Blog - Elayne Whitfield: Trainer, Mentor, Author, Coach

Conditioning Your Prospects and Customers

Posted on March 11, 2015 // Leave a Comment

When you’re looking to market to prospects and build relationships with existing customers, it’s important to stay in touch with them as often as possible. Get them on your email lists and segment them according to where they are in the buying cycle so that they can be targeted by your messages accordingly. Consistent communication can go a long way for conditioning customers to trust you and think of your business whenever they are in need of your services.

Tell Them What to Expect

Whenever anyone buys from you or signs up for your email list send them a thank you note with an explanation of what to expect from you in the future. How often will they hear from you? What will you contact them about? Make some promises and assurances to them.

Do What You Say You’ll Do

It’s very important that you do whatever you said you were going to do. For example, if you say you will send them a newsletter every Monday, send them a newsletter every single Monday and never on any other day. If you skip or switch the days they may get confused. A lot of people will actually forget they signed up for a list and when you don’t stay active they will report you for spamming them.

Remind Them of What You Said

Periodically, be sure to remind your prospects and customers about your previous promises and assurances. This will help them remember who you are and will build trust.

Let Them Know When You Follow Through

When you do something you said you would do, tell them. “I told you I would send you an update on my xyz product and as promised, here it is.” Again, this reinforces the point that you stick to your word and can be trusted.

Ask Them for Input and Opinions

Once in a while invite your prospects and customers to submit their ideas and input. If you have a new product idea, tell them about it. Ask them what they think. Ask them what they’d pay for such a product or service. Ask them if they would like to see something from you that you do not currently offer.
Tease Them about New Products – Never pass up an opportunity to give them some hints or small bits of information on a new product, service, or event. As you hint about it, make them really want it by explaining what’s in it for them.

Thank Them for Buying

When someone buys something from you (or answers any call to action), be sure to thank them. A ‘thank you’ is always a nice thing to do, plus it gives you a little bit of extra space to provide them with more information about you and your products and/or services.

Follow Up Regularly

Even after someone has purchased and you’ve thanked them, it’s not over. It costs a lot less to create a repeat buyer than it does to turn a lead into a new buyer. On top of that, repeat buyers are more likely to make larger purchases than first time customers. Cultivate your relationship with buyers even more consistently than you do leads and prospects.

Most people need to hear things multiple times before it sinks in so stay consistent with your messages. The more you stick to your word and the more value you can provide to your audience, the more they’ll look forward to whatever you offer them.

Filed Under: Business Management, Email Marketing // Tagged: Build relationships, Conditioning, CRM, Customers, Email lists, email marketing, marketing, Repeat Customers, Trust

Marketing Your Business on a Shoestring Budget

Posted on March 5, 2015 // Leave a Comment

Whether you’re just starting out or funds are tight for whatever reason, there are some things you just cannot do without and you’ll need to find a way to get them done on a shoestring budget. Since you won’t be able to sell anything if no one knows that your business exists, marketing is certainly one of those things. But just because it’s inexpensive doesn’t mean it won’t be effective. In fact, some of the most effective forms of marketing can be done on the smallest of budgets.

Business Cards

You can get low-cost business cards online from websites like Vistaprint.com and PrintsMadeEasy.com, or depending on how tight your budget really is, make them on your own printer with your computer. Do not use the free versions of business cards that some sites offer, but if you find a coupon or get a discount code you can get cards inexpensively. It may be an older way of marketing but it still works.
When you go to any event, be sure to leave your business card. When you have any reason to hand out your phone number to anyone, for any reason, give them your business card. You never know when someone will need the services you offer or when your friends and family will meet up with someone who they could tell about your services. Hand your cards out freely.

Build a Website with a Blog

Using self-hosted sites like WordPress makes having a professional looking website with a blog really easy. You can get free themes off WordPress.org, buy a domain for about 15 dollars, and host your website for as low as 5 dollars a month. Every penny of that cost is worth it.
If you’re technologically deficient and can’t afford to hire someone to make it for you, consider using a website builder that offers a blog function. You want the blog to be on your website and not separate from your website like a Blogger or WordPress.com blog. However you choose to do this, the next step is to write regular, informative, keyword-rich blog posts that you promote via social media.

