How small business owners can enhance performance with the right content marketing strategy

Many solo entrepreneurs resort to doing everything themselves. Bookkeeping, selling, cleaning, buying, customer service and promotional activity. As their business grows, the demand on their time increases.  It’s at this point when small business owners should identify tasks that are better outsourced to a professional.  Content marketing is an obvious candidate.


For many small B2C firms, a Do-It-Yourself content marketing strategy is the obvious way to generate the material to attract web traffic.  But is a DIY strategy a false economy?

If you have to rely on a vehicle to keep your business running, do you take time out to service it yourself or do you use a professional?  If you’re really competent at vehicle mechanics, and enjoy it, then it may be an option you consider.  But if motor maintenance is not your thing, you will probably find a reliable mechanic instead.  You can then use the time you might have spent on servicing to look after another part of your business.  

It’s the same for content marketing.  There are times when it’s best to use a professional.  Let me explain.

A recent study highlighted the benefits B2C firms experienced after deploying different types of content to promote their business.  Take a look at the following:

The graphic above suggests that around three quarters of B2C firms have had a good experience with content marketing.  They have seen improved brand awareness, a higher search engine ranking and increased web visitor numbers.  Almost 50% are using content marketing and social media to reduce traditional advertising costs and generate new leads.

The content that seems to be getting the best results are articles, blogs, social media posts and videos.  E-newsletters and whitepapers also continue to track well.  As B2C firms plan to invest further in these techniques during the coming year, they can be assumed to reflect past success.  

The research goes on to find that some 61% of B2C firms in the survey write their own content. That’s understandable, as many small firms are on a tight budget. But a DIY strategy could be a more expensive option in the longer term.

The same research found that 79% of small firms spend up to ten hours a week on content creation.   That’s a big chunk of time if you’re a solo entrepreneur.  Consider the following:

Evidence suggests that it takes, on average, three hours to write a blog post. A carefully researched article or whitepaper takes even longer.  That means you might be able to generate two or three blog posts per week or perhaps one carefully constructed article.  But, is that enough for your on-going lead generation needs?  Research elsewhere links the frequency of blog posts to the volumes of leads generated.  So, the more you post, the greater the probability of generating leads.

All this means that the task of content creation will make increasingly more demands on your time as you strive to increase lead volumes and conversions.  It will sap your effectiveness and pull you away from other business tasks demanding your attention.

What’s to be done?

If you don’t enjoy researching, writing and generally pulling together quality content that will engage your customers, try testing the outsourced option.  Try it for three months.  Monitor the impact it has on your business performance, and stress levels!

You will be able to keep control of the style, tone and editorial content and track if search rankings and traffic levels improve.  If you brief your copywriter well, you should see an improvement in lead quality and conversion rates too. Plus, you should assess the value of your re-allocated time; time you would otherwise have spent writing content but which can now be used more productively elsewhere in your business.

If after a three month test, you don’t see a worthwhile improvement in business performance, you can try another content professional or go back to the DIY approach.  If you get it right, you will have grown your business and be better placed to drive the rest of your business forward to the next level. 

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Fixed price copywriting and ghost blog writing offers for small business

The content that will make a long term improvement to your online conversion rates

For many B2B and B2C firms, improving web traffic and online conversion rates is a key focus of attention. However, studies suggest that too much emphasis is placed on generating social media “likes” when more sustainable alternatives exist.  This post looks at some of the options.

Including some form of endorsement on your website can have a significant impact on web conversion rates.  If your customers are end-user consumers, then star rating widgets and mini reviews/feedback pages can be really important.  

Indeed, it has been said that 70% of consumers look at product reviews and site popularity before deciding to buy. So, if you’re a consumer oriented business, including social media icons on your site is a must, provided your site is popular.

If your audience is not prone to declaring its preferences, or you are a B2B businesses for example, evidence suggests it’s better not to show any social icons on your site at all. It’s argued that your conversion rate could actually suffer if you use social icons that have low participation scores (“likes”).

So, what else can you do if you’re a small business looking to increase web traffic and conversions?  One answer is to generate content such as product reviews, case studies and customer testimonials.  These are obviously time consuming to create but offer a more enduring benefit.  Here’s why they represent a better option than social icons for improving your conversion rates: 

1 The Story Factor:

Well written content is more akin to storytelling, and there is strong evidence to suggest that a good story can be highly persuasive in the sales process.

2 Crowd Support:

A carefully crafted review, case study or testimonial can make use of “crowd-power”.  By implying, positively rather than negatively, that peers are already acting on the information being presented, the reader feels more comfortable about acting (deciding to buy) themselves.

3 Flexibility:

Written content allows you to include supporting assets like images, videos and hero endorsements.  They can also be easily tailored to meet the information needs of different groups of people in the buying process.

All-in-all, B2B and B2C firms are better advised to focus on creating strong, powerful articles, reviews, case studies and customer testimonials rather than rely on chasing social “likes” to increase web traffic and conversions.

