Our thanks to Keren Lerner for her insightful post below….
In general, businesses go through cycles, and there are times when a business owner feels “in demand” - confident that the work is flowing in - and other times when you feel - well - worried that you don’t have enough clients/enquiries/projects! I would love to read any comments you have about this.
Image courtesy of Visual Panic
If you ever have a time or a season where things seem a bit quieter for you then - you can worry, - but as the saying goes “Worry is like a rocking chair - it gives you something to do but it doesn’t get you anywhere.”
And if someone tells you “don’t worry” that just makes it worse!
So, my advice is, allocate 10 minutes in the morning, say, when you first wake up, to do some worrying, and then use the other time to get focused and organised with your online marketing plans!
A bit of pre-planning will mean you will be ready again for the busy times when they come around again.
So, what do you do with all that time that will still help your business?
Blogging of course! I am a big fan of blogging for business and I think it’s a skill that you need to nurture and develop over time, and then you will see the rewards. Our clients who blog regularly see the different it makes to their business and their profile.
Your Blogging Plan
Blogging is great for building up leads and referrals for your business. If you have a blog then your website has a place where you constantly keep it updated. Blogs are also great for search engines as every time you add a post to your blog, it creates effectively another page on the internet, and search engines like Google LOVE websites which have more pages.
Ideally you want to have 4-6 blog posts going out a month, or around 1 a week. Then you can plan out your blogs within an “editorial calendar”. This is a really easy to follow tip. All you need is a calendar, a pen and your brain.
Step 1: brainstorm blog headlines - as many as you can think of. Consider blog posts with numbers in the title (eg 15 reasons to have a seating plan at your wedding” or The “5 types of brides - which one are you”) as well as catchy “myth-busting” headlines (eg “Should the bride’s family pay for the wedding?”).
Step 2: Once you have around 35 blog headlines, cut them down to around 25 and then look at your calendar, and put the headlines into your calendar on the dates you want to post them.
Step 3: You can then write them in batches and make sure they go out on days which make sense - paying attention to the seasons and when brides are more likely to attend wedding shows, when they would be choosing rings, etc. This way your blog will be seen as a resource for brides all through the year.
But what if you don’t feel like you are a good writer?
You would need to read more and more blogs as part of learning and over time it would get easier and easier. But if you really want you can get a copywriter to help you put your advice and ideas into words. I recommend still writing a few posts to see how it goes, and then perhaps getting a copywriter to go over it and make the post more punchy and impactful. Like anything in life - you either do it yourself and get better and better all the time, or you pay someone else to do it for you!
Ok, there’s blogging, but what else can I do?
Marketing is a mix of many different activities, and it can be overwhelming to manage Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, email newsletters, Flickr, YouTube and blogs. But the fact is, the more visible you are the more often people are going to see you!
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Special Offer for UKAWP Members - Social Media Course - Keren Lerner and Tamsin Fox-Davies - (5.5 Hours CPD)
Tamsin and I will be holding a course on social media and online marketing on the 23rd of September - if you can come along it would be great to see you there. For a 50% discount on the ticket price please quote TLD-UKAWP
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