solopreneur, business at home, work from home, marketing home business

Moving from word of mouth to digital marketing

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A reader sent me this question

I am about to “Go Live” with my website and Facebook pages. I am a sole trader, working with teams to challenge the way they operate / lead. In the past, my business was gained by reputation and word of mouth. Now that I am on my own, I believe it is time to have more of an online presence as some of my market will be completing online courses. What is your recommendation for the frequency of writing blogs and posting to Facebook or LinkedIn? Also, should that be to market or to educate my followers?

Word of Mouth marketing

There are many, many businesses whose main marketing activity is recommendation and referral.

This is done with no prompting from the business – it’s passive and costs nothing (expect having a good reputation).

But this is a really limiting marketing method. Any WOM marketing should be proactive and driven by the business – the unprompted referral is the “cherry” on top – an added bonus not a core tactic for a marketer. It’s a vulnerable marketing tool because it’s not within the control of the business.

Digital marketing 101

Starting to move to online marketing is challenging and the questioner is on the right lines with a website and some social media presence. BUT that is not sufficient to ensure success.

Key to digital marketing success requires you first to think carefully about strategy with regard to your audience.

  • How can you serve them?
  • What will they buy from you (now and in the future)
  • How can you create a personal, scalable business that doesn’t just trade hours for dollars?

A couple of specific bits of advice while you plan your content strategy.

  1. Understand the needs of your customer
  2. Don’t give everything away for free
  3. Productise your services so they can be sold en masse [build up to this over time]
  4. Add on support products / services which serve the industry and underpin your area of expertise

This may sound complex – but it’s important to have a long term strategy of where you want to go with your freelance business before you get down into the detail of what to publish on Facebook this week.

Understand solopreneur marketing

I recommend you sign up to Unemployable.

Their podcast is called 7 Figure Small. This podcast and advisory course (paid) is built for people like you. Solo entrepreneurs who want to build a profitable business while remaining a small enterprise sold mainly online.

This episode published recently, “The Rise of the Personal Enterprise”.

It defines what a personal enterprise is, outlines the forces converging to make now the right time to get started, and describes what your revenue and audience building mindsets should be to get you started off in a way that can you support you now and scale later.

 

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Digital light speed

What’s different in digital marketing 2021?

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Digital strategy and your website in 2021 is the title of a seminar I’m giving tomorrow (sign up here). And I’ve been revising and updating my slide deck for the event. This is a training session  have been doing since 2014 with no change in the title and quite a lot of change in the content.

What has changed in 2021?

I have done a lot of thinking – what really is different this year compared to last year and 2019? And I have come to two conclusions

  1. Nothing
  2. Everything

Why so trite an answer?

Digital strategy remains the same – how we I use digital channels to reach a target audience and the website remains the centre of that strategy for most businesses.

But the business world is transformed, we are open to new ways of working, we are up-skilled massively by the lockdowns and forced business adaptation caused by the lack of international travel and trade; our customers are similarly changed in skill and attitude.

Customers are very, very different from the past.

Here in New Zealand new organisations are springing up to help businesses transition into digital – Manaaki is one – birthed from a need for emergency business advice during Covid-19 and now transformed into an educational service funded by Government. Its Digital Academy got 190 applications for just 30 spots. And it’s shortly to launch another work stream, a Digital Doers Academy. Both are backed by real advisors who teach and also coach users in how to apply the learning.

Similarly, NZTE had a lockdown programme, Digital Beachhead, which has now morphed into an additional coaching service to help firms implement and adjust their internal working processes to deliver the digital recommendations.

Digital speed is your challenge

For my slides, I find that much of the advice remains the same – there’ve been no huge algorithm changes, the toolkit is little changed and maybe voice social media is the only big “new, new” thing.  And that’s still nascent and definitely not mainstream, nor commercial, nor particularly useful for most firms.

But what has changed is speed and frequency.

The increasing localisation of search, the rapidity of digital updates, ecommerce product launches and impatience of customers means that we have to do things and re-do them or re-check them much more than in the past. Some are sending ever more EDM content; others update social media with growing frequency and when I check the regularity of search engines spidering my websites, it is also growing.