That’s not to say that social media doesn’t have a role to play.  Social platforms should be used to promote the availability of written content, along with SEO, PR, email and other traditional tactics.

The key success factor in all this concerns the quality of the copywriting involved.  Articles, case studies and testimonials need to be written in a way that really engages your target audience.  Each item of content must consistently highlight your competitive advantage, key messages, and provide a compelling call-to-action.

If you’re serious about improving your online performance, then these points are too important to ignore.  If you don’t have the time or skills in-house to write these articles and case studies, consider outsourcing the task to a professional.  You’ll see the benefit through improved web conversion rates!

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Freelance copywriting for small and medium sized businesses

Key tips to help you win more business from large enterprises

Understanding how decision makers in large companies decide on a short-list of candidate vendors can be a big advantage for a small or medium sized firm.  This article explains the content they find most valuable, how important they find social media, and even when they want to be contacted.  Your window of opportunity is just six days!

Large enterprises (LE) represent an attractive sales target for small and medium sized businesses.  A recent study by IDG looked at how IT decision makers in LE’s go about making purchasing decisions.  The findings offer small firms a real opportunity to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right proposition.

IDG asked 1025 decision makers what type of information they found most valuable when searching online to solve a problem or when looking for a new product or service.  Here’s what they found:

Articles, reviews and case studies came top of the list, with brochures and other content likely to be on your website not far behind.  So, content is king if you want to attract the interest of large enterprise buyers.

Interestingly, IDG also found that IT decision makers appear ready to be contacted by a prospective vendor after they have downloaded two or more items from a web site.  Not only that, but they would prefer to be contacted within six days of making an additional download.  

This represents a clear signal of interest that all firms will want to be aware of.  No doubt, as a small business owner, you will want to have this trigger embedded within your internal lead management process.  But how?

In truth, this is a real dilemma for many firms.  Unless you use some form of marketing automation system, you will need to “gate” or put a form in front of the download process.  The details on the form will identify who is downloading.  Consequently, using the form, you can track when a prospective buyer has downloaded more items from your website.  

However, expert opinion suggests that putting any form filling in front of a download will significantly reduce the number of people that actually go on to make the download.  Instead, they will find other web sites where access to articles and case studies are unencumbered.  You will effectively loose that prospect.

The answer is to do the following:

• Make your downloadable content free to access.
• Write your content in such a way that it compels serious prospects to complete a form linked within the content itself.

This will require a little creativity: perhaps a small promotion or access to a no-obligation ROI tool, etc.  The skill of the copywriter is the key ingredient.  Consider using a professional copywriter to create or edit your content if you don’t have these skills in-house.

How IT Decision Makers use Social Networks

The IDG study also identified the extent to which IT decision makers turned to social networks as part of their quest for information.  Not only do they use social platforms for networking and career enhancement, but many use them to discover, share and discuss technical information and seek answers to problems.

Linkedin was used by 72% of the IT decision makers surveyed, but the main purpose was for career progression.  When they wanted to find technical information, the top three platforms they turned to were:

• Twitter (59%)
• Google Plus (54%)
• Facebook (50%)

At least that was the case in May 2012 when the study was undertaken.  Interestingly, IDG also identified what decision makers claimed to use social media (including Linkedin) for.  Here’s what they found:

• 73% - to engage with a technical vendor
• 44% - to stay up to date with industry trends
• 38% - to find reviews and recommendations
• 35% - to find information to aid decision making

Clearly, if you are targeting IT decision makers, it’s important that you are visible on social media and that you can interlink content between your web site and social platforms.  As social media becomes more generally accepted, it’s likely that prospective buyers across all industries will use these platforms to find potential suppliers.  Some will use social platforms as much as they will use a Google search.  Indeed, having a presence on social media platforms is likely to improve your search engine ranking.

Many firms are not yet ready to fully embrace social media.  However, if you want to sell to large organisations, you need to ensure that your sales and marketing content is organised and freely available for when prospects come looking.  Having professionally written articles, case studies, blogs and product literature will go a long way in positively influencing your prospects and help to get your business on the short list.

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Freelance business copywriting and blog ghost writing for SMEs

How firms are using blogs to develop a steady stream of quality sales leads, month after month

Most leads generated from corporate blogs each month come from old blog posts.  This archive of blogs helps firms to build a regular, consistent level of sales leads that are of high quality and very cost effective.  Businesses new to blogging just have to invest in building up their library of blog material in order to achieve the same benefits.

The corporate blog is having a transformational impact on the lead generation process of many companies.  Research has already shown that sales leads from blogs and social media are 60% cheaper to generate than those from sources like telemarketing and trade shows.

