3 Easy Ways to Increase Your Social Media Engagement

Once upon a time your social media marketing strategy was probably heavily focused on sharing links to third-party content with your audience. Well, those days are over, and if you want to stand out in the crowded and noisy online environment, you need to focus on content marketing storytelling.

We all love a compelling story. Whether it's an adventure, comedy or fairy tale. Stories influence people's emotions, which we as marketers know can then influence buying decisions and brand loyalty.

According to Jennifer Aaker, a psychologist and professor at Stanford University, stories are up to 22 times more memorable than facts.

Here's a great example of how a passionate story inspires, promotes and increases loyalty and social media engagement. SoulCycle is a trendy spinning studio that entices people to try out a fairly pricey class by using an emotional narrative.

This is also an example of brand positioning, but SoulCycle used it as a content piece across online platforms and on studio walls:

So how can you incorporate story telling into your business marketing efforts? Here's 3 easy ways to get started with:

1. Lights, Camera, Engagement

One of the top ways to tell interesting stories is with video. I recently attended Social Media Marketing World in San Diego, and this was probably the largest takeaway: you need to be focusing on video if you want to increase your social media engagement.

I know some people hate being in front of a camera, but there are a few ways to make it easier.

For example, if you're a life coach, you could create short videos answering common questions your clients face such as Am I in the right career? How can I be happier in my relationship?

It feels much more comfortable and natural to speak about what you know, and you might find yourself actually enjoying it.

You could sit in your office, outside with a cup of coffee … whatever puts you at ease and creates a nice aesthetic for people to look at.

If you're still shaking your head, how about creating videos that feature other experts (who are not competitors) or using imagery and text to tell a short story? A life coach could share graphics with inspirational quotes set to music or shoot a beautiful sunrise and ask followers: What are you grateful for today?

Whether you're using Facebook Live or creating 15-second clips to share on Instagram, use the platforms your target audience does and start shooting!

2. Lose the Links on Facebook

It's now common knowledge that Facebook limits the reach of your post if you include a link. When you share a post without a link, your engagement is much higher. We've seen his happen and have changed our Facebook marketing ways accordingly.

It's not just Facebook who does not want to see a bunch of links-it's your audience. People like to engage with a brand and have authentic conversations, not just be fed a steady stream of links to relevant content.

You can limit your links by creating videos with calls to action, focusing more on problems and solutions your product and services offer, and asking your followers questions they'll want to answer.

3. Add More Humanness

I kept hearing the word "humanness" at the conference. It relates to the simple idea of ​​creating a more authentic story by being yourself to connect with your audience.

Warby Parker is an affordable eyeglasses company that focused their brand positioning around humanness. They never marketed to their audience by saying something like "We sell cheap eyeglasses for the whole family!"

Instead, check out the story they used across all of their channels:

"Every idea starts with a problem. Ours was simple: glasses are too expensive. We were students when one of us lost his glasses on a backpacking trip. them, squinting and complaining. (We do not recommend this.) The rest of us had similar experiences, and we were amazed at how hard it was to find a pair of great frames that did not leave our wallets bare. the options? "

Remember, telling a story is not intended to be a sales tool! Your end goal is of course to grow leads and sales, but your intent should be building strong relationships with your customers and online community. If you do that well, the rest will follow.

Do not have a way with words, or the time to juggle all of your tasks, let alone focus on growing followers and engagement?

Email marketing is still one of the most effective forms of marketing a small business can participate in. Think about how many times you check your email during the day. But, if you want your email marketing to work, make sure you're not falling for any one of these critical mistakes.

1. Boring Subject Lines

The subject line is the main element that is going to convince the majority of your subscribers to either open your email or ignore it altogether, so there's no wonder that you need to write an interesting one. However, many businesses fail to craft appealing subject lines, much less test them!

2. Not Split Testing

Split testing is an important tool for figuring out what parts of an email campaign can be improved. When used correctly, you can learn important stats for future campaigns to continuously improve your open rates and engagement. For instance, figuring out which subject line gets the most opens (with name against without a name, etc.) can do wonders for your results.

While most services have this feature these days, many people still do not use it, and that's a big mistake.

3. Plain Text Emails

If you are not including graphics in your emails, you are actually asking for people to click back to their inbox the second they open it. People need big bold headings, clear and concise text, and images that help give context to your message. People are busy and they will not waste time with an email that does not instantly grab their attention.

Speaking of which, you only have about 8 seconds to do so once they open your email, so be sure the first few lines really pique their interest. The whole thing should be able to be digested in 30 to 60 seconds or less, with links to more information should they desire it.

4. Not Using Video

Video is the most highly converting form of content on the internet, and with most in-boxes being video ready, you're making a mistake if you are not including it in your email campaigns. When a video can not be embedded directly into an email, use a gif from the video and link directly to the video to get people to watch it.

Video is a fantastic way to turn readers into buyers, so use it every chance you can to share more information about your products or services than anyone would ever dare read. By doing so, you can increase engagement and improve your conversion rates.

