Blogging – Page 2 – Velocity Media

25 August 2014

Three ways to be more compelling in your sales and marketing

Your ability to compel your customers, readers and followers to read on, act or buy, directly determines your leads, conversions and business profits.

So how do you become more compelling in your sales and marketing? Here are three ways to get you started.

1. Keep a little mystery

In the same way you wouldn’t tell your entire life story in the first few dates with someone, don’t feel you need to inform your potential customer, reader or follower of every facet of your business, industry or topic in the first few touch points. Leave a little mystery by informing them slowly.

Mystery leaves your potential customers wanting more, providing of course that you give away the right details to begin with. To use mystery effectively you need to know who you are targeting and what key selling points will most appeal to them.

Infomercials and your answer to the common question “so what do you do?” are great places to practice a little business mystery.

2. Offer information teasers

Key information like statistics, industry insights, inside secrets, usability tips, and handy hints on areas your target audience are interested in can spark interest and get them to take a level of action like giving over their contact details to you.

Knowledge is power, and in this day and age it is our most valuable commodity – not to mention our biggest point of difference. Sharing relevant and interesting information builds your credibility and positions you as an expert in your field, giving potential customers the confidence in doing business with you.

The trick here though, is in knowing how much of your knowledge to give away, as it will depend on the action you need a potential customer to take. Being a ‘teaser’ your information should be limited, but at the same time it needs to be enough to build trust and leave potential customers, followers or readers feeling like you’ve given them real value.

Always keep some information under lock and key for your paying customers, or to get potential customers taking bigger steps of trust with you.

Social media, newsletters, website opt-ins, blog posts and advertisements are great places to tease with compelling information.

3. Limit options and choices

While potential customers want to feel like they have a choice in what they do or buy, too much choice can overwhelm your buyer and cause you to lose control in the sales process.

Before you do any sales or marketing you should map out the steps you want to take each customer through. While not all will follow and some will jump ahead, having this planned out allows you to guide potential customers to the decision you want them to take.

In a service-based business it could be having a few core packages, memberships or services with the ability to customise or value-add further should you need too. For online product-based businesses it could be having a clear category headings and links to the most popular products from your home page as opposed to listing all products immediately.

By having limited choices buyers can quickly determine the products or services most relevant to them, or what their next step needs to be without being overwhelmed by information. It also means you can use sneaky call to action tips to help boost your conversions.

Keep in mind that too much information or too many choices can stall the buying process and even drive them to a competitor who keeps choices simple. This is particularly important for websites and sales meetings.

What are some ways you can be more compelling in your sales, marketing and copywriting?

Amanda

12 August 2014

Five sneaky call to action tips to boost conversions

Your call to action is one of the most important parts of any copy you write. While your words may be clever and compelling, and your images eye catching and engaging, if you aren’t calling people to act, you won’t get the results you want.

So how do you make sure you are calling your potential customers to act effectively? Here are five sneaky call to action tips to help boost your conversions.

1. Map out your sales process

The key to an effective call to action is to know what actions you need your potential customer to take. While it would be nice for a potential customer to go from not knowing you to spending thousands with you instantly, and yes it does happen, in most cases though trust and rapport need to be established first.

This is where your sales process comes in, working out each step that needs to be taken to build trust and turn your potential customer into your ideal customer.

For each marketing piece you write, whether it is a sales letter, brochure or website think about the very next step they need to take. Is it to call you? Answer your phone call? Sign up to your mailing list? Go to a landing page? Download a free resource? Make a small ‘teaser’ purchase that will lead them to a bigger purchase?

Break each step down, giving clear instructions as to what needs to happen next.

2. Create urgency

The whole point of a call to action is to get your potential customers acting now, not saying, “I’ll do that later”. But to do this you need to communicate the urgency.

You can do this by using scarcity and competition to hint at what they could miss out on if they don’t act quickly, and/or using urgent language like “try it now”, “immediate access” or “call today”.

3. Use triggers

Sometimes you need to give potential customers a little extra help to get over the line, that is where sales triggers, little messages that motivate, come into play.

It could be a testimonial with results you know they will want, a risk minimising message like a guarantee or even some bullet points that overcome common objections and establish your value all put near your call to action to ‘seal the deal’.

4. Make your ‘buy buttons’ green or bright coloured

We have been programed in society that green = go and red = stop or a hazard, are your buy buttons giving off the right signal?

While green is a good idea for your buy button, bright colours, particularly against duller colours (if you were wanting to highlight a particular package, membership or option for instance) can also draw the eye and send the right signal.

