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49% of Entrepreneurs Suffer - Here's What Worked for MeA study from by Dr. Michael Freeman at the University of California San Francisco found that 49% of those who start a company say they have struggled with some form of mental illness in the past. 72% of entrepreneurs are directly or indirectly affected by mental health conditions.
Why BURNING THE BOAT worked for meTwo years after I quit corporate America to start my business I found myself driving an hour and half each way to a new job. I was getting out of bed at 4:30 AM in order to get my workout in before leaving for work by 6:30 AM. I was missing walking my little girl to the bus stop, and I was missing a million other precious things about self-employment. My new position was not for me, but I had become desperate.
How to turn your website into a lead generation machine.Your website has less than 5 seconds to make an impression. If you aren't making the case for visitors to stay and see what you are all about, you can bet your ass they are leaving.
Here's an easy way to tell whether your visitors have a positive impression of you after visiting your site: Do they call you or fill out your contact form after they have been to your website? If not, it's because they aren't staying around long enough to get engaged with your message. Here are the 2 things your website MUST do for your visitors in the first 5 seconds of a visit.
So clean it up and make it clear. Need help? You know I'm here for you. Schedule a free call with me and let's talk. Thanks for spending time with me today. Don't forget to like and share this article with other small business owners. It will help them and make you look like a genius! Spa Website for SkinPro Studio - Serving Cancer and Maternity Patients, and Educating Skincare ProfessionalsThe business
Timing The site was developed in 3 weeks during March 2016. The requirements The site needed to be:
The technology
We created a site that tells the story of SkinPro Studio, and makes it easy for customers to do business with the spa. With a beautiful custom header image. And we integrated their MindBody scheduling software into the website in a way that looks seamless to customers. Customers can schedule appointments for themselves at the website. The appointments are saved into the spa's scheduling system, and the customer never leaves the SkinPro Studio website.
And here is what Liz Munn, owner of SkinPro Studio, had to say about working with us: "Kelly developed my website for my new skincare business. I would highly recommend Kelly for any type of website design. She listened to what was important and provided exactly what I wanted. I find Kelly to be knowledgeable, timely, efficient, and effective in her approach. She is a pleasure to work." Do you love the way this site turned out? Please like and share this post! Your likes and share help spread the word to other marketers and business owners just like you. And if they like it too, you will look smart and savvy for having helped them find it. Would you like to talk about your site? Schedule a free website consultation today so we can get started. It's a fact - new content on your website is good for lead generation. Studies show that the more often a company blogs, the more leads it gets through the website. And according to HubSpot, the smaller the company the larger the benefit in terms of website traffic and leads generated.
So how often is often enough? And is there such a thing as too often? The answer, in part, can be found in your audience. Business-to-consumer companies benefit more from blogging more often. Increases from blogging 11+ times a month: • B2B - 3 times more leads than similar companies posting 4-5 times a month • B2C - 4.5 times more leads than companies who only post 4-5 times a month I wasn't able to find a number that could be considered TOO often, although I would suspect you have hit that number once quality begins to suffer. Quality content is King - junk content is always junk. Can't blog 11 times a month? Do what you can. There are cumulative benefits to posting in your blog. Your posts live forever - they remain on your site where they help to increase your search rank and make your site more find-able by your customers. For more information check out these quality articles on the same topic: - HubSpot: How Often Should Companies Blog? - Scripted: How often should you update your blog? Need more? Schedule a free website evaluation with me. I would love to talk with you about your website, SEO, and online marketing strategy. And please like and share if you learned something - It helps the people you like get the useful information they need, and you will look like a rock star in the process! Call me crazy, but I believe there are only 3 reasons for marketing your company: to grow, to reduce costs by creating volume, or in preparation to sell the company. In other words, you are not Coke-a-Cola. You are not creating ‘brand awareness.’ 99% of leaders reading this are looking to gain more sales, donations, or participation.
For example:
Each week in this 6 part series we will examine a step in creating Marketing Action Plans that drive business. The first step is goal setting. Know where you are going and don’t ever forget it. Here’s the thing about modern marketing – everything IS measurable. That’s good news for companies AND marketing departments. When we focus on marketing in ways that are tied to results then the marketing department becomes a revenue center. Even print ad results can be measured when they generate a response via phone or online. That doesn’t mean that every marketing action can be tied directly to resulting goal behaviors. Certainly there are times when the sale, donation, or participation is the result of a multi-step nurturing process. That’s why its important to define an engagement funnel – it will outline the path from stranger to customer for each priority audience. We’ll talk more about that later in the series. The over-arching goal for all ads/campaigns, however, will be a measurable increase in sales, donations, or participation. In other words, the goal for a specific ad may be brand awareness, but your goal for the campaign is the measurable increase. You want the viewer to take notice of your message and DO SOMETHING. And you want that something to move the needle on sales, donations, or participation numbers. Your Marketing Action Plan goal should state 3 things:
The first step in creating your Marketing Action Plan: Spend some time thinking about your revenue, resources, and plans. Consider ways your company currently generates revenue, and evaluate your plans the future. Also consider your current resources and strengths. Bring your company’s leadership or trusted advisers in, and take their input. Then, create a document titled “Marketing Action Plan.” Write a short (less than 3 sentences) goal on the first page of your document. Save it somewhere so it will be easy to find. We will continue soon… Complete this first step as soon as you can. My next article will talk about priority audiences. Knowing your audience helps you understand where to market, what to say, and what to expect. My next post will talk about your audience. Look for it next week. Until then, please "like" this article using the social links on this page. Your Chief Marketing Officer has a big job. She works with senior leadership to understand the company's goals, then develops strategies and associated initiatives to move the needle on those goals. On top of that, she leads execution on those strategies and initiatives, and reports on results. Finally, she analyzes the results to optimize successes and plan future initiatives.
