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.  

How India changed my life

Background info

In India, most of the funding for mental health is used for institutional care that focuses on addressing solely biological vulnerabilities rather than social stressors (e.g. poverty, employment status, abuse, homelessness)

The Banyan aims to address both the biological and social factors that contribute to the emergence of mental illness through their treatment and prevention programmes. They offer comprehensive mental health services in a range of institutional and community settings for people with mental health issues living in homelessness and poverty, working in the states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Maharashtra. Their focus is on transformative social justice. They work to ensure that people with mental health conditions living in homelessness make journeys back to families and communities of choice, re-enter work, reclaim social relationships and pursue lives of their choosing.

The Assignment

I had been working in the Marketing and Communications team for a large, global insurance company in the UK. One of the many accounts I looked after from an internal communications perspective was the charity arm of the company.  Every year, the company sent individuals on work assignments to help with personal development. Only a few of these assignments were available and I’d wanted to go on one for a few years, when I saw ‘The Banyan’ assignment in Chennai, India. The Banyan had grown from just a handful of staff three years earlier, to now over 100 members of staff. The CEO needed to find a way to communicate with all staff members at all levels, who spoke 16 different Hindu and Tamil languages. He needed a sound communications strategy in place and tools to help the newly appointed communications team to deal with internal and external communications. The new team also needed help and training in communication vehicles and what best suited their needs. So, with a little trepidation, I applied, not thinking for one minute that I would be selected and approved…but amazingly, I was granted the assignment and so started one of the best adventures of my life.   

The journey

In November 2010, I set off with terrified anticipation on a journey to Chennai in Southern India. Right from the start, I was completely out of my comfort zone, which was very hard for me – at work, I gave the image of a very self-confident person, methodical and very well organised. In my home life, I always did everything the safe way, rarely did anything on my own and always asked for someone’s opinion before I made any decisions. Although I had flown several times on holiday with my family, I had never flown long-haul and had only flown a couple of times alone for work.  

And so, I found myself with work visa, passport, tickets, traveller’s cheques, huge suitcase and hand luggage in departures at London’s Heathrow airport. It was easy to navigate my way to the departure gate and within no time, I was on board a huge plane. As I hate flying, I was shaking as the plane began to move, and soon we were speeding down the runway. With tears streaming down my face, holding so tight to my Dad’s St Christopher, the big bird took off smoothly and we were off. It was a bit bumpy as it was a cold, grey, overcast day and pouring with rain, but we were soon up above the clouds and I had an 11 hour flight to look forward to. It was a pretty uneventful flight and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Chennai market and my tuk-tuk

My first taste of India

The arrivals in India was total chaos, nothing like a UK airport. Absolutely crowded with people, which sent my claustrophobic brain into overdrive. But I managed to work my way through to the exit. It was the middle of the night and I don’t know what I expected when I got outside, but it certainly wasn’t a total bombardment of my senses. As I left the building, the noise level rose, people shouting to their arriving relatives and very loud music playing from musicians all around. There was a ‘pathway’ from the airport to the car park, which was barricaded off, with people leaning over shouting and waving. I walked down the centre, not really knowing what to do next…after my ears being bombarded, now it was the turn of my eyes – people in brightly coloured clothes, various animals wandering about, including a couple of cows; I could smell the most delicious aroma of the various stalls cooking Indian food to sell – the smell of the spices was so strong, that I could actually taste it!

The taxi journey to the hotel was uneventful and I arrived at 4.30am. It was a lovely hotel, and my room was huge with air con (thank goodness) and an en-suite…not quite the same as an English hotel’s en-suite, but there was a loo, a sink, and a shower of sorts, which involved a tap, a long piece of hose and a bucket!

My first day   

When I woke up, it was time to go and get some traveller’s cheques cashed, as I was only allowed to bring the equivalent of £20 into the country in cash. On leaving the hotel, I was met by a wall of humid heat. It was monsoon season, but the temperature never dipped below 35 degrees day and night. I felt like I was a damp mess before I even found my first tuk-tuk driver. He took me to the big shopping centre, Spencer’s Plaza, where I could cash my traveller’s cheques and get something to eat…which was surprisingly easy to achieve. I got to know my tuk-tuk driver, and I asked him to be my driver for the next month, arranging for him to pick me up and take me to work every morning and to collect me from work and deliver me back every night.

Office life

The Banyan

I met the CEO of The Banyan in the afternoon of the first day and started work the following day. The Banyan is a charity that takes homeless women with mental health problems off the streets and gives them a home and rehabilitation to get them back into society…eventually. It can take months or even years to achieve this and the need is great – see more on their website.

I also met the Communications Team I would be working with and training…three lovely people, who became good friends to me during my time there, one of whom I still keep in contact with.

During the first few days, I carried out a fact finding mission. I spoke to most of the staff in the office to find out how they currently received information from the CEO and important information about the charity they worked for. Most of it was word of mouth, and Chinese whispers featured heavily in what they understood. They all had computers in the office to do their work, several of the workers were, like me, on assignments from other countries. There was a very basic form of intranet, but little used as only the people in the main office had access to it when I was there.

I also visited the other two locations, which were both a car journey away. One was only an hour or so by car. It was a huge building set over four floors and each floor housed differing stages of where the women were with the state of their mental health…and it varied greatly.

The ground floor housed the offices of the workers who ran the home, there was a large kitchen…huge in fact, where women who were well on their way to recovery, had a ‘job’ in that they cooked meals for all the residents and also for the staff at the office where I worked in Chennai – a van arrived every day to ferry lunch to us workers in Chennai. There was also a living room on this floor.

The next floor up housed a mini gym and various rooms for treatment and therapies, exercise classes and various classes, such as basket making. There were also rooms where group sessions took place with patients and staff. This was quite a calm floor and there were also some bedrooms on this floor too. The other two floors were mainly bedrooms. The aim was to get the women from the top floor, treated and on medication, so that they slowly came back to being themselves, then moved down a floor, until eventually they would work in the kitchen or have some kind of work, such as basket weaving.

