Shifting Perspective: Turn Weaknesses into Strengths

Get Results: change perspective
Get Results: change perspective

One way of increasing the likelihood you’ll take some desired action, is the ability to look at a goal, plan or task in a different, more inspiring way.

If it doesn’t provide a big enough reason for you to take action, you most certainly won’t take it.

Human beings get stuck in persistent patterns of thinking that frame the subjects of those thoughts in a certain way, and moving beyond these frames of reference can be very difficult if left unchallenged.

For individuals, such thoughts often centre around self-doubt. Self talk may go along the lines of “I can’t do [blank]”,” I don’t have the necessary experience, skill-set, knowledge, resources, etc”.

Businesses can also display this negative thinking; “we can’t compete with [blank]”, “we can’t compete on price” etc.

So what is the consequence of thinking like this? Well, we don’t take action, we don’t even try it, we just talk ourselves out of it and move on.

Maybe this is the right thing to do, maybe thinking abstractly against it is better than ploughing time, effort and resources into a doomed endeavour, maybe, but maybe not.

If we’re not careful, this way of thinking becomes a coping strategy that lets us off the hook and allows us to not take action in an act of self preservation. They become coping excuses.

A more productive way of thinking about it may be in asking “what if”. What if we did this, and what is the possible upside?

“What if” is a creative question. It opens up possibilities, rather than shutting them down. What if we could reframe the way we think about our weaknesses, and recast them as strengths?

In 1962 advertising executive Paula Green came up with a now famous slogan for Avis car rentals, that took advantage of their weaker market position in relation to Hertz, repositioning it from a weakness into a strength. The slogan “we try harder” let prospective customers know Avis would be more attentive to their needs than Hertz would be.

Stella Artois did something similar with their “reassuringly expensive” advertising campaign in 2004.

It’s all about finding a more empowering story that reframes your perceived weakness into strengths, for your own benefit, and also from a marketing point of view.

Here are a few examples:

  • Smaller size; being smaller allows you to be more nimble and adaptable than big players
  • Less experienced; don’t have as much skin in the game, nothing to lose by doing things differently and disrupting the status quo
  • Less prestigious location; can provide better value for money because not paying as much in rental costs.

Check out our marketing guide, here.

Also more about shifting perspective, here.

Brand Differentiation: Surprise and Delight Customers

Get Results: branding is the art of differentiation quote graphic
Get Results: branding is the art of differentiation

Are you working in a so-called “dull industry” like insurance, software development, car servicing and the likes? If so, you’ll know it’s difficult to create marketing that is engaging.

These industries aren’t exactly high octane fuelled or sexy, but they are necessary for many individuals and businesses.

So how can you effectively market these services and stand out from the competition, so you’re not seen as another commodity provider?

It’s all about providing something that surprises and delights prospects and customers, over and above what they would normally expect from you.

This could include helping customers discover something that provides value for them. For example, a few years ago a friend of mine, who worked at a car service centre, told me I didn’t have to take my new car to the dealership to have it serviced, in order to maintain the warrantee, and that I could take it anywhere as long as the official parts were used.  Now I didn’t know this was possible at the time, and I actually ended up using the company he worked at to do my next car service, at a big discount. However, I wondered why they didn’t make more of a song and dance about this situation in their marketing material.

So education is one way of surprising and delighting customers, giving them a free taster is another. If you’ve ever visited your local Costco, you’ll have probably seen them giving out free food tasters. This is great for introducing customers to something they haven’t tried before, and everyone loves to get free stuff.  You can also do this remotely, through free trials (great for software) or posting out free samples (merchandisers used to do this quite often).

You can also help prospective customers reframe their perceptions of a service, product, or industry, by offering it differently. For example, maybe provide life insurance that pays back a bonus if not used within a given timeframe. This would shift the perception of life insurance as being a necessary cost, which doesn’t provide any direct benefit to the person paying for the policy, into something that could be considered an investment.

The point is to try to look at your business offerings and figure out ways of giving your customers something that is relevant which will surprise and delight them.

People are curious and like to learn and experience “different” and “new”. Do this on a regular basis and do it well. Delight them and they will more likely come back again and again.

Getting the Sale Once You Have Attention

get results: add value
get results: first, fastest or best

We discussed in a previous post, the importance of capturing attention when carrying out marketing activities. To summarise what we covered in that post…

Marketing only works if you can first capture your prospect’s attention, otherwise all your other marketing efforts go to waste. Capturing your prospect’s attention is the combination of standing out from the crowd and providing something of value in the pursuit of one of their goals.

