I officially started my business in January 2012, and my nephew was born a year later on January 31, 2013. As I watch my nephew grow up, I realized that the first few years of a child’s life is similar to the first few years of the growth of a business. In this blog post I will share the four stages of growing a business that I learned from my 3 yr old nephew.
When using blogging as a marketing strategy for your coaching or consulting business, it can be helpful to have tools that make your blogging easier and help you to get more traffic to your blog. In my last post, I talked about one of the main tools I use to help me stay organized, consistent and helps with blog traffic. If you missed that post, be sure to check it out.
In this next post in my series of Essential Marketing Tools, I’m sharing some other tools that I use that can help improve the traffic to your blog:
In the beginning of this year, I announced that I had refreshed my brand, which included a new logo, pictures, vision, and name. If you missed that blog post, be sure to check it out.
Although all of those items I mentioned in the blog post are important to a brand refresh, one item that is also important, but was not mentioned in the post is refreshing the voice of my brand. An aspect of my voice that has been eliminated in the past and will be included with my brand refresh is the importance the role of faith plays in my business.
We are taught that we should separate business and religion (or spirituality), so many people shy away from talking about the role faith plays in their business. Well, with my brand refresh, I have decided to include sharing how faith plays a role in growing my business.
Blogging for business can be an effective long-term marketing strategy. When used correctly, it can bring consistent leads, prospects, and clients to your business. Over the last couple of blog posts, I explored the why, what, and how of blogging for business.
First we looked at why you should blog for business with the blog post ,5 Awesome Reasons Why Coaches Should Have a Blog (Part 1), then we looked at what exactly a blog is and what type of content you can place on your blog with the post, 4 Types of Awesome Blog Content That Can Grow Your Business (Part 2), then we looked at how to use your blog to grow your business with the blog post, 4 Smart Ways to Use Your Blog to Grow Your Business (Part 3), in the last post in this series, we will look at when you should blog, specifically how often should you blog for business?
In this series on the how, what, when and why of blogging for business, we have covered the why and the what of blogging, so this post is actually going to go into the how of blogging, specifically How to Use Your Blog to Grow Your Coaching Business.
Text Marketing can be a powerful marketing tool when done correctly. The problem is so few companies are attempting text marketing, and some of the ones who are using text message marketing, are not using it effectively.
In this post, I will cover the 3 C’s of Successful Text Message Marketing, you can check out the video below or read the post:
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Are you using text marketing in your marketing mix? If so, what do you think makes your text message marketing successful? Be sure to comment below.
One of the questions I get when its comes to blogging for business is how often should I post on my business blog?
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Some people would say it’s important to blog every day, or it’s important to blog at least three times a week. This may be a good strategy for a professional blogger, but your business is not blogging, you should be blogging for business as a part of your marketing mix, so you should take a different approach to how often you blog.
I feel the answer to that question differs for each business. If blogging is part of your marketing mix, you have to decide how much time you or someone on your team can dedicate to consistently posting on the business blog.
Depending on the decision that you come up with for your business, this will determine how often you should blog. However, as a rule of thumb, I would say you should try to put new content on your blog at the very least twice a month.
New content on your blog is important for various reasons:
However, it’s not just important to have new content on your business blog, but it’s just as important if not more important, to promote the older content you have on your blog, so in addition to creating new content for your blog, you should also have a plan to promote the older content that you have on your blog.
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For example, if you decide to post on your business blog at least twice a month, then after just one year of posting at least twice a month, you will have at least 24 pieces of content that you can repurpose and share on your social media networks, your email list, etc.
So no matter how often you post on your business blog, it is important to have fresh content (at least twice a month), and it’s important to promote both your new and old content in order to get more traffic and get more leads for your business.
Do you have a business blog? If so, how often do you post on your business blog?
There are 1001 ways that you can market your business, but if you are a coach or consultant, blogging should be an essential part of your marketing mix. However, it’s not that easy to run a successful business blog. The blogsphere is very crowded with lots of blogs covering the same topic that you will be covering, so how do you stand out and create a successful business blog?
Here are 7 Essential Elements for a Highly Successful Business Blog:
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Are you blogging for business? If so, what essential elements do you feel makes a business blog successful, leave your comments below.
If you plan to grow or promote your business online, then email marketing should be an essential part of your marketing activity.
One of the best ways to be successful with your email marketing effort is to create an effective email marketing plan.
Your email marketing plan doesn’t have to be complicated to be effective, in fact, in this post I will walk you through the outline for a simple and effective email marketing plan.
Step 1- Define the purpose of your email marketing campaigns
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In this part of your plan, you should:
Step 2- Define your email marketing goals
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This part of your plan should cover your email marketing goals:
Step 3– Select Your Email Marketing Strategy
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When it comes to email marketing you have several options on types of email marketing campaigns you can create. Pick the strategies that make sense for your business.
Your strategy could include the following types of email campaigns:
The difference between an autoresponder and a drip campaign is that an autoresponder is a response from an action someone has taken (downloading an eBook, White Paper, Checklist, etc.). While a drip campaign is a series of promotional campaign emails sent to your list not based on an action they have taken, but solely based on a specific promotional campaign.
The most successful email marketing plans have a combination of types of email marketing strategies. The e-newsletters work well to stay top of mind because they are consistently going out over a period of time, but the auto responders and drip campaigns work well too because they are usually tied to a specific product, promotion, or services that you would like to generate some business for, so decide what types of campaigns will work well for you business.
Step 4: Create an Email Marketing Calendar
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The next step in your email marketing plan is to create a calendar that maps out all of your emails over an extended period of time. The time period could be the next 60 days, 90 days, 6 months or even a year. Your calendar should include the following:
Taking the time to strategically think through your email marketing effort will help you to create successful email marketing campaigns.
Are you currently using email marketing in your business? Do you have an email marketing plan? If you need assistance creating an successful email marketing plan, contact us to schedule your FREE Email Marketing Success Strategy Session.
I recently sent out a survey to my audience, which included the question, “If you are using email marketing in your marketing mix, what do you struggle with the most when it comes to your email marketing?” The responses varied, but the #1 thing that most business owners, coaches, and consultants said they struggle with was staying consistent.
It’s easy to start sending emails to your list, but it’s hard to stay consistent, and only when you are consistent with your email marketing will you get results, so I decided to put some tips together on how you can stay consistent with your email marketing.
So, if you create an email marketing plan, set a day and time to publish your emails, put it on your calendar, and plan out your topics in advance, these four things can help you to stay consistent with your email marketing.
Do you have an email marketing plan? Do you need help with creating your email marketing plan? We can help, contact us for a FREE email marketing success strategy session.