by Trevor Jones, VP of Business Development at GWI In small companies, we often have to get our message out with relatively small marketing budgets. The good news is that the age of content marketing has given us more tools than ever to accomplish our goals without breaking the bank. By effectively combining your blog and social channels with some well thought our public relations efforts, you can effectively get your message out and raise your brand awareness without spending lots of money on media. Sounds good, right? There are a few things you need before you get started. The first is something to announce that your audience will care about enough to read and share, an important element of what HubSpot calls remarkable content. This could be a new product or service that will help people in their business or daily life, or it could be something that you provide for free, like a white paper, report, or E-Book. If it’s not remarkable, don’t waste your time announcing it. In addition to something remarkable, you’ll need the basic tools of PR, a media contact list, a well-written press release, and talking points if you’re lucky enough to get a call for an interview about your story. Once you have these elements ready to go, the next step is to create a campaign in which your PR and content marketing work together and complement each other to enhance your message. Use these tips to help you do that. Take your news story direct with your blog: One of the most beautiful aspects of content marketing is the opportunity it gives you to tell the story your way. Also, your blog probably has many followers that don’t read your press releases or the newspapers that may or may not write a story. Take a few minutes to re-write a post in your voice that shares the news story directly with your audience. Make sure you dispense with all of the arcane formatting, language and “about sections” that are typical of press releases. Go deep on your news story in the blog. Your blog is your opportunity to give your story depth, whereas the press release is an executive summary. I usually spread this effort over multiple posts, adding more color with each post. When we announce a new network, we’ll generally issue a press release and 4 or more blog posts about it: one post might provide historical context, one a behind-the-scenes look, one a customer’s personal story, and so on. Then, we spread these stories out over weeks or a couple of months. This builds frequency, gives your story dimension, and gives you more content for your marketing. Occasionally your blog, not a press release, is the best vehicle for your story. Sometimes I read a release from our PR consultant and it’s obvious to me that I’m going to modify it and take it directly to the blog, without posting in on the press releases section of our website at all. This happens a lot with follow-up press releases that are really designed to get a second bump in press coverage from one of our bigger stories, like this post. Sometimes the blog is just a better place for direct consumption of content by the public, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t release it directly to the media. Don’t forget to use press releases to promote “big rock” content. You’ve worked hard to create the e-books, white papers, and other long-form content you use to drive conversions. No doubt you do a lot to promote them on your blog and in your social networks, but they’re worth more than that! The effort you put into creating that remarkable content is newsworthy and should be promoted with a press release. With a little luck and some relationship building, you could find that your anchor content has a much bigger audience. The best example of this that I’ve been involved in at GWI is the paper our CEO wrote providing 10 recommendations for improving broadband in Maine. The release of that paper was covered in both news stories and a favorable editorial in major Maine newspapers and business publications. Make sure to cross-link relevant blog posts from your press releases. Link building may be dead, but there is still an opportunity to breathe new life into blog posts that are relevant to a news story by linking them from your press release, even if the only place those links appear online is the news releases section of your site. This provides news reporters covering your story additional background, gives visitors to your web site another way to discover important content, and lets search engines know that you feel the linked posts are important. Definitely do this if your posts contain original research or hard data that supports your news story. So there you have it. Give a few of these strategies a try next time you have a product or content to launch.  I think you’ll find that your launches are more successful and satisfying and leads and sales start to climb.  The final step, by the way, is the most important one: go back and do it over and over again. Trevor Jones is Vice President of Business Development at GWI and has been a major author and editor of the GWI Blog, with over 200 posts on technology issues in four years. He also writes personal blogs on marketing and outdoor activities.