So that’s where we’ll pick things up.

Having won ourselves a few seconds of precious attention, nothing more, we must make the best of the time we’ve got. The question is, how can we maximise the opportunity?

Provide something valuable

We must ensure our sales patter is interesting, in that it provides some value that the prospect wants or needs in their journey towards the attainment of one or more of their goals.

A goal could be something big, like building their own business or making the next big phone app, or something small like having a clean car, or a new set of pots and pans to cook with.

There are a couple of ways to help them move towards their goals. The first is to show them your solution and explain the benefits and features of what you offer. If they are currently in the market for it, then as long as the price is right, the value is communicated, and they have enough trust in your ability to deliver on your promise, you’ll have a decent chance of them buying. Having said that, most prospects will be wary of committing straight away, without having previously built up some trust in you, your company or brand. This is particularly true if they have never heard of you before.

Build trust

There are several ways to building trust quickly. The first is to appear professional in the way you present yourself, your brand or business. You do this through your communication; such as signage, website, social media presence and literature.

The second way is to have a physical location (premises) which prospects can visit and check out. This gives the perception that you are rather more stable and dependable than if you were solely a web-based business. We’ve all experienced problems with internet only businesses who can’t be contacted easily when things go wrong.

Finally, one of the best ways of building trust quickly, particularly with regards to new prospects, is to have plenty of good, genuine customer reviews or testimonials, preferably stretching back over several years. This helps with the perception that you’ve been around a while. Good search engine rankings also help to demonstrate longevity, because they are difficult to circumvent.

Make it easy

Having minimal friction in your buying process will also give you more chance of getting a sale. The fewer hoops prospects have to jump through to buy from you, the better. This is why Amazon’s one click shopping option is so popular.

Brand building

I did say there were two ways to help move prospects towards their goal, we’ve covered what to do with those looking to buy straight away, but what about those that aren’t ready yet, but who may be in the next 30 or 60 days or so.

You can focus on building your brand with these prospects, by providing free extra value in some way. If you sell pots and pans, you may offer some great recipes that make use of those pots and pans. If you’re a car valet, you may provide free branded car air fresheners, or some tips and tricks to remove stains and spills from car upholstery.

What you’re trying to do, when giving out gifts, advice, tips and tricks, is build a relationship with prospects, so they get to know, like and trust you, so that when they are ready to buy, you are in the frame to make the sale. The things you do to provide the extra value must support your core offering, the thing you’re trying to sell to them, otherwise it won’t make any sense.

With that in mind, it’s better to keep adding value over time, rather than just doing it as a one off. By keeping your brand in the forefront of your prospects’ minds you will improve your chances of getting the sale when the time comes for them to buy.

Summary

Once you’ve captured your prospect’s attention, you have to provide something of value for them. You can do this through the benefits and features of your offering.

If prospects are ready to buy straight away, make sure your sales process is as frictionless as possible.

If they aren’t ready to buy just yet, either because they don’t want your solution right now, or they don’t trust you enough; work on building your brand with them, by providing free extra value. Keep adding value until they are ready to buy.

Check out our marketing guide for more marketing information.

Marketing That Grabs Attention

Get Results: stand out marketing
Get Results: stand out marketing

Marketing requires you to first capture the attention of your prospects. If you’re unable to do so, you have no way of sharing your marketing message with them, and all your marketing efforts will go to waste.

Prospects are continually bombarded with information, as indeed we all are. To cope with the shear volume of incoming stimuli, choices are made, often on a subconscious level. We as humans tend to pay attention to things that are relevant to some kind of goal or pursuit we are trying to move towards. Everything else is ignored or filtered out from our conscious awareness, and may not even register with us.

To illustrate this point, check out this video.

Hopefully you now appreciate the fact that attention is limited, and goal focused. You ignored the gorilla because your attention was busy focusing on counting the passes of the ball. The goal required you to keep your eye on just the ball and ignore everything else that didn’t contribute to that.

Marketing to a captive audience

You might think it would be easier to market to a captive audience. For example let’s say you are advertising on the TV or on the radio or even in the pre-roll of a YouTube video. Your audience is already watching or listening, so they can’t escape your advert.