The charity had a very high success rate at helping these women integrate back into society, giving them the time, treatment and medication they needed.

The third location I visited was quite a long way away from the four storey building, but it was where the women went, when they left that establishment to be rehabilitated. The third location was wonderful. It was in a rural area, where the buildings were set in a square around a central courtyard. The courtyard had a vegetable garden that the women could tend and beautiful flowers and trees. Here, the women lived in houses or chalets, between 4-6 people to a house. They cooked and cleaned for themselves, went to ‘work’ every day, either sewing, making baskets, cooking, cleaning, and doing the garden etc. This place got them ready to go back into society. They gathered in a big hall regularly to just meet up, chat, drink tea and do some kind of activity. We joined in with a dancing activity, which was lovely and the women were all very calm and happy.

Helping the charity

Back at the office, I realised that the task I had to undertake in just over 4 weeks was huge. Whilst at the other locations, I had asked the staff how they received communications from their Head Office, so I knew that this was not going to be easy. 

The first task was to pull together a list of what communication vehicles were currently in place and then work out how best to communicate with all employees, bearing in mind there were over 16 languages in everyday use.

Luckily, one of the members of the communication team and another member of staff could speak all the languages between them, so that was a huge plus.

To cut a long story short, we put several processes in place, one of which was a newsletter, which could be sent online to those who had computers and printed as a hard copy and put on the notice boards in all the locations. There would be translations available for those who wanted it and they could have a hard copy. Notice boards were still the best way to communicate with so many people and so many different languages, especially with many not online.

I’m sure that by now, some 11 years later, things have changed greatly from when I was there and obviously technology has moved on greatly since then too. The charity has grown and its work is second to none and I am very proud to be able to say that I worked there for a short time and was able to help in a very small way.

Lesson learned from being in India

As well as training the staff on how to get information for their newsletter, how best to write it and how to implement various other forms of communication, I learnt a lot from them. I learned about their culture, found a love of proper Southern Indian food and to respect their customs and way of life.

Fantastic food at the hotel

In the hotel, every evening I sat in the area where there were computers with free internet, so I could speak to my friends and family back in the UK. I had the most wonderful conversations with several of the staff on the front desk. As I’m not an early to bed person, I was often sitting there well into the late evening. They told me about their families, and although I already knew before I went to India, I was surprised by how many families lived with not just their wives and children, but also their parents and sometimes their grandparents too. The extended family is very important, and I was struck by the respect they obviously showed their elders, and by the obvious affection they had for their extended families.

As time went on and I spent more time with the staff, and talked to my tuk-tuk driver, I realised just how much we in the UK took for granted. But the thing that struck me the most about the Indian people, was that they were all incredibly happy. They loved their families, and that love shone through everything. Whether they were wealthy, normal office workers, graduates, hotel staff or tuk-tuk drivers, they made me feel so welcome and were just so kind and friendly. My tuk-tuk driver was lovely and spent weekends ferrying me around to various places of interest, so I could find out more about the culture.

One weekend at the hotel, there was a wedding. I was in the computer area and was looking at some photos from home that I’d taken the winter before I came to India. Some of the children at the wedding were fascinated by my photos of snow – they’d never seen it. And one of them pointed to the photo of my detached double garage at my home and said what a lovely big house I had. I felt ashamed and couldn’t bring myself to say that what they were seeing was actually the house for my car!    

The impact that my trip had on me was to make me feel very ashamed and cross with myself, that I had become such a material person.

I also realised that happiness and contentment with life was something that I was sadly lacking. I had all the material things – a nice, big house with all mod cons, a nice car, fantastic job etc. etc. But what was more important was happiness.

St Thomas’ Basilica

Three weeks before I went on my assignment to Chennai, my Dad had died. I had spent two weeks sitting with him in hospital watching him slowly fade away. The first week, we had several long chats about life. The one thing that resonated with me when I was in India, was something he had said to me, “Be happy, my sweet. Grab every chance you get to be happy.” These weren’t his exact words, but that’s the gist of it. He didn’t know that I was going to India, as I knew he would be worried about that. But when I was there, I visited several religious places and, at St Thomas’ Basilica, I found a kind of peace that I hadn’t felt for years. The religious leader there sat with me and prayed with me, even though I’m not really religious, but it just felt right, and I told him that my Dad had just died. He was such a kind person, and I spent a good half an hour, just sitting there quietly.

Back home

On the plane, on the way home, I had 12 hours (yes, the flight was an hour longer on the way back!) to reflect on my visit and to make a few decisions about the life I had in the UK.

And 14 years later, my life is very different. I’m very happy living with my partner in rural SW France. My children are all grown up and have their own families, good jobs, and nice homes, and I visit them as much as I can. It’s nice to go back to a town every now and again!

My partner and I have a small cottage, with a lot of land and outbuildings, most of which are derelict. We’re both self-employed and I work from home online. We don’t have lots of money, we don’t have lots of material things…and we don’t need them. What I learned from being in India was that there are more important things in life than material things – what we have is real love and true happiness. We have fantastic children and grandchildren, who we love with all our hearts. We have a roof over our heads and food to eat. Sometimes we struggle, but we always have each other, and can depend on each other – and money can’t buy that. 

My experiences in India taught me a lot about life, opened my eyes about so many things, and taught me so much about myself in that one short month. I’d absolutely love to go back one day.

If you’d like to find out more about The Banyan, and their continuing amazing work, click here.        

How to increase engagement on social media

Social media engagement is the measurement of the likes, comments and shares your social media posts get. However, it’s not just about the numbers, it’s about how engaged your audience is with your posts, videos etc. It’s about quality, not quantity.

For example, let’s say you hold a big BBQ at your home and invited loads of people – some you know and some you don’t. They all turned up, but all just sat around silently. Nobody spoke to each other, nobody danced, no fun and games. If you were just looking at the numbers game, your BBQ would be a huge success…after all, shed loads of people came. But was it really a success? Did your guests enjoy themselves? Did they like the BBQ food? You don’t know if you don’t speak to them and ask.

