In most cases, B2B sales take a little longer because there is no impulse buying as there is with consumer products such as clothes or gadgets.

B2B sales involve a more rational choice, taking into account various factors such as functionality, price or a company’s reputation.

Different offers are usually compared and a decision is made in a face-to-face or online meeting.

But in order to get to that meeting, you must first attract the interest of the person or persons who will make the decision to hire your service or buy your product.

And to capture the interest of your target audience, there is nothing better than content marketing.

While in the case of consumer products, advertising on platforms like Instagram or TikTok and influencer marketing work best, in the case of B2B, content and media are very different.

And that is what we are going to look at here.

Stay with me for a few minutes if you want to learn what content you need to create for your B2B business.

First step: educate and inform

Owning a business or running a department means having a lot of knowledge in different areas, and this can lead to feeling overwhelmed by all the information that is out there.

In addition, the speed at which technology is advancing forces business owners and managers to keep abreast of technological developments in their industries.

So one of your goals when creating valuable content for your B2B audience is to provide them with the information they need to be up to date, chewed and digestible.

There is nothing people value more than content that helps them quickly understand complex issues that they need to do their jobs.

Your target audience spends at least an hour a day consuming content related to their industry that provides them with valuable insights for their work.

Having a blog with informative articles is a very powerful weapon when it comes to making your brand known to your potential customers.

A well-written and well-researched blog will keep people reading, and the longer people stay on your website the higher up Google will place it on the results page.

Recommended reading How to increase organic traffic to your website

As well as raising awareness of your brand, you have the opportunity to educate your target audience about your solution.

Your prospects may not even know that a solution like yours exists for their problem, and when they read about it, they may realise that they need your solution.

But maybe they didn’t even know they had a problem!

Therefore, you need to know what stage of awareness your target audience is at and write a variety of articles targeting each stage.

For example, if your prospect has not identified a problem or need, talk to them about the consequences of that problem and the benefits of meeting that need.

Let me give you a real-life example.

I write content for a global pest control company.

It’s called Anticimex and it’s the first company in its sector to develop pest control solutions that minimize the use of toxic substances that harm the environment.

Most organisations today are very aware of the importance of sustainability in their operations, not only because customers demand it, but also because of increasingly stringent legislation.

Many companies are unaware that there is such a thing as “Integrated Pest Management” (IPM), which is a way of effectively managing pests by maximising new technologies to minimise the use of toxic substances.

For Anticimex I’m creating assets like eBooks, customer stories, LinkedIn posts and blog articles that talk about the existence of this system and the advantages of applying it, not only to protect the environment, but also to avoid loss of materials, product contamination or loss of reputation, which has an enormous economic impact.

In short, we are educating and informing our target audience about the options available when it comes to pest control, which is a huge and growing problem for many, many companies.

But not only can you provide information in the form of articles or e-books, you can also create videos.

Ann Hadley is the mind behind Marketing Profs, one of the longest running and most experienced B2B marketing platforms.

These are the findings of a recent study into the best formats for sharing B2B content.

So concentrate mainly on these 4 formats.

In the next point, we will focus on customer success stories, as these are the ones that will really help you differentiate your company.

Step 2: Differentiate

As well as informing and educating, you need to be able to differentiate your solution.

Once your prospects are aware that they have a problem and need a solution, they will compare several options before choosing one, so it’s at this point that you need to give them compelling reasons to choose your solution.

And a great way to demonstrate that your solution works is to create customer success stories.

You can create them in video or slideshow format.

The most important thing is the content, which needs to convey the transformation your client has experienced by working with you.

The structure is always the same and is very similar to those used in film scripts:

• Situation – who the customer is (sometimes you may not be able to mention the name, but you can mention their industry and size. “A pharmaceutical company with 5,000 employees“).
• Problem – Describe the problem they had in their own words. Don’t forget to mention if worked with other companies and they couldn’t help solve the problem.
• Your Solution – How you helped them solve the problem. Describe the key steps and progress if it was a long project.
• Results – Compare where they were at the start and where they are now. Make sure these results are desirable and relatable without exaggerating their benefits.

This structure is very similar to the transformation experienced by the protagonists in most commercial films.

In this article I explain in detail what elements should not be missing from your success story and analyse several real-life examples, so you can learn what to emphasise when creating yours.

Customers might not want to appear on video, even if that’s one of the best success story formats since we can hear and see the customer explaining that change.

If they don’t want to appear in the video, but don’t mind their company appearing, it’s also ok. You can use pictures of the workplace and a voice-over.

Another way to highlight your solution is to create posts on LinkedIn that gradually convince your target audience about your difference.

Keep in mind that this is a lengthy process, as posts that are directly sales-oriented will not normally get a lot of traction.

On LinkedIn, you need to gradually build your audience and gain their trust by showing them that they have a lot of good reasons to trust your company.

These are some of the posts that work best on LinkedIn:

• Presentations that explain a specific topic
• How-to videos that show how your tool or process works
• Fun videos from your workplace to show your company culture
• Longer articles to explain more complex issues that need clarification
• Images of you and your staff to show you are real people
• Success story presentations or videos

Do’s and don’ts of targeting B2B audiences

The person who watches your video or reads your e-book is just that, a person, not an entity.

Therefore, just as we do when creating B2C content, we have to imagine a specific person with a specific problem if we want to be convincing.

Imagine that vendor, HR or IT manager and talk to him or her.

To make sure that the message you want to convey reaches that person and is relevant, imagine your prospect asking you these three questions:

• What do you mean by this?
• Why should I choose your solution and not another?
• How does it benefit me?
• Really…?

Answering these 4 questions is crucial to differentiate your solution and gain your prospect’s trust.

Before you hit the “publish” button, stop for a moment and ask yourself if what you are writing is: clear, differentiates you, puts the customer at the centre and is credible.

Be transparent

Exaggerating benefits and talking only about successes is not going to bring people closer to your company.

Most of us don’t believe in meaningless miracles, but in coherent solutions.

Humility and honesty have been shown to be more appreciated than that business jargon that only talks about triumphs and say things like “we are proud to announce…”.

Communicate in a simple way, without resorting to those hip business jargon that ultimately say nothing and make messages sound empty.

Avoid overused expressions like:

“Holistic service tailored to our customers’ needs”.

“Market leader”.

“Customer satisfaction is our priority”

Surely you have much more interesting messages to convey than these clichés that do nothing to differentiate your brand.

Understand what your customers need and what they value most about your service and communicate it clearly and persuasively.

One example of a company that does it very well is Miro, a collaboration platform.

They do an excellent job of explaining the benefits of using their platform, and the advantages are clear from the moment

you start reading.

Give priority to clarity over originality.

Yes, you need to differentiate your business, but not at any price.

Let me explain.

If you’re thinking about a headline and you want it to grab people’s attention so they read on, don’t use a weird phrase that people will struggle to understand.

All content needs to promise value.

So that the investment of people’s time will bear fruit.

Either because they learn something new or because they satisfy their curiosity.

It’s true that the unusual attracts more attention, but people don’t have time to try to decipher riddles.

Clarity, above all.

Don’t forget the human component

The most common problem with B2B content is that there’s a palpable fear of being unprofessional and a preference to stick to the boring and trite.

Just take a look at LinkedIn and see what most companies are posting.

They robotically repeat formulas a thousand times over, business jargon and insincerity that make their content boring as hell.

So never forget that you are writing and creating for a real person, not an inanimate entity.

Most of us want human connection, emotion and entertainment.

And these 3 things aren’t necessarily at odds with professionalism.

As long as you use correct language, show that you know what you’re talking about and don’t lapse into cheesiness, your content will come across as professional without boring people to death.

The digital media that works best for B2B

LinkedIn is the quintessential B2B social network.

A company without a profile on it is a nobody.

If you don’t already have one, create a profile and publish regular posts that educate, inform, differentiate and entertain.

Your website also needs to be well maintained, as it’s your digital identity and the trustworthiness of your brand depends on it.

Keep it up to date and make sure the landing pages where you sell your product or service are really well written and designed.

These landing pages are extremely important for giving your prospects that final push they need to schedule a meeting or download a demo.

These pages give you the time and space to present all your sales arguments that explain why your solution is what your prospect needs.

You can include explanatory videos, customer testimonials, features, etc.

Finally, if you have an email list of prospects, you can gradually educate, inform and persuade them.

To grow your contact list, you need to create valuable downloadable content in exchange for an email address, or what we also call lead magnets.

If you need help with your B2B content strategy contact me and we will look at what kind of content works best for your business so you can finally start to see tangible results.

I’m talking about those direct messages on LinkedIn that you don’t even read because you know in less than a nanosecond that they’re trying to sell you something.

And you just ignore them.

You don’t want to be one of those ignored messages.

Neither do I, which is why I’ve spent a lot of time and practice perfecting my DMs.

LinkedIn was created to facilitate networking and job searches.

Now it’s the social network that freelancers and businesses use to promote themselves and get new clients.

But who said it was easy?

I certainly didn’t.

Look, I’m not here to rub your nose in the hundreds of clients I get on LinkedIn by sending a template message that took me 5 minutes to write.

Truth: I’m not good at lying.

Out of maybe twenty or so messages I send, two work, but those two have already paid for the time I’ve invested.

As you can see, my method is not infallible, but it has a pretty high conversion rate, and that’s what counts.

Want to know how I do it?

Then stay and pay close attention.

Waste your time posting every day or invest it in strategic messaging? It’s up to you

Do you feel depressed when you open LinkedIn and see your competitors’ daily posts and the truisms 🥱people comment on each other’s posts?

Well, don’t, because most people spend a lot of time doing this and get very little return on their precious time.

Let me explain.

These posts only appear in the feeds of the people who follow them, and in most cases these are not their target customers.

So they may get a lot of interaction, but in the end, they get minimal results for the time invested.

The reality is that your potential customers are also busy feeling depressed by the rate at which their competitors are posting, and in the end it all becomes a Catch-22.

To break this vicious cycle, you have to be prepared to take some action.

And that’s what we will see here.

But first, let’s talk about the elephant in the room.

The almighty personal brand

My motto is: Less personal branding, more sales.

We are all obsessed with becoming social media celebrities.

But the reality is that only a few achieve real results from all the time and work they put into recording videos, creating presentations, interviews, etc.

If that’s what you want to do, go ahead, I won’t be the one to stop you.

But if you’re someone who doesn’t like competing for people’s attention all the time, and you prefer to invest your time and effort in getting flesh-and-blood clients who will pay you for a gig, then you need to go straight for them.

And one way to do this is with direct messages on LinkedIn and a well-thought-out strategy.

Here is the first step you should take.

Create a list of prospects

LinkedIn is an invaluable source of information.

There you can find those key people who work in the companies or agencies you want to collaborate with or those clients to whom you want to sell your services directly.

LinkedIn is the most effective social network if you sell to other companies (B2B).

If you sell consumer products (B2C), you’d be better off trying other channels such as Instagram or TikTok.  

Here we will focus on B2B.

First, you need to be very clear about who you want to sell to.

Who are those companies that are closest to buying your products/services.

And you know that after having done in-depth research on your buyer persona.

Only then will you be able to search LinkedIn for the companies and contacts within companies to send direct messages to.

Try to write to contacts who have decision-making power within the company.

For example, purchasing managers, marketing managers, HR managers, etc.

Once you have your list of contacts, create an Excel file with the following columns:

An Excel spreadsheet like this will help you easily track your interactions with leads.

In the column that says LinkedIn, copy the link to the person’s profile so you can always find them.

It’s important to note whether they have responded to you, and whether the response was positive or negative.

