best practices | Write Now Editing

Discovering Your Benefits

April 16, 2018 by Karin Beery Leave a Comment

Thanks to the advent of the internet, it’s possible to find a blog post, video, or podcast that will tell you how to do pretty much anything, from making your own fireworks to cutting your own hair (I’m not endorsing either of these links, I’m just making a point).

With so much information available to anyone, it’s important now more than ever to know and advertise your benefits, not just your services. It’s not enough to tell your clients what you do – you need to tell them how you can make their lives easier and why hiring you will be better for their business. It’s not about your services, it’s about your benefits.

For example, I write and edit, but what benefits do I provide to my clients?

An outside perspective: Most business owners are so familiar with their industry that they use words and descriptions that make sense to them but might actually be confusing to others. I can help them avoid that confusion.
Targeting: Every industry has a different target audience – daycares will want to target parents while retirement communities will need to reach an older crowd – and there’s a different way to talk to each of those audiences. I can help tailor the language and the message for each unique audience.
Time savings: Business owners have better things to do with their time than write website pages, especially when it takes a week or two to find the time to write. Not only can I do the writing for them, but I can write it faster (because I do it every day!).

To figure out your benefits, ask yourself these questions:

How can I save my clients time?
How can I save them money?
How can I make their lives easier?
How can I help them meet deadlines?
How can I help them find clients?

Those are your benefits, and that’s what they want to know! Any electrician can rewire their houses – tell them why hiring you will make their lives better.

What benefits do you provide to your clients?

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9 Blogging Mistakes to Avoid (via The Write Conversation)

April 2, 2018 by Karin Beery Leave a Comment

Setting up a blog is a great way to add content to your website, improve SEO, and demonstrate your expertise, but only if people are reading and sharing your blog! You don’t have to be a professional writer or marketer to attract and keep readers. Regardless of which industry you’re in, just watch out for these nine common blogging mistakes to make the most of your blog (courtesy of Edie Melson at The Write Conversation).

Click here to read 9 Blogging Mistakes to Avoid!

Facebook Tips for Small Businesses by Leslie Krukowski

March 19, 2018 by Karin Beery Leave a Comment

So, you created a Facebook page for your business, and you shared it with all of your friends. Now what?

Posting what your business is doing once in awhile may not be sufficient. Stating the obvious—”I’m a great person to buy insurance from,” or “Visit my store”—creates no excitement or interest in your audience. They’re scrolling through thousands of items in their Facebook feed, so you need to stand out!

You need to:

Make your post visually appealing.
Make them want to DO SOMETHING.

Make Your Post Visually Appealing
As a business owner, you want to create a post or ad that’s visually appealing and that makes a potential customer want to either click on your link or visit your location. That mean’s there MUST be a graphic. It could be a photo, a short video, or a meme, as long as it looks good.

Make Them Want to Do Something
To urge your audience to do something, include a Call To Action (or CTA, as most social media managers say). For example, if you’re hosting a flash sale, you can make it visually appealing by including a graphic like the following:

Then your description could be a CTA explaining that the sale is for a limited time, and asking the viewer to visit your store or click on a link. I recently ran this ad for a customer, and it generated almost $500 in sales within two days!

Those two things will help your posts stand out, but here are a couple of more tricks to help you navigate Facebook.

Increase Exposure
When you are first starting on Facebook, a great way to increase exposure it to boost posts or pay for ads. When you do that, Facebook lets you set your audience to a specific demographic.

For example, you can make sure that your ad is only seen by women, aged 25-55, with a median income of $45-$75,000 that live in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. You can broaden or narrow your demographic as much as you would like. If you have an e-commerce site, you can even embed a Facebook Pixel code into your site, so you can target your ads to people who have visited your site before. That will let products that they have viewed on your website show up on their Facebook feed! Pretty slick, huh?

Another way to increase exposure is to start a private Facebook group. Groups work great for artists, writers, or businesses that have a following, and for retailers, like sports outfitters, mountain bike shops, and ski shops, who already have a specific audience. Any business with a following or fan base can benefit from creating a private group.

Facebook groups allow your fans to form a community where they can gather and communicate with each other as well as with your business. It provides a streamlined form a communication between everyone without having to worry about paying for ads. The downside to a private group is that it’s, well — private, so not everyone will see what’s going one (but that’s more incentive to join your group!).

Social media is ever-changing, and Facebook seems to be in the midst of many changes as we this post is being written. Regardless of what’s happening with algorithms and news feeds, just remember:

Keep it visual, include a call to action, and keep posting!

Good luck!

