What do you do next when you’ve set your New Year business goals and worked out what your marketing needs to look like? Think about who you want to work with. Writing content that speaks to your ideal customers means you get to work with people you love, which makes everyone happy. So, who do you want to talk to in the New Year? Here are a few ways to work it out.
Your favourite customers
Having good relationships with your customers makes life a whole lot happier. They benefit from great results, and you can work with people you like and get repeat customers. It’s essential to my business. If we don’t get on, you’re less likely to show me your personality so I can share it in your content.
Think about your favourite customers, what they have in common, and how you talk to them. That way, you can use the same language in your marketing.
Creating a connection
What do your customers like about you? We connect with people for all sorts of reasons. You might share the same sense of humour or have a similar background. Maybe your business grew out of an interest that your customers share. Sometimes, they choose your business over a similar one because they like you or your approach.
Understanding where that connection comes from helps you to write in a way that engages your current customers and attracts new ones.
What gets people talking?
If you’ve looked at your numbers, you should have a good idea about the content that engages your audience and gets people talking. I often find that my most engaging social media posts are the ones that only have a tenuous link to my work. If it’s the same for you, dig a bit deeper. What type of content gets the best response when you talk about your work? Even if it’s only a few likes, it can help you to create new ideas or use similar language.
Are you being yourself?
Putting your personality into your marketing lets you relax and have a conversation with your ideal customers. That’s the theory, at least. I know I’m not the only person who worries about oversharing and putting people off.
As you create new content, ask yourself whether the words are flowing easily or not. If you find it easier to speak naturally in videos, transcribe them and turn them into written posts. Alternatively, you can work with a writer like me who’ll listen to you talk about your business and write new content for you.
What are you offering?
Do your products and services help the people you want to work with? For example, I love working with business owners who have a marketing plan and want a writer to deliver the words. I get excited about working with new people because I want to be part of their team. I still have products and services to help people who are learning, but it’s not what I spend most of my time doing.
Ask yourself whether you’re offering services that don’t get you excited or products you’ve fallen out of love with. Could you drop them and still help the people you want to serve?
If you’ve created a plan and want help writing engaging content that lets your customers get to know you, I can help. I’ll write blogs, posts, emails and whatever else you need to engage your audience and encourage them to get in touch. If you’d like a chat to find out how it works, you can book a call here.
Or, sign up to my mailing list for hints and tips straight to your inbox every month. You can unsubscribe whenever you like.
“Of course, I didn’t realise I’d just seen a murder.”
They all stopped talking when I said that.
“You saw a what?” Thomas said, his mouth half full of the mince pie he’d shoved in moments before.
“A murder. I mean, when I saw them together, I thought they were just getting some air and he slipped. They said it was an accident. But now I look back, none of it made sense.”
“Anna, are you serious?” Vanessa was staring at me, leaning on the back of the sofa with a glass of sherry in her hand. It’s funny how all of my cousins had got to thirty and suddenly turned into our grandparents.
“Of course I’m serious. It was the view that made me remember.” I realised that my pause had lasted rather too long when I saw Daniel out of the corner of my eye, gesticulating with the remains of his mince pie. His sister Catherine was staring at me, looking rather pale.
“You know how we all joke that Gran and Gramps always put us in the same rooms as if we’re still nine instead of thirty-nine?”
“Speak for yourself,” Thomas replied. Was he still chewing the same mince pie, or had he crammed another one in?
“OK, thanks for the reminder. Anyway, I was looking out of the window in my room earlier and realised I was looking at the same view. The snow on the drive and top of the gateposts and the frosty trees beyond. It felt like I was a little girl again.”
“When was this?”
“Thirty years ago. Thomas, it was your first Christmas, so I must have been nine. Ness, you’d have been six, which means you two would probably have been too young to remember.
“But – who was m-m-murdered?” Catherine sounded terrified. There was a question. What was his name?
