Flossing & Your Digital Marketing Strategy

Did you see that report that says there’s no evidence that flossing works? 

Apparently the studies funded by Proctor & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson (a family company!) that said flossing helps to remove plaque, were discredited back in 2011.

Apparently what flossing is really good for is sustaining a $6 billion industry.

And This Is Relevant How?

The argument being used by Dentists to refute this report is that flossing is actually good for you but that most people are doing it wrong.

Here’s the tenuous link to digital marketing…

Content strategy works - but most people are doing it wrong!

Your Content = Your Teeth

I know it’ll come as shock to most of you but, content production is probably the easiest part of your marketing strategy.  

Oh sure, it takes a while to find the format that works for you and it takes even longer for you to get good at it, but nowadays there’s no barrier to producing and distributing content.

Your articles, videos, pictures & witty comments are just like teeth - everyone has them!

Promoting Your Content = Flossing

I’m not talking ad spends - although that’s definitely a good way of getting your content in front of people - I’m talking about what you do to ensure that other people will find, view and link to your content.

Remember you’re producing this stuff so that when someone comes looking for your services or products:

1/ they’ll actually find you because people will have linked to your content and the search engines see the links and think - this must be good stuff - so they put you higher in the search results and...

2/ when people do arrive on your site they see all this great information that answers their questions, demonstrates how wonderful you are and so they choose you to meet their needs.

What Should You Do?

Well, everyone’s different so your situation is likely unique but there are things to consider.

Technical stuff like targeting the right keywords, formatting content in the right way, getting the filename right on your video, things which are tedious and take longer than you wished they did, these are super important.

But the holy grail of generating links is creating a community that looks out for your content - that is kinda stoked you took the time to produce it, that reads it when they see it and shares and links to it.

You only get this by investing your time in them - by reciprocating, by creating real world loose relationships with strangers.

It requires you spending as much time (preferably more) on Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc than you do creating your content in the first place.

Need Help?

We can help with the technical stuff - I have access to trusted people who know how to set things up and can take the tedious bits off your hands.  

As for the whole outreach, community building stuff, that will be unique to you and will require some strategy - that’s when you should talk with me.

Dealing with Loss or Grief? Listen to this, it really helps you feel better.

Image credit: Mikael Kristenson on Unsplash

6 Point Marketing Checklist For Business Owners In 2016

You should have these - if you don’t you’re wasting time and money.

1/ A Marketing Budget

As a business owner you have an Ops plan - yes?  A spreadsheet that breaks down the year into quarters and months and that tracks income and expenses - right?  What do you have allocated to the marketing line this year?

2/ KPIs

Similar in style to your Ops plan, you should have a document that tracks the effects of your marketing behaviors and compares them to revenue.  If you tracked KPIs last year you can now create a beautiful document that projects the entire year and allows you to plan and measure the efficacy of your efforts.

3/ Defined Target Audience

Who is your customer?  What frustrations and needs do your best clients have?  When you’re producing content make sure you are writing for them - not for you, your spouse or your peers.

4/ Key Words

Remember that we’re doing this so that people can find you on the internet.  What are the keywords that they’re using to find businesses like yours?  Pick a handful of keyword phrases - no more than 3 - and make sure you incorporate them into your writing this year.

5/ A Publishing Schedule

I cannot overstate how important this is - it’s one of those things that seem odd - but once you commit - good things start to happen.

6/ Defined Social Platforms

Work out which social platforms you’re going to concentrate on - Facebook / Instagram / Linkedin / Twitter etc.  You can’t do them all and if you’re going to be on one - you need to invest time in developing relationships.

If you need help developing any of the above - get in touch - sooner rather than later.

Written while listening to:  C major Theme - Lisbon Development

Image Credit: Scotland by music2work2
 

How To Easily Get More From Your Blog

I’m in Scotland - the public dumps here are amazing! 

You drive in with a trunk load of memories and discard them into different skips for wood, metal, cardboard, general purpose waste and small electrical.   With separate skips for different colored glass, clothes and even engine oil, everything gets recycled and nothing is wasted.

Re-purposing - It’s your friend!

A recent article on 12 signs you’re wasting your time on content marketing got me thinking about the idea of recycling - particularly the second point where the author reckoned that a single blog post could be turned into:

• 10-15 tweets
• 2-5 Facebook/Google+/LinkedIn updates (focus on a different aspect of the post in each update)
• A SlideShare
• An infographic… even a simple one
• A short video
• A Pinterest pin
• A section of an ebook, whitepaper or case study

While the slideshare, infographic, video and ebook bullets might be a bit ambitious for most people on the list, I think Pam had a great point with the social updates.

Use tools - they’re your friends!

10 to 15 tweets and up to 5 network updates seems a bit over the top but spending 2 minutes with Buffer to highlight 3 or 4 sentences from your post and sending them out into the world seems like such an easy win.

I’m no fan of quantity over quality, but taking multiple bite size pieces from your considered blog posts to give you greater frequency and visibility in the social space just makes sense.

Need help?

If you don’t know how to do this - drop me a line.  I’ll be back next week.

---

Written while listening to: The Bench - 163 - Periscope development by music2work2

Image credit: Four Rs by Bill Smith on Flickr