Creating clear marketing goals for action, success and more money!

Business owners often know what they want in their businesses, but they don’t have clear goals on how to get what they want. They just know they want to be successful. They know they want to make more money. They know they want to do the thing that their business does.

Here’s the thing though: having clear and specific goals makes it easier to do everything else. Having clear goals even creates more time in your business because you’re not spending time on things that won’t move you forward. Clear business goals also help you define clear marketing goals which will ensure your attention and messaging is focused on what will have an impact on your business. And good marketing turns into more leads, which turns into more sales!

WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS?

Spend time thinking about your business goals, specifically about what you're hoping to achieve through your marketing. It's probably (though not necessarily) a given that one of your goals is to make more money, but we want to get more specific than that today. Your goals may include things, such as:

• Being known as an expert at something

• Being seen as a resource on a certain topic

• Expanding your audience geographically or demographically

• Getting more engagement online and building community

• Increasing sales in a certain part of your business

• Getting other people to talk about you to their communities

• Filling a certain program

• Increasing sales online instead of in person

Because it always helps to see specific examples, I'll share some of mine and create some fictional examples:

• Be seen as an expert in explaining social media for small business

• Be seen as an expert in nutrition and wellness

• Expand audience beyond the Ottawa-area

• Expand audience to new moms 

• Increase sales in one-on-one coaching and speaking (or sign two new clients per month)

• Create content that is linked to by other bloggers and media outlets

• Be more findable in search

You can be even more precise and create goals that are channel-specific:

• Increase Facebook likes by 300 people

• Establish a presence on YouTube and get 1000 video views

• Get retweeted and tagged by industry experts on Twitter

• Get three media hits per month

REALLY UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU'RE TRYING TO ACHIEVE

The more you work to figure out these goals and why you're setting them, the more likely you will work them into your plan efficiently. Take a few minutes and write down an explanation of what you mean by each one and why they're important to you. For example:

• I really enjoy helping small business owners figure out how to use social media for their business in a one-on-one setting. I get energized and excited when having personalized calls with business owners and hearing them figure out what they could be doing. Their lightbulb moments make my day, and their wins and increased revenue are my wins too. I want to do more of that so I need to make it clear that this is something that I do, like to do and I am good at.

• I feel that it's time to expand beyond my local market. I like to spend time in Toronto and Boston and want to start by growing my audience in those specific cities. To do that, I need to start to grow an audience in those cities, so there is already a start of a customer base in those cities when I arrive to hold an event or launch a product. I need to figure out where my audience is spending their time (online and off) in those cities so I can create a custom plan.

• I want to grow my online sales. I know that if I focus more of my attention on driving people to my online store and the products I sell there, I can increase that revenue stream. That may mean decreasing what I make in person while I focus on online or working extra hours to carry me through the gap.

TIME TO DO THE WORK

I challenge you to spend 10 minutes right now coming up with three or four marketing goals for the next six months. Really think about what you like to do, what you want to be doing and why you want to be doing it and give yourself some real explanations on why those are important and meaningful goals for you and your business and your marketing right now. Then leave a comment and share some of those ideas here!

How to get more out of your blog content

One of the most frustrating things about writing a long piece of content is feeling like only a few people saw it and hours of your time writing had almost no impact.

There are a few things to keep in mind when it comes to blog content that will help you feel like it was well worth the time invested. It’s as simple as making sure that nobody (including you!) thinks of your blog post as a “one and done” piece of content.

1)   SEO juice

Quality content on your website will help you rank higher in search engines (otherwise known as search engine optimization or SEO). Even if you just think of SEO as being there to help you rank higher in search - that alone is still not a bad reason to create good content for your website (some businesses get most of their leads through search!).

Every time you create new content, your website is crawled by the search engine bots. So, when you create new blogs posts, make sure you’re using the kinds of words you want to be found for. You should also keep your blog posts to a minimum of 300-500 words for them to be considered quality, and whenever possible, link to other pieces of your content within your site and try to get other people to link to your content from their web sites.

2)   You’re giving people a reason to visit

Without new blog posts, there isn’t much of a reason for people to keep coming back to your website. How many times can you promote your ‘About’ and ‘Sales’ pages and expect people to take the time to come and visit again?

By consistently creating new content that you know is of interest to your audience, you have an opportunity to entice them to return and make them feel like they’re getting value out of what they’re reading.

Once you have posted new content, make sure you tell your audience you created the content. Post it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and on Pinterest. Also send an email to your mailing list letting them know you created the new content.

If you don’t tell people you created new content, they won’t know to go and look – so, promote, promote, promote!