Many thanks to a Fluent client, Trevor Jones, Director of Marketing and Product Development at GWI, for authoring this guest post on business blogging. Whether your goals are brand awareness, improved search engine rankings or lead generation, or a combination of all three, blogging is arguably one of the most effective tools for accomplishing those goals. The biggest challenge is keeping up with generating fresh, relevant and useful content, particularly for professionals focused on billable hours. Take Trevor’s advice: ask for help, invite guest bloggers and share the workload with your team. If you’re reading this, I’m going to assume that you’re already involved in business blogging and understand why your organization should do it. Now that you’ve started, how do you sustain the effort over the long term? How do you keep it fresh and interesting? One of the very first things I would do is get help creating content, starting from within your organization. When building your blog, get other people from other areas of your company writing early and often. Include the company owner, technical people, service people, and financial people if you can. With the GWI Blog, I try to keep my own contributions to the blog below 50% of the total and honestly, I wish it was less. Be forewarned, most of the time it’s not an easy process.  Everyone in your company is busy, and not everyone places the same priority on publishing consistently and on time as you do.  There are some things you can do the help motivate people, but since that may not be fun for you, I’d like to cover WHY you should get others engaged before explaining HOW to motivate them. Why You Should Involve Coworkers in Business Blogging Spreading the workload. You were thinking this, so let’s get it out of the way because it’s not the most important. Yes, having others write articles means you won’t have to write them. What you will have to do is edit them. In my company, I also end up copying content from a Word Doc into WordPress as well, testing links, and choosing and inserting images. Gain a Fresh Set Of New Ideas. If the rest of your team is involved in writing articles, they’ll also be engaged in the process of coming up with new ideas. Keeping things interesting. No matter how interesting a person you are, having a variety of different voices and perspectives contribute to your company blog can make it more interesting for your readers. Envision yourself as a publisher making an interesting magazine. You want a variety of articles written by a variety of people. Targeting key personas. It’s very important that you have a developed idea of who you are writing your content for. Smart marketers develop buyer personas, imaginary people that have the traits of decision makers, gatekeepers, and key influencers in an organization. Once you have them, try getting the closest equivalent in your company to blog, including IT, finance, or administrative roles – if they’re effective writers this could lead to very well targeted content. How To Get Coworkers Blogging Get management on board. Before you ask employees to start writing content for you, make sure you win the support of management. Your campaign to get more contributions will never get off the ground without their blessing, and they can help you motivate the team. Ask for help. People are naturally motivated to help friends and co-workers. Many people will pitch in if you just ask. Make sure they understand the business value. Often coworkers say that blogging is always on their to-do list, but never rises to the top. Make sure they know how blogging impacts web traffic and sales, as well as how important it is for you to be on a regular publishing schedule. They’ll be more apt to prioritize the work if they accept that it’s necessary and have a deadline. Give them credit for their work. People like to be recognized for their contributions. At a minimum, make sure their name is on the page as the author of the post. Even better, mention them in social media posts promoting the article, list their bio on an authors page, or set them up for Google Verified Authorship so their name and face shows up in SERPS as the author. Show them the value of their unique perspective. People may be concerned about the quality of their writing, or think they can’t do as good a job as you can. Make sure they know that their perspective is unique and different and will make the blog more effective for your business. Start with their ideas, but have a topic for them too. The more ownership an employee has in an idea the more motivated they’ll be to write the article. That said, you don’t want the lack of an idea stop them from writing, especially early on. So get out there and get some help with that content! There are a few other strategies for getting the help if this isn’t enough, including next time’s topic: hiring outside writers.