Social media is the same – engagement with your audience is crucial to build a rapport, to develop relationships with your followers and potential customers. It helps you to build customer loyalty and trust.

How do you engage on social media?

It’s all about interacting with the people who like and follow you. It’s about building those relationships, getting to know them, and showing a genuine interest in them and their business/family or whatever they talk to you about.

  • When a person comments on your posts, ALWAYS reply.
  • If they ask a question, answer it, and go that extra mile to give them the information they need – and more.
  • Depending on your post or the question asked, you can answer jokingly and have a bit of backwards and forwards banter.
  • Thank people for commenting; if you get a new follow-on Instagram, DM to say thank you and introduce yourself and ask about the person who has followed you. The same applies for Facebook – send a private message to say thank you and interact with that person – even if it’s just saying hi and asking them how their day has been.
  • Try and avoid talking about your products or services in these first contact messages – just be friendly, show your personality and be genuinely interested in your new contact.

These points are basic, but they do work.

Grow your followers!

Grow your followers

So now, we need to look at how to grow your followers – the more followers you have, the more engagement you’re likely to get. But please, DON’T buy followers and don’t do ‘follow for follow’ or ‘like for like’. Only follow or like someone or their business, if you are genuinely interested in them, if you genuinely like their business or their page, or are interested in the content they put out.

  • Be consistent – I know, I bang on about this all the time, but it really is important. You don’t have to post every day, but post regularly so that your audience know when you look for content from you.
  • Create unique content – don’t just copy what other people do. You can use ideas from other peoples’ content but make it your own. You can use Canva to make posts – there is a free version, so you don’t have to pay to start on this site and it’s extremely useful, with lots of different templates to help you. It’s also super easy to use.
  • If you share someone else’s post, make sure you always credit them with it, so people know who created it.
  • Use a mixture of posts, such as quotes, gifs, memes, jokes, video, hints and tips, ‘how to’ posts, informational posts, educational posts – the list is endless.
  • You can also do ads for your business/products/services as a post but keep these to a minimum. Apply the 80/20 rule – 80% of posts to engage, entertain, educate, or inspire and 20% selling.
  • You can do paid ads to increase your followers, but you don’t have to do this.
  • Have a consistent look and feel to your page posts – this comes down to your brand – what do you want your posts to look like? How do you want people to feel? What colours do you use? A theme could be the look of your content, the type of content your share (funny, educational, inspiring) – this will largely depend on what you do. For example, if you’re a mindset coach, you might post inspirational quotes or tips to improve mindset, so this is worth spending some time thinking about what you want to portray to your audience.
  • Use images in your posts.
  • You can also collaborate with other businesses to help grow your followers. It’s best to collaborate with other businesses who have a similar audience to you but sell or promote different types of products or services. For example, if you are a hairdresser and you do hair for weddings, you could collaborate with a make-up artist who also does weddings – you can recommend each other when you get a booking. You can put links on each other’s social media pages and websites.
  • A collaboration could also include a contest or giveaway, a blog post promoting their products or a post on your social media pages…and vice versa.  
  • Set up a Facebook group. These are great for increasing social media engagement as they tend to be more social than pages as the members can post questions or comments at any time. It also means your customers can communicate with each other and get to know other like-minded people. It’s important that you are active in your group every day, several times a day – you need to keep an eye on things to make sure any disputes or differences of opinion don’t get out of hand…and moderate posts to avoid spam. And of course, engage with your group members by posting something of value every day.   

Measurement

As with everything, measurement is important. If you don’t measure what you do, how will you know if things have improved or if you are successful?

So, before you start any new engagement campaign, look at your insights on your various social media pages. Take a note of your followers, look at the type of posts that are popular. Then, when you embark on increasing your engagement, you’ll be able to see how you’ve done against what you did before. You’ll be able to see which posts people like and don’t like, what kind of posts get comments, which ones get shared, and which ones produce tumbleweed! 

Most of all, enjoy your social media – there’s a clue in the name! It’s about being sociable with others, engaging with them, building relationships, gaining trust, and making new friendships and business contacts, as well as new customers.

If you have any more tips, please let me know in the comments.

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Why consistency is key

Consistency is crucial to your business, as it helps establish awareness of your brand, builds trust with your audience, and helps deliver your products or services more efficiently.

Running your own business is hard work and I’m sure you’ve seen countless articles or webinars on how to be successful. But if you concentrate on the key element of consistency, across all the social media platforms you’re on and in your day-to-day processes, you’ll soon find your business gravitating towards success.

Know your brand!

I know from my own experience, that when you start in business, you pick the colours you like and the kind of image you want to convey to your target audience…then you get bored with it and go for a complete change. I’m not saying you shouldn’t make any changes, but if you are constantly changing your colours, images and fonts, it can make your brand appear unprofessional. A good, solid branding is what makes you stand out from the competition. If you look at any of the big brands, such as McDonald’s, they are highly consistent and instantly recognisable…because they rarely make big changes, if at all.  

Have a plan

Every business needs to have a plan. This keeps you on track and by following a plan of action, this helps not only keep you consistent, but also makes you focus on money so you can ensure your costs don’t rocket. If you’ve just started your business, this is even more important, so you don’t make costly decisions based on inconsistent actions.

Measurement

Measurement

No matter whether you’re a new business, or been going for a while, it takes time to see results. If you’re not consistent in your marketing, business processes, sales etc., you will see inconsistent results. For example, if you decide to pay for an ad, running it for just a couple of days is a waste of time and effort, but if you run it for a set period, you can measure much more easily whether the ad is working or not.   

Consistency in all its forms, but especially in the interactions you have with your clients, will help you build a loyal customer base, and your customers will get a great customer experience. This all comes down to the basics of knowing your target audience and understanding what they want from you and ensuring they get it. Being consistent means that your customer understands who you are, what your business stands for, what your business focusses on and how your products or services can help them.   

Three pillars of consistency!