5. Get rhyming

While it may sound funny or corny, research has shown that rhyming phrases are perceived to be more truthful and accurate. Get a little creative and give rhyming a go for one of your calls to actions and test your results.

Hopefully this has helped you a fraction, what tips will you use in your next call to action?

Amanda

26 April 2014

Three ways to drive your customers to act

One of the easiest and most frustrating things for a consumer to do is put off buying your product or service until later. It could be that they’ll buy when they have more money, when they are more established, when they feel they are ready for it, after they compare what else is out there, or any number of justifications – often based around procrastination, fear or refusing to leave their comfort zone, that stops them from taking action with you now.

It can be frustrating, and not just because you haven’t closed the sale, but also because you know that your product or service could really help them, if only they would let it. So how do you create a sense of urgency to move them past their justifications? Here are three ways to drive your potential customers to act.

1. Scarcity

Scarcity marketing appeals to your potential customer’s fear of missing out, and refers to any limitation placed on a product or service in order to increase sales by applying pressure to act immediately. It could be due to limited availability or a time based deadline that is linked to a discount or bonus for acting within a short window of time.

The whole reason scarcity works well is because it forces action, especially when there is significant value offered. If you really want it you need to act immediately, how can you afford to wait if the reduced price, bonus, product, service or package will no longer be offered?

2. Competition

Within all of us is a healthy sense of competition. We want to be the first, to win, to be the leader, to be part of the ‘exclusive group’, to achieve our goals faster and receive the recognition and status that brings. Often appealing to the desire to be the best, the first and get in when others miss out can be quite effective in the sales process.

Of course this sense of competition comes from a place of ego, so the effectiveness can depend on how much your potential customer needs recognition, how driven they are by status and how competitive they are to what you are comparing them to. Competition can also be accentuated by scarcity. By offering limited places, you are giving them the chance to win over someone else.

3. Taking the sale away

As the old saying goes, “people want what they can’t have”. With this in mind if you take the sale away by mirroring their justifications, taking out desired features to make it cheaper or making it appear that your customer base is an exclusive group where customers are chosen like an interview process (where you make the decision not them), can actually make them want your product or service more.

Often when a potential customer senses that you won’t sell them what they want or need they will become more proactive in their pursuit and not only sell themselves on why they want it, but also sell you on why you should have them as a customer.

A word of warning though…

While all of these motivators work, they also tend to be what we despise most in salespeople – right? That is why they need to be handled with care and done with the right approach. You need to be focused on what is best for your customer, what they want and need, as opposed to just closing the sale, and sometimes that can mean walking away. This is the key difference between the annoying, arrogant pushy salesperson and the friend that is gently guiding because they want what is best for you.

“But isn’t this manipulative?” you might ask. It can be yes, especially when it is used in a pushy, sales driven way. Perhaps it is just the marketer in me, but I strongly believe that if you have a product or service that could genuinely help someone, whether it makes their lives easier, saves or makes them money, gives them more time, helps them grow their business, or gets them to achieve their goals faster, you have a responsibility to share that in a way your potential customers understand, see the value and are compelled to act – don’t you?

Amanda

20 April 2014

Five tips to help you pitch more effectively to bloggers

When it comes to getting your message out to a large audience, the first response for most business owners is to target the media. Though what more brands are starting to realise is that bloggers can be equally powerful, if not more powerful, at spreading the word.

Not only are they powerful influencers with their loyal audience, they also provide valuable link backs to your website, give you greater flexibility with more promotional posts than the media and can be a lot easier to gain coverage on – provided you do it right.

There are a number of ways you can work with bloggers, from sponsored posts, link placements and advertising, to guest posts, reviews and giveaways. You will find most PR friendly blogs will have a PR page that lists the opportunities available with them and how they like to work with brands.

Since this is such a great way to get the word out about your business, I thought I would share five tips on pitching to bloggers as both a blogger and publicist, so you can improve your chances of gaining coverage on blogs and building an ongoing beneficial relationship with bloggers.

1. Personalise your email

It is important to understand that bloggers, like journalists, can receive hundreds of PR pitches a day so it is important to stand out from the crowd. To do this take the time to find out their name and interests (you will normally get this from reading their posts and ‘About’ page).

Don’t send out a blanket email to hundreds of bloggers with ‘Dear blogger’ as the header, general statements like this immediately strip any personal touch from your email and can be skipped over in a sea of emails if there is no powerful subject line or headline to capture attention.