Your continued dedication and attention is required when pursuing affiliate marketing. You will find helpful tips on how to reach your customers once you join an affiliate program. If you use tools, such as email marketing, they will help you develop a rapport with your customers. This will also ensure that you reach a large number of potential customers, so do your research and make it count.

See how companies track outside orders (not on their site) before choosing an affiliate program. If you are generating sales to that company you will lose out on lots of commission.

When taking a chance on affiliate marketing, take the time to locate affiliates that can offer you the types of products and services that you are interested in promoting. You will gain many different income sources if you connect with a large number of affiliate networks. Research affiliates so you are comfortable with.

Be sure to use email marketing to gain advantages in your Internet marketing endeavors. Make sure you give each customer an option to be added to your email contact list every time you process an order. Signing up should be as painless as you can make it for your customers; do not pester them for anything besides their email address and their name. Tell your customers how often they would get emails from you upon signing up. You should send emails whenever you want to notify customers about product updates or new products. They are also great ways to provide answers to common questions and other pertinent information. Use automated email software that will personalize them for each recipient. Send out seasonal discounts and the occasional thank-you message for your existing customers. If you’d like to attract more subscribers, let visitors on your site know about the great deals only your email subscribers can access. Ask your customers for feedback, and give them a special offer for telling you how they feel about your services.

You should submit your affiliates all the time. Getting rid of poor performing affiliates gives you a chance to make more room for better-paying advertisers.

If you’re starting out in affiliate marketing, you need to do some research and sign up with the affiliates that can provide you with the types of products and services you plan on selling. You can diversify your income sources if you connect with a wide range of affiliate networks. Research affiliates and only accept the ones you can be comfortable with them before accepting them.

You may want to market things that are considered to be the hottest products. You want to have good quality products; remember that popularity does not necessarily equate to quality. You only raise the level of competition when you decide to get involved with highly sought after items. You may not possibly profit.

Try to customize the ways in which you keep in touch with your target audience. Remember that different people respond to different things, and keep your marketing campaign diverse to address all of those differences. Some are more comfortable receiving newsletters via email while others enjoy using social media. Try to think about the demographic that you are attending. Take your competition into consideration when you are trying to keep an edge. Research their business from a consumer’s perspective. You should always be on the lookout for new approaches to increase your advertising success.

Many affiliate marketers put too hard to attain a “super” affiliate status. They try to juggle too many products and end up dropping them all. Keep in mind that maximum results you can achieve. You must put in a lot of time and find a marketing approach that works for you.

You will want to find an affiliate that has a lot of different options when it comes to getting your payments.

You should try your hand at secret links. There are certain ways you can embed affiliate links into your text for affiliates without being obnoxious or blatant about it. Be transparent about them if you use links and take advantage of their use. Make sure they understand the context of the text link so you won’t surprise them.

Be creative with your affiliate marketing efforts. Always try to keep base with your previous customers as you look for new leads. Follow these tips and develop your own strategies.

Traditional marketing has been challenged by the digital marketing in today's world of smart phones and laptops. People are available more online than on television sets or outside hanging out with friends. The culture has become such that people like to shop online, talk online, and eat online. In a nutshell, internet of things has made everything mobile driven. With internet connectivity reaching out to every household, people are becoming tech friendly and since spends most of their time booking things online and saving the rest for the things they love. Putting up hoarding on the main road and playing the ads during the prime time are not going to help that much in today's world than playing ads on social media sites and YouTube or on applications.

The application of digital media marketing is making the companies surge with demand and supplies of products to the customers at a greater speed. Therefore, applying the smart techniques with the help of various tools of digital marketing would benefit the companies to take advantage of the increasing demand in the customer segment and earn profit.

Digitization:

Everything is becoming digitized and would be fully automated in the days to come. If people are using things that are connected to the internet, then advertising agencies and digital marketers should also come up with ways where there is maximum potential of traffic coming.

With everything becoming digital, the application of search engine optimization, social media marketing, AdWords is going to help the marketers to bag new opportunities and lure customers to purchase their product.

Network:

With more and more network tower coming up and new satellites being set up in the universe for the purpose of making communication effective, time is going to come when the network would be stronger than ever before. This is going to make things easy, quick and transparent. Network availability and access is going to prove it instrumental in making digital marketing the only way to reach customers.

Increased Demand:

The coming years are going to see the customers getting prosperous than ever before. With more purchasing power, people would want to purchase more of products and services. This is going to facilitate things in the companies by making them available online to the customers and working with great speed to get the product delivered to them without any hassle. This is going to be another important tool that would lure customers and the fight would be about this aspect within the competitors.

Conclusion:

Things are changing fast in the world. MNC's are becoming aware of the future trends and analysis is done to see whether traditional marketing is necessary to be carried out or not. Traditional marketing would continue to serve the foundation of digital marketing, but the evolving nature of the marketing field as a whole is never going to stop. This is so because marketing keeps the customer needs at the center. The more dynamic the customer, the more complex would be the marketing.