The three pillars of consistency

The three pillars of consistency help you to focus on ensuring that your business has a sound base and is successful.

Accountability

If you are a small business, then it’s likely that the buck stops with you! You are totally accountable for everything that happens within your business, so it’s even more important to be consistent in everything you do.

  • Check your business goals and action plan regularly – adjust any goals that aren’t working.
  • Look at your products/services and regularly review to ensure they do what you say they do.
  • Look at your website and ensure that all the links work and that your copy is still relevant to your business and amend if you need to.
  • Look at your customer feedback – is there anything you can do to improve the service you give? Are all your products working for your customers? Do you have any complaints? If you do, try and address any problems and improve on your products/services.
  • Look at the communication you send out to customers – this might be a monthly newsletter. Is the content you’re putting out still relevant to your audience?

Relevancy

It’s really important to be consistent in your messaging. Your customers and potential customers rely on you for information about your products/services, things that make their lives easier.

It’s crucial that you stay the course and exercise patience. Things won’t happen immediately and it’s easy to be impatient and think that something isn’t working, but as with all things, whatever you decide to do with your business will take time. But if you’re consistent and keep plugging away, your brand will start to be in your target audience’s minds and your business will be successful.

Make sure your messaging is clear.

This might seem like an obvious point, but consistency with your messaging is key to a successful business. Wherever you advertise your business, be it on your logo, your flyers, your website, or your blog for example, you need to ensure that your overall message is the same. If your messaging is inconsistent, it will confuse your customers – they won’t be sure that what you’re selling is actually aimed at them.

As with everything in marketing, it’s about keeping things simple, clear and concise. Make your messaging memorable and use the same kind of wording, or ‘tone of voice’, so your audience recognise your style and know that it’s you – and more importantly, know that what you’re saying is meant for them.  

These pillars all help you to ensure consistency in your business. Consistency helps you create awareness of your business and brand, build trust and loyalty with your customers and deliver your products and services more efficiently. 

What does success look like?

What does success in your business look like to you? For some, it will be earning money, for some it will be the sense of achievement. We all start our businesses for different reasons, we all have a different ‘why’, but the end goal usually is that we have a successful business.

It’s important to know what success means to you and what it looks like and feels like. Then you can create your goals to achieve your end result.  You might have a three-year plan, a five-year plan, or even a ten-year plan – again we’re all different and it will all come down to the expectations we have of ourselves and how our business performs.

Look at the quotes above.

They each have a different take on success.

“Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.” Richard Branson, a British entrepreneur and adventurer, has led a life full of ups and downs. He has always embraced his moments of success and struggle alike. He has always turned his failures into steppingstones for success. He’s done everything from record labels to airlines and he advocates that there is always a different or new opportunity… you just have to look for it. And he is proof that multiple income streams work!

“Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.”  Henry David Thoreau was born and died in the 1800s. He was an American philosopher, essayist and poet. He believed that to live life to its fullest, people needed to simplify, get rid of unnecessary material possession and even unnecessary socialising. He also believed that if you are seeking success, you are likely to be romanticising the idea and not getting on with the hard, practical work necessary to achieve it.

“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” Albert Schweitzer was a theologian, organist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher and physician. He felt that peoples’ ideas of success were backwards. He saw that people struggled to achieve success in order to feel good about themselves, but the real joy and happiness is in the doing, not in the end goal. He felt that was where true happiness was.

Which of these quotes resonates most with you? I think that most of us would take a little from each. There are those that believe that multiple income streams are the way forward, and I agree that even within one business, there are ways to have multiple streams of incomes, or ways to make money. I also believe that you have to work hard to achieve what you want, and that success is useless if I’m not happy.

Expectations

As I said earlier, all of us business owners are different. We all come from different backgrounds, with different experiences in everything we’ve done, from education to life itself…and those experiences go a long way to shaping how we feel about success. For some, having a healthy bank account is the epitome of success, whilst for others, it might be as simple as having a work/life balance, so they get quality time with their families.  

What you expect from your business is linked to the way you view your achievements. For example, you might do something that other people find impressive, but you have such high expectations of yourself that you might feel disappointed.

Another example is that you may come from a family where your parents were very strict and expected a lot from you. This kind of upbringing can make people put heaps of pressure on themselves to succeed. High expectations of this kind can cause some people to see their achievements as nothing to be proud of and may see even the biggest achievement as mediocre.

On the other hand, someone who had parents who taught them to be proud of everything they achieve, no matter how small, would celebrate all achievements and be proud of everything they achieve.

Success is about liking what you do, loving your business, being proud of your achievements and loving how you organise your business to get that success. And, most importantly, liking yourself!

The following views of success can potentially open your eyes to the reasons WHY you’re starting a business.

Examples of success

Here are a few more examples of what you might define as success.

Happiness

So many people live their lives being unhappy, for whatever reason. But to some, being successful is being happy – not necessarily making loads of money, but enough to provide for their family. Doing a job you love will make you happy, and to some, that is enough.

Achieving a goal

When you start your business, you will have an end goal in site. You’ll also have lots of other business goals that you’ll set every year as part of your marketing strategy. Often, achieving your goals will mean success – you’ve achieved what you set out to do. Once you know and understand exactly what success looks like to you, you’ll be able to set goals that help you achieve that.

Love what you do and do what you love

There are so many people who work just because they must – they don’t enjoy their work – it’s just a means to an end…payday. And if you’re happy with that, that’s fine, but there are many for whom their job is not satisfying. And they might be spending more than 40 hours a week doing that job.

Having your own business and doing something that you love, will give you more job satisfaction. You’ll feel that you’re doing something you’re passionate about and because you’re doing what you love – you’ll love doing it. Starting your own business is no picnic – there are lots of things to consider and you won’t be an overnight success, but you’ll be working for you, putting money and satisfaction in your pocket, not someone else’s.

