Solidify Content with Keyword Searches
October 16, 2010 by Mary Ellen · Leave a Comment
As you build your content plan, you will want to consider keywords, clues to relevant search terms for your website.
In classes and workshops I frequently hear, “How does this all work together?” One of the biggest frustrations for entrepreneurs is realizing just how many connections there are in the world of marketing and how quickly the parameters change.
Everything you do is marketing. Literally. It takes concentration and genuine effort, not to mention time and structure to put together a cohesive marketing plan.
Search engine optimization is the comprehensive term given to online marketing. One aspect of SEO, keywords, gives focus to your content and helps to drive traffic to your website.
Google offers a strong, free tool, Google Keyword Tool. Type in a phrase and get dozens of suggestions for your keywords.
Other free opportunities let you look at keywords: Free Keyword Niche Finder and Google Insights for Search . Each option lets you look at keywords from a different perspective.
Other popular and effective keyword tools exist for a small fee.
Wordtracker, one of the best known keyword subscription services, offers depth information, comparisons and anslysis.
Another option, Keyword Spy, offers a free trial version and lets you easily look at the competition.
Then, there’s Keyword Discovery, Market Samurai and dozens of other tools.
My suggestion: set a timer for your foray into keywords. You’ll be amazed at the depth of information and the knowledge you obtain as a result of your inquiries.
How’s that shotgun approach to marketing working for you? Today’s topic is day sixteen of a 45-day step-by-step marketing master plan. Focus. Choose to take your business to a new level topic by topic, day by day, with specific actions, based on clear worksheets. Act now!
Staying Power Comes in Small Increments
May 3, 2010 by Mary Ellen · Leave a Comment
Why do some commitments work and others fail miserably? Mindset makes a difference. But the real key for me comes from the reframing of the project to a small and repetitive task.
Fifteen minutes applied consecutively makes a significant difference over time.
I first understood this concept when I applied the 15-minute rule to a needlepoint project I detested. I set a timer and resolved to stitch for 15 minutes. Every day I could see the boring blue basketweave expand. In a matter of weeks, the piece was complete.
“Hmmmmmmmmmmm, I thought. That worked well.”
I expanded my “daily” notion to another impossible task: losing ten pounds. In a now-familiar ritual, I took 15 minutes to set my menus, plan my exercise and visualize my success for the day. I made a dramatic change within a 13-week time frame, meeting my goal and proving once again the power of small daily time increments.
When I read The Artist’s Way, I discovered a different version of my approach to success. Author Julia Cameron walks the reader through essays, offers tasks each week and suggests writing a minimum of three pages a day. The three pages consciousness stream of writing took longer than 15 minutes, but the effort forced me through a creative block and highlighted success through the daily application of self to task.
You’d think by now that I’d have the lesson down. In spite of previous successes, I too have to be reminded:
“Never underestimate a quarter hour increment.”
Just this week I agreed with my mastermind group to apply the power of 15 to a new challenge. Our discussion revealed difficult or stopped projects for each of us. We’re now on a 30-day quest. We committed to each other and put in a penalty for failure to meet the goal. So, is it working? Yes. I can report four pieces of progress for each of the four days to-date.
In a world with too little time one simple fact remains: daily work adds up. The power of compounding small increments is often underestimated.
Grab fifteen minutes almost anywhere: arrive slightly early for an appointment and take 15 while you wait on a luncheon partner; close your email program and take 15; get up 15 minutes earlier and take 15 for your project.
Do one small thing each day and you will move forward.
NOTE: Last November, I challenged myself with a 60-minute increment. The result was the Six Week Marketing Master Plan. The ebook, designed for small business owners without a marketing department, walks you through every step of a marketing plan in just a few minutes a day. Ready to try for yourself the power of 15?
Ten tweaks to a smooth launch
April 22, 2010 by Mary Ellen · Leave a Comment
How smoothly did your launch go? Let me count the ways:
1. From idea to completion, you beat every time table.
2. You received consistent and positive feedback.
3. Beta test participants tracked perfectly, meeting deadlines, offering unsolicited additional information.
4. Nothing had to be rewritten.
5. Every design element translated from Microsoft Word to Mac perfectly.
6. No real world changes outdated your information prior to publication. Voila! Perfection.
7. Your benchmark calendar looked lovely with no adjustments, a perfect display tool.
8. Every cost was anticipated ahead of time.
9. You managed your life, your business, and a major launch project easily, quickly, seamlessly.
10. Because everything went so well, you had a number of sales waiting to ring the cash register as soon as your URL appeared in public.
If the preceding reads like a wish list, welcome to my world!
Today I launched a process: The Six-Week Marketing Plan. My 167-page e-book began as a workable idea, continued in spite of itself, and is now ready for public scrutiny.
To celebrate, I’m sharing cathartic diary entries:
August 2009: I re-wrote a marketing plan for my client and decided to walk my talk. (Notebook entry to self: “Simplify branding. Change practice name from Connecting Point Communications to Merrigan Group.)
September 2009: I discussed benchmarks for the transfer of my WordPress site with webmaster and design expert, Maria G. Nozza. She made further recommendations. She also got excited about the completeness of the marketing plan outline.
October 2009: Maria and I agreed to challenge ourselves with a 45-day plan during which we would spend one hour per day to take our own marketing to a new level. The 45-day master marketing plan was born. Meanwhile, work on my site revision continued.
November 2009. I wrote week one, recruited ten “beta” testers to work though each successive week and started on week two. In a moment of brilliance I used the accountability concept to force me to complete each week’s work.
