Do a Webinar, and Build a New Community That Thinks You’re Amazing

Posted on May 29, 2012 by admin

Want to have thousands of people promoting the great benefits of your product or service around the clock, across multiple platforms and without you ever needing to be there? Consider a webinar.

You may be wondering “Should I do a webinar?” The answer is yes, especially if there’s any how-to angle of your product or service your viewers will find meaningful. Webinars aren’t what they used to be. Today’s social media tools, video tagging tools and smartphones mean webinars are easy to access and provide an in-person touch to your topic. Webinar attendees can respond in real-time across social media platforms, creating more of a sense of genuine learning in a community rather than motionless faces watching someone share a presentation.

Think of it this way – a webinar is your chance to have an online meeting with thousands of people who are actually interested in learning more about what you have to share. You can include online dialogue, view websites as a group, watch videos and then send out a recording of the event for months or years to come. Plus, you can expand your email newsletter list or fans/followers base by capturing information from attendees in a permission-based format.

The subject matter for webinars has also evolved. Try using any customer questions or hot topics from online forums as a foundation for your information, and be willing to step outside of a pure salesmanship role and into the role of educator. This means you are presenting yourself as a local expert among your viewers, and can give you higher customer perceptions and loyalty.

  • Make your webinar more searchable and more interesting with tagged photos, a strong description, links to your blogs and your website, and video components.
  • Be sure to promote your webinar using keywords across your website, your social media posts and especially your blogs.
  • Let people know that dialogue and community learning is a key element, so they’ll be more likely to get involved in the webinar.
  • During the webinar, be sure to keep the chat areas open so that participants can see the dialogue and get involved. A webinar is really more of an onsite laboratory for sharing and learning.
  • Explore newer webinar tools that will allow you to have follow-up breakout webinar sessions on topics that are especially interesting to subgroups of your initial webinar.
  • Consider setting a number on participants. This gives more of a sense of urgency to your webinar and allows for better community-based learning and sharing.
  • After the webinar, (and a reminder, also before!) ask questions across your social media platforms to encourage dialogue about it and encourage people to share the content with others.

Finally, remember when considering “Should I do a webinar?” that it’s another tool in your overall content marketing strategy – and if it’s based upon quality information that gives real value to your readers, it’ll be effective.

If you are ready to add a new component to your overall marketing strategy, and would like to try hosting a webinar, then contact Susan J. Campbell Copywriting Solutions. We can turn your vision into a reality.

Posted in Content Marketing, Webinar marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Java with Jenn

Posted on May 28, 2012 by admin

Welcome to the latest edition of our Monday Morning Coffee Talks. Meet Jenn Milbourne, one of the dynamic members of the SJC team, and someone who took a very interesting path to arrive in the place she is today. Read on as I know you’ll enjoy learning how there is always more than meets the eye to any individual.

We have at least one more person to cover in our Monday talks. From there, we aren’t sure yet what topics we will cover, but we’re working on some exciting concepts, and we’re open to your suggestions. Either way, we hope that you’ll stay tuned to find out!

While I’m outgoing and pretty sociable, I absolutely cringe at the thought of talking about myself. I was born in Fairfax, Mo., and lived in Tarkio, Mo., until my father joined the military and we started our quest around the globe. The Army took us to a variety of interesting places with some of my favorites being Washington, D.C., and Colorado.

When my parents divorced and dad retired, my younger brother and I moved with our mother back to Tarkio. After high school graduation I attended both Missouri Western State University and Northwest Missouri State University where I first studied art history and then English but always wanted to be in medicine. Education has been a funny journey for me.

Here are some other fun facts:

  • My father was an Army Ranger and worked with the U.S. Secret Service which put him on the White House duty station. Yes, my father was a body guard for both Reagan and Bush, Sr.
  • I had lunch one time in the White House kitchen. I don’t remember much but that my sandwich wasn’t that good.
  •  I once put bubble gum over my eye lids to scare my brother and my eyes were stuck shut. I was about 9 years old, give me a break!
  •  I was a cheerleader, sprinter on the track team, catcher on the softball team and absolutely love volleyball. While I couldn’t do a toe touch to save my life I still play volleyball year round.
  • My husband and I are die-hard KU fans and named our almost three-year-old son “Hawke”. And like Polly (another member of the SJC Team) we didn’t know what we were having. It was a wonderful surprise!
  •  I have a beautiful 12-year-old daughter, Ashton.
  • I love doing home improvement projects but I’m sure my husband doesn’t like that I like this. He’s really good at pretty much everything and I have ideas out the wazoo. Yes, I can sheet rock, stain, paint and run most electric tools.
  • I love taking pictures. I’ve taken senior pictures, weddings, engagement photos, etc. I just bought a new camera and am excited about the nice weather to get out and play with it.
  • Secret: I’m kind of a hillbilly. I like to ride ATVs with my friends and get muddy. My husband and I also have a rail buggy that we’ve been working on getting street legal.
  •  I’m trying to learn more about wine and I hate “girly” drinks.
  •  I’ve been with my husband, Bob, for nearly 9 years and will celebrate out 3rd wedding anniversary on New Year’s Day.