Work/Life balance

This is so important to all of us. Working hard, doing long hours can be the norm when you first start your business, but it’s absolutely crucial to have quality down time with your friends and family. If life is all work, work, work, you’ll eventually suffer from burnout. So, it’s important to try and strike the right balance between work and life. For some people, this is the crux of being successful…they have a business that is successful, AND they have time for family, friends, hobbies etc.

Making a difference

For some business owners, success is about being able to have the money to be able to make a difference to others. This can look different to different people. For example, one business might support an animal charity and make donations; another might sponsor a child’s education in a poorer country; to some it will be helping other businesses to be successful, by giving free information or coaching; some might support a charity or organisation that will make a difference to our world or climate. You get the idea!

For these business owners, the success is in seeing the difference or positive impact that they are making.

Conclusion

No matter what you do, or how you do it, success will be dependent on how you view it. It won’t be the same as your mate down the road. The great thing about us as humans is that we’re all unique, we all have our own freewill and can make our own choices for ourselves and our businesses.

I’ll ask the question I asked at the beginning…What does success in your business look like to you? Being successful might not be having your own business, you might enjoy working for a large corporation or small company. It’s important to be happy in what you do, so whatever you feel is best for you is the right thing to do.

How you can write emotional headlines

Headlines are the first thing your audience sees when you write a blog or article. It can hook them in, or turn them off – it’s make or break time! On average, 8 out of 10 people will read your headline, but only two of those will read the rest of your content.

These results are based on a good headline, so if you have a bad headline, no one will read your content.

Adding a bit of emotion into the headline

How do you hook your readers in, so they read your content? One good ploy is to add a bit of emotion into the headline. We know that people often buy on their emotions, so the same principal applies. But what makes an emotional headline?

It’s all about the words you use and how you use them. The first thing you need to do, before you start writing, is to know your target audience, what they like and what appeals to them. When you know your target audience, you’ll know what kind of article they will engage with and what words to use to appeal to them on an emotional level.

Do a bit of research      

Do a bit of research into what headlines that popular newspapers and magazines use – what kind of headline would make you read more? Notice the kind of words they use – how are they persuasive, and how do they appeal to your emotions? You’ll notice that words such as death, dying, free, kill, killing, shocking etc., are quite common. Journalists know that these words are an emotional trigger and will draw you into their story. 

I’m not suggesting you use these words, but you get the idea!

What’s in it for me?

Overall, what most people are interested in, when trawling the internet or social media is ‘what’s in it for me?’ It might be a promotional article for your product or service, tips that will make their life easier, something that will help them with their business, help them lose weight or get fit. Whichever business you’re in, and no matter what you’re writing about, you need to convince your readers that you have something that’s absolutely worth their while to read.

Here are a few examples of powerful words that appeal to the emotions. Including them in headlines can help to pull readers in.

Look at this list – what is it about these words that makes them similar?

They all offer a benefit, an answer, an offer, a sneaky peek at something. They all fulfil the ‘what’s in it for me?’ question.

People also tend to share things that make them angry, happy, sad or scared, so again, if your article is something in that genre, research the words you use in your headline carefully to evoke those emotions. 

Provide a benefit to your reader

Once you pull the reader in with your emotional headline, your article must continue to benefit them in some way. Go into more detail and offer as much value as you can, giving as much information as you can on your chosen subject. Also, to encourage your readers to do what you want them to, so don’t forget to include a CTA (call to action) in your post.

How to write an emotional headline

I always write my article first and then write the headline afterwards. I have an idea of what my headline will be, but sometimes once I’ve written the article, something else jumps out at me.

Most headlines are around 70 characters or less, but you can write a longer one, so long as it’s relevant. I usually write several different headlines before I decide on which one is best.  

When writing emotive headlines – or any headline for that matter – numbers also work well, such as ’10 ways to get more customers’, or ‘5 ways to make money fast’. These headlines answer the ‘what’s in it for me?’ question as well as using emotive words, such as ‘make money fast’.

Reading your headline out loud also helps you know how it sounds. How does it make you feel? Do you think it will appeal to your target audience? Would it make you read more? If not, rewrite it, until you do feel it is right.     

Another good word to use is ‘you’. You’re talking directly to your audience if you use this word and immediately have some engagement as it’s personal. Using the same examples as I used earlier, your headline could be ‘How you can make money fast’, or ‘How you can get more customers now!’. By adding ‘now’ to the end of the second example, creates a sense of urgency – do it now or you might regret it!

So, to recap.

  • Think about what your target market wants
  • Appeal to your readers’ emotions
  • Use powerful, emotive words in your headline
  • Help your readers to find answers, solve a problem or think about ‘what’s in it for them?’
  • Create a sense of urgency

I hope this has helped – please let me know in the comments if you have any more tips!

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Hard skills vs soft skills of a marketer

As someone who does all the marketing for my business, I know there are many skills that marketers need. There are hard skills, which are more the technical and analytical side, and soft skills, the more creative, collaborative side.

Marketing Skills

Hard skills

Let’s take a look at the hard skills first.

Analytics

Analytics is about finding your way around the large sets of data, to help you interpret your audience’s behaviour, look at the performance of campaigns and measure the ROI (return on yours or your customer’s investment).

When working with content creation and product marketing, it’s imperative to be able to measure what you do and whether it’s having the desired outcome and impact on your target audience. Marketers with excellent hard skills like this are very sought after in both corporate and retail companies, as well as the smaller businesses.

There are several tools you can use to measure data, such as google analytics, and if you are a social media manager, using the insights on the pages you manage is invaluable.

Content Strategy

Content Strategy

If you are into content creation, then content marketing and a strategy is a fundamental part of your job. Here are a few statistics that illustrate the importance of content creation and content marketing.

  • 47% of B2B buyers consume three to five pieces of content before engaging with brand.  Source
  • 84% of people expect brands to produce content. Source
  • 91% of B2B marketers say that they use content marketing in their strategies. Source

So, you can see that content creation is a very valued skill. Content isn’t just about making a few pretty images, it’s about the sales pitch or the caption that is written to go along with the images you curate. Some social media channels require a short and concise caption, whilst others, such as Instagram, can be longer and more detailed.