There are many ways you can succeed in network marketing and earn a decent living. But there are many more ways in which you can fail. Without you know all the angles out there, you're not going to move forward in business. This article will explain some great tips you can use, to help your MLM campaign to flourish.

Keep track of your shortcomings and analyze why they exist.

It is important to keep track of the money you make in your network marketing strategy. There has to be a point where you choose whether or not to continue if you're not making enough profit to survive on. When that point is can be set before you sign up so you will not have any doubt in your mind if that time comes.

While you should build a site for network marketing, social networking sites can help you get started. An interesting and well written blog, frequently updated blog is a good technique to add, can give you a good start. Your network will grow more quickly if you establish your online presence.

When you're engaged in network marketing, it's imperative that you are able to visualize success as you define it. That may seem overly simple, but in network marketing, it's important to be able to visualize the future. After all, your future network size has a lot to do with how successful you will be in this field. Using positive future visualization is an accepted, and widely practiced part of network marketing.

Whether you cultivate the lists from the people who have signed up on your site or you purchase it, it is imperative that you have a much larger email list to help you continue to grow your business.

When building your network marketing business, adhering to a schedule is one of the best things you can possibly do. Setting and sticking to a schedule allows you to treat your marketing efforts like a real business and will keep you from procrastinating and taking lightly what you should be focusing on intentionally.

Become the leader in network marketing. Use one-of-a-kind promotions to make your creativity to create a campaign that stands out. Try to find a specific niche for your network marketing business, as you should always be as original as possible when marketing.

Avoid using network marketing jargon when you're speaking to a prospective client. There are many phrases that are commonly used within network marketing circles that will not be understood by people who do not work in such a circle. Explain terms if you must use them, but be careful not to talk down to clients.

It is important to be knowledgeable about the product you are selling. Customers are more inclined to join a higher likelihood of joining your network if it is identical that you fully believe in your product. If you learn about the product enough, you will be able to give truthful testimonials.

Work towards a goal of making money in your sleep. Network marketing CAN lead to passive income through your downline. So make your goal to have enough referrals to pay your bills absolutely. After you hit that goal, every new referral becomes "gravy", extra money for you to use for fun things like trips.

Look to the organization's leaders for ideas. Imitating these people will only help you closer to the top.

When recruiting a new lead, speak to them in terms they can understand. Instead of saying why YOU like the job, listen to what they talk about and figure out why THEY would love it. Let them know about perks that fit into their lifestyle, like a flexible schedule.

Video marketing can help you drive targeted traffic to your network marketing websites.

Help your downline by setting goals for them and giving them a reward for achieving them. Hold a contest to see who gets the most referrals in a month and reward the winner with some sort of prize, like an iPad. Building motivation through incentives is an excellent tool for your repertoire.

Look at independent distributors to see how to model yourself when using network marketing professionals are doing and learn from their successes.

When it comes to network marketing, it is extremely important to consider that your content needs to not only be easy to read but also presented in a unique way to your subscribers. This is important because you want people to be attracted to your content as well as be able to digest this information quickly before becoming bored and turning elsewhere.

Choose a network marketing company that has products of interest to you. If you have a passion for these products, you will be able to more effectively market them and may translate to them being more interested.

Avoid dictating goals to potential recruits when you are recruiting for your network marketing program. Telling recruits what they should want out of your program alienates them and destroys the trust that good recruiters develop during the recruiting process. Let your recruits express their own goals and then tell them how your program will fit them.

Everyone loves to get something great for only a bargain! Seek out network marketing company that include coupons you can give to your customers. People will be more likely to take an interest in the product if they have a bargain rate.

As you read previously, there are many ways in which you can reach success, but even more ways to fail. Network marketing is unforgiving and then, you need to approach it with as much knowledge as you can. What you just read through this article, are some great ways to help you succeed. Do not take them for granted.

I like to think I'm a pretty good marketer of my professional services.

After all, I've been at it for 34 years, read hundreds of marketing books, thousands of articles and studied with the very best marketing gurus.

But marketing is still challenging for me and the majority of independent professionals. If it were not, we'd all have more clients than we could serve, they'd be paying us high fees, and we'd never have to worry where our clients would come from.

And we would not need the thousands of marketing coaches and consultants like me offering services of all kinds to help you attract more clients.

So, why is marketing so challenging?

There are many marketing challenges, however, if you look at marketing closely, there are actually only three big challenges that give us the most trouble.

Learn how to meet those challenges and your marketing will become more successful, easier, and fun.

Here are those three marketing challenges:

Challenge # 1. Clearly communicating the value of what you are offering. Someone will not buy your services if they do not see the real value to them. Your message can not be vague or confusing; it must be clear and beneficial.

One way to zero in on the value of your service is to define the top three attributes your service possesses. One or two is not enough; five or six tends to dilute your message.

So, for instance, a sales training company may want to emphasize that their training is guaranteed to increase sales, improve sales confidence quickly, and can be delivered correctly in 45-minute online modules.

That's easy to understand and obviously beneficial. That kind of clear and valuable message is likely to generate attention, interest, and response.

