Jun 13
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What is inbound marketing?

By Internet marketing, Marketing professional services, Marketing strategy, Psychology No Comments

The vast majority of your market is not looking to buy your product or service today.

Or tomorrow, for that matter.

A small percentage is actively looking.

Inbound marketing brings these people to you.

The result is more sales enquires and sales.

Inbound marketers share information with prospective customers via digital marketing, in creative, interesting ways.

The information needs to be helpful and informative.

The problem is that many enterprises do not wish to share their knowledge.

“We have never done this before!” they exclaim.

“Why should we give away what we know for free?” they ask.

The counter-argument is that their competitors are already out there doing it.

Sharing knowledge sure beats asking strangers if they would like to buy from you (I know, as I used to do this for Rank Xerox when I was a young salesperson).

Besides, I have found that the more I share, the more I have to learn.

Here is an entry within The Marketing Compass Encyclopedia regarding inbound marketing.

Here is a blog regarding Push versus Pull marketing.

Jun 07
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Are you using the word ‘you’ sufficiently within your copywriting?

By Copywriting, Writing No Comments

When it comes to marketing copywriting, don’t write about yourself, your product, your service, your enterprise or your brand the whole time.

Replace the words ‘we’ and ‘our’ with ‘you’ and ‘your’.

Your copy will become more engaging for the reader.

Use the word ‘You’ as much as possible.

It is difficult to overuse this powerful word.

A good test is to go through your copy and count the number of times that you have used the ‘we’ words.

Use ‘You’ four times as often as you use ‘I’, ‘Our’ or ‘We’

When people read your copy, it will come across as more personal and engaging.

Reference: Copywriting – using the word ‘you’ ….within The Marketing Compass Encyclopedia

May 30
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How to structure your knowledge

By Internet marketing, Marketing strategy, SEO, Writing No Comments

If you are a subject expert, you may have written a single book, several books or a series of blogs. You may have slide decks, course handouts or articles that you have written. You have probably answered questions via email and during meetings.

The information surrounding any given subject is continually expanding and you may have considered creating a knowledgebase, wiki or encyclopedia.

For some time, I have been in this position and I have looked at a number of ways of achieving this. Finally, I opted for a premium WordPress plugin called Enclyopedia Pro.

Here is the project so far:  The Marketing Compass Encyclopedia

There is a long way to go, as I have several thousand entries to add.

I am finding that this project is making me think about my subject area (marketing) in new ways and how everything fits together.

There is an SEO benefit from publishing your knowledge.

Personally, I do not have any problems with sharing my knowledge. I wonder whether you feel the same?

May 10
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The customer journey

By Customers, Marketing strategy No Comments

When people buy from you, they go through 5 stages:

1. Awareness 
Awareness building is a central aspect of marketing activity. What are you doing to raise brand awareness?

2. Prospect
Someone who is going through the sales qualification process. As all Sales Managers know, enterprises must have a pipeline of potential customers that they have identified, talked to and qualified.

3. Customer
Someone who has bought from you once. Money has changed hands on a single occasion. Therefore, this is transactionally based. This means that there isn’t a deep relationship. If you have been in business for some time, you may well have a significant number of dormant customers. Go back and start communicating with them again. It is typically five times less expensive to sell to a customer, as it is to a stranger.

4. Client
The next stage is to turn customers into clients, through repeat business. This may include up-selling (i.e. increasing the size of the sale) and cross-selling (i.e. selling them something else).

5. Advocate
A handful of customers, a larger percentage of clients and some of your (non-client) friends will become Advocates. These are the people who recommend you. Everyone loves referrals. The question is: do you have a referral system in place?

Apr 30
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How to get started with podcasting

By Podcasting, Promotional techniques No Comments

The Marketing Compass member Margi Ross (of Conscious Feminine fame) and I were talking about Podcasting during our monthly conversation. Podcasts have become popular, partly because since 2014, the Podcast app comes pre-installed on iPhones and other iOS devices.

One of the benefits of audio podcasts is that they are similar to radio broadcasts: you can listen whilst you are doing something else. This suits many of us, as we are leading such busy lives.

If you are wondering how to get started with podcasting, here the steps:

1.  Decide on a theme for your podcasts.to

2.  Mind Map or list topics that you can talk about for 7 to 10 minutes (you can record for much longer, however, 7 to 10 minutes is a good starting point).

3.  Decide whether you are going to get someone to record, edit and upload for you or whether you are going to record and edit yourself.

4.  If you want to have a go yourself, search for ‘Anchor podcast’ in the App store on your smartphone (it may show up as the 2nd or 3rd item). Anchor can be used to create, distribute, host and monetise your podcast and it is free. (As always with content sharing platforms, I advise you to read their Terms and Conditions).

Alternatively…..

5.  You will need a microphone that you can plugin to your computer.

6.  Download Audacity which is a free, cross-platform audio editor.

7.  Mind Map your first podcast. Yes, I know that you could type it out; however, reading a script so that it sounds natural is challenging, whereas a Mind Map will guide you through the podcast and you won’t have to shuffle papers.