Content creation also includes things like blog posts, articles, eBooks, emails and other written materials. Effective writing skills are very sought after and not something that can be automated. It’s a very human skill and crucial if you are a marketer.

Social Media

Most businesses use social media platforms to advertise their products or services and to put their brand out there. Over the past 10 years, social media has transformed the way that people interact with brands online and also the way that marketers communicate with target audiences.

All social media platforms have measurement tools to help you get to know the audience that follows you, likes and comments on your posts and generally engages with your business and brand. A social media content strategy will include setting goals for your business, based on social media posts and campaigns.

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)

There are literally billions of people interacting online at any one time during the day or night. Most of us look first to the internet if we want to buy something and even look at reviews of products or services before we even press that ‘buy now’ button. But how do they find what they’re looking for? That’s where SEO comes in.

If you’re a marketer, you need to at least have a fundamental understanding of SEO, so you can be sure that your business, or your customers’ business, is found online. This includes keywords and phrases to help Google find your business, when someone types into the Google search bar.   

SEO doesn’t just apply to websites and social media, it’s also vital to ensure that anything you post is optimised for mobile users as well as desktop, tablet or iPad users. Most website hosts do this for you, but it’s always worth checking that your content looks good on a mobile as that’s where most people do their searches.

Technology

Technology

This is kind of linked to analytics, but what I’m getting at here is actual technology, such as the tools and platforms that you might use to promote your business or help you manage your business. For example, if you send out a regular email or newsletter, the General Data Protection Regulations, (GDPR) states that you must get customers to opt-in to your emails – you can’t send them anything without their express permission. And the easiest way to do this is by setting up your opt-in on a platform, such as Convertkit, MailChimp or Mailerlite, which are the three platforms I use for my clients. When you set up your subscription opt-in on these platforms, they automatically ask the right questions so you are compliant with GDPR – they also give your customers the option to unsubscribe to your newsletter or email via a button at the bottom of each email that goes out – which keeps you compliant with the rules and regulations.     

SOFT SKILLS

Soft skills are the more creative and collaborative side of marketing, probably the bit that most marketers love – well I do!

As well as creativity etc., soft skills also include many different attributes, such as honesty, leadership, a good work ethic, time management – skills that are very difficult to quantify.

Here are some of the top soft skills.

Creativity

Creativity

This includes bringing new ideas and interpretation to common problems, and how to solve them using the written word.

Flexibility

Marketing means you have to be flexible – there are always new tasks to take on and new responsibilities constantly pop up. Very often, what you started off doing a few months ago for a client, will look very different 6 months down the line. You have to constantly be on top of new ways of doing things and you often have to hit the ground running with new platforms etc.

Resourcefulness and Adaptability

A resourceful marketer uses all the tools available to her, to find the most appropriate one for each customer or business. It’s also important to be on top of the analytics to help make that informed decision.

Marketers have to learn as much as they can about target audiences, in order to be able to make decisions about the way to market a product or service. Intuition and adaptability plays a big part here and covers things like quick decision making, keeping calm under pressure or going against the norm to achieve success for your clients.

Adaptability also means that you’re able to change plans at the drop of a hat and tackle new challenges with determination and vigour.  

Collaboration

You might work for a small business or a large corporation on their marketing. Whichever it is for you, collaboration will be a big part of everything you do. You need to build good, strong relationships with your clients and with other people who work for that client or company too. For example, you might be asked to do email marketing or write a regular blog post, and your client may already have a social media manager. You will definitely need to collaborate so that the social media marketing takes into account the emails or blog posts you write – and that subject matter is consistent with the overall marketing plan or strategy. 

Leadership

Leadership

Leadership is the last point I’m going to cover, but a crucially important one. So, what is leadership? It’s about having the ability to keep a good group dynamic, be able to lead a team with compassion, and inspire your team with your business insights, experience and innovation.

It’s also about being able to assess situations and defuse anything that could get out of hand. A leader will usually drive any collaborations, adapt to new technology and lead the marketing strategy in the best way possible.

A leader will need to know the customer or target audience inside out. What they like, don’t like, making sure that everything that’s done or suggested has the customer at the heart of everything. Are their problems being solved? What makes them happy? What makes them tick?

Marketing is something that never goes away. No matter whether your business is small (or just you!), or whether you own a multi-million organisation, marketing is the key to getting your products and services in front of your target audience. It’s not something that you can wing and hope it works – it needs to be carefully planned, organised and executed with a sound strategy.

If you’d like help to build your marketing strategy, find out who your target audience is and how to reach them, but don’t know how, drop me a mail and I can help.

cindymobey@outlook.com

How Social Media Marketing benefits your business

Social Media is probably the widest used platform on the internet. There are so many different platforms to choose from, and they all have millions of people using them every single day. For many of us, social media is the first thing we log into when we get up in the morning, and the last thing we check before we go to bed at night.

Social media sites can be accessed by any device that has an internet connection, including PCs, mobile phones, tablets etc. Some of the most popular sites are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Snapchat. It’s a huge advantage to any business, big or small, to be on some of these sites in order to grow business, and social media marketing is a bit part of that. 

So, what are the benefits of social media marketing?

The Time Factor

It can take as little as an hour a day to increase traffic to your sites, make sales and get your brand out there. Social media gives a massive amount of exposure to your business and social media sites are an important part of any marketing plan.  

Create social media profiles for your business on your chosen sites and start engaging with potential clients. Invite your friends, family, employees, business partners – in fact anyone you know, to like and share your page. Just having people interact with your page and your content will increase your brand awareness and start to build your brand reputation.   

More traffic

Social media marketing – posting and engaging with your followers – will help you reach many more people than if you ignore social media. Every single time you post, you are giving your business another opportunity to get a new customer. Join more than one social media site, as different platforms serve different people and different ages. Different people search differently and also like different types of posts, so mix it up with your posts – don’t stick to just selling. You also need to engage, entertain, educate and inspire your followers. The 80/20 rule is useful – 80% engaging, entertaining, educating and inspiring and 20% selling.

