that hasn’t been tapped. The first place Freelancers should investigate is the Accounts Receivable file. Rethink your strategy to collect unpaid AR and better still, start planning for AR when discussing the agreement with clients you’re about to work with. Request up-front money before you start project work on jobs that bill for less than $100—10% – 20% in advance is reasonable. Second, tie interim payments to project milestones where possible. Institute policies to avoid leaving more than 50% of the fee payable when project deliverables are handed over. The best defense is a good offense.

In the present tense, identify outstanding invoices and tactfully, persistently, pursue payment. Follow-up with clients who might be struggling to pay invoices and negotiate a payment plan if possible. Do whatever you can to ensure that all money owed to you will be paid as soon as possible (FYI, I’m negotiating right now with a client who should have no problem paying, but is 60 days late). Bring in the money and hold on to it—spend only on activities with demonstrated potential to increase revenue.

Double down on money makers

Going into a recession is a great time to do an audit and verify the most profitable parts of your business. When the economy becomes favorable again, you’ll be even better set up for success. Once you’re sure of the money-makers, do what you can to expand billable hours of those assignments. If you can scrape together a marketing budget, here is where you spend.

Marketing sometimes seems counterintuitive when you have less available revenue but in most cases, you can’t make money unless you spend money. What you must do is limit spending to activities that positively impact revenue generation. It could be that you buy a software program that makes it faster to generate and send client invoices. You might also invest in making credit card payments available and thereby make it easier for clients who can’t afford to write you a check can nevertheless use credit to pay your outstanding invoice.

There are also the more immediately recognizable marketing activities, among them selectively attending meetings and conferences where you might encounter prospects who may become clients and advertising, print or on-line, in publications that are read and respected by your target audience for your rainmaking projects.

All about deliverables, client retention, referrals

Happy customers create more business. Repeat and referral business is extremely important in a recession. Ensuring that your clients are happy is vital in any economy but especially in a recession. Creating glowing online reviews, testimonials and good word-of-mouth are essential to growing your revenue when times are tough (and even when there’s lots of money rolling around).

Sometimes when the economy changes, so do your client’s needs. Extract this opportunity, hidden in adversity, to learn more about your clients and what they feel they need now to ensure the survival of their organizations. Now is the time to talk to your clients and discover any changes in what they consider the pain points and priorities. Once again, it will be demonstrated that when you are attuned to the needs of your clients that knowledge can lead to more more active clients, more referrals and more revenue and profit.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: © Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images. Protesting the rise of food prices in 1973.

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10 Under $35: Client Gift Ideas 2022

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Your final marketing tactic of the year will be the December holiday card and gift you give to all clients whom you billed at least $500 in this calendar year. It’s also smart to send a holiday card to those you’ve worked with over the past four or five years.

Your client outreach at holiday time goes a long way toward enhancing your brand, playing a part in your client retention/ repeat business strategy. Find the time and money to show appreciation to those who trust you enough to pay for your expertise. At this time of year, take the readily available opportunity to contact current and lapsed clients and demonstrate less visible aspects of you and your brand—thoughtfulnesses, generosity, happiness, authenticity.

  1. Yucca Cane Plant $24.99

Studies show that plants at home or in the office can reduce stress and stimulate creativity. The Yucca Cane is a long time favorite that will make a dramatic conversation piece. Its upright spineless hard leaves sit atop a thick wood cane in multiple clusters which creates an exotic tropical look. In addition to its bold look, the Yucca Cane is an easy care plant that requires low watering and enjoys high to medium light spaces. The spineless yucca loves sunlight and watering about once a week. Make sure the soil dry’s out before watering again. To beautify your plant use containers with drain holes to drain excess water and keep your plant healthy.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/United-Nursery-Yucca-Cane-Plant-in-9-25-in-Grower-Pot-21955/307739456

2. Tunisian Tile Snack Tray. $30.00

Whisk yourself away to the Mediterranean for a midday tea or coffee break. This handmade serving tray is part elegant decor, part transportation device. Tunisian artisans carve the base from olive wood and add two hand-painted ceramic tiles. No matter what you serve–coffee and pastries or wine and cheese–you’ll enjoy your pick-me-up snack that much more. Handmade in Tunisia.

https://www.uncommongoods.com/product/tunisian-tiled-snack-tray

3. Sari Patchwork Apron $30.00

Your clients who got into coking during the pandemic will appreciate a lovely and practical apron. The item began its life as a sari and has now been repurposed into a double-sided apron featuring a blend of patterns and colors to inspire the cook who wears it. Handmade by artisans in Bangladesh who stitch repurposed sari swatches together, then decorate the aprons with traditional kantha stitches in contrasting colors. Each stunning patchwork is a one-of-a-kind work of art and no two are identical. Machine wash cold, line dry.

