Archive for Writing
My Top Marketing and Blogging Tips
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I was recently interviewed by my good friend Michelle Salater about my favorite marketing and blogging tips for the solopreneur.
Michelle did a fabulous job picking my brain and I’m excited to see what came out of our time together.
Take a few minutes to head on over to Copy Doodle and check out Part 1 and Part 2 of my interview. Then let Michelle know what you think. Oh and don’t forget to subscribe to her RSS Feed because she is famous for her quality!
Don’t forget to “Mind Your Own Biz”,
Janet
3 Ways to Improve Your Article Writing
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Article writing is part science and part art. As a solopreneur it’s important that you feel comfortable and confident writing content for your business. Content is too important to disregard or not take seriously. The good news is that even if you aren’t presently comfortable with your writing skills there are simple things you can do to improve your article writing.
Create a Structure
Before you sit down to string sentences together, create a structure for your article. Think of it as a very informal outline. For example, the outline for this particular article might look like this.
How to improve your article writing
- Create a structure
- Write conversationally
- Add keywords later
Taking a few minutes to create a structure for your article will make the article writing process faster. It also helps ensure your article stays on topic and has a logical flow. Creating an outline before you write also helps ensure you cover all the points you want to cover. It’s a quick brainstorming session before you write.
Write Conversationally
Unless you’re writing for a magazine or newspaper, most articles are better received if they’re written conversationally. That is to say, they’re written like you speak. Conversational writing is informal. It uses contractions. It uses the word “you” occasionally. And it can break a few grammar rules when necessary.
Conversational writing helps your reader feel like you’re writing directly to them. It is personal and effective. So the next time you’re writing an article, pretend you’re writing a letter to a friend or that you’re talking to a friend. If that doesn’t work, try voice to text software. It records and automatically transcribes your spoken content and can help you write conversationally.
Add Keywords Later
Write your article first without worrying about keyword placement. If you write with keywords in mind there’s a greater chance that your article will feel forced. You want to first write for your readers and then write for the search engines. Complete your article using the words that come naturally to you at the time.
Then go back and look for places where your keywords will sound natural. Look to include them in your subheadings along with your first and last paragraph. Don’t force the issue. Search engines and readers are savvy now. They can recognize a good article when they see it and will respond positively.
Practice writing articles. The more you write them, the more comfortable you’ll become with the process. And you know what they say about practice, right? It makes perfect. Write often, write conversationally, plan your content and focus on keywords after the fact.
Surveys That Work
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Customer surveys are a powerful way to get in the minds of your customers and really figure out what they want and what makes them tick. It can give you information on how you’re doing currently as well as what your customers want in the future.
Here’s how to create a customer survey that will give you meaningful results with the least amount of effort on your customer’s part.
Start by Defining What You Want to Learn
What specific piece of data do you want to obtain by conducting this customer survey? Simply saying “We want to get to know our customers better” is not a good answer. Surveys without a clear goal in mind tend to be far too long and untargeted.
Instead, have a clear question or direction for the survey. For example:
- How is our current service? What are we doing right and what are we doing wrong?
- What do customers want in our current product?
- Who is our demographic?
Once you have a specific line of questioning or specific question you want to answer, then start building your survey.
Creating the Survey
When you’re creating the survey, make it as short as you possibly can while still getting the data you want. That way you’ll have more people actually complete the survey and you won’t bore your customers.
Some options for what kinds of questions to have in your survey include: Multiple choice answers, rating 1-10 scales, true/false questions, strongly agree / strongly disagree scales and open-ended answers.
Generally your questionnaire should be a mix of the above options. Make sure you include at least one open-ended question in your survey so your customers can freely express their thoughts.
Interpreting the Data
Make sure you have statistically significant data for each question before you deem the survey complete.
Then take your survey and start extrapolating results and what you’ve learned. Were you right about certain things and off about others? What were you surprised by?
Carefully read over all the open-ended question answers. Were there common themes in the answers?
Now take everything you’ve learned and write down what your top three discoveries were. Then, use the data now available to you to come up with new action plans to improve your customer experience.
