Author Archives: cindymobey

How to find your ideal client on Facebook

It is crucial for any business to know who your ideal client is. It’s always the starting point for any marketing strategy. If you don’t know who to aim your content at, you’re just posting …and you could be hearing crickets.

Whenever you see a business advertising something, you never see the statement, “This is aimed at everyone.”  This is where a lot of businesses can fall down.

By aiming at everyone with a generic offer, it doesn’t naturally capture the attention of anyone in particular. Some businesses will argue that their products are aimed at everyone – for example, a card business. And whilst that might be true, a card business can still niche down. Just look at the very well-known online big companies – they have a website with distinct categories and when they advertise, they pick on a particular client to target. Valentine’s Day is coming up and so you’ll see adverts aimed at couples, husbands, wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, partners etc. So, even if you do have a business that could potentially encompass everyone, you can focus your efforts on particular events during the year…after Valentine’s Day, it will be Mother’s Day and Easter. There is always something to focus on. And if there isn’t an event coming up, you can focus on birthdays, anniversaries, weddings – the list is endless.

For this kind of business, you will have a range of ideal clients.

Where do you start?

This is a question I get asked a lot. If you target the right people, they will feel like you ‘get them’ and so what you have to offer becomes very appealing.

Your current customers

The first place to start is to look at your current customers. Who buys from you and why? Take some time to look at who they are – what age are they? What gender? What do they do for a living? Where do they live? What interests do they have?

This is going to be easier for some businesses to pinpoint than others. For example, if you sell children’s books, your customers are likely to be Mums, Dads, Grandparents, and maybe Aunties and Uncles. But if you think a little wider, you could also target schools and nurseries, children’s birthdays, and Christmas. There are stories about about everything, from tooth fairy to camping…and not just stories. There are also educational books, which gives a whole new raft of clients.

Look at your customers’ habits

This is a little harder. You need to dig a bit deeper. What do they like – what kind of things do they google? Do they prefer Android or Apple? Do they hang out on Facebook or on Instagram? What hobbies and interests do they have? For example, your target market might be Mums. A Mum obviously has children, but she will have other interests – she might love Zumba or Yoga; she might like skydiving or love white knuckle rides at the funfair! She might be really interested in a healthy lifestyle – she might not. She might be Vegan; she might love animals – she might be allergic to animals! So, even though you think you are targeting Mums, you could have the potential to target so many other areas too. And it’s up to you to decide on your niche.

Look at your customers’ goals

Knowing what your customers aspire to can help you with ideas for your content. You might be a wedding planner, but you will know that your customer is not only interested in planning her actual wedding; she also wants to have her hair/make-up/nails done. She wants to have lovely flowers, and evening do with music.

It’s good to be able to see the bigger picture. And if you have contacts with the various other businesses you know she’ll want, that can be part of your service to find the right things for her. That gives you much more scope to advertise your service.

Solve a problem

Does your product or service solve a problem? If you can identify some kind of challenge that your potential customers face – and can give them the solution, you’re onto a winner.

How do you customers decide to buy?

There are different types of buyers. There’s the person who totally buys on impulse; sees it, wants it, buys it. This isn’t always a bad thing – it might be that you offer exactly what that person is looking for at that moment in time – or your product might be something that triggers a memory – ‘my best friend would love that’ and buy.

Then there’s the buyer who likes to do some research, look at the benefits and features of a product, does price comparisons and looks at all the reviews.

If you have customers who will buy on impulse, make sure that your shop or website is easy to use, and they can order and pay easily and quickly.

If your customers like to take their time, ensure your website is up to date, has relevant reviews in a prominent place…and that your product descriptions are spot on.

Who would you like to be your customer?

This sounds like a weird thing to say – surely it’s anyone who wants your products or services? If you’re a service business, you’re sure to have had the odd difficult customer and wouldn’t necessarily want that again, so it is a consideration.

You might prefer to work with Mums, for example, or with people who are like-minded. Again, this is a useful consideration to make when thinking about your ideal client.

Your customers are on Facebook – what next?

OK, so you now know what your ideal customer looks like. Build up a couple of client personas and keep them somewhere to help remind you when you make your content. I talk about this in a previous blog post.

What’s next?

You know your customers are primarily on Facebook.

How do you get to them?

As well as setting up a business Facebook page, so you can keep it separate to your personal stuff, Facebook Groups are THE BEST PLACE to find your ideal customers.

There are Facebook groups for absolutely anything you can think of. Once you know who your ideal customer is – what they like to do – what they are interested in – you can join groups where you know they’ll be. On your Facebook homepage, there is a search box top left of the page. You can search for anything. If you know what your customers like, you can search for them. For example, you could type ‘Groups joined by people who like XXXXXX’

If you go to your personal page and click on Groups – then click on ‘discover,’ Facebook will show you groups that your friends belong to.

Always read the rules of a group before you join. You don’t want to join a group where people just share promotional content all the time. You want groups that are supportive of each other, have conversations, maybe themed days, and who have engaging posts that you can join in with. This is the way to build engagement on your page, as you will be able to put a link to your Facebook page, whilst supporting and talking to other like-minded people.

Facebook groups are a great way to make friends, make connections, ask for and give advice, and to offer your expertise. People will notice you and your business if your name pops up a few times a week, especially if you take the time to engage and have conversations on posts. After all, it’s not called social media for nothing!

I would advise being on no more than 3-5 of these groups as you need to get involved and it can be time consuming, so it’s better to be very well known on a couple of groups, than posting and engaging randomly every month or two on lots of groups.

Start your own group

You really need to think before you start your own group as it is also something that takes up a lot of time. But it also means you have your own group of people who like what you do and have similar things in common. And it gives you valuable insights into your target audience.

Insights

When you have a Facebook business page, you get access to your insights. This gives you lots of valuable information, such as what kind of posts your audience finds most interesting.

When you log into your insights, you’ll automatically see figures from the last seven days, but you can look at the last 28 days.

When you scroll down, you’ll see post insights on your most recent posts. It will tell you what kind of post it is; whether it’s a straightforward post or video for example. It will tell you your reach, and the engagement that post has had, be it comments or likes.

The last section gives you insights into your competitors. Facebook can recommend pages for you to watch here, but you can also add pages, so you can tract a particular competitor’s performance if you want to.

When you are on your insights page, you will also see a list of options on the left-hand side, and you can click on any of these categories. For example, if you click on ‘likes,’ it will show you a tracker of your likes and you can track the last 28 days to see how and when your figures grew. If you click on followers, you can track your followers in the same way and see how many unfollow you too. It’s definitely worth spending a bit of time having a play with your insights to better understand what’s happening on your page. I try and check mine once a week and I’ve found it invaluable for knowing what kind of posts my followers like and find useful.

I hope that this blog post has given you some ideas to help you find your ideal clients on Facebook, and also how to understand them and what they want from you.

Please follow my blog for more posts on marketing your business. And, as always, feel free to get in touch if you have any questions.

Facebook marketing tips for creative businesses

Facebook is a great marketing tool for small businesses. It is one of the most visited websites in the world and perfect for engaging with customers and attracting new ones. From ads to Facebook groups, Facebook has lots of tools that you can use.

Create a business page

A business page is a great way to communicate directly with your target audience. People follow your page because they want to…and want to see more about you and your business. Having a business page also means you get access to Facebook insights, which give useful information about your followers and how they interact with your page.

It’s important to add a profile and cover photo that reflects what your business does. Use high-quality images, as they will in some instances, be the first impression you make on your audience.

Customise your page as much as you can – include your business name, address, and contact information. You can add your website URL, business hours and details of your products. There is even the option of having a Facebook shop for your products.

