MelvinBlog

A blog that chronicles my journey on online marketing, blogging, social media, technology and life.

Guest Post

Keep Your Business Running Smoothly

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This is a guest post by Amanda Green.

Running a business consists of a ton of details that you may not be prepared for until the situation arises. There are simple things you can do to ensure that your business is functional and productive. Having a solid plan and goal is the first step to achieving success.

Communication is key. Communication is important to making any aspect of your life run smoothly and your business is not an exception. Holding regular meetings that include your key staff is important. Let them know any changes happening internally as well as the direction you are headed. As your business grows your needs are going to change. As you become aware of a new direction you will need to inform your staff.

Just as you will be communicating with key staff, they need to be communicating with those who report to them. Making mandatory meetings within each department will ensure that everyone is well informed. Not just those who report to you directly.

Organize your schedule and stick to it. I recommend doing this every Friday. If your business is closed on weekends or you are off on weekends, you will want to plan out the next week in advance. Monday morning is tough enough, even more so if you don’t have a plan of what you need to get done. Do the same for your employees; emphasize the importance of scheduling their days according to their needs. Of course there will be moments that something comes up that changes that schedule, but if you are organized it will be easy to fit in the things that come up unexpectedly.

Stay on top of your stock. One of the more minor details that can cause major problems is supplies and inventory of those supplies. This can be a tedious job, but it is essential to keep your work moving forward and not getting stuck on a project. Running out of ink in the middle of printing important documents is frustrating, but not nearly as frustrating as going to the supply closet and realizing you are completely out of HP toner cartridges. This will result in either you or another employee headed to an office supply store and your documents are now put on hold.

This should be a job that you take on at the start of your business, just so you are aware of your needs. However, once you have an understanding of what supplies are needed, you should delegate this to someone else. This can be time consuming and there are more important things that need your attention.

Take a break. Give yourself some time to recoup. Running a business comes with a lot of responsibility. It is easy to indulge yourself in your work, but without a break you are risking getting burned out. By scheduling your days off and sticking to it, you will have a fresh positive approach when you are in the office.

Running a successful and smooth business comes with a lot of hard work, organization and dedication, not to mention a good staff. These tidbits touch the surface. It is common for a business owner to be so consumed by the things below the surface that they forget the things that help the day to day operations. Paying attention to these details will help you to take care of all operations more efficiently.

What are some tips for running your business smoothly?

4 Simple Tips for Effectively Marketing your Blog

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This is a guest post by Amanda Green.

Marketing your blog effectively is not rocket science if you know what you’re doing. While there are many different things that you need to do to get your blog’s marketing right, the first key thing to focus on is building a strong foundation. In the article below we discuss a few tips to help you build this very foundation to market and grow your blog.

1. Brand Your Blog

In order to stand out of from the other bloggers and to look “different”, you should customize the overall appearance of your blog with a logo along with a unique blog design. Just the way you’d use a branded conference app to reach out to your target audience at a convention or trade show and be unique in yourself, branding your blog will help you connect with your visitors in spite of the competition.

Make sure you use unique images/colors on your blog. Also, the theme and the colors should be consistent throughout the blog. The aim here is to create a unique brand that your readers will feel familiar or at home with over time. The more you focus on the branding of your blog, the better it is.

2. Don’t Make Your Visitors Think

Keep your blog clean and simple. Make the navigation easy to understand and have a sitemap included to guide new/old readers around the blog. For example, there are different types of plugins available (both paid and free) that let you customize and organize your blog posts along with links to any related content. The overall look and feel of your blog should be straightforward. Don’t have too many bells and whistles that confuse your visitors.The less they think when moving through your the blog, the higher are the chances that they will return for more.

3. Post on a Regular Basis

If you look around you’ll find that most of the reputed blogs post regularly. This gives them enough content to connect with the existing and as well as new readers. Marketing a blog becomes difficult when the posting frequency is inconsistent. People that read blogs are always looking for fresh ideas and unique tips. By giving real and consistent value to your readers, they will perceive your blog higher than the other blogs that don’t give such value. Although this isn’t the only step when branding your blog, it is indeed an important one.

4. Create Top Notch Content

How will you market a product that isn’t of good quality? Your blog is a product in itself and in order to market this product, you have to infuse value into it by writing and publishing great content. There are hundreds of thousands of blogs out there but only a few succeed because they work on providing unique content that gets shared all over the web. Yes it takes real effort to create good blog content, but the effort that you put into doing it will pay off when your readers read and spread the word about it.

Even if one of your blog posts goes viral, it can result in thousands of free visitors and hundreds of targeted subscribers. So the more time (or money) that you invest into creating better blog content, the easier it will be for you to market the blog.