If you haven’t heard back after three attempts, forget the lead.

Same if you get a negative reply.

Don’t be a nightmare.

If they’re not interested, don’t bother.

I leave at least a week between attempts. Don’t overwhelm them by sending messages every other day.

And don’t be disappointed if you don’t get a reply the first time, I have often received a reply on the third attempt.

People are busy and don’t have time to respond to everything that comes their way. Also, many people don’t check LinkedIn every day.

How to send DMs without paying LinkedIn Premium

LinkedIn Premium is not cheap and I understand if you aren’t planning to pay for it.

Without this mode, you won’t be able to send direct messages to people you aren’t connected to.

Use the free months of LinkedIn Premium to send more DMs, and if you have the basic version, send contact invitations to the people you’ve identified as potential customers.

Ideally, you should have already exchanged comments on their posts, although this isn’t strictly necessary.

My experience is that most people will accept your invitation as long as you’ve added a personal note.

A successful contact request note should have the following ingredients:

• Say that you have similar interests or work in the same industry
• Comment on something positive about the company or person
• If it’s someone very active on LinkedIn, say that you like their posts
• Introduce yourself without trying to sell anything (yet)

These contact request notes have a maximum of 200 characters, so you won’t be able to go into much detail.

This is where you need to use your summarising skills to the maximum and say what is important in very few words.

See a real example of a contact request:

“Hi John,

I saw your post with your own headline for Purple – what a great idea!

I want to see more of your posts 😊

Greetings

Elena”

I wrote this note to an executive of a marketing agency.

We all love to receive positive feedback, with a message like this no one will ignore you.

Now let’s look at an example of a contact note for someone who doesn’t publish, so we can’t comment on anything they’ve posted.

“Hello Carmen,

I have seen that you are involved in personal development, this is a topic that interests me a lot and I thought it would be great to have you as a contact.

Best regards,

Elena”

As you can see, they are simple messages, written in friendly language and without any element that smacks of salesmanship.

If you try to sell too early, they’ll ignore you because they don’t want any more messages from people trying to sell abruptly from minute one.

Not to mention the scams that are so prevalent on LinkedIn!

Now that you have them as a contact, get a little closer.

Most people who contact me on LinkedIn to sell me something try to do so almost immediately after I have accepted them.

This puts me off, so I ignore them. You probably do the same.

Don’t make this mistake when you’re the one approaching people.

Let at least a few days pass before trying.

First, you need to get to know your target customer and think about how you want to approach this second contact.

You might consider that offering your service straight away might work.

And the truth is that many people appreciate getting to the point rather than beating around the bush.

Another way to engage them before sending a sales message is to comment on their posts or send them links to content they might be interested in, such as an article or video on a topic related to their industry.

If you have a lead magnet, it might be a good time to send it to them.

But don’t fool yourself, lead magnets are all the rage and people know very well that they are a preamble to a sale.

And that’s fine.

I mean, if the lead magnet offers value to your prospect and you make them see it that way, they’ll want it, but you have to “sell” it very well, even if it’s a freebie.

Examples of direct messages designed to sell

If you decide to send a pure sales-oriented message, you need to prepare it in advance.

Identify a specific problem that the person or company may have.

Go into detail. Generalities are useless, unconvincing and boring.

Sit down and think about what this person or company needs.

Most want more sales.

Or if it’s someone who is doing pretty well, maybe what they need is more time and you can help them tons of it with your software or service.

Perhaps what they need is more structure in their business, and you help entrepreneurs have more clarity in their goals so they can grow.

Think about the problem your product or service solves and focus on selling them a concrete solution to a concrete problem.

It is also very important to identify what differentiates you from your competitors.

What you have that they don’t or aren’t talking about.

To do this, you will have done your competitive research beforehand, which is essential to building a marketing strategy that works.

If you still don’t know what your unique selling proposition is, don’t miss this article where I guide you step by step to find it.

To understand all this better, let’s look at an example of a message I sent to a Spanish company.

Hello X,

I have seen that (company name) is growing and that you are opening up markets in India and Korea.

Congratulations, it is always a source of pride when a Spanish company does well abroad.

I am writing to you because I have helped several Spanish companies, such as (name and company), which also export abroad, to communicate in English and, as a result, they have seen an increase in their portfolio of clients abroad.

I have helped them to get more leads by using

– Cold emails to prospects

– Persuasive copy that differentiates the product for the web, social media and explanatory brochures.

– Video scripts 

One of the companies I worked for landed two major clients in China, resulting in a 30% increase in their business.

All thanks to the emails and website I wrote for them and, of course, a masterful closing of the sale by the salespeople at the meeting I arranged for them.

I have a lot of experience working with international companies operating in different countries, which helps me find ways to convince and interest potential customers who aren’t familiar with the product.

This is my number- +XXXXXXXXXX

I can also help you get more customers outside of Spain.

Give me a call and I will tell you more about how I can do this.

Best regards,

Elena

I have marked in green the part where I offer my solution and proof of authority by mentioning the names of companies I have worked with.

And in blue the part where I state my Unique Selling Proposition, which is having experience with companies abroad, something that not all copywriters have.

Now you might be thinking, “But, what happens if I’m starting and can’t show or mention any examples of work I’ve done before?”.

Don’t worry. You too can get clients through direct messaging on LinkedIn.

In these cases, you need to highlight your unique proposition even more and try to convince them by showing confidence in your skills.

Let’s take a look at an example of an email (I didn’t send it via LinkedIn, but it would work just the same) that I sent at the beginning of my copywriting career to an international school here where I live in The Hague.

They hired me to write the copy for their website without me having much experience.

I knew they were looking for more students because I saw some posts on Facebook advertising the school.

Their web copy was pretty bad, so it was obvious that they were not working with a copywriter.

This is what I wrote to them:

Email subject: An easier way to get more students

Body of the email

Hello,

I saw that you were advertising your school on Facebook. I clicked on one of the posts and it took me to your website.

That’s when I saw something that caught my attention!

But before I tell you what it is, let me introduce myself.

I’m Elena and I write compelling copy that helps businesses grow.

Although my greatest value is not in the writing…

What really helps my clients sell more is that, after studying their service and that of their competitors, I’m able to bring out that unique value they offer that their competitors don’t.

And not only am I able to identify this key value, but I also express it in an original and convincing way that helps my clients multiply their sales.

This is exactly what struck me about your website.

That although you are the only school in The Hague to offer Mandarin Chinese lessons, you don’t advertise this on your website.

I know this may not appeal to all parents, but it is certainly an important point of differentiation!

I’m sure you have other unique values to emphasise and I can help you identify them and express them in a compelling way to attract the attention of those parents that are looking for a quality school for their children.

Contact me on XXXXXXXXX or reply to this email and I will give you more details on how I can help you attract more students.

Best regards,

Elena

The day after sending this email they called me and I worked with them on the website and Facebook posts.

Why did it work?

Because I used several copywriting techniques that never fail.

1. An email subject line that arouses curiosity. Because if they don’t even open the email, it will be difficult to convince them.
2. An introduction with a hook. I mention a piece of information that interests them at the beginning but don’t reveal it until the end so that they read the whole email.
3. I don’t forget to explain clearly how I can help and I already give a clear example, so they can see that I have spent time researching their school.
4. I create another hook by telling them that I have more details on how I can help them but that they will have to contact me to find out.

You can use the same model also on LinkedIn.

To sum up

Don’t get overwhelmed every single day thinking about what are you going to post on LinkedIn.

Also, don’t spend an inordinate amount of time creating presentations or videos in Canva just to get a “like” from your former co-worker, your childhood neighbour or a peer who is actually relieved to see that you’re not doing better than her….

Spend your time connecting with the people who could be real customers.

If you do it right, the time you spend will be much more profitable.

You can also do both.

I mean, one doesn’t take away from the other.

If personal branding is very important to you and your goal is to become a celebrity in your niche, then go for it, I won’t be the one stopping you.

But if you are frustrated of all the nonsense people post online and want to get real customers faster without wasting your time entering the “look-at-how-wise-and-successful-I-am” game, give DMs a try!

You don’t see yourself uploading posts every single day proclaiming how great you are and how much you know.

It’s a way of being exposed and that’s not fun for many of us.

It seems to me that social media has become an annoying hubbub where the presumption reigns that she who makes the most noise is the most right.

When this isn’t the case at all.

Often the opposite is true.

Those who seem more sure of themselves and of what they say, either only state the obvious, or simply repeat what others have said before, only louder.

You might be thinking… Not everything in the socials is negative.

I do use them to find out about events happening near me, have a good laugh or read a post from those people who really have something interesting to say (they’re often the least loud).

When you’re a freelancer – or have your own business – you feel obliged to use social media for promotion.

Everyone says you should be there, adding your voice to the constant chatter.

But you procrastinate and grudgingly post something once in a blue moon that only your friends and family ‘like’.

You don’t want to think too much about it, still, you feel that daily burden on your shoulders…

But there’s something they never say in the socials and it’s that…

There are better ways to get clients without social media.

And you can do great. I’m a living proof!

In fact, I’m convinced that for most small businesses the socials are a waste of time that could be better spent on more effective techniques to find new projects.

Let’s take a look at what techniques work when it comes to finding clients for those businesses that hate don’t like social media.

5 ways to find customers without social media

1.      Blogging and SEO

When I started my copywriting business I decided to invest time and energy on my blog.

I wrote 4 articles per month and searched for the keywords my prospects used in their Google searches.

After 8 months my website was in the top 10 on the Google results page for keywords such as “copywriting examples” or “freelance copywriter“.

And I keep writing articles because it works for me.

80% of the clients I work with have found me on Google.

And I’ve never paid for ads.

Now I don’t have so much time to write 4 posts a month because I’ve got more work than when I started (thank goodness!!!) so I write 1 or 2 posts a month.

Even so, my website is still very well-placed.

Once Google places you in the top search results, you just need to keep your website active by refreshing it with new content and updating the existing one.

Is it an investment of time (or money if you pay someone to write the articles for you)?

Yes, it is.

But one that delivers real results in the medium term.

I read a lot about SEO and keep up to date with Google’s algorithm changes by reading blogs from people who are experts.

And so I apply what I learn to my website to make sure it’s always up to date.

If you want to learn how to place your website in Google’s top results, in this post I explain several SEO techniques. Although I wrote it in 2020, all of them still work today. Check it out!

5 ways of finding clients when you don’t like social media. #marketing #blogging #SmallBiz
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A lot of people are now using AI with tools like ChatGPT to create content, and I think that’s great because it saves a lot of time.

But you shouldn’t just upload the content ChatGPT has come up with because it will lack personality.

ChatGPT is great for giving you ideas on what to write about and finding structure, but you need to add your personal vision to make your content original and interesting.

Uploading poor quality, duplicated or boring content won’t rank well on Google because people won’t stay to read it and then your bounce rate will be too high.

The bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who leave your website as soon as they land on it because they don’t see anything interesting.

Use ChatGPT to generate many different headline options, new ideas for articles or service pages, but then add your vision with examples, anecdotes or references, so it’s not just a robot spitting out content that already exists somewhere else.

If you manage to be consistent and write engaging articles on your blog, Google will reward you by ranking you high on the search results page and customers will be knocking at your door without you having to go looking for them.

Recommended reading: 5 straight-forward ways of attracting organic traffic to your website

2.      Build a mailing list

When I started blogging I also created a lead magnet to get more subscribers to my mailing list.

My lead magnet is a free guide with some basic copywriting techniques to attract international customers to your business.

