content marketing Archives - Page 12 of 12

Posted on 13th August 2019 by Kirsty France — Leave a comment

What marketing training do you need for your team?

marketing training team If you’re a larger organisation it can be easy to think of marketing as part of someone else’s job description. It’s easy to understand why. If your business has invested in employing marketing professionals why not rely on them to do the heavy lifting? Leave the marketing training sessions to small business, sole traders and network marketing companies. The truth is that even when marketing isn’t your primary responsibility it doesn’t mean that you can’t play your part. After all, as far as your customers are concerned, every employee represents your brand. The question is, what do you need your team to do and what marketing training do they need?

Social media

You might justifiably think that this is one to leave to the marketing team. When it comes to posting to official business accounts, you’d be right. However, you’d still be wise to consider what your team are doing on their own social media. If your employee is making offensive comments or acting in a way that could reflect badly on your business, it’s best to know about it sooner rather than later. Of course, some people make it easy. The annals of internet history are littered with stories of people who were sacked because they forgot they were Facebook friends with their boss.

The kind of training you’ll need to provide here is probably best lead by HR as it’ll need to be in line with company policies. It’s also a fine balancing act between protecting your business reputation and preventing your employees from posting anything vaguely interesting.

Expos

Personally, I love business expos. I get to wander round chatting to people and they’re also an excellent source of free stationery. However, I say this as someone who has never had to spend an entire day standing at a stall. Engaging with potentially hundreds of people to create the right first impression over the course of a day takes stamina.

You might think that it’s just a matter of sending the right people. However, even your most loquacious employees might need help. An expo is no different from any other marketing platform in that your message needs to focus on your customer. A monologue about your services isn’t going to help anyone. I’d suggest that a workshop style briefing session would be the ideal pre-expo training. Firstly, the team develop questions to get visitors talking. Then they think about potential answers and how your services would be of benefit. Your staff sound knowledgeable and visitors get to hear about stuff they’re actually interested in.

Blogging

Depending on your business you might already have members of your team writing articles for various platforms. This may have lead you to believe that you don’t need to blog. The truth is that they’re not exactly the same thing. (For more on why, read this.)

Blogging is one of the most effective ways of humanising your business. People often see corporate businesses as remote and think that you might blind them with science. A business blog can, on one level, demonstrate your expertise if you let the marketing team do it. However, if you delegate some of the blogging to employees you get a unique perspective each time. It shows your customers that you’re approachable and not just a corporate stone edifice.

If your teams (even your marketing team) have never blogged before, there are some great workshops available that will take you through the basics from choosing topics to editing. It probably won’t surprise you to learn that I offer one and will bring it to you – sign up using the form below to find out more.

However you market your business it’s always worth getting your employees involved by offering them the right training support.

Why you need to know the difference between articles and blogs

difference between articles and blogs Businesses come in all shapes and sizes, from the sole trader working at home to massive multinationals. The main differences in their marketing strategies tend to come down to budget. If you’re a one person business you’re unlikely to be able to afford to plaster your message on a city centre billboard or nab an ad slot in the middle of ‘Coronation Street’. On the other hand, creating written content is accessible to everyone. Any business can create a blog, but a lot of the people I talk to tell me that they don’t need to as they’re already writing articles. The fact is, while there are similarities they aren’t the same thing. Here’s why.

Articles are on someone else’s platform

For the purposes of this blog I’m lumping all articles together. In reality, there are hundreds of different outlets for articles. You could be featured in a local magazine or in a professional journal that’s targeted at a specific industry. Finding the right outlet is crucial to raising your profile. When I was a solicitor one of our partners used to write articles about legal issues for food industry journals to showcase his expertise. If you’re offering a service that’s accessible to the general public a local magazine could help you to reach potential customers.

The big difference between these kinds of articles and your own blog is that the articles are all on someone else’s platform. You don’t get to choose how they’re promoted or if you get to publish them at all. An editor has to think about what message will appeal to their readers and it might not be the one you want to send.