December 2009. Little did I realize the beta group would actually complete their sections (or NOT!) during the holidays. The last three days went out December 21. I called each participant and begged for input, resigning all of us to work through the new year.
Proofing began in earnest. I found myself searching for week 1, revision 8 or some such thing. Didn’t I accept those changes last time? I conducted informal focus groups about the name. We revised everything to Six-Week Marketing Master Plan. What a pain. Too long of a URL. We revised again.
January 2010. I stopped revisions and sent a final Word document to Maria, design diva. (NOTE: In my mind, the website would go live January 15 or so. I was confident when family members asked about the project but I neglected to commit to a date publicly. Connecting Point was still around.
February 2010. The shortest month of the year came and went with no e-book completion. We re-wrote our sales page yet again. On a positive note, Merrigan Group debuted.
March 2010. I concentrated on other projects, avoiding friends who might ask if the website was “on” yet. “Under construction” is a post it note I never again want to see. Maria reported problems with Adobe form fill. Although each form worked on its own, the combo, a large file, seemed corrupt. Step-by-step, the promise of the ebook seemed far from accurate.
April 7, 2010. In a final review, one resource URL in the document could not be found. What happened to www.Spacky.com? We revised again. No luck yet getting Adobe Form Fills to work in the complete document.
April 22, 2010. Launch. Look at our baby! Progress! Completion! I’ve got to celebrate.
Moral of the story: when launching any new product, allow twice as much time as you planned for, no questions asked.
Transform Your Small Business With the Power of Branding
March 2, 2010 by Mary Ellen · Leave a Comment
Branding: the process of creating and living a brand’s message, according to soon-to-be-published Brand DNA: Uncover Your Organization’s Genetic Code for Competitive Advantage by Carol Chapman and Suzanne Tulien.
The authors, principals with The Brand Ascension Group, use Meg’s story to develop the premise of branding as an internal function encompassing the core message of a business.
Following a free webinar, “Cashing in on Branding,” Meg becomes a Brand Ascension client to better brand Ecologé, her line of natural/organic body-care products.
With the help of Carol and Suzanne, Meg develops her core brand, working through components like value, style, differentiators and standards. These are the four components of Brand DNA.
Throughout the book Carol and Suzanne make it clear that branding is an inside out process and they present it step-by-step. Even the terminology makes the distinction:
Marketing = the process of communicating and spreading your message. (External)
Branding = the process of defining the core perception of and actioning (through behaviors, systems and processes, and environment) your message. (Internal)
From Meg’s “magic story,” a structured way of getting employees on the same page, to her view of the value of an updated logo, Brand DNA is real. At one point Meg jumps to a conclusion when she sees a glimmer of a solution. We see the disconnect: Meg wants to spending money on an external message before she addresses the company’s internal response.
Brand DNA’s authors are certified trainers in accelerated adult-learning methodologies. It shows. We first see the exercises reflected through Meg’s eyes and we hear her commentary about employee reaction.
The interactive workbook presents a do-it-yourself option, and gives estimated times for each exercise segment. Most businesses could benefit from working through one or two of the activities. In addition, a “consultant’s corner” suggests further questions and actions for any business.
Believable. Authentic. Doable. Those words came to mind as I reviewed Brand DNA. A student of branding, I enjoyed the discussion.
As a presenter who addresses branding for small business, I found myself admiring the cohesiveness of Brand DNA for the local or regional brand on the grow. An acknowledgement of small business pressures provides a healthy dose of reality: working on your business while working in it is one such example.
Brand DNA is an easy, thought-provoking read. It can provide an in-depth, brand-transforming result. In “Afterward” the authors say:
“Remember that branding is a process, not an event, and that this level of consciousness around your brand should continue for the life of your organization, not just by you, the owner, but by all its stakeholders. Clearly articulating your Brand DNA will help streamline many other facets of the business (e.g., marketing, communications, employee hiring, partnering, business decisions, etc.). When you achieve this level, you will see your business thrive!”
Each chapter of the book supports the statement, “Branding starts from the inside out.” Whether you’re looking for a collection of brand terminology, or assessments and or collaborative exercises to address employee involvement in your brand, this book has something for you. Working on branding will indeed affect every other aspect of your business.
Small business owners serious about improving their branding can pre-order Brand DNA at the author’s discount.
(Disclosure: Suzanne Tulien contacted me through my blog and I agreed to review the book.)
Smart Marketing Strategy: Step into 2010
January 4, 2010 by Mary Ellen · Leave a Comment
Steps.
Where do the steps go?
One step at a time, a staircase can take you places.
(Why doesn’t my staircase look like this?)
From the number of steps to the size of the rise, every staircase is different. Although materials vary – from stone, like the steps pictured here, to other materials, the process of climbing remains the same.
Your marketing is similar to a staircase in that it involves a number of steps. The materials may vary, but the process is the same.
Management, sales, marketing, business development – you want the complete staircase, don’t you? Find a small business solution here at ProfitMeister.
Stories of solopreneurs and service providers, independent business owners who tackle the same challenges as you, illustrate steps others have taken to generate successful marketing plans.
In the coming days, we’ll offer additional resources with links we like and ways to organize and systemize the marketing process so you get a step-by-step solution customizable for you.
Use these ideas to focus your year and develop a master marketing plan for your business.
Create a marketing plan with realistic sales projections. Then, analyze, interpret and challenge your numbers. Use our questions to take Big Steps to grow your business.
Welcome to 2010.
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