https://www.uncommongoods.com/product/repurposed-sari-patchwork-apron

4. Sound Machine $26.00

The Yogasleep Travel Mini Sound Machine combines robust white noise options and a night light in one sleek and lightweight pocket-sized device, ready for travel anywhere. The travel mini offers six lush soundtracks created to promote relaxation and improve your sleep environment, including white noise, brown noise, and three nature-inspired sounds.

https://www.ongoody.com/business/browse/brands/yogasleep/travel-mini-sound-machine-with-night-light

5. Picture Frame $19.99

Classically attractive photo frame is crafted with a sun ray style design and ribbed texture that complements the decor of any office, corporate or home. It’s hand made of sustainably sourced bone and features an easel back and will brighten a desk, book case, or table top. Holds one 5”x7” photograph.

https://www.worldmarket.com/product/white+sunray+bone+frame.do?sortby=ourPicks&from=Search

6. Cherry Pit Muscle Therapy $18.95

Did you know this is a thing? I certainly didn’t but while I was sleeping, millions of people have been using hot or cold compresses filled with cherry pits to relieve muscle aches. Chill pits the freezer or warm in the microwave and they’ll hold and slowly release therapeutic cold or heat that’s good for what ails you.

http://cherrypitstore.com/index_files/Page796.htm

7. Key Chain $18.00

Why not give a simple and practical gift? This compact, durable and stylish key chain has a 100 % genuine leather exterior, silver in color and tastefully accessorized with solid brass hardware.

https://www.primecutbags.com/keychains/silver-leather-keychain

8. Mobile Device Ring Light $24.99

Maximize the benefits of mobile with a great little accessory that makes you look good when you Zoom on the go, sun up or sun down. FYI, read a review. https://freelancetheconsultantsdiary.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=24120&action=edit

https://getolumiring.io/offer-01/?lpid=0621&utm_source=11335&utm_medium=&utm_term=621&utm_content=&utm_campaign=0&aff_id=11335&camp_id=0&sub_id=&req_id=5d503ba5990b4080899e5dd885958a82&contract_id=0&oid=621&device_type=PC&country_name=United+States

9. Skin Moisturizing/ Winter Therapy $28.05

  • SKIN CARE PRODUCTS: Pamper from head to toe with this giftable set including Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream Hand Salve Original Beeswax Lip Balm Res-Q Ointment Shea Butter Hand Repair Cream and Coconut Foot Cream.
  • HANDS & FEET: Pamper and soothe dry rough cracked skin with moisturizing hand salve cuticle cream hand cream and rich foot cream.
  • LIP MOISTURIZER: Made with Beeswax Vitamin E and a hint of peppermint oil hydrate and nourish dry lips with the original favorite lip balm.
  • MULTIPURPOSE OITNMENT: This gentle Res-Q Ointment is made with a blend of herbal ingredients to create an everyday salve that soothes and comfort dry skin and minor cuts.
  • BURTS BEES GIFT SET: These natural, moisturizing skin care products gifted in a Burts Bees tin nourish skin throughout the winter months and make the perfect holiday stocking stuffer.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Burt-s-Bees-Classics-Gift-Set-Open-Box/920571603?irgwc=1&sourceid=imp_XB0zf034fxyNTw0wVCwYvw4MUkA0LJS8eSbIzo0&veh=aff&wmlspartner=imp_3006986&clickid=XB0zf034fxyNTw0wVCwYvw4MUkA0LJS8eSbIzo0&sharedid=&affiliates_ad_id=565706&campaign_id=9383

10. Designer Coffee Mug $22.00

If you must give a coffee mug, make it this one! The innovative design and sturdy durability of Cloud Mugs bring a smile with every sip. The mugs are also microwave safe. Hand wash and avoid submerging the mug in water to keep them looking and feeling their best.

Cloud Mug

Hope the list helps your relationship and brand building strategy. Happy Holidays and thanks for reading.

Kim

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Semiotics Storytelling

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Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols in verbal and nonverbal communication— language, gestures, or clothing and images. Semiotics explains meaning and reveals how we instinctively interpret the messages we receive, wherever we encounter them. The field of semiotics has plenty of lofty academic associations (maybe that’s why I never considered becoming a semiotics major), but I’ve discovered that the field has boots on the ground implications for marketers, too.

Your typical marketing professional is unlikely to realize it, but semiotics is the foundation of everything we do, from creating marketing messages to logo design, encompassing calls to action and all sorts of customer persuasion campaigns that are intended to influence buying decisions.

