Work Better, Not Harder

If you're new to business networking, you might be discovering it can (and should) be much more strategic than just showing up. You might also be feeling some stress about it. I can remember being worried about how to start conversations and what to talk about. And even now, I still expect to feel the embarrassment of not remembering someone's name. But I always enjoy myself when I'm with small business folk. When I recently stumbled on this blog post I wrote 8 years ago, I realized I was encouraging myself, as well as readers, to more fully embrace networking. And it turns out I've done a good job of following my own advice. Holding my own events has given me a sense of control... which begets confidence. It has also helped to grow my reputation, my mailing list and my client base. One-time or repeating events, public or by invitation, formal or casual... I've done them all and found value every time. Take 2 minutes to read this blog post and see what se...

If you were holding a dinner where each plate sold for $150, would you buy the invitations at the dollar store? No? So don't promote anything important for your business with a free overused 5-year-old Pixabay image. There are options - lots of options - rather than intimating your business is a bargain brand. If you don't spend a bunch of time searching Pixabay or other free sites, you may not know what's been overused and common - here's an app for that . And you can also check the upload date, although that doesn't mean the photo was taken then. If you're going to use free photos, pick more recent releases. Unique and eye-catching is your goal. But you don't want to pay $20 for a stock photo for each new blog post or newsletter article. What are other wallet-friendly options? #1. Snap your own photos. This ensures uniqueness and the price is the best you'll get. Of course, the eye-catching part will be up to you. #2. Engage a friend or ...

Wouldn't you like to be getting a dozen new subscribers every day? I've been doing small business email marketing for a lot of years and have a pretty good idea of what will work and won't. I'm rarely surprised but this week has been the exception - building a list from zero to 68 in five days using social media almost exclusively (no paid advertising). This is even more surprising because the Facebook and Twitter accounts started at zero, too. Now I didn't do this on my own; in fact my part was quite small. I've got two partners, Anita of Twirp Communications and Tina of Lift Communication, and we're launching the Social Media Day Halifax 2018 marketing conference. Here are the success factors that have gained us this great momentum: Synergy : The social media networks that each of us have been building for our businesses and ourselves have paid off in spades when we all started promoting at once.  Messaging and Visual : Taking time to craft c...

For the first time, Halifax will be celebrating Social Media Day in grand style this year. I'm proud to be one of the organizers of the first Social Media Day Halifax 2018 conference taking place on June 22nd. The conference is for entrepreneurs, business owners, and professionals working in social media roles for companies and organizations. Sessions and workshops are for anyone and everyone who wants and needs to improve their social media communications and marketing. Since Social Media Day Halifax is all about increasing marketing expertise on the east coast, recruiting presenters who are both subject matter experts AND excellent training facilitators is key to the success of the conference. Ideally, we’ll find social media professionals who want to help encourage, inspire, train and motivate colleagues in the local marketing community. If you're on the east coast of Canada and do social media marketing, you don't want to miss this conference and the chance ...

This email message below arrived in my inbox shortly after sending out my weekly small business event listing (for Halifax, Nova Scotia) . I love it when instant blog posts arrive by email. Hello Linda I've been getting emails from you for a couple of years and, sorry to say, I've always ignored them. Here are two reasons: 1— your subject line is boring. I get lots of emails like these but only open the ones with an interesting subject, e.g. "How to fight your phone fear" or "Learn web design in our latest WordPress meet-up." 2— There is no website that collects these items in an easy to scan format. As a WordPress developer I can set you up with a terrific visual calendar that can easily talk to your personal appointment book. We can talk about improving your business any time. It was a well-intentioned message; here was my response: The subject line is boring on purpose - you can easily ignore it if you're not interested in knowing about events...

Getting other people to share our information is hard work, whether it is a blog post or a workshop announcement. We can be more successful when someone sends an email to a friend or retweets a message about our next event. Whatever our important information is, getting it out to a broader audience is a key marketing goal . I share a lot of information relevant to my small business market via several different methods. When I want to share someone's sale announcement or event details, I'm sometimes frustrated by how hard it is and, unless it's a friend or client, I'm likely to give up before too long. Here are three suggestions for making your information (event, sale campaign, product launch, and so on) more easily shared. Put the information somewhere on a page of its own. Ideally this would be your website but might also be a blog post, Facebook event, EventBrite listing or any number of other ways to get your information online. A unique url is the goal so...

A simple process was all I needed to promote two workshops and manage registrations. But, as I often do, I decided to use the opportunity to try out some new ways to do things. Yesterday I put the workshops live for registration. Here are all the different applications I used or will use in my campaign to promote and manage the registrations. my website builder Canva Blogger Hootsuite Social Jukebox iContact PayPal JotForm - my newest favourite app Google Calendar Twitter Facebook Google+ LinkedIn and email Phew! Some of these are integrated, some not, but I had fun pulling it all together (mostly). And the next time I need to fill workshops, it'll take me a lot less time to put everything in place. photo by edkohler / Flickr Click to Tweet this Article

If you are looking for new palette options for your Christmas marketing campaign, once again the image is the best place to start. Choose an image that is obviously holiday themed but in colours outside of the traditional red and green colour combinations. Pull the colours out of the image to create a palette that is exciting but non-traditional. Here are a few ideas that might spark something for you. You can pair almost any colour with gold or silver metallics to make it festive. So it stands to reason that the non-metallic versions of gold and grey would pair well. Together they create a feeling of warm elegance that is very inviting. Pair blue with silver and you get the same elegance with a cool tone. A little more formal or a little more relaxed depending what your text is. This palette can evoke cool breezes and festive nights or it can be used to trigger thoughts of grey, relaxed cottage days. It will be all in the word smithing. Purple and gold, pai...

