What exactly is missing from your content marketing strategy?

It's early 2015 and as per the marketing experts - content marketing still is going to be the major focus.

But are you ready with your content plan for the year 2015?

With every brand producing content on daily basis, standing out is a challenge. This is where I take a lot of motivation from the creative industry, where the actual contents are produced - particularly movies and TV series. They create high quality contents every year and handle to pull it off. If you listen to good movie directors with regards to their methods, they would simply state that “the story was truly worth telling”.

Hence it doesn't matter if your competitors are speaking about the same story, you as a brand must discover your own means of telling it - give it a new point of view.

So what exactly is that secret ingredient for content marketing? You could fully understand your audience’s need, get content writers, designers and all the resources you'll need - what are the possibilities you will fail? From my experience you'll still fail if you don’t have that one major ingredient - honesty.

'Sex sells' is an outdated adage which can be replaced with 'Honesty sells'. When you're creating content, if you're not honest about it, the market will quickly recognize it. A piece of excellent and honest content is exactly what everyone is looking for, it's your job as a brand to present that content.

Do not be delusion by different approaches and methods; simply say what you want to with self-worth. There is absolutely no way why audience would not go through your story and connect. As I have mentioned in my presentation ‘Value of Content’. Content should make the audience feel something.

With honesty comes passion, both together can really help your brand produce scalable content. This is exactly why user-generated contents are powerful because they are created with genuine feeling and passion. The other important aspect with honesty and passion is that you will never be driven by vanity metrics for measuring its success. The satisfaction of creating a great content itself will drive you and keep you going for a long.

In content marketing, patience is important. People are not going to know about your content the minute you post them, it will take time. Hence if you keep producing authentic content and actively pursue platforms to advertise them, you will finally get the place of adulation which you are searching for. Several brands stop due to disappointment and go to different strategy, don’t make this happen.

Ways of Turning Your Existing Customers into Extraordinary Brand Advocates

Acquiring customers is good. Keeping customers is how you stay in business.

For small business owners, an excellent state is to create a customer base that generates new customers. Not only will loyal customers revisit themselves, they’ll also turn into a linchpin of your marketing efforts.

•              88% of consumers read reviews to determine the level of quality of a local business

•              72% of consumers say that positive reviews help them to trust a local business more

•              Only 12% don't read reviews

Consumers trust other consumers a lot more than an unfamiliar brand. Listed below are 7 ways to turn your current customers into your company’s most vocal advocates.

1. Encourage them to create online reviews.

You need to decide what makes sense for your business. Some brands supply benefits for positive reviews; others purely mention it at brick-and-mortar locations or in emails. The point is to carefully remind your satisfied customers that a review from them will mean a lot, without being manipulative.

2. Use email marketing to increase brand loyalty.

Email loyalty campaigns are amongst the best emails you’ll ever send. 72% of email marketer’s rate email loyalty campaigns as very effective and 21% rate them as considerably effective. That’s a high percentage of marketers who rely on email for customer retention. Include things like useful, newsworthy, or money-saving content in your email campaigns to motivate subscribers to forward to their friends and family.

3. Be proactive about customer service.

Offer customer service before they even request it. This is the type of customer service that spurs serious brand loyalty and evangelism.

4. Make beneficial content and present it at relevant times.

During customer service phone calls, in the body copy of customer support emails, or on your website and blog, put links to follow-up articles that respond to logical next-step inquiries. One example is, if you’re detailing the way to build an initial profile on your app, offer follow-up content that describes ways to use the profile’s more advanced features. It’s all about being a step ahead in the customer trip.

5. Inquire about what they need.

This can be as formal or informal as you choose. You can either set up a one-time or ongoing “meeting of the minds” among your most loyal customers, or simply just ask for feedback in person, over the phone, or on digital media when interacting with customers. The thing is to have feedback on how you’re doing and what products could be more desirable.

6. Take some short-term profit losses in exchange for long-term benefits.

Although it costs a lot more to receive a returned item or comp a service, it’s still cheaper than having to gain back that customer’s commitment all over again. Worse, a disgruntled customer may harm your SMB’s reputation on social media or review sites with long-lasting results. Chalk up these short-term losses to the long-term benefit from keeping a brand advocate.

7. Constantly make advancements to your core products and offerings.

There's nothing much easier to recommend than an outstanding product or service. At the same time, no amount of excellent customer service or marketing can deal with a poor product. As much focus as you put into customer satisfaction, you must simultaneously be searching for approaches to build your core offerings tempting.

Your most loyal customers also are your SMB’s main advocates. They’re people who will endorse your services, join your newsletter, make online reviews and tweet about you (and not just with their complaints). Everything you do to preserve these customers and keep them satisfied is an important investment in your company’s longevity.

Marketing Magic

Many years ago, marketing was all about signage and the Yellow Pages. Fast forward 50 years and though the ways perhaps have changed, the general concept of marketing has stayed the same - effectively get in touch with prospective customers concerning the value of your product or service. In this particular digital age, on the other hand, the number of ways to communicate has grown exponentially, leading marketers to operate complex and complicated campaigns both on and offline.