But ask yourself, when was the last time you really paid attention to the adverts in such situations. You either reach for your phone, to see what notifications you’ve missed, or you tune out, while thinking about something else.

Marketing on a busy platform

If your advertising on a busy platform, say social media, then engagement is much harder to achieve. You are then competing with everything else that can steal your prospect’s attention away. Let’s consider the example of running an advert on their Facebook feed.

Your marketing message will compete with status updates from your prospect’s friends and family. As well as engaging entertainment posts related to their interests. So you need to stop them scrolling past your advert, by appealing to their interests and/or goals.

Searching or not

Imagine you’re a florist, and Valentines day is just around the corner. You know that people are likely to be in the market for buying flowers, so presenting them with a unique offer, is probably going to get them to stop for a moment to check your advert out. If there is no special occasion imminent, then creating an excuse for them to surprise their partner may be required.

The fact that they are not actively searching for something to buy, makes the sale a little more difficult. They will probably just scroll straight past your advert, without giving it a second thought. So you may have to rely on eye-catching imagery to get them to stop and see what’s on show.

Stand out

High quality images are more attention-getting than static text, and video is often more engaging than images. You must find a way of standing out from the other content, to catch their eye.

We humans take notice of changes and differences. It’s hard-wired into us, at an instinctive, self-preservation level. If our ancestor didn’t pay attention to changes in their surroundings, it could have resulted in them being eaten by a predator. Our subconscious picks up on such things before we’re even consciously aware of it. And although we’re unlikely to be eaten when scrolling through our Facebook feed, our instinct still reacts as if we might.

So make sure your marketing message doesn’t blend in with all the other content. Make it stand out by contrasting in some noticeable way. Usually this needs to be done visually, because sound is often muted on social media. However, there is no one-fits-all solution available, only by testing alternatives can you see what works best for your particular situation.

Summary

So in summary, marketing only works if you can first capture your prospect’s attention, otherwise all your other marketing efforts go to waste. Capturing your prospect’s attention is the combination of standing out from the crowd and providing something of value in the pursuit of one of their goals.

What next

Once you’ve captured your prospect’s attention, you need to deliver a message that pulls them in to your offering, so they’ll want to find out more about you and your solution.

We’ve discussed this here: getting the sale.

Happy marketing until next time.

Storytelling Is A Gift

Storytelling in…

  • Fiction books
  • Movies
  • Dramatic arts
  • Literature
  • Kid’s play

Why is Storytelling so important?

It helps us learn how to behave in the world, via empathy.

If I know what another person’s goal is, I can also focus on that.

Place myself in the same state of mind as them.

My body reacts like their body, so I can empathise with and feel the same as them.

We feel the fear, anxiety, passion, excitement and love of the protagonist.

We can learn what they learn in different worlds, different lives, different situations.

We get lost in their world, and at the same time, escape our real life, for just a while.

Embrace storytelling, it is truly an amazing gift to be enjoyed, whether you’re a storyteller or story-listener

After all, storytelling is what makes us human.

To Sell More Stuff on Social Media!

Get Results: marketing quotes sell the problem
Get Results: marketing quotes sell the problem

To successfully sell on social media, online or anywhere else, for that matter, two things are required..

Get Noticed

First, we have to get noticed. Think about it this way, what grabs you’re attention when you’re scrolling through your Facebook feed?

For adverts, that are designed to sell you something, it would usually have to provide something you want or need, a solution to a problem you have, presented in an eye-catching way.

Motion graphics will help you catch attention, and stop people scrolling past.

Call to action

The second thing required would be a clear “call to action”.

The call to action depends on what you want viewers to do after seeing your advert. The clearers and frictionless the process of carrying out that call to action is, the better.

When  talking about “friction” we’re not just talking solely about the physical things we want them to do, such as click here, enter your email address or add to cart, but also what we’re asking of them psychologically.

If they fear getting spammed by marketing messages, giving us their email address is not going to be as easy as it otherwise might be.

So whatever we are asking of them, we must make it both physically and psychologically as frictionless as possible. Make it as quick-and-easy as possible (one click is the ideal), with the minimum of risk attached to it (money back guarantee, free taster etc).

What else

Everything else you use in your advert is only required to support your call to action. Things like testimonials, engaging images and text should aim to support your message and improve trust and liking.

We can help you put out compelling promotions.

Check out our marketing guide.

