Email Marketing Archives

Content Marketing: Are You Leaving Money On The Table?

Content marketing is something that is close to my heart as a marketer. I am very much the content marketing evangelist and have spoken quite extensively about it. In my Icelandic online training program there is a very big module about marketing communications and as I am reworking the materials in English (my training will be launched internationally next year) the realisation just hits me again and again how large a part of modern marketing content marketing is.

Amongst other things, the marketing communications part of my training covers the marketing process, how marketing activities must work together for optimum results, and then I list a great big menu of marketing communications tools and activities that SMBs and entrepreneurs have at their disposal.

To make sense of the myriad of things out there, I have prioritised the options and given examples of what activities are most suitable for what types of businesses. As I went through the list of only the most important things to do in marketing, just the ones that hardly any business can go without today, it became increasingly clear that in today’s business world content marketing is not an option but a necessity. It is something that we are all doing and all need to do if we are in business, and its importance will only increase in the future. It is literally everywhere!

Below are a few places where content marketing comes into play – and many of us don’t even realise it! [Read more…]

I Love It When People Can’t Stand Me!

I met a friend and former colleague the other day. She asked me what reaction I had got to my last blog post and email I sent out to my followers. The reason she asked was that someone had come to her and expressed her dislike. That person did not know how to react to my email, whose subject was: “No one wants to be an ass, do they, …?” It was clear that this person was offended by this.

My friend did ask them whether they had actually read the email, and it turns out that they did not, so there was no way they were going to get the joke – oh well…

My reaction: Sheer joy! I thought it was great! OK – please don’t get me wrong. It was not my intention to make that person feel bad in any way and I am sorry for that. However, I am very very happy when someone really hates the stuff that I do. Why? Because if someone hates it, it is more likely than not that someone completely loves it! And that is what I want.

Eenie Meenie Miney Moe

I have said it before and I’ll say it again. Marketing is all about building relationships. The stronger a relationship you* can forge the more likely people are to buy from you, buy from you again and to create more business by telling others about you. You want some people to hate you and others to love you. Let’s be realistic – no everyone is going to love you – it’s just not possible! Those that love you will not want to do business with anyone else but you, and those that don’t, well, if they hate you enough, you will definitely be talked about ;)

If everyone thinks you’re just ok, you* won’t matter enough to people for them to choose you over anyone else. If you are ok, and that one is ok and the other one is ok as well, people may as well use eenie-meenie-miney-moe to choose who they do business with. Or even worse, make their choice solely based on price – and that is when business will start to get really tought!

* please note that when I say “you” that refers to your business, product or service – but can also refer to you yourself if you are what you are marketing.

Be Pink!

[Read more…]

Customer Relationship Nurturing With Online Groups

We have all heard that it is easier to keep your current customers than to get new ones. And this is very true. However, we tend to forget this and neglect the customers we already have, whilst we offer the world to new customers and give them all our attention.

For a while now I have been thinking how best to remedy this in my business and find ways to better maintain my relationship with my “older” customers. So I want to share with you what I am getting up to, and perhaps this is something that you could use in your business.

I buy a lot of online courses. I have bought courses on Facebook marketing, LinkedIn marketing, Pinterest marketing, email marketing, SEO etc. etc. I love this way of learning for so many reasons. I don’t need to be at a specific place at a specific time, I can always go over things again if I need to, and they provide easy step-by-step instructions. Very often these courses are accompanied by closed, members-only, Facebook groups where participants can interact, ask and answer, discuss and just in general help and support each other. The instructor is also there regularly to answer questions and take part. This means that you not only have constant access to the materials but you always have someone you can look to for help. Of course you can’t just take, take, take, you must also give in the form of helping others and answering questions ;)

Another thing that a group like this does for the instructor of the program is that they can keep in touch with their customers and thereby continue to build the relationship with them.

I had been thinking for a long time about this as a way to keep in touch with my customers before I did it. So I decided to invite my current and “old” clients, that have gone through my training program, to join. I wanted to build an active and lively group of great people that want to master marketing for their business, support each other and share advice and ideas. Something much greater than I can provide on my own. People have really liked the idea and most of my clients have joined. This has been just great. There are useful and lively discussions and exchange of information, and I myself am do my very best to make it so by checking in regularly, answering questions and taking part.

How could you use something like this to continue building your relationship with your customers? Here are a few ideas. [Read more…]

Owning or Renting Your Marketing

Those that have been following me for a while might accuse me of being anti-advertising. So I want to address that today.

I am not against advertising, per se. However, I want to make sure that businesses are always using the marketing activities most suited to themselves, their market and their brand, and activities that give them the best return on investment (hmmmm very much a business phrase! :) – and activities that can be measured to show that they are really delivering results and that all important ROI.

Unfortunately, many of us just throw adverts out there and don’t think enough about what we want them to do, or make sure that they are doing what we want them to do. The fact is that people need to see you (your business, product, service) quite a lot of times before they are ready to buy, and for most small businesses, getting that exposure entirely through advertising is simply too expensive. I have spoken extensively about how often people need to see you in videos. If you plan to drive your marketing mainly through advertising, you have to advertise a lot and that can get very expensive.

Another thing that non-specialists in marketing have a tendency to do with their advertising is to try to say a million things at once. The fact is that it is hard enough to get people to take note of one message in your advert and as soon as you try to get more across everything becomes muddled and the ad loses its effectiveness.

Advertising can however be a great marketing tool if used correctly. What do you need to do for that? Here are five things you need to remember when you use advertising in your marketing: [Read more…]

Should you still be marketing on Facebook?

Are you marketing on Facebook?

If you are, you have probably noticed that your Facebook posts are not reaching as many people as they used to – or what? Many people have been noticing this for a while now, and it isn’t just that people have been using Facebook less over the holidays or something like that and therefore not seeing what you are posting.

Facebook have simply come out and said that businesses can no longer rely on getting free exposure through their Facebook pages, and they recommend that businesses buy advertising. This shouldn’t really be a surprise to anyone. A: They are a business and their revenues come from advertising. B: There is a gargantuan amount of posts swirling around on Facebook everyday and they must somehow filter what people see so that people are seeing what they are interested in. If people started seeing everything, they would quickly leave (and that would in turn render Facebook useless as a marketing tool). People don’t see everything that those they are connected to on Facebook post – they filter it and choose the best stuff for you.

You can see a few more articles about these Facebook changes and their effects below, if you want to delve deeper. [Read more…]