Small Business

FOCUS: The Trouble with Your Audience

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Audience Research and Stage Fright

Is this you in front of your audience?

Can there be stage fright when there’s no stage?

In a previous life, I was a professional musician. Thanks to my family and predisposition for wanting attention as a kid, I have been lucky when it comes to getting butterflies in my stomach before going before groups. A certain amount of “on edge” is good, since it helps me to focus (I have to be careful about amping up too hard, but that’s another story…). However, over the years I have met many more people for whom performing or speaking to a group, regardless of the size or safety of that group, is met with the same enthusiasm as a long overdue, serious discussion with their dentist (apologies to dentists everywhere….).

Do all the hard research. Discover where your audience is living online. Figure out what they’re passionate about and how you can provide them with some world-class, relevant, useful, valuable and entertaining stuff. Create and start executing on your plan.  Great!

So, now you’ve got a problem, although it’s a good one to have. You’ve set some expectations for these folks. You need to deliver…..consistently. Maybe not every single hit will be “out of the park”, but most of them need to be. Now the stage fright starts to set in, right? what if you’ve already delivered what you think is the best that you have to offer? What then?

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What Is The Secret Truth About Your Marketing Plan?

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Digital Marketing Strategy

So you have a strategy for your digital marketing?

Working with the swirling realities of digital and social media marketing can feel like trying to quietly tread water in a really nasty river rapids that never ends….and then there are the rocks to avoid. As a business owner it’s hard enough. As a marketing professional, it is mind-numbing at times….still, that’s part of what I do and I confess to a kind of the same excitement as that metaphoric water-treader.

I have recently started working with a client who floored me by having something I have not seen in a long time at similarly-sized businesses: an actual Marketing Plan.
Really.
The business owner pulled it up on her laptop and I wanted to hug her…

This isn’t to say that other business owners haven’t spent time thinking about their marketing, but this owner had taken the next step and mapped it out for the next year….and even looked beyond. I identified a number places in the plan where I can add tremendous value (hence our starting to work together…), and we began to discuss the goals, measures and value we can bring to the business. I am totally psyched to begin this project!

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FOCUS: What About Customer Experience and Relationships?

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Visitors Audience Customers Community

On the lookout for…?

“Relationships?! How do you do that when your business is all about selling boxes of widgets? Folks come to my site, order them and I ship them out…”

This is a common question. You have always viewed your company as one that makes something that others buy (hopefully more than once…), and then you make sure they get it. Pretty much the definition of “transactional”, and, especially if you operate an e-commerce site, you only know them by a name, address and order number. It doesn’t look like the opportunities to establish and grow a relationship, as you’re thinking of it, are that ripe.

…or are they?…

I’ve written before about a descriptive construct I call the VACC. It stands for Visitors/Audience/Customers/Community. There are different ways of looking at the people who interact with your business: The Customer Journey, the Sales Funnel, and so on. Viewing these people through the VACC lens focuses on the stage of the relationship they have with you business, and how you communicate and interact with them. Each stage is valuable and there is no hard line dividing them. Nonetheless, knowing, in greater depth, what each set of these people are looking for, how they act and react to you and your business, what their expectations are, and how you can communicate with them is vital to your business growth. Not knowing is the same as tossing your product out on to a virtual (or real…) sidewalk and hoping the right folks come by.

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More Promising and Valuable: a Partner or a Customer?

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Still in the early years of your business and riding the revenue roller coaster? Yeah, me too.

Things are Really Fat for several months (maybe even longer…), so you focus on project delivery and all of the work that entails. Make those clients happy!!!!  Things lighten up a bit, so you take a TEENSY breather (maybe a couple of actual days off in a row….what a concept…).

Things continue to back off, you realize that you’re experiencing the business equivalent of “the pig in the python“, and you’re staring at a mostly empty pipeline. This is not good. You redouble your efforts on business development, lay out some ads, reach out to some referral sources, revisit your business Facebook page (wow….when was the last time you DID that!?), hit those chamber of commerce lunches, contact some leads, and engineer an email campaign, but getting meetings is hard and they all seem to be too busy or in “let’s talk in about 60 days or so” mode.

Again, not so good.

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The 5 Superior Social Media Posts in April!

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The changes to and evolution of the online world never stops…..hence the usual flood of news and tips available. So, for April, here are the articles that really caught my attention!

Facebook 20 percent rule

Look! No Text!

  • Facebook’s 20% Rule – Gone, Not Gone :: Everyone who has ever slammed their head against the desk after submitting their boost or ad for approval on Facebook, only to have it rejected due the dreaded “20% Rule”, cheers this change! However, you need to read the new standard VERY CLOSELY to see what it has morphed into so you don’t get caught in the turbulence.

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GO DEEP: Can You See Your Genuine Story?

/ Jeff Hora / 1 Comment
Photographer against a sunset

Photographer against a sunset

You already know about the requirement of posting Top Flight, Relevant, and Shareable content. You may even be working to make sure that you attach a photo or graphic to your posts, since people are attracted to pictures and tend to gloss over text-only posts.

Photos are even more important than you think!