Use Social Media to Promote Everything

It is important to set up branded social media accounts for your business but you don’t have to be on every social media network. Instead, use the knowledge that you have about your audience to choose which social media networks will work best for you. Keep high quality, up-to-date profiles that represent your brand in a cohesive way.
When you write a blog post, send it to social media. When you take a picture of something, or have a question about something you’re creating, mention it on social media. Use social media to engage your audience in creative ways. You can use social media to get email list signups, promote events, and more – all free.

Find a Joint Venture Partner for a Project

A JV partnership is not a real business partnership. It’s a joining of forces or collaboration between complementary business owners who share an audience but are not in direct competition. Finding a project to work on like this can essentially help you both double your audience.
Make the JV partnership a time-limited project that has a definite start and end point. Determine all the rules and how money will be handled up front and put it all in a contract. Define each aspect of the work that each of you will be responsible for completing. Be clear and stick to the plan and you’ll both come out successful.

Write a Book

If you’re an expert on anything you can write a book about that topic. You can publish it easily on Kindle or promote it as a PDF document right from your website. You can sell it, or give it away for free. It’s up to you. Books can push you forward in the eyes of your audience as a true expert and they can become a calling card for you.

Get on the Speaking Circuit

Using your book as a foundation, put the word out that you’re ready to give talks locally. For the cost of a ticket, room and board, you can also go to other speaking events out of town. Sometimes, you can even get paid for speaking once you’re established and in demand. Speaking is not only a relatively cost-free marketing strategy, but it can also be a source of income.

Create Buzz

When you really have no money, a great way to get the word out is to create a lot of buzz. This can be done through any number of the previously mentioned strategies, the important this is to get people thinking and talking about you. Create a video, write a controversial blog post, or have a contest with videos that get voted on by the video creator’s friends, family and audience. It’s a great way to get people talking and to get free advertising. Offer a relevant and amazing prize package and it’ll also create buzz.

Build Relationships through Networking

Choose networking events wisely. You want to network with people who can become clients, or who can send you clients. Since your budget is limited, try to find online or local networking events that you can attend. There are many mastermind groups online that have a small fee for joining but are awesome ways to find clients once you spend the time building relationships and developing trust.

Incentivize Referrals

A really great way to increase your customer base is to convince your customers to refer you to others. Most of the time satisfied customers will tell others about you, but in some cases they may not because they want to keep you to themselves. This is especially true with service-based businesses. In this case, a great way to overcome the issue is to give your customers a reason to tell others about you. Offer a discount coupon or additional freebies for each paying customer that people send your way.
If you sell products, consider starting an affiliate program as a way to get more people to tell others about your products and make more sales without it costing you anything more than a percentage of those sales.

Using these marketing ideas when you have little to no money will take mostly time, especially if you need to learn how to use the technology. However, putting to work even a couple of these ideas will push your business forward.

Filed Under: Marketing // Tagged: marketing, marketing on a budget, Online Business Marketing, relationship building, small business, social media marketing, speaking

Permission Marketing: How to Market Ethically Through Email

Posted on February 26, 2015 // Leave a Comment

Marketing in general often raises ethical questions and subjective interpretations of what is right and wrong. From online marketing to face-to-face and traditional direct mail marketing; advertisers, businesses, and marketers have always had to walk a relatively clear, well-defined line. On one side: ethical business — opt-in lists that let people opt out just as easily, buyer-friendly sales tactics, generous return policies, and a desire to build trust. On the other: unethical business — aggressive marketing, unfriendly tactics, and a short-term business mindset.

While marketers are often branded as the latter, most are very ethical and buyer-focused. Marketing depends on repeat business, and the most effective online businesses know that satisfied customers, clients, and participants are exactly what they need to ensure that customers return to them in the future. Returning customers spend money, are very easy to deal with, and are often the most profitable and valuable customers available. Rather than focusing on the short-term, most smart marketers are intensely focused on the long-term potential of establishing customers who will keep coming back to them.

Email marketing is one of the most popular and trusted forms of online marketing but it, too, draws the same kind of ethical questions. Spam is a major problem online and it hurts responsible email marketers more than anyone else. Just like short-term offers and unfriendly tactics hurt the rest of the marketing and direct sales world, massive spam marketing efforts have affected legitimate email marketers more than they have the spammers.