Use keywords throughout that tell your followers, readers, and Facebook what your page and business is all about.

Tell your story – there’s a section where you can write more about your business, so tell your audience what makes your business unique, how your products provide solutions for them, how you got started. Keep it real and relatable.

Invite people to like your business page. Most of us do this when we first set up a business page, but it’s worth doing it again every few months. Each week I also go through the posts I’ve put up and look at who has liked each post. If someone has liked my post, but are not followers, I invite them.

Be consistent

As with any business strategy, it’s important to be consistent on your social media pages, and Facebook is no exception. Post regularly – as frequently as you can, but once a day at a minimum. If you post regularly every day, your followers will start to recognise that you’re posting every day and will engage more, as they get to know you.

Whilst it’s great to post regularly, if you post the same kind of post every day, your followers will get bored with your content. Use a mixture of posts and avoid using posts to sell your products every day. It’s good to follow the 80/20 rule. 80% engage, entertain, educate, and inspire and 20% to promote and you’re your products. You can share behind the scenes information and photos, tell a bit of your story; entertain with funny memes or ‘fill in the blanks;’ educate your audience about your products or a process you follow. For example, if you’re an artist, you could show a series of posts that show a painting from sketch stage to finished article. Or you could give hints and tips about an aspect of your creative business – a sewing tip or, if you make cakes – a ‘how-to’ video is popular. Click here to see other ideas for posts on Facebook.

Facebook’s algorithm encourages engagement, so try and post something that gets a conversation going. It’s good to remember that it is social media, and we need to be social. Don’t forget to reply to comments and to any private messages promptly.

Ask your audience

As well as asking questions or writing engaging posts that promote a conversation, you can also ask your audience to tag their friends. This can work well, particularly with inspirational quotes. When you post a meaningful post, ask your audience to tag someone who might need to hear the advice the post gives.

You could do a post that just says you are sending out a hug to anyone who needs it today – we all know that sometimes, we just do! Then say, ‘tag a friend who’d like a hug today.’

‘Small Business Saturday’ posts work well too. Ask your followers to share links to their favourite small businesses, or to tell you a bit about their small business and to put a link. Make sure that you visit every single business that comments and puts a link on this post. Click on their business link and like some of their posts and post a couple of comments too – this helps them out with the Algorithm, as well as helping your business.

Facebook Ads

Now, this is something I haven’t felt the need to use, but it does seem to work well for some businesses. If you’re having trouble reaching your target audience, you can do an ad fairly cheaply. You can then target a specific audience by location, age, gender, and interests. There’s also an analytics tool to help you understand which ads drive interest and sales.

Facebook insights

I briefly mentioned this earlier, but this is a useful tool. I check my insights once a week, usually on a Sunday afternoon when I’m scrolling through my feed. Your insights tell you how many people engage with each of your posts and how many people each post reaches. You can look at which kind of posts are the most popular, which helps you decide what to post in the following week.

If you think that posting on social media takes up too much of your time, you can use Facebook’s publishing tools to schedule your posts in advance. And you can batch-make posts. I batch-make my posts for the following week every Friday or Saturday. I don’t like to schedule my posts as I like to be able to be available to reply as quickly as possible. But I have scheduled posts when I’ve been away on holiday.

Start your own Facebook group/join one

Having your own Facebook group will help you build a community around your products or services and can help make your brand more visible. It’s a great way to connect with your customers.

It’s also invaluable to join a good networking group with your target audience or with peers. I belong to a few groups – some are specifically for marketing people where trends etc. are discussed and others are networking with other like-minded businesses. I enjoy both, but I do have my favourites! This is a great way to get your business more well-known, but again, you need to be able to give time every day to network and comment on group posts, as well as interact with other businesses. I’ve met loads of lovely people this way and have bought lots of things from some of the small businesses in those groups.

Facebook features

As well as just posting every day, try out some of the features that are regularly being rolled out.

Facebook Live

Go live to engage with your audience in real time. Your followers will get a notification that you’re ‘live’ and can tune in to watch you. Once you have finished your live, you’re given an option to save a recording of your live so followers who haven’t tuned in can watch it later. Your live video then becomes a post on your page.

Facebook Live can be up to four hours long! Now, I’m not saying do a four-hour video, but you should try and aim for at least 10 minutes. The longer you’re live, the more discoverable your stream will be.

Facebook Video

If you’re not brave enough to go live with video, you can record a video. This way you can edit out anything you don’t like or start again if you hate it! Video content really makes a difference to your figure and video tends to be much more popular that posts. The thing I’ve noticed with video is that when you post it, you get some likes and views, but then suddenly a few weeks later, your figures on that video jump up as it’s shown to people. I’m not sure why, but it’s obviously something to do with the Algorithm!

You can use video to teach your audience something – a step-by-step tutorial, or a how-to video. Again, aim for at least 10 minutes. If you’re teaching your audience something, they’ll stay for as long as your video is engaging!

Facebook Stories

When you post a story, it stays on your feed for 24 hours. Again, stories get more traction and seem to reach more people than posts, so it’s a good idea to include them in your marketing strategy.

PLEASE NOTE: Avoid using video as a sales pitch. People tune in to find out more about you and your business, not to be sold to. I’ve made this mistake – I’m sure lots of us have, but I’ve found the videos that are more popular are ones where I’m being social and ‘having a chat.’

Create a plan

As with anything, what you post on Facebook should be part of your marketing strategy or plan. I try and plan my content a month in advance, so I know what I’m going to do and when. I also make note of any special days for each quarter, so I can plan posts around that – for example, Valentine’s Day or Easter.

I hope that you have found this post useful – if you have any questions, please feel free to comment on this post or send me a message.

8 Key factors for successful goal achievement

As a marketer, I always talk about goal setting and how important it is to achieve what you want. But, in order to accomplish your goals, you can’t just set them and expect them to happen. It’s about thinking carefully about what you want to achieve…and then work out what you need to do to get there. Each goal needs hard work and goals need to have specific steps to follow.

So, it’s important to set goals that will actually make a difference to your business and help you push your business forward, be that achieving more customers, selling more products or goals set around gaining more engagement or followers on social media.

Set goals that motivate

It’s crucial to have goals that motivate you. Motivation is what will help you achieve them. Make sure that your goals are focused specifically on what you want from your business. Each goal needs you to commit to them so that you can make them a reality.

When writing down your goals, include a sentence about why each goal is valuable to your business and important to you. If I asked you to share your goals with me, could you convince me that each one is worthwhile? You need to know your ‘why.’

SMART Goals

I’ve talked about SMART goals in previous blogs and on social media, but it’s a valuable way to make sure your goals are viable.

They should all be…

  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Attainable
  • Relevant
  • Timely

For example, if you have a goal that is to ‘lose weight in 2022’. This is not a SMART goal. If it were SMART, it would say…

I will lose 2 stone by Christmas 2022 and will weigh myself once a month to keep on track.

This is specific (2 stone); Measurable, (as you can easily keep track using scales to measure how you are doing against your goal; Attainable, (2 stone in a year is perfectly achievable); Relevant, (because this is where you want your weight to be and can give the focus to your goal with a sensible timeline); Timely (12 months to lose 2 stone is timely, as it is a goal of losing less then 1lb per month).

Write your goals down

When you write them down, it makes them real and holds you accountable. You can’t forget about them if you write them down.

Be positive with the language you use when writing down your goals. Don’t use words like, ‘I would like to ….’ Use positive language, such as ‘I will…’  

Keep your goals somewhere visible so you can refer to them on a regular basis. It’s no good writing them in a word document, saving it and not looking at it again until the end of the year.