There’s no better way to get candid feedback than to ask. Thanks to the Maine Public Relations Council’s professional development program “Meet the Media,” held Friday, June 14th at UNE in Portland, southern Maine PR pros were able to ask questions of four local reporters who represented daily and weekly newspapers, broadcast TV news and a national trade publication: Bernie Monegain, Editor, Healthcare IT News Amy Beveridge, News Director, News 8 WMTW William Hall, Staff Reporter, The Forecaster Seth Koenig, Portland Bureau Chief, Bangor Daily News Each shared their insights and practical tips for building effective relationships with reporters. Their responses to a few of our questions were full of great reminders: What’s the difference between a good PR person and a bad one? The panel described a good PR person as someone who remembers to stick to the 5 W’s, understands that deadlines are now practically imminent or in many cases, non-existent, and someone who knows the publication and refines their media contact list accordingly. My takeaway: always think about what I can do to be flexible and work within the reporter’s timeframe. In the age of online platforms, asking “What’s your deadline?” is a thing of the past. Is the press release dead? Fortunately, no. But it needs to be news, not promotional and it shouldn’t be overly complex and full of jargon. As Seth Koenig said, “We’re in journalism because we couldn’t handle science.” If a reporter is forced to Google half of the words in your press release because it’s full of scientific, legal or industry jargon, it’s likely headed for the trash. Any savvy marketer or PR pro should remember to know the audience. Help reporters understand the story first. It’s not going to be published if it’s impossible to read. What’s a good pitch vs. a bad pitch? Pitches can be perceived as good or bad depending upon the publication. A pitch to a weekly newspaper must align with their publishing schedule. To a trade publication, it needs to fit within the context of their subject matter and be of interest to their readership, which is often very specialized. In some cases, a second-day pitch can be very effective. Do you have a different angle on a story the publication just ran? Do you have a subject matter expert available to provide a fresh perspective? Bad pitches fall into the “not helpful” category. Don’t pitch coverage of an event if you haven’t cleared the venue for media access. Don’t issue press releases without a spokesperson available to comment. And a few final pieces of advice from the media panel: use social media (i.e. Twitter) to build and maintain your relationships with reporters. Keep in touch with them by sending updated lists of subject matter experts and make sure that you’re available, helpful and flexible when a reporter needs your help developing their story. Learn more about taking your story to the media through public relations and communications strategies.

This blog post by Russ Henneberry on copyblogger.com made me wonder: are Apple’s copywriters the real geniuses behind society’s lust for iPads and Macbooks? There’s no question that Apple hires the brightest technical minds to further their goal of giving us what we want BEFORE we know we want it.  But as a writer, I have to stop and admire the genius of Apple’s branding efforts. Writing like Apple: Less is more It could be easy to get bogged down in the technological features of Apple’s products. Battery time, display screens, HD video, web cams…the list goes on. A quick visit to Apple’s website reminds me of what great ad copy is all about: selling benefits by appealing to your customer’s emotions in as few words as possible. Apple’s iPad webpage isn’t cluttered with copy. A headline and two subheads says a lot: “IPad 2. Thinner. Lighter. Faster. FaceTime. Smart Covers. 10-hour battery. Starting at $499.” 15 words communicated the best features and the amazing benefits you’ll receive by buying your IPad 2. Just like Apple’s brand, the copy is concise, clean, clever and most importantly: effective. Learn more about effective copywriting techniques here.

Anyone can write a script for a broadcast ad. It’s only 30 seconds of copy…how hard can it be? The truth is, the less time you have to convey a message the harder it is to be effective. Writing ad scripts that can effectively drive traffic to your website and convert ad viewers and listeners into customers is an art. It’s also a challenge for even the most seasoned copywriters and advertising creative directors. Before you send your ad script to the TV or radio production team, make sure you’ve considered these key elements to make the most of your advertising spend: A clear message. Viewers and listeners can only consume so much information in a 30 or 60 second ad. What do you want them to know after consuming this information? TV ads rely primarily on images to communicate. If you mute your ad and you can’t tell what the ad is selling, you need to rethink your strategy. Sure, the narration and visuals need to work together, but confusing or visually over-stimulating graphics combined with a weak script will add up to a losing ad. Most radio audiences are working, driving, exercising or otherwise occupied while listening. Make the message and