by tradesmeninsights | Jan 16, 2013 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
You may have some of the best content in the world, but if no one reads it, what’s the point? I recently read a post by Heidi Cohen, 13 Ways to Maximize Content Marketing Effectiveness that got me to thinking about getting back to the basics and making the effort of writing posts to pay off.
Here are some thoughts:
- Come up with a strong headline – we have less than 3 seconds to capture attention. Make your headline make the reader stop.
- Use images – a picture or graphic is worth its weight in gold. We are a visual society and the right image will help keep the reader on the page.
- Get to the point – now that you’ve captured their attention, dive into the meat of what you want to say at the beginning.
- You don’t have to have all the answers – link to relevant content. It reinforces the point that others share your point of view.
- Get them to react – we need to add a call-to-action or ask for comments to get the readers involved. If they share the same opinion on the subject, I’m sure they would have something to contribute to the conversation.
Those are my thoughts. I’d like to hear what you’re doing to get more readership.
If you like this post, you might like:
What Are You Doing to Ensure Your Content Marketing is Selling For You?
Is Content Marketing the New Branding?
How Are You Managing Your Content Marketing?
by tradesmeninsights | Jan 15, 2013 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
Now that the holidays are behind us and we’re all getting back to reality, I thought I’d share some thoughts on what we’re going to do to create better content this year. I was inspired by a post my friend Joe Pulizzi wrote, 42 Content Marketing Ideas for 2013. Thanks Joe for the inspiration!
Top 10 things I’m going to try to do this year to have better content:
- Less content will mean more impact – make content more meaningful.
- Find at least 3 other thought leaders in your company – build them into your plan.
- Develop a list of the top 100 questions coming from your customers – then write to them.
- Sit down with every salesperson and ask them what their customers biggest pain points are – then address them.
- Define your most targeted audience and consider doing a targeted print publication.
- Assign someone to slide share to figure out how we can get the most out of it.
- Make sure every content marketing landing page has only one call to action.
- Develop a series of stories for your industry on an aspect no one has covered before – what better way of becoming a thought leader.
- Double the number of email subscribers to your blog.
- Commission a piece of research that is important to your audience.
Those are going to be my goals for 2013; what are yours?
by tradesmeninsights | Jan 9, 2013 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
I know we’re all faced with many challenges in our daily grind, but if you had to name just one thing that keeps nagging at you from a marketing angle, what would it be?
One of my biggest challenges is to keep up with our social media activities. Even though I’ve been doing it now for almost 3 years, it’s labor intensive and I always seem to run out of time even after I’ve delegated some of the activities off to other associates.
Sometimes it’s better to slow down and remember some of the basics like talking face-to-face to your customers. You get so much more from a one-on-one conversation, but we normally don’t have time to do that.
So what’s keeping you up at night?
by tradesmeninsights | Jan 8, 2013 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Social Marketing
SlideShare is gaining traction more and more and it’s not just for slides. SlideShare is averaging over 60 million visits a month and 120 million page views. That means great traction for your SEO and you can target buyers/influencers via tags and channels (customize content).You can also use it for lead generation and there’s a great post in social media examiner,how to generate leads with slideshare that you may find interesting
It’s now owned by LinkedIn and they are doing a great job making it easy to connect with your LinkedIn contacts and groups.
So if SlideShare is becoming so important, we should start paying attention to the details on what and how things should be put up there. I recently read an article by Roger C. Parker in the Content Marketing Institute’s daily updates on a to-do check list (you can download it here) to make sure you’re getting the most out of SlideShare.
He outlines 22 tips on proofing, uploading files and even tips on working with PowerPoint. Here are a few of his points that hit home with me:
- Are slide titles and text consistently placed and aligned?
- Other than the title slide, are they numbered?
- Does your presentation title appear at the top of each page?
- Did you add your firm’s name, URL and contact info at the bottom of each page of your handouts?
- Did you convert presentation files to Adobe Acrobat to preserve text formatting?
- Did you check each link after uploading to make sure they work?
- Did you create links between SlideShare and social media sites like LinkedIn and Twitter?
I guess the point is the devil is in the details and if we all take some time, we’ll get more out of our efforts on SlideShare. Roger suggested if you want to learn more you could read The Marketer’s Guide to SlideShare by Todd Wheatlan.
by tradesmeninsights | Dec 12, 2012 | Marketing Tips
Podcasts are a very popular medium today and rightfully so. Podcasts can add another dimension to your audience as they can hear the voice behind the words.
You can also put them on iTunes which can give you access to more potential customers who are searching for info on key subjects by key words or phrases. Don’t be obsessed with the number of people who listen to your podcast but more on the quality of them.
There are several ways that you can use podcasts to get to the professional tradesmen. Here are a few to consider:
- You initiate them. You can talk about issues affecting the tradesmen and possible solutions they could consider.
- You can interview industry experts or association leaders that can talk about everything from legislative issues that might relate to your business in the future, or talk about things you can do now to improve your business.
- Be a guest on someone else’s podcast. There are bloggers out there that target the same types of audiences you do. Follow them for a while, and if you determine it would be a good fit, contact the blogger and ask if they would consider doing a podcast with you. You’ll need to lay out the reasons why you think you can contribute to their audience and propose several topics for discussions. Don’t know any bloggers? Go to iTunes and type in under podcasts some of the key words that you are associated with. You’d be surprised at the number of podcasts that already exist. Listen to a few and contact the originator.
Podcasts help set you apart and be known as not only an industry leader, but if you do your own podcasts and get guests to interview, it will also show that you are wired to the right people who can give a different view or experience that will help your listener. It’s a win-win for everyone.
Happy Podcasting!