Set deadlines for your goals

You may have a goal that can be achieved within a month or two – set a deadline for each of your goals, or at least a deadline for achieving part of them. This helps to keep you accountable. If your deadlines are realistic, then you know that you will be able to achieve them with a bit or hard work and dedication.

Have an action plan

Once you have written down your goals, now spend some time thinking about exactly how you will achieve that specifically. If a goal is particularly big, you could break it down into more manageable chunks, or mini goals. Your action plan is your step-by-step guide, so you know exactly what you need to do. It gives you a structure to follow.

Put reminders in your diary

Once you have your action plan, go to your diary, and make regular time slots each month to review how you are doing. This enables you to tweak your goals if you need to and to ensure you are keeping on track. This will help you avoid the overwhelm and the last-minute panic at the end of the year.

Think about obstacles

Have a good look at your goals. Can you foresee any obstacles that would stop you from achieving them? This is a kind of risk assessment. What might stand in your way? And how will you overcome that?

Celebrate your small wins

With every goal, there will be small wins along the way. When you achieve a goal, or even achieve some of the small steps to that goal, celebrate! It’s hard to stick to your goals 23/7 and there will be times when you go way off course or procrastinate…or you might succumb to imposter syndrome. These can all help to scupper your plans, so be aware of these things. When you do achieve something small and celebrate, it will motivate you more to carry on achieving the bigger picture.

Conclusion

Setting goals is about seeing what we want for ourselves and our businesses in the future. I find goal setting an exciting venture, not a chore. If I work hard, I can achieve them and so my business will be more successful.

It’s important to be motivated and yes, EXCITED about where you want to take your business. All you need to do is to prioritise your time, energy and focus to make sure that you have a relevant action plan, with formal steps or a path to achieving what you want.

Be committed, believe in yourself and what you can achieve, take yourself out of your comfort zone…and most of all be confident.

I’ve always told myself and my children that they can achieve anything they want to – there are just blank pages ahead and it’s up to them to fill them with what they want. They just need to focus and go for it. Be confident, and with a sustainable action plan, you can achieve whatever you want.

Once you have this plan in place and you can see it working, you will always want to have one in place for your business.

As always, if you need my help and would like to have a 1:1 session on setting your goals and pulling together an action plan for your business, please contact me.

What is imposter syndrome and how to beat it

I’ve been hearing more and more about imposter syndrome and the devastating effects it can have on your business. But what is it and how can you deal with it and beat it?

What is imposter syndrome?

According to Wikipedia, the definition of imposter syndrome is…

“A psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments and has a persistent internalised fear of being exposed as a ‘fraud.’ Despite external evidence of their competence, those experiencing this phenomenon remain convinced that they are frauds and do not deserve all they have achieved.”

This might be on the extreme side of imposter syndrome, but I understand the sentiment. It is REAL and everybody has experienced it in one way or another. There are some who feel that their success is due to ‘a stroke of good luck’ or good timing. And it can pop up when you least expect it.

I think for me, it reared its ugly head about a year after I started my own business. I had emigrated to a different country, but I worked online in my own language. I was doing well and had a few clients who I regularly wrote articles or blogs for. Then I started looking at other articles and other peoples’ work online and started to feel that I didn’t measure up. This worried me and I thought that my clients would be thinking ‘who does she think she is?’ I started to doubt my own ability, even though I knew that I was competent and knew what I was talking about! Does this sound familiar? This feeling creeps up on you and dents your confidence.

How can you deal with imposter syndrome?

Imposter syndrome really is a thing and can have a devastating effect on you and your business, BUT I also recognise that it is unavoidable. The reason you suffer from it is because you are pushing yourself to do better, pushing your business to grow, and working hard to make a success of what you do.

If I look back to when I started my business in 2013, I knew that I still had a lot to learn, and I knew that I would make mistakes, and that there was a likelihood that I wouldn’t succeed. It wasn’t that I wasn’t going to succeed, it might just be that I wouldn’t get it right the first time…and I didn’t!

But do you know what? That gets better as you progress in your business, and your confidence grows in what you can do.

Now, I feel that I know my business inside out. I know that I can help my clients and that they like and appreciate what I do.    

OK, so there are a couple of things you can do to deal with this monster lurking in the room. .

  • Understand that imposter syndrome is a normal feeling to have – you are going to have these feeling when you are growing your business. Try and embrace those feelings. They mean that you are pushing yourself to newer and better things.
  • Take a good look at what you’re doing at the moment – are you doing a good job? Do your clients like what you do? You’ll find that the answer is ‘yes’, so you can then recognise your feelings as those of imposter syndrome and choose to not let it affect you and your business growth.
  • There will be things that you don’t know or that you still need to learn about. Give yourself a break! We can always learn more about what we do. Be honest with yourself about what you do know and don’t concentrate on what you don’t know. Now, I don’t mean that you ignore what you don’t know – of course it’s important to recognise that, so you can continue to grow, but try and focus on the experience you do have and what you’re proud of.
  • Sometimes you just need to let go of being a perfectionist, as this can feed your imposter syndrome tendencies. If you set yourself really high, ‘perfectionist’ standards, you will be putting yourself under a lot of pressure to achieve them. This is when self-doubt can creep in, so try and set yourself standards or goals in chunks that are more achievable.  
  • If you keep a record of your successes, with details of what you did to get there, you can refer to this when you feel that imposter monster looming. Be kind to yourself and celebrate your wins, no matter how big or how small

Imposter Syndrome Survey

A few years ago, Kajabi, an industry-leading knowledge platform released a first of its kind study on the impact of imposter syndrome on entrepreneurs and small business owners. Although conducted a while ago, the results are still relevant. They recognised that it could keep businesses from reaching their potential and wanted to find out how businesses deal with these feelings.

    Orlando Baeza, CMO of Kajabi commented, “Imposter syndrome can be such a heavy subject and barrier to success for many people. And since it’s perceived as taboo by many, people dealing with imposter syndrome simply don’t feel comfortable talking about their struggles with it.
    The biggest downside is feeling isolated and as though you don’t have a community to turn to or resources for how to move past it.”

    Kajabi observed that imposter syndrome can be a real barrier for small business professionals, especially those who take big risks in the name of pursuing their dreams.

    If you’re interested in reading the fully survey results, you can go to their website

    Conclusion

    We all know that imposter syndrome exists. We know what it feels like and that we are not the only ones who suffer from it.

    I hope that now you understand a bit more about it, that you can recognise it for what it is and learn ways to deal with it, and to not let it rule the roost.

    16 Tips to beat the Facebook algorithm

    This is the most frustrating thing about being on social media – the algorithm. It seems to me that it is constantly changing and always throwing up something new to deter our audiences and our posts! But there are ways to try and beat it.

    What is the Facebook Algorithm?

    Very basically, the algorithm looks at decides which posts everyone sees every time they check on their newsfeed…and also the order that those posts show up.

    Facebook tells us that there are several layers to the algorithm, and the machine learns how to predict which posts will be the most valuable and meaningful to individuals over the long term. Gobbledegook!

    What this means in simple language with that Facebook does not present posts to you in chronological order. It looks at the posts available and then puts them out in descending order of interest for each user. We don’t know exactly how it decides what to show us, and more importantly, what NOT to show us, but this process happens every single time we log in. But we do know that its aim is to keep us scrolling so that we see more ads!

    For small business brands, this means that if you want more organic reach, you need to post content that people will engage with. What you post will depend on what your business is…and what you want to achieve with your posts.

    Facebook content

    What are your goals for your posts? Is it to get followers to visit your website or your online shop? It might be that you want people to sign up to your email subscription. And sometimes, it might just mean you want to engage with your audience and get to know them better.

    If you want people to visit your website or online shop, content needs to be valuable. Blog posts with helpful information for example, or interactive guides and video content.

