There’s nothing about blogging

Neil Patel wrote an interesting blog post today on, well, how to write blog posts! Called a simple plan for writing a powerful blog post in less than 2 hours, he shares his technique for pumping out blog posts that engage him.

His is just one technique, so if you’ve developed something that works for you already – go with that. If, however, you haven’t yet – this is one of those that’s quick, easy to follow and should get you started down your own path to frequent blogging. (and frequency of blogging *is* important! I’ll get into that a little next week).

Here are the highlights:

• Blog on your passion
• Create a list
• Spin the title
• Outline your post
• Fill in the details
• Edit, tweak, and massage
• Post and share
• Conclusion

 

Check out his blog post at http://www.quicksprout.com/2012/10/29/a-simple-plan-for-writing-a-powerful-blog-post-in-less-than-2-hours/

This is the moment we’ve all been waiting for…graduation! Before I make a speech and get all teary, I want to take a minute and make sure we remember what we’ve learned about getting customers online.

What Have We Learned?

Well, what have you learned? Our goal is to make it easier for you to market yourself online by giving you the knowledge on what to do and how to get started. After reading our 12 Step Guide To Getting Customers Online, do you feel prepared to tackle the online marketing world? Do you know where to start? And how to maximize your time to get better results? We sure hope so.

Quick Recap For Getting Customers Online

Time is your biggest asset, so let’s have a quick recap on how to start doing online marketing:

1. Set up your website or blog and make sure it’s optimized for mobile device
2. Learn how to help people find you online using SEO for small businesses
3. Find out which words you want to rank for in Google by doing your keyword research
4. Discover how to blog as a small business, including 6 tricks to make your posts more enticing
5. Learn how to use internal, inbound and outbound links to grow your online presence
6. Brush up on the best ways to use social media, including Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest
[Read more…]

It’s important to create content and build relationships with customers. But it doesn’t stop there. To learn what’s working and what to improve you need to measure what you’re doing. How? Well, by using  business analytics of course! 

Why Should I Use Business Analytics?

Business analytics help fine-tune your online marketing campaign. They allow you to track the progress of every aspect of your inbound marketing efforts. By looking at the results you can discover what’s working, what isn’t and how you can improve.

Get More By Measuring 

To learn how successful your marketing efforts are, you measure your return on investment, or “ROI.” But this isn’t easy when you use traditional marketing – it’s difficult to measure how many people see your campaign, how many take action based on that campaign and how many actually become customers.

Let’s say you put up a poster at a bus station for a promotion about your yoga studio. How will you know if it works? And by that I mean, how will you measure the number of people who see your promotion? And who they are? And if they become customers.  It’s difficult to know who saw your poster, who shared the story and who attended your yoga classes because of that poster.  [Read more…]

So, you’ve learned how to use social the newest social media darling for your business in Step 9, and how to collect emails through your website and blog in Step 4, now it’s time to focus on the heart of inbound marketing: building relationships with people. A great way to do this is via email – you may have heard people call this “lead nurturing via email campaigns” which is a fancy way of saying, “getting to know someone so they build trust with you overtime.” So let’s get started.

Why Should I Use Emails For My Business?

Email is one of the most powerful ways to communicate with your customers. While social media is a great tool to share your message to the world, you have little control over who sees your messages, and it’s more difficult to adapt your message to different people. When you use email for business, you can target specific people on your email list based on a variety of factors, including when they signed up, their interests and if they’re customers yet. 

Essentially, “an email campaign” or “using emails for business” means that you send emails to people that have signed up on your site. The goal is to build relationships with potential clients – they’ve already asked to learn more, so now you can relax and chat with them over time. [Read more…]

So, you’ve learned how to use Facebook for your small business in Step 7 and how to use Twitter in Step 8, now it’s time to dive into the newest “social darling” of the web – Pinterest.

What’s Pinterest All About?

Pinterest is a visual network. If you love images and want to showcase the heart of your company, this is the place to do it!

When you use Pinterest for Business, try to find creative ways that show how your products and services fit into peoples’ lives – the goal is to display the heart of your brand. On Pinterest, you share photos that represent that are displayed and organized on things called “boards.” People can be kept up to date by following your entire business (aka all of your boards), or just one in particular.

Pictures Are Worth 1,000 Words 

Some people say Pinterest is easy – you “just upload photos and curate a gallery,” but that’s like me saying, “running a marathon is easy, you just pop your shoes on and go for a jog!” As with everything, you’ll succeed if you have a focus and a goal. When you use Pinterest, the goal is to showcase who you are visually, and what you stand for. Pinterest is extremely powerful, because we all know, pictures are worth 1,000 words.

[Read more…]

You’ve learned how to start using Facebook for your business in Step 7. Now it’s time to check out the next social media network that you can use to grow your business – Twitter.

What’s Twitter All About? 

Twitter is a fast paced social media channel – it’s a conversation that never stops. It’s the quickest way to hear what’s going with your customers, as people tweet constantly about what they’re doing. Companies are using Twitter to answer questions, give promotions and connect with customers at events, as well as share company news, recent blogs posts and Facebook updates.

The main goal is to build relationships with people, and turn them into fans. Before you start using Twitter for your business, check out these steps to get the most out of this channel:

[Read more…]

Obviously I’m a big believer in inbound. So when I saw this Inbound Marketing Explosion infographic I wanted to share.

For a while now, the challenge we faced was that a lot of small business owners were still not sure what inbound is, or why they should care.  It’s a little heart-breaking for me to see such a powerful medium go unused or underused by the people who arguably need it the most.

Luckily, a shift is underway.   Inbound marketing is starting to become more mainstream, and more and more people are trying to figure out how to use it. Check out this interesting inbound marketing explosion infographic: [Read more…]

Now that you have a basic understanding of Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest from Step 6, it’s time to explore them in more detail so you can decide which ones are best suited for your business. The first one we are going to explore is how to use Facebook for Small Businesses.

Why Use Facebook For Your Business?

Facebook is an ideal channel for small businesses,  as it’s an opportunity to showcase products and the heart of your company. As we mentioned, it’s great for sharing news, company milestones, team events, pictures and your blog – anything that gives us a “behind the scenes” look at your company is ideal for Facebook.

This channel is a good way to increase the number of people that see your content; every time you post, you create an opportunity for people to share that post with their friends. Facebook also allows you to interact with people on a personal level, and since you’re not limited by how long your messages can be, you can dive into details and conversations with potential clients and customers.

[Read more…]