Susan’s take on Jenn –

Jenn is one of those fun personalities that has the ability to juggle multiple tasks all at the same time. When we needed to add another writing talent to our team, Jenn’s name immediately popped into my head. I had the pleasure of meeting her a few years ago as she was interested in doing something similar to what I was doing – seeking a passion for writing on her own terms. The fact that Jenn could take complicated topics and spin them into informative, SEO-based content that could drive traffic throughout the Web made her a good fit for our team.

As we continue to grow and expand our base, it’s exciting to see the different personalities and what they bring to the table. We’re happy to have Jenn as a part of this dynamic and fast-growing team.

Posted in Content Marketing, Monday Morning Coffee | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Newsletter Marketing – an Often Overlooked Means of Generating Referrals

Posted on May 25, 2012 by admin

“Work smart, not hard,” a wise person once said. Many times business owners forget that their current customer base is a great source of future income streams. Instead of generating leads the hard way, why not let your customers bring new leads to you? Reaching out to your current customer base via newsletter marketing can help deter the loss of hard-earned business while bringing on new clients at the same time.

Too often businesses ignore their customers after their initial interaction is complete. Your customers need to be reminded that you still exist but in a non-gimmicky, non-sales kind of way. With newsletter marketing, you’re telling them you’re still around without actually telling them you’re still around.

The idea is top-of-mind response.  By staying at the forefront of your customer’s thoughts, they are more likely to seek you out and tell others about your services 1) because you have taken care of them in the past, and 2) you are continuing – albeit subtly – to remind them you are here for them again if they or someone they know needs your services.

There are several key points to keep in mind to maximize referral generation from newsletter marketing. First, use your newsletter as a means to educate – a piece that is honest and informative will go a long way toward forging a lasting bond while keeping you in the forefront of conversation and thought.

Second, content should be customer-focused and interesting. A newsletter will only be shared with others is if it is relevant, engaging and personal. Avoid making the newsletter egocentric; instead, focus on subjects your customers would find interesting. By making the content share-worthy, you increase your chances of gaining referrals.

Finally, get your newsletter into the hands of as many people as possible. Make it available at your website; treat it like the business card of the past. And, don’t forget to use your newsletter to acknowledge those that are generating referrals; it may motivate others to do the same.

If you’d like to see how newsletter marketing can bring business to you, give us a call. We can help make yours something worth talking about.

At Susan J. Campbell Copywriting, we have a passion for communicating your message with your customer base. Newsletter marketing is a great tool in your communication mix. If you’re not sure how to leverage this tool, or simply don’t have the time, we can help. For more information, give us a call today.

Posted in Content Marketing, Newsletter Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Does Your Brand Shine in Your Writing?

Posted on May 24, 2012 by admin

Believe it or not, this is an important question. Everything you do as a representative of your brand impacts that brand – including your writing. Never is that message more clear than when you notice a writing mistake.

As a marketing and content creation company, we are actively involved in blogging – obviously – and social media platforms. We like to provide our content via Twitter, offering our followers the opportunity to click through a link to read our posts.

And, like a good marketer, I try to use great tweets to entice people to click through and even re-tweet our posts. When successful, we like to celebrate. When I notice a typo, I cringe. Too often, I see what I want to be in the text and not what should be there. Not the best way to communicate the value of our brand.

Likewise, your brand means something to you, but it could mean something completely different to your audience. Have you captured the voice of your customer? Do you understand what they expect from your brand? If not, it may be time to capture some perceptions among your core base.

When you clearly define your brand, you can work that definition into your writing. Perhaps you need to write an ad, a blog, an article, a website page, etc. that communicates a specific message. Whatever you write, it needs to follow a specific formula applied to all your communications to ensure a consistent message and one that supports your brand.

One of the best things to do is to have a solid performer as your second set of eyes – something I failed to do before scheduling our Twitter posts. Did I happen to mention that one of my typos was re-tweeted by a local company? Yes, my typo was pushed out to a wider audience, but it was during my ‘thank you’ message to the company that I noticed I had something to fix.