call-to-action easy enough for them to recall later. An attention-grabbing intro. The lead of your ad is like the headline of a print ad. It’s your chance to grab their attention. Will the first 4-5 seconds of your ad hold the viewer or listener’s attention? Will it speak to them about a product or service that will solve their problems? Or is it time to change the station or take a TV break to grab another beer? Short, digestible sentences. Again, you only have 30 or 60 seconds. There is no time for extra language. Write short, concise, easy-to-understand sentences. If you’re struggling with the length of your script, type your ad in 16 point Times New Roman, all caps, double-spaced. A half-page is about 30 seconds; a full page is about 60 seconds. Benefits. Tell your audience how the product or service will benefit them. You’re not just selling an associate’s degree program. You’re selling a degree program that will: benefit A) save them time and money by accepting transfer credits from other colleges and benefit B) give them the knowledge, confidence and credentials to get a better job and earn even more money. A call to action. You want your audience to do something. That’s the point of the ad, right? Gone are the days of repeating your phone number and address over and over. Include your web address in the ad and have your contact info easily accessible online. Make sure that the web address is the company name and easy to remember. If your custom URL is hard to say and spell, it’s going to be hard for them to remember. Rethink hyphens or clever spellings. Time to get creative. Now that you have the elements of an ad script, you need a strategy for your ad campaign, and then you can start writing. The following are a few broadcast advertising red flags. Avoid these and you’re well on your way to a unique ad that converts: The ad that sounds like all other ads. If you listen to other ads for inspiration, or ask your advertising sales rep to write the script for you (most will), be on the lookout for script copy that sounds like your competitor. This is particularly risky in small markets. A message that’s off-brand. Your campaign should be consistent with your brand. What does your website or other marketing collateral communicate? Your broadcast ads may be focused on a particular promotion or the announcement of a new service, but the closing message should include some elements of your brand messaging to reinforce your unique selling proposition. The cutesy ad featuring your grandkids. Of course your grandchildren are adorable. But that doesn’t mean your audience will be ga-ga over a 4-year old narrator who can’t yet articulate simple sentences. Most viewers find this ad concept to not only be annoying, but totally confusing and often impossible to understand. If the average business owner is camera shy and isn’t ready for prime time, it’s still not worth wasting your advertising budget on ads that simply don’t make sense. If you’re selling playground equipment, that’s different. But most kid actor ads have nothing to do with the product or service. And worse, they can’t explain the benefits because they can’t talk. Be very careful about this strategy. The ad written by Captain Obvious. Don’t spend your 30 seconds telling your audience about your knowledgeable, trained and friendly staff or the fact that your company has been around since 1972. So what? Sure, it can be reassuring to a potential customer to know that you’re a reputable, honest business, but they will gather that information from other sources. Stating the obvious isn’t a compelling message and doesn’t transition into a meaningful call-to-action. Again, what are you selling? Don’t settle for filler ad copy. The low-cost leader ad strategy. “We guarantee the lowest price and nobody beats our prices.” Actually…if I had the time to scour the Internet looking for deals, I bet I can find someone cheaper. But do you really only want to compete on price? Highlighting price is tricky as prices often change, but there is always going to be someone out there ready to beat your price for the business. Think very carefully about the message you’re sending by positioning yourself as the cheapest gig in town. The mumbo-jumbo loaded with jargon ad. One of the hardest things to do when developing an advertising strategy and script is to put yourself in your audience’s shoes. Check out our blog post on how to determine your target audience. Guess what? They’re almost never you! Just because you listen to one radio station or binge watch Downton Abbey on the weekends doesn’t mean your audience does. The same is true for industry jargon. Be careful about acronyms that mean something to you (my favorite: SEO or search engine optimization. It means something to me but outside of my industry, it’s confusing). The old saying K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid) is a tried and true lesson. A few final tips for writing your highly effective broadcast ad: Make sure background music doesn’t overpower your message and beware of the latest music licensing rules. Read the script out loud to your colleagues, family and friends. And lastly, weed out any clichés that weaken your message and credibility. Learn more about developing integrated advertising campaigns.