When Email Marketing Becomes Spam

The word ‘spam’ gets thrown around so often that it’s easy to lose track of what it actually means. Spam is not sending targeted messages to interested buyers, but rather it is sending too many emails to too many people who never asked to be contacted. Unfortunately, many email marketers overestimate the value of their email updates and cross over into the latter category. This short-term focus might lead to rapid sales and quick product uptake, but it leaves little in terms of long-term potential and establishing a reputable brand name.

How to Market Ethically Through Email

Provide value, don’t just offer what your business is selling. Whether you are providing tips and advice through email or merely interesting content, you have an obligation to provide value to your prospective customers before you expect it from them. Marketing guru Seth Godin is fond of a specific term, one that he coined himself. He calls effective email marketing “permission marketing” and defines it as marketing that has the audience’s permission to be received. Permission marketing is always more effective than its alternatives over time, and is a real boost for return customers, repeat clients, and long-term arrangements.

Why Permission Marketing is Best for Customers and Marketers

Marketers are human. Despite the overwhelming (and somewhat alarming) belief that marketing plans are thought out in a harsh corporate office, most marketing plans are pieced together by people that are just as susceptible to marketing as the audiences they target. Marketing is about trust, and consent is the basis of all trust.

When your email marketing becomes spam, every transaction is temporary and short-term. Customers appear, but they never stay. When your email marketing is based on permission – namely deep and value-providing permission – customers appear and keep appearing. As both a long-term marketing platform and a low-maintenance marketing method, permission email marketing provides more results, less work, and greater returns for your business than any unethical approach can provide.

There’s just something unappealing about the spam approach that cannot be rectified by any amount of other positive business practices. If you want to establish your business and your brand, focus on the long-term and use permission marketing; it will be worth it.

Filed Under: Email Marketing // Tagged: CRM, email marketing, Ethical Marketing, list building, Repeat Customers, Spam, Trust

Three Reasons to Market Through Email AFTER You Sell

Posted on February 24, 2015 // Leave a Comment

For years, email marketing has been a pre-purchase exercise. Marketers spent almost all of their resources on acquiring customers before selling to them, rather than reaching out to customers after the sale. While this method is obviously effective, it is by no means the be-all and end-all of marketing forms.

After the worldwide recession hit in 2008, businesses everywhere responded by cutting their marketing budgets. Advertising expenditures plummeted, global marketing presences were almost eliminated, and sales-focused businesses found themselves running out of buyers. In a new environment of business, companies began turning to uncharted methods to attract customers, leading eventually to an expansion of the email marketing world.

Today, the focus on size over substance is clearly present in almost every form of marketing, from offline resources to online marketing tactics. Marketers brag about their mailing lists, touting millions of readers, all the while ignoring the fact that each reader is almost completely valueless. Despite their massive size, these marketing lists are largely pieced together and almost completely devoid of any post-purchase subscribers.

The money is, as they say, most certainly in the lists, it’s just not in any list. The most valuable marketing resources and the targets of any serious email marketer are the attention of any prospective customer that can, will, and has bought before. Once you have overcome the initial sale, repeat business is as simple as creating additional marketing resources to stay engaged with the customer.

Sometimes it is best to forego the short-term subscription and focus on customers that are ready to buy. Before you start an all-inclusive marketing list, consider these three reasons to keep your list exclusive and limited to customers that have already bought from you before.

Post-purchase marketing gives you authority through established trust: It is easier to sell a $1000 product to a current customer than it is to sell a $20 product to someone you barely know. Commerce, especially online commerce, is all about building trust and establishing authority. Build trust with a small initial sale and you will give yourself an avenue for larger, more profitable future transactions.
Customers qualify themselves. Prospects require your qualification: Marketing to new customers is an uphill battle. You are constantly re-evaluating your assumptions to appeal to possibility and quite often they can fail to be worth your time. The vast majority of pre-purchase prospects turn out to be duds and the few that buy from you are typically the types of customers that would buy from you on their own anyways. Focus on fostering qualified customer connections, not indiscriminate and valueless connections coming from anywhere.
Post-purchase marketing is exclusive and value-adding: Exclusivity is a currency in itself. Marketers have forever capitalized on the “exclusive offer” strategy, offering each customer a one-off opportunity that is available to almost everyone else. While many are content with false exclusivity, true exclusivity gives you a marketing opportunity that is almost completely unparalleled.