Evidence now exists suggesting that corporate blogs can be very effective in providing a consistent level of high quality leads over a prolonged period of time.  A sample of blog-using organisations has revealed some impressive observations:

This presents firms with a tremendous opportunity to transform their lead generation process for the better.  By investing in good quality content that’s relevant to your audience, you can start to even out the peaks and troughs in lead generation that are so often experienced by sales teams across the country.  Furthermore, this steady stream of leads can be produced at half the cost than has traditionally been the case. 

Generating leads from blogs takes time.  You need to start today

With the bulk of blog leads coming from old posts, it’s important to build up a library of blog material.  Clearly, this takes time and money.  It has been estimated that it takes, on average, three hours to write a single blog post, so you need to have the resources available to devote to blog creation.  If your existing headcount doesn’t have the bandwidth or skill set required, consider outsourcing the task to an external copywriter.

Make sure you create blog posts that are of high quality, and relevant to your customers.  This is not the place for your sales pitch.  Instead, you should inform how products and services like yours solve problems.  Additionally, you could comment on the implications of a new item of industry news, or perhaps illustrate how your customer could save money or improve efficiency by following certain guidelines or actions.

You could use your existing marketing content as the basis for creating blog posts.  By writing a post that focuses on one of the benefits of a product, you can then include a link within the post that goes to your website where your sales brochure can be downloaded.  That’s how your web traffic can increase.  If you have created your landing pages appropriately, you’ll also be able to drive visitors to other pages on your site and ask for readers to follow you on Twitter and other social media platforms.

It’s this interconnected capability of digital media like blogging, social media and the web, that’s transforming lead generation strategies.  New digital channels like these are moving away from being seen as experimental.  Indeed, for many industries, digital lead generation techniques are now viewed as mainstream.  

For firms yet to fully embrace corporate blogging, the key is to start building up that archive of blog material as soon as possible.  Then start promoting on your website as well as on Twitter and social media platforms.  Collectively, as your library of blog posts increases, you should see a corresponding increase in the volume of quality sales leads, month after month.

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Freelance copywriting and blog ghost writing for SMEs

How you can generate an on-going stream of customer testimonials and win more business

Firms know that good customer endorsements can help to close orders.  The problem for many firms is how to create really powerful case studies, time after time.  By taking a simple, structured, approach to the process, you can create a regular stream of testimonials that will help you accelerate sales opportunities and improve conversion rates.

Whilst customer testimonials can close deals, finding good ones on a regular basis is often a problem.  You need a regular stream of new endorsements and case studies to keep moving forward. Many “age” and can give out the wrong perception if used too often or for too long.

Here’s a framework you can use to create a structured approach to generate an on-going flow of customer endorsements and testimonials.  It identifies activities that can be rich sources of candidates to help promote your business.

Let’s take a brief look at each source.

Customer Service

How you engage and handle inbound customer contacts sets the tone of the relationship from the outset.  Customer experience really is the first, and easiest, source for capturing positive comments about your business.  Resolving enquiries and solving problems will have customers warming towards you.  Ask customers if they would be prepared to let you feature their query within your FAQ facilities.  

Then use social media to post about the query and publicly thank your customer for their support in letting them be quoted.  The social publicity will reinforce positive emotions towards your business.  Then consider motivating your customer service team to suggest candidates for case studies each week.  We’ll talk more about this in a moment.

End-User Training

This source obviously only works if you have a relevant product or service.  Many products can provide a multiplicity of benefits but users need to become experts in order to reap the rewards.  

Investing time to train and support a few key users until they reach expert status, will result in a really useful source of on-going potential endorsements:

• By becoming experts, these users acquire a rare skill set that is valuable within the firm in which they work.  
• They will be sought-out by their colleagues which fuels their internal expert status.
• As experts, they are able to promote your product / service deeper into the organisation.  This protects their own position, helps your customer organisation, and widens the body of support in favour of your offering.

Maintaining a regular dialogue with these experts will provide you with many opportunities to identify how your product is adding greater value and so become an ideal source of future endorsements, case studies, and other testimonial stories.

User Forums:

This too is an option that may only be suitable for certain types of product or service.  Forums can be closed, private or restricted in nature or open to all.  Like any discussion group, you will need to invest time to moderate and engage. However, in doing so, you’ll have the opportunity to identify what customers like most about your offering. You may even be able to capture customer quotes that you can use in marketing material to support your competitive advantage.

You’ll also hear directly about customer dislikes, giving you the opportunity to respond.  It’s better to manage any negative trends as they emerge rather than let them get out of control.  Often, once customers understand why a feature is the way it is, many users accept it and so it becomes less of an issue.  

More to the point, you can use this forum to ask for ideas on what customers would like to see on the development roadmap – setting-up future orders!  Again, by monitoring user forums, you’ll be able to identify customers that you can approach separately as a candidate for a testimonial.

Case Studies:

This needs to be an on-going sales and marketing activity.  The stream of candidates should be structured rather than ad hoc.  Sales teams should be obliged to provide at least one candidate name each quarter which can supplement the feeds from the sources mentioned above.  