Different tones

In marketing it’s important to tailor the tone of voice you use to the platform as well as your audience. If you write articles for a local magazine your tone might be quite similar to that of a blog. By contrast, the difference in tone between a blog and a professional journal article is going to be pretty big.

I find that a lot of professional people shy away from writing blogs because they think it looks unprofessional. A serious article enhances their reputation but a blog might make them look frivolous. I’m generalising here, of course – some of my blog writing clients are very serious businesses. The key difference is that whilst articles make you look professional, a blog makes you look human. They can both win you clients but for very different reasons.

Your audience

When you write an article for a magazine, do you know who is going to read it? You might have been given information about circulation so you know where it’s distributed or who the audience is. It doesn’t tell you who puts it straight in the bin. Even regular readers might stick to their favourite articles and ignore yours completely. The only way you’ll know if your articles have been an effective marketing tool is if someone mentions it when they get in touch.

Now I know that you might have the same issue with your blog. You can’t control who visits your website or whether Facebook shows your post sharing the link to anyone useful. But you can see the data on how many people are reading and where they’re based. You can also run adverts promoting key pieces of content and targeting them at specific people. The results might still be hit and miss but at least you have a fighting chance of discovering what worked and what didn’t.

If you’d like to learn to write blogs, or how to shift your tone from writing articles to something more customer friendly, I’m here to help. Sign up using the form below to find out more about my 1:1 and small group training.

Posted on 24th July 2019 by Kirsty France — Leave a comment

Why you need a fresh perspective on your marketing content

Fresh perspective content When you first start marketing your business it’s all trial and error. You might find that one post is a hit then something similar completely flops. Over time you can start to build up a picture of what your audience responds to and where your customers are coming from. Of course, it’s never quite that simple. Your customers’ needs change over time and external trends have a big part to play in that. Sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s having an impact on your business and what changes you might need to adapt to in the future. Getting a fresh perspective on your marketing content can help you to stay relevant and grow your business. Here’s why.

Getting stuck in your own head

Are you stuck in a rut? If you’ve been marketing your business in the same way for a while, you could be. That’s not necessarily a bad thing if you’re still getting a steady flow of customers. Unfortunately it could trip you up in the long run. Retail has changed completely in the last ten years, with more and more people shopping online. The companies that have survived are the ones who built or adapted their business to suit. If you follow the same marketing formula all of the time without getting a different perspective you’ll get bored and so will your audience.

I freely admit that I’m terrible for getting bogged down with my own thoughts. In fact, it often means that I go round in circles! We all need to look around to see what‘s happening out there once in a while.

Talking to your customers

If you’re fed up of the sound of your own voice, you probably need to listen to someone else’s. Talking to your customers is a great way to track changes in your target market. Of course, it has its limitations. As Henry Ford said, if he’d asked his customers what they wanted they’d have said a faster horse. But asking your customers what challenges they’re facing and how they want to shop can give you valuable insights into how their lives are changing over time. Maybe they’ve stopped watching video and started listening to podcasts because they’re more convenient. Perhaps there’s a challenge they’re facing that you have a solution for – you just need to shift your focus and talk about it more.

This doesn’t just apply to your customers, of course. Talking to other business owners about what’s happening with them can help you to discover what subjects people are interested in. You just have to keep your ears open.

How you can get a fresh perspective on your content

If your conversations with your customers and networking colleagues lead you to a new type of content creation or if you discover that the tone of voice you use isn’t winning you fans any more you’ll need to change your approach.

We’re still in holiday season as I write this. A change of scenery can be ideal for getting you out of your own head. Sometimes issues with your content arise because you’ve drifted too far from your original message. The values that people connected with have been lost over time. If your holiday allows you some quiet time, use it to remind yourself who you want to serve and how you can do that. Talk to your family (or yourself if you feel like it) and listen to the phrases that you use. Those are the ones you need to include. Alternatively, go and get some training to learn about the kind of content you want to create, or to improve your technique.

If you’d like to get some training to help you get started creating a blog for your business, or to improve the content you already have, sign up to my mailing list using the form below to find out more about my small group and 1:1 training.

Category: content marketing