It may seem obvious, but it’s crucial to ask people to do what you want them to do.  In marketing terms, this is called a Call to Action.  It’s a very important part of every marketing campaign, message or ad.

Any time you’re marketing your business, including your website, your brochures, social media, etc., you need to make sure you’re letting people know what you want them to do next.  Should they give you a call for a free quote?  Should they fill out a form with more information?

A  good call to action should:

• be one sentence
• be short and to-the-point
• clearly state the benefit to the customer
• ask the customer to take action (duh)
• specifically point out the action you want them to take

For example:

• Click here for our free website evaluation.
• Call 248-707-9666 or email saz@sazbean.com for a free consultation and quote.

Many businesses forget the call to action because it seems so obvious, but it just makes it clear what the next action should be if the person is interested. Even if its something like “contact me for more details”, any call to action is better than no call to action.

What do you think?

(photo by hiddedevries @ Flickr CC)

This is a guest post by Sarah Worsham, CEO & Web Strategist at Sazbean Consulting and blogging at Sazbean.com. Sarah is passionate about creating Internet strategies to help companies reach their business goals. Sarah provides guidance through Internet Marketing, Strategy & Business consulting. Connect with her on Twitter, Facebook or the Sazbean Facebook Page.

With the buzz around social media, it’s easy to get caught up in the popularity race for more fans, followers, hits, traffic, whatever.  While a larger audience may be more beneficial for getting your message out, what if none of the people in that audience are a prospective customer?

Even if you do have the right people in your audience, how well are you connecting with them?  Are you taking the time to connect personally with people?  To provide useful information?  To build relationships?

Is what you’re doing online helping your business? Spending your time in the right places with the right message to build the right relationships can help your business.  But spinning your wheels without an overall plan can just be a waste of time.

By taking a few minutes to think about how social media and your website can help you reach business goals, you’ll be able to justify the time and resources necessary for an effective online presence.  By building quality relationships with the right people instead of getting caught up in the quality popularity contest, you’ll be helping to build and grow your business.

(photo by Gray Eminence @ Flickr CC)

This is a guest post by Sarah Worsham, CEO & Web Strategist at Sazbean Consulting and blogging at Sazbean.com. Sarah is passionate about creating Internet strategies to help companies reach their business goals. Sarah provides guidance through Internet Marketing, Strategy & Business consulting. Connect with her on Twitter, Facebook or the Sazbean Facebook Page.

Do you feel like you’re competing with the entire world?  Do you feel like you’re always behind the eight-ball?  Well stop competing with everyone under the sun!  You get to choose who you’re going to compete with!

You may not believe it but it’s true.  You get to choose your competitors.  How?  By narrowly defining what business and market you’re in.  You do this by determining what it is that you do that’s better than anyone else (your core competence) and what benefits you bring to customers.  From these two things you can determine your market in such a way that you’re the best at it (ideally).

Why does this work?  Because once you’ve narrowly defined your market and you understand what you’re good at and what benefits you’re bringing to customers you can effectively market to the right people with the right message.

Let’s look at an example:  Say you paint custom murals on walls.  You may feel like you’re competing with painters and interior designers and wallpaper companies, etc.  But what is it that you do better than anyone else?  Paint custom pictures on walls.  Do you do it for homeowners or also for companies?  Do you just paint interior walls or also exterior walls?  Now you’ve narrowed your market.  Here’s the important part: what benefits do you offer to the customer?  custom, unique art painted on their walls.  So who are you competing with?  Probably other mural painters – but only for the types of murals you offer – what sets you apart?  Your experience? Your uniqueness?  Quality?  The benefits combined with what sets you apart is how you determine your marketing message.  Now you have the who, the how and the what.  And it turns out that all those companies you thought you were competing with, the interior designers, painters, etc., are probably actually just great places to network with in terms of referring business back and forth.

Understanding your business in terms of what you actually do, what you do best, and what benefits you offer to customers can help you narrow your market and focus on the customers that will actually do business with you.  Sure you can go after a wider market, but the percentage of sales for that audience will be much smaller, meaning you have to work much harder to get each sale.