A dedicated resource should be assigned to the task of project managing and implementing the production of all case studies and testimonials.  This will help to ensure consistency and high standards throughout the process.  This is often outsourced but many firms have an in-house resource with this task specifically defined in the job description.  

Don’t forget to plan for presenting case studies using the full range of media; PR, video, web articles, blogs as well as the one-off case study PDF itself. 

Product Development:

This is where the most powerful testimonials are often created.  It requires identifying customers that you can work with to build and test prototypes of new products or services.  Obviously, it needs excellent stakeholder management.  Customers need to expect that the first few iterations will be flawed.  It’s their experience of working with you to resolve all the niggles that generates a really successful testimonial.  

The customer contacts involved become personally and emotionally involved in the process.  It’s this bond that helps lead to true advocacy.  Capturing the whole process in an extended case study is just one way to portray the experience.  The same content can then be used during speaker opportunities at events as well as promoting using the usual channels like PR, blogs, etc. 

Generating testimonials does take time and effort but the costs involved will be recovered many times over in helping to accelerate existing opportunities and closing more business.  The bottom line benefits are too many to risk leaving as an ad hoc process.  Make a point of following a simple structured approach to the process of creating testimonials and reap the rewards from additional business.

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Freelance copywriting for articles, case studies and business blogs.

Reduce the cost of your sales leads and gain an extra three hours per week

Digital marketing techniques are having a profound impact on small business performance.  Now you can publish blogs that generate new sales leads at a lower cost per lead than traditional techniques, and free-up more time to run your business.


Small businesses are responding to the challenging economic climate by consciously reviewing the techniques they use to generate new business.  The trend is away from traditional techniques like exhibitions and outbound calling and more towards blogging and social media.  What’s more, this change appears to be having a positive impact on profit margins too!

Savings of up to 60%
Research published by Hubspot in 2012 reveals small firms are reallocating up to 21% of their marketing budget towards blogging and social media.  These firms are finding that digital techniques can generate new business at a lower cost per lead.  Some 52% of respondents felt blogs produced leads at a lower cost than traditional techniques whilst 45% claimed the same for social media.

Aligning blogs and social media to “Inbound” marketing, and tactics such as trade shows and telemarketing to “Outbound” marketing, Hubspot calculated the average cost per lead based on respondent input.  

They found that the average outbound cost per lead came to $346 whereas the value for inbound leads was $135 – a massive 60% difference!  Given the current economic environment, it’s no wonder small firms are re-allocating marketing budget towards blogging and social media.

Hubspot also asked respondents to rank blogging and the main social media channels in order of lead generation importance.  

All channels scored 60% or more in terms of their usefulness in generating new leads.  Even more revealing was that 25% said blogging was “critical” in terms of importance and a further 34% ranked blogging as “important” as shown in the diagram below.

Chart 1: Importance of blogging and social media to new lead generation activities:

The hidden costs of social media and blogs
Whilst digital techniques are proving to be more cost effective than traditional lead generation methods, they still have associated costs that can have a big impact on small business performance.

The sheer time and effort required to maintain a social media presence or create a quality blog is proving too much for many small business owners.  Research elsewhere indicates that it takes three or more hours to create a single blog post.  If you wanted to create and publish, say, three posts a week, you’d need to find an extra day on top of your already busy schedule.

You may be like a number of small business owners who want to spend less time managing social media and blogging; a third of SME’s feel this way.  Understandably, you need to devote more time to running your business.  However, if you stop publishing blogs you’ll be back to relying on traditional lead generation techniques and the consequent impact on your bottom line. 


The opportunity cost of your time
As the owner of a small business you’ll be stretched trying to cover all the different aspects of your business.  This makes you best qualified to act as thought leader.  You’ll also be ideally placed to interpret an item of industry news and highlight the implications for your audience.
  
However, if you don’t enjoy writing or don’t feel you have the right style or approach, you will end up spending longer than is necessary on the task of blog writing; that’s wasted time that could be invested more productively elsewhere in your business. 

What’s more, the material you publish is going to directly impact how your business brand is perceived by existing customers and prospects alike.  The content has to be relevant and engaging, yet still include a subtle call-to-action. Plus, your audience will view typos and mistakes as badly as those found in a glossy sales brochure; blogging and social media for businesses demands higher standards than for personal use.

Unless you enjoy writing and creating charts, graphs, etc., you may be better off handing the task over to someone in your business able to focus fully on the job, or outsource the task to a professional.  You’ll then be able to stay in control of the message by reviewing and influencing content before it’s published. 

If you were to allocate the task of publishing just one blog post a week to someone else, not only would you be generating leads at a lower cost than traditional methods, but you would have an extra three hours a week to devote to running other parts of your business!


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Ghost blog writing and outsourced marketing for small businesses

How small businesses are winning new customers by blogging

Blogging and social media generate new leads at a lower cost per lead than traditional marketing tactics.  They convert into sales too.  This post looks at how small firms can produce the right level of blogs without taking business owners away from their day job.