If you're a teacher or trainer, you've likely struggled with the process of providing Certificates of Completion (or Certificates of Attendance and such) to your workshop attendees. Using a Word template, your process might be something like this: prepare your spreadsheet for a mail merge, complete the merge, convert each .doc to .pdf, print, fold, mail merge the envelope addresses, print labels, affix to envelopes, stuff envelopes, lick stamps, run to the post office. Even if you're paying someone to do this for you, it's pretty labour intensive and prone to error. Add the cost of printing and postage, and providing certificates isn't cheap. Consider using your bulk email application , such as iContact , to automate this process. There is a little set up involved but, once it's done, it's quick and easy to use. How to set-up your certificates: First design a certificate template in your email application. You can do this in much the same way as you...

You know that a killer marketing campaign is critical to your event's success. But, wow, it's a lot of work! While every event marketing project I take on is a little different, there is a general process I follow to create the marketing collateral. Creating the various items in an overlapping sequence allows me to save time...  and my clients to save money. Perhaps my process can give you some ideas to improve your productivity, too. #1. Assemble, create and edit all the components of the marketing message. This includes things like logos, graphics and images, taglines and text, biographies, PayPal button code, and ALL the logistics, such as date, location and price. #2. Create and edit images. Canva for Work doesn’t give you all the power of Photoshop but it pulls its weight when it comes to productivity. I can quickly make a whole raft of sizes and versions to suit every online or print need. #3. Create the email message in a bulk email program. I usually s...

The devil is in the details when it comes to planning an event. There's so much that can go wrong just in the marketing of it. For instance, there's nothing like a wrong date for generating a flurry of emails. Wednesday, April 19th... oops, April 19th is a Tuesday! It helps to have a planner so I made one - download fillable PDF here . It really has 2 purposes: To ensure all the details are captured in one place and can be easily referenced. To communicate the details to others who will help market the event. Tips: Once you identify your marketing platforms, you can create a more detailed campaign plan which includes messaging and frequency. Don't forget the visual! It's so important to have an image that connects with your ideal customer. The platforms you identify will also determine your image requirements (different sizes). Double-check the details and proof all the text, especially if you'll be sharing your planner with others. The informati...

We have a LOT of options when it comes to our online marketing. The choices can be staggering, often leading to no action at all. Yesterday I had the opportunity to participate as a facilitator at the Your Marketing Made Easy conference in Regina, SK. 10 facilitators, 16 workshops - covering topics like social media, blogging, email marketing, SEO, event marketing, web usability, and so much more. It was a fun and inspiring day! My only regret is that I didn't get to attend many of the workshops put on by the other facilitators. photo by  Alvil Tayco on Twitter Click to Tweet this Article

Business networking groups are in a unique position to grow their subscriber list exponentially faster than many other organizations. This also means they're in a fine position to benefit from providing useful and interesting content to their subscribers. Unfortunately this opportunity is often wasted. A networking group will benefit from building a mailing list and sending out a regular newsletter because: It reminds subscribers of upcoming meetings and agendas. It encourages non-members to attend as guests. It can market the benefits of membership to non-members. It’s a way of staying top-of-mind within the association’s community. It provides a way to promote and seek sponsors for big events, like annual fundraisers. Creating valuable content is relatively easy. On top of all this, associations can make use of a private list to communicate with members about members-only information. Photo by JodiWomack / Flickr Click to Tweet this Article

Members of networking groups and their target market (potential members, subscribers) will have something in common, like an industry or sector, and will usually either work in it or serve it as a supplier. This means that anything pertaining to that common topic will be relevant . Relevant is good, but you will also want to be useful and interesting . Here are some content ideas for business networking groups – most are adaptable to other such organizations. Content for your subscribers (target market): industry specific or community news and upcoming events informational articles, perhaps written by members, but not necessarily useful online resources; book recommendations Content pertaining to your association: next meeting details and agenda regular meeting schedule; future dates, locations member spotlights and current news past meeting recap action items for members upcoming special events by the association and by its members membership call to action; bene...

When I sent out my last newsletter, almost 400 people opened it in the first 2 hours. If you need to reach a lot of people fast and at the same time, email is definitely the medium of choice. For one thing, sending an email is faster and easier than phoning 400 people. (My jaw just clenched in horror!) And broadcasting a tweet or Facebook post is not the same as putting a message in someone’s inbox; it’s hit or miss. Direct mail is costly and the results are minimal. Some say the ROI on email marketing is over $40 for every $1 spent. I haven’t gotten those results for myself (yet) but I have seen some very quantifiable successes . For example, it’s easy to calculate your ROI when selling event tickets. Let's say you spend $300 to sell $6000 worth of tickets, which is a pretty darn good return. More to the point, consider if - and how - you’ll sell all those tickets if not by email. One of the big benefits of email over other options - the phone, social media, snail ...

If you have a newsletter, it should have a read online link . This link takes the reader to the web version of your newsletter. This is an archive copy of your newsletter that is like a web page. How can you use this? 1) You can use it to provide event details and online payment for any event you are planning. Particularly useful if you have difficulty with website updates. Just send a newsletter event announcement with a register now PayPal link in it. The read online link url becomes your event registration page. Share it on social media, include it in follow up email, and post it on your blog. 2) Put it on your website as a resource for your clients and customers . Many of us are answering common client questions inside our newsletters. You can use the read online url on your website with your FAQ answers or in case studies. If you are answering those questions on your blog, you can use it there too! 3) Once you have a few issues under you belt, keep your archive link hand...