More Than A Few Words

I started my career in retail. As a floor manager my job was to attract customers as they walked down the aisle of the store, to pull them into the department.  I organized the racks of clothing so they would browse from one to the next and stay in the area as long as possible. Funny thing is as a web designer that's still my job. As I approach the look and feel of a web page I need to think about what will pull a reader in and get them to stay. I plan how I will connect pages and make offers on individual pages that keep visitors engaged and on the site longer. You can tell if your marketing is working when you pay attention to your bounce rate are people coming and going or are they staying hanging around and trying on a few things. LEARN MORE ABOUT BUILDING STICKY WEBSITES. https://digitaltoolbox.club/register-is-your-website-ready-for-company/

Instagram is so much more than simple an app to share images of your favorite cocktail, flower or friend.  It is a powerful business tool with four separate features, or neighborhoods as guest Kendra Swalls likes to call them.  There is your feed, stories, reels and even an Instagram live feature.  She suggests you curate your your feed to be a resource library for your clients. Reels are short snippets designed to engage prospective clients and stories are the behind the scenes looks at your business and the more personal posts for friends, family and a smaller circle of clients.  You don't need to do it all at once., experiment with one type of post before adding others.  About Kendra Kendra is a mom of 2, photographer and  educator. In 2012 she started her first business, Paisley Layne Photography, and everything changed. What started as a hobby alongside her teaching career quickly turned into a successful business. In 2017 she left her teaching career behind to run her photography business and start the

I know you’re probably just starting out in your business. It is all really exciting and new. But, right from day one, you need to be thinking about building a business that someone else will want to buy someday. To do that, you need to lay that groundwork right from the beginning. Start by creating replicable processes and standard procedures which allow others to do tasks and keep things running when you want to step out of the equation. Even if you’re not ready to sell your business those standard procedures will allow you to take the one and two week vacations that get you refreshed and ready to focus on your business renewed and enthusiastic. Start building the business you want to sell someday, today.

Geotargeting is a valuable tool if you run a local business.  Connecting with customers around the block is what drives your business.  But guest, Krystal Covington suggests it can also be a valuable tool if you have a national or even international brand.  The trick is not to try to market everywhere all at once . Instead, be strategic and select an a attractive region.  Google Trends can help you do just that.  By studying the data you can find out which key words have grown in popularity and in which markets there is more interest in that particular term.   Now, instead of trying to run a national PPC campaign you can zero in and areas with a high level of interest. 

If you're like me, you never have your best ideas when you're sitting at your desk.  It is always when you're out walking or talking to someone or driving in your car. Then by the time you get somewhere where you can write it all down and think about it, you have forgotten the idea. My tip is to get really well acquainted with the voice recording app on your phone. Anytime I have a random thought or idea, I just open it up and start recording. Sometimes I capture entire blog posts, and sometimes it's just a bunch of quick titles. Either way, I have a record of things I can use to create great marketing. Don't be tied to your desk, get out and experience things. Just take your recorder with you.

This week, I chatted with Claire Gallagher about the unique challenges creatives face as they try to work on their branding.  The rest of the world thinks designers have it easy when it comes to developing their marketing, but that isn't true.  Claire explains they often have it harder as they get lost in the weeds of the design. About Claire She is a designer and a digital strategist. She's focused on helping solo service-based businesses like coaches and creatives show up online and scale their business  

I love to tell stories. Not only because they're fun, but because they're great for business.  That's why I was excited to sit down with master storyteller, David Hutchins.  He explains, regardless of who you are or what your role is you are in, you need to tell stories.  There's lots of types of stories.  Some are great if you are in a sales role, others help leaders communicate strategic direction or reinforce culture and identity. One story type which is really powerful and every one needs to learn to tell is the story which demonstrates what you do when you are at your best.  About David David Hutchens is an author and consultant who has worked leaders in the world's most influential organizations to find and tell stories. When they do, they create engagement and belief so people will act. David has built story capability for organizations such as Google, NASA, L'Oreal Paris, FedEx, Accenture, and many more.