If visitors want it they need to leave their email address and subscribe to my list. Then they receive an email every 2 weeks with relevant and useful copywriting tips.

Email is a way to reach out to those prospects who haven’t yet taken the decision to hire you or buy your product.

These prospects need more information since they’re still not ready to buy. (Warm audience = they’re interested in your offer but are still on the fence).

Maybe that subscriber won’t hire you right away, but you show up in their mailbox on a regular basis and if someone asks them for a therapist they’ll recommend you, or if one day they decide it’s time to invest in the future of their business, they’ll hire you.

Besides, sending emails is cheap.

Much cheaper than paying for SM ads. And it tends to work better because it creates a closer and more personal relationship.

Your prospect decides to open your email because they’re interested in your content, it’s not like when we feel interrupted with an unsolicited ad on our feeds.

Further reading: How to write an email that won’t be sent directly to the trash folder

5 ways of finding clients when you don’t like social media. #marketing #blogging #SmallBiz
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3.      Networking

We are human and therefore we like to relate to each other.

If you’re introverted you may not always feel like it.

But the truth is that meeting people in the professional sphere opens up more doors and new projects come along.

If you don’t like big events where everyone seems to be a PR expert, there are other ways.

Join coworking groups, or sign up for trainings where you can meet other freelancers or small business owners.

I consider myself a fake extrovert.

When I’m around other people I seem sociable. I talk a lot and I joke around.

But socialising eats up a lot of my energy.

I’m actually quite introverted and most of the time I like to be alone enjoying my own company.

Often my best plan is to stay home reading a book or watching a film.

But I also feel the need to be among other people from time to time. You learn a lot by talking to others.

Some of the clients I work with have met me through other acquaintances or we’ve connected at an event.

Showing your face from time to time at events for entrepreneurs, freelancers, coaches, designers, copywriters, health professionals, whatever it is you do, will bring you business opportunities and also facilitate interesting collaborations.

Although I love working alone and don’t want to be part of a team on a permanent basis, collaborating from time to time on a project with other people fills me with great energy because it’s an opportunity to grow and learn from others.

4.      Send reminders to clients you’ve worked with

Don’t be shy.

Sending a timely email or WhatsApp to your list of clients you’ve already worked with can save your month or quarter.

For instance at Christmas, to wish them happy holidays.

Your email can be the pinch they needed to remind them they want you for a new project.

But you don’t have to wait for Christmas.

Any time is a good time to send them an email asking how they’re doing and reminding them that if they need help again you are their person.

This kind of emails has brought me a lot of joy.

As well as bringing you new projects, they boost your morale since you realise that people value your work and want to work with you again.

But remember the golden rule when writing anything:

Time is precious. Don’t waste anyone’s.

Don’t talk too much about yourself and how great you are.

Better ask them how they’re doing. Personalise the email or WhatsApp so they don’t notice you’ve sent it to 50 others!

Tell them a funny story that will make them smile or give them an interesting piece of information.

5 ways of finding clients when you don’t like social media. #marketing #blogging #SmallBiz
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5.      Cold emails

Instead of blasting messages left and right to an intangible mass of followers on social media who are often not even your ideal customer because they aren’t ready to buy, spend that time and energy on companies or individuals who are more likely to hire you.

First search for those companies or freelancers who may need your services or your product and send them a personalised email.

This kind of email is called a cold email because you’re pitching to people who don’t know you at all, so you need to gain their trust in just one email.

Cold emailing isn’t easy but with practice, it can work really well.

Go through these 5 steps:

1. Make them open the email with an interesting subject line
2. Use the PAS formula
3. Clear up any doubts
4. Prove your arguments
5. Close in style

Let’s look at these steps one by one.

An interesting subject line

We all receive tens of unsolicited emails from brands every day. So to make sure prospects open your email, the subject line has to be interesting enough.

A subject line is interesting when it:

• Promises a benefit
• Arouses curiosity
• It’s fun and different

In this article I break down the formula for writing attention-grabbing headlines and subject lines.

Some of the brands I’m subscribed to use a technique that works great for subject lines and that’s asking questions. For example:

• Are you there?
• Can Spotify make you more productive?
• Do you use WordPress? You need this

Asking questions nudges people to open an email to find an answer.

Nobody likes to leave a question unanswered!

PAS Formula

As soon as readers open the email they should find something of benefit to them. They need to quickly find the answer to the question “Why should I bother to read this email?”

And the PAS formula is an easy way to make sure you answer that question.

The PAS formula work like this:

1. Problem
2. Agitation
3. Solution

You agitate the problem when you describe in detail all the issues that person (or company) is suffering that stem from the main problem.

For example, if you think their website looks shabby and old-fashioned and you’re a web designer you can start by saying:

“Your website is like your business’s shop window. If it looks untidy, cluttered and it’s not clear what you’re selling, no one will come inside.”

Always personalise the email, find a couple of specific problems you’ve found on their website and explain why these problems are causing them to lose money.

Then offer a solution to that problem and list everything that your solution will achieve:

• Your page will load faster and people will stay on page longer
• The design will look modern, intuitive and much more attractive.
• Contacting you will be much easier with a live chat and a direct call button.

Clear up doubts

Doubt it’s only human, especially when dealing with an unknown company.

Convince them why they won’t regret hiring you, and write in a personal, kind and approachable way.

Invite them to take a look at your portfolio, offer them a free demo, invite them to a video call.

The goal here is to get them to trust you.

Prove your arguments

The best way to convince your prospects about how good you are is letting others bolster your arguments.

Add customer testimonials, surveys, a success story of a specific customer, comments from other people in your niche.

These are great ways to prove you’re just not talking b*llocks.

Close in style

At the end of the email, you want prospects to contact you or click on a link to buy a product.

And for that, you need to remind them of all the benefits they get if they do it.

Summarise them in points in a clear and compelling way.

People are eager to know how what you offer can solve their problem.

Be honest. Be clear. And be yourself.

To sum up

Social media can be very useful, I don’t deny that. A lot of people are making tons of money thanks to it.

But it isn’t the only way.

Many businesses are doing really well without having to upload posts or videos all day long.

The 5 ways of getting clients without SM we’ve seen before can also help you sell more.

You don’t need to say goodbye to SM forever.

You can try some of these techniques I showed you and continue using SM if it’s helping you.

When it comes to promoting your business, only you know which techniques work best for your business.

Don’t be too influenced by what others do (not even by what I’m telling you in this post 😋) and choose your own way of doing things.

Any way of promoting your business is good if it’s getting you results and doesn’t make you feel like you’re selling your soul to the devil.

Because being true to yourself is very important!

See you around!

5 ways of finding clients when you don’t like social media. #marketing #blogging #SmallBiz
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You should get to work if you want your business to take off.

You shuffle to the kitchen and have some breakfast, trying to delay the moment to sit in front of your computer as long as possible. You just don’t feel like it.

You think what you do is mediocre.

You’ll never be as successful as you need to be in order to make a living of your business because you’re just not that good.

Even though you’ve been living off your business for some time you still don’t believe it and think that any day now everyone will realise that you’re a fraud.

Relax, what you’re feeling is a severe attack of self-criticism.

We all carry within us a merciless critic who shows up from time to time to ruin our day.

Your inner critic is that voice in your head which prevents you from finishing those projects you most want to do because it makes you doubt yourself.

I’ve suffered myself quite a few severe attacks of self-criticism so I decided to read a lot about it and took a course where I was given some techniques to handle this shitty feeling.

If you suffer these waves of self-criticism too and they are preventing you from enjoying your venture, or simply, your life in general, stay and read.

I will share with you the best techniques I learned to handle it.

This is not cheap psychology, it’s a survival guide 😊

Here we go.

Who is your worst critic?

Yourself. Without a doubt.

Or rather that inner critic that you have inside you and who appears every time you are entering unknown territory.

Think about it.

Every time you’ve decided to step out of your comfort zone and embark on a new adventure, whether professional or personal, there’s that little squeaky voice that tells you:

– But, where are you going poor fool? Can’t you see that you won’t be able to do it?

– You are so bad at it, you can’t draw no matter how hard you try!

–  Do you call that a song? It sounds just like the beginning of the Champions League tune!

– What a shitty dialogue you’ve come up with. It sounds more fake than your brother’s girlfriend’s laughter when she laughs at his jokes.

– Who are you trying to fool with that post on Instagram? You have no fricking idea of what you are doing with your business and you think you can give advice to others, um?

That’s right.

That voice will tell you these and a thousand other niceties every time you set out to do something that challenges you.

No, you are not crazy.

And neither are you a weak person who always doubts herself.

The reality is that you are being brave by getting into the unknown and that’s why that perfidious voice shows up to make you have doubts about your abilities.

Do you know who that voice is?

That voice is made up of all those voices that once convinced you that you weren’t good enough.

Your father, when you told him you wanted to be a writer: “But my angel, that’s very difficult, study law instead so you can get a well-paid job”.

Your mother when you told her you wanted to work in London one summer: “Oh darling, but it’s so scary, London is a huge city full of crazy people”.

Your maths teacher when he said, “Go sit down Ms. de Francisco. If you go on like this, you’ll never pass the exams”.

It’s not that your parents didn’t want the best for you, they were simply projecting their own fears onto you.

They didn’t want you to step into the unknown because that would worry them (you won’t find a job, something bad will happen to you in London) and selfishly parents just want to feel peaceful.

And your math teacher… Well, there are teachers who should take an intensive course in child psychology, really…

Anyway, all that doesn’t matter anymore.

We cannot change the past or blame others for our insecurities.

Those people had no bad intentions when they said those things, and besides, they have enough dealing with their own insecurities.

The point is that your inner critic will always be within you, because she is a part of your passage through this life.

And truth be told, she actually wants to protect you.

She doesn’t want you to be disappointed again or make a fool of yourself in front of everyone, so she tries to protect you by stopping you from doing what doesn’t feel comfortable or safe.

But if you’re determined to do that thing that makes you feel alive, you need to control that voice.

Don’t fight with your inner critic, defend your point instead

The worst thing you can do is to fight with your inner critic and try to shut him up.

It won’t do any good because he will attack harder.

There is another way.

And I learnt this in a writing course I took some time ago.

We writers have to deal with our inner critic every day.

Writing is a very lonely profession and it’s very easy to doubt oneself.

You don’t see the results immediately and your creation is exposed to others’ opinions.

That’s why in this course there was a large section dedicated to this topic. Inner critics are those responsible for many good projects not seeing the light of day.

In this course, I learnt a technique that I’ve been using ever since and that always works for me.

And it’s the following.

Imagine that your inner critic is a person who looks a lot like you.

Maybe she has different hair.

Give her a name. Mine is Maria.

Draw her (no matter how good or bad you are at drawing, look at mine for god’s sake!) and write the horrible things she sometimes says to you.

Maria says these things to me:

“You’ll never be as good as such and such”

“You’ve always been a lazy bum and to succeed in this you need to work hard”

“Why do you want to be a writer? There are thousands of things you could do instead that don’t cost that much effort”

“How are you going to write in English if you’re not native?”

After having written these sentences I stop and think that Maria is just a scared little girl who is afraid of suffering and that’s why she warns me not to step out of my comfort zone.

But I do want to get out, so I talk to her with my sweetest voice so to reassure her that we’re going to be fine.

“Maria don’t be scared, I won’t get into a funk if I fail, but I want to keep going because writing is what I really want to do in life”

“I may never write like Elena Ferrante but I want to keep on writing because I enjoy it.”

“I’m not lazy, the proof is that I’ve always worked hard when I want something. I’ve got a degree in a difficult subject, I speak 5 languages and I’ve managed to run my own business.”

