Do you begin with the end in mind?

I have started a weekly woodland walk; it is a time to get away from the computer, think and make a few videos. Okay, the phone is a computer of sorts but at least I am walking!

I started making these talking head videos, exploring ideas to be written up later, but I have decided to put the video out raw, so to speak. I am calling them “Woodland Walks and Marketing Talks.”

In this video, I am speaking about the importance of having a clear intention.

Link to Book a Discovery Call

Click to [tweetthis display_mode=”button_link”]Are you beginning with the end in mind[/tweetthis]

It was Stephen Covey who said “begin with the end in mind” it is a quote from his book “7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” In my highly abridged interpretation of his message, it is about seeing our actions as part of the bigger picture so that what we do or create leads us to a goal of our choosing. The book is a good read, although you have to commit to the “7 Habits” to make them work for you.

I was looking at, “begin with the end in mind” from a marketing perspective. The story in the video was about a project that was completed but did not hit any one success criteria.

The lack of objective, or the wrong objective is not uncommon, and I have seen this in many projects where the material is created, and it does not fit in with the current marketing process. I remember a project where the primary sale happened on the telephone but the telephone number was buried on a website contact page.

Are you working with clear objectives?

What I do for clients is help clarify what is important, so we have that goal and then we break it down into manageable steps that can be communicated through the different channels into the market. The channels can be social media, your website, or printed material.

With more clarity in the marketing process and defined action you will find more success with new leads, contacts, and extra sales. Of course, the objective is to create more sales but that has be done by creating value and demonstrating that you are giving value. It is all about being more strategic, having a plan so that you present the right mix of content that builds trust and offers that lead to sales.

The client implements the outcome, or I provide the resource and support to do that. Do you have any questions?

Book a Discovery Call, it is a free opportunity to explore.

Here’s to your success,
Paul Harvey

 

Challenges of Social Media & Digital Marketing

This website underwent some developments recently which included removing some old posts and files.  During this process I discovered some landing pages and content files for a series of teleseminars my social media friend Rene Looper and I did during Christmas and into the New Year of 2013/14.  It led me to reflect on what has happened since.?

Starting in January 2016 I will be hosting a regular webinar using the Google hangout system, the content for these shows will be to some extent up to you. What is it that you need? What is it that could take your business forward.

Below is a form with two main questions and some tick boxes to put those questions in a context. As thank you for completing the form, you will be redirected to the download page for the free digital marketing info graphic.

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WordPress blog categories explained

Marbles
Organise Your Categories & Tags

I was looking at a blog this morning and noticed the piece I was reading was an Uncategorized post.

That mean’t that it had no index label to describe it. I suspected that all of the posts on this site were in this group. The clue was in the big list on the sidebar under related posts. In fact all of these were all unrelated articles in one big category, it was quite overwhelming.

 

 

 

The category system is one of those tools in WordPress that often gets overlooked; more so now that the platform is used to build websites, this is unfortunate as the feature is part of the database system used to build the software.

Having set up some sites recently using WordPress, this setup or structure can get neglected and not even mentioned in the setup documentation for the site theme.

WordPress was always a content management system before a website platform; Category labels must be defined as part of the site development and will be relevant to your content.

A blog about triathlon might have the following

Triathlon
Running
Interval Training
Swimming
Cycling

Each of these headings may have a subheading about the primary subject. For example, Running might have Interval Training

When writing, each post is assigned a category. It is this process that makes the blog accessible and searchable, and it is also a key tool for making the site relevant to the reader and a basis for good search engine optimization. (SEO)

The next stage is tags, these are effectively keywords and can be used to join categories together. With the good structure and well-placed tags, a site with a lot of posts can offer a good visitor experience. The reader can find other content of interest and move around the site with ease.

When setting up your categories think about the different subjects you will write about and how to group them. If you have been blogging for some time, it is good practice to review your categories and tags.

To see your current category structure go to posts tab on the dashboard and categories should appear, click that tab to see the structure. See the video below for a demonstration. Also for more information about categories and tags check out the article at the bottom of the post from Matt Zak.

On a personal note, a few years back the blog on this site had a messy structure until it was pointed out. Once I had set up my categories, I had a problem with Uncategorized. These were some posts that did not fit my new categories, so I changed it to “Ramblings” as these postings and were outside of my normal subject, but still valid for the blog. It is
not good practice to have a lot of these; maybe I need to revisit my structure.

The key point is we are writing for our visitors. We need to make the user experience more readable, easier to find related material that will keep them interested and sharing our content.

Matt Zak article

WordPress Categories vs Tags: How Do I Use Them on My Blog?