Laura Oswald, author of of Marketing Semiotics: Signs, Strategies and Brand Value (2011) and Founder/ President of Marketing Semiotics, a boutique brand strategy and research firm in Chicago, IL says, “Semiotic theories and methods can be used to identify trends in popular culture, to understand how consumer attitudes and behavior are formed in relation to popular culture, including brands, and how marketing and advertising programs can best meet the needs of consumers by improving communication with the end user.”

The decisions we make are often influenced by our emotions and those emotions are often guided by our subconscious interpretations of words and images. Semiotics can help decode those subconscious messages and marketers can use that awareness to create messages and branding that draw in the target audience.

You tap into semiotics as you articulate the brand identity, brand communication style and also your brand ethos, i.e., your company’s reputation and how customers (current and potential) perceive your brand. The quality of the products you sell or services you provide, along with the customer service and customer experience your company delivers, are the essence of brand ethos.

You rely on semiotics to create or select all of the marketing sytories and symbols that represent and promote your business—the behavioral, verbal and visual identities. To ramp up the power and broaden the reach of your brand, with a goal to inspire or strenghten customer loyalty to your brand, marketers are also advised to incorporate selected preferences and values that are popular with your target audience into your brand symbols.

So let your ads, social media posts, website and marketing emails echo the terminology or slang, images and colors most meaningful to your target audience loves. In addition to the colors that represent your company’s visual packaging and brand identity, even shapes carry meaning.

In particular, the shape of your logo communicates more than you may have thought about your company. Circles communicate friendship, unity, inclusion, safety and warmth (but you knew that!). Squares symbolize power and professionalism; those straight lines telegraph strength, dependability and also tranquillity.

So tap into the resources that semiotics provides to marketers and discover the secrets of how your audience may interpret what you communicate and learn the best ways to appeal to those you want to persuade.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Photograph: Kim Clark October 2021

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Your Short, Sweet Self-introduction

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When you think about it, this should be one of the easiest things you’ll do all day. You’ll join a meeting of some sort and, of course, everyone will introduce him/herself. That should be the easy part—-but when the person running the meeting calls on the group to go around the table and say a few words about yourselves, why do you get so nervous?

You could be in an online meeting or seated around a boardroom table. The meeting leader asks everyone to briefly introduce yourselves and suddenly, your palms begin to sweat and your heart beats faster. What should you say about yourself?

Many of us dread introducing ourselves, whether in a videoconference or in-person meeting. Self-introductions put you on the spot; you’ve gotta get it right and you only have 20 seconds. You feel pressured to portray yourself as well-spoken, intelligent and friendly —and worthy of being at the table. Why is it so intimidating to get the right words out?

You could use some help and here it is—-a quick and easy template to follow that will lower your stress hormones and guide you to make successful self-introductions, online or in-person, for business or boardroom. To make it work, all you’ll have to do is remember a timeline.

  • Present
  • Past
  • Future

The next time you’re in a meeting and someone says, “Let’s go around the table and introduce ourselves,” you know what to do. Take a slow, deep breath, and think, “Present, past, future.” Then smile and listen to everyone else until it’s your turn. You’ve got this!

Because your meeting is in the here and now your introduction will begin in the present. You might say something like, “Hi, I’m Frank and I’m a landscape architect. I’m self-employed and I design the exterior green spaces for residential and commercial properties.”

Of course, what you share will depend on the situation and on the audience. If you are not sure what to share, your name and job title is a great place to start. If there’s an opportunity to elaborate, you can also share other details such as a current project, your expertise, or your geographical location. Notice that your self- introduction is not dissimilar to your elevator pitch. But whereas your self- introduction is structured along a timeline, addressing when you’ve done or will do certain things, your elevator pitch follows a format of what —what you do, for whom you do it and the outcomes and benefits derived.

Next, refer to your history and share a sliver of the depth or breadth of your expertise with a reference to what you’ve done in the past.

In this section add two or three quick points that will provide your new colleagues with relevant details about your background. Now you can trot out your bona fides and establish some credibility, show them why you can be in the room. Consider your education and other credentials, past projects, employers and accomplishments.

“Hello everyone! I’m Grace and I’m a data scientist. At a couple of different companies, I worked with big data to better understand and leverage brand loyalty in the hotel industry.”

The third element of the template addresses the future. Now is your opportunity to demonstrate enthusiasm for the expected outcomes of the group’s goal when they are achieved. In this, the conclusion of your self-introduction, you express your interest and confidence in the meeting’s purpose. If you’re launching a project with a new team, express your excitement for being part of the process.

“I’m happy to be on the team, being invited to bring such an important goal to life.”

I’m excited to work with your company and help with the launch of a product that can improve how we live.”