Social media is a lot like going to a singles bar. You're going to meet a lot of nice people and have some interesting conversations.  But at the end of the day your goal is to bring your date home. In the world of digital marketing home is your website and your email list.  This is where you can have that great one on one conversation without all the distractions like silly videos, cat pictures and baby images.  This is where you can control the conversation. As your creating marketing and advertising for social media, remember, you want to bring your date home. 

Let's start with the numbers 80% of small business owners use email marketing to get new clients and to keep their existing ones For every $1 you spend in email marketing you can expect $38 back. It is hard to ignore the numbers.  Email is still an important part of your marketing.  But, how do you grow your email list? Guest, Tai Goodwin suggests one of the best ways is to use a quiz to engage visitors, learn something about them and collect their email address.   Once you have them on you list don't just send generic information.  Use what they have told you to send them specific, relevant and personal information. LEARN MORE

Your customers want to feel special. In interactions with you, they want the conversation to be focused on their needs and concerns. To communicate that focus in your marketing campaigns, add a little personalization to improve your ability to attract the attention of prospective customers. With so much business conducted remotely and online, it feels as if we have lost that “personal touch.” But it doesn’t have to be that way. Companies willing to invest in getting to know more about customers and prospects can build a competitive advantage using marketing personalization.  What is personalization? Personalization stars with understanding the demographics, behavior, and motivation of your customers and using that data to create marketing on every platform from social media and email to direct mail and one-to-one selling.   WANT TO LEARN MORE? CHECK OUT OUR WEBINAR ON THIS TOPIC

If you have been around the  business community as long as I have, or maybe even half as long you know there are cycles. There are ups and there are downs.  They way to survive the downs is to be prepared. In this conversation, frequent guest Matt Nettleton, shares tips to build a process to recession proof your business. He describes three things you need to have in place as we head into what may be a bumpy economy.  A formal sales process Technology in place to to basically systematically track your sales process Clear understanding of your story.  What makes you different and why people should buy from you.  Be sure to look for some of our earlier conversations with Matt Nettleton 

There is this wonderful song written by Peter Allen in the 1970 s.  Everything old is New Again. In a way that song sums up where marketers are these days. When that song was written fifty years ago, television advertising ruled. Businesses used the platform to build awareness by reaching a wide audience with little concern about demographics. It didn't matter who saw your message as long as you got in front of as many people as possible. The assumption was sooner or later someone would buy. Then along came digital media and especially social media marketing and suddenly marketers could target messages more precisely based on interests and demographics. Social media became a valuable tool to move prospects through the buyer's journey. Unfortunately with changes in social media algorithms and more restrictions to protect user privacy we seem to be back in time.  We are forced to put lots of broad messages out there in  the hopes of driving someone to our website and email list. Everything old is new again.  If

You spend all of your resources trying to drive people to your website. But what do they do when they get there? Well if you goal is to generate leads and build your email list that's where a great landing page comes in.    Co-hosts of the System to Thrive Podcast, Jennie Wright and Alyson Lex say  your page has to grab their attention right away and that's a combination of how the page looks and the copy that's on the page. We buy with emotion and justify with logic, so the page needs to feed both parts of the customer.  About Jennie and Alyson Jennie Wright has produced over 500 list builds - summits, challenges, giveaways and webinars. She’s the List Build and Lead Generation Strategist you want on your side when you’re committed to organic growth of your list, community and profits.   Alyson Lex has written millions of words of high-converting copy since 2007 - and those millions of words have translated to millions of dollars in revenue for her clients. She’s the High Conversion Sales Copy Expert you wan

One of my all-time favorite movies is The Sound of Music. While I love most of the songs, the scene where Maria teaches the children to sing, is definitely on top of my list. say. She explains, when you read you begin with ABC, when you sing you begin with Do Rei Mi. She breaks down all of singing into those three simple notes. It occurred to me while I was watching the rerun the other night that marketing has three little notes as well, the customer, their problem and your solution. If you master those three elements your marketing will be singing in no time!  

