In Part 1 of this series, we talked about different ways to deal with the trauma of a pandemic on a personal level.
Today, we’re going to tackle the professional side, focusing on the following online marketing strategies:
- Short-term strategies to help make things better now
- Mid- and Long-term strategies that can help your business down the road
- We’ll also revisit self-care, as it plays a role in your professional success, too!
- A Resources section is also included to help you further dive into these strategies …
Short-term Strategies to Help Make Things Better
- Email: are you sending out a monthly newsletter to you email list?
If you are, great! If you’re not, now is a good time to put a newsletter together. Whether you have an email list of 100, 1,000 or 10,000, connecting with clients, colleagues and friends is a good idea. We’ll talk about WHAT to include in the newsletter shortly … - Zoom: Beyond meetings, how else can Zoom serve you?
In addition to being used for client meetings, are there any other ways you can use Zoom to connect with clients and potential clients?
– Are there any services you can offer remotely?
– Are there some webinar-like presentations you can facilitate that help educate people, or help them through the pandemic? - Social Media: are you still connecting with people on social?
If so, what are you talking about? Are you selling in the same old way, or are you connecting with people in meaningful ways? And are you using video as part of your social media mix.Whether it’s video or text in your post, there’s one important detail I want to share with you:
– If you’re including a text link, be sure to place it in the “first comment below,” as opposed to directly in your post’s content. There’s a good reason for this. When you post a link right in your content the social media platform — whether it’s LinkedIn, Facebook, or whoever — doesn’t like it, and will present your post to LESS people because they don’t want people leaving their social media channel.
– When you include a text link in the first comment of your post, you wind up bypassing the penalty and your post is likely to be seen by more people. I’ve tested this out myself, and have seen a marked improvement in impressions — which has also led to more engagement.
Now, whether it’s email, Zoom of social media, the big question is WHAT do you present to the people you’re talking to? In other words, what do you post in the middle of the pandemic, and beyond?
Since nobody likes to be sold to, the content you create should be focused on connecting and building relationships in human ways. How is the pandemic affecting your business? How is it affecting your clients’ businesses? What have you done, or helped your clients do, in order to survive the pandemic? Or, maybe your products or services can help people or organizations through the pandemic — like Zoom has done. Bottom line? Keep it real, keep it honest — and keep it human.
In order to accomplish this, I have three “magic” questions to ask for every single piece of content you create. To ensure your content packs the most value possible, always do your best to CLEARLY and SUCCINCTLY answer these three magic questions …
- What is it?
- What does it do?
- How does it help me (benefits)?
I call them magic questions because they get to the heart of what your content needs to contain.
“If they like you, and they believe you, and they trust you, and they have confidence in you … then they MAY buy from you.” — Jeffrey Gitomer
More Short-term Strategies …
- Review and improve the user experience (UX) an conversion methodologies on your website.
– User experience is the positive, negative or neutral experience someone has on your website. From your navigation, to the hierarchy of your web pages, to how well you present your calls-to-action, every part of your site affects the user experience — make sure the experience you’re providing is a positive one!
– Conversion, in a nutshell, is a strategy that takes a website visitor from where they are, to where you want them to go. Please note how I’ve worded this, “from where they are, to where you want them to go.” More often than not, your call-to-action will take the form of a button on your website.
Mid- and Long-term Strategies that Can Help Strengthen Your Business Down the Road
Before we begin this section, it’s important to note that you’ll want to continue all of the above mentioned strategies. The only difference is the short-term solutions are more “fast-acting,” while mid-and long-term strategies take longer to bear fruit.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
– Have a professional, experienced SEO expert — with a proven track record — optimize you website. An optimized website can help get you found more often.
– If you can’t currently afford an SEO expert, I suggest you implement what I call “common sense SEO.” There’s a lot more info on this in my book, A Holistic Guide to Online Marketing, if you want a low-cost way of getting more SEO into your website ASAP. - Blogging: are you creating written or video content consistently?
Blogging consistently helps you connect with clients and potential clients and provides fresh content on your site — which helps improve the SEO on your website. Why is this important? Because fresh content can literally affect where you land in search results for the products and services you provide. Yes, it may be a hassle to write at least one blog post a week, and yes it’s also worth your time. Just like we discussed earlier, answering those three magic questions is critical to writing successful blog posts.
How Self-care Plays into the Equation
- It’s incredibly important to exercise, meditate, be kind to yourself — and find healthy self-care habits. In other words, make self care a part of your daily life.
- I’ve found this concept to be a difficult one because my goal is to always take care of my family and clients first and foremost. What I realized, the hard way, was that if I’m not taking care of myself I’m no good (or less good) to anybody. Once I started consistently taking care of myself, my overall well being improved — and all of my relationships improved, too!
- Awareness: Check in with yourself to see how you are doing. If you’re like many people and are still super busy, you may have to be very deliberate to actually STOP for a minute to check in and gauge where you’re at emotionally, cognitively, spiritually and physically. Leaving any of these parts of yourself unchecked can have negative results like burnout, emotional outbursts and exhaustion.
- Acceptance: Once you’ve assessed, in a mindful way, how you’re doing you may feel resistance (especially if you’ve determined you’re not doing as well as you’d like!). Accepting how you’re doing, and “meeting yourself where you’re at,” as opposed to resisting what is, can go a long way in helping you get back to a place of balance.
- Practice a “Yes, And” Philosophy: Diving deeper into practicing acceptance, I wanted to share the following. I’ve worked hard on removing the word “but” from my vocabulary, and it’s made a rather large difference in my life. So now, instead of saying something like “yes I have a flat tire, but I don’t want a flat tire,” (resistance) I say, “”yes I have a flat tire, and what can I do about it?” (acceptance) This puts me in a way more positive frame of mind — and helps find a solution.
Resources
Finally, I’d like to share some resources with you that all expand on the concepts presented in this series.
Meditation & Spiritual
- Eckhart Tolle – A New Earth: audio version is fantastic, as you can meditate while you listen
- Meditation Apps: Check the app section of your iPhone or Android and try some of the free (or freemium) options that look good to you; since this is so subjective, a little trial and error may be necessary
Exercise
- Take a walk or run in the park
- Carrot Fit: provides quick, as-intense-as you-want, workouts you can do in your own home; this is a kind of snarky app, so you might want to turn off the audio “commentary”
Positive Thinking & Goals
- Zig Ziglar – Goals:Get the audio recording, Zig’s voice is a big factor in his greatness; You can also find this at most libraries or on Apple Music
Business
- A Holistic Guide to Online Marketing: this covers everything we spoke about today in our webinar — and more — in great detail
- The Little Red Book of Selling: hardcover is best, as it’s an action-oriented read that takes time to complete; the book is also about RELATIONSHIP BUILDING, not selling
Until next time, be well!