Business & Marketing Strategy
I actually wrote this yesterday and used Mailchimp's scheduling service to send it out this morning as I knew I'd be grieving too hard to write.
For the non Americans on the list, today is the 4th of July; they call it Independence day, I call it loss of colony day and I take the day off to mourn.
Normal service will resume next week.
Here's a piece of music2work2 for those of you who have to work and need some help getting started - click theimage:
The text trap
If you think about your content strategy in terms of writing blog posts you're going to have a tough time of it.
Writing something every week, let alone every day is hard; I only know one person who does it well.
Show "and" tell
Even if you're familiar with the Iceberg theory and can write like Hemingway, why not literally show as well as tell?
If you sell physical product, hell even if you sell services, a great image can replace the need for up to three blog posts!
Technology makes it easy
Use your smart phone, capture appropriate imagery, send it to the right platform, have it pulled automatically onto your website.
In the 90 minutes it took me to figure out and structure this post, you could have published 18 times!
Make it happen
You'll need to spend a little thought and time setting the processes up and if you can't do it I can. Reply to this email and get your marketing going again.
Written while listening to Stop Whining! - Instrumental Music to Create Flow 142 views
Squarespace is a way to build your website.
It's better than WordPress - here's why:
It looks awesome - anywhere
Desktops, laptops, tablets, minis, phones and now watches; they're all different shapes and sizes.
Squarespace recognizes what platform is viewing and serves an optimal version of your site. It does this automatically by clever use of image management and responsive coding.
It gets you found
The result of people using these mobile devices is that search engines are giving a greater weighting to location.
Squarespace allows you to easily geo-tag your imagery and posts, making you more visible to mobile searches while building your local digital footprint.
It's easy to use
WordPress has a lot of options but it can get a bit "technical."
The Squarespace backend is brilliantly designed to make it easy for anybody to deliver great looking content with excellent SEO
It's quick
The new Simply Friday website was built in Squarespace, it took me a couple of hours.
Interested to know more?
Reply to this email and find out if Squarespace would be a good solution for your business.
Written while listening to Frustration 2 - Feb 19 - Instrumental Music to Create Flow 283 views
I'm in business - just like you. My primary marketing tool is this newsletter & I obsess about it.
Every week, I know who opens it, who clicks through and of course who reaches out afterwards.
This list is my business and I've spoken with every individual on it. I know who's following through on their marketing plans, who's doing the work and who isn't.
So - just for fun, I went through the list and jotted down what I thought each client would say about Content Marketing.
Can you spot yourself?
Call to action
Wouldn't you rather be in the bottom group? If so, reply to this email and book a session.
Written while listening to Frustration - Music to create flow - 104,154 views
There's going to be another explosion in online content, driven by video that will make the text of the blogging revolution look like a drop in the ocean.
If you haven't got your brand sorted out, you're going to get lost, you'll probably drown.
Purification first
Before you do anything, before you choose a name, a tag line, a logo, a word mark, a font, a color, a website, a voice, a publishing cycle, a level of interaction, anything - you need to work out who and what you are - who and what your brand represents.
The hard work
Where does the brand come from, who wills it into existence, what does it stand for, what does it hope to achieve, what difference does it make, how is it unique, why should anybody care, where is it right now, where is it going, what does it believe in, what does it reject, who will it interact with, how will it do that, how will it communicate its values, what platforms will it be present and visible on?
Finally execution
You have to take all of those answers and represent them in a way so that a visitor to any part of your digital footprint "gets it," immediately, without having to read a word.
Start training now
Most small businesses don't do this but you can. If you'd like to not only survive, but thrive in the impending onslaught, reply to this email and we'll get you started.
Written while listening to Wendi - Music to create flow, write a paper or essay to
Every year KPCB partner Mary Meeker releases her "State of the Internet" report. If you're interested in how the internet is changing the planet, from healthcare to immigration to geopolitics (and come on - who isn't?!) you should give it a scan (link here.)
Here are a few data points:
What does this mean for you?
It means you now need to allocate more resource to mobile than ever before:
You need a plan
You need a plan, an Ariadne thread for your internet marketing; you need a series of objectives that you can tackle in bite size chunks, one or two a month with a clear vision of where you're going and why.
If you don't currently have a plan, reply to this email and book a session.
Written while listening to Lally - Study Music - Music to write a paper or essay to