Seems simple, but not so easy to do. In my experience with thousands of independent professionals, their messages tend to be vague, not specific, and weak in terms of value.

And if that value is not clear, prospects will not respond.

Taking the time to work on your message, fine-tune it, and test it until it gets a favorable response is one of the most important things you can possibly do in your business.

To succeed at this task you must get inside the heads of your ideal clients and ask what they want the most, what problems they struggle with frequently, what is not working for them, and what could make their jobs easier and more productive.

Jaynie L. Smith of Smart Advantage consulting says that 90% of companies do not really know what their clients value the most. No wonder marketing messages are so bad.

You can improve your marketing messages by reading and research (ask Google), sending questions to your clients (Survey Monkey), or conducting a virtual focus group (via Zoom Video). Ultimately, you want to find out their biggest challenges and what they value the most.

When you have that marketing intelligence, it will be a lot easier to come up with powerful marketing messages.

This is challenging because it takes time and deep thinking. But if you realize its importance, you'll invest your energies to come up with a powerful message that makes your service attractive, interesting, and compelling to your ideal clients.

Challenge # 2. Making your business visible with repeated impressions of your message over time. It can take several impressions before someone responds to your marketing message.

Just today, I noticed a message that one of my first level connections had sent to me on LinkedIn. When I checked the message, I noticed that he had sent me a total of 13 messages over a one-year period.

The messages were actually very good. They had the right tone and great calls-to-action. It's just that I do not pay a lot of attention to my LinkedIn messages and had completely missed the first 12!

He understood the value of repeat impressions over time and had developed a system within LinkedIn that had enabled him to send a unique, personalized message every month for a year. Pretty impressive.

If he had only sent one or two messages, the chances are good that I would not have seen them.

Again, my experience with the majority of self-employed professionals is that their marketing visibility is, at best, random and inconsistent, and at worst, non-existent.

As you may know, I've sent out an email newsletter to my list pretty much every week for 21 years. That's visibility. It's really quite simple, but not so easy.

If you want to be effective at your marketing, you must identify marketing strategies that enable you to get your message in front of your prospective clients consistently.

And again, this is challenging. What is the best marketing activity for you, your personality and talents? How can you fit something into your schedule and do it consistently, not for a few weeks but for years?

The question is not just what marketing strategies to use. Networking, speaking, blogging, email newsletters, webinars, social media, and direct outreach can all work.

The more important question is what strategies will work the best for you and how exactly you can implement those strategies without spinning your wheels.

You're looking for proven, step-by-step instructions so you can evaluate if a strategy is right for you and something you can fit into your schedule on a regular basis. Remember, sporadic implementation is a waste of time.

Implementing visibility strategies takes commitment and persistence. Is growing and succeeding in your business important enough for you to make that kind of effort? If it is, you'll succeed at finding the best strategy for you.

The final challenge may be the most important of all to overcome.

Challenge # 3. Maintaining the right marketing attitude and mindset over time, despite setbacks. If you can not maintain The 3 R's of success – responsibility, resourcefulness, and resilience, your marketing will never achieve the results you want.

These 3Rs are absolutely essential.

Responsibility is the stance that the buck stops with you. You are the only one who will find a way to attract clients and you will not give up until you find that way. You will not make excuses or blame circumstances, but instead will be accountable for making results happen.

Resourcefulness is the skill to utilize your talents, and abilities to quickly find smart ways to overcome difficulties and find solutions. And to be resourceful, you can not be full of doubts and fears of failure or rejection. A responsible person commits to finding a way; a resourceful person tries every way possible until they discover the best way.

Resilience may be the most powerful trait of all. It's what enables you to bounce back from adversity, setbacks, and even failures. And if you're working to attract great clients, you'll inevitably experience all of those many times. People who are not resilient do not even try, let alone succeed.

All of these essential qualities are in short supply. But if you work to grow those qualities persistently, over time, they will help you succeed with the first two challenging things in marketing – messaging and visibility.

Despite these three marketing challenges – messaging, visibility, and mindset – there is good news.

Improving your skills or abilities – even a little – in any of these three challenge areas will increase your marketing effectiveness.

There is no perfect way of tackling all three challenges and you can not do it in big leaps that get you there overnight. But you can work on all three slowly, with persistence, making small gains every week.

When you improve your messages , you'll start to see a better response in communicating to your prospects. Marketing then becomes like a game that starts with the question, "How can I communicate my value more clearly and powerfully?"

When you increase your visibility, you'll also notice a better response because to some degree, marketing is a numbers game. Your question may be, "How can I get my message in front of more of the right people this month?"

And when you enhance your responsibility, resourcefulness, and resilience, you'll find that playing the game becomes easier and more fun. The 3Rs are the fuel that enables you to persist with the first two challenges.

Where do you start?

You start by admitting where you are now and then committing to a purpose (your WHY for being in business in the first place), a goal (a specific thing you want to achieve), and to taking action (the actual steps youll implement to get there).