The Christmas routine in my grandparents’ house hadn’t changed since 1958, when they brought their first child, my Dad, home from the hospital. Christmas Eve was for church, Christmas Day for family, and Boxing Day brought their friends from the village for lunchtime cold cuts and pickled onions, followed by drinking and nibbles that could go on until the early hours. Each Christmas celebration blended into the next. The only difference was that one of Dad’s three siblings occasionally added a new cousin for me to play with. I tried to remember the man who died that day. He was a big man, tall with strong, broad shoulders and dark hair. Loud voice, too. I remember being three years old, mute and wide-eyed, when he’d burst into the room and shouted ho-ho-ho down at me. What was his name?
“Brendan. I think. Something like that. I’m sure he had an Irish accent.”
“Oh, him!” Vanessa exclaimed. “Yes, I remember him a bit. Absolutely massive and with a habit of pretending to be Father Christmas even though he never wore the suit.”
“Yes!”
“I don’t remember anything happening to him.”
“Do you remember ever seeing him again?”
Vanessa frowned slightly, then shook her head. “Now you come to mention it, I thought – actually, I don’t know what I thought. I can’t say I missed him.”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t remember anyone mentioning him again.” Vanessa’s brow was still wrinkled. “Is that odd?”
“Of course not,” Daniel replied, “would you talk about it if someone had died in your house?”
“It wasn’t in the house, though. It was out there.” I waved my hand towards the bay window. The moonlight reflected off the snow, but I could only see the outline of the cars parked outside and the gateposts beyond.
It didn’t matter whether you were a baby or a teenager. In Gran and Gramps’ house, all the children went to bed at seven o’clock. By the time Vanessa and I were teenagers, our parents had learned to bring a stash of snacks and moved the TV from one of their rooms into one of ours. As long as we kept the volume low and our giggles muted, we could chat and watch cheesy Christmas shows until we were actually ready to go to sleep. At nine, I was old enough to feel slighted at being forced into a baby’s bedtime. I had hoped that Vanessa, only three years my junior, would have joined me in protest. However, our traditional post-lunch Boxing Day walk had worked its magic, and Vanessa had to be carried up to bed halfway through the teatime buffet.
I was left, grumpy in my nightdress, to amuse myself in a bedroom that smelt of fresh paint and musty curtain fabric. Mum had left me with a torch and a copy of ‘Matilda’ along with my bedtime milk, but I was still wide awake after I finished the last few chapters. I wriggled out of the tight layers of sheets and blankets and found an eiderdown in the blanket box at the bottom of the bed. If anyone caught me, I could say I’d been cold and needed an extra blanket. It was a complete lie, of course. Gran’s bedmaking resembled something from the ‘Princess and the Pea’, except most of the layers were on top instead of underneath.
I wrapped the eiderdown around me and shuffled to the window. My room was above the drawing room, which was Gramps’ way of describing a place with sofas but no TV. The party was rumbling on below me, with indistinct music and the occasional shriek of laughter. Light from the vast bay window illuminated the snow at the front of the house and turned the parked cars into dark shapes. I recognised the outline of Dad’s trusty Ford, although the snow that had settled on the roof since we arrived on Christmas Eve gave it an odd, lumpen look. The trees kept watch in the distance, reaching their branches towards the dark velvet sky.
I winced and shrunk back from the window as the lights blazed before me. Was there a car? The sudden flare reminded me of headlights, but I couldn’t hear an engine. As I edged back towards my vantage point, I realised that someone had turned the lamps on. They were never lit, and I’d always assumed they didn’t work, but there they were, halogen bulbs blazing and turning everything behind them white. The front door swung open below, and two men emerged. I recognised Brendan immediately. He was the biggest man at the party by half a foot and at least two stones. His companion was harder to identify, but he was obviously a member of the family. All of my male relatives have the same walk—a loping gait that looked like a shrug was travelling forward. At first, I thought it might be Dad. Then the other man turned, and I realised it was Uncle Arthur. My Dad’s youngest brother was the only one of the four who hadn’t contributed any grandchildren or even a significant other. He was the funniest man I knew, always ready with a joke. At Christmas, he’d pull chocolate coins from behind my ears as if by magic. But this wasn’t the Uncle Arthur I knew.