Branding: Emotionally Connect, Through Storytelling

Get Results: branding is the sum of all experiences
Get Results: branding is the sum of all experiences

Branding is a very conceptual term. It can be hard to get your head around if you’re new to it. It holds almost mystical power.

My definition of branding is

“To emotionally connect, to prospects and customers, through meaningful storytelling.”

Branding helps shape customer’s BELIEFS.

It helps shape how customers think about you, and the meaning your brand holds for them. It can determine what they think you stand for and what they think your values are.

Branding will assist customers to feel they know like and trust you, and subsequently encourage them to want to support and buy from you.

Think about why you buy the brands you buy.

What car do you drive?

What footwear do you wear?

What make of TV do you watch?

What coffee do you drink?

What washing powder do you wash your clothes with?

Where do you shop for groceries?

Which pub, cinema, restaurant do you frequent?

What search engine do you use?

Where do you spend most of your social media time?

What make of lipstick, if any, do you buy?

The brand you used is heavily influenced by the story that brand uses to emotionally connect with you, and the story you subsequently carry around with you.

If a brand doesn’t have a story to share, then it becomes a commodity. Whether you buy it, or from it, depends on price, convenience, impulse, or just pure luck and circumstance. Prospects and customers probably won’t give your brand a second thought. They probably won’t remember you very well when you’re not around.

Customers may enjoy many aspects of your value proposition. Your great service, pleasant-natured sales assistant, great value for money. They may appreciate the fact you provide a great solution for their problem. They may remember your warm smile, witty banter, your comfortable chairs, your attention to detail, or whatever you do to make them feel good and valued.

What branding does is pull everything together into a coherent story. This makes remembering and identifying your brand easier, particularly when they are ready to buy again. This might be the difference between them coming back to you rather than going somewhere else.

Branding requires you to provide value through your sales proposition.  You’re required to have a product or service that addresses your customer’s needs. Without this, no amount of branding is going to help you, over the long term.

You must show up regularly through advertising or content creation.

Try to add value between sales by building the perception of expertise. You can do this by providing tutorials or tricks and tips which relate to your offering. Try to build a relationship with prospects and customers alike, so they get to know like and trust you.

Congruency is vital. Everything you do should support the story you want to communicate to your market.

Consider  how you look, via your website, social media channels, advertisements, signage, brochures, mail shots, vehicles, and  in-store.

What you do is also vitally important.  The extra value you add through your solution. Your customer service, even how you market your brand matters. Make sure all your activities and communications are driven by beliefs and values that are also important to your customer base.

Everything you do needs to fit together, to make sense, and support the story you’re telling.

Your brand should be distinctive, so you’re noticeable, and clearly identifiable from the competition.

Make a good first “impression”. You only get one chance, so make it count.

Maintain an excellent reputation. Trust takes time to build up and seconds to destroy.

Be a good tribe leader by taking a stand. Make sure you stand for something, don’t cop out by sitting on the fence. Focus on your customers and only them. It’s okay to say “we’re not for you”  to everyone else.

Ultimately, help your customers tell their story by allowing them to piggy-back on your brand story. Help them identify with your brand, and bring it into their sense of self.

Branding is about creating a little bit of magic through story. It’s about inspiring them to imagine the possibilities of fulfilling their potential through your brand.

The Essentials of BRAND Development

Get Results: Essential elements in brand development
Get Results: Essential elements in brand development

When it comes to building a brand, there are many considerations, but there are 3 that I would suggest should be at the forefront of your brand building activities.

Differentiated positioning

Differentiated positioning involves your branding standing apart from the competition.

Your brand should represent unique meaning from the point of view of customers.

Think about some of your favourite brands, what simple meaning do they represent to you? Volvo represents safety to me, Apple represents innovation.

Positioning is also about where you position your brand in the marketing, are you a specialist, a generalist, are you a premium brand or a value driven brand?

No two brands can successfully hold the same market position, the first in that space will usually be the winner.

Look to disrupt and challenge the status quo, by shaking things up and approaching the market from a unique and refreshing direction. Think about how Netflix have changed the landscape of the video rental business into the streaming services we now see. What would look different in your space?

Play to your brands unique qualities and strengths. What has your brand got to offer that will allow you to stand apart from the competition?

Provide value to customers

The fundamental requirement of any brand is for it to provide value to its customers.

If there is no benefit for the customer in interacting with your brand, why are they going to bother? They just aren’t going to, life is too short to waste time on brands that don’t benefit anyone.