How to Handle Yourself During Client Meetings

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This is a guest post by Amanda Green.

Most Internet marketers build their businesses thinking that, because their business is conducted solely online, they will never have to talk on the phone or meet with a client or potential business partner. They think they can conduct everything via text-chat and email…which, probably, is one of the reasons that this type of business structure can look so appealing to the uninitiated.

The truth is, though, that if you really want your business to succeed and want to ensure that you have the best reputation possible there are going to be times when you have to connect on a human level with your clients and business connections. Sometimes this means working over the phone, conducting a video conference or even (as much as you might hate the idea of it) having a meeting in person. Here is how to conduct yourself so that the meetings are successful (and profitable for you in the long run).

1. Sit Up Straight

Even if someone cannot see you, they can hear the fact that you are slouching in your voice. No—really, they can. Practicing proper posture is important for a lot of reasons but in the business world it is important because it adds an extra air of confidence around you. Nobody wants to do business with the slouchy guy. The slouchy guy looks lazy. So sit up straight (if you need to, buy an ergonomic char—like the kind offered by Sitbetter—to force you into proper posture).

2. Smile

Like slouching, people can hear a frown in your voice. Smiling puts the person at ease and can make even a negative statement easier to take. If you aren’t smiling do your best to keep your face in a pleasant expression. Meet the person’s eyes, nod encouragingly, keep the corners of your mouth turned up. The person talking with you will appreciate your energy and be more likely to want to meet with you again. He will also be more inclined to buy from you—your enthusiasm for him makes him enthusiastic for you and what you have to offer.

3. Call to Action

Yes, even in face to face meetings, you want to have a call to action. This can be as simple as handing the person your business card and asking them to call you. In a chat or video conferenced based situation, you can ask the person to email you to follow up on the meeting (make sure you offer to do the same). You can even be so bold, if you are meeting with a client, as to ask “how many products should I put in the queue to ship to you we’re done with this call?” Coming right out and asking for a next step is how you get one. You can’t just hope the other person will take initiative.

4. Follow Up On Your Own

A quick email to say “thanks for the meeting, here’s what I took away from it” and a request for future contact within 24 hours of your meeting is just good business. This is true whether your meeting was in person, over the phone or via video chat. It shows you were paying attention and value your client or business partner’s time. Strengthening these relationships is how you make more money.

At first glance talking about client meetings might not seem like it has anything to do with actually bringing in a profit, but it does.

People are more likely to spend money on someone to whom they feel a personal connection. Meetings are how you cement those connections. They are also how you make business contacts—contacts that can help open up new markets to you and your products, which should lead to future profits!

Are New Businesses Really Doomed to Fail?

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This is a guest post by Amanda Green.

Starting your own business can be an extremely rewarding profitable adventure, but only if you do it efficiently.  Unfortunately, many businesses are doomed to fail within the first six months because those running the companies fell into some of the common ruts that many entrepreneurs run into and didn’t know how to get out of them.  Coming into building your own business prepared and knowing what dangers to avoid will definitely help you get over these humps and get you on your way to having a successful company in the long run.

Sometimes outlining something is more work than the actual project and quite unnecessary.  When it comes to starting your own business, this is simply not the case; the outline is crucial to success.  You have to go into your own business with a very clear road map ahead of you – something that encompasses the plan start to finish even if it starts with something as simple as registering a website.  Failing to do this step, however long it might take, will only set your business up to veer off track in the first six months if not earlier.  Unless you have a clear vision of where you’re taking your company and how you plan to get there, you’re bound to lose sight and ultimately it will fall apart.

Pick a specialty and stick with it.  Many businesses fail early on because they chose a scope of field that is much too general.  Don’t market yourself as an artist – make sure people realize that you’re a graphic designer versed in business logos.  While this might seem counterproductive to gaining customers as it narrows your playing field, the fact of the matter is that choosing such a general term will only serve to get you hidden under the sea of other “artists.”  And the chances are they’ve been in the business much longer than you, meaning you’ll never get noticed.

Learn what will make your job easier in the long run.  When you’re finished outlining your business and choosing a niche, it’s time to start looking at how to run your business effectively.  For most businesses, there is nothing more valuable than a software that will help you with your contract management.  Once your customer base starts picking up, you’re going to get swarmed with various documents and considering you’re only human, you’ll probably end up getting confused and possibly making mistakes.  And when it comes to owning your own business, those mistakes could cost you a fortune.