2. Read their blog

There are a number of reasons why you should read the blogs you are targeting. First and foremost you need to determine if they are someone you want to associate your brand with, secondly you want to double check they have your target audience and lastly you want to get to know them as a person to make a targeted pitch.

3. Keep your pitches relevant

Just like the media, don’t send bloggers every bit of information or news on your business. Only send products and services that are relevant to them personally and their audience and do it sporadically. If you email them too regularly or continue to send them irrelevant information they may get into the habit of deleting any email that comes through or block you altogether.

4. Make it win/win/win

Often many businesses get caught up in focusing on the win for themselves and the win for the blogger’s readers that they completely forget the blogger! But bloggers work hard to build their audience and like any human being, want to know what’s in it for them.

So before you approach them think about what you can offer them. With reviews you will obviously give them the goods or services to keep for the review (though make sure it is of a monetary value that is worth their time) and sponsored posts you pay, though what about guest posts? Could you provide them with promotion by promoting their blog and the article across your social media? Could you offer them a reciprocal guest post on your blog or in your newsletter? Think about what they might like or what would help them.

5. Build a relationship

Instead of aiming for a once off mention on their blog, look to build an ongoing relationship with the bloggers you target. Attract their attention by interacting with them on their blog and social media and continue to build rapport by engaging with them.

The better the relationship you build with the blogger the more opportunities you will expose yourself to – particularly if you build a relationship between the blogger and your brand. If they become a fan of your products or services, there is a high chance you will get extra mentions above what you have asked for or arranged.

Do you have any tips or any questions when it comes to working with bloggers?

Amanda

7 April 2014

Six tips for quick, easy and effective content marketing

While we know how important content marketing is when it comes to generating interest and sales and have the best intentions of keeping our blogs and social media updated, the time investment can often cause these tasks to sneak further and further down our list of priorities.

Thankfully though there are ways you can minimise the amount of time you spend while still gaining all of benefits, like these six tips for quick, easy and effective content marketing.

1. Know your purpose

Most businesses get on social media and start blogging because they have heard they should be doing it. While this is true for the most part, when you don’t know why you are doing it, what you want to achieve by it or who you are targeting, you can end up using the wrong platforms, share information that isn’t relevant or engaging to readers and ultimately waste valuable time.

By working out the purpose of your content you uncover what information you should share and write about, provide a level of consistency with your writing and are more likely to increase both your readership and sales through targeted, relevant content and calls to action.

2. Theme your content

If you find you are wasting time wondering what you should write about or share, look at theming your content around a certain topic or area of specialty.

For example you could theme it by the day on social media like I do with “Marketing Monday” where I only share marketing tips that day, or you could have an extended theme over a week, fortnight or month that also carries through on your blog depending on what your readers are interested in.

3. Write status updates and blogs in advance

A lot of time can be wasted in researching, brainstorming and writing daily status updates and last minute blogs. While some days you might know exactly what to write, other days you can hit a creative block and struggle to come up with something informative or entertaining to share, causing undue stress and wasting precious time stuck in writers block.

To make your life easier, set aside a day or half day to write up a month’s worth of blogs and social media updates so you are always at least one month ahead. This way you have the ability to be spontaneous if there is a blog or update you want to share that strikes during a moment of inspiration, and have the benefit of high quality information going up on a consistent basis.

4. Take advantage of inspiration

When a moment of inspiration does strike, briefly jot down your idea and an outline of the post and keep thinking of more topics. Often we get stuck writing the post from start to finish, which can lead to missing more content ideas. Instead use your moment of creativity to think of more topics and tips to share.

Should there be a post that comes before the one you just thought of? Should there be one after? Have their been any questions about your industry or area of expertise that would make a good post? Could one tip be turned into several?

Often starting is the hardest part so when your ideas do start flowing give yourself permission to keep brainstorming.

5. Allocate set times for social media monitoring

Social media when left open can be one of our biggest productivity killers. To avoid the temptation and make your social media time more effective and targeted, allocate set times throughout the day to update your status, participate in the conversation and monitor your engagement.

If you find you keep slipping down the rabbit hole of social media memes, updates and information set an alarm so you can keep yourself in check.

6. Schedule updates

With consistency being so important, scheduling your content can be a great way to ensure you have regular content being published regardless of how busy your schedule is, or whether you are in the office or away.

Scheduling can also help you minimise the time you spend on content marketing platforms being able to upload in one hit and avoid the distraction of constant social media checking.

Do you have any tips for effective and efficient content marketing?