One thing to note about customer surveys: If you’re conducting a survey about what customers will or will not buy, keep in mind that what someone says they would buy may not always match what they’d actually pull their credit card out for. It’s good data to have, but having a survey saying that they’d buy something is not a guarantee that the product will sell.
Design your surveys with a goal in mind. Keep them short and concise, then use what you’ve learned to immediately create a plan and put it into action.
The Power of Words
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Being able to use your words effectively is one of the most powerful skills you could learn. Through harnessing the power of words, you can build a solid following of users, create content that moves people and sell products that people will want to buy.
The Power of Words Through Content
Your content isn’t just what you say, it’s how you say it. It’s how well you can build a connection with your readers, how well you can relate with them emotionally, and how well you can create passion.
If you have a message but don’t know how to convey it with conviction, personality, emotion and credibility, chances are it won’t be heard.
The keyboard, mouse and graphic user interface were first invented by Xerox researchers. They thought they had the best invention in the world, but just couldn’t convince anyone that what they invented mattered.
Then Apple came along and shared the discovery with the world. A master of marketing and using powerful word choices, Steve Jobs used these three new inventions to take Apple to the next level.
People read your content for an experience as well for information. Learn to use your words to take your user on a fun journey as you educate them.
The Power of Words for Building Trust
Trust is a rare commodity online. There are so many people pitching for attention and trying to generate sales that most people tune most messages and sites out.
That said, if you learn the art of building trust, your site will become one of the few sites that your user actually pays attention to, and perhaps eventually buys from.
This also comes from using the power of words. Your words are what you use to convey credibility. It’s how you address the unspoken question of “Why should I trust you?”
It can be as simple as stating your qualifications. Or, more often, it’s a matter of using your words to demonstrate mastery of a topic. Do it well and people will trust you with their valuable time and attention.
The Power of Words in Selling
The power of words really comes through when it comes to selling. The words written by a poor copywriter will often generate no sales at all, while the words of a world-class copywriter will often generate millions of dollars in sales.
The difference is all in the words. Can you reach into your readers’ hearts, paint a picture of a better world and convince them to make an investment in that vision?
In a nutshell, words are everything online. From creating content people love to convincing people that you have a product worth paying for, there really is nothing more important than learning to use the power of words well.
6 Steps to Become a Master Client Communicator
Posted by: | CommentsGuest post by: Carol Hess 
I’m watching one entrepreneur after another fail to become a master client communicator. I watch them start out strong (or not), and then I see their newsletters and blog posts and ezines and social media tweets become fewer and fewer and fewer. The gaps between spurts of communication become longer and longer and longer.
They become the entrepreneur who went quiet. And pretty soon after that, they become the entrepreneur who didn’t make it.
It makes me sad. It makes me especially sad because it doesn’t have to happen. It doesn’t take all that much to become a master client communicator. People do it all the time.
You know why they do it? Because they’ve figured out something. They’ve figured out that the first step to grow any business is communications.
When you communicate with someone, you begin to form a connection with that person. The more you communicate with that person, the more you deepen that connection. Eventually that connection becomes a relationship. The next thing you know, that relationship has turned into a client – maybe even a client who becomes a raving fan.
Guess what? Your raving fan then turns around and starts communicating about how terrific you are – communications that lead to more connections that lead to more relationships that lead to more clients. . . . . You get the idea.
So we’ve pretty much figured out that successful communication equals successful business. Now comes the tricky part. How the heck are you supposed to get all that communicating done and still find the time to – gee, I don’t know – do the work you get paid to do and maybe even have dinner with your family before they forget what you look like?
All master communicators have a Client Communications and Connections Plan. No, they probably don’t call it that, but they’ve got one. So let’s get you one of those, shall we?
Your 6 Steps to Becoming a Master Client Communicator
1. Determine Your Primary Communications Goals
This will probably depend on what stage your business is in and what your major goals are for your business. Do you want to build awareness of your business? Expand your mailing list? Increase your credibility? Build your know-like-trust factor? Land more clients? Increase revenues?
Get clear on your primary goal for your client communications plan (at least for right now) and you will increase your chances of actually accomplishing that goal. (By the way, what does “accomplish” look like? Spell your goal out in specifics so you will know when you’ve achieved it.)
