In this weeks digital marketing and marketing leadership newsletter:
- How to use Canva in B2B
- It’s 2020 and people are still using vanity metrics
- Using your personal brand to grow your business
- Optimizing Google My Business
- Get Better Friday – Trusting your instincts
This was one of those weeks where I sent so many emails, some have come back with the recipient asking for the rest of the information because I sent while in the middle of a sentence. A friend just texted me asking if I was okay when the last text I sent just said, “I’m on m”.
Ugh.
I’ve realized that it’s a skill not only to get other people’s attention (ahem, MARKETING), but to manage your own. I can’t possibly give attention to everything that wants it. However, I break myself trying to actually do that. Right now there are three different objects flashing lights around me, wanting my attention for who knows what.
The good news is I can hit refresh any time I want. Today, tomorrow, next week – They’re all new days and a new chance to put my world in balance.
This was also a reminder about adding noise to an already noisy world. Maybe, before you hit send on that social post or blog at your marketing job, ask yourself if this is useful or just noise. We all need less noise and one of the ways to limit it, is to not participate.
Gotta start somewhere
For a small company, especially if you’re the owner & operator, it means if you don’t do things like marketing there’s no one else that will step in to help. There’s lots of great tools out there to help with copy, design, visual support & even development.
Canva is definitely one of those tools. Either you or someone in your office could easily make social media graphics for campaigns in an hour or two. Then, once you’ve grown your business where you can afford to have someone on retainer or on staff, you can graduate.
This is a good write-up about Canva & the basics of getting started. Share as necessary.
Complete Guide to Using Canva for B2B Content Marketing
Vanity at scale
I’ve had conversations recently about whether or not some form of digital marketing works for SMB’s or contractors. These conversations always revolve around the opinion that no one was interested because it “didn’t get that many views”.
If you’re in a specific market, brick and mortar or as a contractor, why would views matter? You only serve a segment of a specific market. Why would views from people outside that market matter?
Stop using vanity metrics to evaluate. Views, impressions, and follower count really don’t mean anything. It’s not likes that should be going away on social media platforms, it’s these vanity metrics that should be hidden. Set your focus, define success before you start. Then you won’t be distracted when looking for quality and effectiveness over vanity.
Personal brand counts, even for your business
I liked this. It illustrates exactly why using social media channels for your personal brand are game changers for your business. You have to build your personal brand before anyone will even pay attention. If your personal brand is to just assault everyone with your business promotions, you’re gonna get treated like spam. Cause that’s essentially what you are.
This quote:
“Unfortunately, most of us are doing exactly the opposite: we push our products and services to our audience without trying to build any personal reputation.
If you are starting afresh, you (the person) should precede the brand you want to promote. That’s how you gain early followers, subscribers and paid/beta users.”
How I 10x-ed Social Media Effectiveness of my new SaaS venture through Personal Branding?
Still getting local
If you support a specific, local market then you need to spend time with Google My Business and optimizing for local SEO. I know a lot of SMB’s and contractors. I tell them the same thing I tell everyone else, work on your local SEO.
Don’t worry about social, paid ads, email (okay, maybe worry a little about email) or anything else until you know you’ve optimized your local business in GMB. This is a good resource, it’s worth your time.
How to Optimize Google My Business in 10 Steps
Trust. Your. Instincts. | Get Better Friday
We’re all in the business of making data driven decisions. It’s all we hear from coworkers, our boss and the C-Suite. Something that often gets overlooked is our instincts. For some people, trusting their instincts comes natural. But, for others, its something we have to practice.
Before making a big decision, dig into your instincts. In this week’s Get Better Friday video I take a look at two ways you can investigate your instincts before making that big decision.
This comes from this great blog post by Scott Young.
How to Make Hard Life Decisions