The pandemic is having a huge impact on small businesses, including my own. Here are a few specific strategies to weather a prolonged downturn, and an offer to use what expertise and experience I have to help you directly, one-to-one, for free.
Small Groups vs. Large Followings: Social Strategy 201
In Episode 168, I question the concept of getting a large social media following. Large numbers of “eyeballs” often don’t do us much good compared to the tight connections of smaller groups to cultivate an ardent community of supporters.
Domain Renewal Scams: How to Avoid Them
Domain scammers have upped their game. I encountered a new variant of the Domain Name Expiration Scam recently. Episode 167 is about how to spot this new strategy and what to do if you are targeted.
Measurement and Iteration: Social Strategy 201
By treating our marketing efforts like an experiment, we can set metrics, collect data, analyze the results, and then make the necessary adjustments. Episode 166 is about how to put a simple plan in action to get better results from your social campaigns.
Rethinking Our Social Media Interactions: Social Strategy 201
The algorithms are working against us now. Episode 165 offers two strategies to adapt to the new, more restrictive world of social media marketing: How to do an end-run around the algorithms, and three steps to lean into what is still the best part of social.
Social Is Not What It Used to Be: Social Strategy 201
The glory days of social are over. Free organic reach is a thing of the past. What used to work is no longer effective. So, are there still ways for us to use social media to build relationships with an audience without having to pay-to-play? Of course there are.
No One Wants to Read an Email Newsletter
Email marketing is one of the most important tools for any small business. Can we come up with something other than “email newsletter” to call it, though?
Your Facebook Page Has Been Hacked
Your business is at risk if you don’t have ownership of one of your most important assets: Your audience. While a Facebook Page is convenient for connecting with customers, what happens when your account gets hacked, deactivated, or deleted? This happened to a client of mine.
List Hygiene and Maintenance: Email Marketing 201
You can’t do good email marketing without maintaining a clean email list. Good list hygiene not only helps you save money, but it also helps you increase your open rate and click rate.
Intermediate Automation: Email Marketing 201
Automation is key to today’s email marketing. Let’s take a look some more advanced automation techniques for when you are ready to go beyond a basic email newsletter strategy: RSS-based sequences and nurture sequences.
Basic Automation: Email Marketing 201
Adding a little bit of automation to your email marketing strategy can help nurture “cold” leads without a lot of extra hands-on effort. Let’s look at two basic automations when you’re just getting started: Welcome sequences and follow-up sequences.
List Segmentation Strategies: Email Marketing 201
Good list segmentation in email marketing lies at the intersection of what’s meaningful to your audience vs. what’s important to you. If it’s one or the other, it won’t work as effectively. In practice, there are 3 distinct ways to segment your email list.
Be a Part of the Community You Serve
Participation is a signal. When you are a part of the community that you aim to serve, it shows that you’re invested. That it’s important to you. That you care. Not only is it a way to develop trust, but it can also help you see emerging trends in your sector.
Content Marketing Has Changed
Have you noticed that social media is not as effective anymore? That your website traffic is down? That people aren’t opening your email newsletters as much? Content marketing has changed – a lot – over the past 5 years alone.
Repurposing Content: Blog Strategy 201
Repurposing content is one of the best ways to get more out of your blog as a small business. With some careful planning up front, you can think a few steps ahead and save yourself time – while building a set of content as a valuable business asset.
Are You Famous?
Are you famous? Have I heard of you before? Most of us don’t have the luxury of being able to answer “yes” to these questions. In a world where attention gets more and more scarce, what can we do to overcome this – without resorting to cheap stunts?
Building Anticipation: Blog Strategy 201
Building anticipation is a terrific technique for getting readers back to your site. Producing a blog series is a great way to achieve this. It has the added benefit of an SEO boost around one of Google’s strongest ranking factors as well. There are two strategies that I use.
A Simple Example of Ethical Business Practices
It’s worth highlighting ethical business practices since they are often the exception to the rule. This week’s episode breaks from the regular format of the show and presents a story from an experience I had last weekend.
Optimizing for Search: Blog Strategy 201
Each post you publish is an opportunity to get found by a future customer. Let Google help you. Optimizing for search is one of the best things you can do for your business blog, and it should only take an extra 5-10 minutes for each post. Episode 151 goes step-by-step through my SEO Treatment Plan.
Ethical Marketing Is Not an Oxymoron
Aggressive marketing tactics might have been effective in the past, but today’s consumers are more savvy. They see right through the lies, deception, and whitewashing. Ethical marketing is the only way to set yourself apart – to treat your customers with respect.