If I were to poll my clients today, I hope some of our feedback would include the realization that while we are not perfect, we do try to go to great lengths to make them look good. We will jump through hoops and we will make it right if we fall short. My name is on everything – and that matters.

Fortunately, we have a strong team here at Susan J. Campbell Copywriting Solutions, and they all love what they do and care about the end result. When you have that kind of passion behind your brand, it should show in your writing. To learn how, give us a call.

Posted in Brand, Content Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Why You Need an Expert Writing Your Blog

Posted on May 23, 2012 by admin

You have your website up and running and you’ve added a blog tab for your customers and interested parties to read the valuable content you provide. You even consider yourself a good writer, but is that enough to make sure your blogs are not only read, but also found? It may be time to consider getting some help writing your blog.

If you’re in business, doing something you are passionate about, you should be focused on that passion. When writing doesn’t come naturally to you and you haven’t honed your skills in search engine optimization, or you simply don’t have time, that’s an indication that you need a little help.

Blog writing at one time was an opportunity for those with a lot of opinions to share their insight with the world. Topics ranged from why you should home school your children to how to start your own business, and everything in between. These blogs served as more of a sounding board for those with strong opinions rather than valuable content for information sharing.

Today, the blog serves a different purpose. From saving money (Money Saving Mom) to demonstrating the power of social media (Social Media Examiner), blog sites are popping up that offer valuable content and interesting conversation, while also generating significant revenue for those running the blog.

Time and again, the blog serves as one of the most powerful tools for driving organic traffic to your site. It also serves as a unique platform for demonstrating the expertise you bring to the industry. Different from an article, the blog offers an opportunity to get more personal with your readers and entice them to act on the information you provided.

Why should you hire an expert to help with writing your blog if you’re seeking to secure your place in the industry as an expert? While you can certainly create your own content to push out to your readers, but if it isn’t optimized, your prospective customers won’t find you. And, if you can’t keep up with posts on a daily or weekly basis (daily is recommended), you’ll have a hard time gaining readership.

An expert in the business of creating and marketing a blog is money well-spent if you’re looking for a way to reach out to and engage with your audience. It’s also the perfect opportunity to integrate with your social media tools for an even broader reach.

At Susan J. Campbell Copywriting Solutions, we write blogs for our clients on a daily basis. We learn their business, understand the message they are trying to convey and pull from industry news to deliver value to their readers. At the same time, we optimize that content to ensure it gets found and read. If you need this kind of assistance, you’ve come to the right place. Contact us today and we’ll show you how to get started.

Posted in Blog Writing, Content Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Now That You Have Them, What Will You Do to Engage Your Audience?

Posted on May 22, 2012 by admin

Remember catching a firefly on a summer night as a child, or maybe catching a brilliant jar full? In some ways, it’s a little bit like engaging your audience with content marketing tools. The question is the same:  now that you have a healthy batch of devoted, interested fans, friends and re-Tweeters, what will you do with them?

This is where the fun really begins. As described in a post from Marketing Tech News, having great numbers on your social media tools and website traffic that’s on the rise is just the beginning. Keeping your audience engaged with quality content marketing and communications strategies is the next step, and it’s a big one.

Think of this timeframe after you’ve built a strong buzz about your organization online as a critical phase of change. Now you’ve got the attention of some potential leads, supporters and buyers – don’t let their fire fade. They believe they will hear something valuable from your organization, and with a few key tips, you can deliver.

First, consider your social media activity as part of a carefully planned strategy, or as part of an overall campaign. This means not posting randomly, but making a list of keywords for optimizing your search rankings and placing those keywords into a calendar stating how you’ll deliver that content. This can include who will post, about what topic or link, with which keywords, on what timeframe.

Remember that every message you put forth across your social media is a chance to answer a readers’ question, give them a new perspective or find out what they have to say. Keep posting quality, valuable content on a regular basis and give your users a chance to be part of the action. Try contests, surveys or how-tos. Thank them for being there for you and believing in your brand. By the same note, don’t overpost and certainly no desperate pleas.  Engaging your audience with content marketing tools is about inspiring people to take a next action step, not smothering them.

Ultimately, engaging your audience of friends and fans you’ve worked diligently to gain hinges on your ability to strategize, to offer valuable information and to let them let their own light shine. Repost and share what they have to say about your brand, and acknowledge that their opinions count. After all, great content marketing is sometimes about stepping back and taking in the vibrance your 1,754 friends bring to your brand.

If you’re ready to explore those elements that draw your customers in, give us a call. At Susan J. Campbell Copywriting, we’re focused on learning your business so we can best serve you. To learn more – contact us today.

