If you can find the time to blog for your business, it will pay off in the benefit of potentially finding new clients and showing your expertise. Also, if you have a website, it’s pretty easy to put a blog page up and write blog posts. You can also hire a content marketing professional to do your blog for you while you focus on your core competency. We have put together a list of 6 reasons to start a blog this year.
A blog is a great component in a your marketing toolkit.
6 Reasons To Start A Blog This year
Get found. With a blog you will have increased visibility with potential clients. When you make use of SEO keywords and key phrases in your blog posts, your customers will be able to find you in a Google search.
When you blog you can create your brand voice. The voice of your brand will show through in the style of blog posts you write.
Your blog is the best place to share your knowledge and show your expertise. When you blog you can share your industry trade knowledge. On a blog post you can answer FAQs from customers. A blog allows you to showcase new products and get feedback on current products.
You can build a community around your brand through your blog. Comment back to readers when they find your post and write to you.
It is a marketing tool that is inexpensive and will mainly cost you in time. However, you need to determine whether it’s the best use of your time to write blog posts or hire a content marketing individual to do it for you.
When you’ve written a blog post you can repurpose that content to share on your social media platforms. A blog post can be turned into an infographic or a video or even a podcast. The blog is the hub of all your other content.
Are you blogging? Have you blogged? Do you feel you need a better strategy? If so, contact Rex Richard today.
In a perfect world of business you could pick up the phone or attend a meeting and walk away with a folder full of closed sales. What is the life cycle of a sale? They all vary, but there are some standards and steps that many sales calls and prospecting meetings go through until they reach the “sign on the bottom line” portion of a meeting.
As a business owner you will wear many hats. Unless you have a sales force behind you, one of the hats you will don will be “sales person.” Every business owner is a salesperson, but the extent of the amount of selling you need to make will vary.
If you imagined you’d be only focusing on your core competency, you need to step back and realize in order to work our core competency — you need to have a client.
In business, you are always selling if you want to thrive.
What Is The Life Cycle Of A Sale?
Take heed of these steps and work them into your daily routine. Marketing will be part of your business tasks until you can hire a sales team — even in that case though you still may be the one who jumps in and closes the deal.
Always be prospecting. Meet people– in person or on line. Pick up the phone and call former colleagues. Ask for referrals. Where are your ideal clients gathering? Go there. Build relationships.
Relationship building is the most important component of any sales cycle.
Who is your ideal client and how does what you do or sell address their pain point? Keep that in focus when you’re talking with prospective clients.
Listen. Listen. Listen. Don’t fall over yourself giving a pitch.
Take notes. Wrap up the conversation in an email after the meeting is over.
Tell the prospect you will be in touch — then follow through.
Once the contract has been signed, the real work begins — give the client what he believes he is getting and more!
Rex Richard is a business coach who works with his clients from idea to fruition and beyond. Reach out to him if you’re struggling with any aspect of your business operations.
Monsoons, hurricanes, fires and the coronavirus storm really kicked a lot of business owners in the bank account. How did your business pivot during the coronavirus shut down? Did you have to shutter your doors? Did you manage to make the changes necessary to retain clients and keep your bank account healthy enough to keep the lights on? If so, congratulations! We do have tips for weathering the coronavirus storm (whether it continues or if you’re faced with other “storms.)
You need to have plans in place — if you didn’t — to weather both literal and figurative storms — as 2020 showed us. Unprepared business owners may never recover. Working with Rex Richard will help you be a prepared business owner. Reach out to him and talk about coaching and business survival skills.
Weathering The Coronavirus Storm
Do you have a physical location out of which you have to operate? What did you do when you couldn’t access it — whether because of Mother Nature or the coronavirus? Did you have another location from which you could work? Did you have to send employees home to work? Did they have the equipment they needed and did you have the infrastructure to help them work productively?
Entrepreneurs need to find ways to deal with entrepreneurial intangibles. Getting knocked off your path because of things beyond your control. Are there items your business plan didn’t address because you just couldn’t have ever imagined them? Hello, again COVID-19.
Here are steps to implement right now to help maintain an even keel and thrive in the midst of a storm:
What is the business vision? Can you still see it even during a storm?
Does the mission for the business and the way in which you deliver your products and services clear?
How much input does your team have to keep your mission and vision tangible in everything they do?
What are the individual roles and responsibilities your team has in the midst of a crisis?
Are you standing up front and center in the midst of the storm? Are you doing all you can to inspire and hold yourself as accountable as you hold your team? You need to lead by example.
If you didn’t come out the other side of the 2020 storm with your bank balance in the black, you need to take steps now to help you weather the next storm and you just know there is one brewing.
