Business Growth Blog

One of the main reasons to have a website is to get people "into your world." By that, I mean they’re actively engaged with your company at some level: they’re on your email list, connected with you on social media, or are in conversations with your sales team.

The only way to get someone into your world is to get them to willingly give you their contact information. It’s a little counter-intuitive: we usually think of prospects running away from salespeople as fast as possible, and yet here I am saying that they need to self-select into the sales process.

How in the world does that happen?

Putting together a social media strategy that gets a return on investment can be a real challenge. With never-ending ideas and strategies out there, it may seem like every ‘expert’ you talk to has a different opinion.

While it’s difficult to say exactly what strategies will work best for you without understanding your business goals and objectives, there are 4 tactics I often see companies use that may be holding them back from their full potential. If they look familiar to you, start digging deeper into your strategy: you may need a course correction.

I’m going to lay it to you straight: good marketing ain’t cheap, and cheap marketing ain’t good.

No matter how you slice it or dice it, you need one person to drive the marketing strategy and direct the campaigns.

That person, whether it’s an internal hire or someone at a marketing agency, is going to have to work with others to do an effective job. They’ll need graphic design, programming, social media, email marketing, and writing skills just to name a few.

Get Ready, Here it Comes...

I’m going to throw some numbers out there to help you start understanding the level of investment you need to make in order to get results.

Email marketing – if done correctly – can be a very successful tool to keep people engaged with your company. But the only way to do that is to be extremely cognizant of what your subscribers want and need.

It’s not about what you want to say – it’s about what they want to hear.

Here are 7 email etiquette blunders I come across every day. With a few simple changes to your strategy, you can take me from a disengaged non-reader to an active subscriber that reads your stuff regularly.

LinkedIn can be a powerful sales tool. But in order to get results, you have to use it consistently.

Create a New Sales Habit

If you’re in sales (or any job, really!) your day is already jam packed. How can you make time for LinkedIn?

Learning something new can be a drag at first. It takes time to learn new systems and develop new habits. It also takes a commitment to stay with it long enough to develop a level of proficiency that will get you a return on your investment.

So, to answer the question “How can you make time for LinkedIn?” -- you simply must schedule time to focus on it if you feel strongly enough about the ROI in the long run. And, just like anything else, it’ll get easier as you begin to incorporate it into your daily activities.

If you’re ready to jump in, here are six activities you can do to start creating good LinkedIn habits.

I spend hours every week reading blogs (literally). It’s how I get my information. I can instantly spot a good company blog vs. a bad company blog.

Here are 10 tell-tale signs you’re wasting valuable time and money on your blogging efforts.

I found this infographic on the HubSpot Blog that breaks down a bad prospecting email. It really caught my attention because I have recently seen an email that looks just like this one. I think the author, Leslie Ye is right on with this analysis. Writing good prospecting emails is hard work, and this is a great example of how NOT to do it.

A website home page has a lot of work to do. It has to be both smart and good-looking. It has to have a cool vibe about it that speaks to your company’s personality. It has to have interesting offers, different ways to reach you, and lists of things for visitors to do – all without being cluttered, messy, or overstuffed. Forget it, right?

Don’t worry, it’s not as impossible as it sounds. If you take it one step at a time and break it down into what’s important, constructing a website home page can be a manageable project with long-term rewards.

If I had a dollar for every time this happened to me, I’d be rich.

Ring ring!

Me: “Hello? This is Krista.”

Solicitor: Long pause from automated dialer... “Hello. May I please speak with Krista Moon?”

Me: Sigh...Didn’t I just say my name was Krista? “This is.”

Solicitor: “Hello, Ms. Moon. How are you today?”

SERIOUSLY?!

Blogging and email marketing are increasingly becoming standard practices for businesses of all shapes and sizes. Creating content and sending messages is very easy now-a-days, which puts us in the midst of a never-ending data explosion.

Videos, articles, chats, streams, texts, emails, pictures…With so much content available, people have to pick and choose very carefully what they want to give time to. Only content that is relevant to the issues, thoughts, or concerns a reader has will get noticed, and only content that adds value in some way will get their time.