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: © Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images. Mao Zedong (1893-1976), founder and Chairman of the People’s Republic of China, greets President Richard M. Nixon, who in 1972 became the first U.S. president to visit China since the 1949 communist revolution.

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Recipe for Great Content

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For several years now, the marketing gurus have been telling us that Content Marketing delievers results. Everything that you do to promote your business and your brand is useful, but Content marketing has emerged as an especially powerful strategy. But for the best Content marketing ROI, your content must address what matters to your audience–their pain points and priorities—and deliver what they value. Take care to produce content that brings these benefits to your intended audience:

  • Value: after reading or viewing your content, the Alternatively, your content may have helped them solve a problem.
  • Relevant: your content needs to relate to your audience’s life situation. Perhaps it helps them in their career, solves a relationship issue or serves to entertain them during a break. All three scenarios are perfect examples of content relevant to the person consuming it.
  • Consistent: publishing an award-winning newsletter of blog post post once and then never again does not constitute high-quality content marketing. Consistency  requires regular content of similarly high quality.

The guidelines above can help you develop a content marketing strategy that your current and potential customers will be drawn to. This is one of the most important aspects of Content Marketing—it’s all about your audience.

Furthermore, as you consider the platforms and delivery formats for your content, start by considering your audience. If social media will be used (and it most likely will be used), pay attention to the platforms that your target audience follows and trusts. Successful content provides value. In sum, you can better fulfill customer needs by understanding what they want from your business.

Updating existing content should be part of your content marketing strategy if your business has already started content marketing. Plus, updating existing content will benefit other aspects of your digital marketing strategy, including search engine optimization.

Keep your content engaging and easy to understand. If your Content Marketing Strategy includes longer blog posts, whitepapers or eBooks, they must be well presented and easy to read. Content that is hard to digest because it is challenging to understand rarely goes viral. Short sentences almost always beat long-winded explanations. If you offer video content, think about your presentation style and the technology used to record your content.

Content marketing is a great way to connect with current customer base and reach new ones. As with every form of digital marketing, a strategic approach is the most likely to succeed. Content marketing means being consistent, relevant to your audience, delivering value, most of all.

Evergage’s 2019 Trends in Personalization Survey Report found that 88 % of marketers felt personalization helped them deliver superior customer experiences, while 59 % felt it increased loyalty, and another 50 % saw a measurable ROI from personalization efforts.

Personalization doesn’t just mean dropping a customer’s name into an email. It means making your brand story come alive through relatable content and storytelling that connects on an emotional level, personalized to the customer’s current relationship with your brand.

In case you hadn’t noticed, customer-generated content carries great credibility and is a powerful for creating meaningful and influential content. Testimonials that feature your devoted customers can be used on your website. Positive online reviews are also very helpful, but the detailed and personalized stories presented in testimonials are known to surpass good reviews.

Your customers are sophisticated enough to realize that the goal of your marketing is to increase sales and leads; that knowledge can cause some to question the trustworthiness and authenticity of what you present. That potential for doubt is why successful Content Marketing Strategies include user-generated content to communicate first-person, relatable, credible experiences with your products and services.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: New Orleans, LA by way of New Bedford, MA chef Lagasse showcased his talents during Grand Cayman’s January 2018 Cayman Cookout, a premier culinary event.

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Do It Better: Perfecting the Customer Experience

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In today’s competitive business world to delight your customers, rather than simply satisfying them, is critical to the success of your venture. Customer delight is the new standard. To delight your customers means exceeding their expectations and creating a highly positive and memorable experience with your product or brand. Delight calls upon your entire team , customer-facing and back office, to smoothly collaborate to deliver timely, efficient and pleasant service to customers by focusing on their needs, challenges, questions and preferences.

Satisfied customers are good for your company, but delighted customers help you much more. Customers who carry the memory of their delightful experiences with your organization are more likely to become loyal customers and brand advocates who enthusiastically make referrals, give testimonials and reward your company with glowing online reviews. They become extensions of your marketing department.

When you accomplish this, you’ll build a strong relationship with your customers that makes them want to remain loyal brand advocates and promoters. Read on to better understand how your organization can achieve this level of service.