My frequent advice is to set task reminders on a more frequent but less onerous basis. Having time set aside for little-and-often type maintenance on your digital properties is essential. It has been very effective for my clients – try it yourself.

Overall, keep to the basics, supply information to search engines in a way that humans and machines can understand and do your updates continually. We no longer have to persuade customers that digital works – we just need to be present for them when they are looking for us. Go do it.

 

[Disclosure – both Manaaki and NZTE are clients.]

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Rebecca Caroe career

Linear Careers aren’t normal

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Helping others get a career ‘step up’ is important work.

I’ve been working with OneUpOneDown and their inspirational founder Natalie Robinson to help my own transition towards governance work.

She asked me to share my career story – and so I did. It’s an article on their Career Stories blog.

Learn from others

What I found illuminating is that when you ask, few people have a totally linear career path.

I found it easy to presume that everyone was doing something that I was not doing in my job choices.

Sharing my story may help others work out their best next move.
How can you help? Sign up to either mentor or be a mentee at OneUpOneDown.

Squiggly Line Credit

This goes to Claudia Batten – whose video is worth watching. She also has a fine weekly newsletter about Squiggly careers from her website Squiggly Life.

 

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Clubhouse room

Is voice the new marketing medium?

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Voice – the oldest marketing and sales medium in the world and said to be “the second oldest profession” has now become the newest most exciting social media.

This week I have been doing a telephone survey and the freshness of insight I gained from speaking to real people whose job depends on having a good working relationship with my client was pure gold. I found them a chance to win back a big lapsed client; we understood their ethical leadership position in the industry; I was able to differentiate two core customer groups and develop golden questions to identify these tendencies in others.

As a marketing campaign it has delivered huge ROI already – and that was just the pilot.

Clubhouse rolls out

The launch of a digital chat room where you can speak (but not write or emoji) to other people who are gathering because they want to discuss the same topic as you has become the latest “wow” of the online social media world.

I see this as the digital opposite of my phone survey.

The excitement from pundits is real. Somehow having an app which allows users to schedule events with catchy titles like

  • 10x List Building Secrets
  • Shark Tank winners: how to be a founder and keep your sanity!
  • Beauty industry DISRUPTION [yes, their capitalisation, not mine]
  • How to talk to racists

is making marketing and tech folk around the world go mad with enthusiasm. [See screenshots at the bottom of the page.]

Some of these topics are frankly of no interest to me at all. And others have been nice chats with smart, well-meaning people. There’s a good UK marketing room which does “breakfast” every morning – they theme each weekday and sustainability was Wednesday and Tuesday was packaging. Both were well moderated and the topics included examples and case studies as well as discussion about challenges (Hello Fresh’s high plastic use; How to enable kids to unpack their toys and reuse cardboard as a play resource).

And copycats are already coming along – Fireside is a rival service already being talked about.

Same old same old?

Is Clubhouse just a symptom of the pandemic or has a truly new marketing medium launched?

The nicest part of a voice only platform has been the civility. Attendees don’t seem ready to yell and abuse each other and there hasn’t yet been a “Jackie Weaver” incident made public. A kinder version of the internet would certainly be welcomed.

I was also introduced to Frames this week – a virtual reality version of Zoom which is in private Alpha. It looks like any VR room but allows you to speak to other avatars; to live stream; put “pictures” and video onto the walls of rooms and design the virtual environment. The best part is a little blue line across the floor where your conversation can only be heard by others inside the line.

Yet is this really worthwhile?

  • From a brand marketing point of view, not yet. Mass adoption hasn’t begun.
  • From a direct marketing point of view – not at all, there’s no way of finding and contacting people except by hoping they’ll show up to your next room event.
  • From a personal branding and ‘influencer’ content creation point of view – yes some people are punting their expertise – but are they finding the right followers? Who knows.

I do not like marketing that depends mainly on winning a personal popularity contest. It is not replicable or repeatable.