Yes, marketing is challenging. But meeting those challenges is absolutely worth it.

Cheers, Robert

Does the following give a pretty good picture of your current marketing activity?

You have a website but you're not really satisfied with it. You go to networking events once in awhile. If someone asks you to give a talk, you're happy to do it. You post on Facebook and / or LinkedIn semi-regularly. When you find the time, you send an article to those on your reliably small email list. You occasionally set up meetings with colleges to explore opportunities.

Now there's nothing wrong with any of those marketing activities. And usually, they will result in landing some new clients.

But this is not the approach that works to get a steady, predictable stream of new clients.

Please do not tune me out here, thinking, "Well, I really can not do more than this. I'm already stretched thin.

I agree. It's not that you need to do more marketing, it's that you need to shift your marketing paradigm from one of "Randomness" to one that is "Focused."

Random marketing is just that; it's all over the place. You do a little bit here and a little bit there on an inconsistent basis. You are trying to keep your face, name, and message in front of your prospective clients but the results are unpredictable.

The Random marketing paradigm is not very effective because it does not gain a lot of momentum. You do not do enough of one marketing activity to grab the attention of your prospective clients and move them to take action.

The Focused Marketing Paradigm is very different. It's based on reiteratedly communicating very directly to your target market with a very definite end in mind. It gets the attention of your prospective clients and they absolutely take action.

The Focused Marketing Paradigm has Five Pillars

Understand and implement these five pillows and I promise you'll see a shift in your marketing results.

Pillar One: Focused Goals

A Random goal is saying something like, "I'd like to attract a few more clients to my business." Not very compelling is it?

A Focused goal is much more specific. "My goal is to land 3 new clients in the high-tech plastics business in the Houston area with an average project size of $ 30,000 each by the end of the year."

The more detail, depth, and specificity about the goal, the better. You've really thought through what you want to achieve and also have confidence that you could deliver if you did reach your goal. It's so real to you that you can taste it.

What is the Focused Goal for your marketing?

Pillar Two: Focused Program or Service

Random programs or services are generalized consulting, coaching or training programs. "I offer management consulting and training to corporations." Kind of vague, right? But this is what I hear all the time.

A Focused Program or Service is more tangible. "I offer the high-tech plastics industry Management Acceleration Programs for emerging leaders in the industry."

In my business, I've always offered programs: The Marketing Mastery Program, the Marketing Action Group, and the More Clients Club. And each program has very specific parameters, deliverables, and objectives. It sure makes intuitive services easier to market and sell.

What is the Focused Program or Service you're offering?

Pillar Three: Focused Target Market

In the above example, the target was the "high-tech plastics industry." But it's more common to hear things like, "I work with large companies who want to increase productivity." This is too general and it makes it hard for clients to know if you understand them and can help them.

A Focused target market is where you are absolutely clear what kinds of people or companies can most benefit from your expertise. And then you articulate that clearly.

I worked with a financial planning company last year that targeted middle class families in the Buffalo New York area. Guess who they attracted to their practice? When people read about who they worked with on their website, they said, "That's Us!" and called them.

Who exactly is your Focused Target Market?

Pillar Four: Focused Message and Value Proposition

A Random message or value propositions tend to be too general and can be hard to pin down. It avoids making a promise that is meaningful to the prospective client.

Messages such as, "We offer the best service in the industry," or "Smart insights into great management," are meaningless to your prospective clients. The value is not immediately obvious.

A Focused message or value proposition zeros in on exactly what your clients get and what it means to them. I admit that this can be the marketing pillar that is harder to pin down. Ultimately you have to test a number of different things.

For the re-launch of the More Clients Club, my current value proposition is: "Everything Self-Employed Professionals Need in One Place to Attract More Clients." And now, of course, I'm bending over backward to deliver on that promise.

And a marketing message or value proposition is much more than a sound bite. Your message must permeate every aspect of your marketing, from your website to the emails you send out. Your prospects need to be constantly reminded of the value you offer.

What is your Focused Message or Value Proposition?

Pillar Five: Focused Marketing Strategy

A Random marketing strategy is much like the collection of marketing activities I outlined at the top of the article. You're just all over the place, throwing something at the wall, hoping it will stick, with no organized system or plan.

A Focused marketing strategy is more like a putting on a theatrical production. You have the script, the actors, rehearsals, and opening night, all executed on a strict timeline.

Two examples:

For my Marketing Mastery Program, I held a series of introductory teleconferences, invited those interested to apply for the program, interviewed each applicable, and then converted 50% into participants. Over a 6-week period, I filled my business for a full year – four years in a row.

A career coach in one of my programs recently filled her practice in three months with a focused campaign of personalized emails designed to get appointments with her ideal clients. Then she converted a large percentage into paying clients.

That's the power of a focused marketing strategy.

You need to identify the right marketing strategy for your business, but even more important is the way you organize and implement the strategy.

Developing a focused strategy is the most complex and challenging of the Five Pillars. You can not just put together something haphazardly and hope you get the equivalent of a professional Shakespearian production.