As he turned, I saw his face, screwed up in fury. I leaned closer to the glass but couldn’t make out what he was saying. Even so, I could tell he was shouting. His mouth moved quickly, releasing droplets of spit and foam. He finally paused, and I saw Brendan amble towards him, his arms moving slowly. It was the first time I’d seen that movement, and I didn’t understand what he was doing. Now I do. He was trying to calm things down. It didn’t work. Uncle Arthur started shouting again, except now he was crying too. Why didn’t anyone else come to stop them? Were they watching from the window, expecting it all to blow over? Uncle Arthur put his face in his hands, and Brendan moved to put his arm around him. Big mistake. My Uncle grabbed him and pushed him away. Brendan slid towards the gatepost and hit it head-first. At the time, I thought it was a horrible accident—an error in judgment. Now, I remember seeing Arthur grab Brendan and check the gatepost’s position before throwing him. I remember the expression he wore as he turned back towards the house after seeing his friend’s head split open on the corner of the post. He was happy. Smug, even. I watched as he deliberately rearranged his face and screamed in horror, calling the family to help him. As the others emerged, speaking of ambulances and doctors, I realised I’d been holding my breath. I sunk back through the curtain and buried myself back under the blankets.
“Oh my God.” Everyone was wide-eyed, and only Thomas spoke, “What happened then?”
“The police were there when I got up the following morning, but I was kept out of the way. I overheard someone saying it was an accident then clamming up as soon as they saw me. There was a weird atmosphere, too. No one seemed to want to talk to each other. We all stayed together until New Year’s Day, but it was as if Gran and Gramps, and our parents, had had all the fun sucked out of them. Then suddenly, Uncle Arthur was gone.”
“I don’t remember him,” Catherine said, “is that why?”
“Yes, I think so. A few months later, Dad told me he’d got a job in Australia. I thought that meant we might be able to go and stay with him, but we never did. He never came back to visit, either. I asked about the accident once, a few years later. I wondered whether he didn’t come back because he didn’t want to think about his friend. Everyone looked at me like you did just now. Later, Mum told me I must never mention it again.”
“So, did they just send him away? Did nobody think it might just have been an accident?” Daniel looked at each of us in turn. “Couldn’t they have tried to protect him?”
“I think that’s what they were doing. Sending him away so he’d never have to face suspicion.”
We all drained our sherries and drifted off to bed after that. The last ones to turn in, perhaps as a way to finally rebel against all those early bedtimes. We might never find out why Brendan died that night and why Uncle Arthur had to leave. Perhaps someone was protecting him from suspicion. Or maybe they knew he’d meant to do it. I couldn’t have been the only person looking out of the window that night.
As we head quickly into Christmas, it’s easy to become swept up in the need to provide a perfect Christmas for those around us. We are bombarded with images of elaborate elf antics, picture-perfect Santa visits, magazine-worthy Christmas trees, matching pjs, the best presents and a list of Christmas traditions to enact.
While there is nothing wrong with finding joy in any of these activities and moments, they can easily add to our stress levels and impact our well-being in the run-up to Christmas. Here’s 5 ways to help maintain some calm and find the joy again.
1. Recognise when you are in comparison mode.
Naturally, we are interested in what’s going on around us and what others are doing. It’s in our nature to feel the need to fit in so we can feel more drawn to following what others are doing. However, we are often looking at ‘the best bits’ snippets of people’s lives and trying to recreate them, then when we bump into the normal struggles of life, we can be left feeling like we don’t quite match up. So take a moment to recognise when you are comparing your every day to someone’s best moment, then switch your focus to the best moment for you that day.
2. Take time out.
It can feel counter-intuitive to take time out when we are busy, but we need breaks. Our brains need downtime; however, the brain isn’t actually resting in downtime. When we allow our brain time to wander its actually really busy organising, sorting and often connecting the dots, it needs time to do this without us consciously giving it more tasks. So go for a walk, take a shower, have a cuppa, read a few pages of a book, find the things you can do even if it’s just for a few minutes to give your brain a break.