    To get more people to your shop, you could give them features that make their shopping experience more enjoyable. This could be in the form of vibrant images, buyer testimonials and, if you make something, a video showing you making something from start to finish. You can do the same with images – showing a step-by-step process. For example, if you are an artist, you can show your work progressing over the course of a week, with a series of photos. This is great as it encourages your audience to look for you every day to see how the work is coming along.

    If you want your audience to sign up to your email or newsletter, make sure that you make the content of your email appealing and give little tasters on your Facebook post about what they can expect, which will encourage them to join you.

    Start a conversation

    Get your audience talking to you and to each other on your posts. Social engagement is one of the key areas that will help your posts rank higher, and so be shown to more of your followers.

    Encourage conversations by asking questions. The way you interact with your followers in conversations needs to be genuine and encourage two-way interaction for a couple of replies.

    You can use several strategies to start conversations. As I said, you can ask questions. You can also be funny or entertaining – talk about something current or share something that you have seen that you find amusing.

    You might be someone who likes to share interesting or inspiring facts or topics – or maybe something a little bit controversial. All these posts will spark interest and get noticed by the algorithm.

    Keep your audience in mind

    When you are crafting your posts, always think about your target audience and write it with them in mind. What do they like to see? What topics do they engage with? What kind of images to they like?

    Local content is also good – if you have something going on in your area, and you have followers locally to you, talk about an event that is happening that they might be interested in. If you’re a creative who makes things, it could be sharing a market or stall you are setting up for a weekend event. Don’t just advertise the event – make sure you take photos and post them in real time to encourage people to engage and even pop along and meet you.

    Facebook insights

    This leads nicely into insights. How do you know who is following you? Where are they from? What kind of posts are popular?

    To help you beat the algorithm, you need to know how your content performs and who your audience is. Your insights will tell you what works best and what doesn’t work; they show you your top ranking and bottom ranking posts, what time of day is best for your engagement and where your audience are from – the demographics.

    It’s well worth tracking your insights on at least a weekly basis, so you can decide how best you can beat the algorithm.

    Timing is everything!

    From your insights you can see what time is best for you to post – it makes sense to post your content when you target audience is online.

    It’s best to post at your peak engagement times – this might not be at the same time every day…and will not be at the same time as other businesses. If you’re really not sure what time is best for you, try posting at various times of day and track your posts’ performance over a week – then you’ll be able to see on your insights when is the peak time for your business.

    Banned content

    This is something that I’m sure we’ve all experienced. Facebook deems that certain content is not suitable or goes against their standards. This includes fake news, anything that makes health claims or misleading information, for example, you’re guaranteed to lose weight.

    Sometimes it feels like you are being targeted – I know I felt like this when I had a few posts banned and I really wasn’t sure why. I appealed and Facebook did reply to say why – it turned out it was a particular word that I used in my caption description!

    Video

    Facebook loves video content, so this will be pushed as a priority, so things like ‘lives’ and pre-recorded video will be shown to more of your followers. This kind of content doesn’t have to be perfect or need to use professional equipment; you can simply use your phone.

    User generated content

    UGC, or user generated content is as it says on the packet. It’s content which is generated by your customers – this could be in the form of a video from a customer showing how they use your product, a photo of a customer with your product, or maybe a podcast where your product is discussed. In fact, anything that your customers or followers produce for you about you or your products.

    Be consistent

    I often see marketers advocate the need to post every single day…or even several times a day in order to engage your audience. This is not necessarily true for all brands. You will know what works best for you and your business. I always post every morning on Facebook, but I don’t post on Instagram until late afternoon/early evening, as my analysis of my insights tell me that’s the best time. I rarely post on a Sunday, but when I do, it doesn’t make that much difference to the engagement I get, so it can be a bit hit and miss.

    However, you do decide to post, ensure that you post consistently. So, if you post seven days a week at 8am, stick with that if your insights tell you that’s the best time of day. Your customers will learn what time you post and will expect to see your posts at that time.

    If you decide you only post three times a week, that’s fine too…so long as you post consistently. Consistency is what wins the race!

    Facebook groups

    I’m sure that all of us are members of Facebook groups. I belong to several groups and post regularly on at least two of them every day. Facebook likes groups and they do push the advertising of groups.

    At their 2019 F9 Conference, Facebook said that people “might see more content from groups in their newsfeed.”

    This means that it is recommended that you join relevant Facebook groups. By relevant, I mean groups that are relevant to your business and your brand. It’s not usually encouraged to be all ‘salesy’ in groups, but normally the admins will have different things happening on each day of the week. So, you could be joining in with engagement and conversations on an ‘Introduce yourself Monday’ post, or a group admin might ask for posts around specific themes, such as the recent ones I’m seeing – show me something that you sell or offer beginning with a certain letter of the alphabet. You can get really creative with this and make it fit your business! There will be posts to share your blog, share a link to your shop or website. These posts not only help small businesses, but they also get conversations started, help participants meet other, like-minded people, as well as educate and solve problems.

    The only thing I would really advise against is to join in with ‘follow for follow’ posts. In my opinion, these serve no purpose whatsoever. You will pick up new follows and likes, but they won’t necessarily be your target audience and if they’re not, they won’t engage with your posts and so will ultimately affect your algorithm as it will show followers that don’t engage. I avoid these at all costs.

    Engagement bait

    Facebook absolutely hates engagement baiting. Although it’s not advised to explicitly ask for comments, such as ‘comment below,’ you can ask for comments by using open-ended questions. This works well if you use polls.

    Facebook also sees ‘follow for follow’ as engagement bait, so if you do get involved with these, your algorithm will suffer.

    Keep your posts unique

    Producing unique posts every single day of the week is difficult to do. It’s something I hear all the time as a marketer – ‘I’ve run out of content,’ or ‘I don’t have any more ideas for posts.’

    There are lots of ways to help you with unique posts.

    Repurposing content you’ve posted before or elsewhere is one of them. If you write a weekly blog for example, you can get loads of posts from that content. It could be a list of tips, a video, a podcast, or using images to illustrate a point you’ve made in your blog. You can also look at relevant quotes around the subject you’ve blogged about.

    Other places to get inspiration for posts are website such as Pinterest, Ask the public, Quora, Reddit and BuzzSumo to name a few. You just log into these websites and write a question in the search box relating to your niche or business. There will be loads of ideas or questions that pop up. You can use this to write blogs, content for posts etc. You can also see commonly asked questions about your niche, and see what pain points your target audience has – use this to your advantage and answer those questions using your products or services.

    Get verified on Facebook

    You should aim to have around 500 followers before trying to get officially verified. Being verified just proves to your audience that you a bona fide business. There are so many fake businesses and accounts out there, this is a way to prove you are authentic. Because of this, Facebook do make you jump through a few hoops to get this status.

    But when your page is verified, you’ll receive a blue checkmark or tick next to your name.

    Verification is free and you’ll need to provide a cover photo, a profile photo, a name that follows Facebook’s guidelines and content posted to the account. Visitors must be allowed to follow you and you must also provide a government issued I.D, such as a driving license or passport. You’ll also be asked to provide a document with a watermark, for pages not representing a person (so representing a business). This would be a company utility bill or tax document for example. Here’s a link to the relevant Facebook article that tells you exactly what to do to get verified.

    Hashtags

    We all know about hashtags these days and they are used on every post on Instagram. But hashtags can also be good for your marketing success if you use them on Facebook. Using hashtags helps you to connect and reach people you haven’t reached before when they search for related topics.

    Always keep your hashtags relevant to your post and relevant to your brand. Don’t overuse them – you don’t need to have them on every single post and only use a few. You can use the same hashtags that you use on Instagram or Twitter, and you can create your own hashtag that is relevant to your business if you want to.