Provide a valuable solution that addresses customers wants and needs.

Make sure your solution fits your brands strengths, talents and skill-set.

Try to ensure your brand is focused on a specific part of the market. It’s often better to focus narrow and deep, rather than shallow and wide in terms of market coverage. Leave the mass market to the big boys who have a big enough budget to reach them.

Brands should attempt to connect emotionally with customers, because  emotions and not reasoning or logic, are what connect people to people and people to brands.

To matter to customers your brand has to provide value on a regular basis, so that if you go away, they will miss you.

What do customers want or need that your brand can provide a valuable solution for?

Effective communication; perception control

Value offering and differentiation are no good if you aren’t able to communicate them effectively to customers or prospective customers.

Brand building orientated marketing is required to tell your story to customers so that they get what you’re brand is about. Speak to your target customers in a language only they will understand. It’s okay if your communication goes over the heads of non-targeted people.

Be inspiring to customers, provide them with hope; show them that whatever they are wanting to achieve, can be done, and they can do it with your help.

If possible connect to a bigger cause – be part of it, together. Play to customers aspirations. Romanticise a calling – “I’m a photographer”  changes to “I help celebrate family – happy families make for happy communities.”

Ask yourself “What does the market think of us? Is this as intended?” If there is a disconnect between the two, revise your brand communications.

For more about branding, click here.

Branding Is About Owning A Word

Get Results: branding is the art of differentiation quote graphic
Get Results: branding is the art of differentiation

Branding is about owning a word in the mind of the customer.

Having a simple to understand and remember position, separate and distinct from all other competition.

It’s not about saying something short, dumbing down or using sound bites. It’s about prioritising the core message which should be both simple and profound. Proverbs are the ideal in doing this, like “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you; a one sentence statement so profound that you could spend a lifetime learning to follow it.

You can build on top of schemas to leverage existing knowledge, like describing Speed as Die Hard on a bus, or being the test crash dummy of online marketing, as with Pat Flynn.

A good core message helps customers understand and remember your brand, while also helping employees decision making. As with Southwest Airlines’s core message being THE low fair airline, customers know what southwest are all about, while employees know what intent should drive their decision-making when it comes to a choice of say, putting extra filling in the sandwiches or not.

Commander intent is used in much the same way by the Army, a simple, plainly-worded statement that summarises every military order, to ensure everyone understands the underlying tactic to be accomplished.

Journalists would describe it as making sure you’re not burying the lead, but instead putting it front and centre of communication, as if you might be cut off at any time.

Doing this prevents decision paralysis caused by overload, and uncertainty. It’s harder to remember 3 things than it is one. One clear message is easier to communicate, to get across and strengthen.

Use this core message as the centerpiece of your marketing, but branding is also about driving it into the customer experience at every touch point. This means making it part of your value promise and then delivering it, consistently over and over. If you don’t deliver on your promise, your message will be undermined and diluted.

Your Core message doesn’t have to have all the information built it. Treat it like breadcrumbs. The low cost airline, doesn’t advocate saving money on airline maintenance and is not as accurate as “improving shareholder value” but is more usable and memorable, and guides employee decisions by knowing  the commanders intent when making individual decisions.

For more about branding, check out our branding series, here.

Building Brand By Creating Valuable Content

Get Results: content is king graphic
Get Results: content is king

Why Content is important

You’ve probably heard the term “content is king” countless times, and it’s ever more important in today’s internet-centric business environment.

The aim of content creation should be to allow your business to stand out from competitors, and help prospective customers get to know, like and trust you, so that they will, in time, consider doing business with you.

In other words content should be used to build your brand!

If you try to transact your prospects every time they interact with your brand, you will find you have to compete with all your competitors doing the same thing, and that can get expensive in terms of advertising costs.

Using advertising to first grab attention, then trying to convert prospects via a landing page or over the telephone is a big ask, and prospective customers are very guarded against slick sales messages. They will only consider you if you make the right first impression and are able to build trust quickly.

Consider an alternative solution, which is a longer term strategy but can  prepare the ground by building trust and goodwill with people that are not quite ready to buy just yet, but who might be in the next 30, 60 or 90 days. This is called content creation.

When it comes to creating content you should be looking to give visitors something for nothing, to provide value to them without asking for something in return. You should try to help your prospective customers get to know more about your brand, to get to like how you do business and allow them to build up trust in you.