What is your Focused Marketing Strategy?

If you work to build a focused plan with these five solid invoices, your marketing will work better and faster, attracting more of your ideal clients, usually at a higher rate.

I recommend you work on one pillar at a time. Write them out and fine-tune them until you feel confident and excited about them. Yes, you will need to do some research and study to make sure your plan is viable. But this is certainly better than spinning your wheels with a random strategy that is going now.

Cheers, Robert

What do you think you need more than anything else to attract more of your ideal clients?

Many people will say, "better information to show me how to do what works."

Others will say, "more motivation and drive to implement what I already know."

Another common answer is , "more time to fit marketing activities into my schedule."

And lots of people will say, "I need better goals and more clarity about what I want to achieve."

In writing this ezine / blog for the past 20 years I've talked about the importance of all of those.

But I'm finally understanding a factor that is much more important: good habits.

Over the past year, I've been a big advocate of the writings of James Clear. He writes a blog about success and habits. And he just came out with his first book, Atomic Habits, which is fantastic.

Even though James is not a marketing expert, I'm convinced he's right when he says that the ultimate determinant of success is building positive habits.

This idea is simple but true: Self-employed professionals who establish regular marketing habits have a much better chance of succeeding than those who do not.

And the crazy thing is that the four items – information, motivation, time, and goals – I mentioned above do not actually make a huge difference.

Information. These days, we have access to more information about marketing than ever before in history. And much of it is free and instantly available through a Google or YouTube search.

The problem is that most of us have not established a regular habit of studying what we need to know to become better marketers. The information is useless without we become proficient at implementing it.

And even if we pay good money for courses and programs, much of it goes to waste. I just learned recently online that 97% of people who buy a course online never complete it.

Motivation. If we measured motivation by intention, we are all motivated. Do not we all want and need to grow our businesses? But we keep getting distracted and do not follow through on our intentions. Again, the issue is poor habits.

Time. If only we had more of it. But unsuccessful marketers have just as much of it as the most successful ones. The key is that they dedicate more time to implementing regular marketing habits.

Goals. Nothing wrong with goals except that they are only a starting point for success. And they can get us stuck in the future, instead of doing what needs to be done today – the routine marketing habits that we perform every day or week.

"A habit or system beats a goal every time." – James Clear

The research is in and the conclusion is clear.

Establishing positive and consistent marketing habits have a larger impact on marketing success than anything else.

We may have great information, high motivation, lots of time, and clear goals, but without marketing activities are performed regularly and habitually, the chances of success are slim to none.

The question you should be asking is, "How do I start establishing better marketing habits?"

James's Atomic Habits goes to great lengths to share a multitude of ways to become an expert habit practitioner. So I highly suggest you get his book. It could be the most valuable 'marketing' book you'll ever read.

But let me also give you my perspective on what it takes to establish new marketing habits.

The C – SPAT Model

This is a model I came up with for one of my marketing programs.

Coaching or Context. A coach declares the game, how it is played and how to win at it. And this creates the context in which you play the game. It helps if you have an outside source that can hold you accountable to play by the rules necessary to succeed.

This principle is why when you're working with a coach or in a program that you suddenly find it's easier to take action and form positive habits. The context of the game helps shape your behaviors.

Notice that all professionals such as doctors, lawyers, and accountants go through rigorous training in the form of a professional school and internship. And in this context, professional habits and protocols are established.

As independent professionals, we're all prefer to do things on our own, charting our own direction. That's nice, except that it does not always work very well, does it?

Study. A big part of the game is study and learning the body of knowledge necessary to perform effectively. Again, the information required to be an effective marketer is available available, but you need some assistance in sorting the wheat from the chaff and studying what is most useful.

Planning. All successful marketing needs a plan. The alternative is implementing random marketing activities with little structure and direction. So it's not how much you know, but how you put what you know into action.

Action. Success does not come from being busy or doing a lot of things, but in doing the right things at the right time. This is where establishing regular marketing habits comes in.

To some, it might be writing an article once or twice a week. For others, it may mean setting up more meetings with networking contacts. Or it could be ordering regular speaking engagements.

The secret to making this work is to leverage the first three steps of the model – Coaching, Study, and Planning, into marketing Actions that you perform as consistently as possible.

Tracking. What gets measured gets done. And when we fail to measure, habits do not tend to stick. When we measure and track habits, the chances increase dramatically that they are performed consistently.

It can take some time to establish positive habits. You know that's happened when you do not even have to think about it anymore; you just sit down and write that article every Monday or make five calls to prospects every week.

And when you're in action like this, you create a feedback loop, learning what works the best and what does not. This enables you to fine-tune and adjust over time until your marketing habits become more established.

So, stop putting so much attention on searching for the "perfect" marketing strategy, getting motivated, finding more time, and setting goals.

Instead, use the C – SPAT approach to establishing positive marketing habits.

Cheers, Robert

If you're responsible for marketing a business, you need to get involved with making videos for your company. No two ways about it; video marketing is an effective and evolving tool for marketing that nearly every marketing manager can benefit from. Check out the tips in the following article to get started on your video marketing campaign today.