—

Leslie Krukowski is the principal, CEO, and main consultant of Black Dog Business Group. She graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in English and sub-concentrations in both marketing and business management. After spending several years in management, marketing, and social media marketing positions, she received a Master’s Degree in Administration. She has proven success in managing large groups of people and loves leadership development. Leslie has two black dogs at home, Bertuzzi and Scout. Feel free to reach out to her at leslie@blackdogbusinessgroup.com for a free initial consultation.

Three Ways to Improve Your Online Presence, One Blog

January 22, 2018 by Karin Beery Leave a Comment

Running a business requires more than one skill set. It’s not enough to create the products your selling or provide a certain service – you also need to have a good understanding of finances, accounting, marketing, customer service, etc.

Or you need to know someone else who understands those things.

As a copywriter, I love to share tips about how businesses and organizations can improve their online presence, but there’s more to it than just writing. That’s why I’m partnering with two other professionals who have the knowledge and experience it takes to strengthen a brand. I’m excited to announce my partnership with graphic designer Sierra Kellermeyer of S. Kellermeyer Designs and social media strategist Leslie Krukowski of Black Dog Business Group.

Sierra Kellermeyer who helps business owners who are tired of their marketing efforts pulling “okay” results. She helps them stand out online by designing a noteworthy visual brand that attracts their ideal clients effortlessly. She says, “My favorite part of brand design is the marriage of creativity and strategy. I’m not simply creating something beautiful, I’m creating something beautiful that works and has a purpose.”

There’s a lot of misconception about visual branding, with people thinking it’s just about looking good, but it’s more than that. “Your visual brand is a communication tool, and if you’re only trying to make something that looks nice, rather than telling your audience about your business, you’re missing out.”

Sierra will be sharing her visual branding tips in February, May, August, and November. In the meantime, you can find her online at:

https://www.skellermeyerdesigns.com/
https://www.facebook.com/skellermeyerdesigns2014/

Leslie understands the power of social media (having attracted out-of-state clients through her effective use of posts and hashtags), and she wants to help other business owners learn how to harness it too. By staying up-to-date with algorithms, trends, and social media best practices, she has helped businesses grow their audiences and improve sales.

Leslie will be sharing her social media tips in March, June, September, and December. You can find her online at:

https://www.blackdogbusinessgroup.com/
https://www.facebook.com/blackdogbusinessgroup/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/25019406/
https://www.instagram.com/blackdogbusinessgroup/

I’ll still be sharing my content tips as well, but I’m thrilled to be able to offer so much more on this blog, and I hope you’ll join us to learn more about how you can strengthen your online presence!

Do you have any questions for the experts? If so, please leave a comment below!

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Four Simple Ways to Reuse Your Content in 2018

January 9, 2018 by Karin Beery Leave a Comment

Maintaining a blog isn’t easy, even if you have decades of experience that you can share. There are only so many topics that your audience cares about, and only so many ways to talk about those topics.

Let’s be honest – how many different ways can you say the same thing? Even I struggle to find new topics and new ways to elaborate on them, and I get paid to write creatively!

So how do you – as a small business owner, entrepreneur, or volunteer for a non-profit – find ways to share new, fresh blog posts? One easy technique is to reuse old material. You don’t necessarily want to repost all of last year’s posts verbatim, but here are some tips for recycling that information so you don’t have to start from scratch each time:

Reorganize Your Lists: Did you write some top-ten lists last year? Take a look at those to see if you can create a new top-ten list that includes some of those tricks. Or maybe you wrote about several similar topics that you can condense into a new top-ten list. Or you can make a list of your most popular top-ten lists! (Don’t forget to include backlinks.)
Create a Series: Remember those posts about a similar topic? Try posting them again in the same week/month, but as part of a series. Give each post a quick, new introduction, then end it with a line that will lead in to the next post. Not only are you reusing previously published material, but by organizing it into a series you’ll help your readers see the connection between topics.
Give It a Good Edit: Look back to some of your earliest posts. Chances are good that you’ve grown as a writer or a professional since you wrote it, and you’ll see ways to improve the post (either grammatically, or because you found a better, new way to do something). If you change more than 50% of the material, you can comfortably consider it a new post entirely. If you change less than that, simply add Revised to the end of the title so your readers will know there’s new material included.
Add an Infographic: Do you have a post that includes a lot of statistics and numbers? Why not put those statistics into an infographic? You can add to the remaining content to fill in the blank spaces if needed, and the infographic will give your readers something eye-catching to share on social media.

Using these four strategies will help you fill in your calendar this year without having to create dozens of new blog posts – that’s time you can spend elsewhere!

What tricks have you found that help you create/reuse content?

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