“I’m not native English but I can write really well in English, native people tell me so. Besides, the more I write the better I become, and since I read lots I’m learning everyday new vocabulary.” 

And then Maria calms down, she says ‘OK’ and lets me keep working.

It’s good that your inner critic exists

Having an inner critic helps you improving yourself.

If you manage to silence him when you’re creating something and let him speak up when you’re evaluating what you have done, it doesn’t have to be a negative thing.

For example, when I’m editing a text Maria helps me to see sentences that aren’t clear or metaphors that sound too cliché.

Your inner critic can help you improve a business idea by seeing its flaws so that you can correct them and come up with a better plan.

What you have to learn is to differentiate when he’s helping you to become better and when he’s stopping you from going ahead with a project that excites you.

This is the secret.

If you get along with your inner critic you can both form an invincible team.
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Conclusion

Don’t despair when you doubt yourself.

It’s normal and it happens to everyone. Even to those celebrities who seem very sure of themselves. Everyone has their own ruthless inner critic.

Make peace with her and hold her hand.

And when she is scared of failure, whisper in her ear:

“I know, it scares me too, but it’s okay. We want to do this together, if we don’t try we will never be complete. Don’t be scared, we’ll be just fine.”

There are no shortcuts here and don’t even think about relying on automatic translators like Google because the result can be disastrous.

You don’t have to spend a fortune translating your site into each of the different languages spoken in the countries you want to introduce your product or service, or for the many international tourists who come to the Netherlands and might be interested in your product or service.

I have very good news to give you, are you ready?

You only have to invest in translating your sales copy into one language: Globish.

Goblish is not the language of Hobbits, but rather the term used to define international English, which has already been proclaimed as the lingua franca of the 21st century.

But let’s go slowly since I see that you are losing me.

If you stay with me you will learn how you can offer your product or service to many more clients without having to spend a fortune on translations and localizations.

Let’s get into it, shall we?

What the hell does lingua franca mean?

The lingua franca is a language or mixture of languages used as a means of communication by people whose mother tongues are different. It comes from Italian, “language” + “franca”.

The lingua franca is the commercial, social, international and global language.

As you may have already guessed, the lingua franca of the 21st century is English, the popularity of which has succeeded in overthrowing the French hegemony of our parents’ time.

French has been the international language from the 17th century until more or less the 1960s.

It was the language that was used for commercial and diplomatic relations and it was also considered the language of the high spheres, the noble and rich classes spoke it in their circles in many countries.

But with the industrial revolution in Britain, many English words began to be introduced in almost every language to define the new inventions of industry.

Great Britain, and then the United States, became almost overnight the modern societies to which all the other societies of the world turned their gaze to in order to imitate.

English therefore became the language of business and gradually succeeded in overtaking French in the international relations.

English is not only the language of money as some people define it, but by its nature it’s a fairly easy language to learn due to the simplicity of its grammar.

But then, what was all that about Globish?

Globish is a term that has arisen to define English spoken by non-native people to relate to in all areas of society.

It’s a simpler English whose sole purpose is the communication between individuals.

This is, a simplified version of Anglo-American English used as a world lingua franca.

The trademark term Globish, which is just a mixture of the words global and English, was coined by French businessman Jean-Paul Nerrière in the mid-1990s.

In his 2004 book Parlez Globish, Nerrière included a vocabulary of 1,500 words.

Globish is an English without idiomatic expressions, which facilitates comprehension and communication among non-English native speakers.

This last sentence contains the most important point that I want to address: if we want to reach an international audience with our product or service, we need to use Globish, so that, not only people in the UK grasp the message, but also those people whose native language is Polish or French.

International English is also the language of the Internet and an ever-increasing number of people, both native and non-native, use it to search on Google.

According to the following graph taken from Internet World Stats, 25.2% of the world’s population uses English on the Internet, even if it isn’t their native language.

The second most used language is Chinese followed by Spanish, there are no surprises here.

What is striking about this graph is that the rest of the world’s languages that are not detailed in this graph account for only 23.7% of the total, which illustrates the fact that a large part of the population of these countries do their internet searching in English.

This is great news for what it means to you and your business.

You no longer have to spend money on translating your website and other sales copy into several languages, but translating them into Globish will be enough to reach most international markets, especially in Europe.

The percentage of people who speak English in France, Germany or Spain is growing by leaps and bounds and this is very beneficial for all societies.

Speaking English opens the gates to the world, adds more than subtracts, and we should not be afraid that English will invade our native languages.

Proof of this are the Nordic countries and the Netherlands, where more than 70% of the population speaks English fluently.

This fact hasn’t made the Dutch and Swedish languages disappear, but it has given the opportunity for companies from these countries to expand more easily to other places, or for these countries to be able to integrate in their work markets high-skilled professionals from different nationalities.

English is also a fairly simple language; verb tenses are not complicated and there is no gender in nouns.

There are methods that promise that you can learn Globish in just weeks.

Globish is not like Esperanto, since it isn’t a formally constructed language, but rather an organic dialect, in constant adaptation, which arises only from practical use and which is spoken in one way or another by approximately 88% of the human population.

Isn’t it incredible?

According to Nerrière site, starting from scratch, anyone in the world should be able to learn Globish in about a week.

He recommends students to use a lot of gesticulation when words fail, and listen to popular songs to help pronunciation.

According to Nerriere:

“Incorrect” English can be extraordinarily rich, and non-standard forms of the language are developing outside the West in forms as vivid and diverse as Dickensian English”.

However, mistakes can be made in the spoken language, but NOT in the written language.

The fact that simple English doesn’t have idiomatic expressions and uses simple sentences doesn’t mean that we can just be relaxed about committing crimes against grammatical or orthographic rules. Not at all!

A website, an article or a social media ad with spelling errors can damage your reputation, in Spanish, Dutch or Globish.

So, to avoid risk, you should always hire a good translator for your texts that doesn’t write in English for native speakers only.

In the next section we will see how to choose a good translator.

Choosing a translator

If you want to translate your web copy or your social media posts, it’s best to hire a person, native or non-native, who is fluent in English and knows how to write to sell, as well as having an international mind.

If you want your web copy to help you sell your product or service, translating literally every word from Dutch (or your local language) into English won’t work.

The translator has to be familiarised with the rules of copywriting, and the market as well, so that the words she or he uses provoke the effect we want, i.e. awaken the desire to buy.

If you want to translate your blog, you need a bilingual content writer who knows how to differentiate those words that belong to the idiomatic language (fads, slang).

These expressions are not understood in all countries and frustrate readers who don’t come from the region where that particular slang is used.

The problem with many native translators is that they don’t know how to identify slang and don’t always do a good job translating into international English.

So, in the end, it’s preferable to hire a person who is not a native speaker but who is obviously fluent in English.

And you may wonder, if I don’t speak English well, how can I identify if a writer writes perfectly in international English?

Very easy, choose something that has been written by that person and ask natives and non-natives who speak good English if they think the copy is well written.

If you search with the word “Expat” you will find dozens of Facebook groups that have been formed with international people who live in a country other than their own.

French, Germans, Australians, Swedes, who live in Amsterdam or Rotterdam and join these Globish speaking groups to help each other with advice and tips.

Conclusion

The world is international and it will be even more so in the years to come.

You have to grab the opportunity to expand your business’ horizon.

You don’t have to be afraid to offer your services or products to an international audience, after all the cost of doing so is lower than ever before with online shopping, online courses, webinars, and so much more.

And even more now knowing that we can save on translations and localizations.

What are you waiting for to internationalize your business!

If you want to know more about how you can have a website without borders download my free guide. In it I share several tricks to sell more to international clients.

Click here to download it.

This post is a little more personal than usual, but this topic has been in my mind a lot lately and I needed to write about it.

Maybe the same thing happens to you, and it’s that you find it difficult to stand out from the crowd because it seems that everything has been done, said and repeated and you want your business to be different.

These days there is a lot of talk about what it means to be original.

There are many people who say that such a concept is overrated since being totally original is impossible.

Every idea has arisen from another.

The artists we admire have created their works with previous ones in mind.

Did you know that Nirvana wrote Smells Like Teen Spirit based on the song More than a Feeling by Boston?

Picasso said,

“A plagiarist is someone who steals from a person. A true artist steals from everyone”.

This is very true, it’s necessary to learn from others we admire to create our own work, whether it’s a painting, a novel or a business.

However, I believe that artists who have succeeded with their work, as well as business ideas that have worked extraordinarily well, did so because they were original.

By this, I don’t mean that these people woke up one day and created something incredible from scratch.

All great inventions have had their basis in several previous discoveries and are usually the result of many years of study and testing.

Everything has originated from something else as a base.

Observing what others have done previously can provide us with inspiration and good ideas.

A business idea or a novel has emerged from the study of other novels and other businesses but with the intention of improving them or at least creating something new.

And that’s where the true essence of what it means to be original lay.

Not in doing something so extraordinary and unheard of that people don’t understand and don’t need, but creating something different that works, helps others and people just love.

Being original without receiving public recognition makes artists’ biographies interesting, but in real life it usually leads to the person having to abandon his dream in order to get a job that pays the bills.

So what we pursue is to be original and be able to make a living.

The majority are scared of being original because it means taking risks, doing something different that we don’t know in principle if it’s going to work.

This can lead a lot of people to copy more than they’d like and therefore get undesired results.

Because if an idea doesn’t stand out from all the others it will be more difficult to attract attention.

In this post, we are going to focus mainly on how you can be original when starting and promoting a business.

We’ll see some ideas to be more original, so your voice can be heard among the constant noise of the Internet.

First things first.

Choose very well who you follow

As we’ve seen, Picasso and Nirvana were also inspired by other people.

When I was 12 I won a creative writing contest in my city with a story inspired by a film I had watched that had left its mark on me. It was To Kill a Mockingbird, with Gregory Peck.

In my story, there was also a person with learning disabilities but the storyline was different.

Another kid criticised me saying that my story wasn’t original and I felt like a fraud.

That didn’t stop me from continuing my writing, but I was obsessed afterwards with not copying anything, I wanted to be truly original.

Eventually, I came to the same conclusion as the Spanish painter: that nothing emerges from nothing and that great works and talented people are there to inspire us.

In the Internet era, it’s very easy to feel overwhelmed.

We follow hundreds of people on social media and we seem to spend a lot of time trying to listen/read them all.

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Una publicación compartida por Celeste Barber (@celestebarber) el 19 de Feb de 2019 a las 11:16 PST

 If you follow people who don’t provide you with anything, at least choose them because they make you laugh.

The day has 24 hours and although following what others we admire do is very important to inspire us, we don’t have the time to read and watch everything that comes our way.

You need to sieve.

Choose carefully the people you follow and ask yourself why you follow them.

Does that person provide you with something valuable?

Do you learn and get good ideas from her posts/articles?

You should rationalise the number of people or brands you follow.

So you have time to read their posts or watch their videos so their teachings serve you on your own path.

The list of people you follow doesn’t have to be fixed.

It could be that at some point in your life a person is giving you a lot to develop your own ideas.

And after a while, you might feel you aren’t getting much anymore.

You can replace that person with someone else so this way the number of people you follow won’t grow.

I try to receive a maximum of 5 newsletters a week and I control the time I’m on social media.

A part of your day needs to be dedicated to study others but without wasting time.

You have to be aware of any procrastination tendencies, those moments when instead of doing the activity you set out to do (write a post for the blog, create an infographic or a webinar) you spend silly hours on Facebook.

You need to control these impulses and really evaluate if the time you spend on social media is valuable or is just providing you with shallow distraction.