I once heard you should spend as much time promoting a post as you spend writing it, if not more. Keeping that in mind will help you figure out just how much effort you have to put into getting people to see it for you to feel like it was worth writing.

A few other tips for promoting:

• Share it multiple times – on Twitter you can share it 5-6 times over 48 hours easily. On Facebook you can share it again 24-48 hours later.

• If you’re worried about seeming repetitive, use ICYMI. It stands for “In case you missed it” and recognizes you’ve posted it before, but that you know not everyone will have seen it.

This next piece is really critical:

3)   Don’t forget about it.

Once you’ve promoted the content, plan to share it again over time. Not all of your content may be evergreen, but if it is it, plan to share it again in two weeks, six weeks and nine weeks later. You may even want to schedule it to share again in those time frames while you’re posting it the first time. It will save you time and make sure you don’t forget to keep re-sharing it.

4)   Reuse pieces

Don’t think of your blog post as just a blog post. Take pieces of it and do different things with it.

Reuse it as a script for a short video, take quotes out and share as tips on Twitter or create visuals and share on Instagram. 

Creating great content can be time consuming, but if you make that time well worth the investment then you will see results - results that make it easier to keep doing. By making sure the content is being properly promoted and shared on a regular basis, you’re going to see far more results with one piece of content than you did before.

Spend some time thinking about the content you’ve written in the past – how can you apply these things to it now?

Reframing Lazy

I’m lazy. I’ve been telling people that for years. 

I like to read trashy novels, binge watch Netflix and I like to regularly stay in PJs all day – so, therefore I present you with proof that I am lazy.

Apparently, this proof outweighs any of the proof to the opposite.

• The employers I’ve had who praised me for doing things really well and getting more done than others.

• The successful conference I helped create and run for four years.

• The profitable parenting blog that has been around for eight years.

• A sold out live event for business owners…

But really, I’m lazy.

I know this because people who’re not lazy work all the time – they hustle until they drop because that’s what people who REALLY want to be successful do. I hear it all around me: If you really want to be a productive person work harder, sleep less, and stop watching TV. How could I think I’m anything other than lazy?

Have you heard it too? “Stop wasting your time on mindless things!”

But here’s something I also know – when I want to be productive and sit down to do it, I am fast. I’m fast but it takes a lot out of me. I can’t do twice as much as someone else just because I can get it done in half the time, because then I’ll burn out!

The only way for me to accept that I like to sit around doing mindless things that I could otherwise be using for PRODUCTIVE things is to own being lazy. Lazy people don’t reach for the stars – they reach for the chips. Yummy, yummy chips!

The more I told myself and others I was lazy, the more I believed it, and maybe even started leaning into it. So, I had to start paying attention to that.

I’m not lazy, I’m just doing things my way.

I’m not lazy, look at all I’ve done and my reward is getting quiet time to do art, relax at the cottage or just watch TV in my PJs all day.

Could I do more sometimes? Maybe. But that doesn’t take away from all the things I HAVE done. Laying around doesn’t mean everything I’ve already done stops counting.

But that’s the story I was constantly telling myself. You’re lazy, you could do so much more, why are you so lazy?

I catalogued what I HAD done almost never.

So, I redefined lazy. 

I’m not lazy. I’m smart to not burn out and push my body and brain harder than they’re meant to go.

I’m not lazy. Look at that event I planned, that training I recorded, or all the people who are more active online this week because of a prompt I gave them.

Redefining lazy means my mindset shifted and I stopped leaning into “lazy” and I started getting MORE done. Removing guilt from the equation means I enjoy my down time more and I use it less as a crutch than I used to.

So, I’m launching even more workshops, programs, and events, landing even more clients… and enjoying a whole lot of zombie shows and shows where people are making things I have no intention of ever trying to make myself.

I reframed lazy – is that something you want to do too? Are there negative stories you’re telling yourself that you can reframe? How can you see the positive in what you currently consider a negative and start drawing in more flow and ease to your life?

Are you visible online?

Do people know who are you? What you're selling in your business? Who you work with? Why they should buy from you? 

Getting visible online is something a lot of business owners really struggle with, but it's also one of the very best ways to be seen. To be known. To get more clients. To make more money.

When you're visible you can share your experience, your expertise, and give your audience the opportunity to get to know you. This is how you build relationships. You're creating the "know, like and trust" factor, which is how many people choose what to buy and who to buy it from.

Here's the good news. You don’t need to be a social media expert to make social media work for your business - you just need to be visible on it!

The bad news? Visibility is often something business owners have a really hard time with.
You may find yourself shying away from posting online too much or not wanting to share too many photos, personal stories or selfies. 