  1. Personalize every customer experience—Start at the top by addressing all customers and prospects by name in each marketing email. Furthermore, the product or service that you promote in those emails should be something that the recipients might possibly use. Obtain this information by resarching your customers. As always, knowing the customer is key.
  2. Quick response and follow-up—A critical aspect of solving problems for customers is responding to them ASAP — meaning, a big component of customer delight is the ability to be available and responsive whenever your customers reach out. Whether the issue is big or small, show your customers that you’re always prioritizing them by responding quickly.
  3. Resolve customer problems fast—The first and most important thing your organization needs to do is solve whatever problems your current and prospective customers are experiencing. Offering your customers a solution to a challenge they’re facing, or a way to achieve the goal they’re working towards, is what motivated them to do business with you — so don’t disappoint them. Offer your customers solutions that align with their individual wishes, needs, and preferences. The same goes for prospects and potential customers. Even though they aren’t paying customers just (yet), potential customers require you to solve their problems as well. not only should you solve customers’ problems in the short term, but you should think ahead for their future needs, too. Going beyond the immediate solution to provide information and ways to help your customers manage their challenges — and teach them to do so on their own, if and when possible — is how you can solve for the future, too.
  4. Help customers have the best experience possible—Make sure you understand why people are buying your product or service to determine how to help them succeed. When you truly understand what it is people need from a product or service like yours, you’ll be able to target those pain points and solve for them to exceed customer expectations. It can also be on a smaller scale, like the way you train your new employees to handle customer questions. Additionally, help customers succeed by providing them with the right educational resources so they know how to reach out to your service and support teams, get the help they want and need, or find answers to questions on their own.
  5. Listen to customer feedback—It doesn’t feel good to hear feedback that’s critical of your company, but if you’re serious about delivering the best possible customer service, you must face the unvarnished truth about how your product or service meets expectations, or doesn’t. You must learn what disappoints. Then you can fix it. Then you become more aware, smarter, faster and more successful. Your customers will tell you, one way or another. Listen to honest feedback, take chronic complainers ith a grain of salt.
  6. Loyal customers receive preferential treatment and perks —Loyal customers are the bedrock of your business and it would be inconsiderate and unwise to take them for granted. Keep their business by giving them VIP treatment and communicating to them that you understand and appreciate their business and also them, as individuals. Offer them perks such as discounts, service upgrades, speedy delivery, invitations to special in-store events and other benefits as appropriate. A strong customer loyalty program will make your customers feel appreciated while securing their future business. Did I mention that your loyal customers also make referrals?
  7. Surprise, delight and please —Enable your company to stand out from competitors, then you need to make a lasting impression on your customers. While your primary goal is to solve the customer’s problem, you can create a memorable experience by giving customers more than they ever anticipated. Customers expect to see their needs fulfilled, but are truly delighted when your team goes above and beyond in the customer experience.
  8. Easy to find company contact info—It’s so annoying to have to hunt down a company’s contact information. Customers should be able to get in contact with you easily. Even more importantly, they should have several avenues for reaching you, such as email address, telephone number and social media sites.
  9. Be enthusiastic—In every interaction with current and prospective customers, be sure that you (and your employees or anyone who represents you) displays a positive and welcoming demeanor that complements your brand. Always provide a real, warm, welcoming, helpful and personalized interaction that respects your customer’s time and leaves them happy, satisfied —and with a better understanding of the value of your product or service.
  10. Build a community—Humans are social beings and we enjoy the feeling of belonging to a community or group. Your community might be used as a resource for sharing useful information or act as a medium for users to submit customer reviews. No matter what your community’s function is, creating a space where customers can interact with one another and you and/or your employees adds value to the customer experience that your company provides and continue to delight these people.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: Experience a luxury safari at Jao Camp in the Okavango Delta, Botswana

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Optimize Social Media Campaigns

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When you’re on a mission to reach the target audience for your products and or services, develop and strengthen relationships with clients, make your case with prospects, or build and promote your brand, the most powerful tool at your disposal is, overall, social media. By using one (or more) of the several free platforms, Freelancers and others with a product or service to sell, or reputation to enhance, can easily broadcast relevant information and persuasive messages to those who might buy, or buy- in.

Utilizers of social media will also receive credible feedback from those who engage with your company (or you), delivered in unfiltered first-person comments (user-generated content) and the platform’s user activity metrics. That means you’ll get timely and accurate insights—-actionable intel—-that reveals what clients and prospects respond to or reject. That’s tremendously valuable information that can guides your marketing strategy and even the development of your product or service. Use social media to reach deep into your preferred client demographic to expand the reach and influence of a company, product or service launch or rebranding campaign, or support the pivot you’ve decided to execute.

However, for best results, you must consider the capabilities and user demographics of the platforms on which you post. To which platforms do your clients and prospects gravitate? Their age range is a reliable indicator.

Choose the platform

There are several options available and each has a particular style. The age range of your target market is a primary determinant of your chosen platform, as is the category of product or service that you’ll promote. Below is an overview of the most popular and how each might enable the marketing outreach that you need.