Digital marketing tactics are fast becoming mainstream.  They have gone beyond the experimental stage and are challenging traditional techniques like exhibitions, trade shows and direct mail in terms of lead generation performance.

Not only do digital techniques have a cost per lead that’s typically 60% lower than traditional tactics, but the lead quality seems to be just as good too.

Recent research published by Hubspot looked at the effectiveness of inbound versus outbound marketing techniques. Inbound refers to activities like blogs, content publishing, social media and web traffic resulting from SEO.  Hubspot defines outbound as telemarketing, direct mail, trade shows and more traditional activities.

The findings highlighted a shift away from traditional marketing techniques towards inbound digital tactics.  This has big implications if you are the owner of a small business keeping a close eye on your bottom line.

The research found that inbound digital techniques like blogging and social media had the lowest cost per lead.  The average lead cost for traditional tactics was $346 which compares to a figure for blogging and social media of just $135 – a whopping 60% difference!

Looking at blogging and social media platforms, respondents claimed success in acquiring new customers from the following:

65%  LinkedIn
55%  Blogging
43%  Facebook
40%  Twitter

Hubspot went on to look at the lead-to-close rates to identify the most effective channels for lead conversion.  This revealed the following metrics:

15%  SEO
15%  Direct traffic
 9%   Digital links / Referrals
 7%   Paid for Search
 4%   Social Media
 2%   Outbound calls

So, leads arising from SEO and via the web generally, had a higher conversion rate than outbound calls (15% versus 2%).  It’s not entirely clear what actually falls under the terms “Direct traffic” or “Referrals”, but links from blogs and other published articles probably fall into the latter.  Equally, one suspects that the results from nurture activity targeted at direct mail respondents or trade show visitors may fall under “Direct Traffic”.

In terms of blogging itself, the research identified a high correlation between frequency of blog posts and the ability of the technique to generate new business.

At first sight, this diagram could be a very scary one for small business owners: the more you post, the higher the probability of generating a new customer.  However, evidence suggests that a third of SME bosses want to reduce the time they spend creating blogs or participating in social media.  A couple of observations should help calm the nerves!

Firstly, you don’t need to post multiple times a day to benefit from blogging.  You stand a greater than 50% chance of winning new business if you just post once a month.  Publish more frequently and your chances of success will be even higher.

Given that it takes around three hours to compose a blog it’s no wonder that the time and effort involved appears onerous.  Posting once or twice a week will get you near to a 70% success rate, provided the posts are of quality content and relevant to your audience.

That’s the real challenge;  devoting the time to create quality content that is relevant to your audience.  The higher the quality, the longer it will take to create.  That can be a big problem when you’re also trying to run the rest of your business.

What’s to be done?  You can’t stop producing blogs as they are a highly cost effective method of generating new business.  Equally, you probably can’t afford to devote over three hours to produce every blog post.

Ideally you’ll have someone in your organisation able to take on the role of blog preparation. Alternatively, you’ll need to outsource the task to a professional or accept that it’s something you’ll have to continue to do yourself.

Building your social media and blogging presence in today’s economic climate has become an essential part of your marketing activity.  The cost implications alone demand that you re-balance your marketing budget away from the more expensive traditional techniques in favour of more cost effective digital tactics.  

Hubspot research respondent profile:
972 respondents in January 2012 (presumably US).
57% had less than 25 employees; 72% were B2B and 38% were owners or heads of business.
Industries included professional services, communications, technology, media, education and others.

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Copywriting and ghost blogging for small businesses

How UK firms can benefit from the current wave of business optimism

New research in 2013 points to cautious optimism for UK small and medium sized firms.  Business owners and managers can take steps now that will help them benefit from rising confidence and minimise the impact of any relapse.


The latest edition of the Lloyds TSB Commercial research of UK SMEs offers some encouragement for small business owners.  The 41st edition of Business in Britain highlights the areas that suffered during the last six months of 2012 but also points to across the board cautious optimism for the first half of 2013.

Mixed fortunes during the latter half of 2012
It seems that manufacturers in the West Midlands, South West and Wales with turnovers greater than £5m per annum suffered the most in the final half of 2012.  Smaller companies elsewhere in the country were experiencing something of a recovery, albeit a mild one as the diagram below shows:

Cautious optimism for the first half of 2013
The research suggests that all sectors, business sizes and regions expect, on balance, to see more favourable trading conditions in the first six months of 2013.  Firms have slightly more positive expectations for orders, sales, profits, staff hiring and capital spending.  

In terms of challenges, the biggest concern is weak domestic demand. Additionally, firms have stated that regulation is becoming an increasing burden.  Any knock to consumer sentiment could shatter the cautious levels of optimism seen in this research.  