Social Media also gives you access to followers from all over the world, and engagement at all times of the day and night.

Search Engine ranking

Search Engine ranking

You will get seen more on social media, but of course, there is more to it than just posting every day. Search Engine Optimization is also important to get your page ranked higher with search engines, such as Google.

To give your business the best chance to be seen and found, create good quality content, use keywords and phrases, and use good quality images.

If you write a blog, share it to your social media page, do video, infographics, include the odd case study and give business information. Don’t forget the fun stuff too – show where you work, your hobbies, employee photos, stuff you do at weekends or for charity. This all helps to not only improve your ranking, but goes a long way to show that you are human and real to your customers.

Conversion

Once your business is more visible, you’ll have more opportunities for your posts to convert into customers. People like to know who they’re buying from, and social media allows them to see your personality, to engage with you on things other than business and have a little insight into the person you are outside of work. People prefer to deal with real people, so social media serves this purpose. The more of an impression you make on a new follower, the more likely they’re going to think of you when they need what you offer.

Customer satisfaction

As the name suggests, social media is about being sociable. It’s not just a business networking platform, it’s also a communication and social network too. When customers comment on your posts, make sure you reply and try to strike up a conversation. Showing that you reply to each comment personally proves to your customers that you care and value their opinions. This gives them a good customer experience and so they’ll be more satisfied.

Sometimes you will get a complaint or get asked difficult questions. It’s even more important to answer these comments – don’t ignore them. The fact that you take the time to respond publicly to a complaint or question will make the customer see you in a much better light, especially if you can turn it around and make the complaint into a compliment!

Brand loyalty

We all want to have shed loads of loyal customers who love what we do , how we do it, and who want to come back and buy from us time and time again. Social media can help with that. Customers love social media and love to interact with the company they’re buying from – they often see social media as the place they can communicate directly with you and your business. And research has shown that customers are more loyal to brands that directly engage with them on social media.

When customers see you engaging with your followers, they’ll start to see you as an expert – and regularly posting different kinds of posts makes you also appear credible. Interacting with customers shows you value them, and care about them. This will result in them recommending you to family and friends, they’ll mention your business on social media and, if they see someone asking for what you supply, they’ll put your business forward.  

 It doesn’t cost much

Social media marketing is probably the most cost effective form of marketing. You can join all platforms with a business page for free. You can post, engage, get new customers, and interact with them…all for free. It’s only when you decide to advertise on a platform that there is a cost, but the costs are really quite low compared to other forms of marketing.

Being on social media and having a huge following with loads of customers for free, gives you a bigger budget for other kinds of marketing or for investing in your business.

Market insight

This is one of the best things about social media. You can monitor and measure the activity on your sites – using the page’s insights. By interacting with customers and looking at how they react to your individual posts, you can gain valuable information about your customers.

You can find out what their interests are, what their opinions are, what they like and dislike. All information that can help you understand your audience and what they want from you.

Be an expert

I touched on this briefly earlier, but by posting well written content, quality images, and video etc., your audience will start to look to you for information and you will become an expert or leader in your particular field.

Social media platforms are the idea place to set yourself up as an expert. Being able to directly speak to your customers also creates a rapport with them, a relationship that you will both value. This could lead to you becoming an influencer.

Conclusion

Social media marketing needs to be done correctly and consistently. If you follow all the points mentioned in this article, you will find that you increase your brand awareness. Your followers will see you as an expert, will enjoy the interaction they have with your business and they will become loyal followers and customers

How Copyright protects your work

Copyright is what protects your work and prevents others from using it without your permission.

It is automatically applied to your work, so you don’t have to pay a fee or apply for a license.  Copyright is automatically applied when you create:

  • Original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic work, including illustration work and photography
  • Original non-literary written work, such as software, web content and databases
  • Sound and music recordings
  • Film and television recordings
  • Broadcast
  • The layout of published editions of written, dramatic and musical works

You can put the copyright symbol on your work, alongside your name and the year, e.g. ©Cindy Mobey 2021. Even if you decide you don’t want to do this, or if you forget, it doesn’t affect the level of protection you have.

How long does copyright last?

It starts as soon as you’ve created your work and expiry date is anywhere between 50-70 years after creation, in some cases 50-70 years after the death of the creator. This depends on what you’re creating, be it music, literary, broadcast etc.

What happen if I breach copyright?

The one thing I always talk about to my clients is copyright. If you are writing a blog, or creating content online, for social media for example, you should NOT just use any image you see on Google. Most images on the internet are protected by copyright and you could face legal action and substantial fines if you are found out. I always say to use the free image sites, such as unsplash, pixabay or pexels. These images, in the majority of cases, come with a commercial license, so it’s OK for you to use them for commercial purposes – such as your blog or social media pages.

Breaching copyright is also very damaging to your reputation. If you’re a small business, we all know how important it is to be trustworthy and ethical. Being found in breach of copyright could seriously undermine the trust that customers put in your business. They may wonder if you’re honest in other aspects of your business. So, it’s really not worth the risk.

Copyright Policy

If you have a website, it’s a good idea to have a copyright policy. This policy just basically tells people that your work is your own and that they can’t copy it etc.

This will then protect you from anyone:

  • Copying your work
  • Putting your work on the internet
  • Performing or playing your work in public
  • Renting or lending copies of your work, (books for example)
  • Adapting your work for their own use
  • Distributing your work, or copies of your work, regardless of whether they distribute it for sale or free

It can be very tempting to just copy something or copy and paste that cute image you see, but it’s really just not worth it.

If you’d like to find out more about international copyright log into the IPO Information Centre – information@ipo.gov.uk

How to write email sequences

An email sequence is a series of emails, usually automated, to go out a few days or weeks apart. They are usually set up to follow up on someone who has subscribed to your email newsletter via your website or opt-in. The content of the emails must make sense to whoever signs up for it, and be engaging in order to entice them to open following emails from you.