  • Facebook has 2+ billion active users and 79% of Americans age 18 – 49 are regular users. 58% of Americans age 50 – 64 are regular users. Ecommerce integretion allows you to sell your products and services directly from the platform which supports your do-it-now Call- to-Action. Moreover, the advertising feature is a reliable way to brings in more potential buyers.
  • Instagram has 1+ billion users and especially if your target audience skews younger and visuals are an important communication tool, this platform is where you want to be. 67% of young adults <30 years are regular users and nearly 50% of adults age 50 or younger are regular users. Tell your brand story, chock full of videos and photos, on this platform.
  • LinkedIn is B2B county. 37% of its 300+ million regular users are age 30-49 and 50% of those who earn $75,000/ year or more are regular users. Plus, 51% of regualr users have earned at least a bachelor’s degree. The platform provides your best opportunity to connect with business decision-makers who might green light the sale of your B2B products or services. Furthermore, LinkedIn features hundreds of industry-specific networking groups that members can join and trade information with colleagues based on their industry, job function or career interests.
  • Twitter is a real-time social media platform that functions like a global text messaging service. Come here to make big announcements on this platform—- your new venture, new service, the workshop you’ll teach, the panel you’ll moderate. Tweets can be maximum 280 characters, which will inspire you to craft a short, sharp , concise message that gets your point across. With about 330 million users worldwide, Twitter is much more about text than images. It’s biggest demographic consists of people between the ages of 18-29, with 38% of people in this cohort actively using the platform.
  • TikTok quickly became a social media juggernaut and its eye-candy 60 second videos became all the rage. Just walking down the street can cause you to witness a teen with a smartphone, recording a dance clip to upload to the platform. TikTok is a darling of B2C marketers, but B2B is figuring out the terrain. If your clients and prospects skew to age 35 or younger, TikTok videos are a useful way to run your brand awareness campaigns. The platform is also effective for building and solidifying a community of brand fans. The platform is too big to ignore. Globally, there are 1+ billion users monthly.
  • YouTube is arguably the best social media platform that exists. For one, 1.9 + billion people use YouTube on a regular basis and it is also the 2nd largest search engine, after Google. There is a downside, however— you’ll have to learn how to create videos and production can be costly if you want to make a video that stands out. You may want a more polished product than your point & shoot TikTok videos. So not only will you need good content, but you’ll also need an entire video setup with a camera, lighting, microphones and editing software. Option 2 is to hire a professional but, again, it will cost you. On the plus side, the video content can also be uploaded to your website and/or shared on other social media platforms and that will increase your reach. Whatever story you’d like to tell, podcast or webinar you host or guest on, or (recorded) online interview that you give should be posted here.

Brand is the focus

In your posts, write about your business and things that relate to it. Social media is a relatable and personal way to make you and your company visible to your target audience. Limit your posts, text and images, to your products and services and avoid personal and polite opinions (which can haunt you).

Original content

Every day, companies upload new content, trying to outdo their competitors and bring more attraction to their business. This can be anything from a picture to a (short) video to a podcast. There are countless ways to produce appealing content that’s relevant to your business. Making sure your page is filled with original writing and images will make you and your organization more recognizable and memorable.

Organic growth

It is far better to slowly gain an audience of visitors, followers and subscribers for your social media audience, instead of chasing hits and likes from those who have no interest whatsoever in doing business with you. Building a real community of loyal fans takes work and takes time (and I know from personal experience!). You will get discouraged when the numbers climb oh-so-slowly, but the more genuine your presence is online, the more attractive it is for real users to engage. With social media, slow and steady wins the race.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

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7 Personal Brand Building Blocks

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OK, it’s like this—- if you’re not sure whether or not you have a personal brand and you don’t know what to make of it even if you do, you’ve come to the right place. Today, we’ll examine the business strategy known as the personal brand and talk about why you want to develop one for yourself. The short answer is, an effective personal brand is an excellent marketing tool.

Your personal brand helps you to clearly define your company and its purpose, describe the value you bring to clients, articulate what sets you apart from competitors and helps you to build and sustain a community of loyal clients who will be happy to give you repeat business and refer still more clients to you. A personal brand serves to establish you as a known quantity, familiar and trustworthy, a go-to expert in your field. Those with a respected personal brand have a high perceived value and that attracts clients. Are you ready to explore personal brand building blocks?

Authenticity

Your clients and prospects have no desire to interact with a focus-grouped and sanitized version of who and what you think they want to see. Clients and prospects would like to know you, i.e., the part of you that culturally accepted boundaries would incline you to share. It’s akin to being emotionally available.

It takes some courage. Sometimes it means you’ll take a public stand that may not be universally popular. If you can appropriately define your boundaries (something that also requires courage, along with self-awareness), the practice works for introverts and extroverts.

