Time to Freshen Up!
I have recently had a bit of a revamp in the image department, and I am not talking photographs. I have changed my hairstyle and colour quite dramatically, which is so unlike me but hey ho! This change got me thinking, maybe my website looks as tired as my old hairstyle, maybe I need to update old images, give my site that clean fresh look, like the one that I am faced with in the mirror in the morning! Take a look at your own website, are the images recent, have they been there so long that you have stopped noticing them? If you have, have your clients? Maybe it is time to give your website the once over, make it look fresh, you will be surprised how different it will look by just changing a few images. It won’t take long and if your website looks as fresh and new as I feel with my new coiffure, then what are you waiting for!
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I’m never going to write a blog again
Is probably the strongest piece of reverse psychology to make me write the blogs I ought, because I thrive on challenges. In July, when I first agreed to write a blog for CAP, it was going to be a standard one of all the benefits to your business of blogging. What at WSI Leading e-Solutions, I tell my clients to do all the time. Yet somehow it’s been difficult actually writing it. Not because I don’t accept the reasons for doing it, but because I can’t turn blogging into a habit or something I look forward to. As for many it’s the first week of school, I thought I’d share my top 5 worst excuses to myself for not blogging: 1. Too busy- I have so much to do that I simply don’t have time to spend blogging nor can find the time. When I was blogging regularly it was because of a child’s hour swimming lesson where it didn’t make sense to drive home and back. I started this as I’m half hour early for a meeting and feel guilty that Paul is still expecting it! 2. No one will read it. I know the web is full of content that is never seen, but uploading regular content to a site increases the chances that the site itself will be seen. So it’s not time wasted if only one person reads it sometime and heaven forbid they then contact me. 3. Everyone will read it and I’m not a ‘good’ writer or the blogger as the perfectionist creative artist excuse. If this means grammatically correct and without spelling errors I should remember that the message is often more important than the means of delivery. Business blogs help to give more personality to the static page and most people buy people not things or firms. And nobody is perfect. 4. It’s just too big a task. How do I distil everything I know on x into under 400 words. If you tweet you micro-blog and the difference between texting and tweeting is merely the potential numbers in the audience. The best blogs are like a good email. They think about what is interesting and relevant to the potential reader and include the right level of detail. It’s a conversation not War and Peace. 5. The web will stop working so there’s no point. Like at midnight UK time on 16th August when Google went down unexpectedly and 40% of the world’s traffic disappeared. Could it happen again-yes is it likely to-no. AND 6. I’m afraid of looking foolish……….but you’ve seen the photo and with the blog now finished, I now have to arrange with Alison Ball of Lemon Photographic to get a professional photo taken. And remove that excuse as well. Add a PS to your sales letters
When you write a sales letter there are certain items you need to include. One of them is a postscript. Studies have shown that most people, when reading a letter, and especially a sales letter, read the heading first and the postscript second. If they don’t find anything to grab their attention by then, guess what? Of course, the postscript will only get read if the letter fits on one side of the page. Your heading really needs to catch people’s attention, but the postscript gives you a second chance. We usually try to fit a time-limited offer in there. That looks like three tips in one this week. Did I ever tell you to deliver more than you promised? Oh, that makes it four! Facebook
Gaining likes, losing likes and everything in between. Facebook is a marvellous thing in many ways. Free advertising for your business and instant connection with your customers. And it always looks like you are working, even when you are just keeping up to date with gossip. I have made many great friends and contacts via my business page. I have also seen more lunacy from strangers than I ever thought possible. I’m lucky that my page seems to be steadily growing, currently gaining about 100 new likes each week and almost all of my business comes from Facebook, so I thought I’d share a few tips that I use to help you build your pages or understand why likes can come and go. 1. Your page is your shop window. AT LEAST once a week stand back and have a look at that window. What are you displaying? Have you shared so many other pages that potential customers can no longer see any of your own work? Clean it up. Delete or Hide what’s not relevant anymore. First impressions count. Potential customers may not take the time to dig through your folders, have your best work on show on your landing page. 2. Don’t update too often. Once a day is normally enough. Be brief, friendly and UPBEAT. 3. Schedule posts to reach your audience at the best times. You don’t need to be sat in front of your computer or on your phone at 7pm on a Sunday night, but many people will be. Use the Schedule option. Watch people. When do they use their phones most for browsing? Be there when they are on line. Many people now admit to grabbing their phone as soon as they wake up and checking Facebook. Women are very active on Facebook, so if you post something in the middle of the school run, many of your potential audience are probably busy and will miss the update. 4. Always post a photo if you can with your status update. Our newsfeeds are so full that we stream through them at an incredible speed. You need something to catch people’s eye and make them stop for a moment. 5. This is important for lots of reasons - Don’t give away lots of personal information, it will come back and bite you on the bottom. 6. Commenting on current affairs will normally lose you some likes. 7. Celebrating your achievements and milestones will also lose you some followers. Don’t let it bother you. The general trend will always be upwards. 8. People will leave negative comments at times. It can be upsetting, but don’t get into a dialogue with these people. It’s your page, if the comments are offensive delete and if necessary, ban. 9. Your ideas may be copied. Where possible, don’t lose sleep over it. You had that idea yesterday. Tomorrow you will have a better one, whilst those people can only copy. 10. If you produce a product watermark your photos. Photo theft goes on and it helps stop some of that, but crucially if your picture starts to become widely shared your name quickly disappears without a watermark. 11. Life can throw a real spanner in the works sometimes. Make sure you have at least one other Admin on your page who can get access to your page if you are suddenly taken ill, or dealing with a family emergency. 12. Not every business has a new look product to advertise every week, but you can still get people’s interest by creating an entertaining page. Beautiful photographs and good writing can make a potential customer look forward to your posts. I don’t like fruit smoothies, never have, but I love getting updates from Innocent Smoothies page. It’s always funny and entertaining. It makes their potential customers buy in to their ‘lifestyle’ so much that people regularly send them pictures that they could use. It’s an excellent example of professional Facebook marketing. Go and have a look. 13 Join same interest groups and share your work (when invited to) on other pages. Word will soon spread. 14. Be ORIGINAL the pages that get shared are shared because they are inspiring. Copying tutorials on You Tube is fine to learn techniques, but if you want to make a name for yourself, you’ve got to dig deep and get creative. Be brave and get your own ideas out there. 15. It’s your page and you must run it in the way you feel best reflects your business, but please do remember not everything that we think is appropriate to say out loud/type out on Facebook. 16. To quote a friend, ‘Givers gain’. Being nice costs nothing. Helping and giving advice where you can will repay you a hundred times over. Clearly, I’m not trained in Marketing, so these points are purely things that I have picked up from running a page over the last two years and talking to friends with pages, but I hope amongst my ramblings you may have found a little gem of information that helps you. Business logo'd T Shirts - Easy Marketing
Hello everyone, Just thought let you know what I’ve been up to of late and how wearing my Cor-Unum logo T shirt helps me promote my business even when I’m away from it. Over the weekend I helped on the Great Oaks hospice stall at Parkend carnival selling guess the name of a teddy bear which is valued at around £200.00, did quite well! It was great to see how many people noticed my T shirt and asked questions concerning my B&B business. Thursday I visited Monmouth Show, very pleasant day again and of course I wore my Cor-Unum T shirt, and again people noticed, I was so pleased about it and hope to take even more bookings in the near future. That’s it for the present, hope the tip helps! |
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