If you’re interested in more on this topic, I’ve written two posts on my blog that go into this in a bit more detail: Who Are You Exactly? and Figuring Out Who You’re Actually Competing With.

(photo by eschipul @ Flickr CC)

This is a guest post by Sarah Worsham, CEO & Web Strategist at Sazbean Consulting and blogging at Sazbean.com. Sarah is passionate about creating Internet strategies to help companies reach their business goals. Sarah provides guidance through Internet Marketing, Strategy & Business consulting. Connect with her on Twitter, Facebook or the Sazbean Facebook Page.

“Our Mission is to provide valuable information… blah blah blah”

Who Cares? You know what customers care about?  Themselves.  They don’t care what services you provide or how often you win awards.  They only care about what’s in it for them.

Think about the last ad you remember.  Something made it memorable.  It connected with you.  It made you feel cool or happy or whatever.  It was all about you.

Think about the products you really like.  They make you feel good or beautiful or happy.  Same story.  It’s all about you.

Any time you are marketing to people (which is any time you’re speaking, networking or publishing content, which includes Facebook, Twitter, etc.), think about what’s in it for the other person.  Why should your customer (or potential customer) care?  What benefits are you offering them? What are you giving?

What’s In It For Them?

(photo by Samael Trip @ Flickr CC)

This is a guest post by Sarah Worsham, CEO & Web Strategist at Sazbean Consulting and blogging at Sazbean.com. Sarah is passionate about creating Internet strategies to help companies reach their business goals. Sarah provides guidance through Internet Marketing, Strategy & Business consulting. Connect with her on Twitter,  Facebook or the Sazbean Facebook Page.

When people thresh through their inbox or social media network, are you the grain that they find useful or the chaff that they throw away? People are selfish. They’re only going to listen to you if they find what you you’re saying to be valuable or interesting.  With so many people tweeting and posting and producing content, there’s a limit to how many people anyone can read regularly.

I follow a lot of people on Twitter and a lot of them only tweet about their company or their products.  Who wants to listen to that? Many business blogs are the same way – just covering company news and advertising products or services – basically just press releases.  How boring.

If you’re going to make it through the threshing process you need to provide something of value – you need to be the grain.  Think in terms of what your customers want to know (I doubt it’s pictures from your company picnic).  What types of information do they regularly ask you about?  Social media is about having a conversation – most of it should be about others – or listening.  If most of your content is valuable, people will be more likely to listen when  you occasionally talk about your own stuff (remember, people are selfish).

Are you the grain or the chaff?

(photo by KevinLallier @ Flickr CC)

This is a guest post by Sarah Worsham, CEO & Web Strategist at Sazbean Consulting and blogging at Sazbean.com. Sarah is passionate about creating Internet strategies to help companies reach their business goals. Sarah provides guidance through Internet Marketing, Strategy & Business consulting.

People like to take freeways everywhere they go.  Sometimes people will go way out of their way to get off at the nearest freeway exit to their destination instead of taking the more direct route. (Obviously the more direct route is not always the quickest).  But a little trial and error can find that most ideal route may be a series of surface streets. Yet people are willing to keep going the way they’re used to, even if construction slows it down, instead of trying something a little different. Or there will be a set of rules that everyone follows just because they always have – even though they don’t necessarily make sense.  Or everyone will wait in a long line for the express checkout even when the regular checkouts have shorter lines.

People like to be sheep – it’s easy and it doesn’t involve thinking.  People like to assume that someone else has already figured out the best way to do something.  But, if we take a few minutes to stop and think about what we’re doing, instead of just going with the flow, we may find a better, more efficient solution.

Most of the people we admire are black sheep – they decided to go against the flow, to come up with something new, or to stand up for what makes sense.  Black sheep show up aganinst the crowds of white sheep.  They stand out.  They’re remarkable.  People take notice.

How can you be a black sheep? (or how are you already one?)

(sheep photo by pasotraspaso @ Flickr CC)

This is a guest post by Sarah Worsham, CEO & Web Strategist at Sazbean Consulting and blogging at Sazbean.com. Sarah is passionate about helping companies reach their business goals by using the web effectively. Sarah provides guidance through Internet Marketing, Strategy & Business consulting.