    Always reply to your audience

    This is obvious, but always reply to messages. Always reply to comments made on your posts and reply to any questions asked. It’s important to let your followers know that they are being heard and that their comments are valuable.

    It also shows your followers that you are genuine and that you care about what they have to say.

    Paying for advertising

    Facebook ads are relatively low cost and can really help you target a particular audience. I have had mixed experience with ads, and don’t tend to need to use them, but I know lots of businesses who find paid ads invaluable to getting more customers and helping them to grow their business.

    Conclusion

    Facebook is one of the easiest social media platforms to use and has the highest number of members. As a business, it’s crucial to establish your presence on Facebook, understand who your customers and target audience are…and how to reach them. Facebook does help you with this through insights.

    Although the algorithm and its constant changes can be very frustrating, Facebook is still one of the best ways to connect with your target audience. It’s important to just try and keep on top of all the changes and adapt your posts and habits accordingly.

    But the way to beat the algorithm is to be consistent, have meaningful conversations, post a variety of posts including video, and give your audience great value by being interactive and interested in what they have to say when they connect and interact with you.

    I really hope this has helped you understand the algorithm a bit more. Which tip is your favourite? And what’s the one thing you’ll take away from this blog post?

    Create an effective Christmas Marketing Strategy in 16 steps

    An effective marketing campaign will engage new or potential customers, boost your sales, and build and strengthen relationships with your existing customers.

    Your customers are primed and ready to start spending, so make sure you are not missing out on the action. Although we’re already just into November, there will be plenty of customers out there; some will already have done most of their shopping and will be looking for last minute bits; at the other end of the spectrum, (like me), some won’t even have thought about Christmas shopping yet, so will be looking avidly over the next few weeks.

    Planning your marketing strategy for the holiday season will ensure your business grows and puts you in a great place to start the New Year.

    So how do you get started? It’s simple…

    Define your SMART goals

    I know, everyone talks about goal setting, but for this time of year, (or in fact any time of year), goals are what keeps your business growing, learning, and improving. These goals need to be specific for your Christmas campaign and SMART, (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely). LINK

    For example, your main goal might be that you want more sales. Your SMART goal would be, ‘To increase my sales and profits between now and the end of 2021 by 20%, compared to the same time last year.’

    This is specific, it’s definitely achievable, it’s relevant as it’s Christmas and people typically spend more money, and it’s timely, for the same reason – it’s a holiday time when people are spending more.

    Once you have your goals in place, so you know what you’re aiming for, now you can think about the marketing – HOW are you going to achieve those goals?

    Here are a few ideas that could help ramp up your sales this year…

    Customise your packaging

    Having customised packaging is important for your brand and creates a great ‘unboxing’ or ‘unopening’ experience for your customers…and it’s all about the customer experience! If you have unique packaging with the name of your business, it adds a bit of class and feels more luxurious to your customers.

    Exclusivity

    Following on from customising your packaging, you could produce a special Christmas edition of your product, and your packaging could reflect this.

    Create an online catalogue

    Christmas is the perfect time to revise and refresh your marketing materials. With the many great, free resources available these days, creating a digital or online catalogue is relatively easy to do. Canva is one tool you can use to help you do this…and they have some very professional templates.

    I remember my children browsing through the Argos catalogue and putting circles around the things they’d like for Christmas or birthday. But with printed catalogues almost outdated, digital is still very much what people want. Good photos of your products are necessary for this and can show off your products in a very professional way. With digital catalogue you can also make each image a link to the relevant product page on your website or online shop. This makes buying and browsing so easy for your customers.

    You can market your catalogue on your website from a tab, in a blog, in your email list and on social media, as well as on your Google My Business page, which will give you the best chance of getting those sales.

    Remarketing

    What’s this? You see it all the time, but probably don’t realise it. Whenever you go onto Amazon to look for something. If, for example I go onto Amazon and look for Organic Shampoo. When I click on a product I’m interested in, there’s always something else that pops up. Underneath the item I’m looking at, it will say ‘Consider a similar item’ and point me to something similar. They always have a section too, that says ‘Frequently bought together’… and for the purpose of this example, it shows me conditioner and a body wash from the same brand.

    This is remarketing – giving other ideas around the same theme…and even the same product from a different organic shampoo company.

    Collaboration

    Collaboration is about teaming up with another small business that would complement your business. For example, if you sell luxury coffee, you could team up with a small business that makes coffee mugs or insulated mugs. You then both promote each other’s business. If you sell coffee, you could say that with an insulated mug, people can now enjoy the luxury of a good coffee on the go. You get the idea!

    Once you have a collaboration, this can carry over from Christmas into the New Year and include other holidays. It could be the start of a beautiful relationship!

    Have a cut-off date

    Bear in mind, that there are many postage deadlines in the lead up to Christmas, so if you offer postage on your items, ensure that you have a cut-off date to ensure that your customers get your products before the big day. If a customer lives near you, you could let them collect up to Christmas Eve, but if you must post locally, it will take longer. If you ship worldwide, that cut-off date will be sooner. Just keep this in mind and don’t make promises you can’t keep as that is very damaging to your business.

    You could also consider offering free shipping – people are willing to pay a bit more for a product if they get free shipping, so it’s well worth thinking about.

    Your opening hours

    Don’t forget to update your website, social media, and Google My Business page to show your opening hours over the Christmas period, so you don’t disappoint any potential customers.

    Have a stock of your products

    This is really obvious but ensure that your most popular products are in stock. You don’t want to run out and have to turn people away or have to email to say that you don’t have a product they’ve ordered on your website or online shop.

    Use your email list

    If you have a list of email subscribers via your blog or website, use this to advertise your products too. You don’t have to be pushy and salesy, as I know a lot of us don’t like to do that, but you can point your subscribers to your promotional campaign or exclusive offers.

    As they subscribe to your regular email, you could even offer them a special discount code.

    Don’t forget to ensure that your email marketing for November and December uses festive imagery to ensure you are getting your readers into the spirit of things!

    What does your product do for your audience?

    This is the age-old, sell the solution, not the product. The most successful products will always focus on the customer – and showing how that product benefits the life of the potential user. What problems does it solve?

    Let’s go back to the coffee example. Your luxury coffee might be organic – why is this important to your audience? How does it enhance their life? You could say it energises and enriches your mind, keeping you focussed on the important things in life. If your product has a specific ingredient that you want to advertise, give the benefits of that ingredient and why it is so good. It could be that it’s a good choice for the planet because of the way it’s produced.

    Again, you get the idea, any product has its selling point.

    Create bundles

    This is an amazing way to sell your products. Simply bundle some of them together. For example, buy luxury coffee and a festive mug together at a slightly cheaper price than if they were sold individually. The benefits of bundling items together are that customers see them as a bargain – a bundle increases the perceived value of an item. If you couple this with your bespoke packaging, your customers have superb gift ideas. If you also add free shipping to bundled items, this will make it even more attractive.

    Create ideas with a gift guide

    This is a simple idea that can help your sales. All you have to do is to create a guide of ideas using your products. It’s a collection of your products that will make good presents…and give ideas as to who they could be for and why.

    For example, it could be ‘Gifts for men’ or ‘Gifts for the coffee lover,’ ‘Gifts for Mum or for your best friend.’ Then include the items you sell that are relevant to men, coffee lovers, friends etc. Create a landing page, which is easily done in Mailerlite for example, which displays your products in one place. You can them promote that landing page on your website, in your email, blog or on your social media sites.

    It’s about suggesting who your products might be suitable for and marketing them as such.