The Internet is a window to the world and can be very useful, but at the same time it can be a double-edged sword and make you waste a very valuable amount of time.

It’s your choice.

Read almost anything that falls into your hands

We are hooked all day to our mobiles and very few people read books anymore.

Reading books is very different from reading articles or blogs, first because your eyes can rest from the screen and second because ideas flow differently.

I find that reading a book is even more relaxing than it used to be because I can disconnect from everything and focus only on what the writer wants to tell me and how I imagine the story or how I can apply those ideas to my life and my work.

Have you noticed that there are more and more ads on the Internet?

Of course, that’s what it was all about!

Internet was originally created as a means to send and receive information faster and cheaper.

But then the commercial part played in and businesses realised that it was a perfect platform to sell products.

It can be exhausting.

When reading an article you have on both sides of the margins several ads trying to grab your attention and even if you make an effort not to look at them and concentrate on reading, they are still there and a part of your brain is processing the information even if you don’t realise.

That’s why reading a book (even if it’s an eBook, although I recommend reading paper books from time to time) is so relaxing.

Your brain is not receiving all those other fillips and you can concentrate on processing the information you are reading.

By reading you learn a great deal, I would say that everything you want to know is in the books, rather than on YouTube channels.

People who read books will be more noticeable.

When you read a book you not only learn concepts but you also learn to express yourself better, and that’s essential if you want to sell products or ideas.

What’s the use of knowing a lot about a subject if you don’t know how to explain it to others?

Eloquence is increasingly valued at work.

If you can speak and express yourself very well, you will have more opportunities to convince others that your idea is great.

Read as much as you can, if you find it difficult to make time in your busy schedule, allocate some reading time in your calendar, even if it’s only 30 minutes a day, that’s better than nothing.

Read on the underground instead of scrolling the Instagram feed.

Some studies warn that looking at your phone before going to sleep may cause sleep problems due to all those fillips we talked about earlier.

However, reading a book relaxes you and gets you ready to sleep.

It’s all a matter of creating a reading habit.

Test your strategies

Many businesses try thousands of promotion and marketing strategies but don’t test them long enough to determine if they are working or not.

See if this resonates with you:

Ana has decided to market her business by writing a post every week on LinkedIn and Facebook.

She has just started her coaching business and for the moment her website doesn’t receive much organic traffic.

Then someone on LinkedIn writes a post about how great Instagram stories are and all the good results they bring.

Ana sets out to post an Instagram story every day, but then she no longer has time to write a blog article every week and starts to neglect her blog.

After a month, the traffic has somewhat increased but not as much as she expected with the Instagram stories, so she reads on Instagram about the amount of traffic you can generate with Facebook Lives.

Ana then decides to do a Facebook Live every week, but she no longer has time to write, and stops writing on her blog completely and creates fewer Instagram stories so traffic doesn’t increase.

This is a very common mistake, businesses don’t question what people say but choose to follow trends.

Strategies have to be tested for a while, at least 6 months, in order to be sure if they are really working. 

You don’t have to change strategy every time something new becomes a trend.

Being original also means following your instinct and doing things according to your personality.

That doesn’t mean that if you really think YouTube videos is what’s going to help you grow your business, you end up not doing it out of fear.

Sometimes you need to step out of your comfort zone to grow and take on new challenges.

I don’t advise you to do something that is light years away from your comfort zone.

Go step by step, always challenging yourself a little further, trying new things when the old ones don’t work anymore, but always with the evidence behind and never just to follow a trend.

Thank and ignore

When a person inspires you with his work, because he gives you new ideas and you learn from the content he shares, it’s nice to thank him.

We all like to get positive feedback and to know that our work helps others.

On the other hand, thanking is something that enriches the spirit, provides serenity and puts us in our place.

Copying what someone literally said without citing the source is unethical.

It may be that you ever think of something without knowing that someone else has expressed it before.

It can also happen that when you publish something, ideas come to your mind and you may not remember where you read it or who said it.

Then it won’t be plagiarism, because you explain the same idea with your own words and from your own vision.

This is one of the most genuine ways to be original, it’s very difficult to have completely new ideas but what you can do is develop an existing one giving it a new nuance.

Maybe a person who already knew the concept can understand it and apply it better to her work when she reads it from you.

Because you have simply explained it better or because she feels more related to your point of view. 

The same applies to a business idea or a product.

Even if you have created something that is already on the market your way of doing things is different and that’s what you must show.

But, what do we do with haters?

There will always be people who criticise your work or your way of thinking.

It’s impossible to please everyone.

Seeking approval is human but it isn’t the impulse on which we should base all our creative energy because there will be occasions when we’ll receive cruel criticism.

The first thing you should do with negative comments is to analyse if there is something you can use.

Sometimes, by analysing them with an open heart, we can transform a cruel comment into constructive feedback from which we can learn something revealing.

If you decide that there is nothing to gain from that comment, then there are 2 things you can do:

– Use them to your advantage as Netflix masterfully does.

This Ad was placed in one of the most important squares in Madrid. It’s a message from a hater saying “Netflix’ menu is like my exams in secondary school: a couple of good things and then a lot of shit to fill in.”

And Netflix says “We are working on it. With love” Note that Love in Spanish is AMOR and if you read it backwards it’s ROMA, the outstanding film by Cuaron. Very clever, isn’t it?

– Or just ignore them and keep working.

The first thing writer Austin Kleon used to do when he woke up was to read comments on Twitter and Facebook which already put him in a bad mood and urged him to immediately reply to all of them.

Then one day his wife shouted from the other room

“Stop choosing your battles and start creating something!”

He thought she was damn right. From that moment on, he uses that fury to work energetically.

Your mother was right, it’s impossible to please everyone, so just do things to please yourself, enjoy the process of doing them and if people like them, then wicked.

Don’t be afraid to be different

Fear is one of the most powerful forces in the world, it can paralyse you or make you do things half-heartedly.

We are afraid to be ourselves because we don’t want to be too different.

At school we wanted to be chameleonized with the mass, not to stand out too much, so  we would avoid being the target of other children’s jokes.

We didn’t want to be the smartest or the least intelligent person in the class, we just wanted to merge with the group.

But if you don’t stand out in any way, how can you squeeze your full potential and show what you’re capable of?

Being different is good because it makes you special, don’t be afraid to show your opinion and believe in your values.

In this Internet era, fashions are even stronger than when we used to live in an analogue world.

Because the pressure of the media and advertising is very strong, especially for the younger ones.

But it also has its positive side.

In a connected world, we can learn about important initiatives, people who are doing things differently and living according to their values.

We have more sources of inspiration and resources to work on what we really believe in.

So why not use them?

Today even if you live in a small town where you can’t interact with many people who inspire you, you can connect with people all over the world through the Internet.

In order to grow, you should surround yourself with people who know more than you.

Also with people you can help, but if it’s always you who knows more than the others, you won’t grow further.

Now we constantly hear that we should surround ourselves only with positive people but I don’t agree with that.

I’ll tell you why.

There are people who aren’t a ray of sunshine but who have taught me a great deal and inspired me to do things.

Just because a person doesn’t always see the glass full doesn’t mean it’s cursed.

Life is a roller coaster and there are times when we’re up and others when we’re down and it’s especially when we’re down that we need to know there’s someone by our side.

I rather think that we should get away from selfish people who do nothing but ask without giving anything in return.

In my opinion, these are the ones who don’t provide you anything good and wear you out, and maybe they have a permanent smile on their face.

These people have served me, if anything, to inspire me to create characters for my stories. That’s all.

In order to be different, you need to learn how to say No.

And live your own life and not someone else’s.

You need to choose what makes you happy and what doesn’t.

Many people are happy earning a lot of money or going skiing, but you may not like skiing at all and prefer a less demanding job and have more free time and worry less, even if it means eating out less often.

Be different in your own way, listen to your inner voice and don’t let anyone choose for you.

This means combining a modern, user-friendly and attractive design with compelling copy thought out to awe your target audience.

Most companies hire professional copywriters to write the copy for their websites.

However, many businesses still take care of their looks but not their soul.

Let me explain.

Some websites have a cool design, but the copy is mediocre and unoriginal.

Conversely, some of them have excellent copy, but the layout is so atrocious that it takes a lot of effort to read it, so no one does it.

That’s why in today’s lesson we’re going to study some great websites where both copy and design combine to produce a great result.

I’ll briefly analyse them to understand why they’re so good and what they could do to be even better.

Let’s have some fun and be inspired by how well others are doing it.

Marie Forleo

Her website is almost perfect, it’s obvious she’s invested a lot in it, but you can get ideas for your low-cost version!

Marie Forleo is a self-made woman who started out as a waitress and ended up starting a coaching business and hosting a TV show in the US.

She’s been interviewed and photographed with celebrities like Oprah and Tony Robbins.

I love her website because it’s clean and super user-friendly, but what I like most is the copy.

She writes from the heart and her words are really powerful.

Marie knows how important web copy is to grab the reader’s attention, empathise with their problems, and be persuasive without sounding like a greedy salesman.

This is an excellent example of good copywriting:

It attracts the attention of all those people who don’t fit into the corporate world because they can’t find a purpose.

These people have many interests but don’t know how to use their various talents to make a living.

She is very good at writing and, of course, one of the products she offers is a copywriting course.

She talks about the power of the will to realise your dreams and uses herself as a case study, living her dreams and now wanting to help you live yours.

She makes excellent use of what we call in marketing “social proof” by adding photos and testimonials with prominent people to prove her relevance and make us trust her.

Social proof is very important to build trust.

Maybe you don’t have photos with Oprah but you can ask your best customers to write striking testimonials about your business.

What they do really well

The copy is very well written and carefully targeted at people who are dissatisfied and want to improve their lives and become more successful.

It makes excellent use of social proof with photos and testimonials. And the design is great, clean and zen.

Her site loads very quickly, even though it has a lot of photos, even moving ones. Speed is very important, people don’t have time to waste waiting for your site to load and will leave if it takes too long (more than 6 seconds).

What they could improve

She has a page with lots of compelling success stories from ordinary people, however, it’s not in the main menu, but in a secondary one located on a sidebar.

Finding this menu is not so obvious, I’m sure many people will leave the site without seeing this page.

However, these testimonials are crucial because they come from normal people like you and me.

Someone only browsing the pages on the main menu might think Marie is just another celebrity selling random stuff to the super rich.

But when you read these other testimonials you can see that she helps ordinary people and you can feel related.

Lush

Lush is a very popular brand of cosmetics. There is a shop in almost every town and they also sell a lot online. Of course.

Their success lies in promoting the use of handmade and natural products for personal care and their excellent use of colour and texture in their products.

They let you try all the products in their shops and this definitely has a positive effect on sales, people buy more when they can try a sample.

But how do they do this online where you can’t smell or touch the products?

With impeccable images and well-thought-out sales copy for the descriptions.

Reading their copy, you can almost smell lovely scents and feel the materials. They manage to provide nearly the same experience as if you were in a physical store.

They show videos on how to use their products, so everything looks super easy to use at home.

Notice how they talk about the benefits and how your life will improve after using this product. This is pure and great copy.

It’s poetry that sells:

Notice how they use testimonials to reinforce the benefits of their products. Social proof is a powerful tool to convince your potential customers to buy your products.

With products that are not tested on animals and even a move away from packaging, Lush’s marketing strategy is all about the environment.

This brand is definitely a winner both offline and online.

What they do really well

They take great care to use images and videos of ordinary people, not top models, to connect with their target customers, people like you and me.

Their copy is 10/10.