The benefits of having an email sequence is that it:

  • Makes it easy to nurture your subscribers with your content
  • They help you to pitch to your subscribers and sell your products or services at the end of the sequence
  • Helps you create a relationship with your subscribers and build that all important trust
  • Aids in highlighting your best content on your own terms and in the order you want to send it

Before you start, you need to know what your goals are in setting up your email sequence – what do you want the end result to be at the end of the sequence?

What’s your goal?

It might be that you want to get a sale at the end of the sequence; it could be that you’re looking to turn them into a regular client; you might want them to join your course or join your social media group; you might want them to sign up to your masterclass

Whatever you want that goal to be, make sure you are very clear about it. If you set up a sequence without an end goal, you could be wasting your time…your subscribers won’t know what to take from each email and where and what you’re trying to get them to.

If there’s no direction with your sequence, it shows in the copy or content that you create, and can feel disjointed.

You want your emails to establish your authority on a particular subject, maybe want them to join your community and you definitely want to establish yourself as an expert and build trust with your subscribers.

How many emails do you need?

Think about your goals and how many emails you need

This is really quite a personal thing…I’ve seen blogs and articles that say you must have seven emails – others that you must have five or three. It depends what your end goal is and how long it will take you to direct your subscribers in that direction, so there’s not a standard answer to this question…in my opinion!

All I would say is that each email in the sequence needs to inch your subscriber closer to the end goal you have in mind. And it’s up to you to provide them with all the relevant information and resources they need to make that informed decision by the time they get the last one.

Before you start writing

There’s always preparation work to do, so this is what I would suggest you write down before you start…let’s use an example to help. Your goal is to have subscribers sign up to your course – ‘How to market your business on Instagram.’  

  • What are the pain points of your subscribers? What do they struggle with in relation to marketing on Instagram?
  • What words do they use to describe those pain points? You can get this by researching what questions people ask online…or from your own experience with feedback etc. You might see comments on business groups stating they don’t understand the algorithm, or the insights or maybe how hashtags work. This gives you answers to what you need to include in your emails, when describing what your course will achieve.
  • Write down any experiences you have regarding marketing on Instagram. What turning points did you discover when marketing your business? What failures did you have and how did you overcome them? Do you have any success stories from people using your course?
  • Mistakes that people make when marketing on Instagram – or mistakes that you made
  • And why are you the best person to teach them all about this subject and what will your course give them that they didn’t have before?

Now you have the goals of your email sequence and what you need to include in your emails, you can begin writing – the following are just suggestions of what you might do….

How do you start your email sequences?

Email 1

This is always a welcome email. If your subscribers have signed up for your email in return for a freebie, include the link to the freebie in this email.

The first email should always include WHY you are the best person to help them with this subject.

You can also write a very short introduction to yourself – NOT long and involved and telling them your whole life story! Just a couple of sentences.

Email 2 and all others you send

I always use email 2 to write a bit more about me and my experience in relation to the subject I want to sell them at the end.

I include five facts about me – not related to business, to show my human side.

Then start weaving in various stories, experiences etc., linked to your subscribers pain points.

Each email you send should include a main point, or teach your subscribers something, or give them one strategy.

Don’t go straight in for the kill and talk about your end game (the Instagram course), but rather lead up to it, teasing and intriguing them and hinting about what you’re inching them towards.

Close each email with a question or an intriguing lead into what the next email will cover. For example, using our Instagram course, the question could be.

‘Do you know the #1 mistake people make when marketing their business on Instagram?’ Look out for the answer in my next email.

This keeps their interest and they’re more likely to open the next email if they want to know the answer.  

Frequency of email sequence

How often should I send an email?

OK, so you have your goals, your plan and your emails written. Now it’s time to decide how far apart you’ll send each email. Again, this will depend on how many you’re sending.

Subscribers will always get the first email when they sign up for your freebie – the welcome email. It’s a good idea to send the second one within a couple of days, and then the rest depending on how much content is in each email and how many they are. You don’t want a sequence of 10 emails being sent 1 day apart. It will clog up someone’s inbox and they’ll soon get fed up with seeing yet another email every day. So, try and space them apart. For example, you might be giving exercises or workbooks/worksheets for your subscribers to complete, so you’d need to leave a good few days, or even a week, for them to have time to complete them.

The technical side

Now, you’re ready to actually set up your email sequence. There are loads of providers out there. I’ve used MailChimp, Convertkit and Mailerlite and they all have their merits.

These sites give you the option to set up an opt-in for your course (or whatever you’re doing). An Opt-in is a box where your subscribers input their name and email address, stating they want to receive your freebie in return for joining your email list. Using a site like those mentioned above, once you set up the opt-in box, they’ll ask if you want a double opt-in, which is where an email is automatically sent to your subscriber, asking them to confirm their subscription prior to receiving your freebie and first automated email. This is a great idea as it’s compliant with the General Data Protection Regulations, (GDPR).

When you set up your sequence, you’ll be asked to load your freebie and then you set up the emails. Each platform (whether MailChimp, Convertkit or Mailerlite), all have excellent training modules to help talk you through each stage of the set up or they point you to videos, where someone will show you.

Then you’ll set up the automation, so the platform knows when to send each email in the sequence.

This might sound complicated, and whilst it takes a bit of learning, it’s completely doable!

When sending an email sequence, it is also part of the GDPR rules that you offer each subscriber a way to unsubscribe if they so wish. This is automatically done for you at the bottom of each email if you use one of the platforms I’ve mentioned (and I’m sure, any other platforms that do the same).    

Now you’re all set to share the link to the opt-in on your social media pages, blog, newsletter, social media group, or any other email list you might already have. And you’re now set up and ready to market your opt-in to get people into your email sequence and hopefully, at the end of the sequence, your subscribers will buy your product or service, sign up to your social media group or course, or do whatever it is you’re trying to get them to do.

If you need help with setting up an email sequence or opt-in, or need help with writing your email sequence, this is a service I offer, so am happy to help. I can also coach you regarding writing your emails and doing the set up yourself.

contact me for help