Do not be afraid of complex video marketing strategies. It is simple to make a good video with basic equipment. You can show customers your workplace, manufacturing center or just discuss your expertise.

Videos can easily be used to explain your products or services to potential customers. Seeing how a product works will help your customers understand how to use your product and why buying from you is preferred to other sellers. So, learning to make videos to explain what you are selling will easily help build your customer base.

After you have published your video, include your web address in the video description. You will also want to include several keywords that describe your video in the description. This will help users find your information and search engines effectively rank your video. Your web address can also be included in your video.

When shooting a video it is okay to keep things simple with your equipment. In most cases, it's not the technical brilliance of the clip that achieves the desired results. Some of the most basic video marketing has been done by large corporations like Dell or Apple.

Remember how important a catchy title is to the success of your video. More viewers will be interested in your videos if the titles make sense and attract their attention. This is what makes them more interested in the topic you're discussing. Take some time to brainstorm titles that are creative if you want your video marketing to be successful.

If you are thinking of using video marketing to increase your sales and website traffic, then look to your competition for some clues. See what is working for them and try to capitalize off of this information. You do not have to copy them, but see what is working for them and try to make it work for you.

Do not only rely on videos in your marketing campaign. They are great marketing tools, however, they should not replace your other marketing tactics. Videos should not replace content creation like article writing or blogging. Videos should simply be used to enhance the content in your marketing campaign and to build up your link portfolio.

The content you use needs to be interesting. Make your video really pack a punch. Popular video hosting sites such as YouTube can expose you to many potential customers, but there is no way to attract them with boring videos. A lot of people want to watch videos that are relevant. Interesting videos extremely increase traffic.

Maybe you are not going to be the star of your show, but you do need to find a good spokesperson or mascot to help market your videos. Try to find someone that is natural when speaking and generally makes people around them feel comfortable. People want to watch somebody they feel that they can trust.

If you have a product that is quite difficult to use, you should create a video that will give step-by-step directions to users. They will appreciate the time you took to explain your products to them. This will make it more likely they will come to you when looking for additional products.

Keep in mind that some people surf the Internet using large screen televisions for their monitors. YouTube accepts large video files now. So, do not turn your nose up at high-definition content. Someone looking at your content on a fifty-inch plasma will not buy from you if they just see pixels.

Make sure each video contains a clear call to action. Inform your viewers of where your products and services are located and insure that they act immediately. Make it easy for your visitors to follow through making your instructions simple and clear. Specific, bold calls to action are smart ways to conclude your videos.

Perfection is not your goal! You do not need professional equipment to create quality videos. A webcam or a basic camera will be enough. Also, if you have a cell phone with a video camera on it, you can utilize it for your work. So long as you have solid information and remain professional, people are going to watch your videos.

Try to let your unique personality come through in your videos. Your audience is predominately interested in seeing exactly what you have to offer. The more viewers feel that they know you, the more likely they are to develop a relationship with your brand and not with your competitors! Many customers appreciate the chance to link a friendly face to a company and its products and services.

Do not think in terms of a single video. Think of an entire series of videos, which can become a marketing campaign. If you create a show which appears every week on a specific topic, for example, people will come back to see what's new, and you'll grow a loyal viewer base.

Once you begin with video marketing, you'll probably find it impossible to stop. It's effective, easy, cost-effective and really fast to produce! It can also put your business on the Internet map, boosting your customer base right along with the bottom line. Get started soon and realize your potential in video marketing.

What is e-Marketing?

e-Marketing is still quite a controversial subject to talk about, since no one succeeded to unify the various theories around it; however there is one thing upon which there is no doubt – that e-Marketing first appeared under the form of various techniques deployed by pioneer companies selling their products via the internet in the early 90’s.

The frenzy around these new marketing techniques created by e-tailers and supported by the internet rapidly gave birth to a new dimension of what we knew as Marketing: the e-Marketing (electronic Marketing).

There are many definitions to what e-Marketing is, the simplest and shortest one being formulated by Mark Sceats: e-Marketing is Marketing that uses the internet as manifestation media. A working definition is that coming from a group of CISCO specialists: e-Marketing is the sum of all activities a business conducts through the internet with the purpose of finding, attracting, winning and retaining customers.

e-Marketing Strategy

The e-Marketing Strategy is normally based and built upon the principles that govern the traditional, offline Marketing – the well-known 4 P’s (Product – Price – Promotion – Positioning) that form the classic Marketing mix. Add the extra 3 P’s (People – Processes – Proof) and you got the whole extended Marketing mix.

Until here, there are no much aspects to differentiate e-Marketing from the traditional Marketing performed offline: the extended Marketing mix (4 + 3 P’s) is built around the concept of “transactional” and its elements perform transactional functions defined by the exchange paradigm. What gives e-Marketing its uniqueness is a series of specific functions, relational functions, that can be synthesized in the 2P + 2C+ 3S formula: Personalization, Privacy, Customer Service, Community, Site, Security, Sales Promotion.