Amanda

18 March 2014

Four headlines that engage and convert customers

Whether you need to capture the attention of a potential customer on your website, convince a journalist to publish your story, increase your mailing list with your website opt-in, generate leads from an advertisement or boost your hits with a blog post, learning to write good headlines is perhaps one of the greatest time investments you can make in your business.

To help you make a start, and get more results from your marketing and advertising here are four types of headlines that can help you connect with potential customers and convert more sales.

1. The threat

One of the most powerful buying motivators is fear and pain. Generally speaking we move faster away from pain and potential threat than we do towards pleasure, so if you can pinpoint something your target market is afraid of losing or afraid of happening, you can really get inside their head and create a headline that is impossible to ignore.

Examples of a threat headline are “The shocking truth about what your child is really eating”, “the [x] lies your [person/brand] is telling you”, “The information/advice your [trusted person] should give you, but won’t”, “If worse came to worse and [specific scenario], would you/your family/your business be protected? Or “Did you know you could be personally liable/held accountable/at risk of/ for [threat], even if you [protective measure]?”

To craft a powerful threat headline ask yourself:

What are my target markets frustrations?
What problems do they have that my product or service solves?
What are their pain points and worries?
What is keeping them up at night?
What do they fear most?
What are the greatest threats to them, their family and their livelihood?

2. The benefit

The benefit headline, as its name suggests is driven by a benefit. The benefit can be positive, drawing your target market towards pleasure like “How you can generate more leads for your business without spending more time, money or effort”, or a negative benefit, drawing them away from pain, frustration or consequence like “Stop paying too much tax”.

Whichever way you go, when mastered, the benefit headline can be incredibly powerful. The key to its success though, depends on how well you know your target market and what they need or desire, in order to appeal to their buy buttons. It can’t just be any benefit that your product or service provides though, it has to be a benefit your target market can’t ignore or must-have in order to incite action.

When crafting a benefit headline ask yourself:

What does my target market want most?
What are their dreams and aspirations?
What do they value?
Who do they look up to or want to be like?
What are their frustrations?
What do they want to avoid most?
What can my products or services give them, save them, help them become or achieve that will help them get what they want or avoid what they want to avoid?

3. The promise

The promise headline is like the benefit headline only more powerful because it comes with a promise of results. It could be that you can provide the desired results within a desired timeframe, or the desired result with a guarantee. Of course you MUST deliver what you have promised, so handle this headline with care.

When crafting a promise headline ask yourself:

What results have I generated for past customers?
What results will motivate potential customers?
Can I deliver results in an assured timeframe?
Can I offer a money back guarantee?
How can I eliminate the perceived risk people have when buying from me?

4. The testimonial

The testimonial headline is one of the most powerful headlines because it uses a customer success story and their own words to sell your products and services. It gives you credibility and proves your value long before you’ve tried to establish it.

The testimonial could be outstanding results you’ve delivered, a relatable situation you helped a customer through, a common problem you solved, a testimonial that addresses common objections people have or even a celebrity or notable person who uses your products or services.

The key to a good testimonial headline is that it needs to be specific, have high impact, connect with or be relatable to your potential customer and prove your value. To do this you may need to give the customer who is endorsing you specific boundaries and prompts of what you are looking for from their testimonial.

Have you found a particular type of headline has worked well for you?

Amanda

3 March 2014

Three tips to help you build your email list

With so much focus placed on how many likers, followers and connections we have on social media, it can be easy to lose sight of the most important number – your subscribers.

As business owners we often spend so much time, money and effort building our databases on someone else’s platform, but what about our own? If you could no longer access your social media accounts or blogs, would you have a way of staying in touch with at least some of your likers, followers, readers and connections?

It can be a scary thought can’t it? To make sure you are building your list while leveraging social media and blogging, here are three tips to turn your likers, followers, readers and connections into subscribers.

1. Create a killer opt-in

In order for a potential customer to give you their contact details willingly, you need to give them value and incentive. It could be a checklist, cheat sheet, fact sheet, list of resources, strategy session, ideas, a gift certificate, newsletter or a whole host of other ideas.

The key is that you need to make it relevant, desirable and where possible shareable, so there is no doubt in your potential customers mind that they (and others they know) must give over their details to get it. To do this you need to be generous. You need to give enough away so it is easy for them to see the value, yet still enough mystery that they need to buy from you.

A good opt-in, depending on your product, service and industry of course, should inspire your potential customer, challenge the way they think or do something, solve a problem or at least start to solve a problem and/or appeal to their ambition or desire to reach their goal. Emotional engagement is key for high performing opt-in.