The internet, especially over the last few years, has given marketers intense power to undervalue and skim over personal relationships with customers. It has become all too easy to send a generic template email to all contacts instead of differentiating previous purchasers versus prospects. A focus on true exclusivity and one-on-one treatment goes a long way in the world of template emails and form letters, and will be appreciated by your clients, customers, and business contacts.

Filed Under: Email Marketing // Tagged: CRM, email marketing, list building, Online Business Marketing, relationship building

Tips for Sharing Your Unique Voice and Vision with the World

Posted on February 19, 2015 // Leave a Comment

Your blog, website, email newsletters, social media posts and other means by which you communicate with the world is how you share your voice, vision and perspectives. The ideas presented on these platforms are unique to you and this should be clearly reflected to your audience. If you want to stand out from your competition, there are many things you can do to separate yourself from the ordinary.

* Blog Regularly – The first thing you need to know about getting your vision and voice out into the world is that you need to do it regularly. Blog regularly, update social media regularly, appear as a guest regularly, and take every opportunity you can to be yourself representing your personal brand.

* Mix up the Formats – A blog doesn’t have to be text based. It can be in the form of infographics, memes, podcasts, videos and more. Use every content format that you can as long as it fits within your brand and the image you want to portray to your audience. Re-purpose content into new forms to get the word out to more people.

* Create a Plan of Action – The content that you create should have a purpose. The best way to ensure that the purpose matches your goals is to develop a plan that you will use across all channels; one that encompasses all promotions planned and events scheduled. Additionally, your plan can include current events and updated news if you’re ready.

* Understand Your Niche – You can never study your niche enough. Devote some of your time each week to understanding who your audience is and should be, inside and out. Study the history of your industry as well as what is happening today and what might happen in the future. Keeping your ear to the ground will make you a go-to expert in your niche and will keep your blog current.

* Know Your Audience – While you do want to add your own vision and voice, it’s also important to understand how far you can go without upsetting your core audience. For example, if you start a blog for people who are vegans and then change your mind, that’s okay, but realize that you’re going to change your audience entirely as well as the focus of your blog and this could disrupt what you have already established.

* Don’t Be Afraid to Be You – One of the most wonderful aspects of being online is the ability to be free to be yourself. You will find support and belonging for any lifestyle but you’ll also find detractors. To be truly authentic you cannot worry too much about your detractors. Put your audience and your true self first and foremost all the time.

* Be Consistent Across all Channels – Whether it’s your blog or a social media channel, it’s important that you keep the same flavor, voice, and vision apparent in each space. This will make you appear more trustworthy and help your audience get to know you even better.

* Engage Authentically with your Audience – Outside of blog posts, social media posts and other forms of content that you put out into the world, there are also discussions and comment sections in which you can engage. Be yourself when you interact with your audience, too. They want to know what you really think and this is a great way to do so.

Each blog post or other content platform that you send out into the world is important all on its own. Content spreads your message, establishes you as an expert, and drives traffic through keywords and more. Each deserves the attention called for to bring your unique voice and vision to them.

Even if you hire someone to write for you as a ghostwriter, it’s important that you edit the content to bring more of yourself to the blog. Whether it’s a sign-off phrase you want to use, or a special way with words that impacts your readers, be yourself. What matters is that you’re consistently yourself no matter where the content appears.

Filed Under: Coaching, Online Business Management, Online Marketing Management, Social Media, Writing //

How to Find Your Place in an Entrepreneur World

Posted on February 18, 2015 // Leave a Comment

Deciding to become an entrepreneur is just the beginning of a major life change. The idea of owning your own business and controlling your schedule excites you, but you’re not yet sure exactly what it is that you should do. Thankfully, by answering the following questions you can narrow down your choices and find your place in the entrepreneur world.

What are your interests?
While you don’t need to be an expert in the business you choose in order to start, it will help you get ahead of the game if you have some interest in the field already. And if you have a passion for it, even better.