At least that’s what should be taking effect. At the mention of complex and complicated, you start to drop people. The funny thing is that people are complex and complicated. It’s human nature of having diversity in thoughts, feelings, memories, and beliefs. For a marketer to function, they must have an understanding of this psychology and build their campaigns around it, even if it is more work.

Prevent Tunnel Vision

Working on a single channel can result in certain failure. Maybe failure is an overstatement, but anticipating anything further than marginal success is ridiculous. The magic takes place when marketing evolves to suit the multi-touch world we are in. Every day you watch commercials, tune in to the radio, make an online purchase, use your cell phone, and do 50,000 other activities, most likely at the same time. People are no longer satiated carrying out just one thing. The new norm is to multitask so it only makes sense to try to get in touch with people in any and all means possible.

Uncover Jacks Of All Trades

This is when it gets complicated for marketers. To be effective involves an in-depth, and yet varied, understanding set that is less likely to exist in a single person. Not many people know enough about PPC tactics and printed collateral and social media and everything else to carry out multi-touch promotions flawlessly. The truth is, you must know enough to know that you don’t know everything. That’s when you hire someone (or begin to read every blog you can get your hands on) to fill up each gap.

Have A Plan

Once you’ve got the appropriate people, get the right plan in place. Think of your consumers and potential customers. More importantly, try to think like they think. Where would they go? What would they do? Who'd they speak to? Identify each channel that details your target market and build out campaigns, ensuring you’ve got the right imagery and messaging for each and every mode. 

Busy moms don’t have time to talk to a salesman for 10 minutes and senior citizens aren’t likely to be spending their days playing games on their mobile (unless it’s Words With Friends). Once you understand these doings and build campaigns to match them, the magic will begin.

Soon enough, you’ll seemingly be everywhere. Suddenly, they know your name, but they’re not really sure where they first heard about you. They’ve have a general thought of what your product or service is, they remember seeing something about you online and they’ve got a image in their head of what your logo is. You’ve reached them in every way that matters to them and it’s paid off. Now, let’s hope you’ve implemented multi-touch attribution at the same time.

Growing Your Business by Innovation

Obtaining Growth by Great Ideas

A primary source of progress is by product innovation or marketing ideas. Getting more people to purchase your product is achieved either by product innovation or fresh ideas to advertise your product. By their very nature, new ideas are creative. Offering ways to problems is important. They assist to fulfill the customer’s needs and gives differentiation from the competition.

Let's take a look at marketing and advertising a home builder through signage. At its core, signage carries a specific function - to communicate. When a sign works well, it allows the individual looking at the sign to make smart, profitable and helpful choices. Signs can be regarded as one of the following or all: Information, Direction, Identification, and Safe practices or Regulatory. However signage does not have to be boring. There are plenty of sign manufacturing companies available but deciding on who to employ to promote your product should not be a difficult method.

A number of sign companies are frightened to push the envelope. But in today’s competitive market, creativity and originality gives you the extra push in getting you noticed by nowadays smart buyers. Search for a sign company that not simply produces and installs your product but designs the product. They have to be able to pay attention to all your views and ideas so that they can really push the envelope. Don't be afraid of creativity and new ideas. 

Most great ideas originated from marketers who understand your product, have many years innovating and making award winning designs and are willing to take a risk. So there are opportunities to work with sign manufacturers that can push the overall aesthetic to an enhanced sign design that can bring more customers to your community.

So don't be afraid to look at different sign companies and come across a sign manufacturer that is capable to try out designs by experimenting with color, font, shape, texture and production. If it will cost you a bit more but the result sets you apart from another builder in the same community, isn't the extra cost worth every penny.

Choosing the Right Social Media for your Company

Currently there are billions of people today registered on the major social media sites. It’s good to create a presence on all the major social networking websites, but it’s more important to be active on the networks that are most appropriate to your business. There are a few differences between the major social media sites, and tapping into the suitable channels is the key to creating the most of your time and energy

To discover out which platform is perfect for your business, consider some of the following:

•           Facebook is the undisputed leader in sheer size. It draws in a diverse crowd which is made up of all people from students to professionals. Facebook works extremely well by nearly any business to tap into potential customers and fans, but it also has such a various and massive crowd that it takes effort and hard work to create your niche on Facebook.

•           LinkedIn is the only significant social media site which specializes in professional industries. The connections you develop on LinkedIn may be harder to find, but with the right circumstances they can be tremendously useful. There are also some features not present for LinkedIn company pages, such as ratings and reviews, which one can find on other networks.

•           Twitter makes social media dead simple, but additionally it reduces much of the features you find on other networking sites. Twitter is a beneficial tool for building a social media channel with minimal effort, and is incredibly famous. But it also lacks in brand definition and extra features that networks like Facebook provide. There's also specific segments of the population that aren’t pleased with the kind of connections that Twitter offers.