And there's more. Today's marketing leaders must have a solid understanding online marketing in addition to traditional marketing techniques. Search optimization, website usability, social media, audience targeting, and email are some of the new proficiencies a CMO has to have. Without a solid grasp of these, opportunities will be missed. But not all companies have a CMO at their disposal. In the absence of senior marketing leadership, companies may employ a marketing person or team consisting of mid-level professionals focused on executing tasks that come from the CEO or other leadership. Others outsource everything to a firm or firms. There is real value in having a senior marketing professional sitting between leadership and execution. Only an experience leader can properly ensure alignment between goals, direction, and initiatives. Further, in the same way that marketing and brand touch all parts of a business, marketing leadership should give input on products, plans, and initiatives company-wide. Whether you plan to use an outsourced CMO for a short period, or long-term, here are some situations in which it's an appropriate solution to consider.
In my opinion, a good outsourced CMO will be focused on finding the highest impact strategies for reaching your ideal customer. This shouldn't include branding or rebranding right away. It SHOULD include strategies for messaging to more customer who resemble or have a personal relationship with your current customers. CMO outsourcing is a new service my company, Kelly Coulter and Associates, provides to a select few companies. Depending on your needs the cost can be as low as $4500 a month. That's a hell of a savings vs. the $15K or more a full-time, in-house CMO can cost. And there are others out there. Lots of consultants and firms are offering this service. Google it - you'll see. Whoever you use remember to check references and ask every question you can think of. Get your candidate to meet with everyone he/she will be working with, and make an informed decision. Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed the article, please click "like" on the Facebook or Twitter link below. And if you learned something new, share it with your friends and network! Your likes and shares help me spread information and ideas to more professionals just like you! The last call I had in 2015 was with one of my favorite new clients, Bronxville Wellness Sanctuary in New York. I was a little nervous going in to this call because we ran a holiday campaign on Facebook promoting gift cards, and I didn't have access to the part of their system that would show me the sales. So I wasn't going to know the resulting sales numbers until I talked to them. So, when Stephanie told me not only was the gift card campaign a success, but that their business is up 30% over last year since they started working with me in September, I was floored! I knew that we were posting the right messages and that we were targeting the people most likely to act on those messages. But I had no idea the strategy had been this effective! Here is what Stephanie had to say about our work together: "Since working with Kelly on marketing, social media management and gift certificate campaigns, our business has increased 30%! Kelly and her team are easy, professional and take the time to listen to our vision while also giving us valuable feedback based on their marketing expertise. As a small business, we value this immensely. We are grateful to be partners." Thanks, Stephanie! We value your partnership, and we are proud to call you clients and friends.
So, you have to be wondering exactly what we did to achieve these fantastic results. If you have ever done a free 20 minute strategy consultation with me you already know that I am happy to hand out free information. Here is the list of work we have done with BWS so far:
So that's the work we have done with BWS so far. And the results have been amazing. One more thing - this year we will start looking at promoting some of the virtual energy healing services offered by Stephanie at BWS. I have done two virtual energy sessions with Stephanie and - despite the distance between us the sessions were amazing! It was like meditation on steroids. I highly recommend giving it a try! Questions or comments? Leave them below and I will respond - or Tweet me at @KellyLCoulter. Oh, and if you learned something new from this post I would really appreciate a like and a retweet using the links below. ![]() Maximize what is already working for more sales with less work Thanksgiving is next week, and with it comes Black Friday and the holiday rush. Before that happens, let's take a look at your plan for December. Have you created a solid plan for increasing holiday sales this season? It's not too late. Right now is when you are most likely thinking, "I'm barely keeping my head above water as it is!" With running a business and planning for 2016, who has time to experiment or get creative about the holidays? Consider trying some new tactics that are proven to get results using your CURRENT traffic. Yep, each of these suggestions works by maximizing on what is already working for you.
These are some tried and true methods for increasing sales with your existing audience. No risky, time consuming traffic generation strategies. By the way - you guessed it - I can help you implement any of these methods. Email me using the contact form, leave me a comment below, or even tweet me @KellyLCoulter. We will meet to discuss your needs, audience, project, and budget. From there we can identify next steps and do what we need to do to make more sales this holiday. Contact me soon - you are missing sales as we speak! Did you learn something new? Do me a favor and click the "Like" or "Tweet" button below. Thanks for spending some time with me! More soon... |
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