8.  Have a few trial run-throughs, before you start recording.

9.  If you are using Audacity, export the audio file as an mp3 and upload it a platform such as Spreaker or Anchor (many others are available). From there, you can share your podcast.

There is a vast global audience out there waiting to hear from, why not start podcasting?

I am currently working on my inaugural podcast, by the way.

This item first appeared in my Compass Points newsletter which you can subscribe to here.

Margi Ross is a NavigatorPlus member of The Marketing Compass.

Apr 15
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Website Press Room

By PR - media relations, Promotional techniques No Comments

If media coverage is part of your promotional mix, add a Press Room web page to your website. This is a professional touch and will help journalists. Therefore, it will help you to get more media / press coverage.

Be media friendly

Include ‘Press room’ within your navigation bar, as this demonstrates that you are media friendly. It should contain useful, relevant material for editors and journalists, written in a factual way (i.e. no sales pitches).

‘Press Room’ can appear in your principle website navigation bar, or it can be an off-shoot of ‘About’.

Here are the section headings for a Press Room website page:

Enterprise name

A brief (two or three paragraph) overview, including when the enterprise started trading; principle activities; markets served; points of differentiation.

Spokesperson(s) profile

Brief background – topics of expertise – contact details.

Press releases

A chronological list of press releases (most recent at the top). Include title of release + release date. Hyperlink to a separate page, containing the full text of the release.

Photographs

Display a selection of low resolution images for websites and describe how to request hi-resolution images for print.

Media contact

If someone else besides the Spokesperson (i.e a PR consultancy / PR Officer) liaises with the media, include their contact details.

Today, there is an overlap between PR and digital marketing as backlinks from media websites can help your search engine rankings.

I ran a PR consultancy for nine years – so Press Relations is a subject close to my heart. I have taken startups and ‘invisible brands’ and created massive awareness for them. I show my clients how they can achieve extensive PR coverage. You can ask about PR via The Marketing Compass community or contact me directly, here.

Apr 05
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Stepping out of the shadows

By Customers, Internet marketing, Social media No Comments

If you want to generate better results on social media, engage with people. You can do this via Likes, Comments, Shares and Messages.

When you do this…

Be interesting. Be positive. Be inquisitive. Be yourself.

I have noticed that many enterprises don’t engage, they only broadcast. For example by continually sharing their blog posts.

Think of it this way. Do you prefer to be shouted at or to have conversations with interesting people?

Many people don’t want to draw attention to themselves.

I quite understand this, however, when it comes to promotion you have to step out of the shadows and start interacting with customers.

Apr 01
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MailChimp Audiences

By Email marketing, MailChimp No Comments

MailChimp now thinks in terms of ‘Audiences’, not ‘Lists’.

If you have several lists, they are now referred to as ‘Audiences.’ To find your lists, under the ‘Audience’ navigation bar item, you will see a new page that shows information about the list with the most contacts. You can find all of your other lists (now audiences) in the dropdown.
MailChimp Audiences

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you would like to see all the audiences in your account, select ‘View audiences’ in the (same) dropdown menu (it is at the end).

Campaigns and Reports are now viewed within the context of an audience at a time:

MailChimp Campaigns

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you have more than one audience in Mailchimp, your Campaigns and Reports pages will show information based on the audience you’ve selected. This means that you will see an overview of your email marketing to those contacts. If you need to view campaigns across all audiences at once, just choose “All audiences” from the dropdown.

If possible, keep all of your subscribers in one audience (list).

This item first appeared in my newsletter, which you can subscribe to here.

Mar 26
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Website link building: 10 ideas

By Internet marketing, SEO No Comments

Google sees inbound links – AKA backlinks – to your website as votes of confidence. In general, the more inbound links you have, the better as long as they are of good quality.

An inbound link = a hyperlink which is pointing at your website.

Website link building should form part of your ongoing SEO strategy.

1. Gradually build inbound links to your website. Google doesn’t like sudden spikes.

2. Work manually i.e. don’t use bots / software programs / suspicious services from people you don’t know.

3. Include keywords within the anchor text*, where appropriate.

4. The links should come from relevant websites.

5. The links should come from sites with high authority i.e. credible websites.

6. Don’t use paid links.

7. Don’t use email spam to request links.

8. Don’t use link farms.

9. Do keep a meticulous record of your in-bound links.

10. Do check from time to time that the links still work.

*Anchor text: The text within a hyperlink,
i.e: www.nigeltemple.com or Digital marketing consultant

SEO Course – click here

Mar 22
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Show the product or service being used

By Customers, Products, Psychology, Selling No Comments

I know that you know what your product or service does. I know that you know how great it is. The challenge is that potential customers are not telepathic. They can’t see what you are seeing.

On this basis, show someone actually using the product or experiencing the service. Videos and pictures are a great way of doing this.

Stories describing how the item or service is used in real life are helpful.

Don’t make the customer work hard to figure it out.

Show them how it works.

This idea is taken from my newsletter which you can subscribe to here.