3. Write a list.
Every time something pops into your head that needs to be done write it down on a list. When it’s wrote down it’s easier to organise and prioritise it. When we are trying to hold everything in our brains, we struggle to prioritise and decide on its importance – everything starts to feel ‘most important’. So, write it down and then pick the thing that needs to be done first.
4. Move your body.
We are designed to move, but modern living often takes away natural opportunities to move our bodies (online shopping, electrical appliances, cars). So we have to be intentional in making sure we are moving and exercising our bodies everyday. Find the ways that work for you and try to build them in everyday, until it becomes a habit like brushing our teeth.
5. Sleep.
It’s easy for our sleep to be impacted in the run up to Christmas, but try to keep the boundaries around it. Build in good sleep habits like winding down for bed (devices off, warm baths, cool rooms etc). Its particularly important in the winter to try to get out in the daylight as soon as you can in a morning. It helps set our natural rhythms and sleep patterns.
Remember to bring it back to what you and those around you need. We are all so different and it’s ok to focus on what works best for us, I hope these tips allow you to find some calm in this period and if you’d like an extra boost head over to: https://www.vickyhaig.co.uk/try-relaxation/ where you can listen to my relaxation track for free, just make sure you are in a quiet calm place where you’re not having to do anything else, but relax.
You might not think words and numbers have much in common, apart from co-existing on a school curriculum. However, your analytics can tell you a lot about what content is striking a chord with your audience and helping you achieve your business goals. Here’s my guide to help you look at your numbers and write engaging content.
Plan your business goals
I’m not going to tell you how to set business goals. For one thing, it’s not my department. For another, your version of success might look very different from mine. However, when you’ve decided what targets you want to hit next year, think about what your marketing needs to do to achieve that. Do you need to reach more people, improve your social media engagement or increase your email subscribers? Knowing where you want people to go helps you focus on the right platforms.
Look at your numbers
You can use your marketing analytics to work out what’s working in terms of the marketing platforms you use and the type of content you create. Reviewing your numbers helps you see what’s working so you can do more of it or tweak things to test a different approach. When you talk about your business, some posts get a better response than others, often due to the language you use.
Remember that what your audience responds to can change over time; regular reviews help you stay up to date.
Think about keywords
I’m hearing more marketing professionals say that SEO is getting less effective. While that’s probably true, there’s still a place for it. Google is the first place many of us ask questions, and if you offer a service in your local area, there are still plenty of people searching ‘service + town’.
So, look at your website analytics. What keywords attracted the most visitors? Where did they go next? Did they leave or visit another page? Look at keywords, but think about the customer journey, too. When people land on your website, what do you want them to do next?
Are your sales pages working?
As the name suggests, sales pages focus on selling one product. Everything on there should be targeted towards persuading someone to decide to buy. If you’re getting lots of visitors but not many sales, look at your language. Does it help your customers understand how buying from you will help them? Does it focus on their needs or your product? If you have some sales pages that work while others don’t, compare the words. Spotting the differences can help you update existing pages to improve their performance.
Social media engagement
If reaching your goals means getting more eyes on your content, look at your social media reach and engagement. Reach is good as it means the algorithm shows your stuff to more people. When your followers engage with a post, it’ll also start showing your posts to more of their friends.
Check your analytics to see which posts got lots of reactions and comments. It shows that the post struck a chord and that you used engaging language. You can create more posts with similar subjects and analyse your tone of voice. Are you using a different style on different posts, and how does that affect the response?
If you want to write engaging content that lets your customers get to know you, I can help. I’ll write blogs, posts, emails and whatever else you need to engage your audience and encourage them to get in touch. If you’d like a chat to find out how it works, you can book a call here.
Or, for regular writing tips straight to your inbox, sign up using the form below. I’m a vegetarian so I hate spam and I’ll never share your details with anyone else.