So, create content that prospects want from the page they arrive at. Make sure your adverts or links from adverts or social media posts are clear, and informative and accurately reflect what you’ve promised them. Don’t promise something that you fail to follow through on, just to get them onto your website. That is the surest way to ruin your reputation and destroy trust.

Once they are on your page you need to understand who the prospective customer is, what is their desire? What solution are they seeking? What possible questions are they asking and wanting answered?

To provide value for them, you need to answer these questions effectively, thoroughly and as uniquely as possible. Don’t just regurgitate the same old information, that everyone else is doing. Instead do it in your own voice.

Some content ideas…
1. To build awareness on social media use ENGAGEMENT POSTS – any format, to get comments or a reaction (clicks) – this pushes up in news feed and can include questions, funny memes, photos with a question
2. To grow authority – Encourage testimonials, case studies, speaking engagements, you in action doing what you’re trying to sell – honoured rather than boastful
3. To get clients – leads (email list sign up or phone) and clients attraction. Questions, graphics, videos, gifs

To provide value;

  • Be relevant – You must have content that interests your prospective customer, otherwise why would they be interested in what you have to say.
  • Be contextual – formatted for each channel specifically. Try to reformat your content to suit where you want to be found. Vertical video works better on Facebook than it does on Youtube.
  • Facilitate access,
  • Be transparent – builds trust,
  • Be authentic – be true to yourself,
  • Inspire interaction – build community,
  • Be current – so that you resonate with your audience today,
  • Aim for connection – It’s better to be narrow and deep than wide and shallow- 100 loyal fans better than 10,000 none engaged followers.

Content should be made up of:

  • Opinion,
  • Expertise,
  • Information,
  • Insight,
  • Access,
  • Passion.
Get Results: content is emotional intellectual graphic
Get Results: content is emotional intellectual

There are only 3 types of content when you boil it down.

Escapism and entertainment

Escapism – being removed from our mundane real life situation for a short time, to forget.

  • humorous,
  • clever,
  • insightful,
  • interesting (aligned with audiences interests),
  • create a knowledge gap and fills it,
  • curiosity,
  • unexpectedness,
  • surprise,
  • inspirational,
  • emotional,
  • highlights a threat,
  • challenge plot, creative plot, connection plot.

Information and utility

Providing information that will help prospects in some way to improve their understanding, increase their knowledge or make life easier or better in some way.

Core information your customers need to know about your products and company before they’ll include you in their consideration set.

  • Product information,
  • Customer FAQ’s,
  • How – to’s,
  • Styling,
  • Customer ratings and review.

Ancillary content – This is the supporting and additional content. Think of ancillary content like the bonus tracks on a DVD.

  • Take prospects behind-the-scenes,
  • Let prospects get personal with your employees,
  • Encourage customers to share photographs using your product.

Re-imagined content – Plan different versions of your content to ensure it’s contextually relevant to each specific platform. Again, this is best planned in advance to maximize resources and include it in your content creation contracts.

Provide Commentary – This is the related content and comments that your employees, customers and fans create in coordination or as a result of your core content.

Commentary works best when your audience creates it out their desire to share with their circle of friends and social connections such as Facebook and Instagram posts.

Internal content curation – This is where you maximize the value of your own previously published content by using it in the creation of new content and the re-promotion of old content, giving it new life. It has one or more of the following attributes.

  • Make content contextually relevance,
  • Extend content into a new format.

Some additional ideas..

  • Target a new audience for old content,
  • Provide access to a location, a person, an institution,
  • Curation of other peoples content,
  • Provide insight,
  • Chart your own progress in some relevant endeavor,
    • Your journey to build your business – moving your business online,
    • Your progress in a new job,
    • Learning a new skill,
    • Put sales techniques into practice,
    • Sell something different every day testing your sales skills.
  • Current niche trends,
    • Current trends/techniques,
    • Software trends if relevant,
    • Explore the topic more freely and in-depth,
    • Cover local issues,
    • Real estate – local amenities, history of area – reasons why it’s good living here,
    • Local relevant events.

Social

Connect people and community, to share ideas and stories.

Coming up with content ideas

Here are the 33 prompts that you can use to write just about ANYTHING… feel free to copy and paste them into notepad so you can use them every day when you sit down to write content.

