Blog, Branding, Content & Copywriting, Product Reviews
Summer is here and it’s not the time for cool, mediocre content on your blogs or website. Send your content and website hits soaring with these successful tips to keep your rankings and indexing climbing to the top of the charts.
#1 Consider what sells you on eBay — A good description of a product as well as the imagery selected creates the motivation to buy the item, right? So it’s no different with your product or service description. Want to heat up the return on your investment of time, money and effort expended on building your business, brand or blog? You have to engage and inform in such a way that ignites the audience to take action.
#2 Yes, Sweat the Small Stuff — I don’t like saying the “devil’s in the details” but the small, sweat drops of critical points are what’s going to take the success of your content sky-high! Remember, in the online world, all your competitors are just a few clicks away. Give them more than just a simple photo and bland product dimensions; engage them visually and then close the deal.
#3 Hot Headlines & Following the News in Your Niche — News is a great source to turn up the heat on your content . You’d be surprised where great ideas can be formulated when derived from the media’s ‘hot topics’ and headlines promoted on Yahoo, CNN and various websites as well as TV. This technique can effectively increase the exposure of your content and be just what you need to jump-start your creative juices and typing fingers. For example, while on my LinkedIn page, I saw an article about choosing the red vs. the blue pill in ‘Happiness Is Not the Most Important Thing at Work.’ It made me consider a future blog topic about the power of engaging headlines and questioning your audience within your content to fully-engage them.
#4 Test the waters with a Blog Aggregator – A what? You read it correctly – a blog aggregator. It’s a website that keeps track of blog posts and where bloggers go for idea sharing with other bloggers in your niche. This is a great way to be inspired, share ideas and even professionally debate a topic. I recently wrote an article on Triberr, one of the prominent blog aggregators today. Not only were people engaged, but one of the founders of the company commented on my blog to address some of the points I made. Engagement accomplished!
#5 Window Shopping & People Watching – Most of us are out & about more than usual during the summer months. Whether at the beach, tanning poolside or BBQing in the backyard–watching others can give way to some pretty cool topics for blogging. Window shopping and long walks about town can also be the catalyst for thoughts on a product or service, from or for your own business. Also, by watching how someone reacts to various stimuli can strike the right match to turn up creative thought within you.
I hope this ignited some inspiration in you with some great insights to consider when writing and posting your content. I’d love to hear what other piping hot tips you have to share with me!
All Posts, Branding, Events, Marketing, Social Media
There are over one billion people on Facebook.
Just about everyone on the planet knows that Facebook has become the go-to media strategy for business promotion. Using Facebook provides businesses one of the best opportunities on the Internet for targeted advertising. This is key because Facebook users provide pertinent information such as their age, gender, location and interests, which allows you direct access to target your audience. These Facebook ads can be used for lead generation, traditional brand advertising, and more all to promote your business – FOR FREE! Here are just a few ways to leverage Facebook advertisements for your business.
1st – Know How It Works – When you run your ad or sponsored posts/stories you are charged for the number of impressions (CPM) or clicks it receives. The amount that you pay can be restricted by your daily or lifetime budget and there are no additional fees associated with running ads or sponsored stories on Facebook. Facebook suggests you name your campaign, select your budget and set the time schedule for running your ad. When multiple ads are running in a campaign, Facebook automatically allocates more of your daily budget to higher performing ads. You can use the Ads Manager feature to monitor your campaigns performance, to measure its success and ultimately determine if you are spending your Facebook advertising $’s in the best way possible.
2nd – Consider Psychographics vs. Demographics in the Setup – Psychographics study and measure attitudes, values, lifestyles, and opinions versus demographics, which provide quantitative data based on geography, age, gender and the like. Psychographics give a true, life-like portrait of the targeted audience and consumer base for your individualized marketing purposes. Facebook gathering this key information allows advertisers to target & pinpoint their audience in a very precise and henceforth successful way.
3rd – Always Use Effective, Eye-Catching Tools & Creative Options – We know that we “eat” with our eyes first. What catches our attention through imagery certainly opens the door leading us to the relevant information. So smart use of imagery in your Facebook ad will make a significant impact on the success of the advertising and marketing campaign. And there are various forms of these eye-catching options to consider.
- Infographics are a great way to grab the reader’s attention especially when you add imbedded links to your page to promote key information about a product or service being provided.
- Video Ads – For those who prefer to watch than read, video ads are a great way to convey pertinent healthcare information or solicitations to the masses. For example, there are sports companies like Nike that use ads like Nike’s Football: The Vapor Trail to create amazing & captivating video ads to entice their target audience and promote their products.
- Job Opportunities – In need of more sales associates or another CPA for your growing accounting firm? With over 1 billions people on Facebook, it is no brainer to use ad space to market career opportunities within your business.
- Free Services & Apps – Nothing attracts new customers like the words FREE and even more so when they can actually obtain something. What better way to entice a consumer than offering a limited service for free? What about creating engagement via a free app offer as you lead consumers to your own website. Use Facebook the way Facebook uses you – to get new subscribers i.e. new consumers.
- Emotional Response Ads – Emotions are one of the most powerful influences we have. Emotional Response Marketing & Advertising works wonders in the various forums such as healthcare because there are emotional attachments to health concerns, issues and supportive causes such as Shriner’s Hospital Love to the Rescue.
- Hosted Event Ads – Events promoted on Facebook have a greater chance of success than any traditional marketing method. Business exhibitions and conferences, trainings, and career events can have a much higher participatory turnout when advertised through Facebook.