If you’ve been in business and online marketing for any length of time you will hear about how to effectively repurpose blog posts and some of them are great ideas, others aren’t worth the effort you will put into them. Your blog posts are your greatest source of marketing strategy inspiration. Your blog posts should be looked at as the hub of all your marketing.
A blog is the content from which all other content flows and grows. Create a great blog post and you will have an ideal tool for your entire marketing plan. Yes, your blog means that much.
How To Effectively Repurpose Blog Posts
When we say “repurpose” we don’t mean you go in and copy and paste the content and change the headline. You need to truly “repurpose” to make it effective. Here are our best strategies. When repurposing, check your Google Analytics and repurpose the posts that had the most traffic.
Turn the blog post into a different medium. The blog could be a video with you sharing bullet points. It could be short audio. Turn the bullet points into images or memes. Take two posts that have similar content and put them into a long post — compounding — the high ranking posts with similar content makes that content seem more valuable to a reader.
Look at your highest performers and turn them into a lead magnet. Building your email newsletter list should be a priority for 2021. A newsletter list is a business’s most valuable asset.
Turn a post into an infographic. If you have a high performing post that has great bullet points that would lend themselves to an infographic, make one and share that out as new content or use as a lead magnet.
Look at content and see if it lends itself to a guide or tutorial. If you have enough content that can build upon one another and be a valuable resource for potential or current clients, turn it into a video, audio or written tutorial or guide book.
Post a snippet or a rewritten piece of your content onto other sites like EZine articles or Medium, to name two.
LinkedIn is the social site on which many professionals interact. It is more about networking, sharing professional information and tips and talking business than is Facebook. When you’re on Facebook, chances are you’re showing photos of your cat, sharing recipes, venting about local goings-on and sharing memes. Ever wonder how to get found on LinkedIn and whether it can help grow your business, we have tips.
If you’re looking for a job, looking to stand out, seeking new clients and opportunities, LinkedIn is the platform on which you want to share your skills and comments and insight.
How To Get Found On LinkedIn
If you’re looking for clients and are on LinkedIn, here are ways to make the best impression:
Have a professional profile photo. Don’t share a photo of you on the beach on your last vacation. Keep that photo on your Facebook page. Your LinkedIn page photo should be warm, professional and approachable. Smile. Wear professional clothing – ditch the hoodie and bedhead. Do not leave your photo blank.
Add relevant skills (think keywords and headline) in your bio.
Summarize your experience with bullet-point type sentences in mind. Highlight your contribution to a project. Let a potential client know what you bring to the table.
Ask for recommendations and referrals for your profile.
If you’re reaching out to a potential contact, know who they are and what they do. Don’t do a blanket, “Hey, I saw your profile and thought we should connect.” Be persona, “Hey, John I saw your profile and notice we share a few contacts and that we are both in the XYZ field. I’d love to connect!”
Build relationships before you start to “sell.” Speaking of this, if you automatically send out email messages in LinkedIn when someone connects with you – stop. It’s annoying and it’s automated. You’re not fooling anyone.
Video rules. We have written about that before and it seems to be even more true today than ever before. Why? Because that is how many people consume information. They are watching videos on their phones and tablets more than they re watching television. Should you be vlogging? Maybe… if you have it as a part of your overall marketing strategy.
If you want to become a video blogger aka vlogger, here are some tips to start yours and to help you stand out.
Should You Be Vlogging?
Make the first 15-seconds count. It’s like needing to capture a reader’s attention in the first couple of sentences. If you don’t capture the attention of the person viewing your video in the beginning, they will move on. Don’t give away all your best information in that first 15-seconds, but tease it enough that they need to stick around.
Prepare an intro to your video. An intro will enhance the professionalism of your vlog.
Choose your thumbnail wisely. If you use the same thumbnail every time, a new viewer may not give your video a second look. A different thumbnail is intriguing and also lets your viewer know you have new content.
Tell a story. Regardless of the length of your vlog, make sure you’re telling a story. The art of content creation needs to carry over into your vlog. Have a script. Have bullet points. Tell a story that has a beginning, middle and end.
Edit the vlog. Hire a video editor. Invest in video editing software and edit your own. Edit out the ums and ahs and the dog barking in the background.
Be consistent in your vlogging schedule. You want your viewers to know they can expect a new video blog from you on X day of the week at X o’clock.
Talk about trends. If your vlog lends itself to current topics and trends, work that in. Be timely.
Share your vlog on your YouTube channel, your website and your other social media platforms.
Use hashtags and titles wisely to help your vlog get found in a search.
Are you using video in your marketing plan? Do you need a strategy for blogging and video blogging? If you’re just starting out or if you’re a long-time entrepreneur looking
