“I don’t have time for social networking!”

It’s really easy to say, right?   People agree with you so it seems to be an excuse that you can feel is legitimate.

The sad truth is that many who say “I don’t have time for social networking” have never even tried it!  I hope that’s not you.  It may have been cool in the beginning but now it is just hurting yourself not to participate in social networking.

Let me ask you this ~  Do you have time to get dressed in the morning?  Do you have time to stop and have a cup of coffee in the morning?   Social networking works the same way.

Now if getting dressed every morning means starting from scratch and going through everything in your closet, thinking about what you wore in the previous days and what you are going to do that day and THEN choosing what to wear only to find out that something needs to be ironed, or is in the wash, or at the cleaners … .all before your actually get dressed and are ready for the day….  you probably would NOT have time to get dressed  every morning.  Don’t you think?

Social networking is the same.  You can’t log in and then start wondering what you are going to say, be distracted by other people’s posts while you think of what to say,  finally come up with your messaging and then go look for a photo to add with it, etc. etc. etc.   If this is what your are doing , you are right.  You don’t have time for social networking!!!    And the sad part is, if you do all of the above with no significance .. other than to show up with a post for the day ..  you will not have any positive resultsl!

Some of the “truths” about social networking include: 

• Social networking can be done successfully in less than 10 minutes per day.
• Success comes from consistency not quantity.
• Social networking posts are meant to be snipits … not long articles!
• Having a purpose for each and every post enables you to be time efficient.
• Allocating an hour or less per week to plan your postings gives you time!
• and there are more!   Join us on Let’s Connect LIVE! to talk about them.

There is ALWAYS time for tasks that make sense and that contribute to your success.  The first step is identifying your BIG WHY for social  networking. Once you have that you can break all your activity into steps, each with their own purpose It won’t be long before you will be making lots ot time for your social networking. Trust me!

Here’s to your success making connections!
margie

Now that you’ve made a client persona or two ( per our last blog post), let’s talk about matching your buying personas to the voice of your brand and why it is important.    Let’s look at some of the pieces:

• Client personas, as talked about last week, are representations of your primary types of clients.  You can form them from grouping shared demographics, as appropriate .. maybe age, sex, income, etc.  You can also categorize them by behavior such as style, interests, activities, etc.   Maybe you end up combining both of these in some way.  For my client personas  I grouped types of buyers by buying behavior and all associated specifics. Let me share their names with you!
  – ► Enthused & Open to Learn:   Enthusistic Elizabeth and  Eric
  – ► Price Sensitive:  Frugal Fran & Frugal Fred
  – ► Lack Of Trust In Online Mktg:  Doubting Donna & Doubting Don
  – ► Those that “get it”:   Ready Rita & Ready Richard
  Personalizing my client personas makes it sooooo  much easier to create targeted communications to each one of my personas.
• Your Brand and its voice! 
  Brands are complex … and brands are much more than just your logo and your colors Brands are a “live” reflection of your values, policies, self-image, style, manners, what you stand for and believe in. Your brand can be made of multiple values, i.e. a belief in excellent customer service, high quality products, and a great work environment, etc. Emphasizing the right portion of your brand to each of your client personas is important.  Diffrent aspects of your brand will resonate more than other aspects of the same brand because people and client personas place value on different things.
• The Two Together 
  At a presentation given last week on the future direction of digital marketing, it was stated that a brand will be defined by its community. This current direction is referred to as “brand communities.”  A brand community is a group of caring and connected consumers organized around the lifestyle, activities, and ethics of the brand..  There is engagement and bonding!  Your brand is part of the consumer experience! 

  Some thoughts to ponder about brand communities.
  ► A brand community is a business strategy.
  ►  A brand community exists to serve the people in it.
  ►  Engineer the community and the brand will be strong.

• Matching 
  All of the above comes about by creating matches and engagement between the different benefits and values of your brand with your individual client personas. Know which benefit is most important to each persona. Having clarity for both will maximize your engagement and communications  ….  thus creating a shared truth that evolves vs begin thrown out from a central point.  It all just “is!” within the people you have gathered together.  Exciting!
• The Role Of CRM, Customer Relationship Management 
  The demographics you grouped together to create your client personas become part of what we refer to as CRM .. Customer Relationship Management.  The individual identifiers that go into a CRM system of any level of sophistication determine how we speak, our tone,  and what we say, contributing to the most effective engagement between your brand and your client personas!!  You can say it helps you create the voice of your brand.

Going forward we’ll be talking more about CRM but for now just know that your brand and “everything”  is dynamic.  Your brand is “alive” and its strength depends upon how strong your attraction, connection and engagment is between your different types of buyers and the elements of your brand that are best matched to them.  it grows organically into something bigger than just you marketing your products and services.

A strong brand community increases customer loyalty, lowers marketing costs,  and generates tons of ideas to grow the business. Through commitment, engagement, and support you’ll see some fantastic returns.

How does all this apply to you?  In every way!   Even if your business is just “you” … you’ve heard the term of wearing multiple hats.  This is another form of that.  AND as a solopreneur you are in full control.  It’s the perfect time to implement the structure you will need to support the flexibility and flow you want to generate.

Here’s to your success via making connections .
margie

Sorting your prospects and buyers into their “whys” for using your offerings enables you to create “personas” for your types of clients.  How many different types do you have?   AND what are the specific conversations you must create to attract, connect, engage and convert them as they go through the steps of the buying journey.

One persona you create may be very focused upon the details of your product.  Another may be more interested in the service that comes with doing business with you and for that reason alone they don’t have deep concern about the products.   And so on ….

It can be eye-opening when you stop and start realizing the different “whys” your current buyers have for using what you sell.  The ideas for attracting future business become much wider in scope… usually going way beyond the products and services themselves.

​​​​​​You also realize how you must change your voice as you engage with eah persona .. .just like you do with humans.  This realization makes it a requirement and fun to add a personality to each persona and also give each persona a name!   Personalize them as much as you can because  each one is who you are going to start having conversations with as you go forward with your marketing strategies and acitivities.

Here is a quick image I put together with a very simple depiction of 3 personas and hopefully it is obvious as to how the marketing conversations could vary per persona.  The product is a type of children’s food.

Once your personas are created and named, you are going to create a process … a buyer journey … for each of your personas.   Start with how they find out about you, at the early awareness stage that I always refer to as “attract” … and move on to what will make a connection, and then what information do you need to create engagement from each connection  and then what do they need to know in order to buy from you.   You should also include what happens after the sale to make sure this persona will be a repeat customer and/or referral.

Give it a try!  It can be eye opening!

Here’s to your success via “making connections! ”
margie

Content is the name of the game in the online mktg arena currently.  Original content.    So how does that work?   Well ….  it’s made up of what you offer, your clients, and the ‘world” that both reside in!   AND if you stick with me, the rest of this year my focus ( with a couple of side detours) will be on helping you know how to implement some great CRM, i.e. Customer Relationship Management within your business and of course making sure you know why!

So this week, let me ask you, ” how well do you know your clients?”
Hopefully you are all becoming aware of the need to know your client’s “why” for buying your products and services.   Because, as many of you already know, what you offer is the HOW for your clients to get what they really want.   This is why you must know their WHY for looking at your offerings, in order to maximize “your” success with your marketing . messaging.

There is still more to know about your clients!   Just for fun pick 10 of your current clients.  Quickly write down what they buy from you and if they buy more than one item, list all that they buy.   Then sort them by age, sex, size (if appropriate)  color, price, where they live, any interests that you know and any other ways to categorize them.  Now let me ask you:

1. Do you see any obvious patterns that allow you to place them In different groupings?
2. Do you see conversations that could occur within each group that would be targeted just for each group?

Hopefully you wil be able to form some groupings working with just 10 clients.  If not use a larger test group.  You may have just one single offer, so pick the date they bought their items as a  primary category (just for fun) and also the personal criteria listed above.

