People often talk about their marketing as if it’s a rocket. We “launch” web sites, Facebook pages, direct mail campaigns, etc. as if there’s an onboard computer which will automatically carry out its carefully-planned directives. We just light the fuse and then sit back and watch. But that’s not how successful marketing works.

In reality, your marketing is like an airplane. Yes, it takes planning to get the wheels off the ground, but that’s just the beginning of the journey. To get to your planned destination the pilot has to constantly read the information the instruments are reporting and make little corrections during the entire flight. The same is true with your marketing campaign. Once it gets off the ground, you need to be gathering feedback on how the campaign is doing. Then you make adjustments as necessary to get to your desired goal.

Marketing isn’t rocket science. But it’s not as easy as pushing the launch button and sitting back to watch the spectacle. You need to keep an eye on its progress so you can make mid-course corrections as needed.

If that sounds like more work than you can add to your already busy schedule, maybe it’s time we talk. We can help manage your marketing efforts so you can focus on the other activities you’re already pursuing to grow your business. We’re just a phone call away.

Here are two quick things I saw at a networking event this morning that will guarantee that people won’t take you seriously. The first thing is wearing your Bluetooth headset while you’re at the event. You’re at a networking event to meet people. So be present with the people you’re talking to. When you have your Bluetooth at the ready for an incoming call, that tells me “you’re not important enough for me to give you my undivided attention for five minutes.” Take it out of your ear and turn it off. It doesn’t make you look important. It makes you look like you don’t care.

The second thing that will ensure I don’t take you seriously? Using your Gmail (or Yahoo, or Hotmail, or AOL) address for your business. Even the most inexpensive web hosting packages come with email addresses as part of the package. If I see that you have a web site with your own domain and you’re still using Gmail, that immediately sends me a signal that you don’t take your business seriously. And if I don’t feel like you take your own business seriously, why should I believe you’re going to take me seriously? Take advantage of the email hosting that’s probably already part of your web hosting and get yourself a professional email address.

I’m sharing this because while these are pet peeves of mine, I wasn’t the only one talking about them during the event. People notice. And people talk.

Did you know that studies in neuromarketing have shown that if you enlarge your pupils in your headshots, people will subconsciously trust you more? The concept is that larger pupils instill trust. I recently learned from Mike Michalowicz of the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur that this technique works very well when women sell to men, but it can also work well for women selling to women. Of course we assume that readers of our blog are already trustworthy, so why not use this knowledge of how the brain works to subtly nudge your prospective customers toward working with you?

What do you think?

Smart companies filter actions through a clearly-defined set of values. They do this because they know that there is a price to pay when they don’t base business decisions on what’s most important. Business moves quickly and it is so easy to get derailed or let external forces determine your business decisions. The sad result of this is that you end up feeling that your business has lost direction, meaning or purpose. Not to mention clients and customers.

If you feel out of control, overwhelmed or just plain ticked off that you’ve committed to other people’s priorities that aren’t also your own, chances are you are not honoring your values. And your business – certainly your life – feels out of whack. (more…)

Search engine optimization, otherwise known as SEO, is daunting. Totally. I get it.

But one of the things you need to think about when launching a new web site are the words you write, AKA the “copy.” Here are some things you can do to write copy that is SEO-friendly while keeping you naturally on-brand.

First, you should starting thinking about key words and phrases that you think people would search for to find your content. If you have gone through a branding exercise, you’ll have a good idea of the words and phrases to use. You should come up with a few (no more than half a dozen or so) for each page, because the key words for one page may not be the same ones you would use on another. (more…)