If it is a newsletter that you are using as an opt in, instead of saying the usual “sign up for our e-news” say what someone will receive from reading your e-news. Will there be tips, hints, ideas, and deals? Look closely at what value it provides, what will your reader be able to do or know as a result of your information?

Also try teaming it with a great offer “Sign up for our e-news and get a $5/$10/$50/$100 (depending on what you sell) voucher to use with your next purchase” or “Sign up for our e-news and receive the [x] game-changing tips/hints/questions to ask/habits to achieve [x]”.

2. Capture details with competitions

We all love the chance to win something, particularly if it is something really relevant, desirable, luxurious or expensive (even if it is perceived value) so use a competition as a way to grow your list. Again, look closely at what your potential customers may want or need to make their life or business easier, more enjoyable, fulfilling or profitable.

While the prize doesn’t need to be directly linked to your business, keep in mind that the more general the prize the more general the people will be who enter it. You don’t just want to grow your database for the sake of growing it, you want to attract targeted, interested people, so take your time when thinking of a prize.

3. Be an information tease

We are really lucky to have tools like blogs and social media at our disposal, so why not put them to good use by doing a little information teaser campaign.

Once you have identified information you think your audience will really value (think golden nuggets of great wisdom, serious money saving or making tips, a step-by-step process or formula, or anything else you can think of that really gives your audience the opportunity to “peek behind the curtain” of your knowledge), do up one or a series of blog posts or status updates incorporating them.

Ideally you want there to be at least 5-10 tips/steps/pearls of wisdom in order to get the most impact. But here’s the catch, you only release half – and not the best half, into the public domain the rest you have under lock and key available only to those who join your mailing list.

Keep in mind though that this only works when the information is relevant, valuable and when done sparingly, when used all the time this tactic can lose its impact. So time it well, after a social media advertising campaign for instance, in order to turn those likers and followers into subscribers.

Do you have any tips for building your mailing list?

Amanda

25 November 2013

Five business blog post ideas that are sure to be a hit with your readers

Have you ever felt the frustration of finally making the time to sit down and write that blog or article you’ve been meaning to only to find that all of your ideas have dried up and you can’t think of anything to write about?

We’ve all experienced writer’s block at some point, even those of us who write for a living have days when where we can’t seem to think of any more words to say.

So what do you do when inspiration doesn’t strike? You look at what topics you know well and what types of blogs readers love reading, and in no time ideas start flowing. To help get you thinking here are five business blog posts that are sure to be a hit with your readers.

1. How-to’s

Look to solve a problem for your reader or save them time by providing tips, tricks and guides. It could be based around your areas of expertise like “how to get more leads with less effort” or your personal experience, talking about what you’ve learned, what you’ve done, what’s worked or what hasn’t like “five valuable business lessons that can make or break your business”.

Also try reverse how-to posts on mistakes to avoid or what not to do. Often these are more popular than ordinary how-to’s because we tend to move faster away from pain than towards pleasure.

2. Interviews and profiles

Most of us are sticky beaks by nature and love a good interview or profile on someone well-known or interesting.

It could be a rags to riches story, an inspirational story about overcoming great odds or an interview with a successful business person on what worked for them, whatever it is, find a way to make your interview more interesting and different by taking a different angle or finding out little known facts.

3. Lists

Who doesn’t love a good list? Whether it’s a bulleted list, numbered list, checklist or cheat sheet, lists are great for making complicated topics simple and they have a habit of making life easier in general. Not sure what list you could do? Here are some examples “ten apps that will save you time, money and effort”, “eight business resources you won’t want to live without” or “what you need to bring on the day to ensure a successful event”.

The more relevant and comprehensive you make your list, the more likely your readers will share it and keep coming back to it again and again.

4. Shortcuts or hacks

What’s better than a list? A shortcut! We’re all on the lookout for ways to do things easier, quicker, better and cheaper that’s why shortcut posts are so popular. Think along the lines of “seven shortcuts to help you grow your business in record time” or “six life hacks that will buy you more time”.

5. Insights and trends

As an expert in your industry you have access to information that is not readily available to others, information that could provide great benefit to your readers.

Are you noticing any patterns or trends within your industry? Are there any predictions being made and why? What insights could you give on the current and future happenings of your industry or areas of specialty? Include statistics, surveys and facts along with practical ways to use the information to make your post even more compelling.

What blog posts have you found popular?