So are Facebook advertisements worthwhile for your business and particular industry? Only you know who your general audience is comprised of. But if there are more than 50% that you believe are online and use Social Media – than the answer is YES. Especially if you look at the IMMENSE EXPOSURE opportunity versus the amount of money spent on the campaign. Using Facebook creates unlimited opportunities to attain new customers, host successful events and bring global awareness to your company’s product or service. 
About Design Theory, All Posts, Content & Copywriting, Social Media
Jean Perpillant, owner, head honcho and web designer extraordinaire of Design Theory and I recently had a conversation about the importance of Social Media and in particular, blogging. Oftentimes one of the hardest parts of our (and in particular my) job is getting clients to believe that professional blogging is a worthwhile cause and can be a great contributor to your business’s success. See a previous blog I wrote on that subject at http://bit.ly/WaawSu. So as we were talking about our own numbers and the ROI therefrom, I suggested lifting the hood on our analytic statistics to prove just how vital this is to the exposure and growth of your business and that business’s profitability. He loved the idea of using our own transparency to prove the validity of our belief to outside clients that there is a tangible benefit To Blog or Not to Blog. No dirty overalls or Goop needed, here we go…
The early part of September hits on our weekly blogs – 572 Page Views
As you can see, we have 3 main contribution sources for our readership this particular week-those who come through our blog being indexed on Google, visits to our blog through visiting www.jpdesigntheory.com directly and others through various alternative search engines. As you can see, the top referring websites that contribute to our audience statistics are Google & LinkedIn with majority this weeks of readership coming from our blogs being indexed on Google. Ah yes, the power of Google.
At Design Theory, we know that our readership is vital to getting our name out there not only in the World Wide Blogosphere but also to the masses as a whole. We’re not a huge corporation with various satellite offices (YET!) but we know that having a world wide presence is the key to meeting our company goals as well as attaining clientele outside our hubs geographic region in Orlando, Florida. What you can also see from the Audience Stats, is that Tuesday happens to be our highest number of reads for this particular week. Knowing that information is important because it tells us at DT, that the early part of the week is the best time to post and also can help clue us in as to who is posting on that day & the impact that person has our readership. Monday is right behind Tuesday for readership and I happen to know that those 2 days blogs are written by Daphne Lenti, our lead Graphic Designer on Monday and me, your happy Wordsmith & Content Marketeer (love the title right!) on Tuesday. What it additionally shows Daphne & I is how important our blogging is to the exposure of our company AND that people are interested in what we have to say & that we have a well-respected level of knowledge on what we write about. It also shows that our connections on LinkedIn are working as an additional exposure source through our professional networks and the groups we are affiliated with on there.
The 3rd week of this month – 994 Page Views
What you see right off the bat is that our Page Views have dramatically increased by 442! Additionally, the 3 main contribution sources to these statistics remain the same but take note of the jump from 24 visits via LinkedIn to a whopping 148 visits in just 2 weeks! Once again Daphne & I are neck in neck until we get to a spike in readership on Thursday. Also note that the top viewing location has changed from Tijuana to Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia. I have no clue why but talk about a world wide presence!
So the crux of our To Blog or Not to Blog and reason for our behind the scenes look at our blogs, is to put our own “argument” to the test and to show you that we practice what we preach to our clients. Oh, and it works!
~ Content Writing Inspiration ~ 
This morning I took out a comma and this afternoon I put it back again.
~Oscar Wilde
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O
ver the past two months I’ve been attending quite a few networking groups, meetups, expos, and the like. My experiences range from great to a complete waste of time. Some were free and some carried an entry fee; but all of them left me with something to learn and something to walk away with.
Let me start by saying that I would recommend any solo-prenuer designer to try to attend as many networking engagements as you can when you’re starting out. You’ll get a chance to practice your elevator speech over and over again. If you don’t have one, you’ll quickly learn one as you introduce yourself to people every few minutes. Have a speech prepared already, the repetition will help finesse your keywords and delivery. Those of you who’ve been around for a few years, you already know that your time is important. Being strategic about which events you attend is key. Think about who in the community in terms of leaders or movers and shakers will be in attendance. Try and work your way to meeting them and making a good impression. Not just to get them to take your business card, but to find interest in what you know about a subject matter. If the conversation goes well then give them your card. Also seek out city officials and editors of your local newspapers.
You’ll pick up a lot of business cards during the event. Even during a 2 hour meetup with about 40 attending professionals, you’re set to collect about 30 new business cards. Treat each new business card as a possible lead. Quickly email them back with a short personal message the very next business day. Include something to remind them about what you may have discussed together and leave them with an open-ended request for service. For example:
“Good morning Mr. Smith. It was great to meet you last night at the Entrepreneur’s Networking Event. Especially to meet someone else who still wears penny loafers! You had some really interesting points about your products. If you ever have any questions about (design, or websites, or social media, or graphics) feel free to give me a call.”
That’s all you need to say really. Short and to the point. In my experience I hear back from 10-15% of the people I reach out to after an event. Out of those that I hear back from I’m able to convert clients or referrals out of at least 1 or 2.
The events that could be a waste of time are ones where your target clients are not obviously attending. After you’ve been to a few networking events you should be able to tell from the invite who the audience in attendance will be. Save yourself the gas and RSVP to ones based on who will attend, even if you may be at bit nervous. I’ll admit that stepping out of your comfort zone may be nerve-wracking but the more you do it the more rewarded you will be. Eventually you’ll build up a good confident vibe when entering a room, talking to new people about what you do in under a minute, and having people ask you first for YOUR business card because they recognize you’re the authority on your industry.
Have any recent experiences like this to add? Please share in the comments field below.
Summer is here and it’s not the time for cool, mediocre content on your blogs or website. Send your content and website hits soaring with these successful tips to keep your rankings and indexing climbing to the top of the charts.