No matter what you do, don’t give up.  A lot of business owners expect immediate results, which leads them to being discouraged when they realize it will take more than just two months to start seeing their investments pay off and suddenly they’ve done all that work for nothing.  Keep in mind that it’s a competition and you need to work your way to the top.  If you start a new marketing strategy, you need to keep with it.  By dropping it haphazardly, not only are you doing your business a huge disservice, but the people who did notice your business’s name will now think you’re a fly by night operation.  That means if you try to pick up your marketing game again, you’re much less likely to attract any customers at all.

There are quite a few common mistakes that business owners fall into when they first start their own operation, which is why it’s important to be prepared when you’re finally beginning the plans for your business.  Realizing these pitfalls early on will keep you from getting stuck in them six months down the road.

Will Mobile Marketing Mean the Death of Email?

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This is a guest post by Simon Philips.

Do you rely solely on email marketing to promote your business? You may want to rethink this idea, as mobile marketing may become the high-tech, modern way for business owners to increase productivity and product awareness. If you still want to use email marketing, there is nothing wrong with that, but you may also want to supplement your email campaign with mobile marketing.

Types of Mobile Marketing

Mobile marketing can come in a number of different forms, such as apps, ads featured in browsers, websites and SMS text messaging. The type of marketing you use for your business depends a great deal on the type of business you have and which marketing plan will work best for you.

Mobile vs Email

Even though there is an increasing number of smartphone users, approximately 41% of individuals still use a basic phone. If you rely solely on mobile marketing, you may not reach the majority of those people. On the other hand, if you rely solely on email marketing, you may miss out on those prospective customers who use mobile devices a great deal. For this reason, email and mobile marketing can be very useful in a business. Another fact to keep in mind is that there are approximately 3 billion email users worldwide at the current time, and email is still and will always be a popular way to contact people and notify them of products and services that are available.

When Email Marketing Pays Off

Approximately 83% of shoppers own a cell phone of some type, but the majority of them have stated that mobile advertising does not greatly affect or change how they buy items. If you want to influence consumers in their buying decisions and entice them to buy your products, you may find that email marketing will serve a useful purpose, especially if your products and/or services are sold online.

When Mobile Marketing Can Be Helpful

If your business operates out of a building and is not strictly online, you may find mobile marketing to be useful. About 72% of shoppers use cell phones and smartphones when they are away from home, and out of that number, 63% use them while they are shopping. Mobile marketing could direct more customers your way if you have a mobile-friendly website that features local contact information such as your street address and a phone number. Mobile users in your area who come across your site while they are out may actually decide to pay your business a visit if they are interested in what you have to offer.

So What is the Answer?

When it comes right down to it, there is a place in business for both email and mobile marketing. A smart business owner may want to use a combination of both types of marketing in order to cover all the bases and reach potential customers on every level. Even though mobile marketing is becoming more popular due to additional mobile users, email is here to stay.

Simon Philips is the founder of TouchLogic.co.uk , a mobile marketing company. Simon is a mobile ready website designer and helps small businesses make sure their sites are compatible with mobile devices.

Using Email to Grow Your Blog

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This is a guest post by Reuben Dickison.

It is a Catch-22. Polls consistently find that people choose email as their preferred method of being contacted and updated. The same polls find that the highest source of irritation to online consumers is spam. This brings up the obvious question of –

What is the difference between Email and Spam?

Much like beauty – it is in the eye of the beholder. If it is of interest to the person, even if it is pure direct advertising, it is a welcome email. If the person receiving the email is not interested, it does not matter what the message is – they will consider it spam. This is the biggest factor in deciding how to use email to increase traffic to your blog or website.

When implementing email marketing campaigns more is not better. If you have something genuinely useful to say and it is timely it will probably be well received. It is a reasonable presumption that if a person visited your site, registered, and provided an email address then they have some interest in your site or products. This does not mean they all want a daily update on your site.

The purpose of your email updates or newsletter is very simple but often overlooked. It should be to drive traffic back to your website. I subscribe to one blog that I follow quite closely. I get a newsletter once a week (which is too often for most in my opinion). It contains the complete article of new posts. While I find it interesting it does in fact mean I have not actually visited the website in months as I have no need to. This is drastically reducing the value of any advertising they use to support the blog.

To run an effective email system there are some basic steps.

  1. You need to have email addresses. To collect email addresses you must actively solicit them. A call to action to register and to subscribe to newsletters must be highly visible.
  2. The emails or newsletters sent out must be for the purpose of directing traffic to the website. Highlight the most popular posts and pages in the email with a link to go to the complete post. Use your web analytics to determine the most popular.
  3. The more tailored the message the more effective it will be. If the reader can choose categories they are interested in then their emails should focus on those categories.
  4. It should not look like a cloned email every time. Aside from your logo, change up the look and format frequently to encourage them to actual read it as opposed to opening then immediately moving to trash or spam as “the same as always”.