Branding is all about positioning. One of the most useful branding exercises is writing the positioning statement. We’re not talking about a sentence that one person within your organization can sit down and write in 5 minutes. Writing a positioning statement should be a thoughtful exercise. First things first, what is it? A positioning statement is a short description of your company’s target audience and a description of how you want that audience to view your brand. Many companies have mission statements, which are typically focused on the company’s core values. A positioning statement is different because it is intended for internal use to guide marketing and business development tactics. Larger companies might have a few positioning statements that are intended for groups, committees or industry niches. Here’s a breakdown of the formula: Positioning Statement = [Target Audience] + [Frame of Reference] + [Point of Difference] + [Reasons to Believe] Black & Decker’s positioning statement for DeWalt tools illustrates the components: “To the tradesman who uses his power tools to make a living and cannot afford downtime on the job (target), DeWalt professional power tools (frame of reference) are more dependable than other brands of professional power tools (point of difference) because they are engineered to the brand’s historic high-quality standards and are backed by Black & Decker’s extensive service network and guarantee to repair or replace any tool within 48 hours (reasons to believe).” This is not their tagline and is not used in external messaging. It’s intended to identify their main points of difference, why they’re different and the audience they’re targeting. The process of writing a positioning statement has multiple benefits: It forces you to identify your target audience. A surprising number of businesses haven’t identified their target audience. Or if they have, they might not be aligning their marketing, communications and business development efforts to reach that specific demographic. This is often because no one wants to turn away potential clients. Most companies have limited marketing budgets and must focus their efforts. Taking the time to identify your “perfect client” allows you to spend your marketing dollars most effectively. You learn a lot about your company and clients during the process of writing it. One of the key components is points of difference. To understand how you’re positioning your company to your audience, you must know how you’re different from your competitors. Pull your team together for honest conversations about your unique selling points. Gather any market research or client surveys and review the comments. Another critical aspect is reasons to believe. These are the things that back up your points of difference. Think of adjectives or reasons why a client should believe in your brand positioning. It serves as a reference as you implement other marketing initiatives. As you develop new messages and create marketing or communications materials, your language should support your positioning statement. Don’t use your positioning statement externally. Refer to it as you’re developing new strategies. Use it to remind yourself who you want to reach, what their needs and issues are, what makes you unique and why you’re different. Once your positioning statement is finalized and has the blessing of your internal stakeholders, it should be available to your marketing team or vendors as a reference point and reminder of your brand positioning. Learn more about strategies for branding here.

Marketing. Business Development. I hear these words used interchangeably all the time. If you want more business, everything you do to achieve that goal could be called “business development,” right? Maybe. That mindset is a bit confusing and can quickly lead to unmet expectations. If you think you need marketing or business development support, you should first understand how they differ and where they overlap. What is marketing? Marketing is about identifying your key differentiators, developing your message and establishing a positioning within your market(s). Think advertising, event promotion, website content and building thought leadership through public relations – these are all marketing strategies (or at least first cousins to marketing). What is Business Development? Business development is about making connections. It’s building upon the brand that you have established through marketing efforts to connect your audience to your products and services. It’s prospecting (think networking events), qualifying leads and then converting those leads into clients. Business development is all about creating relationships. Some in-house marketing directors wear both marketing and business development hats. A talented marketing generalist with some business acumen can provide strategic advice and coaching in both areas. But the truth is that the efforts are quite different and usually require a different set of skills and expertise. Marketing and public relations people tend to be creative. They’re usually good storytellers and know how to develop a message through a brand look and compelling marketing messages. They create new and interesting ways to build awareness for your brand. They’re scouting opportunities and thinking of new ideas. They also probably pitch stories to the media, write content and provide creative direction and/or design. Business development people are actually selling. They go out and develop business, sometimes without realizing that they’re even doing it. For many professionals, business development takes training, coaching and a couple of steps outside their comfort zone. Whether they like it or not, lawyers, accountants, financial advisors and other providers of professional services MUST wear a business development hat. A marketing person may be great at formulating messages, but the relationship your client is buying is not with them – it’s with the advisor they have grown to trust with their business. Where do marketing and business development overlap? The sales cycle for most professional services is longer than ever. Once you have identified a qualified lead, your marketing efforts can’t stop. Nurturing leads over a long period of time is critical for retaining top-of-mind awareness. The marketing side of lead nurturing may include sharing branded content and educational opportunities through email marketing, event marketing and social media outreach. Marketing should also provide business development with the sales tools they need to convert a warm lead into a client (proposal language, presentation training/support, slide decks, printed collateral and even branded thank you notes and gifts).  