How much starting capital do you have?
Don’t panic if you have nothing saved up to get started, but it’s important to be accurate and know what you have before you begin. Figure out if there are things you can sell quickly to gather some money to get you going. If you have a number in mind then you’ll know which business ideas are out of bounds and which ones you can truly make happen. This is not the time for pie-in-the-sky thinking, this is a time for being realistic.

What skills do you have?
Even if you’re not sure yet what you want to do, identify the skills that you have. Do you enjoy people? If so, what kind of people do you like the most and who would you like working with the most? Often, starting with your target audience is the best way to choose a business. If you can narrow down your skill level and the type of people you want to work with, you will get far in choosing a business start-up idea.

What skills can you buy?
When you start a business it’s important to realize that you cannot (and should not) do everything. If your budget is super tight you might have to start with what you know instead of what you can buy. However, knowing what you can buy will help you imagine the future as your business grows.

What skills should you learn?
If you’ve realized you have holes in your skill level, are they skills you can easily learn? If something has come to mind that needs licensure, how difficult is it to get? How long will it take? What will it cost? How will you get to the classes; are they online or offline?

What resources do you have?
Some of the resources you already have might include a computer, internet access, and even your skills and people that you know. Make a list of any resource, be it a person, place, or thing that can help you reach your business ownership goals.

What resources do you need?
As you listed the resources that you have, you likely came up with some resources you do not have but need to get. Don’t panic; just make the list and think about listing them in order from “must have” to just “want to have.”

What type of personality do you have?
Are you reclusive? Do you enjoy spending long hours in front of your computer or would you like to do something that is more active? Do you like being with a certain type of person? Are you a morning person or a night person? When you identify how you work best and whom you work best with, it will help narrow down your choices.

What is your risk toleration level?
Everyone has a certain level of risk aversion. One way to look at it is to ask: how much can you stand to lose without destroying your marriage, losing your home, or giving up time with your children? If you have a low tolerance for risk, you may not want to become a day trader.

How much time do you have to devote?
If you currently have a job that you have to go to and are just wanting to start a business part time, it’s important to identify how much time you can realistically devote to getting a business off the ground at the moment. Even if it’s just two hours a night after dinner, that is something you can do to start a business. But, the amount of time along with the other information you’ve gathered here will help narrow down your choices.

Answering these questions can help you determine the area you should enter into as an entrepreneur. Giving the next steps after your self-evaluation a lot of thought and consideration as you craft a plan of action will ensure your success in the long term.

Filed Under: Coaching, Online Business Management //

Five Online Business Optimization Strategies

Posted on February 12, 2015 // Leave a Comment

Running a business online gives entrepreneurs an incredible chance to expand and scale their operations. Where offline businesses require a physical presence, online businesses can operate entirely with virtual storefronts and digital real estate. Expanding online is also much simpler and bringing your business to new heights can be achieved without the need for expensive outlets and physical locations.

Still, there are a few major errors that first-time online entrepreneurs tend to make when they scale their businesses. From expanding too quickly to moving in all the wrong directions, the road to running a large-scale online business is paved with potential potholes. These five strategies are designed to help you achieve worthwhile business optimization while taking your business to new heights without endless difficulties and setbacks.

1. Stick to the 80/20 Principle

Pareto’s Principle — known as the 80/20 principle — dictates that 80% of your returns — in this case, business profits — will come from just 20% of your actions. Your goal in running an internet business is not to do as much as you can, but rather to achieve as much as you can. Focus on the ultra-profitable 20% of clients/customers, and eliminate as much of the fluff as you possibly can.

2. Whenever possible, add products to service businesses

Service businesses are a good short-term model, but as a long-term earning option on their own, they are not the best. The main issue with service businesses is the lack of scalability and long-term earnings potential. By running a service business, you are essentially tying a value to your time and working from that alone. It is a more effective strategy to create a product and use your time to amplify its sales.

3. Package and sell your information

Informational products are a major hit, especially in the online world. From guides on mastering online business to simple how-to sets for learning a new skill, informational products make up a huge percentage of online sales. If you have skills that would otherwise only be valuable in a service business, why not package them into an informational product that you can sell online?

4. Focus on marketing before you start your business

The make-or-break component of any online business is marketing. The internet is crowded, especially for small online businesses, and there is no chance to survive without a large customer or client base that knows how to find you. The world’s most profitable companies are invested in marketing before they expand, and you should be too.