2. Nail Your Core Message
Oh so much easier for me to type than for you to accomplish, but it’s important. Keep honing in on who you work with, what you do, what makes you unique, what makes your work unique, why you do what you do, your beliefs, your passions, your purpose. Keep focusing in tighter and tighter until you get that “Ah ha, I’ve got it!” feeling. That’s when you’ll know you’ve nailed your core message.
By the way, your core message will never be perfect, and it will never be set in stone. It is going to keep changing and evolving as you, your clients, and your business keep changing and evolving. Don’t wait until your core message is perfect before you start communicating. Get out there and start communicating today.
3. Get to Know Your Ideal Client
99.9% of the time you are going to be communicating to, for, and with your ideal client. Get to know her as well as you know yourself. (Well, maybe not quite that well.) This isn’t new advice, is it? The world is telling you to get to know your client – demographics, psychographics, etc.
I want you to take it one step further. Get to know how your ideal client communicates and how she likes to be communicated to. What’s her lingo? What are her frames of reference? Does she prefer the written word, audio, video, a combination? What are the compelling words that make her sit up and take action? You need to know not just who you’re talking to but how to talk to her (without sacrificing your own authentic voice of course).
4. Think Strategically
Think big picture, short term vs. long term, goals and objectives, action steps to achieve those goals and objectives. What do you want to accomplish in your business this week, this month, this quarter, this year? How are you going to get there? What role is communications going to play to help you get there? Which writing vehicle (blog post, ezine article, social media tweet) is best suited to get the job done?
This is the step most entrepreneurs don’t take. They don’t approach their communications in a strategic way, and that’s too bad. Because this is when you start communicating smarter, not harder. This is when you know what you want to say, why you want to say it, and when and how to say it. This is when you and your message start to stand out from the noisy crowd. This is when you start making those connections that turn into relationships that turn into clients that turn into a thriving business.
5. Figure Out Your Communications Timetable (also known as an editorial calendar). Now it’s time to take everything from Step 3 and plug it into your calendar. Figure out your various communications projects and activities and their corresponding lead times and deadlines. Schedule your communications work so it is consistent, steady and well timed.
This is not the step to wing. This is not the step to do in your head. Get it down on paper. (Email me at carol@tamethewritingmonster.com, and I will send you information about my very simple, very easy-to-use, very low-tech way to produce your monthly communications calendar.) Your timetable is the tool that is going to help you avoid the hit or miss, chaotic, ineffective, and stressful communications effort that characterizes so many businesses.
6. Repurpose, Repurpose, Repurpose
This is the step when the magic starts to happen. Repurposing is how you’re going to get all those writing and communications projects done and maintain (1) your sanity, (2) a consistent presence in front of your market, and (3) a personal life. This is what writing smarter, not harder is all about. This how you squeeze the most juice out of every single piece of communications you create.
Here is how I plan to repurpose this guest blog post:
(1) Use it as an ezine article
(2) Submit it to the article directories
(3) Publish it on my own blog
(4) Turn it into two signature talks – one 30 minutes long, one 60 minutes long
(5) Use it as the basis for a free teleclass
(6) Expand it into a 2-day virtual retreat group coaching program
(7) Transform it into an information product
Of course I’ll need to tweak, expand, and reformat the post to be able to repurpose it in such a variety of ways and forms. But it will be worth it. Think of the time I’m saving by not having to sit down and reinvent the wheel each time. Repurposing. Utter magic.
So there you have it. The six steps to take to become a master communicator. Once you are a master communicator, then you’ll be making those connections and forging those relationships that will lead to more clients, more sales, and more revenues.
Don’t be the entrepreneur who went quiet and was never heard from again.
Carol Hess, the Coach’s Writing Partner, shows coaches how to harness the power of writing to gain clients, credibility, and confidence. How to write smarter, not harder for the coach who wants to write less, stress less, and coach more. Get Carol’s report, “15 Foolproof Ways to Bust Through Writer’s Block. Email her at carol@tamethewritingmonster.com to get her quick and easy communications timetable system (no charge).