The true business development side may include personal emails, follow-up phone calls, one-on-one meetings/lunches or golfing together. Which do you need? Marketing or Business Development? When it comes to developing a business development strategy for your firm or business, marketing is an essential piece. Likewise, a branding and marketing strategy should be built with your business development goals in mind. The two not only complement each other, they depend upon each other – but that doesn’t make them the same. As you consider your marketing and business development goals, think about where your firm currently has strengths and weaknesses. You may find that you need more exposure and new marketing tactics for generating leads. Or you might find that you have warm leads, but just need sales training to help convert them into clients. Learn more about how integrated marketing and communications tools can support your business development goals. Want to schedule a free 30 minute brainstorming session with us? What is your name and organization? What is your email address? Tell us briefly about your business. Who is your audience? Are you looking for long term support or a short term campaign? What are your top objectives in working with a marketing agency? For example: brand awareness, media coverage, lead generation Do you have experience working with a marketing agency? What is your estimated annual marketing budget for hiring an outside agency? Anything else you want to share with us? Would you be interested in a free 30 minute integrated marketing brainstorm session over the phone? CAPTCHA Phone This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. Δ

A hard and fast deadline is a powerful motivator. When it comes to generating fresh content for multiple social media channels, planning in advance can mean the difference between higher search engine rankings and leads and a failed online strategy. There’s a reason why publications plan their editorial calendars well in advance of printing. Everyone involved in the success of the pub knows the topic, target audience, responsible party and deadline associated with the content. If your business is just getting started with online content, there are reasons for using a blogging or social media editorial other than organization: Get the creative juices flowing – There’s nothing more frustrating to a busy business owner or marketing manager than feeling the pressure of getting a blog post up. Many businesses have great intentions of engaging with their customers by providing informative content and boosting their SEO efforts, but fall down when it comes to frequent publishing. Search engines are looking for frequent and fresh content, so planning ahead by simply developing a month’s worth of ideas is a worthy exercise. Google Docs has templates for a social media editorial calendar or a blogging planner available by searching under Calendars & Schedules. Better yet, they’re free! Revisit your keyword ranking strategy – If your website and blog are optimized for search engines, you should have a list of keywords and keyword phrases you want your site to ranked for. Revisit that list and think about blog topics that relate. Sit down with your list of targeted keywords and the editorial calendar templates and think about topics you know your customers are searching for. Remember to write blog posting titles that include keyword phrases. Shoot for 5-6 topics with a goal of publishing weekly. Find relevant links and sources – Follow SEO and blogging best practices by including outbound links to other sources. Look at your list of topics and spend some time researching credible websites, blogs and online news sources to find content. Remember, a blog post doesn’t need to be a novel. Simply sharing informative content (an interesting article or video) with your online community with a comment from you is a great way to stay engaged and build exposure for your website and brand. Some blog posts can be longer and more informative while others are intended to share links and content. Plan your social media strategy – Decide which social media sites you’ll use to share content and how you’ll distribute the information as you publish it. Set dates and alerts to make sure that once a blog post it live, you’re also tweeting and posting a link on Facebook or LinkedIn. Remember to consider your audience. If you’re a business targeting other businesses, LinkedIn is likely the best home for your content. If you’re targeting consumers, Facebook is ideal. For most businesses, a strategic mix is the right choice. If you’re already blogging or maintaining your company’s social media presence, you’re well aware that the planning is easy to put off. Set a realistic goal to plan and follow your social media editorial calendar for 1-2 months. You’ll be surprised how a little bit of organization can lead to spikes in your web traffic! Need help generating new ideas or writing fresh content? Email me to discuss your social media strategy.