5. Set a value for your time, and don’t waste it

You have set up your online business, invested in some manual and paid marketing presences, and you’ve started to earn over $100 a day. The only problem is that it is taking almost 12 hours to do it. There will be times, especially when running an online business, where you will rack up a reasonably impressive daily earnings total. Ignore it. Daily totals are deceiving and are not an accurate metric for judging online business success.

What is much more valuable is the amount of time that goes into that income. Set a minimum value for your time, and create an online business that gives you options on where to spend it. Sometimes services might be worthwhile, other times product-based work might be the best solution. Either way, set a minimum cost for an hour of your time and design a business that allows you to earn above it.

Filed Under: Coaching, Online Business Management, Online Marketing Management //

3 Tips for Crafting an Effective, Tweet-able Message

Posted on February 11, 2015 // Leave a Comment

Few social networks encapsulate public discussions more effectively than Twitter. Thanks to its condensed nature and enormous audience, a single topic or thought can often evolve into a completely natural case study for marketers. Be it immense disapproval or the enormous success of a single meme, Twitter offers a unique look into the heart of any conversation.

Given this amazing resource that is Twitter, how can you make these conversations happen to suit you, regardless of your particular product, sales team, or industry? While it’s very difficult to create a conversation out of nothing, especially when a product or service is inherently uninteresting, it’s very easy to optimize a discussion so that it spreads throughout the social media landscape like wildfire.

Apply these three tactics to your next Twitter promotion, compare them against your past experiences, and realize how a few creative copywriting tweaks can enhance your social media ROI.

1) Learn to love the ‘…’

Add an ellipsis to the end of your tweets and you stand to experience a 20% increase in click-through traffic. This timeless tweak has been used by performance marketers for decades, both online and off. Whether you’re tweeting a message or advertising a product on Adwords, this simple tweak can help you instantly increase the amount of readers who visit your linked page.

2) Use numbers, instructions, and summaries

Numbers catch the eye; instructions can increase involvement; and summaries attract users looking for information, particularly those who are looking to better understand a particular topic. These Twitter tricks were all mastered by copywriting professionals years ago, and they’re still just as effective today. Use them if you’re not doing so already and you’ll see an increase in traffic.

3) Get people scared, and promote distrust

In order to increase the amount of time that readers spend thinking about your product, it’s important to project a situation where they wouldn’t normally be thinking about it. If you want to increase the sales of your pest removal product, remind readers about the dangers of bed bugs and how certain companies wouldn’t want you to know about these dangers – especially at around 11:30PM or right before bed time.

Got an investment to pitch? Promote fear in people by reminding them that others could get ahead of them if they choose not to leap at the opportunity. People respond to fear and distrust, even if it’s minute and fairly inconsequential. Use ‘fear words’ in your tweets to draw in readers, and use your additional content to make them familiar with your brand, your company, and your product’s advantages.

Filed Under: Online Marketing Management, Social Media //

Three Tactics for Responding to Social Media Criticism

Posted on February 5, 2015 // Leave a Comment

Responding to social media criticism is difficult – a short, punchy response can make you look too aggressive, while a reasoned response is often lost on an audience out for blood. In an age of Internet anonymity, people from all walks of life will spew whatever they want, wherever they want online no matter how it may affect those on the other side of the screen. This medium of communication, especially when it deals with businesses interacting with their customers, is a relatively new game that can seriously influence public perception. The process of analysing online feedback is now so important to major organizations that the United States Air Force has created a procedure for responding to bloggers, encouraging PR experts to only respond to comments in certain situations.

These three tactics can help you take on a social media criticism problem, particularly one that stands to damage your organization’s reputation. If you’ve spent the last day staring at an angry blog post, a snarky column, or a rather rude comment, apply these tactics and judge its negative value before you craft a reply.

1) Ignorance is bliss, at least in the eyes of Google

As tempting as it may be to put a biased blogger in their place, doing so may cause more damage than you’d think. Blog posts, like other dynamic pages, tend to gain PageRank and search visibility through the work of their readers. Inbound links, comments, and activity can all contribute to high search placements, often for terms that you’d rather not see attached to your company’s name. Simply ignoring these negative posts will make it less likely that they meet the eyes of more readers.

