Marketing Ideas!

In the book Good to Great, Jim Collins wrote about Dave Scott, the legendary six-time champion of the Hawaii Ironman Triathlon. Scott would train by riding his bike 75 miles, swimming 20,000 meters, and running 17 miles every single day (on average). He obviously didn’t have a problem with his weight. Still, he felt a low-fat, high-carb diet would help give him an edge. Thus, Dave Scott would rinse his cottage cheese to get rid of the extra fat. There’s no evidence that doing this helped him win all those Ironman Triathlons. But it was one small step that he believed made him better.

The reason I bring this up is that taking care of such minute details is what the ultra disciplined do. It’s what the elite performing companies (and individuals) do. But it is part of an evolution. There is a ton of advice for small business (much of it free) on how to create a marketing plan, use social media, or how to run a business. Some of it is good fundamental advice. Some of it is very much like rinsing cottage cheese.

As much as I would like to believe it to be true, rinsing cottage cheese isn’t going to help me win any kind of race. I would have to first put in a lot of hard work, discipline myself to follow a plan, and work hard to achieve some much less, minor goals.

If your small business is getting into the realm of social media and Internet marketing, if you’re drinking up all the Internet gurus have to say, remind yourself that it is important to take a first step. In fact, below are four key aspects that you should fully embrace as you start using social media:

1. Start with a blog. Discipline yourself to write in it everyday.
2. Understand the three rings of social media: publishing, sharing, networking and know when to use them.
3. Identify which tools affect which area (or ring).
4. Create a process that will allow you to understand why you are doing things and why it’s working (or not working).

With these fundamentals under your belt, it now becomes possible to refine your efforts, to improve on your performance, increase your ROI by another .1% and bring your organization to another level. In other words, now you can start to rinse your cottage cheese.

Rick Burnes (from HubSpot), had a great presentation at the eMarketing Techniques Conference last week on advanced blogging techniques for businesses.  It was so good, that I wanted to share part of it here, the part that causes so many people to stop blogging altogether: writing posts. Most frustrated blog writers fall into one of two camps:

1. You want to change the world, ultimately trying to boil the ocean on each and every post. A week of writing like this and you’re too exhausted to do this any more. Project abandoned.
   
2. You have too many ideas that are scattered and don’t seem to be picked up by search engines or attract readers. With such paltry results and little motivation to continue, the blog is “let go” due to attention deficit layoffs.
   

How to Write Great Blog Posts

Each blog post, regardless of the “flavor” of the post, should be on only one topic. Keep it short and sweet, no more than 600 words (there are exceptions). Don’t try to boil the ocean, but do try to provide useful, relevant information that would fit your readers. If you know who your readers are, or have given them a persona, think of them each time you write. Also, keep in mind the following “flavors” of posts, which will help you prioritize (and organize) your efforts.

Raisin Bran

Let’s keep things in perspective. The reason you are writing a blog for your business is to drive traffic to your site. Most of your traffic is likely to come from search engines. Therefore the foundation of your blog content should be built with keyword-rich posts, or as Rick calls them, “raisin bran” posts. With a little practice, you’ll eventually get very good at cranking these out. But don’t go on auto-pilot, you still want to make sure these posts are useful.

Spinach

While the bulk of your blog will be built on raisin bran, your audience won’t be sustainable if you only write one type of post. So you need to occasionally throw in some “spinach,” posts that will help establish your organization as a thought leader. These may require some research and almost always have some links to other sources, but are solid, thoughtful posts. But moderation is the key here. Think of doing these once a month or so.

Roasts

I’m from the Northeast originally, so I get the concept of roasts (although I’m vegetarian). But down here in Texas, we could also call this the brisket post. Regardless of what you call it, the idea is that this requires a lot of thought, effort, and time to put together correctly. This is your research paper, so choose your topic carefully. If you do it right, you will engage your audience in discussion, and lots of people will tell lots of other people about your blog.

Tobasco

Every now and again, it’s a good idea to stir the pot. Do something controversial and be different. You will likely get a lot of comments and links with this type of post, but don’t do this for the sake of getting attention. Be prepared to defend yourself and make a claim for your position. Be aware that too many of these types of posts could undermine your credibility, so use sparingly.

Chocolate Cake

Who doesn’t like a little desert now and then? These posts show the world that you have personality, humanity, and can take a joke. Write these posts to change things up, make your blog fun, and maybe poke some fun at yourself. Use video, images, cartoons, or anything else you can think of.

One of the first questions I get from my clients is “what type of website should I have?” The answer is, “it depends,” but for virtually all websites, getting people to your site and engaging them on some level is of primary importance. So, regardless of whatever else you do with your website, you absolutely need to have a corporate blog. The next question I receive (especially after delivering the “blog” message) is: “I don’t have the resources for a blog. Do I have to have one?”

The answer is Yes. And here are 10 reasons why your small business should have a blog.

1. Givers gain.
In the words of BNI chapters everywhere, “givers gain.” As Wikipedia defines it, this simply means that “when (business) people set goals to help others and honestly work to achieve these goals, they usually gained the most out of the experience – through a reciprocal benefit.” By providing a blog, you are providing a resource that should be educating and helping those most interested in your offerings.

2. Search engines love it.
Search engines want to direct their users to good, topical, useful information. The typical, static, corporate web site is set up with content, which then remains unchanged for months on end. In this day and age, updating content is a way to stay relevant and topical. Thus, search engines love it, which means you stand a better chance at getting indexed frequently and ranked higher in search results.

3. It should be the center of your social media strategy.
By updating your blog, you can simultaneously update your accounts on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg, etc., etc. This will make all of those accounts appear more active, all because you updated one critical tool: your blog. It can be that powerful.

4. Keeps you up-to-date on industry events/topics.
Keeping and managing a blog can seem like a daunting responsibility. However, it is also one of the best ways to to stay abreast on industry events and topics, because you will always be on the lookout for good information and subjects to put into your blog. If you can develop this skill, this could be a key competitive advantage for you and your organization.

5. Communication is important.
The key to doing business is the ability to communicate clearly with your prospects and customers. A blog will help you get your message out there and help you hone your communciation skills.

6. Keep your writing skills sharp.
Hate to state the obvious, but writing is a subset of communication and is becoming more and more important. Blogs are a great way to discipline yourself to write every day (if not every day, then more frequently than you are now).

7. Real time market research.
Your blog audience will be people that are interested in what  you’re writing about. If you don’t have an audience, that should tell you something. If you do have an audience, get them involved, get them to comment on your posts. The information you could learn about your company and your positioning in the marketplace could be huge.

8. Breath personality into your company.
So often many companies try to carefully control their brand image. In the end, the end result is a sterile presense that is difficult for buyers to identify with. But a blog can help show the humanity of your organization, especially if you talk about some of the charity events you participate in, and other day-to-day (but business related) topics that will resonate with others.

9. It’s dirt cheap.
Outside of a time commitment, you get all of these benefits, and more, for dirt cheap (in many instances free).

10. It will teach you new things.
Many teachers say the learn as much from their students as they teach. Keeping a blog is very similar. Challenging? Yes, sometimes it is. Rewarding? You bet.