•           YouTube is among the more neglected yet most widely used social media sites. It's well known YouTube as a video sharing site, but it also lets people follow your updates and it enables businesses and professionals to build channels to feature their content. YouTube is an ideal platform for releasing catchy videos and resources that users might find useful. It can also help to gain more outstanding results in Google.

•           Google Plus has a massive number of users due to the integration with Google search and Google Accounts, but it also has restricted reach within many social groups. Local businesses will see it to be a great tool because it permits companies to integrate more tightly with Google search results and local search.

•           Pinterest is a completely unique social media site and that it revolves around photos. This is an great spot for businesses to build their brand and culture by posting exceptional and great images that individuals can share. Posting images of unique products utilized, prototype products or concepts can be a great way to get people speaking about your brand and passing easy to digest pictures around the web.

As pointed out, the effective way for any business to use social media marketing is to get involved on the appropriate level on all the major social networking sites. However for most small businesses, you must draw the line somewhere as you've restricted resources and time. By evaluating and deciding on the right social media networks to get involved in, you can increase your investment and make sure that your hard work pays off in the long run.

One Deadly Error to prevent in Change Management

Leading change is really a challenging process all the way up from the start to the end. In every single of the stages there are various things to be aware of in order not to turn into a real mess. The bigger the change, the higher the chances for the mess and worse is the outcome of it. This is even more true and possible with the changes which involve an enormous number of people or a big organization in whole. In cases as such professional change management is always welcome and highly recommended.

It is a tricky procedure and there are numerous aspects to pay attention to. However one of them particularly should not be ignored and must not turn wrong if we want to effectively apply the change. That's open two-way communication with all relevant stakeholders.

The change management method has other important aspects and elements like analyzing, planning, envisioning, equipping, leading, monitoring, empowering, determining objectives and quick wins, stakeholder management etc. But yet, communication is the most vital component of the entire process and this is why.

Communication is the aspect that moves us through successful management of the change process starting from the pre-change phase when everyone is sitting comfortable in their status-quo positions. 

Communication is necessary to relocate them from that position and out of their comfort zone without creating stress, stress and resistance. So for you to even start the change you need open two-way communication which will consist of all necessary information on the current situation, the desire for the change and the perspective of what the progress will bring. This part is crucial for successful and clean management of the process that comes after. If the initial communication turns wrong, then everything will most probably go wrong, also, or in best instance will need a lot more energy to solve it.

Basically, people today allow changes very personally. It is in human nature to be fearful of the unknown. Changes create a lot of worries which generates resistance and opposition. In this phase the excellent task would be to win people over, to reduce anxiety and inspire them to get involved in building the change. This is all down to proper change management based upon solid communication plan that can present open, continuous and consistent communication.

When the change process is on its way, communication could be used to envision, motivate and inspire but also to maintain all stakeholders informed concerning the status, what's been achieved and what’s next. Communication is also the foundation for organization, reporting and managing the change all through the process.

At the end of the process, communication could be used to sum up and celebrate the success. Both, though strictly connected to the respective change process, also benefit future change projects. In that particular direction, summing up provides valuable lessons learned that can be utilized in the future, while celebrating and acknowledging will lift the team spirit and prepare it for new obstacles.

Without proper communication, all process phases along with other aspects and elements will be in danger. The method itself will be a battle rather than a well managed project. So the # 1 dangerous mistake that can ruin your whole project is the insufficient proper on time open two-way communication.

Run Your Business -- Don't Let It Run You

Probably the most essential concepts of being a business owner is always to run your company; do not let it run you. To run your business is to establish a vision of what is attainable. a vision that is certainly greater than doing the day-to-day work associated with your ability or trade. To lead your company is to make a path based upon your strengths and to take inventory of your flaws for you to fill in the spaces.

To run your business is to take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves and to find the resources you'll need. To run your business is being aware of the limiting beliefs that you hold and replace all of them with beliefs that will push you forward, keep you motivated and encourage you. To run your business is to own a business and also a balanced life, not have the business run you.

Letting your business run you will mean that:

•           You are satisfied with exactly what is and ignore what can be.

•           You spend your time carrying out the daily tasks that you are familiar with and at ease doing.

•           You are the business that without your energy and time, the business is absolutely nothing.

To discover if you're operating your business or if it is running you, have a day to day activities checklist for one week. Every 30 to 60 minutes, momentarily end whatever you are accomplishing and create a note of the things you did during that period of time.

Make your notes brief - you don't need to write a novel and you don't wish to take more time writing your notes than having the work done. You should not judge the activities you are writing down, just simply write them down. You will evaluate your activities with your coach when you're finished picking up your notes for one week.

After seven days of writing down your activities, take a good look at everything you have written.

•           How are you spending your time?

•           Where is your focus going?

•           What do your activities say about precisely how you are leading your business?

Being a business owner means taking accountability for the business that you've developed. It's not hard to be resentful of all the time it takes to operate a business. Put one eye on the future and determine where you would like your business to be in 1 year, 5 years, ten years and 20 years. Then put your other eye on what is happening in the business right now. A business owner can all together hold the two existing reality and future possibilities.

You will be amazed to see the outcome of this exercise.