2) Some people just aren’t rational; resist the temptation to use reason

A reasoned response should be enough, right? Often it’s not, particularly on blogs that earn their keep through generating (and capitalizing on) controversy. If you’re being picked on by a gossip blog or questionable online publisher, leave the event to die out on its own. A response, however reasoned and valuable, might just provide more fuel for the hungry critics. The more attention you give them, the more they’ll feel that what they’re doing is working.

3) Think in terms of value. Will a response help your business?

Some marketers think that more is always good. They’re wrong, especially when it comes to content that’s steeped in controversy. You should only ever respond to public criticism when it could change your business, especially for the worst. If the audience appears to have made up their minds without any input from your business, leave them be and focus on developing value elsewhere. Genuine complaints from reasonable people do happen however and clearing these up can greatly improve your image.

Filed Under: Social Media //

5 Tips for GREAT Headlines that Consistently Convert

Posted on February 4, 2015 // Leave a Comment

I know this may be difficult to hear, but most of the hard work you put into writing your article will not attract attention on its own. Content will certainly speak for itself, but this is only true if people are willing to listen to it to begin with. And unfortunately, the average reader on the internet today will not give you even a moment of their precious time unless you prove to them that you deserve it over everyone else. What’s the best way to do this? An irresistible headline is a good start.

Almost any topic you can think of will have dozens of articles covering/discussing it; all of which will have great information. To compete with these equally entertaining and well written articles you need to put out the best bait: your headline. All too often people will glance over this aspect of their work as if it is unimportant when in reality it is the MOST important part. Unless you are a headline-creating savant you shouldn’t be churning out your article titles in 30 seconds and this leads me to the first of my 5 tips for creating great headlines.

1. Don’t Rush

I’ve been there myself. Your deadline is creeping up and you’re delicately looking over your work to make sure every semicolon is perfectly placed and every paragraph break flows flawlessly. Right before you submit/publish you remember that you haven’t finalized a headline and should probably think of something catchy. After a whole 42 seconds of deliberation you decide to keep the clunky title you had when you started writing because you’re running out of time.

Big mistake. Headlines should be looked at as the pinnacle of your work, not an afterthought. Choosing a good headline can often take 45 minutes to an hour so allot yourself that much time to figure things out. Rearrange words, break out the thesaurus, and don’t give up until you’re completely satisfied.

2. Use Numbers

It worked for this post didn’t it? Lists are a concise way of organizing things, and letting people know that you’re keeping it brief from the get-go is a great way to convince them to start reading. Few things are more frustrating than getting a page into an article, scrolling down to the bottom to see how much more you have left, and finding out you’ve just started reading someone’s 200 page novel. Time is valuable and readers like to get in and out of things as quickly as possible. They aren’t perfect for every headline but lists do work and you should take advantage of them.

3. Offer Something of Value

Unless your article is an opinion piece on some of your personal favourite things, you’re going to want to present your work as if it is offering something that the reader can away take with them. And even if you are just listing off something that you like, you don’t have to present it in such an obvious way. Instead of having “My 10 Favourite ______” call your article “The 10 Best _______ money can buy”. Don’t be afraid to use bold language like this since this will only draw on people’s curiosity. And as long as you write with passion and explain yourself, how can you be proven wrong? Offering things like “the best…”, “reasons why…”, “facts about…”, or “predictions for…” in your title will give the reader the feeling that they are gaining something from your article. If someone thinks your work will be of value to them then they will be far more likely to read it.

4. Promote Distrust

Although overuse of this technique may give your writing a cheap or tacky feel, a well placed promotion of distrust will attract greater audience attention. People will often be skeptical of mainstream ideas so advertising something like “secrets doctors/nutritionists/other professionals don’t want you to know about” can be very effective. Offering “hacks” or seemingly insider information that people can use in specific aspects of their life or even just their daily life will lead to more clicks on your article.

5. Mix it Up

Chances are if you’re reading this, you aren’t looking to write one single headline. Writing one headline won’t be that difficult, but if you always use the same formula of “10 ways to get better at _____” or “Improve your _____ with these 7 strategies”, your readers will get bored. Be creative and keep your audience on their toes. Mixing things up will ensure that you have a growing base of readers who consistently give you their attention.

Filed Under: Online Marketing Management, Writing //