So, how can you get comfortable and start taking action so that people can see you, your business, and all of the value you have to offer? Be visible. And if that feels hard, get more comfortable with being visible in a safe space designed just for that - my visibility challenge.

I want to support business owners as they talk about their mindset. I want them to be more comfortable posting in a variety of places online, dabble with video and even start thinking about getting media attention.

Let's get you in front of more people so more people have the opportunity to start working with you!

Are you ready to attract your ideal clients? Together let's get more active in the online space, share relevant content, and build relationships with the people in your networks. That is how you stay top of mind, which is what visibility is all about. 

So, sign up for my visibility challenge.  It takes about 5-20 minutes per day (some days less!) over 14 days. We'll start getting comfortable, setting up good visibility tactics and building relationships with each other at the same time.

Let's get visible together! See you over there!

Success on your own terms

What does success look like for you?

Is it a nice house with a two car garage?

Is it being a manager at work?

Is it making six figures?

Is it travelling two times a year… maybe three?

Is it simply MORE?

Success can be a bit of a sneaky/tricky/slippery beast. Why? Because we don’t really know what success means to us.

This is what *I* “knew” from growing up in my world.

Success looked like :

• Finish high school and go to university and get a degree. And then a Master’s. And then probably a PhD.
• Get a good job and move up the ranks as high as possible
• Buy a house
• Buy a car
• Get married
• Have some kids
• Buy a bigger car
• Buy a bigger house
• Keep getting promotions (you need more money)
• Provide for your kids – sports, music, all the opportunities to make them well-rounded individuals
• Go on trips – bring the kids and expose them to the world and culture
• Keep going until the kids move out, you retire, and then you’re done

Do you recognize this picture of success?

Has yours ever been like it?

I thought it was mine – but it wasn’t – I never created it, it was just what I thought I was supposed to be working towards for a really long time.

Now… don’t get me wrong. It’s not at all a bad picture. It’s a fairly nice picture to me, even as I think about it now. But I needed to make sure my definition of success and the goals I was creating for myself were MINE.

So, let’s talk about how I journeyed on this path:

I got a degree (just one) and then later I got a diploma. I travelled overseas, I bought a car, I got a job in my field, I got a promotion, I bought a house, I got married, I had a baby, and then I didn’t wan’t to go back to my job.

WHAT?!

I jumped off my path – and I was okay. I was okay with less money and “less success” because I wanted to be with my kid more. I wanted to feel less stressed and I wanted to explore the life of being an entrepreneur (I started my first business – an online clothing store – during my maternity leave).

So, I jumped off the path, but here’s what I called that..  "Choosing to not be successful right now."

But that wasn’t what that was – that was me defining what success looked like for ME. Because success was quality time with my family. It was not feeling stressed all the time. It was making sure I had the flexibility in my life to try new projects and business ideas. And by that measure, I was really successful!

As my kids got older and my businesses changed and I became a marketing coach and then a business coach, money and career success came back to the forefront. I had to re-visit what success was going to look like for me.

As an entrepreneur, a lot of what I saw in role models was to work all the time and HUSTLE to build the biggest, fastest business possible. I didn’t want that and, at first, it was hard to believe that was okay.

Because what I wanted was to work school bus hours and I wanted to take 10 weeks off a year to spend a lot of the school holidays with my kids and still have time to do things for me and with my husband.

That wasn’t what I saw as possible. I saw making lots of money and being successful or again… choosing to be less successful. So, I thought I was choosing to be okay with not being successful for awhile longer.

But really, I was simply defining what I wanted MY success to look like:

• Creating a community of support for business owners
• Coaching business women and helping guide them to a place where they love their business and are make good money doing it
• Spending time with my kids
• Spending time at the cottage
• Having the flexibility to start new projects that call to me when I want to

Women Talk Ottawa  - one of the communities of support I am building

And so by that measure I AM successful... not putting it off awhile longer!

And here’s the other thing – it turns out you don’t HAVE to work crazy hours and hustle all the time to make good money. I didn’t need to sacrifice decent money to do all those things. I just needed to realize the way I was building success didn’t have to look like how others were doing it!

I am SO successful and I believe you all can be too.

I challenge you to spend some time with your vision of success.

Is the one you have now the one you created? Or is it one you inherited? Or is it one that was formed by society or family and expectations from the people around you?

What does success look like for you?

Are the things you’re striving for the things you truly want?

Something I see in a lot my work are many people living their lives on autopilot. I challenge you to ACTIVELY choose what success looks like for you – on your own terms.

It took loads of pressure off my back to know that I get to choose what success looks like to me, and it can do the same for you!