They write excellent sensory descriptions for each product, highlighting benefits and more benefits.

And they make excellent use of social proof, adding exciting testimonials next to each product.

What they could improve

It’s difficult to find any point for improvement because they have one of the best websites I’ve ever come across.

Maybe one day in the future they will improve the user experience by adding scents to their website 😊

The only thing I have to say here is that I was a bit disappointed when, after I had been on the site for a little while, a chat message popped up asking for my name and email in order to keep in touch.

I hate pop-ups.

They are annoying, but in Lush’s defence, this one only appeared after I had been on the site for a while and disappeared a few seconds after I hadn’t filled in any information.

Well done Lush.

Airstream

Airstream is a classic RV (recreational vehicle) brand that has recently been revived by the digital nomad trend, or simply nomads, people who choose to live on the road.

This brand was founded in the 30s and has been around ever since, with its ups and downs, and is currently enjoying increasing success.

They have a very attractive website with lots of cool content.

You can watch videos and read articles about how they make their motorhomes in Ohio using traditional methods, almost by hand.

They emphasise the fact that they are based in this town since it’s one of their value propositions: they are a real American company.

They now have a new target group: these digital nomads who are growing in number every year, so they use photos with people who might look like them and write copy aimed at this group.

Notice how they talk about a community, the Airstreamers.

The feeling of belonging is a very powerful psychological trigger and it works wonders when writing copy. People want to belong to that group they feel is cool so to be considered cool too.

Their target audience craves adventure and dreams about escaping the rat race and living life to its fullest.

They invite us to embrace the adventure, “Live Riveted, how are you living yours?”

After watching these videos you really want to buy an Airstream and just leave everything behind!

Wake up to the magic of life…

Open your eyes and jump…

They have a blog with stories from Airstreamers so they can build a community of followers.

Having a content strategy and publishing posts and videos on a regular basis is really important to bring organic traffic to your website and build a community of fans of your brand.

They make use again of the feeling of belonging talking about the long history of the company and the spirit of adventure which has endured all this time.

What they do really well

The stories, the photos, the videos, everything incites us to get up from our chairs and travel the world.

Their copy makes us dream and at the same time makes everything seem possible and even easy.

They’re telling us, what’s stopping you?

They show the price of each model, which I think is a good strategy because it makes you think more seriously about whether you can afford to buy one.

You might even find that they aren’t as expensive as you thought and start doing the math on how much rent you pay for your apartment compared to the cost of living in one of these vehicles.

What they could improve

As part of the audience are young professionals who want to travel while working, they should show photos of more trendy and modern interiors.

All the photos of the interiors are a bit cold because they focus on showing the technology and spaciousness, but they lack the warm feeling of a home on wheels.

Adding photos of cosy interiors would definitely improve the desire to buy.

This is one of the main tips when writing copy: try to help prospects picture themselves enjoying the product.

Here they could have done a better job by showing these warmly decorated and ‘lived-in’ interiors.

They could have added copy describing how it feels living, working and travelling in these fantastic vehicles.

Copy Power

Her name is Chelsea Baldwin and this is an excellent example of how to have a compelling website without breaking your bank.

Her copy is excellent because she skillfully addresses each and every concern of her target audience – small businesses and sole traders struggling to get more business.

The copy follows the principles of persuasion:

First presents a problem, then empathises with the prospects’ frustrations about that problem, and finally, presents her solution.

The copy is written using her prospects’ voice – young entrepreneurs with the same struggles she once had.

Chelsea uses the powerful tool of “I’ve been where you’re now and know how it feels” to build trust.

Prospects think “If she’s got there, she can teach me how to make it”.

You can see straight away that she hasn’t spent a lot of money on web design.

In fact, she admits on the home page that she created the site herself with a DIY theme; all to show you that no matter how big (or small) your budget is, you can still sell a lot with good copy.

She has a blog with tips on writing good copy for your website, which is really helpful, and she is creating a community of followers who might sign up for one of her copywriting courses.

She knows that email marketing sells, so she encourages you to sign up for her newsletter to receive her insightful posts in your inbox.

This also allows her to send you marketing emails to warm you up before you decide to sign up for her course.

She’s got a lead magnet – a free series of 3 copywriting tips, so people are more likely to exchange their email addresses for her free advice.

What they do really well

The copy is obviously very good because it empathises with her prospects and encourages them to keep reading. Her lead magnet has been very well thought out as it moves the reader to subscribe to her mailing list.

What they could improve

Speaking of annoying pop-ups, the one offering the lead magnet appears immediately after entering the site.

I find this quite annoying, it should at least let the visitor read more about her and then it could pop up later, when we’ve decided if the content is worthwhile.

I also find her language a little too informal, she sometimes swears and uses a lot of slang.

This is not my style, but I understand that it can work to attract a certain type of audience. Using this kind of language seems to be trendy among young people.

But I think not all young people will identify with that tone of voice.

To wrap up

We’ve seen some of my favourite websites.

There are lots of other great ones, of course… But there are also a lot of terrible ones!

I find this quite unbelievable…

Even today, some well-known companies have poorly written copy and cheap stock photos on their website.

What are they thinking? 😖

Your website is your business card, your salesperson, your online personality and your future. You have to take care of it.
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Having a good website is a MUST.

It’s an investment, yes, but one that can bring you a lot of new sales.

It’s worth it!

Do you know other examples of great websites? Leave me the link in the comments so we can have more sources of inspiration!

See you around!

What, you haven’t?

Then this article is even more important for you since you are going to discover a whole world that can help you greatly improve the sales of your product or service.

And if you already have an idea of what copywriting is, stay with me, because I’m going to explain something vital to you.

The reason copywriting exists and why it has become the best-kept secret of advertising.

All the big companies use it and the small ones are gradually discovering it and incorporating it into their businesses.

For the simple reason that copywriting works.

If you stay with me you will learn a little about the origins of copywriting, the reasons why it works and how you can apply it to your business.

Are you staying?

Very well done.

Here we go.

What’s Copywriting? A brief introduction to its origins

The basis of copywriting comes from a book published in 1923 titled Scientific Advertising, written by Claude Hopkins, whom, one could say, laid the foundations of advertising.

Years earlier, John E. Kennedy had defined advertising as “The art of selling in print”, nowadays we can dare to say that it’s the art of selling not only in print, but also on television and, above all, on the Internet.

The role of the copywriter was consolidated in the 1960s in the advertising agencies of Madison Avenue in New York.

If you have watched the series Mad Men you will know what I’m talking about, and if you haven’t watched it then you should because it’s one of the best series that has been made and you will enjoy it very much if you like the advertising world.

The role of the copywriter was to devise the slogans of the advertisements and to create the stories behind the advertising spots.

Already at that time, they had realised how important it was to know and connect with the target audience in order to reach them with the advertising message.

They devoted a lot of resources to conducting surveys and market studies to find out what the audience wanted, what their daily concerns were, what motivated them.

The story of the character played by Elisabeth Moss, Peggy Olsen, and how she moves from being a mere secretary to earning the agency’s first female copywriter position, portrays magnificently the essence of copywriting.

Let me explain.

As you can imagine in the 1960s, the decade in which the series takes place, the presence of women in the workplace was very scarce and the positions they held were more of assistance than anything else.

On one occasion the agency has a brand of lipstick as a client and decides to gather all the secretaries of the company in a room to try the different lipsticks and discuss between them what they like and what they don’t like about the product.

The creatives (all of them men) watch them without them being aware from behind a fake mirror, in order to get ideas for the advertisements from their comments.

Peggy comes up with a very original concept when asked for her opinion on the product and the customer likes it very much. “Belle Jolie lipstick, mark your man“.

That’s when managers decide to hire her as a copywriter since they realise that to really know what’s going on in women’s minds they need a woman.

And this is one of the key elements of copywriting and one of the reasons why it works so well to sell anything.

Copywriting is based on a deep knowledge of the target customer; the copywriter literally gets into the mind of the customer.

To sell anything you have to convince and you can’t convince anyone if you don’t know very well what’s driving that person.

Why #copywriting sell? The best-kept-secret of #advertising
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In order to sell you have to convince

I’m going to explain to you with a very simple example what copywriting is.

Imagine that you want to go to Rome on holiday because one of your dreams is to see the Sistine Chapel. But you know that your boyfriend doesn’t like art at all and hates queues.

To convince him you will list everything that Rome has that you know he loves.

The Rome stadium, the pizza, the ice cream, the Colosseum.

In addition, you will eliminate all his objections by showing him photos of the beautiful room of the hotel whose rates are cheaper on those dates.

You tell him that the flight times are perfect and that your friends Joe and Claudia also went and both loved it.

And you convince him.

If you didn’t know your boyfriend very well and you didn’t know what he likes, you couldn’t convince him to go to Rome, could you?

Well, it’s the same with your customers. You need to know how to convince them.

The classic definition of copywriting says: it is a technique used to write texts in a persuasive way in order to entice the reader to take a specific action.

Copywriting has many applications and can be used to write very different kind of texts in order to obtain different results.

The following are the most common applications of copywriting.

Why #copywriting sell? The best-kept-secret of #advertising
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Copywriting for websites

This type of copywriting aims to convert more visits into customers.

It uses specific techniques in order to persuade the reader to perform an action.

This action can be:

– Fill in a contact form

– Buy a product directly

– Subscribe to a mailing list to receive a newsletter

– Call a phone number, etc.

More and more businesses are hiring a copywriter to write the texts for their websites.

Copywriting, unlike content marketing, sells and doesn’t just inform.

Maintaining a content strategy is very important to create a relationship of trust with your target audience, but without copywriting, it will be more difficult to convert those prospects into customers who give you their precious money in exchange for your product or service.

With good content, you inform and provide value to your ideal customers, with sales copy you sell your product or service to them.

Let’s see an example of copywriting for websites in order to know how to differentiate it.

This website is addressed to women with hormone issues.

The sales copy is really good because it addresses all the pain points (issues) that the target customers (women with weight problems, menopause, a bloated feeling, etc.) have and really empathise with them before explaining the benefits of the Sexy Ladies Balls program and how it can help alleviate those specific issues.

Sales copy is always about how you can improve customers’ lives.

If you are suffering from any of the problems mentioned at the beginning you will keep reading because the text speaks to you directly.

This is just a fragment of the text, on the actual sales page she empathises more with those pain points and elaborates further the benefits of the Sexy Lady Balls program.

In the next two sections of this article, I describe in more detail the techniques of persuasion to write sales copy.

Now let’s get on with the types of sales copy that exist.

Why #copywriting sell? The best-kept-secret of #advertising
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Copywriting for email marketing

As I explained in my article a couple of weeks ago, email marketing is still one of the most important tools companies have to sell their products and services.

That’s why we also find copywriting in emails.

I’m sure you’ve heard of sales funnels. Right? I’ll explain it to you briefly, just in case.

It’s a series of emails that the target customer receives in order to “warm up engines” so that he will eventually buy the product offered.

These sales funnels are always written by a copywriter and they use gradual persuasion.

Each email has a function, first, it empathises with a problem that the customer has, then it uses storytelling to continue empathising and get even closer to the customer.

Later on, it presents the product and explains how it helps solve that particular problem, etc.

It’s a formula that works very well and that’s why so many companies use it.

In most cases, it’s used for more expensive products or services that need more reasons to justify the purchase.

But copywriting is not only used in sales funnels, it’s also used in marketing emails for e-commerce or to sell a specific service to a mailing list.

Let’s look at an example.

Julia McCoy is the brain behind Express Writers, a content agency that is quite popular among new bloggers because it provides very useful insight into the art of writing content.