In a recent article, Mark Schaefer listed out 15 Amazing ways social media is changing the world and the one that jumps out at me is that we now “talk” through photos. A photo or stream of photos is becoming an important mode of communication at the expense of text and voice. This assists those who are not sure of their communication skills, and takes advantage of the complex processing our brain goes through to interpret pictures.

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FOCUS: Aren’t You Easily Worth More Than FREE?

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English: Graph of social media activities

English: Graph of social media activities (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

OF COURSE you’re using social media to market your business! It’s 2016! NOT having a Facebook Business page is like not having a logo or a business card…..unthinkable!
So how’s that going?
It seemed so straight-forward when you worked through that online wizard: uploaded a few photos (they didn’t quite fit the alloted space, but you just needed to get SOMETHING in there…), banged out a short description, added a link to your web site, made a post or two, invited all your friends and family, and hit the PUBLISH button. Easy Peasy…

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March: It’s Here with Spring, Brackets and Expert Info!

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Another bumper crop of great information published by a number of sites this month, so let’s dig in!

1 billion posts!

1 billion posts!

  • How To Improve Facebook Engagement: Insights From 1bn Posts :: This set of data, inhaled and analyzed by the good folks at BuzzSumo, provides some head-scratching information around what you may have thought was THE way to engage on Facebook.  While correlation is not causation, and they even wonder why some of the data shows what they show, it can provide you with some things to try. Remember, though, your audience may not act like others, so test these things out before gluing them into your plan.

Facebook Content Discovery...

  • Facebook Vs. Google: Is Facebook Winning The Content Discovery War?  :: Another great data-driven post from BuzzSumo! This one focuses on how Internet users (and Facebook users in particular) are finding the interesting stuff they want to consume…..and Facebook is coming out ahead! So should you publish on your blog and web site and SEO the daylights out of it ($$$?), or post to your Facebook Business Page? Your mileage may vary, but the data are showing that you may be discovered more readily on Facebook.

Fifty Features for Small Business Web Sites

  • 50 Features Every Small Business Website Must Have [Infographic] :: The 3 primary issues I come across with my customers when it comes to their web sites are: (1) They don’t have one, (2) They have one they built themselves, and it REALLY looks like it….., and (3) They have a web site that was last touched about 2009! This infographic gives you a high-level snapshot of what you need at a very base level for your small business site. I always recommend that you engage a web designer who understands current design trends and technologies, works with your business’ requirements BUT doesn’t skimp, and can point you to partners who can do basic SEO and social media integration (not to mention point you to a seasoned social media and digital strategy resource, too….without a plan, this is much less likely to work).

Twitter is Important!

  • Here’s Why Twitter is so Important, to Everyone  :: Facebook seems to be in everyone’s faces all of the time. To many of my clients, Twitter appears either irrelevant, inappropriate or just plain scary (the fire-hose effect can seem intimidating…). But the thing that drives that fire-hose is the real-time feed, and therein lies the value of this channel. In this article Andrew Hutchinson (someone well worth following online, by the way…), he outlines why you might want to pay closer attention to what Twitter can do for you.
Successful Brands on Social Media

Successful Brands on Social Media

  • What Makes Brands Really Successful on Social Media  :: So, who DOESN’T want to be a successful brand on Social Media? In this article you can find out how some of the most successful brands do it, then figure out how that can be re-purposed for your business. Learn from the best, but don’t just do something because someone else does…..test it, measure it and make sure it works for your business and your audience!
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FOCUS: CAN’T SEE IT? YOU REALLY NEED HELP!

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You are Very, Very Good at what you do!
That’s one of the reasons you started your business. You’re good at it and you love to do it. So, becoming your own boss seemed like the way to focus in on this passion and expertise, and deliver the benefits to others who are willing to pay you for it. Seems simple, right?

You read a few books, talked to some other friends and maybe even a few other business owners….even took a class or seminar. They shared their experiences and support for this move in your professional life and told you, “GO FOR IT!” You did some research and maybe even made your proof-of-concept available to some people, getting feedback and valuable input. None of this was easy, and you discovered a few things that set you back a bit and maybe even discouraged you, but you are determined….no turning back!

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FOCUS: The Simple Obsession of Mindful Marketing

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Mindfulness is a light of honesty within yourself that is fed by each moment that passes.

Mindfulness and “being in the moment” are ancient ideas found across cultures. This self-awareness is partly being truly aware of the moment, and partly acknowledging and letting go of the things and thoughts that cling to you or come flying back at you, only to be noticed and let go of again in that moment. It’s an enlightening and maddening place to be, for sure…

I read an article by Seth Godin recently about self-awareness and marketing that brought me to reconsider the role of marketing in my thought life and decision-making process, and in that of my customers and yours, too. To say that we are all relentlessly marketed to by just about everything and everyone is a statement of the obvious that we have become so numb to that we tend to ignore it.  We are in danger of losing the awareness that can allow us a margin of critical thinking.  Godin writes, “Mostly, marketing is what we call it when someone else is influenced by a marketer. When we’re influenced, though, it’s not marketing, it’s a smart choice.” In other words, it’s not “just marketing” when it influences me! I’m not as influenced by the marketing beast as “those other folks!”

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