Remember the days of taking road trips with actual maps? I’ll never forget making the trip back to college from Maine to Pennsylvania with my sister with no cell phones and nothing but a stack of AAA TripTiks in the glove box to get us there. Thankfully she had a great sense of direction and the patience to actually read the maps. Me, on the other hand…I’m not very patient. And when it comes to getting where we need to go, most of us appreciate good directions and the most direct route from point A to point B. A few ways to use calls-to-action to increase engagement: Use CTAs on your website: Calls-to-action (CTAs) is a term widely used in Internet marketing. You should have a CTA on every page of your website. It depends upon the message and your target audience, but professional services firms can use graphics or text as a CTA. “Learn more about our work with non-profits”…“Start building your marketing plan now”….“Join our email list” or “Download this free Ebook” – those types of CTAs tell the web visitor what to do next. By placing them in strategic locations, you’re giving readers shortcuts and directions. And when they convert, you’re improving lead generation by having the opportunity to engage, either by giving them more information or capturing their contact information with the promise of following up via email, phone, etc. Use CTAs in print, broadcast or online ads: The concept of a call-to-action isn’t just for Internet marketing. Advertising copy should include a clear call-to-action. Sometimes this is subtle and more focused on branding…. “Learn more about us at fluentimc.wpengine.com” or maybe it’s very direct and time-sensitive…”Sign up for our design workshop by May 10th.” “Like us on Facebook” is a call-to-action! Nearly all advertising copy will direct readers or listeners to your website, so make the URLs short and easy to remember. Don’t forget about day-to-day emails: Slow down a little bit when you’re writing emails and think about a call-to-action. What is it that you’re trying to accomplish? What is the logical next step? In most cases, it’s appropriate and effective to suggest a next step…ask if you can send them information, schedule time for coffee or lunch, etc. You don’t want to be pushy, but you also don’t want to miss opportunities to engage that might be easily solved by including a polite call-to-action. Include CTAs in your email signatures: Here’s an opportunity to encourage email recipients to interact. Include your website URL, social media profile buttons or links and a link to your blog. And if you’re hosting an event, customize your e-signature for a designated period of time with a CTA that drives visitors to the event website or registration form. Spend some time thinking about how to incorporate calls-to-action into all of your marketing efforts and even your sales pitch. Give your audience the shortcuts and clear directions you want them to take.  Learn more about the power of using CTAs on your website to improve lead generation. Sources: Hub Spot, SitePoint

Event marketing is notoriously time consuming and expensive. If you’re on a shoestring budget, hosting or sponsoring events can be a risky investment. The time spent on planning, designing invitations, mailing costs, advertising and venue and catering expenses all add up fast. Many firms are turning to webinars and online meetings to minimize venue expenses. Webinars have many benefits, but they lack the ability for face-to-face introductions. Event marketing can be very effective for professional services firms — if done right. Gaining one great client can easily give you a substantial return on your investment. But it’s not always realistic to convert a room full of listeners into a handful of great clients, especially when you’re selling higher-level professional services. Don’t jump to deeming your event a failure if it didn’t generate billable work in the short-term. There are other intangible benefits to keep in mind: Exposure. Speaking on a subject reinforces that you’re the expert. Don’t forget that the advertising and related public relations around the event are great branding opportunities. Lead generation. Other forms of marketing and PR establish you as the expert, but events bring those leads together into one room. Now you have an audience of real, live breathing people who want to hear from you. This is your chance to introduce yourself, and get their contact information for follow-up. Client nurturing. Not all events are about meeting new leads. Educational and social events allow you to provide your existing clients with helpful information and a chance for some face-time. Social events let you show your appreciation for the client’s business. With these benefits in mind, events can still be risky. Their effectiveness can be difficult to measure, especially if direct business isn’t an immediate result. Here are 4 ways to improve your event ROI: Set goals. Reevaluate why you’re hosting the event in the first place. If a seminar hasn’t been effective for a few years in a row, revisit the strategy. Align your goals with your firm’s strategic objectives. Be sure that the event is designed to reach your target audience. Try to measure the results of the event in previous years. Have a “pre” and “post” strategy. Whether you’re hosting the event, or attending an industry tradeshow, develop a simple pre-event strategy. Think about who you want to meet, how you’re going to spend your time during the event, and how you’re going to follow-up after. Huddle up with your team and devise a simple plan. Coming back to the office with a stack of new business cards gives you a new list of leads for follow-up. Don’t overlook the follow-up phase. Provide value. Educational events shouldn’t be all things to all people. Be mindful of the topic. What’s keeping your client (or desired client) up at night? What’s happening – or about to happen – that affects them? Be very careful that your event title and marketing materials clearly explain who should attend and exactly what they will learn. Work on attracting qualified leads. And don’t panic if your registration numbers are a little bit lower than you expected. If you’ve marketed the event right, you’ll have quality leads outweighing quantity. Leverage. Make the most of your event marketing efforts and leverage it. Turn the topic into an article or ebook for your website (the published content is great for SEO!). Follow-up with everyone who attended on LinkedIn and Facebook. Add attendee contact information to your e-mail marketing list. Write a press release about the event and update your professional bio. Event marketing can be worth the time and energy if you plan ahead and follow through on the pre-event and post-event strategy. Learn more about integrating online lead generation with event marketing.