They send emails to their subscribers every week and are a great example of copywriting. The content of their emails is always intended to inspire and offer value.

Some of them are also aimed to offer a content creation online course like the one in this example.

In this email, Julia empathises with your pain points, the fact that you feel a bit lost when you start in this business, making mistakes and not being sure how to please clients.

She assures you that she’s been where you are and therefore has already committed all those mistakes and learnt from them.

As you’ll see the tone she uses is very personal, it feels like she’s really talking to you.

This is the tone you should use to write copy.

Why #copywriting sell? The best-kept-secret of #advertising
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SEO copywriting

SEO copywriting is used to position a page in Google’s top results. There are several techniques such as using keywords in strategic places or buying links to other pages with more traffic.

If you want to know more about SEO copywriting read this article where I describe it in much more detail.

Creative Copywriting

Creative copywriting is used to make a brand known and to maintain its presence in the market through advertisements on television, press and social media.

These are the powerful slogans and phrases used in advertising to awaken our interest and keep a particular brand in our minds.

Apple, Nike, Vodafone, all well-known brands use this type of copywriting to maintain their presence so we don’t forget that they exist.

Thanks to the excellent creative copywriters that exist out there we can enjoy such great ads as these:

A few months ago Pornhub launched a campaign to recruit its new creative director. To do so, they asked the candidates to create an advertisement as a test so that people could then vote for the best ones.

The truth is that whether you like porn or not, some of these ads are great.

It’s a joy to see so much creativity together.

I can spend hours watching good ads. Some are true works of art.

Why #copywriting sell? The best-kept-secret of #advertising
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This Ad launched in 1984 is one of my favourites. Keep in mind that at that time Apple was not the trendy successful brand that it’s today, however, their advertising has always been fantastic and that’s why they are so successful today.

Copywriting in the Internet Era

At this point I can hear you thinking, okay that’s great, but I’m not Steve Jobs and I don’t have so much money to spend on advertising.

Of course not, but the good news is that today by investing just a little bit on your Internet presence, you can go very far.

You don’t have to hire a renowned advertising agency to write compelling texts and catchy slogans for your website, marketing emails or for your social media campaigns.

You can choose to write the texts yourself by learning copywriting techniques.

Here I share with you the list of the best books that exist on copywriting.

– The Adweek Copywriting Handbook by Joseph Sugarman, is the bible of copywriters. This man sold millions of products with his direct response ads in the press. Although he mainly wrote sales copy for direct response print ads in the 70s and 80s, its teachings are still valid today.

– How to Write Seductive Copy by Henneke Duitstermaat. Despite being Dutch and that English is not her native language, Henneke has achieved enormous popularity among business writers, her blog and books are jewels from which you will gain a lot of wisdom on the art of writing.

– How to Write Sales Letters that Sell by the legend Drayton Bird, is one of the most widely read books on copy. It is very practical and easy to understand.

If you don’t have time to learn to write copy, you can hire a freelance copywriter. Depending on their experience their prices will vary but most of them can give you a quote without any obligation.

Copywriting works and can be a very good investment for your business because, if the texts are good, they will bring you more sales.

Once you know the basic techniques of copywriting you will be able to differentiate those websites that have sales copy and those which doesn’t.

You can try to differentiate them by doing some research on the Internet.

If the text catches you from the very first moment, if it incites you to find out more, if you feel closer to that brand, if it addresses your questions and needs, if you feel the need to contact them or receive more information, that text is most likely a good piece of sales copy.

Why #copywriting sell? The best-kept-secret of #advertising
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How to convince your ideal customer

Copywriting is selling and selling is about taking away customer objections to buying from you.

In order to write good texts that result in more sales, you need to carry out an exhaustive investigation of the profile of your ideal customer and of the market and then write convincing texts that empathise with your prospects pain points and present your solution as the best available one.

As we saw in the example of the trip to Rome, you have to make sure that you know your ideal customer very well in order to know the reasons that may lead them to buy your product or service.

The principle of persuasion is simple. I’ll explain it to you in 5 steps:

1. Draw a problem
2. Empathise with potential customers’ frustrations about this problem
3. Explain how your product or service helps solve that problem
4. Show how solving this problem makes customers feel better
5. Overcome objections and entice readers to take action

This is the scheme that you need to follow to write persuasive texts. Then there are many nuances, of course.

The text doesn’t have to be aggressive or sound like a poorly skilled huckster, it must be empathic and honest.

Good copywriters have written many texts to polish the technique, you know that to be very good at something it requires a lot of practice and a lot of previous research.

I know that I have given you a lot of information and, like everything in life, the best way to understand it’s by practising, so I encourage you to review the texts on your website or look for good examples of copywriting on the web to inspire you.

Don’t copycat, just be inspired!

See you around!

Why #copywriting sell? The best-kept-secret of #advertising
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The truth is that I don’t believe in new year’s resolutions, but in relentless work and in building small habits that will take us where we want to be.

You can make a resolution at any given time, it can be tomorrow or on your birthday.

If you have a business you may have made the resolution of increasing the organic visits to your website and as a consequence also to increase sales.

If you know a little about online sales you may have heard of SEO.

Do you already know what SEO is and what it is for?

SEO, Search Engine Optimisation, is the process of getting a website to appear on the first page of Google results.

If you still don’t understand the concept very well you can read this post before continuing. There I explain in more detail what SEO is.

This post presumes that you already have some basic knowledge about SEO and aims to give you some ideas to improve your position in search engines.

I’ve done a lot of research to share with you the new SEO trends for 2019.

SEO is a living, changing being since the world’s largest search engine, Google, works incessantly modifying and adjusting its algorithms to improve the user experience.

If you want to know how to best adjust your business to new SEO trends, don’t miss what follows.

Shall we start?

New SEO trends

1. Omnipresence

Competition is serious, everyone’s on the Internet. Even the bakery on the corner has a Facebook page.

That’s why you have to use all the channels you can to share and promote your business content.

Don’t get overwhelmed thinking that you have to use absolutely each and every one of the channels that exist out there, but you must definitely be present and constant in as many as you can.

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube.

The good news is that you can take advantage of the same content and share it in the different channels by adjusting it just a little.

Instagram content doesn’t have the same format or audience as Facebook or LinkedIn so you have to adapt your content.

You can use the same basic message and just tweak the format in order to save time.

Take this post as an example. This is a something I posted on Facebook and LinkedIn a few weeks ago:

I couldn’t use exactly the same post for Instagram as you can’t include a link in every entry. On Instagram the main attraction is the photo, it needs to be compelling and original.

So I did this:

 

Ver esta publicación en Instagram

 

Una publicación compartida por Elena de Francisco (@elenismosymas) el 7 de Dic de 2018 a las 8:01 PST

I created a new photo with a catch-eying message and listed the 7 tips for surviving with your online business on the Instagram text.

The content is basically the same but the format is different.

Don’t get overwhelmed pretending to be everywhere, but the truth is that you will have more opportunities to generate visits to your site and get followers if you are in several channels.

Choose the 3 that work best for you and concentrate on sharing frequent, quality content on them.

2. Have your website adapted to the mobile version

Once upon a time there was a mobile phone attached to a person.

That’s right, we’re stuck to our mobile phones all day long.

The company comScore carried out a study presented in December 2017 on the use of mobile phones to surf the Internet compared to desktop use.

The graph very well illustrates this point showing the results of the different countries participating in the study.

The bottom line is that people spend on average twice as much time on their mobile phones than in front of their computers.

Look at countries like Argentina or the US. The difference is even greater.

This means that if you want your website to appear at the top of Google results you have to make sure that the mobile version of your website is perfect.

To ensure that your site is properly adapted to the mobile version, Google recommends using responsive design.

Always check that the mobile version has the same quality as the desktop screen version.

Most common WordPress themes or other platforms have code that responds to different formats.

If you’re not sure if your website does, check with your designer.

3. Voice searches

According to the statistics, 2 out of 5 adults use the voice command to search for results in Google.

I don’t really use it but to give you an example, we went last week for a weekend trip with friends and out of the 4 of us 1 of my friends used voice commands often.

So I believe these statistics 🙂

Normally when you do use voice command it’s for a very specific question.

For example “How many people live in London?”

In order to have more opportunities to be at the top of Google results, you will have to answer specific questions in a decisive and direct way, without writing long paragraphs.

Answering these questions with short and correct answers will bring more traffic to your website.

It’s also important that your page is correctly configured “https” for Google to consider it safe.

If you don’t know if your page is configured correctly https check with your hosting company.

For voice searches, it is very important that your website loads quickly, as this is what will generate a quick answer to the user’s question.

Several studies claim that voice is widely used to search for local businesses.

Questions such as, “which is the nearest pet food store?”, are very frequent.

So it’s always better to have your business registered in the Google directory “Google my Business” and in Google Maps.

4.Featured snippets

This is the big New SEO trend.

Now every time you look for some information in Google the first thing that comes out are these clippings or paragraphs that answer directly your question.

This first result is called position 0.

It means that it’s more important than position 1 since it’s the first result we are going to look at.

A HubSpot study has revealed that the content of these featured snippets has twice the number of clicks.

The good news is that to appear on the featured snippets you don’t have to have a very high Google ranking. According to this study, 70% of the featured snippets come from websites that are not at the top of Google searches.

So even if the position of your website is not very high, you can get your content to appear as a featured snippet. Isn’t that great?

In order to have more chances to appear in position 0, you need to put yourself in the skin of the person who is looking for certain information and think of ways to offer such information in a simple and accurate way.

For example, the definition of a technical term that is frequently used in a certain niche but that a common person doesn’t know what it means.

This happens a lot when acronyms are used, such as CTA in marketing.

CTA stands for Call to Action.

This box that invites the reader to perform an action, such as buying a product or downloading content.

Like this one from Netflix:

To have a better chance of appearing in featured snippets or position 0, provide concrete definitions and don’t write very long paragraphs to answer those key questions that will drive traffic to your website.

Doing a keyword search also helps to position your content in featured snippets.

You can use sites like Answer the public or Quora to know what people are asking.

These sites can give you ideas for writing content by answering specific questions that help your target audience get the information they need.

5. Optimise the conversion

Advertising on Google and social media is becoming increasingly expensive as there is a lot of competition.

That’s why you have to make sure that visitors to your site contact you or subscribe by leaving their email in order to have a conversation with them by email afterwards.

Since it costs more and more to have visits to your page, once a person lands on it you don’t want them to leave without contacting you or leaving their email address.

If you have a mailing list you can have a conversation with them and build trust so you can offer your product or service at the right time.

Email marketing is very effective and a way to create your community and offer value. If you want to know more about how to write effective emails that are actually read here I give you some tips.

In order to get subscribers, you can offer free content for which they must leave their email to download it. We call it Lead Magnet.

It has to be valuable content for which the visitors consider it worthwhile to provide you with their email addresses.

Now everyone knows that when you give your email address you are going to receive marketing emails. So the content has to be really worth it.

It can be a practical guide, a webinar, a short e-book, a presentation, etc.

I don’t recommend using those windows that pop up automatically every few minutes asking to subscribe. I find them intrusive and very annoying.

They remind me of the typical irritating person insisting on having your phone number.

Better to avoid those pop-ups, so if a person provides you with his email address it’s because he is really interested in your content.

Same as when you give your phone number to someone, right?

Then you can use an email marketing automation tool to send emails to a mailing list.

There are many platforms that are free up to a certain number of subscribers, such as MailChimp or Active Campaign.

Your emails need to add value, you have to be very careful about how you write them and the moment you send them to your list.