On the export front, it seems firms are satisfied with the EU’s promise to do whatever it takes to keep the Eurozone stable.  However, any change to the EU’s ability to honour this commitment could see a return to volatility which, given that the region faces fresh bail-out concerns and looming elections in 2013, is a bit of a worry.

In the meantime, SMEs will be looking for the UK government to push forward with infrastructure projects and see progress from schemes like Funding for Lending.

How to make the most of this optimism
As a small business owner or business manager, you will want to make the most of these early signs of optimism.  You could start by targeting those industries expected to benefit from government initiatives or companies that seem unaffected by current economic conditions such as these growth businesses.

You will also want to ensure your sales and marketing activities are cost effective too.  Relying on traditional advertising and trade shows for lead generation can be an expensive and unproductive option.  Blogging, social media and content marketing all appear to be more cost effective lead generation techniques without any compromise in lead quality.

Now is the time to review your marketing plans. Ensure your activities will make the most of the growing sense of business optimism.  Check that your staff are addressing these new marketing techniques effectively and can track performance.  Alternatively, if your human resources are already stretched, consider using outsourced professionals.

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Freelance copywriting and outsourced marketing for SMEs

How small business owners can implement social media and free-up more time for themselves.

Many SME owners adopt a DIY approach to social media which takes them away from actually managing their business.  It’s a method that can back-fire badly.  This post highlights the pitfalls and an alternative way forward.

Evidence from a recent survey points to a growing dilemma for small business owners.  Many are embracing social media to promote their business but the opportunity cost of doing so is turning out to be higher than expected.

Conducted in September and October 2012, the survey by Vertical Response canvassed feedback from 462 firms, 93% of which had less than 100 employees and 43% of respondents were business owners.  Whilst the research is US based, the findings can probably be applied to the UK and Europe too.


Managing Social updates
The survey found that 43% of respondents spent six or more hours per week on managing social media activity.  Most of this was on updating Facebook and Twitter accounts.  LinkedIn was mentioned by just half of respondents indicating a possible B2C bias in the data.


Blogs can work well, but…
Over half the sample managed a blog with 43% aiming to publish at least once a week.  The problem is that 45% spend up to three hours to create a post with another 16% spending more than three hours on the task.  The biggest problem cited was in finding suitable material to base the blog on.

The dilemma for small business owners
A third of the sample want to spend less time managing social media and blogging.  However, research elsewhere indicates that almost 70% of firms find social tactics successful in generating new business.  Stopping social marketing activity is therefore not something business owners really want to do.

That’s the dilemma.  Social marketing is a relatively low cost activity that’s getting results but SME owners have a desire to spend time responding to needs elsewhere in the business rather than on content creation.

This is an area that warrants serious thought and consideration. Getting your social media communication strategy wrong can be very damaging to your business.  Let me explain why.


The opportunity cost of your time
As the owner of a small business you’ll be stretched to cover all the bases.  The benefit is that you’ll be most qualified to act as thought leader, as well as the person most able to take an item of industry news and overlay some added value for your audience.  

However, if you don’t enjoy writing or don’t feel you have the right style or approach, you will end up spending much longer on the task than someone more able, and you may feel the output of your efforts are sub-standard anyway.  That is time effectively wasted that could have been invested more productively elsewhere in your business.


Social media shapes how your brand is perceived
The material you publish is going to directly impact how your business brand is perceived by existing customers and prospects alike.  Social media for business is different to that for personal use.  The pressure to produce quality output is greater for business social media.  

Your audience will view typos and mistakes as badly as those found in a glossy sales brochure.  In effect, that is what social media is fast becoming – a key component of your online corporate brochure.  Only instead of a hard copy brochure, your audience now expect to view your web site, downloadable material, blog and social media posts in order to obtain the insight into your business that was once only possible by reading a brochure.

Few business owners would trust themselves to produce their flagship sales and marketing material in-house.  Rather, they would utilise skilled designers and printers to ensure that the most professional image is presented to the audience.  Social media content is no different.  

Unless you have a gift for and enjoy writing and creating charts, graphs, etc,  you may be better off handing the task over to someone in your business who can focus fully on the job,  or outsource the task to a professional.  You’ll then be able to stay in control of the messaging by reviewing and influencing content before it’s published and still be able to dedicate more of your time supporting the parts of your business that need you most.  

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Freelance copy writing and marketing support for SMEs

The online tools used by successful professional services firms

A study links higher adoption of digital marketing tools to greater business success amongst professional services firms.  However, it varies by sector with some industries slow to adapt.  That’s an opportunity for those firms that can move quickly.  They could experience rapid growth if they embrace online tools.


The survey sample consisted of 500 US professional services (PS) firms operating in architecture, engineering, construction, marketing communications, accountancy, finance and technology in late 2011.

Hinge, who commissioned the research, looked at the number of PS businesses that generated leads online and matched this to the relative success of those firms in terms of growth and profitability.  