Marketing done well

The best marketing is done direct to people who have the possibility of becoming customers. Going niche not going broad involves finding the right audience not the largest audience, sharing resonant messages not undifferentiated spray-and-pray, where customers appreciate that helpful insights and advice gives a better return on investment.

For now, I’m not recommending you spend too much time on Clubhouse – but I do suggest getting on the blower – you never know what you’ll find out with some open questioning of your clients and prospects.

Clubhouse room

Get notified of the room going live & follow the moderators

 

As ever, marketers are early into the new gig and some set some pretty onerous conditions for joining. And the coders have set up some simple ‘gamification’ tools to enable the fame game of popularity to grow your group.

Clubhouse join a group screenshot Clubhouse room rules

The Clubhouse app is still in development – it’s not yet available for Android users (70% of all smartphones) and there are clear missing tools like the ability to search for a group or a user using key words or the ability to “produce” content, record or stream media into the group. It’s early days.

Ask me if you’d like an invitation… I’ve got six.

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5 Things to Consider When Reaching Out to Bloggers

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Bloggers are continuously being sought after because of the relationships they have with readers. When you are going to reach out to a blogger to make a connection, there are things that you should do and things that you should avoid. As you learn more about blogger outreach, you can work to improve your authority in the search engines.

You Need Bloggers to Boost Your SEO

You’re already ahead of the game if you know that you’re in need of SEO help. Search engine optimization isn’t just about doing some keyword research. You need the bloggers to help you with your visibility. When there are more backlinks from authoritative websites and blogs pointing to your own site, it can help you immensely.

Bloggers know that they can help you. However, it’s not their job. This means that you need to ensure that you don’t come across too needy. Before you reach out to bloggers, be sure that the rest of your SEO game is in check.

Not All Bloggers Have a Good Reputation

Bloggers are not always nice. They know they have a good blog. They’ll try to get you to bend over backward – and it may not be the best relationship to have.

Some bloggers inflate their audience numbers. Some bloggers will want to charge. Some bloggers may even refuse to communicate with you.

By doing a bit of digging, you can find out what kind of reputation a blogger has before you even try to reach out to them.

The Blog Audience Matters

It’s important to do some blog research. You need to make sure that the audience of the blog meshes with your business. If you have a similar target audience, it’s going to make it easier for you to show the blogger that there’s a connection. If you’re focusing solely on the number of readers of that blog, you’re bound to fall short.

Show What You Have to Offer

There are all sorts of things that you can offer to a blogger to show that you can help them.

Offer to write a blog to share in their blog. Run a contest for their readers. Provide something that they may not be able to get from just anywhere else. Make it unique.

You cannot simply ask for something without offering something in return. Bloggers aren’t looking for charity cases. If you want to get your link shared on blogs, you need to establish a partnership. Present your offer within your first effort to reach out to the blogger so that they know that you’re not looking for a handout.

Make Genuine Connections

Most bloggers already know their worth. They get contacted all the time for purposes of SEO. This means that you have to make genuine connections. Focus on following the blogs and the bloggers for a while. Connect with them on social media. Like a few of their blogs. Share a blog post on your own social media account.

After you’ve followed them for a while, make a connection. Reach out to them by email or even by tagging them in a post. Try to get a natural conversation started. Then, only after you feel as though you know the blogger, reach out to them. Talk to them more about who you are and why you think it would be great for the two of you to work together.

Ultimately, when you reach out to bloggers, make it personal. Think about what you’re going to say so that it’s not coming out as a cry for help. Remember, too, that if the idea of reaching out to bloggers makes you sick to your stomach, you can learn more by using a blogger outreach service.

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NZ Ministerial briefings

Marketing and politics

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Anyone who is updating their marketing plan or business plan knows that there’s a section that includes strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. And within this section is the PEST acronym for political, economic, social and technology – all areas to consider where changes may come from that affect your business.

How to assess politics for marketing?

Unless you are super into politics, most of us are not aware of the plans of the civil service and the government of the day. Some things hit the news, but most of the work goes on without too much hitting our consciousness.

So you write the Political part based on general knowledge and guesswork. And it’s not good.

No more, here’s a great way to find out what is coming up that will affect your business planning.