These 7 functions of the e-Marketing stay at the base of any e-Marketing strategy and they have a moderating character, unlike the classic Marketing mix that comprises situational functions only. Moderating functions of e-Marketing have the quality of moderate, operate upon all situational functions of the mix (the classic 4 P’s) and upon each other.

1. Personalization

The fundamental concept of personalization as a part of the e-Marketing mix lies in the need of recognizing, identifying a certain customer in order to establish relations (establishing relations is a fundamental objective of Marketing). It is crucial to be able to identify our customers on individual level and gather all possible information about them, with the purpose of knowing our market and be able to develop customized, personalized products and services.

For example, a cookie strategically placed on the website visitor’s computer can let us know vital information concerning the access speed available: in consequence, if we know the visitor is using a slow connection (eg. dial-up) we will offer a low-volume variation of our website, with reduced graphic content and no multimedia or flash applications. This will ease our customer’s experience on our website and he will be prevented from leaving the website on the reason that it takes too long to load its pages.

Personalization can be applied to any component of the Marketing mix; therefore, it is a moderating function.

2. Privacy

Privacy is an element of the mix very much connected to the previous one – personalization. When we gather and store information about our customers and potential customers (therefore, when we perform the personalization part of the e-Marketing mix) a crucial issue arises: that of the way this information will be used, and by whom. A major task to do when implementing an e-Marketing strategy is that of creating and developing a policy upon access procedures to the collected information.

This is a duty and a must for any conscious marketer to consider all aspects of privacy, as long as data are collected and stored, data about individual persons.

Privacy is even more important when establishing the e-Marketing mix since there are many regulations and legal aspects to be considered regarding collection and usage of such information.

3. Customer Service

Customer service is one of the necessary and required activities among the support functions needed in transactional situations.

We will connect the apparition of the customer service processes to the inclusion of the “time” parameter in transactions. When switching from a situational perspective to a relational one, and e-Marketing is mostly based on a relational perspective, the marketer saw himself somehow forced into considering support and assistance on a non-temporal level, permanently, over time.

For these reasons, we should consider the Customer Service function (in its fullest and largest definition) as an essential one within the e-Marketing mix.

As we can easily figure out, the service (or assistance if you wish) can be performed upon any element from the classic 4 P’s, hence its moderating character.

4. Community

We can all agree that e-Marketing is conditioned by the existence of this impressive network that the internet is. The merely existence of such a network implies that individuals as well as groups will eventually interact. A group of entities that interact for a common purpose is what we call a “community” and we will soon see why it is of absolute importance to participate, to be part of a community.

The Metcalf law (named after Robert Metcalf) states that the value of a network is given by the number of its components, more exactly the value of a network equals the square of the number of components. We can apply this simple law to communities, since they are a network: we will then conclude that the value of a community rises with the number of its members. This is the power of communities; this is why we have to be a part of it.

The customers / clients of a business can be seen as part of a community where they interact (either independent or influenced by the marketer) – therefore developing a community is a task to be performed by any business, even though it is not always seen as essential.

Interactions among members of such a community can address any of the other functions of e-Marketing, so it can be placed next to other moderating functions.

5. Site

We have seen and agreed that e-Marketing interactions take place on a digital media – the internet. But such interactions and relations also need a proper location, to be available at any moment and from any place – a digital location for digital interactions.

Such a location is what we call a “site”, which is the most widespread name for it. It is now the time to mention that the “website” is merely a form of a “site” and should not be mistaken or seen as synonyms. The “site” can take other forms too, such as a Palm Pilot or any other handheld device, for example.

This special location, accessible through all sort of digital technologies is moderating all other functions of the e-Marketing – it is then a moderating function.

6. Security

The “security” function emerged as an essential function of e-Marketing once transactions began to be performed through internet channels.

What we need to keep in mind as marketers are the following two issues on security:

– security during transactions performed on our website, where we have to take all possible precautions that third parties will not be able to access any part of a developing transaction;

– security of data collected and stored, about our customers and visitors.

A honest marketer will have to consider these possible causes of further trouble and has to co-operate with the company’s IT department in order to be able to formulate convincing (and true, honest!) messages towards the customers that their personal details are protected from unauthorized eyes.

7. Sales Promotion

At least but not last, we have to consider sales promotions when we build an e-Marketing strategy. Sales promotions are widely used in traditional Marketing as well, we all know this, and it is an excellent efficient strategy to achieve immediate sales goals in terms of volume.

This function counts on the marketer’s ability to think creatively: a lot of work and inspiration is required in order to find new possibilities and new approaches for developing an efficient promotion plan.

On the other hand, the marketer needs to continuously keep up with the latest internet technologies and applications so that he can fully exploit them.

To conclude, we have seen that e-Marketing implies new dimensions to be considered aside of those inherited from the traditional Marketing. These dimensions revolve around the concept of relational functions and they are a must to be included in any e-Marketing strategy in order for it to be efficient and deliver results.