  • Ask a question,
  • Reference current events,
  • Create your own terms,
  • Reveal news (new/introducing),
  • Tell the reader to do something,
  • Give stats,
  • Make a comparison,
  • Promise useful information,
  • Direct offer,
  • Tell a (quick) story,
  • Make a recommendation,
  • State benefits,
  • Use a testimonial,
  • Arouse curiosity,
  • Promise to reveal a secret,
  • Be ultra-specific,
  • Target section of your audience,
  • Time-based headline,
  • Stress urgency,
  • Scarcity of savings/value,
  • Deliver good news,
  • Challenge the reader,
  • Highlight your guarantee,
  • State the price (as benefit),
  • Set up (seemingly),
  • Contradiction,
  • Address reader objection/concern,
  • “As crazy as it sounds”,
  • Take them to the promised land,
  • Demonstrate ROI,
  • Reason why headline,
  • Stress cost saving and value,
  • List / answer questions,
  • State / deliver on reader’s goals,
  • Highlight cost of mistakes.

Use this website for content ideas http://answerthepublic.com/ enter a keyword and it will suggest content ideas

Types of content

  • List pages,
  • Check lists,
  • Resource lists,
  • Lists of lists,
  • News lists,
  • Demonstration,
  • Series,
  • Infographics,
  • How-to guides,
  • Researched statistics,
  • Timelines,
  • Did you know,
  • Flow charts,
  • Whitepapers,
  • Research,
  • Trends,
  • Topical guides,
  • Beginner overviews,
  • Downloadable guides,
  • Live Blogging,
  • Event coverage,
  • Covering fast changing situations,
  • Live Q&A’s,
  • Round ups,
  • News round-ups,
  • From around the web,
  • Summing up events,
  • Q&A’s,
  • Q&A session,
  • Q&A for interviews,
  • Q&A FAQ,
  • Informal Q&A,
  • Opinion pieces,
  • Controversial posts,
  • High level breakdown,
  • Forecasting trends,
  • Deep dive,
  • New angle,
  • Interviews,
  • Industry leaders,
  • Innovative companies,
  • Topical expert,
  • How to’s,
  • Content curation,
  • Case studies,
  • Charts/graphs,
  • Ebooks,
  • Email Newsletters/Autoresponders,
  • Cartoons/illustrations,
  • Book Summaries,
  • Tool Reviews,
  • Giveaways,
  • FAQ’s,
  • Webinar,
  • Guides,
  • Dictionary,
  • “Day in the life of” post,
  • Interview,
  • Lists,
  • Mind Maps,
  • Meme,
  • Online Game,
  • Helpful Application/tool,
  • Opinion Post,
  • White Papers,
  • Vlog,
  • Videos – screencasts, talking heads, illustrations, graphics, film roll,
  • Podcasts,
  • Templates,
  • Surveys,
  • Slideshares,
  • Resources,
  • Quotes,
  • Polls,
  • Podcasts,
  • Pinboards,
  • Photo Collage,
  • Original Research,
  • Press releases,
  • Photos,
  • Predictions,
  • User Generated Content,
  • Company news,
  • Announcements,
  • Timelines,
  • Meme – Meme Generator and Quick Meme,

Even more..