There are numerous free plugins to use to set up email and newsletter campaigns for either specific or ongoing use. The better ones require more set-up and include an email verification (click here to confirm subscription type email) system.

If you want to grow your website or business through the use of purchased or shared email lists then always use an alternative email account to do the mass unsolicited mailings. This will prevent your primary site email from being tagged as a spammer account by the major email servers.

Hiring professional services sometimes makes sense, particularly if there is an e-commerce portion to your website. Whether it is to simply purchase a list or to conduct a full marketing campaign check to make sure that you have access to the account the emails get sent from. If you purchase 5000 emails in a list and 2000 of them are bounced as undeliverable you need to know that and be able get refunded or new to replace them.

Reuben Dickison is semi-retired freelance writer and blogger currently living in the United States. He is writing for email marketing services from emailergo.com. He holds degrees in Marketing and Public Administration with past jobs including consumer financial management, general manager of a multi-million dollar retail business, and private business management training and consulting.

Increasing Brand Awareness with Word of Mouth Marketing

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This is a guest post by Amanda Revie

“If you like it, tell your friends” translates into “If you like it, tweet about it” in the age of social media. Word of mouth marketing for brand awareness is all about creating compelling and engaging content that people will want to share with others. A successful strategy for increasing brand awareness often combines different platforms on which to share your content and release it into the world. It is easy, relatively cost free to market your brand through different platforms, but done in the wrong way and it will never work. Planning and strategy are the keys to raising brand awareness.

Constant Updates Don’t Raise Awareness

Spamming is the absolute worst thing you can do. It is easy to think that the more content you post the more likely you will interest someone, but in fact constantly updating is a big turn off for users. It is therefore a huge waste of your time to be on social media and actually driving interest away.

Think quality, not quantity and you will begin to build awareness around a brand that people will want to engage with on social media platforms and share your content with your friends.

However, don’t make the mistake of posting too little. People enjoy fresh content, even if it’s something small. If you don’t update regularly then people will stop checking your site. This is why a content strategy is important, so you know what to post and when. This also means you can do it beforehand and have it automatically post for you if you’re away.

Striking a balance is of the utmost importance.

Variety is the Spice of Life  

If all your updates are promoting you, your products, events or services then the people who receive your updates will become bored and go elsewhere. Raising brand awareness is doing just that- raising awareness of your brand and not necessarily what your brand sells. Let your reputation and your brand identity sell your products. Take Innocent Drinks on Facebook as an example. Most of their posts are in line with their overall personality as a business. They use casual humor about nature, animals, fruit and veg, and bad jokes that they find amusing as posts for their Facebook page. They do occasionally post about their products, but it by no means dominates their page.

Even content that seems completely irrelevant can have a positive effect on your brand awareness. Social media and content marketing company Red Rocket Media, for instance, promoted their ‘best office dog’ competition through their Facebook and Twitter pages. Over the two months of the competition, the reach of their Facebook increased by 4,495 per cent. This demonstrates how even seemingly irrelevant, but engaging and compelling content can increase awareness of the brand behind it.

Going Viral

A viral marketing plan takes a lot of planning and an inspired idea. A video is the type of content most likely to go viral, as it is eye-catching and easy to engage with. If we think that the video is funny, fascinating, or weird then we are more likely to share it instantly with our friends on social media platforms. A viral video is the ultimate in word of mouth marketing.

A video that has gone viral is often short, simple and entertaining. If it’s for a brand or a business, it’s never obvious or advertorial.

Google considers video to be more engaging and ranks it higher than blogs or articles so it will gain more exposure. However, you can’t rely on Google to do the work for you. If you want to make the video go viral, then there are a few things that you can do to help it along. Make sure that the thumbnail image is intriguing and your title will spark interest. You should share your video with your network on all your social media platforms, and ask them to share it. Make sure you share it with the right people too, such as bloggers, writers and sites with millions of visitors. If it’s successful, then people will share it without any obligation to you, thus promoting your business by pure and simple word of mouth.

Content is King

Word of mouth marketing starts with social media and if you do it right it will expand and expand. The things that you post need to be consistent with your brand’s identity but varied enough to retain interest. You also need to make sure that you strike a balance between posting too much and not enough. Above all, the content needs to be engaging. As the saying goes, content is king.

Author  Bio:

Amanda Revie is an online social media marketer and SEO expert at the WebMarketing Group. You can follow them @webmktinggroup on Twitter