Posted in Brand, Content Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Monday Morning Coffee Talk with Stephanie

Posted on May 21, 2012 by admin

My name is Stephanie Girvan, and I was born and raised around the St. Joseph area. I was always the one who said I was leaving St. Joseph and never coming back. Well, I’m still here, but one of my passions has always been traveling. I spent the summer after graduation studying in Costa Rica. I love learning about other people and cultures – especially Latin culture, so I sort of expected to end up marrying a foreigner. I just thought my husband would be Latino. Instead, I met my husband, David, an Aussie, after quitting my job as an insurance agent to teach English in Argentina. I never went to Argentina, but David and I are getting ready to celebrate our fourth wedding anniversary this May.

Last year in November we were blessed with the birth of our first child, a boy, Solomon David. At the time I became pregnant, I was working full-time in retail. Funny how that works – I worked retail in college to support myself while going to school. Several years later, I graduated with my undergraduate degree from Missouri Western then earned my MBA from the University of Missouri, Kansas City, only to find myself right back in retail. Go figure. Everyone tells you that having a child will change your life. I don’t think I realized how much it would change my life till after he was here. After spending four months at home with my son, I realized I couldn’t go back to work – at least the way I had previously defined it. Thankfully, God brought Susie into my life at just the right time, providing me with an opportunity to work from home without sacrificing precious time with my son.

A few of my favorite things:

  • Adventure – I’m always up to try something new – except roller coasters because now that I’m older they make me sick!
  •  Milo – an Australian chocolate drink made from malted barley
  •  Laughing – a good laugh does wonders for the soul
  •  Zumba – a throwback to my old salsa dancing days
  • Warm weather – I love the sun!

Words I believe that describe me:

  • Passionate, driven, and a little silly
  •  Favorite bible verse: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” Phillipians 4:23

Susan’s words on Stephanie –

Aside from Jenny Wescoat, I’ve known Stephanie the longest of all the members on our team. (I was forced to know Jenny when our parents decided one daughter wasn’t good enough and she stripped me of my title as “Favorite”. JK – Jenny knows I love her!) We actually met at Missouri Western taking marketing classes, forced into a study group together under the tutelage of Dr. Sharon Wagner. We quickly discovered a number of similarities in our approach to life and faith and became fast friends.

As often occurs in life, we went our separate ways, pursuing our own passions and following the paths of different opportunities. I discovered Stephanie was back in town when I found her on MySpace a few years back and then happened to attend the same Zumba class a while later. At about the same time, when we needed to expand our team and Stephanie joined us as a writer.

When a promotion called for her in retail and her pregnancy settled in, it was time for Stephanie to move on and we mourned the loss of an excellent writer with a wonderful work ethic. Fortunately for us, the arrival of that baby brought us full circle. We needed to expand our team again and Stephanie was looking for an opportunity to work from home.

I’m excited that Stephanie is back and bringing her talents with her. She’s filling a great need and her experience and marketing education are a perfect fit for our expanding customer base. We’re just at the beginning – I can’t wait to see where this takes us.

Posted in Monday Morning Coffee | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Importance of Relevant Content in Search Engine Optimization

Posted on May 18, 2012 by admin

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is not about just throwing a bunch of unrelated key words together in the hopes of getting noticed. In fact, if that’s your strategy, you’re likely to get flagged as SPAM and go straight to the bottom of search engine queries.

SEO is all about being at the right place at the right time with the right information. Getting traffic to your site is really just the first step. What do you have to offer your viewers once they’re there? Information on your website has to be relevant and interesting. We all want to be entertained, don’t we? It’s like inviting guests over to your house – if they don’t have a good time, chances are they won’t hang around long or plan to return again anytime soon.

At Susan J. Campbell Copywriting Solutions, we understand the market and want to help you find your voice. We’d love to partner with you to bring fresh content to your site that will continue to draw a buzz. Relevancy also begins at the sites where potential clients may be searching for you. Creative content will help attract people from the surrounding sites and draw them into yours.

A few years ago, the Internet was flooded with less than stellar content as SEO experts valued quantity over quality; they were spewing out information just to get onto the web. Today’s search engine filters and algorithms are much more sophisticated. Relevancy plays a key role in how search engines pull up and rank your information. Susan J. Campbell Copywriting Solutions is focused on producing quality, creative pieces, and we have the experience and know-how to help you get noticed.

So the next time you need a unique piece to capture your target audience, give us a shout. We’ll put the focus back on you where it belongs. At SJC, our philosophy is, we write; you shine.

Posted in Content Marketing, SEO | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Building a Better Content Marketing Strategy

Posted on May 17, 2012 by admin

The content revolution has taken hold of the online world and if you’re not on board, you may be missing out on key opportunities to drive traffic to your website, convert lookers to opportunities; opportunities to leads; and leads to closed sales. It all starts with great content and a strong content marketing strategy.

