blogs Archives - High Performance Coach Cindy Donaldson

Size…Really Doesn’t Matter

Leave a Comment / Marketing, Must Read Blogs, Small Business, Tips / By Cindy Donaldson / February 13, 2020 / authentic, blogs, Content, email list, emails, entertaining, length, newsletter, size, white papers, Writing

What size should my content be? How long should a Blog be – what about White Papers?

How long should my email copy be? How often should I send them?

The answer is – there isn’t an answer. Size and quantity IMHO don’t matter – QUALITY does.

My email subscribers get at a minimum of 2 emails per week. Sometimes more depending on what is going on. The length of those emails ranges from 250 words to over 1000 – to be honest I never look at the word count because I don’t care.

What I care about is the content. Is it engaging? Is it relevant? Is it entertaining?

You will NEVER nail this for everyone – because everyone is different. What is engaging to one may be boring as all hell to another. What is relevant to one will be obsolete for another what is entertaining for one will ghastly for another.

My advice to content writers is to be authentic (you can read more on that there), be transparent and know your audience. Write for the majority, write from your soul – write as if you are sitting down and drinking a glass of wine or coffee with someone face to face. Write as you would speak.

How do you know if you are engaging, relevant and entertaining? Look at your metrics. What are your open rates on your emails? Dive into your Google Analytics to see who’s reading your blogs (PS don’t forget to share them on social – that’s where we get our biggest engagement). If your numbers aren’t where you want them to be – review your content. Something is off – chances are you aren’t writing to your audience. Take a step back are dive deep into your Target Client Profile – who are they REALLY? Then regroup. It may take you several iterations to nail it – so don’t give up!

Consistency wins each and every time.

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Social Media – Quality vs. Quantity

Leave a Comment / Entrepreneur, Marketing, Must Read Blogs, Sales, Small Business, Tips / By Cindy Donaldson / December 26, 2019 / blogs, Content, Facebook, Instagram, jenn donovan, Jenna Kutcher, LinkedIn, marketing, Pinterest, Quality, Quantity, red barn consulting, sales, social media, tips, twitter

Does even thinking about posting to social media stress you out? How many times to post, what to post, when to post, etc.? Are you putting content out just for the sake of putting content out on social media? Are your followers just not engaging and your audience isn’t growing? When it comes to social media posts, quality beats quantity every time.

The norm has always been that consumers expect companies to have content readily available to consume – blogs, social media, enewsletters, downloadable ebooks, white papers, etc. They still look for this type of content, however just having a large library of stuff isn’t enough – consumers want quality of resources from companies they do business with – not just fluff.

First, we need to back up and define what quality means to consumers – it’s targeted, more personalized, highly creative messaging. Content that is focused on better understanding and interacting with your clients. Even small brands can easily produce content that looks just as good as the big dogs.

When a prospect is looking to learn more about your company, yes, they will Google you and visit your website, but they will also look to see what social media channels you are on, the type of content that you post, and how long ago you posted. Just throwing posts up that your customers and prospects don’t care about is not going to help you engage with them. However, one good quality post on Facebook can do way better than five poor quality posts.

Some tips to posting high quality content are:

Photos – they don’t need to be done professionally, but make sure they are well lit, not blurred or grainy.
Videos – also need good lighting and good sound.
Sharing Blogs – need to be interesting and relevant topics but also have good spelling, punctuation and grammar. It should be around 500 words or more to keep readers on your website for longer which is a good SEO signal to Google.
Sharing 3^rd Party Content – share content from reputable sources that don’t require signing up for memberships. Articles from newspapers, magazines, etc. are usually good sources
Your content – only 20% of your content should be around your business – if you are constantly pushing a sale people will unfollow you

I get asked a lot about the best times to post on social media. There is no concrete answer to this. You need to post when and where your audience is going to see your posts. Why post on Twitter if your audience is on Facebook? If your audience primarily engages in the mornings, don’t wait to post until the afternoon.

Don’t get hung up on the numbers. Many people will engage in campaigns to buy likes or followers. This might seem great in the short term, but these people are most likely not your ideal clients and will never engage with you. At the end of the day, your goal is to be seen as an expert, a trusted advisor, and of course to get traffic to your website as that is where the sale is. If your engagement is low, then ask yourself if it is the quality of the post or is that the content isn’t resonating with your audience.

When it comes to social media posts quality will always beat quantity. You aren’t Gary V or Jenna Kutcher – you don’t need to keep up with the quantity of posts that they put out daily – they have teams of people who do this for them. For the DIYers – just focus on the quality. That’s all you need to do.

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Content Marketing – How to Get Started!

Leave a Comment / Entrepreneur, Featured, Fun Stuff, Marketing, Must Read Blogs, Uncategorized / By Cindy Donaldson / August 30, 2018 / benchmark goals, blogs, Cindy Donaldson, content calendar, content marketing, Customer Journey Mapping, editorial calendar, email, red barn consulting, social media

Let me just start by saying, Content Marketing is all about telling stories, giving away a ton of FREE relevant and valuable content and educating your customers and prospects to the point where they intellectually come to the conclusion that you know what you are talking about. In other words, you are building trust through content.

It’s not rocket science, it is brilliance AND in today’s crazy marketing world – it’s the way to go. People no longer will buy from you because you tell them to, because you tell them you are the best, you have the best product/service, because you tell them you are knowledgeable.

DISCLAIMER: Content marketing takes time – at least 9-12 months before you see results and some serious work, but it is by far one of the most effective ways to build your brand.

Here’s the process we walk our client’s through or if they choose – we do it for them.

Deep dive into your core values, your company and your WHY. You need to know who the hell you are, what you are about before you can tell others. Don’t skip this part. Create a list of your core values – why you do what you do, what matters
Identify who your ideal client is – I’m talking tons of details.
Create Benchmark Goals. What do you want to happen 12 months from now – what are your goals. Do you want increased revenue? Increased client retention? Brand awareness and/or expansion – a combination thereof? You need to know how you will measure success.
Customer Journey Mapping. (READ MY BLOG HERE). You need to understand the type of content your prospects and customers would like to read during each part of their journey and HOW they will get that content. Also, identify the roadblocks and motivations they have going through their journey.
Overarching strategy and editorial calendar. Get the whiteboard or use an excel sheet – list all the months on one side, and the marketing channels you are going to use. Now start filling in what you need – types of content, assets needed (writers, videographer, designers etc).
Start writing based on your editorial calendar. You want to get ahead of the game – at least 3 months. Make sure you include social media into the mix – this isn’t load some content on your website and they will come. You need channels to get them there.
Use email – use email marketing to get your word out – share your content. Strive to get opt-ins.
TEST. Are people reading it? Is it working? If not – mix it up.

Most people don’t comment on our blogs ON OUR WEBSITE. We get some – the real magic happens when we share them on social, we get asked to speak at events based on content we’ve written, we build credibility with our prospects.

This isn’t rocket science, but it’s science. If this is completely overwhelming to you – hire it out. Don’t spend time on something you aren’t great at – spend time in your business doing what you do best! (Yea, I suppose that was a sales plug for Red Barn here – but it’s the truth.)

Content Marketing works. It’s not a fad, it’s the way of the world and you should be part of it!!

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