They found that the more successful firms tended to generate more leads from online sources than their less successful peers.  Taking figures from the report, this effect is highlighted in the chart below:

To help interpret this chart; of those that generate between 80 to 100% of their leads online, 60.7% are from the “successful” PS firms in the research.  Only 15% of high growth / profit PS firms do not generate any of their leads from online sources.

The report goes on to highlight the inbound response methods from online activity:

* 43.9% - direct e-mail
* 28.6% - web form
* 24.1% - inbound telephone call
* 3.4% - other

This probably reflects the call-to-action mechanisms provided more than anything else but it does highlight that over a quarter are deploying web forms and generating sales leads as a result.

Hinge go on to look at the different online techniques that the sample used and how effective PS firms found them.  It’s interesting to compare the rank order of techniques considered effective amongst PS firms to a similar study conducted in 2012 amongst small and medium sized businesses in general (i.e., not just PS firms):

The differences may allude to the different techniques required to be successful within different industries and professions.  The SME audience are known to still be heavy users of traditional sales and marketing methods for lead generation.  They are still experimenting with online tools.  Having said that, over 50% of SME’s claim to be using all these methods.

If the professional services industry in the US can be aligned to that in the UK and Europe then these findings suggest that PS firms should embrace these techniques to improve lead generation and overall business performance.

Which professional service sectors perform best?
The Hinge report looked at which PS segments were using online techniques the most to generate leads:

This suggests that the majority of PS firms, especially those in architecture, engineering and construction, could achieve faster growth by focussing more effort on web lead generation.  

Whilst traditional methods like personal networking, trade shows and exhibitions are still no doubt proven lead generation winners, the link suggested by the Hinge report about online adoption and business success really warrants close attention.

A common issue for PS firms new to online tools, is assigning management ownership internally and then finding someone suitably skilled to undertake the tasks.  That person may not even exist in the headcount.  What’s more, the management team may be unsure about the skills required to complete the task or the level of budget that should be allocated for this activity to be effective.

One solution to this would be to engage an external resource just to get things going.  That external resource could set-up an initial online content marketing programme.  Also, if agreed at the outset, the external partner could organise the programme to facilitate knowledge transfer and training to an in-house resource.  Based on this research, the cost of the external resource should pay for itself from new incremental business. 

Technology has changed the way firms do business.  Digital technologies and social media communications have reached a tipping point and firms across all industries are now grappling with the impact of the changes on their business.  Delaying the inevitable adoption of online marketing may prove to be a risky strategy.

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Freelance copy writing and marketing support for small businesses

The biggest marketing challenges for small businesses – and how to overcome them.

A survey has highlighted eight major challenges facing marketing teams.  SME’s need to acquire new skills to overcome these challenges and succeed in today’s digital climate.

Recent research by Forrester Consulting, commissioned by Act-On Software (see details below) asked small business marketing decision makers what they felt were their biggest challenges.  The response is illustrated in Table 1 below. 

Whilst the research identified responses from SME’s considered “successful” relative to those less successful, the differences between the two groups were broadly similar. They are represented in the table below as an average from all SME’s in the research.

Table 1: Biggest marketing challenges for SME marketing decision makers:

So what can small business marketing decision makers faced with these challenges do to overcome them?  A few thoughts on each follow.  Whilst not exhaustive, hopefully SME’s can take something from these comments to move things forward in their business.

Increasing sales from existing customers:

Assuming SME’s already have strong relationships with existing customers then the task facing them is to maintain visibility with key stakeholders and continue to build credibility whilst keeping an ear to the ground for any new order opportunities.  Personal networking is a proven technique here but SME’s may be limited in terms of the number of contacts they can effectively network with.

Another option is new media.  Being visible on relevant digital and social media platforms can indicate to customers that your business is keeping up-to-date with the changes in the business communications landscape – a perception that might then extend to the rest of your business.  That’s a positive, as few customers will remain loyal to suppliers they consider slow to adapt in the current economic environment.

Of course, being visible on social platforms means producing effective content in sufficient quantity.  It’s an opportunity to demonstrate understanding of industry issues and be seen as an organisation with high industry competence.  Owners of SME’s must task their marketing teams to develop editorial programmes, then create and distribute this content.  It can be a very cost effective way to be top of mind with existing customer contacts when they are ready to place new orders.

Converting more leads into opportunities:

Usually, the problem here is that the enquiries or leads generated are not yet ready to buy.  That’s always going to be the case.  Depending on the demand generation tactic used to produce the lead in the first place, a firm could have hundreds of names to sift through to identify what’s about to turn “hot” and what needs to be kept warm or placed at the bottom of the pile.

This can be addressed in a number of ways.  Firstly, make sure that the leads generated are of required quality right from the outset.  It's better to have fewer leads but of high quality than masses of poor quality names. It’s faster to identify and work upon those that will generate business and means staff will be more productive.