It’s easy to fall behind on producing fresh, custom web content. I write and edit blogs and websites for a living and it’s tough to set aside time for my own content writing. But if you’re serious about reinforcing your brand online, engaging with online communities and making your site visible to search engines, resist the temptation to fall off the content writing wagon! Great Content is All Around You Isn’t that good news? You simply need to repackage it. PR Web describes easy ways to take a topic and reinvent the way you deploy it. Here are three tricks for quickly repurposing your content: Read your own website. You generated the content – landing pages, services descriptions, case studies, client testimonials. Ask yourself again: “What do I want to be found for online?” If you’re a housecleaner who is branching into green cleaning practices and want to be found for “green housecleaning in Portland,” create a short page of content on this very topic, optimized with supporting keyword phrases. Expand upon your original services page to generate a short page on green housecleaning. Write a blog post to support the new page (Are you using a new method or cleaning technique?) Describe it on your blog and be sure to include a link to your new page at the end of your blog post. Give a publication legs. Have you issued a press release lately? Any new team members, recently completed projects, new products or awards? Edit a press release into an authored article on a timely topic or into a case study featuring your capabilities. Case studies and news items often justify a web page of their own, or at minimum, you can write a shout-out on social media sites to drive interest to the “new” page of content. Repurpose customer feedback. Do you receive emails or questions from customers via email or social media? What are their primary concerns? Write a how-to blog post answering a popular question. If the topic is meaty enough, consider issuing an email alert to your contact list and post the content on your blog and social media pages. If your content ideas are prolific, but you need help with copywriting, SEO or on-page optimization, contact Marnie to learn more about how an Internet Marketing Plan can improve your online presence and boost sales. Source: PRWeb.com

In my next life (or maybe even in the next chapter of my life) I vow to study psychology. I am truly fascinated by how the human brain functions. My challenge as a marketer is to apply what scientists and psychologists have discovered about how we think, decide and remember into my professional work. One of my favorite resources is Neuro Web Design by Susan Weinschenk. With a Ph.D. in Psychology and a successful career in user experience consulting, Weinschenk’s book validated why I love writing and using case studies to sell products or professional services: People love hearing stories. Think about it. Children grow up hearing stories. Weinschenk explains that we naturally communicate the events of our daily life in the form of stories. You may not consider yourself to be a story-teller, but most of our communication tells a series of events in the form of a story. She also explains that we recall more of the information if the content is broken into digestible chunks. People are visual. Did you know that the visual part of your brain takes up half of its processing power? Weinschenk explains that this is why most of us remember things we see visually. This is a powerful statistic for marketers. When it’s tempting to create a text-heavy piece to get as much information in front of your audience as possible, remember that people will recall the information if it’s presented in shorter chunks with heavy use of imagery. People are attracted and respond to stories + pictures. Try incorporating a story-telling tone to your web or marketing content and add more photos. Together, the appeal of a photo coupled with an interesting story will draw your reader in and help them recall (and hopefully retell the story to others – word of mouth advertising isn’t dead!) the information for a longer period of time. Weinschenk’s book is targeted toward web designers, but the concepts can be applied to printed marketing collateral, proposals or presentations. Think about your company’s work and your successes over the past year. Can you tell a story about how your services helped your client or improved your community? Did you use a novel process to take a project from start to finish? A great first step for developing marketing concepts is to spend the time identifying potential stories and think about how the story might help solve your customer’s business challenges.