Scott Murray thinks today's marketers have to stop selling, promoting and clinging to outdated strategies and tactics.  Instead they need to create content to spark engagement,  conversation and inspiration from their audience.    As we've moved from print to digital, control has shifted from the marketer to the consumer.  They decide when they will stop and look at your content and when they will scroll right by.  To earn their attention,  you need to put the right content on the right platforms.  And don't be afraid to share information.  Some of the best content answers real questions prospects have when they are ready to buy.    About Scott With 20 years of experience in content marketing and production - which evolved from print to video, podcast & social media, Scott is the host of the GET THE MESSAGE podcast.   

How well is your business performing?  Key Performance Indicators help you answer that question.  A KPI is  a quantifiable measure of performance over time for a specific objective. KPIs provide targets to shoot for, milestones to gauge progress, and insights to help you make better decisions. A few things to keep in mind as you establish your KPI’s Directly tied to your objective. There are many things you can measure in your business, but KPIs are a unique subset which can be directly tied to an end result. What types of things should you consider to be KPI’s? For each business it’s different depending on what you are trying to accomplish including but not limited to: increased sales, reduced turnover, improved efficiency, and reduced errors. Easily and exactly measurable. If it’s hard to collect the data, you probably won’t do it on a regular basis. If the metric is vague, it’s too easy to fool yourself into thinking you are close to your goal when you aren’t. Action oriented. Each metric should have a spe

If you're like most business owners you've set lots of goals and in your life and you've never fulfilled them. It not be the goal, but because your decision making process that is creating the failures. Debra Sunderland explains we have three decision centers the head, heart and gut.  To often we let the head make the plans.  The problem is our brain, in an attempt to protect us, anticipates risk and sets limits. She advocates for letting your heart and your passion drive your goals. About Debra Sunderland Debra Sunderland knows what it takes to move from defensive thinking to conscious leadership. She spent her whole life as an overachiever and thanks to a near-death cycling accident, she has made it her life’s mission (and her team’s) to coach CEOs, executives, and leaders to accept their Genuis-Ship (link to the definition of this) and become the conscious leader that they are called to be in order to be clear to do what they are here to do.    

When you started your business you probably assumed that sooner or later you would get around to building a life to go with it.  According to guest Nicole Bandes, that is not necessarily the best way to approach things. She believes you can actually build a successful business around your amazing life. The trick is to stop defining success based on how others define it and focus on what is important to you. Then understand that you won't find balance, because life is not 50/50.  There are times your business will need more attention, and it is ok to do that, as long as you also make time for the other things in your life.    About Nicole After losing her 17 year old son, Nicole Bandes discovered her purpose: encourage others to make time for what matters most. In 2017, Nicole founded Virtual A Team, a virtual services agency helping overwhelmed coaches and consultants who want to define success by the wealth of their lives, not the size of their bank accounts. Nicole now walks the walk working less than 20 ho

----more----Every woman has that little black dress in her wardrobe. Classic in design it is not too trendy and not too stodgy.  It is incredibly versatile. With the right accessories, jackets, scarves or cool shoes it is perfect for every occasion, year in and year out.  And every smart marketer knows that email is their little black dress. It goes well with all of the other elements in your marketing wardrobe. From the hottest marketing trend to the most basic marketing campaign, email makes all your other marketing more effective.  Updating your website? Promote it on email. Building your social community? Reconnect with your audience through email. As you're planning your marketing wardrobe for next season, don't forget email, your little black marketing dress. 

So you think you've got distractions and can't start a business. Well my guest, Renee Harris has nine children and still found a way to build a six-figure business.  How did she balance the demands of a family and the demands of running a business? Renee explains. " We didn't start with 9 kids when we started a business and just like when you have kids normally you don't get them all at once and normally a business doesn't just fall in your lap. "  She didn't try to do everything at once, focusing on a few things and let the business and the family grow.  She built strategies to engage her children in the process and keep them occupied, when she needed to work on the business.   About Renee She is the founder of MadeOn - a unique handcrafted skincare product  line specifically for dry, cracked skin. What started as a simple farmer's market booth has grown into 6-figure online business.  She has also raised 9 children along the way, teaching them business skills and strategies to develop a marketable talent t