Once you have enquiries of good quality, it’s a case of building a dialogue with each one, providing them with relevant information depending on where they are in the buying cycle and tracking subsequent behaviour.  Lead scoring plays a role as can marketing automation in sophisticated environments. 

Clearly the right content needs to be in place at all stages of the process.  Each item of content should be designed to dovetail with the sales process, to get to BANT qualification stage and, consequently, a sales opportunity that can be forecast.

Differentiating from the competition:

This is often a problem for small businesses.  Resolving it requires something of a strategic review, taking an objective assessment of competitor’s strengths and weaknesses, value chain and industry trends.  The trick is to emphasize a strength that has perceived value to customers – ideally one that competitors would find hard to replicate.  This usually manifests itself around the area of service, skills / competence, or experience.

Once the strength has been identified, all sales and marketing materials should be aligned to emphasize the advantage to existing and prospective customers.  Here again, carefully crafted content needs to be developed and distributed using the media channels most appropriate to your audience.

Closing more deals from existing leads flows / Accelerating the lead to revenue time:

This is linked to “Converting more leads into opportunities” above.  It’s all about improving lead management and opportunity management performance.  

One of the reasons closure rates may be poor is because the sales people involved are spending too much time trying to nurture “leads” that are not yet ready to buy.  Lead nurturing and scoring activities should be implemented by your marketing or inside sales team to deliver qualified leads to target carrying sales staff.  These should be leads that meet an agreed "sales qualified lead" standard. 

This will do a couple of transformational things to your business.  First, sales staff will be focussed on converting a smaller number of qualified leads, which will automatically improve the conversion metric (as conversions will be measured against a lower base of leads). 

The second consequence is that, for your marketing or inside sales team to provide the volume of qualified leads to sales, they will become more focussed and expert in filling the funnel with higher quality enquiries in the first place and then developing the most effective nurture activities.  Use external support to fill any gaps in knowledge, skills or expertise until you have this well-honed internally.

Raising awareness:

This is often a problem for SME’s because it can mean high expenditure.  Exhibitions, advertising, direct mail, teleprospecting can all provide excellent results but the cost can be crippling.

New digital and social media channels offer a realistic alternative.  Indeed evidence from the Forrester Consulting report suggests some 50% of SME’s have tried digital and social media awareness tactics and found them to be successful.

However, here again the small business marketing team needs to be flat out creating carefully crafted content in sufficient quantity to not only increase recency and frequency of visibility, but also to ensure the content is engaging.  It needs to present the firm's differential advantage as well as keep prospects coming back or “following” for future content releases.

Driving more traffic to your web site:

This is a big subject!  Apart from the obvious SEO activities and the inclusion of web details in outbound email addresses and printed literature, prospects need to be stimulated to visit your site.

Blogs, newsletters and PR articles should all point back to specific landing pages on your site.  The trick is to know what content to put into your blog, newsletter or press release in the first place.

It can be opportunistic: a new customer win or order deployment, or maybe a new product introduction.  Some content can be planned, perhaps a piece of commissioned research or a whitepaper on an emerging industry trend.  The planned material should also allow you multiple opportunities to distribute and communicate with your audience, especially using social media channels.

Any content a prospect is likely to find valuable should be hosted on designated landing pages on your web site and all outbound communications and content must be created with this in mind.  Material appearing on social platforms should have share buttons enabled too.

Generating new leads:

To some extent this heading has been addressed by much of the above.  The importance of effective and appropriate content creation cannot be overstated.  So, perhaps here we should mention the demand creation vehicles.

Understandably, SME’s tend to rely on the tried and tested traditional mechanisms to generate leads: personal contact, exhibitions and events, advertising, PR, email and direct mail.  Increasingly they are adopting new digital and social media platforms too.  When they do, they tend to use the following content types:

·         Case studies and testimonials

·         Videos

·         Whitepapers

·         Webinars

·         Research reports

This is based on research conducted by by MarketingProfs and the Content Marketing Institute entitled “B2B Content Marketing: 2012 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America” .  This report  also noted the emerging trend of using infographics and e-books too.

Implications for SME’s:

The marketing challenges cited by small businesses are all surmountable.  The issues typically involve finding sufficient time, budget and human resources to do the job well.  In many ways it requires changing the way you and your team work. 

Owners of small and medium sized businesses will need to ensure their marketing teams acquire the skills required to succeed in a digital and social world. That’s in addition to what they do now.   

Another option is to use external content providers to help build an initial content campaign and help transfer skills to the internal teams at the same time.  Acquiring the content marketing skills for today’s changing business environment has become another priority for owners of SME’s.  Those quick to adapt are likely to secure an advantage over the rest.

(Source of data: : “Driving SMB Revenue in a Tough Economy”, conducted by Forrester Consulting, commissioned by Act-On Software (download the full report from the Act-On site).  Sample: 208 SMB marketing decision makers based in North America.  An online survey conducted between August and September 2012). 

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