If you want to know more about writing marketing emails, in addition to my post, you can read this HubSpot post with complementary information about the art of writing emails.

6.       Google RankBrain

Google is continuously researching and applying different techniques and algorithms in order to improve the user experience.

They want us to find the information we need faster.

That’s what Search Engines are for, actually.

RankBrain is an artificial intelligence system based on certain algorithms.

It tries to guess what people want to say and accumulates the results in its database, allowing future searches to readjust the results better to the user’s search intention.

For example, RankBrain recognizes synonyms and long expressions that can be said in a different way.

Photo by Michael Coghlan

Before RankBrain, if a person searched for “Apple’s smartphone,” Google literally searched for those words in the text of the pages.

Now with RankBrain, if a person searches for “the Apple smartphone” Google will give you results with the word iPhone.

RankBrain learns to relate terms and does so by studying user behaviour across 3 variables:

• Bounce rate, if it’s low it means that the result is correct with respect to the user’s search since the person stays on the page after clicking on the link on the Google results page.
• Duration of the session, if it is long it means that people stay to read on the page beyond the first paragraph so again that result is correct
• Click through rate, the number of times users click on the link on the results page

By studying these 3 variables RankBrain relates terms and understands users’ search intentions.

So how can you ensure that your website responds positively to Google’s way of searching for information?

Basically, in two ways:

1. Optimising the metatitles and metadescriptions of all your pages to make them more attractive

Enhance the metas of all your pages so that they attract more clicks. Use curiosity-trigger titles and compelling descriptions that summarise very well the information contained in that page.

Don’t try to exaggerate the benefits that the Internet user can get by clicking on your content. If the description or title doesn’t match the content, the bounce rate will be very high and you will have fewer opportunities to climb on the Google ranking.

2. Pay attention to the structure and usability of your website

If you don’t know what exactly site structure is you can read this post where I explain in more detail what it is and how you can optimise it

A correct site structure makes it easier for Google bots to find the information they need more easily.

At the same time good usability contributes to a better user experience since the visitor of your site finds everything she needs in an easy way.

The artificial intelligence that Google uses is getting better; in fact, forgive the redundancy, it’s becoming more intelligent.

7. Create excellent content with valuable information

This point is the most important because all the others depend on it. In the end what counts is that the content of your website is compelling, provides valuable information and helps people.

No matter what you are going to talk about, surely someone has talked about it before.

Do you want to get a little depressed?

Ok, you wanted it.

There are about 440 million blogs in the world and millions of posts are published every day.

“The good news is that even if you talk about a topic of which there are already so many posts written, no one will have told it yet as you.”

You can always provide your point of view on the topic and different examples that best illustrate a concept.

What also helps to endow your content with a fresh and different aura is to add some personal anecdotes from time to time.

Because you probably have something different to tell. Each person has different experiences and can bring new light to a topic.

So don’t get depressed thinking that there are millions of posts talking about the same thing as you.

Better yet concentrate on figuring out how you can bring a different perspective or explain that point in a simpler, more enjoyable way.

The best thing to do is to create content frequently and over time, you’ll progress and obtain better results.

Good content is what will bring you organic traffic so it should be a very important part of your business.

If you are not good at writing or creating videos or infographics or simply you don’t have time to do it, a good option is to delegate the creation of content to someone else.

Content is increasingly important when positioning your brand, so don’t neglect it.

8. Podcasts and Videos Will Bring Even More Traffic

People like to watch videos. They are personal, persuasive and entertaining.

We read a lot of comments, blogs, news etc. So from time to time, people want to rest watching a video or listening to a podcast on the train back home.

I know, it’s a difficult step, you have to get in front of a camera and get rid of all your complexes.

You’re also afraid of being annoying or seeming inexperienced but the reality is that by adding videos to your content you will obtain much more traffic than if you don’t.

The best strategy is to get ready, write a script including what you want to say and make sure that the light and sound are good enough.

By creating graphic content and posts you can also get visibility and speed up sales but if you want to increase your organic traffic faster videos will help you.

If you are too embarrassed to appear in front of the camera you can also opt for a podcast. Choose the format you like best, solo shows or interviews, or combine both of them.

Conclusion

SEO will be very important in 2019 as it has been since digital marketing came into our lives to stay.

Focus on these points and try to adapt your strategy to these new SEO trends.

In the end, it’s not a matter of following everything that’s been talked about here, but of knowing what can bring you more traffic in order to increase your presence and sales.

Let’s summarize these points:

1. Omnipresence, use several channels on social media to share your content
2. Have your website adapted to mobile version
3. Optimise your content for voice searches
4. Your page can appear in the featured snippets (position 0) even if it doesn’t have a very high position on Google.
5. Optimise conversion to build your community
6. Google RankBrain, enhance your metas (titles and descriptions)
7. Create excellent content with useful information
8. If you dare get started with a Podcast or a Video

Do you have any other SEO trends that we haven’t seen?

Leave it on the comments so that nothing is missing!

It’s incredible that something that was created more than 20 years ago is still that effective.

According to Campaign Monitor research, in 2016 the ROI for every dollar spent on email campaigns was 44 USD, compared with 38$ in 2015.

Email marketing on mobiles continues to grow, reaching a 68% open rate in 2016 compared with 21% in 2012.

If you are able to write compelling emails that receivers will choose to open and read you have a lot more chance that they’ll trust you and eventually buy from you.

But you really need to make sure you aren’t a pain in the neck and know how to present your sales pitch at the correct moment.

The problem with many emails is that they are scruffy templates with repetitive subjects containing the same pushy and sheer marketing techniques.

You really need to be creative and know your audience very well in order not to annoy them and send them away.

After all, we receive tons of emails each day. According to Statista, the number of sent and received e-mails per day worldwide in 2017 was roughly 269 billion.

This figure is expected to increase to over 333 billion daily emails in 2022.

Every single day.

Now, it’s very easy to unsubscribe from a mailing list and you can be sure that people who unsubscribe won’t come back.

You want them to stay and form part of your community.

So let’s see a few tips on how to avoid writing emails that will automatically end up in the spam inbox or grow spider webs in the unread inbox.

1.    Yes, you guessed it. The subject line

You have to look at an email like at a book. If the title is crap you will never make the effort to read it, right?

So an email is the same.

Avoid clickbait subject lines like:

What they don’t want you to know about…

This is amazing. Have you read yet about…

They’ve been really used too often.

Think about what can generate curiosity in the reader.

Let’s see an example:

It’s time to rethink Black Friday

According to Sumo, this subject had a 57% open rate. That’s an amazing performance.

Pick a fad like Black Friday and give a hint on what the reader will find in the email. This title creates a certain curiosity and doesn’t contain worn-out expressions.

Try to be original and provoke the urge to find out more.

We don’t recommend starting a sentence on the subject and finishing it in the body of the email. This can annoy people since it doesn’t respect the audience.

If you want to invite your mailing list to read your content you can add the word NEW on the subject to promote that fresh blog post.

Don’t use it all the time because then it loses its attraction powers.

Sit and think about the best possible subject for the content of the email and try different formats: questions, X number of tips/reasons, NEW, etc. and test which ones work better.

Check this post where I decipher the formula to create exciting headlines and email subjects

You might take into consideration adding emojis (apparently they increase open rates) and numbers.

Some statistics have proven that the use of certain words on the email subject decreases open rates.

Some examples are luxury, free, help, last chance, $$$, etc.

Basically, in order to know which words you shouldn’t use, take a look at your spam inbox and avoid using the kind of words you’ll find there.

Last tip regarding email subjects, try not to be repetitive.

Use different formats and test what works better.

Who said writing emails was easy?

It isn’t but if you don’t try it you won’t see any benefits either.

Take a look at this infographic with dos and don’ts when writing good email marketing:

2. Don’t include a lot of links

This is one of the reasons certain emails end up in the spam folder.

Email servers get suspicious when they see a lot of links and classify them as spam.

Make sure you include only one link or a maximum of 2, so you make sure your email will go to the inbox and therefore will have more options to be opened and read.

3. Write an intro with a valid reason why they should care

The intro of your email is as important as the subject line.

Once the recipient opens the email she’ll read the first 2 sentences and decide within a second if she continues reading or will just delete it.

Therefore you have about 2 lines to tell her why she should care about this email.

It’s important to convey what kind of benefit she might take away when reading the whole email.

You might give some hints on the kind of problem you can solve or about important information she should know regarding a certain subject.

Let’s see some examples:

This email arrived recently in my inbox.

First of all, I must say that I hardly ever shop for clothes online because I still like to touch the items and try them on in the store.

Yet with this email, I took the bait.

And I’ll tell you why.

The subject line said, “Which of these models do you want at 70% for Black Friday?”

Normally I wouldn’t have opened an email like that. Firstly because I’m not a Black Friday fan and secondly because I don’t buy much online.

But the fact that I was given the choice among several models made me curious. I said to myself, well, I’m just going to look at which model I like best.

The email is in Dutch because I live in the Netherlands.

I clicked on it.

On the black dress.

This is definitely a very smart marketing technique.

Choose a little game or ask a question that the recipient has to answer in order to get her involved.

We all like to play and feel that we’re the ones deciding.

Let’s see a different example with a great opening.

PayPal uses a very common situation in everyone’s life. You go out to have dinner with your friends and the bill arrives.

It’s always a pain to split it so PayPal is telling us that there’s a very easy way to deal with this awkward situation.

It’s a short and crisp email straight to the point and gives the reader a clear call to action.

This is a short email that doesn’t need a lot of explanation since PayPal is a very well-known brand.

But let’s see in the next section how you can make the receiver keep reading when we need to write a longer email.

4. Add curiosity seeds to your copy

Whenever you need to write long forms of copy, you have to make sure the prospect reads the whole email.

And you can do this by adding curiosity seeds.

Each sentence has to be the anticipation of the next one so the recipient reads up to the end where your CTA is.

Curiosity seeds is a concept introduced by copywriter Joseph Sugarman.

He would very often end a paragraph with one of these transitional sentences in order to retain the reader’s attention:

• Let me explain why
• And now comes the best part
• Not only that
• What’s more
• Even more importantly

These transitional phrases push the reader to keep reading in order to know more.

5. Break the copy into small chunks

An email shouldn’t look like a chapter in a Tolstoy novel.

If you write long paragraphs with lots of commas readers will feel weighed down and probably delete the email before they finished reading the first 2 sentences.

Break the copy into small chunks, 2 sentences maximum per paragraph.

You can use photos to make the email more attractive to the eye but if you do so, take into consideration those readers with images disabled.

For these cases, you need to make sure the copy is still readable and the email doesn’t look scruffy.

6. Add an attractive CTA

If you have made it and the prospect has read all the way til the end, make sure he doesn’t leave without taking that action you have thought of before sitting down to write your email.

Make sure there is always something for the reader when they click on it.

Stick to your promise, if you tell them they will find a free e-book with marketing tips, make sure that’s what they find when clicking on the link.

I like InVision CTAs because they are always different, like in this example.

Summing up

We are all very busy and don’t have time to read every single email we receive in our inboxes.

So when writing emails to your list, make sure you’re being helpful and go straight to the point.

Tell them clearly what’s the purpose of your email and what kind of benefit they will obtain.

And if it’s an informative email, give valuable information they can take away with them.

As always be honest and stick to your promises.

Mastering the art of writing emails is not an easy task, you need to observe what experts are doing.

Study the emails you receive in your inbox and decide which ones you like and why.

You can also observe what kind of words they avoid and what kind of subject lines they use.

And then practice a lot!

Featured image: Kai Schreiber