Briefings to Incoming Ministers

The New Zealand civil service writes a briefing for all the new ministers after a general election. This document is later published so we, the electorate, can see what they are planning. The BIMs are now all published for the current Ardern government.

Take a read of the briefings most relevant to your area of business – from the Finance Minister, to Revenue, Small Business, Tourism, Callaghan and the Digital Economy Communications – I found these fascinating.

Not all the briefing is public – there are redacted parts which are sensitive (some relate to jobs, others to matters like likely tax changes).

Here’s the link to all the briefings – BIMS Finance and Economy

Happy reading!

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What to Look for in an Online MBA Programs

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Every year, a little over 135,000 prospective students apply for MBA programs across the United States. MBA programs are a popular option for those who desire to work in a variety of business fields. As the next group of applicants prepares to begin their journey, it is important to answer one question: which MBA program is right for me? The program you select shapes your professional influences and network. Luckily, since there are a vast number of options, applicants will find a program that best suits their personal and professional interests.

In the COVID-19 world, it is important to investigate strong online programs since you will unlikely be spending much time in the classroom. The following guide is a helpful tool to learn more about finding the best online MBA program. The contained information can help you determine whether the requirements of business school will help you achieve your academic and career goals.

Considerations for Choosing an MBA Program

Deciding to pursue an MBA is a major decision but applicants have additional aspects that must be considered before starting the application process. Before making a concrete decision, create a plan that suits your skills, career goals, and academic talents. The following considerations will help you craft this plan in more detail:

Alumni Network

The strength of alumni networks impacts the school’s perception and reputation, as well as the success of graduates. Questions to ask when reviewing the alumni network include:

  • Do alums participate in local events?
  • How engaged are the alumni?
  • What are the alumni doing now?
  • What is the size of the network?

Career Services

In addition to providing top educational opportunities and teaching students the skills to become the next business leaders, one of the most important services a school can offer is assisting graduates with jumpstarting their careers. Most MBA programs have a career services department to support all new graduates with career opportunities.

Concentrations

Most MBA’s have concentrations in marketing, finance, human resources, international business, etc. which can help you further tailor your career business interests.

Cost

Cost is probably the most important factor for those considering an MBA. You must find a balance between potential salary and cost when selecting a school. With MBA’s notoriously being a costly degree, you want to find a school you can afford. Average tuition costs for an online MBA can range from $11,000 for a public graduate school to $25,000 for a private graduate school per year. More reputable programs run even higher.

Curriculum

Most programs require students to complete between 55 and 65 credits with around one-third focusing on core topics. Core classes are consistent across all business schools and include a curriculum consisting of financial accounting, managerial statistics, operations, management, business analytics, and the global economic environment.

Location

When considering the location of prospective schools, students must determine whether they wish to work in the same city post-graduation. Networking is a critical aspect of the MBA experience and that hard work can be wasted if you move away.

Reputation

Paying attention to a program’s reputation is critical since those MBA’s with respected professors and renowned alumni will attract attention. Also, the business community knows which schools function as talent pipelines. Rankings give hiring panels and recruiters a sense of how the school prepares graduates for employment. 

In your search for the best online MBA program, still consider top schools but focus on any appealing school. Try to learn about the programs you have never heard of since your dream MBA could be at a location you never expected. Use the above considerations during your review to find the best options to meet your personal and career requirements.

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container ship

Where did All the Freight Containers Go?

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The freight shipping world continues to go through its gyrations and disruptions that started with heavy impacts in Spring 2020. Now, in the latest chapter of issues, the cost of freight shipping out of China to overseas destinations has skyrocketed. Combined with a systemic shortage of containers internationally, the price tag on moving a container went from $2,000 at the end of 2019 to a whopping $9,000 per unit. But the demand is not being driven by price-gouging on the service side. It’s a far simpler matter of not having enough containers to move goods with. As a result, inventory that needs to be shipped to meet orders is piling up at the docks because there isn’t enough equipment ready to stock, store and load with.

And locally here in New Zealand the Ports of Auckland have suffered “swamping”

a perfect storm of interconnected disrupting circumstances has caused significant congestion and delays at New Zealand’s ports.