    Keep on top of your images

    Log into your website and have a look at it from a customer’s perspective. They need to know that you’ve got a festive promotion, or a gift guide, or online catalogue. Make sure that there is something bold, front, and centre on your homepage to advertise the fact, with links to the relevant pages or products on your shop.

    Change the images on your product pages to show your products with a more festive theme.

    If you’re on social media, update your cover pages to advertise your festive products and ensure that you have some great images on Google My Business. You could update your profile picture to you in party mode or wearing a Santa hat – depending on what you do!

    This is time consuming, but absolutely worth it for the sales you will generate.

    Keywords

    Just as you update your imagery, also update your keywords to include what you’re doing this Christmas. Here’s a few suggestions…

    • Christmas gifts
    • Christmas gifts for men/coffee lover/best friend/Mum
    • Buy Christmas decorations
    • DIY Christmas decorations
    • DIY Christmas decorations for kids
    • Festive food

    This does require some research to ensure you get the right keywords or hashtags for you and your business and products. Once you have them, use them on your posts, on your website, blog, and social media.

    Offer gift cards

    Whilst most of us like to look for that perfect gift for our loved one, there will be customers out there who just don’t know what they want to buy. This is the ideal person to sell a gift card to – they can spend what they like and the person they buy for can choose exactly what they’d like from your product range.

    If you do offer a gift card, make sure there is a simple graphic on your homepage, or a link to a landing page, specifically dedicated to gift cards in your online shop or web page.

    Black Friday and Cyber Monday

    These two days are your best friends when it comes to selling your products for Christmas. These two events are heavily advertised on TV, all over the internet and social media. If you don’t join in, you will lose out on some fabulous sales.

    The other joy these days bring, is that it will really set your business up for Christmas sales. If someone has bought something from you at a reduced rate on Black Friday, they will know your business and may think of you when buying their last-minute Christmas gifts. But there are other things you can do to encourage this…

    • Offer a special 10% off discount for the rest of the year, for anyone who buys from you on Black Friday or Cyber Monday
    • Add in a little free gift
    • Offer free postage
    • Tell them that if they recommend you to friends and family, by sharing your post and one of their friends buys from you, they get a free gift, or 20% off their next purchase from you

    Black Friday and Cyber Monday aren’t the only days each year that your business can use to get seen and sell more. Here are a few more in November and December.

    • Small business Saturday – 27th November
    • St Nicholas Day – 6th December
    • Free shipping day – 14th December
    • Panic Saturday – 18th December

    There are many others throughout the year too.

    Finally, finally…

    Don’t forget that elusive time of year – between Christmas and New Year. It always feels a bit like limbo land, but as a lot of the ‘January’ sales start on Boxing Day in the UK, it’s a great time to continue pushing for sales. People are happy, they’ve eaten and drunk too much, they have a bit of money in their pockets…and time on their hands to scroll through social media on their phones. If you have an ad on your page, or a post pinned to the top of your page, saying your sale starts now, you will be seen by your customers and followers.

    You could do a ‘flash sale’ with a ‘Santa didn’t get me what I wanted’ type title! Have heavily discounted items that you want to move quickly.

    If you still have Christmas themed products, heavily discount them selling for a ‘Buy now for next Christmas.’

    Then in the New Year, you’re ready to launch your new range of products or services starting anew.

    Don’t forget that the aim of a Christmas campaign is to have satisfied, happy customers, who will want to come back to buy from you again in the New Year. And make your brand stand out in the crowd, so people remember you and your business. I hope this has helped you plan your campaign.

    Let me know how you get on with yours.

    Hints and tips for Facebook Messenger

    Messenger has changed drastically since it was first launched and there are lots of things you can do with it now, that you couldn’t at the start. For example, did you know that, although Facebook messenger is attached to Facebook, you don’t actually have to have a Facebook account to download and use it?

    I’ve been looking at the different ways we can use messenger for our small businesses. Although I knew about most of the features, there are some that are new to me! Here are a few hints and tips…

    Stay under the radar whilst working

    Facebook must be one of the most common distractions to your daily work routine, especially if you work from home. But did you know that you don’t need to have Facebook open to access your messages via messenger?

    Go to the website, messenger.com, sign in and there you have it! A phone-like messenger without the distractions of Facebook posts!

    Reminders

    If you tap the four dots next to the typing field when you’re in a conversation, and then tap ‘reminders,’ you can schedule a time, activity, and location…and send a reminder to anyone you want to include.

    Share your location

    You can share where you are – your location – in a conversation. Whilst in a conversation, tap the four dots, then tap ‘location’ and hit ‘share live location.’ This is great if you’re meeting the person you’re talking to, and they don’t know the part of town you’re in.

    You will need to let messenger have constant access to your location to do this, but you can switch it off at a later stage.

    Mute notifications

    You can also mute notifications. So, if you’re part of a group chat and the constant ‘pinging’ of new messages gets too much for you, but you don’t want to leave the group entirely, you can just mute the group for certain periods of time…or indefinitely if it is really getting to you!

    From your main chat screen, swipe left on the thread and tap the ‘bell’ icon. From here, you can mute notifications for set periods, such as 15 minutes, an hour, 24 hours or indefinitely.

    Mark as unread

    If you are the kind of person that can easily forget to reply to messages after you’ve read them, then the ‘mark as unread’ feature is just the thing.

    Swipe from the right on a message and tap the three little lines, then tap the ‘mark as unread’ option. The thread will then show in bold, just like new messages that you haven’t yet read! It will also show a little blue blob as a reminder!

    Leave a group

    This is a good one – we all get copied into group messages by friends or family, which might be as simple as an invitation to a party. Then you have to suffer your phone ‘pinging’ for days, if not weeks afterwards, with various people having conversations about it.

    Once you’ve replied to the message and finished with it, you can leave the group. Simply tap on the group name at the top of the conversation, scroll to the bottom and select ‘leave group.’ The group will be notified that you’ve left, but you can always put a message before you leave to say that you are going to!

    Delete old threads

    You can delete old conversations once you’ve finished with them, if you like things kept nice and tidy. Just swipe to the left on the message you want to delete and tap the ‘trash’ icon. All done!

    Reply to a particular message in group chat

    This is one that is really useful. I belong to several group chats for business and often someone posts a message and, by the time I’ve thought of an answer and go to reply, there’s a whole list of other people chatting and very often they’ve gone right off the original message.

    If you use the ‘quote and reply’ function, this solves the problem. Simply press and hold the relevant message you want to reply to, then tap the little arrow to reply. The quoted message will then appear above your own reply, making it absolutely clear who and what you’re talking about!

    Unsend a message

    It can happen that you send a message to the wrong person. But, if you know what to do and act quickly, you can rectify the error before it’s seen. Press and hold the mistaken message, and so long as it was sent less than 10 minutes ago, you will be able to remove it. Trash it for everyone, click confirm and it will be gone. There will be a message to say ‘you removed a message’ but your recipient won’t be able to see what it was. BUT it must be done within 10 minutes, or you can’t change it.

    Chat to other businesses

    Messenger is great to message any business that has a Facebook presence. You don’t have to pick up the phone to make a hairdressing appointment and risk getting into long conversations. Simply search for the person or business you want and send a message.

    You’ll be able to see when they’ve seen it and see when they reply. This saves so much time…and you don’t have to speak to anyone!

    Find filtered messages

    Messenger has a filter, so if a message comes in that isn’t from one of your contacts, or if a message looks a bit dodgy to Facebook, the messages get filtered into an ‘other’ inbox. This used to be really irritating as it was difficult to find, but now it’s much easier.

    Hit the ‘people’ tab at the bottom of the messenger app, and tap on the ‘requests’ icon, which is a speech bubble with three dots in the top right corner. This will show messages you’ve received from random people – for me, usually men in the military, or someone trying to get me to sign up to a dating app (!) But, it does also sometimes put people who are legitimately trying to contact you into that box too, so it’s worth checking.