  • Social equity – introductions, access to contacts (interview, insight) – Leverage status (fame), membership (masons), contacts, relationships.
  • Guides – A guide is a detailed and fairly long piece of content. Think of it as an epic blog post. It goes beyond the length, style, and approach of an ordinary blog post.
  • Book reviews – A book review is a simple discussion of a book plus your take on it. You recommend good ones, critique not-so-good ones, and share the value that you glean from them. Book reviews are great because they help to position you as a thought leader.
  • Opinion post (rant) – This style of post is substantially different from your typical blog post, mostly due to its tone. You may be used to publishing a careful and researched discussion of a topic. The rant or opinion, by contrast, may be stronger and more expressive. The more vociferous your position, the more it’s going to get read and shared.
  • Product reviews – Like the book review, a product review can help establish authority and leadership in your industry. Every industry has its unique array of products, software, and services. When you engage key developers, manufacturers, or service providers, you gain recognition and respect. All you need to do is share your experience with the product and provide your recommendation.
  • How to.. The how-to is one of the most popular types of content, especially in my niche. On my blog, I write a lot of how-to guides. How-to articles have awesome long tail search potential due to these popular long tail query introductions: “How to…” and “How do I…?”
  • Lists – Lists have endless appeal. We’re wired to love them. Chance are you’re going to see or read an article today that involves some sort of a list — “5 Security Breaches You Need to Know about,” “17 Ways to Rank Higher in Google in One Month.” Hey, you’re already reading an article with the title “15 Types.”
  • Link pages – link page is simply a post that provides links to great resources around the web. The great thing about link posts is that they spread link love to other sites, provide your own site with authoritative SEO signals, and assert your thought leadership within your field.
  • Ebook – An ebook is long content packaged in a different format, usually as a PDF. Ebooks are often a downloadable product, available for free in exchange for joining a mailing list. Producing an ebook helps to strengthen your authority within a field, and it makes for a powerful method of sharing your knowledge with others.
  • Case study – A case study explains what your product or service is and how it helped a client. The case study basically says, “here’s what we do, how we do it, and the results we get.”
  • Podcast – Podcasts had their phase of popularity, and they’re still a great form of content. Plus, they’re not hard to create. Many people listen to podcasts during their commute or exercise. You have a chance to spread your message farther and better using this format than a lot of other formats.
  • Interview – Every field has its leaders. When you’re able to interview a leader, you can garner a lot of respect from others in the field, not to mention huge amounts of traffic. Interviews are unique. No one else has this information — only you.
  • Research and original data – Most of us work in data-intensive fields, where numbers and metrics hold a lot of value. Sharing your findings with others is a powerful way to drive traffic, build trust, and establish your authority. When you do the research, which is hard work, people respect that. What’s more, people share it.
  • Contextualising,
  • Communicating,
  • Digesting info and regurgitating/repackaging and presenting it to your audience in a new package,
  • Content curation and Content aggregation, where you filter good quality content for your readers, this adds value for them and saves them having to troll through low quality content,
  • If you don’t have anything to say, DOCUMENT! – easier than having to create new content,
  • If you’re not an expert in your niche you can become a well informed commentator (share stories from niche – curate content made by others and add your own commentary).
  • Inspire,
  • Connect.

Look after your readers

  • Always reply to comments or messages,
  • Say thanks,
  • Use names and tag people,
  • Share things – if you come across something you like share it,
  • Be an investigator – Google Alerts – gives you news about a chosen keyword(s),
  • Check out the results, go to a page and leave a comment as a nice gesture,
  • Make navigation around the site easy,
  • Decrease page load times,
  • Get rid of annoyances on site such as pop-ups and distracting ads,
  • Surprise audience – give something for free,
  • Include transcript with podcasts or video,
  • Use high quality audio and video,
  • Skip the sales pitch – the best sales pitch is no sales pitch at all,
  • Reply with a video,
  • Invite participation – reader challenge, ask for opinion, calls to action – get people involved,
  • Be honest,
  • Be passionate,
  • Get personal – infuse your personality and life to get deeper connection,
  • Provide unique content such as provide case studios, experiments, income reports etc
  • Proof read content before you post it,
  • Remember who you are and who your serving,
  • Always over deliver,
  • Write post which is potential vehicle for income. Good quality, unique, have affiliate links in sidebar so on every post and in text,
  • Create a visual representation of the information you are talking about to help you and your audience remember it,
  • Transformation – what’s the transformation you want your audience to go through. Another way of putting it is what’s the purpose of your article. What’s the goal,
  • Start with in this episode we are going to talk about x. by the end of this you will be able to Y using your Z,
  • Tell them what you’re going to tell them, Tell them, Tell them what you told them,
  • Reverse engineer the transformation. Work backwards. What supporting content do you need to include to achieve the transformation,
  • Write down all possible objections and include a reply to each of these in the supporting content,
  • Tell stories (more memorable) or Include case studies or Research and data. Always include the professors full name and qualifications include accurate data to the penny,
  • Subdivide the article so that it is easier to understand and follow. Subdivisions could be steps, tips,
  • Make the beginning and end memorable,
  • Ending should have a call to action, get audience involved, show how what you have talked about actually works, surprise audience in some way (must be relevant),
  • Beginning should have a video or high impact beginning,
  • Aim for Consistency,
  • Talk like a human being,
  • You shouldn’t be vanilla – take a point of view,
  • Don’t talk at your audience, talk with them. connection, interaction.

So as you can see there is a lot to consider with regards  to your content. The best advice I can give is get stuff out there and see what works best for your audience.