I saw 2 things last week.
One made me excited.
The other made me cringe.
I was running on my usual route last week when I saw one ofthe best pieces of old school marketing that I’ve seen in a long time.
A flyer.
Yes, a flyer.
Let me explain.
Want to learn how to write sticky blog posts?
Let’s dive right in.
Keep.
It.
Simple.
Stupid.
Seriously, your blog isn’t the place to prove you’re smart. It’s the place to share what you know in an accessible manner.
It’s actually harder to condense your thoughts and speak simple. But it’s worth the challenge, as it’s an easy way to increase your readership.
If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter. – smart people throughout history
The other day I was asked some questions about keyword optimization. They were questions that I’ve been asked before, so this time I decided to write a blog post about them.
Specifically the questions were:
He also positioned the questions:
I have been trying to put more focus on writing my blog — as per your advice. I enjoy writing and I want to produce quality writing.
I don’t want to just create posts that are a bunch of keywords strung together with some transitional phrases. At the same time, I want people to be able to find my content when they do a search, so I understand that keywords are important.
Nobody wants to read content that’s stuffed with so many keywords that it sounds like something that came out of a robot.
But to really answer these questions we have to take a step back and look at keyword research, the process that happens before keyword optimization.
This isn’t your average list.
We’ve dug up 19 tidbits about online marketing that we think you’ll enjoy.
How will you know unless you continue reading?
1. The average small business spends less than $7 a day on marketing. (Search Engine Land) << Click to Tweet >>
2. 11% of Americans think HTML is a sexually transmitted disease. (TIME Magazine) << Click to Tweet >>
I’ll get right to the point.
Gary Vaynerchuck is one of the world’s best social media marketers.
Chris and I had the opportunity to meet him in Vancouver two years ago and chat about Spokal.
His insights were invaluable.
I truly believe that if you’re having a problem online, Gary can solve it.
While his fees are geared toward the Fortune 500 clan, he recently published a book for small businesses, showing how anyone can use his tactics to stand out online.
From listening to Gary and reading his work, there are 3 golden rules that I’ve learned are essential to creating content.
Here they are.
There are 3 people who made your business possible.
In fact, they’ve influenced the way almost everyone around the world markets and sells their products and services.
And chances are you don’t know them.
Yet…
It’s time to meet the less well known fathers of modern marketing.
I was writing at one of my favourite coffee shops on Vancouver Island when I came across this book.
Brown Gold: The Amazing Story Of Coffee
What caught my eye was the selling feature.
“ILLUSTRATED WITH 32 PHOTOGRAPHS, 8 IN FULL COLOR.”
Wow. Full color?!
Then I realized…
It was published in 1952.
In 1952, having 8 full colour images in a book was remarkable and highly relevant, as it would be a key decision criteria in deciding whether to buy the book.
But, if you put that same message on the front cover of your book today as the main selling feature, you’d be laughed off the shelves.
When people say the secret to content marketing is relevance, this is what they mean.
So, here is a 2 step plan to help you write relevant content that will convert causal browsers into customers.
There’s only one problem with content marketing.
Content.
Specifically, creating it.
It’s a daunting task to create remarkable and relevant content that converts customers on a regular basis.
This is why I love Vine.
And I’m not alone.
Since it came onto the scene in January 2013, over 40 million people have used Twitter’s social network to create and share videos. It’s one of the easiest, fastest and most creative ways to create video content. Anyone can do it.
So, here are 12 ways that small businesses can use Vine to create fast and relevant content.
p.s. Not sure if Vine is right for your business? This post will help you decide.
You can take us behind the scenes to showcase how some of your most popular things are made.
This is what Virginia Beach’s Cafe Moka coffee house did to show customers how they make drinks using their cool siphon coffee maker.
One of the biggest things that business owners waste time on is their inbox.
McKinsey Global Institute and International Data Corp released a study that showed we spend up to 28% of our workday writing and responding to emails.
So, if you work 8 hours a day, that’s 2 hours and 15 minutes spent in your inbox.
However, it’s also one of the most effective ways to communicate with potential and current clients. So you can’t do without it.
But you can make it more manageable through automation, without losing your personal touch.
You probably write a lot of similar emails and responses without realizing it. The goal of this post is to help you pre-write those emails, so you can speed up your response time while maintaining the quality of communication you want to uphold.
As with all automation tricks, the key is to shave minutes off processes that you do on a regular basis, which will save you more time in the long run.
And we’re going to star with the #1 customer email that every small business owner should have prewritten in their inbox.
Last year we published The Complete Guide Of How Often To Post, Tweet + Facebook For Your Small Business, and it was shared hundreds of times. This year, we updated it, and made it visual.
<< Like it? Share it. Click for the full-size version. <<
This isn’t the only way to grow online.You can be successful doing lots of different things – but one of the questions we get all the time is where to start? Start here. Do this. These are the fundamentals.Then modify, branch out and get creative from there once you know what you’re doing.