How Freight Containers Move and Why 2020 Was Different

Mechanically, shipping containers have to move in a circular pattern year-round. As goods move out of Asia, the shipping container used to move them relocates to the U.S. or Europe as the destination point. As the cargo boats move back to Asia to pick up more goods again, they either carry inventory headed back to Asia or they move empty units, but the returning container stock replenishes the numbers for new, outgoing orders. However, when 2020 hit with the pandemic lockdowns, the circular pattern and frequency of international container replenishment were disrupted. Instead, thousands of large size containers sat in dock areas at their original destination points without moving back to China and similar. When overseas trade started to pick up again going into the fall, there were few containers to work with and no new ones built fast enough to fill in the gap.

The congestion building up at ports waiting for equipment to ship adds to the problem, triggering more and more delays of freight shipping internationally. And, where companies and clients want their items to move faster, they end up having to pay a premium for that benefit versus waiting with everyone else. Those costs add up and have ultimately contributed to overall container shipping fees jumping 400 to 500 percent in 2020.

Fundamental Changes in the Freight Business are Pending

Eventually, the supply of containers will even out again as shipping picks up, particularly now that a COVID vaccine is starting to make its way through societies and reducing the need for ongoing lockdowns. However, that transition back to normality will probably take another year, and shipping logistics in the meantime are going to be hampered on the international level.

Companies have not been sitting idly by. Many of the big inventory movers and freight shipping services have been investing their capital into increased logistical centre resources on the domestic side so they have the additional stock and resilience to handle supply-side shocks as occurred in Spring 2020. It’s been made clear to everyone that, while freight shipping has come a long way in the past decades, it is still very vulnerable to demand spikes, and improvements in container logistics are still sorely needed.

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Digital marketing 2021

The Bigger Picture of Digital Marketing in 2021

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I have a good website and products.  My social media marketing is not resulting in sales.  Do I need a media expert?

Analyse past sales patterns

My view is that whether your social media drives sales or not depends on your industry and your target audience.

For the vast majority of businesses, social media does not result in direct sales. This is because customers are not in “buying mode” when browsing social sites.

And so here’s a quick check which you can do – share it here as well if you want more feedback.

  1. List all the sales you made in the past month(s)
  2. Rank them by value highest $ down to lowest
  3. For the top 20% by value, write down against each one how the customer came to buy from you
  4. Is there a pattern?

So for example in (3) above – you might say they came from your mailing list, they might be a previous customer, word of mouth recommendation, or walked into your shop or know a staff member.

It may pay to do some follow up calls if you can – or to ask every January 2021 customer how they found out about you and see if the pattern develops in the same way.

Know your customers

From this, you will begin to learn more about your existing customer base. What their patterns of behaviour are and how your business gets its sales.

Now, if you think this type of customer ALSO uses social and might be persuaded to buy from you via that channel, this is the time to review your marketing strategy and see if social media could bring you sales.

The Bigger Picture of Digital Marketing in 2021

Three things for you to check first

The vast majority of social “sales” come from paid advertising or retail shop listings on social sites. So you need to review your margins and your advertising budget for 2021 in your marketing strategy before deciding to launch into social media marketing in a big way. Can you afford to both hire a social media marketing expert and buy advertising on social? Or would your money be better spent on the channels you already have which bring in customers from your analysis in the steps 1-4 above.

Content marketing is more than just “social media”. The things you are posting on your social channels could also be put to use in newsletters, website blogs and in-store. So don’t only talk about social media – go broader to review whether content marketing is right for your business.

Consult experts to get yourself quickly up the learning curve. BUT be cautious about hiring people who have worked in big enterprise firms – a client of mine got badly burned using an expert who just spent a lot of money with only $800 return for their multi-month investment in their services. Yes they did take up references – and you should too. Become an expert in how to brief a marketing agency first – this will clarify what they do and set expectations. Below are links to articles which you should read first.

How to write an awesome creative brief

https://creativeagencysecrets.com/tag/how-to-brief-a-freelancer/

What does a modern creative brief look like?

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