In your quest to determine the best roadmap for building out the right content marketing strategy, you’re coming to come across a wealth of information – some of it good, some just OK. There are leaders in the field and then there is common sense. The good news is you don’t have to invest significant amounts of money to learn how to use your content to your benefit. Here, we’ll show you three tips to building a better content marketing strategy that drives results.

If You Build it, They Will Come –

The phrase likely brings back fond memories of Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones standing in the cornfield turned baseball diamond, but the concept here applies across multiple industries and for various purposes. In our case, it serves as a metaphor for building great content. Consumers have too many outlets for finding information and they quickly lose patience for sites with poor information or that lack clear value.

Your content marketing strategy should serve to build a foundation for quality traffic to be driven to your site or your blog. Once there, you want your readers to do something. Before you can inspire them to act, however, they must be drawn to what you have built.

Include a Surprise Inside –

Why were Cracker Jacks so popular? It wasn’t because the caramel coated popcorn and peanuts were so tasty we couldn’t get enough. It was all about the prize. We couldn’t wait to munch it down to find what was waiting at the bottom of the box. (Never mind the fact that Cracker Jacks prizes have diminished greatly in value over the years – we still like the surprise.)

Do the same thing with your content. If you only offer what is expected, your readers are likely to get bored with what you have to say – no matter how much intelligence you bring to a topic. Include a video or a picture to take your content to the next level. And, don’t assume the video needs to be a boring recap of the information you’re already sharing in your content. Think funny, and shareable.

Keep it Personal – But Not Too Personal –

In keeping it personal, this basically means you need to remember that you are writing for humans and not for robots. Keep the approach personal, as if you are having a conversation. But, don’t include the personal details of your life or your day unless they absolutely apply to your brand, your product line and your audience. Even then, keep it brief. Customers want to know what you can do for them, not how you feel about your cats that day.

It really isn’t difficult to develop a powerful content marketing strategy, but the key word is strategy. If you’re writing just to write, buy a journal. If you’re writing for results, you need a strategy. Need help getting started? That’s exactly what we do. Contact Susan J. Campbell Copwyriting Solutions and we’ll show you the way.

Posted in Content Marketing, Marketing Strategy | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

3 Tips to Successful SEO

Posted on May 16, 2012 by admin

SEO – you know you’ve heard and seen the acronym countless times, but what does it mean to your online experience? Should you care? If you want to be found by your target audience searching online, SEO, or search engine optimization is an important tool.

To conduct your SEO writing for anything you put online, there are a few tips to remember. You don’t want to overdue the number of keywords you put into your content. Likewise, an shortfall can render your SEO efforts pointless. You do want to have a good balance within your article or blog, but the quality of the content is even    more important.

To help get you started, here are three tips to effective SEO writing to maximize your online experience and make sure your prospective customers find you:

  1. Identify those keywords you can actually rank for – this step is often overlooked by writers who set out to dominate their industry. There are specific keywords and keyword phrases that are so competitive, it will take a lot of time, energy and cost to rank in the top pages on Google, Yahoo! Or Bing search results. Think longtail keywords if you really want to dominate with your SEO efforts.Take your targeted keyword and turn it into a longer phrase that applies to your specific niche. That not only enables you to focus on optimizing for that keyword, it also affords the opportunity to narrow your target to reach those more likely to find you and make a purchase.
  2. Understand how your target audience is searching for you – this step also applies to step 1. As you are building out your primary keyword list, you need to understand the phrases your target audience is using to find you. Then, understand their methods for searching. Are they truly using a search engine, or are they looking for you on Facebook? Are they wanting to get into the conversation on Twitter or do they want to see your latest video on YouTube? You don’t want to forget to bring your SEO into the social networks if conversations regarding your brand are more likely taking place.
  3. Make sure you are providing value – just about anyone writing online today can take a concept, add the right number of keyword phrases, post to article directories and start to drive links back to their primary site or blog. But, if the content they are creating offers nothing of value to the reader, their efforts in SEO and other methods are wasted. All search engines look for relevance and quality content – if you aren’t providing value to the reader, your site will quickly lose rank.

So much more can be said regarding SEO and content creation that truly drives results, but these three tips provide important insight into how to get started. If you’re ready to take that next step and need some help, we’re ready and waiting. At Susan J. Campbell Copwriting Solutions, we specialize in helping companies created the quality and SEO-rich content necessary to get noticed. Contact us today for more information.

Posted in Content Marketing, Copywriting, SEO | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments