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Common sense content marketing tips

Tuesday, January 24, 2012 — 

 

In the Marketing Interactions Blog (one of our favorites), Ardath Albee shares some great, common sense tips for B2B companies interested in producing content as a lead generation strategy. Here are two of our favorite tips from that list and one we’d like to add:

Under “Sharing Valuable Tips Will Actually Make You Money - Exposing expertise actually shows people how difficult it can be to do what you do, encouraging them to hire you and get that task off their list. Not to mention getting the job done right the first time.” We agree. Remember how long it took you and everyone else at your company to build up your body of knowledge. No matter how informative your white paper, article, or blog post is – there is no way the reader can learn everything you know that fast. (At least we hope not!)

Under “Become A Resource By Sharing The Spotlight – Showcasing others who have great content reflects back on you. Plus, you don’t have all the answers. Help people connect the dots.” It’s kind of like the old saying, “Two heads are better than one.” Joining forces with another company will benefit both of you. If you choose your partners wisely, you are exposing your business to a group of fantastic prospects and giving yourself the credibility of your partner. That’s why we published our free e-book 100 Ways to Build Your Business in 2012. Of course, five of the tips in the book are from Clear Verve, but 95 of them aren’t. And all the participants have 19 other companies promoting the entire group.

And one tip we’d like to add:
Don’t get hung up on the platform. Some companies get so worried about what they are doing (or not doing) on Facebook/Twitter/YouTube, etc. that they don’t even realize that maybe that’s not the right place to start. Every business is different. For your business, email may be the right solution. Or a printed newsletter delivered by snail mail. Or maybe you should be writing press releases, or focusing on LinkedIn. Think about where your customers are, how they live their lives, and how your service fits into what they are doing when they work with you. You wouldn’t spend money on advertising without thinking about it, would you? Give the same thought to your content marketing strategy.

Christina Steder is the President of Clear Verve Marketing and works with clients to plan, create and execute marketing campaigns. Follow her on Twitter as @clearverve

Other resources:
A new social media planning tool
Niches – A smart strategy
The importance of a good graphic
The challenges of social media

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Get 100 Ways to Build Your Business

Monday, December 19, 2011 — 

 

Have you ever tried to think up new ways to market, manage, or build your business and found yourself at a complete loss for ideas? I think it happens to everyone. I have to admit, it even happens to us, despite the fact that we’re a marketing company. I’m not sure if it’s because we spend so much time being creative on behalf of others that we just run out of gas for ourselves, or if it’s because we spend so much time dreaming up new ideas that it’s hard to come up with something that feels truly revolutionary for ourselves.

Well, we’ve solved that problem! Last year, we came up with the crazy idea of trying to get 20 of our favorite thought leaders to share five ideas that would help businesses innovate, grow, or manage themselves better. We contacted a few people, who loved the idea, and our big project for 2011, 100 Ways to Build Your Business in 2012 was born.

After several months of hard work, we’re pleased to share these great ideas with you. The book includes thoughts on marketing/PR, web/social media, management, and video/photo, so you are sure to find something that is applicable to your business! Best of all, you can also sign up to receive a monthly tips from the ebook for the next year. (Because seriously, who can remember or implement 100 ideas all at once?)

You can download the free e-book and sign up for the monthly emails at the 100 Ways to Build Your Business website.

Our best wishes for a busy and productive 2012!

Christina Steder is the President of Clear Verve Marketing and works with clients to plan, create and execute marketing campaigns. Follow her on Twitter as @clearverve

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Are you afraid of public speaking?

Thursday, October 27, 2011 — 

 

As a marketing company that specializes in working with service providers, we are always advocating that our clients take advantage of or make their own opportunities to speak in front of potential clients or referral sources. Of course, many of them resist. We understand. Lots of people are afraid of public speaking. Here are some things you can do to try to make it easier:

  • Use your slides as notes, not as a script. You wouldn’t get up on stage and read a book, would you? People who read their slides to the audience often think they are bad speakers. They may not actually be bad speakers, but because the audience can read faster than they can speak, they may be BORING. Don’t read your slides!
  • Practice. This sounds obvious, but many people don’t. Practice gives you confidence. Even professional athletes practice.
  • Remember, you are the only one who knows what you were planning to say. If you say it differently, who knows except you? NOBODY!

Public speaking is an excellent way to build your client base and establish your expertise. It is a long-term strategy that may not yield immediate results, but the prospects you get from speaking are often easier to turn into clients because you have already established your expertise. Take advantage of opportunities to speak whenever you can.

Christina Steder is the President of Clear Verve Marketing and works with clients to plan, create and execute marketing campaigns. Follow her on Twitter as @clearverve

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Business is built one step at a time

Monday, October 24, 2011 — 

 

This week, we kicked off a branding project with a new client that came to us as a referral from someone I met five years ago. Next week, I am meeting with a prospect that came to us as a referral from someone I met three years ago. We are talking with another prospect who heard me speak at a seminar two years ago, and I was just asked to speak at an upcoming event because of a body of work we’ve been building up for the past four years.

Why am I sharing this? Because many businesses are often so worried about the short-term impact of their marketing initiatives that it is easy to forget about or not want to “waste time with” things that don’t pay off immediately. But that’s not how building a business works. Everything you do adds up over time. The most successful and stable businesses are usually not overnight successes (although it may seem like it to an outsider). Remember as you build your marketing plan that it is important to include both short term and long term strategies. Mix different avenues of communication and be consistent. Suddenly, it will feel like you are an “overnight success” too.

Christina Steder is the President of Clear Verve Marketing and works with clients to plan, create and execute marketing campaigns. Follow her on Twitter as @clearverve

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I don’t have time to blog!

Friday, June 17, 2011 — 

 

This is a very busy week at Clear Verve. In the last two weeks, we landed three new clients, and just this week picked up projects from some former clients. While we are most certainly GRATEFUL for the additional work and glad to see our former clients call us when they have needs, we have a lot to do. On top of the increased workload, Susan is on vacation, and we are moving the office to a larger location at the end of next week. I’ve been working at home nearly every night just to keep up. In fact, I’m typing this as I sit in the bleachers during my kids’ swim lessons so I can get it done.

So, why am I taking the time to write this blog? There are a couple reasons. First, blogging is good for our company. Continually adding to our website via our blog is good for SEO and helps keep our Linkedin profiles and our Facebook page up to date. Also, we think it’s important to practice what we preach. Because we focus on working with professional service providers and not for profits, we are always talking to our clients about content marketing and sharing their knowledge. We tell them that blogs, newsletters, and social media are ideal ways to help them showcase their expertise and their personalities. We bug them (in a friendly way of course) to provide us with information we can use to generate content for them or to generate the content themselves. So if we expect them to do it, we should also be doing it. Otherwise, we’d be like the shoemaker’s kid with no shoes.

I hope that when your business gets busy, you can also remember to take time – even if it’s just a few minutes each day – to do something that helps your business grow. Small actions over time add up to great things. Don’t wait – the time to grow your business is NOW.

Christina Steder is the President of Clear Verve Marketing and works with clients to plan, create and execute marketing campaigns. Follow her on Twitter as @clearverve.

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When Weaknesses Become a Strength

Thursday, May 12, 2011 — 

 

Last week, after being tasked with creating a survey on SurveyMonkey, I discovered the company had rebranded since the last time I visited the site (which I admit, was probably about two years ago). It looked so much more professional! This discovery led me to an online search to find out what others thought about the new look and the reasons for the change. It was harder to find than I thought, but my search led me to find this Pixelonomics post, highlighting 30 logo redesigns of 2010.

And my eyes smiled.

It makes me ridiculously happy to look at before and after shots, and to learn more about why organizations make certain changes to logos, colors, shapes and font types.

One website that kept me inspired daily before I got bogged down with grad school was Brand New. Its purpose is to keep tabs on brand identity work and provide opinions on it, focusing mostly on identity design. It’s still around two years later (whew!) and back to being a definite part of my morning routine.

We all have weaknesses (well I like to think so): ice cream, old movies, jewelry, video games, coffee shops, etc. But when they positively impact your professional track, does it actually become a strength? What weaknesses do you have that inspire you in your professional life?

Erica Gordon is a Marketing Associate at Clear Verve and also works part-time at a Milwaukee area nonprofit. She recently received her Communication MA from Marquette University. Follow Erica on Twitter @erica_g.

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Thank you

Friday, March 18, 2011 — 

 

Sometimes in our marketing efforts we can forget the simple things – like the simple act of saying thank you to customers or clients.  When was the last time you sent a quick thank you out to your clients for their business or referral?  It doesn’t have to be a long drawn out “process” to do this. It can be through simple ways like:

  • Including a thank you in your email newsletter
  • When you meet with clients, simply stating thank you sincerely after your discussion and mentioning how much you appreciate the opportunity to work with them
  • Thank clients on anniversaries of working together, your business anniversary, for referrals, or advice from others in your field
  • Start a random acts of thank you effort and each week send out a special hand written thank you note (this is a great post from Girvin Branding on the power of a hand written note) or something out of the ordinary to thank clients
  • Instead of holiday gifts during Christmas – consider a Thanksgiving “giving thanks” message to all clients

Our blog has been up and running now for over a year and we appreciate everyone that reads it.  We want to keep our Promise Marketing idea fuel going so if you ever have comments/suggestions, please respond.

