Work Better, Not Harder

Is this you... ? When you watch TV, you can't wait for the ads. On YouTube, you let every ad play fully. You open your email inbox eagerly every morning, anticipating all the emails with this week's sales or next week's webinars. You read the newspaper for those big black and white ads. You check out every promotional link that Google places in your search results. You go for the ads first when you log into Facebook. You're entranced by the billboards on the Bedford Highway. So, is this you? No? It's not anybody . There is no one eagerly anticipating your sales pitches. (Your mother doesn't count.) We keep on doing these things, even without an eager audience, because they work sometimes. That perfect timing, or perfect graphic, or perfect wording, sometimes gets people's attention. So we keep doing what works sometimes. Eventually, though, what worked sometimes starts to work even less frequently . As more and more marketers adopt the same st...

If you read  Pinpoint Your Unique Content Marketing Opportunity last month and are still stuck, this article may offer some hope. First, if you are sitting at your desk alone, new ideas may not come to you easily. This process requires brainstorming - and more than one brain. And it may not happen immediately but, if you are constantly on the alert for ideas, it will come sooner or later. A couple of months ago I was masterminding with Alison Knott at Humani-T Cafe in Halifax. I think I was encouraging her to do a regular email newsletter and she was lamenting about the time and effort required to blog regularly. This is a discussion I've had many times with many people over the years. "Just do it!" doesn't often work as inspiration. At one point, I said something like, "It'd be nice to find something valuable to give readers that you don't have to work so hard to create," and went off to get a fresh coffee. When I came back, I said, ...

Simple is powerful... and a recent tough decision reminded me of that. I'd been sitting on the fence for about 2 weeks with a marketing project half completed. I couldn't decide whether to keep going or to stay with Plan A - and so, I wasn't accomplishing anything. I had an investment in time and money that was just sitting, doing nothing for me. Talking the problem through with someone seemed like the best idea and I finally pinned down the right opportunity with the right person. The night before we were to chat, I decided I'd better make some notes so I could present my problem in an organized way. I grabbed a sheet of paper, drew a line up the middle, and labelled the halves PROS and CONS. Within 5 minutes I had put my finger on my "sticking point" - the biggest CON. After a little research and math, I made my decision. No discussion needed. When I put my pen to paper, all the conflicting pieces of the problem suddenly became clear - instead of sw...

Long ago and far away, when I worked for a multinational, sometimes I brainstormed with my team by email. I was working in Georgetown ON and had staff in Toronto, Regina and Abbotsford. Email was fairly new back then, and a welcome alternative to scheduling group conference calls across the time zones. I could start with a discussion question sent to the customer service reps, asking them to add comments and send onto the production planners. The planners would give their input and send it on to the warehouse staff. Eventually, I'd get back an email that loosely mapped out a process. I've never used email so productively since. Now, I don't have staff but I still have a team. And I'm usually brainstorming ideas, not processes. Here's the funny thing, I can sit by myself and scratch notes on paper... and get overwhelmed with ideas. So I start writing an email to my cohorts explaining and asking for feedback. And through that process, I often find clarity - wit...

An editorial calendar makes it easy for people to work together, helping them follow a plan. What if there's only you in your business? Does it make sense to create an editorial calendar? Absolutely, but for different reasons. If your plan is in your head, writing it out will reduce stress - now you don't have to remember it. Handwriting activates the creative part of your brain and your memory . More importantly, having a plan will prep your brain to be on the lookout for appropriate content. You can use fancy spreadsheets, or find a detailed editorial calendar online. You can use coloured file cards, sheets of paper, or a whiteboard. The most important thing is that it works for y-o-u . It doesn't have to be like anyone else's editorial calendar. Of course, before you create an editorial calendar, you need to generate a bunch of content ideas . If you are like me, your content ideas may not be well organized. Creating an editorial calendar forces you t...

Do you often flip to the back page of your notebook to jot down content ideas ? If not, start! When I'm teaching small business classes about online marketing, I insist they start a page in the back of their notebooks for jotting down ideas for blog or social media posts. This page will extend beyond one, but it's the start of something great. BOB (for back of book) becomes a new friend... your idea catcher . When you are looking for something to write about or post, check your BOB for ideas. Click to Tweet this Article

"Which is better?" I asked. "'I need to capitalize on the time I've invested in writing.' or 'I need to leverage the time I've invested in writing.'" Danielle said, "'I need people to read my stuff.'" Two lessons here, one obvious and one not so obvious. 1. Using plain language and simple words is critical - and often surprisingly difficult. But, when you use simple words in your marketing, you reduce the risk of something being misinterpreted. ( Tweet This! ) 2. Brainstorming by phone has a big advantage. I was looking at the sentences, hung up on the visual impact of the decision. How would the words look? Would they fit where I needed them to? When I read those two carefully crafted options out loud to Danielle on the phone, she immediately simplified the whole concept. Isn't brainstorming wonderful?! photo by michael pollak / Flickr Click to Tweet this Article