Visuals

 It will be to your advantage to maintain consistency in how you present your personal brand, to make it easy for you to be recognized. Develop a visual repertoire that represents you well and makes you and your company memorable in the best way. Create a look that epitomizes you and your company and include your branded elements of style in all visuals:

  • A logo that is used consistently in all media placements
  • Your profile photo that is used consistently in all media
  • Consistent cover and background images used in all media
  • Specific colors used in all media
  • Consistent style of dress when your photo is included in all media representations

Story

Your story can be quite simply, what motivated you to go into business as told through the experiences that brought you to where you are now. Storytelling is used as a marketing strategy and your personal brand is an integral component. Be sure to emphasize that it is the quality of your product or service, as well as the attention paid to the needs of clients, that guides your company. Your emphasis on the importance of meeting the needs of clients and exceeding their expectations on every metric is another must-do.

Expertise

Establishing yourself as an expert is the key component of being in business, even if you’re selling popcorn. Your expertise is the foundation of your reputation and the trust that clients, referral sources and prospects have for you. Showcase your expertise through content marketing, public speaking, interviews and direct interactions with colleagues, peers and prospective clients. 

Visibility

Half of life is about just showing up, as some very wise person said many years ago. Along with your regularly updated online presence, remember to seek out opportunities to appear in traditional print media outlets and to make personal appearances. If you are a decent writer, learn to repurpose your blog or newsletter posts by offering selected pieces to the editor of a media outlet that covers your business sector.

Whether IRL or virtually, attend three or four professional or business association meetings each year. It’s thrilling if you’re asked to be a headliner or a panelist, but just being in the crowd presents many advantages. You can network and meet people who you want to know. You might even meet a good prospect or referral source. You’ll grow and strengthen your professional network. You’ll enjoy the experiences.

Value

A key component of building a personal brand is first developing an understanding and awareness of what motivates clients to do business with you and then developing the ability to communicate it clearly and succinctly in your sales pitches and marketing materials. Work on all the ways you can express your value, the why of doing business with you. Maybe you’ll be able to distill your value proposition down to a single sentence that you can use when asked you to describe yourself and your venture. 

Relationships

Who you know and who knows you are important as you spread the good word about your personal brand. Through your relationships you will receive introductions to others and will expand your network and influence. The list of supporters, referral sources and clients that you accumulate will result in testimonials that speak directly to your character. People do business with people they know and like; they do even more business with people they know and trust.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: Anna Wintour, “Nuclear Wintour, ” powerhouse Editor-in-Chief at Vogue Magazine (America) and Global Chief Content Officer at Conde Nast, arrives at the Chanel ready-to-wear collection fashion show in Paris on March 3, 2014.

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Analytics Data: Your Content Marketing Navigator

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So, how are you doing with content marketing? Are you seeing the hoped- for results? Do you have it clear in your mind the reasons for launching whatever content marketing activity you do—blog? podcast? behind-the-scenes videos of your team in action?—-beyond some half-formed idea about how everybody’s doing it, it’s probably good for business, so get busy? I don’t want to be judge-y but if that is your reality, I encourage you to tighten up your game.

Whatever content marketing you’re into, it will all go down much better when you think about it in big picture mode. Content marketing starts with figuring out the purpose, what you want it to do, the end result you’d like to achieve. We know it’s about creating business, but you’ll help yourself by being more specific and thinking about how content marketing works.

Content marketing is premised on the soft sell approach, expressed by educating prospective clients about the performance, quality, cost-effectiveness and user-friendliness of your products and services. Supporting that primary message, you may also use this style of marketing to communicate the expertise of you and your team and portray your company as dependable and trustworthy. You might also send out the message that you are socially responsible, practice environmental sustainability (“green”) and believe in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

If you are put off or intimidated by the very thought of thinking this stuff through, I’ve given you a cheat sheet, shown below. Oh, and remember to invite website and social media visitors to dip into your marketing content by writing a good Call-to-Action that entices them to take a chance—do the survey, download the case study, join the webinar, opt-in and get the newsletter.

But the moral of this story is that you are advised to follow, weekly or monthly, certain key metrics that document how prospects interact with or respond to your content. That reported data becomes your recipe and roadmap for content marketing that works. The data also shows you what doesn’t work, by reporting lackluster numbers.