Susan Schoultz is Client Service Director at Clear Verve Marketing and works with clients to plan, create and execute marketing campaigns.  Follow her on Twitter as @clearverve2.

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Niches: A smart strategy

Tuesday, December 21, 2010 — 

 

In his blog, Real Lawyers Have Blogs, Kevin O’Keefe makes several compelling arguments for why attorneys should blog on specific niches rather than writing a blog on general legal topics. It’s a great, short read and we recommend you check it out, particularly if you’ve ever worried about defining your practice or your firm by a niche.

We think niches are a smart strategy. Not just for blogs, but for your business. Whether you’re an attorney, an accountant, or any other type of service provider, niches can help you market your firm because your prospects will understand when you are the right person to call. Will it exclude you from some opportunities? Sure, but it will also ensure that you get more of the work you enjoy most because when you explain what you do, eight of the nine people you are talking to will not be interested but that ninth person will hand you a business card and say, “Call me. I’ve been looking for someone like you.”

Choosing a niche is scary, we know. But it is the best way to differentiate yourself from other service providers who describe their work in such general terms you can’t tell why on earth you’d ever want to engage them.

Christina Steder is the President of Clear Verve Marketing and works with clients to plan, create and execute marketing campaigns.  Follow her on Twitter as @clearverve.

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Remaining True to Yourself

Friday, April 23, 2010 — 

 

Many organizations, both for profit and non-profit, struggle with finding ways to get their prospective customers, donors, or volunteers engaged in their brand. Since engagement with the audience is one of the key metrics for social media success, organizations are now finding that it is important to combine traditional tactics with social media campaigns in order to attract an audience so that engagement can begin.

At Clear Verve, we believe that combining marketing strategies is almost always a good idea. Using multiple communications channels allows your business to use different types of messages. As an example, you can use one tactic to get people’s attention, and another to say what you want them to know. However, it is important to remain true to your organization’s main goals when planning any promotion.

Yesterday, April 22, was the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. The Sierra Club, America’s oldest, largest, and most influential grassroots environmental organization (their words, not mine) launched an Earth Day sweepstakes in which people would pledge to do something good for the Earth in exchange for a trip. At first glance, this sounds like a great idea. People get excited about contests, the registration form gives the Sierra Club the chance to harvest your contact information (unless you uncheck the box), and it was a great opportunity to increase the size of their twitter followers, Facebook fans, and email list.

The problem, at least in our eyes, with the contest was the prize. A trip for two to Hawaii. Not that we have anything against Hawaii. We’ve heard it’s beautiful, amazing, and a bunch of other really nice adjectives. The problem is how you get there. Here is an environmental organization putting two people on an airplane in order to build their social media fan base.  Even if nobody is exactly sure how much air travel adds to our carbon footprint, we can all agree it probably doesn’t help. It’s kind of like PETA giving away leather furniture or a fur coat to people who pledge to become vegetarians.

We hope the Sierra Club’s Earth Day promotion was successful and that they attracted many new fans. It would be interesting to know if they heard any backlash about the plane trip.  We think taking advantage of Earth Day, and holding a sweepstakes was brilliant. We’re not so sure if they kept their organization’s overall mission in mind when they planned the promotion though. What do you think?

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Service Marketing and the Oscars

Thursday, March 25, 2010 — 

 

In her Golden Practices blog, Michelle Golden draws an interesting parallel between a comment made at the Oscars and accounting marketing.

You should check out her blog to read the whole entry in which she makes some great points about what really matters in service marketing – content. And not jargon-filled, hyped up content either. What matters is content that assumes the audience is intelligent, but not necessarily knowledgeable about the technical stuff that seems like common sense to someone in your industry.

In a service based industry, you are selling the invisible. Whether you offer knowledge, creativity, or a thorough job performing manual labor, people need to understand what you can do for them. They need to know that you’re smart, but won’t make them feel stupid. They need to understand what types of problems you solve. They need to be able to figure out what the heck you do.

Share your knowledge, share examples, explain and explain and explain. It will only make them need you more.

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