    Pick a colour

    This is one I didn’t know about! You have the option to pick a different colour for every conversation you have. Hit the conversation name to go into settings, then tap ‘colour.’ You’ll be able to pick from a range of colours for your chat, which will be seen by both you and whoever you are messaging.

    Emoji branding

    As well as picking colours, you can also assign an emoji to your chat too. This will change the default ‘thumbs-up’ like button to the emoji you’ve picked.

    Sync contacts

    If you want to manage your communications efficiently and have all your acquaintances in messenger, you can turn on ‘sync contacts.’ This is a way to find people who aren’t on Facebook, or who aren’t your friend, but use messenger with their phone number.

    Hit the icon with your profile picture, then tap ‘people.’ Go to ‘upload contacts’ and click it ‘on.’ Messenger will then continuously scan your contacts list for new numbers and people to message.

    Edit photos

    Another one I didn’t know I could do in messenger! Yes, you can edit photos…just open an image that has been sent to you in a chat. Hit the pencil icon – then you can type word overlays, add emojis – have a look and give it a go.

    Dark mode

    This is really handy and protects your eyes. It reduces the glare from your screen when you’re typing in a low light. The settings change the background from bright colours to black and grey, whilst the pictures, messages and any buttons are still in full colour.

    How do you do it? Tap your profile pic in the top left corner and access the settings menu. Then toggle the Dark Mode slider. Simple!

    Messenger stickers

    You can add stickers to your text – I love this and use it a lot. There are loads to choose from and you can download many different types of stickers and graphics. Just click on the smiley icon next to the text box and, under the stickers tab, hit the plus button at the bottom. Then you can choose which stickers you want to download and use.

    Polls

    You can create a poll in a chat, giving people multiple choice answers to your question. This is quite a new addition, so another one I hadn’t come across before! Just click on the dots symbol and select ‘polls.’ Then you can create your poll and create custom options.

    Encrypt chat

    It is possible to encrypt a chat. It’s not an automatic option because it disables some of the other chat options.

    To encrypt a chat, tap the name of your chat partner at the top of the screen and scroll down to ‘secret conversation.’ Tap ‘ok’ and your conversation will become encrypted from start to finish. You can also set a time limit so that those encrypted messages disappear after a certain amount of time.

    Make calls via Wi-Fi

    This is the one I use the most. Messenger has a built-in video and voice calling ability. So long as you are connected to Wi-Fi, you get free messenger-to-messenger calls. It also doesn’t matter if one of you uses IOS and the other uses Android. This has been a godsend for me during lockdown to stay connected with my family…and all free of charge.

    Voice note

    Not everyone likes to talk directly to their contacts, so there is also voice note. This means that you can leave a short voice message instead. It limits you to 1 minute, but you can send as many as you like! Tap on the plus symbol, select ‘voice,’ and hit the red ‘record’ button. Then record your message and send

    Messenger has games!

    When you do fancy a break, you can access games from messenger. If you’re chatting to someone and both want a little bit of light relief, just hit the plus symbol in the bottom left when you’re in a conversation and tap the ‘games’ icon. There are loads of them…from Snake to PAC-MAN to Tomb Runner…and all without having to leave the app. You can also get involved with group chats too and you can have a competition!

    I really hope that you have found this useful and learned something new – I know I did when doing my research! Happy messaging!

    Like this post and follow me for more marketing tips for small businesses.

    The key elements of digital marketing

    Every day the number of people going online increases, and since the 2020 pandemic, there has been a huge increase in online shopping. This means that offline marketing won’t be as effective as it was before.

    Marketing is all about connecting with your target audience in the right place and at the right time and, for the most part, this now means meeting them where you know they’ll be…. online!

    So, it makes sense to make use of digital marketing to get your small business out there.

    What is digital marketing?

    Digital marketing covers everything that uses an electronic device or the internet. Whether you’re a small or larger business, you can benefit from using digital channels, such as search engines, social media, email, and other websites to connect with your current and potential customers.

    Digital marketing helps you to reach a huge audience, which you would not have access to using traditional methods. You can also target prospects who are most likely to buy your products or use your services. It’s also more cost effective that traditional methods, as you can measure your success daily and change things as you see fit.

    What are the benefits of digital marketing?

    There are lots of benefits to using digital marketing for your business. Here are just a few of them…

    Minimal Costs

    When you have your own business, you’ll know that marketing and advertising are the most expensive things you need to do. Marketing via digital platforms gives a much more affordable alternative to traditional methods. These methods can be hugely impactful but cost you way less.

    For example, you can subscribe to an email marketing subscriber, such as MailChimp, Mailerlite or ConvertKit for little cost (and with MailChimp and Mailerlite, there are free versions when you first start). This will help you reach all the customers on your mailing list by email, quicky and efficiently.

    Good return on investment

    You get an incredibly good return on your investment with digital marketing. For example, if you run an advertising campaign on a social media platform, it costs much less that traditional marketing and with email marketing, you’ll also get a good return on your investment.

    Measurement is easy peasy!

    With traditional methods, you must (typically) wait months to evaluate a particular campaign to see how it’s worked. But with a digital campaign, you can find results within a few days… and you’ll know almost immediately if an ad is performing well.

    If you sign up to an email subscription platform, their email marketing software will enable you to track the performance of your emails – you’ll know who’s opened them and who hasn’t. You can also find out about conversion rates.

    Using Google Analytics helps you measure goals achieved on a website or blog. And Google AdWords manager allows you to monitor the performance of your ads on Google search. So, you’ll know how many people viewed your ads and what the conversion rate is.

    Easy to adjust your ads

    If you do decide on an ad campaign, if you find that it’s not really performing as well as you hoped, you can adjust it accordingly, or stop it altogether, with just the click of a mouse. The same can be done for changing something within a current ad.

    Developing your brand

    You can use digital platforms to build your business brand and reputation. For example, a great website, or a blog featuring quality articles, which are useful to your audience. Social Media channels are also fabulous for brand recognition, so long as you post consistently and are very interactive with your audience.

    The good thing about social media channels is that they are shareable, which allows you to share articles, blog posts, website, campaigns etc., with your followers.

    Absolute targeting

    By this, I mean that your campaigns can target the exact audience you want. You can choose potential customers based on their preferences or actions.

    For example, if you have an email subscription set up with a free lead magnet to entice customers in, such as an e-book, you can tailor emails to that customer totally based on what they asked for. You know they’re interested in the subject matter of your e-book, so are there other digital or physical products that they might also be interested in?

    I don’t mean make your emails to customers all about selling…but you know for future reference, once you have given quality information and once you know your email subscribers a bit more, you know that they’ll be more open to similar products or services.

    Global darling!

    If your business is online, it’s simple – you’ve gone global darling! The internet is global, available 24/7, to billions of people. Marketing on your digital platforms opens you up to customers from all over the world.

    Conclusion

    With traditional marketing, you may have put an ad in a local paper or on a billboard. This will reach a large audience, but you will be limited to demographics, (where the magazine is distributed, or where the billboard is located). With digital marketing, you can identify and target a specific audience and in turn, send highly converting marketing messages.

    Digital marketing helps you to conduct the necessary research to identify your buyer persona, and helps you to understand your target audience, which means you can define your marketing strategy and reach those prospects that are most likely to buy from you.

    If you need help with your digital marketing, I can work with you through a few coaching sessions so you understand what will be best for your particular business. You can message me on Facebook or Instragram, or email me at cindymobey@outlook.com

    If you’d like more regular marketing tips delivered to your inbox, and would like a free marketing strategy workbook, please click on the link below to subscribe to my email list.