Amazing  insight is gained when you do this and lots of ideas emerge for conversations that will make strong connections and build relationships. For example:

• Multiple product/service purchases, just by themselves, provide ideas for successful up-selling to those who are single buyers.
• Multiple product/service purchases provide ideas for bundled packages and for promotions!
•  Age similarities open up targeted conversations around age.  Bring your offerings into these conversations… lead buyers to you.
• All similar demographics of interests, sex, age etc provide ideas for targeted conversations. Lots of ideas for conversations in which you can bring your offerings to your buyers vs having the conversation be about your offerings.
• Locations that are shared by clients provide ideas for promotions based around events, weather, local holidays/celebrations etc.

Bottom line .. creativity excels!   Relationship building is effective and based upon real happenings!   You achieve success in your own right BUT guess what?  You also are shining much brighter than your competition.   (assuming they are not also doing this! )  

Know thy clients!   Your clients want you to know some stuff.  It shows you care if you use the information correctly and applied in a relationship building style.

If this all sounds good, continue with more than just 10 of your clients.  Just use a piece of paper or excel.  I’ll be going over other options in the coming weeks.  For now simply lay it out and LOOK at what you find!  See what you DISCOVER that has been sitting right there waiting for you to use for your growing success!   Let me know some of your “wows” in a comment or tow … would love to know.

Here’s to your success via “making connections!”
margie

I’ve been talking about being ready for the 2nd half of 2016 and if you are ready.  One ot the best ways you can be ready and better than ever is to concentrate on your communications.

The more “effective” you make the communications you send, the more connections you will make and keep!  So this week I am touching upon one piece of creating quality communications –  I am sharing with you ways to know if you are sending STRONG communications and why you want to!

Communications are the core of all that we do in business and life.  Everything is a communication!  Today our business communications are “live” and ever flowing.   Marketing is all about providing fresh daily communications  in social media and blog posts for connecting to buyers.  The days of creating one message for one ad that runs for a month are fewer and fewer. 

Bottom Line: You have to know how to create effective messaging both online and offline!

The question being asked above iin today’s title is, “are you sending “strong” communications?”  If you are asking, “what does “strong” mean?  Loud?  In your face?  Bold?”  The answer is NO … none of these define “strong” as applied  in this question.

A short list of definitions for “strong,” as used with communications,  includes  lasting,  clear,  clean,  exact,  deep, quality, solid, meaningful and “right on!”

• .If you look at the lights on your computer modem or router you can immediately tell if you have a strong connection/communication.
• When you are on the phone you can tell when you have a strong or weak connection/communication going on.
• When you plug in a new lamp and it flickers, you know you have a weak connection/communication going on somewhere within the process of the lamp turning the bulb on .

It’s the same with human communications.  You can tell when you have a  strong or weak communication.   Sometimes it takes being extra aware, as there is a buffer used by humans that lets a lot slide by.   This mailing is beign sent to you with the hopes of encouraging all to be extra aware.

Here’s a 7 item checklist you can use as a starting guideline for knowing if you are sending strong communications:

1. Strong communications have a defined purpose.
   Before they are created, a clearly defined “WHY” is identified for the communication.
   .
2. Strong communications start with the end in mind.
   You can not start out to make a connection unless you first know what you are connecting to.   You must begin with knowing where you are going.
   .
3. Strong communications have no gaps.
   There are no “breaks” in strong communications.  No starting and stopping.Only continuous “connecting” communications.
   .
4. Strong communications include no shortcuts.
   Communications are authentic, real, honest and complete! The Golden Rule for success with all online communications is to remove the need for the reader to have to think.   No guessing. No grey.  No shortcuts!
   .
5. Strong communications have no weak links.
   Communications are made up of words connecting to words and sentences connecting to sentences, and paragraphs connecting to paragraphs.  If there is any weakness in any of the pieces as they connect , each one to the next one, it robs the strength of the entire communication.
   .
6. Strong communications have value.They communicate a message that is truly useful, meaningful, elevating, enhancing, and lasting,  a message that remains in the minds of those receiving the communications.
   .
7. Strong communication are felt.
   Reactions to a strong communication might be, “Right On!”  or “You Got It!”  or “That Hit Home!”  or “YES!” etc.

Take this list and use it as a reference as you create your communications.   If you are not sure, feel like your communications are missing the “strength” you want them to have contact me!   You can have a customized training created for you.    It’s a must that you know how to create quality communications going forward and I am here to help you.

Enjoy!