This is a guest post by Sarah Worsham, CEO & Web Strategist at Sazbean Consulting and blogging at Sazbean.com. Sarah is passionate about helping companies reach their business goals by using the web effectively. Sarah provides guidance through Internet Marketing, Strategy & Business consulting.

Most of us who have our own businesses got started because we had a passion for something.  I think many of us get so busy with the day-to-day requirements of running a business that we forget about that passion that started it all.  We get run down and we stop working on the things that really matter to us.  Or we take on too much work and don’t have time for important, but unbillable tasks.  Without taking some time for tasks that we’re excited about, we start avoiding work that needs to be done and our overall quality of work suffers.

Just like it’s important to have a great work-life balance by taking time for yourself, family and friends, it’s equally important to have a good balance in your work life.  By setting aside time to work on side-projects and exciting tasks, you’ll feel more energetic overall – which leads to better quality of work (which leads to better referrals and repeat business).  If you have a hard time setting aside time, try scheduling for it on your calendar.  Remember, this is time just for you – be protective of it – turn off email, the phone, and social networks (Twitter, Facebook, IM, etc.).

Carving time for work you’re passionate about can bring that spark back to your work.  I think you’ll find that it affects more than you think.  And you’ll start getting some of those important side-projects done, which means feeling a sense of accomplishment and success.

So, What’s Your Passion?

This is a guest post by Sarah Worsham, CEO & Web Strategist at Sazbean Consulting and blogging at Sazbean.com. Sarah is passionate about helping companies reach their business goals by using the web effectively. Sarah provides guidance through Internet Marketing, Strategy & Business consulting.

One of the things we talk about in leadership training at U of M is change – being in control of it and turning negatives into positives (which can often be easier said than done).  For an interesting exercise, try plotting a timeline of your life (or your business’ life) vs. your level of happiness.  For many people, particularly unhappy periods are following by very happy ones.  Sometimes life deals us a losing hand, but that may lead us to make changes we wouldn’t have otherwise made – leading to being in a better place for the long run.

It’s not necesary to wait for fate to force you into a situation where you have to change.  If you’re aware of negative aspects of your life or business, then you can take steps to turn towards the positive – by changing course.  Take a few minutes to think about whether there’s anything you wish you could change – then take a few more and brainstorm ways to change them.  You might be surprised that things you were just living with actually have fairly easy solutions.

What can you change?

This is a guest post by Sarah Worsham, CEO & Web Strategist at Sazbean Consulting and blogging at Sazbean.com. Sarah is passionate about helping companies reach their business goals by using the web effectively. Sarah provides guidance through Internet Marketing, Strategy & Business consulting.

As business professionals sometimes we get caught up in blogging, twittering, facebooking and networking.  It seems like we’re putting hours and hours into blogging and networking.  We’ll ask for feedback at the end of blog posts, but no one usually replies.  We’ll ask questions on Twitter but don’t get many responses.  Is anyone listening?

The lack of replies may seem disheartening, but often times people will just read and monitor what you say but won’t take the time to actually engage in a conversation.  According to Forrester Research, consumers can be classified into different levels of participation (the supporting book, Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, is well worth the read).  Depending on the industry, country, age group and gender, up to 80% of your readers may just be spectators – meaning they’ll only read what you have to say, but they’ll never post a reply.

So how do you tell if anyone is listening?  First, take a look at your statistics.  If you’re blogging, how many visitors and visits do you get per day? per month? (Hopefully you’re using a stats program like Google Analytics, which filters out visits from bots, which are just computers visiting, not real people).  How many people are subscribed to your RSS feed?  Your newsletter list?  For Twitter, how many followers do you have on Twitter?  How often are your tweets re-tweeted? Try using a url shortening service, such as bit.ly or hootsuite, to find out how many people click on the links you tweet.

Whatever numbers you’re looking at, take a look at the trends – are more people following and looking at what you write over time? Then you can be sure that people are listening.  While your marketing efforts are not complete, you’re at least on your way….