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    How to finish what you start!

    How many times do you think of a great idea and launch with gusto, thinking ‘this is it, the greatest thing since sliced bread’, only for it never to get finished? We all do this from time to time. Sometimes you might even find yourself completing all the planning and detail, but just find that you lose interest in it and then the end seems further and further away. Procrastination starts to creep in, and before you know it, you’ve stuck your project on the back burner to ‘come back to later’. Inevitably, later never comes, so how can you be sure that whatever you start is going to be finished?

    Here are a few tips to help you…

    Be choosy about what you start on

    Make sure that whatever it is you want to do, that it is something that you are passionate about, something you really WANT to achieve. If you start on something with a half-hearted attitude, you won’t see it through. For example, I once decided I was going to make myself a skirt…now I absolutely hate sewing, but I thought it would be a good idea to help me save money etc. That skirt was started when I was in my 20s and I finally threw it away in my 40s when I realised it was never going to be finished. Why didn’t I finish it? Because I hate sewing and it was a chore to even get started on it.

    Be more cautious about what kind of thing you embark on. If it’s something you are passionate about, you are more likely to be interested in the planning and actioning stages and won’t be wasting your time.

    Another tip would be to try it out first – for example if you want to start a business, read up on it first. Find out as much as you can about it and see if it’s for you. You might want to volunteer somewhere in that sector or offer to help a similar business you know to find out if it’s something you’d really like to do. Then if you do decide to go ahead, you’ll know more about it.

    Check out what resources you’ll need

    Big companies and corporates always look at resource planning, so they have a rough idea of what is going to be needed for their project. They also look at how long it is likely to take and how much it is likely to cost. Planning out a quick overview of these things could save you lots of time and energy later, and you’ll immediately know if your project is viable. And you can use your initial planning to help you when you go into more detail.

    For example, I recently published my first e-book on Amazon Kindle. It took me ages to write it as I didn’t plan it properly to start with. By the time I’d written several chapters, which took months as I did no planning, I realised that to really do it justice, I needed to start again…and start with the planning. So, I…

    • Created a rough outline of the book and what it would contain
    • Found relevant quotes and statistics and listed resources for those quotes and stats
    • Wrote bullet points of each of the chapters and then put them into some sort of order
    • Write the material properly
    • Designed the front and back cover
    • Wrote a brief bio
    • Created the sales page and any graphics I wanted to use for that
    • Made notes about how I would market the book
    • And gave time to edit, edit, edit!

    This gave me an overall view of the book and what it would cover and look like. Which brings me nicely onto the next point…

    Time management

    Once you have the plan in place, as I did with my book, you will now have a more realistic idea of how much time it is going to take you to complete your project.

    Now, for me, lists work extremely well – I am a list person! As I work online, I needed to factor in the time to do all the things in my plan. You will need to do the same. Plan out your tasks and resources, put them into manageable chunks of time and make a to-do list. Then plan on your calendar when you will do those tasks and book that time in.  

    I think the thing that puts a lot of us off when we are thinking about something we really want to do is that we don’t think about how much time and effort it’s going to take to make that dream come true or bring that project to a successful close.

    My book took me 2 years to write because of procrastination and another year to think about publishing it. I had planned everything, but life kept getting in the way and other work deadlines, so I kept putting it back, despite all the planning. So, deadlines are important to keep you on track – be realistic about the time you can give.     

    Don’t be a perfectionist

    Now, I struggle with this as I like things to be just right. However, I did so many edits on my book that in the end, I had to say to myself, ‘STOP’ and just go with what you’ve got…because every time you review something, you change it! Instead, if you are working on a project and find you are revisiting part of it repeatedly, STOP! Move on to the next part and return much later to review again. You’ll probably find that what you thought was not good enough, suddenly sounds or looks great…or that whatever you thought was a massive no-no, suddenly really isn’t that big a deal at all.

    If you find that you are being so anal about every single little detail, you will never finish, so try to break down each of the tasks into smaller, more manageable chunks and put your energy into completing each small part.   

    Make a commitment

    If you are going to go ahead with whatever your project is, then make a definite commitment to it. Whatever you put in your to-do list, commit to it, give yourself the time to do it and DO IT! If you find yourself going off on a tangent, try and get back on track. If, along the way, you come across something you hadn’t planned, but it’s needed, go back to your plan, and add it in – and make sure you plan the time to add it!

    It’s also about committing to yourself. It might be that if you start to fall behind your schedule, you might need to give up other things in order to achieve your goal. If that means saying no to a couple of nights out or weekends away, so be it. You can do that any time, but your project is now! Once you commit…really commit to it. Once you have finished your project, those nights out and weekends away will still be there and you’ll have achieved your goal, so will enjoy them all the more. If you do them whilst you know you should be working on your project, you’ll be feeling guilty and when you do get back to it, you’ll be annoyed with yourself for not being further ahead.

    Keep your energy up – visualise the end result

    At the beginning of any project, we’re all the same – full of enthusiasm and energy for what we’re about to achieve. But that seriously wanes as time goes on. You know you still want to do it and you’re still excited about it, but you’re not quite so energetic about it as you were in the beginning.

    It’s usually because you’ve lost sight of the end result. You need to be able to close your eyes and visualise that end result – what does it look and feel like? Maybe have a mood board with what it will look like – try and imagine how you’re going to feel when you get there. If your goal is to earn enough money from your project to buy a dream house or car, have photos of what that looks like on your desk, or on your wall in your workspace.   

    Be flexible

    This is really important. If you’ve planned everything out and then try and do it in a certain order, you might hit a task you’re not too enamoured with. This then makes it easy to procrastinate. So, be flexible! If you’ve got your tasks down in order, and you don’t feel like doing task number 3, or start task number 3 and aren’t really enjoying it, don’t feel you have to stick with it. Move on to another task and come back to it later. If you don’t you could find yourself at a complete standstill. For example, one day when I was writing my book, I was bored with it and didn’t feel like writing, and I was allowing myself to become distracted by social media or email. So, I stopped what I was doing and started working on designing the cover of the book. Over the course of writing it, I changed the cover about ten times, but I enjoyed every minute!

    Keep a record of where you are

    Tracking where you are is crucial, so you know what you’re doing and when, how things are progressing and if you need to amend anything to keep on track. Every week, keep a record of what you’ve done and how it went – what went right and what went wrong. Then you can amend what you need to do the following week.  

    Celebrate your achievements

    When you plan how you’re going to achieve your goal and finish your project, put in little milestones along the way. Then, when you reach those milestones, have a little celebration. This really helps you stay on track and to stay with your project. Each milestone brings you that little bit closer to the finish line.

    Don’t feel guilty if you do give up

    Finally, not every single project you start out to do will get finished. No matter how much planning you do, if you really lose interest in it, or find that something is not viable after all, don’t flog a dead horse. It might be that by working on one project, you get an even better idea for something completely different – and then that initial project becomes a chore because your heart really isn’t in it anymore.

    I don’t mean just give up as soon as it feels a bit hard, or your interest wanes a bit – that’s normal. If you’re almost there and just need to find the energy for that final push, then go for it and push yourself

    But, if it’s really not working out, then stop. Go away and do something else and then come back to it after a couple of weeks. If you still can’t get going with it, it’s time to call it a day. And don’t feel guilty about that – sometimes, despite all your best intentions, something just won’t work. At the end of the day, it’s up to you to weigh up the pros and cons.

    Conclusion

    I hope these tips will help you with your planning process and help you overcome some of the natural procrastination that comes with all projects.

    If you found this article useful, please feel free to comment below or to share. And if you’d like to take a look at my book, it can be found on Amazon.