Follow the open rates, shares and likes of your blog or newsletter and discover which topics mean the most to your readers. You’ll also realize the topics readers don’t love, when your open rate tanks. Data is the navigator for your content. Follow it and find the road to achieving your content marketing and sales goals. Explore free and paid data analytics services and register your website and social media accounts to get started: https://bloggingwizard.com/social-media-analytics-and-reporting-tools/

Common content marketing goals:

  • LeadGen—bring potential buyers to your website and social media accounts, from new or established markets
  • Increasing Google EAT ranking—Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness
  • Brand loyalty—-enhance company reputation, build trust, signal dependability, to know you is to love you

Track metrics that matter:

  • Lead metrics—how many leads does your content generate through email opt-ins, call-to-action appeals, or blog and newsletter subscribers?
  • User metrics—how many page views does your content draw? How many downloads, visits, shares and likes does your content receive? Which content format and topics get the most positive responses from readers and viewers, as indicated by high open rates?
  • Sales metrics—how many of the leads that you generate from your content become paying customers? What is your sales conversion rate?
  • Time metrics—how long do viewers spend engaging with your content, where do they stay longest and which pages do they visit?

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: Crunching the numbers that guided decisions made by the Oakland Athletics baseball team and resulted in big wins. The story was told in Moneyball (2011, directed by Bennett Miller) starring Brad Pitt (l) and Jonah Hill.

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Get Multi-Channel Marketing Right

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Much has been written in recent years to extol the virtues of multi-channel marketing. Business owners and marketing department leaders are urged to create a consistent, unified message/ story for their company and its products and services and blast that message to a broad range of media outlets and platforms, the better to reach as many target customers and prospects as possible.

That’s excellent advice as I see it, but there’s more for marketers to consider. The noise level in the 21st century marketplace is so overwhelming and calls for clearly defined strategy and execution plans if you expect to achieve the ROI you want. A one-size-fits-all mindset isn’t going to work.

Because storytelling and messaging are the heart and soul of marketing, a more precise and effective method of using multi-channel marketing is needed to fully realize your marketing objectives when communicating with various audiences through multiple marketing channels. To get the most out of your marketing campaigns, define the purpose of the message/ story you’re putting out to your niche audiences and understand the reach of every outlet and platform you intend to use.

For example, recognize that the purpose, message and platforms that are most suitable for PR/ brand promotion will differ somewhat from the promotional strategy you’ll follow when the objective is to drive sales, announce that you’ll speak at the Rotary Club next month, or grow your blog audience. Read on to get useful ideas on how you might approach some typical marketing agendas.

The objective is PR/branding

So you’re trying to persuade a media outlet to mention you in an article? Start by reading few issues or posts, so you’ll get a feel for the topics covered and know who writes articles about your subject of interest. Next, call and email the business editor and pitch your proposed story. Articles must have a story theme that could be of interest to readers. Popular themes, I’ve noticed, are wellness initiatives, participation in a community event that’s sponsored by a popular local charity and green/ environmentally supportive business practices.

Your objective to receive earned media exposure is to build your brand through name recognition and enhance your company reputation by publicizing the good work that you do. I’m sure you understand that singing the praises of your products and services would be the wrong message for this agenda and requires a different emphasis for your marketing message/ story.

The objective is selling

When selling is your focus, the marketing message/ story will speak to decision-makers and key stakeholders, including end-users. Addressing the most common and dramatic pain points for the use of your product or service and emphasizing the most desirable outcomes is a must.

Marketing messages expressed by way of content marketing such as case studies, a workshop you’ve presented, an article you’ve written, or a webinar or podcast in which you appeared can build trust and confidence by letting you showcase your know- how.

The marketing message/ story will paint a picture that helps prospective customers envision how the features and benefits of your product or service can efficiently address their purpose for using what you sell. Testimonials and on- line reviews also speak convincingly to decision-makers in this instance.

The objective is repeat business and referrals

Customer retention and referrals can be enhanced and encouraged when customers feel valued and part of something bigger than themselves—-a community. Social media is tailor- made for this aspect of your multi-channel marketing strategy.

If your customers skew younger, Tik Tok and SnapChat are ideal platforms for posting videos that make a memorable point in just 60 seconds—- a one minute movie! Twitter is great for posting updates, the platform you use to remind your audience that tomorrow at 4:00 PM they should tune in to your webinar or podcast. Facebook and Instagram are great places to tell stories with photos and longer videos. That’s where you give brand fans a behind-the-scenes look at you and your team and let people get to know you a bit.

Your customer retention and referral marketing message/ story will be subtly different from the PR and selling scenarios. Brand enhancement will incorporate your values and social responsibility but will also subtly reinforce the results achieved with your (first-rate and reliable) product or service, after- sale support and customer service, The story presented will be a feel-good, but you’ll want to embed a purpose and a gentle call-to-action. Come back to see us again and tell your friends!

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: An auctioneer in action at Sotheby’s in New York City.