Tips When Outsourcing a Writing Task

When hiring someone to write for your online marketing content (such as website, social media, blogs, white paper, etc.), start it right by providing the person with the information he needs to fill the knowledge gap. This will save time and money especially if you are paying the writer on a per hour basis. Tons of back-and-forth revisions can also be avoided if there is a proper direction. Either you schedule a zoom meeting to have a thorough discussion or provide him with a gdrive file of the company’s information. Better yet, do both.

• Give a background about the company so the writer gets a feel of what he is writing about. No need to elaborate too much but just the highlights.

• Clarify your objective. He needs to understand the deeper context of his own writing tasks. Mobilize him with a clear path; say, you are rebranding your company so it can cope with the new online trends and you need to adjust your content to better fit the market. Make it relatable to the new identified audience while keeping the message relevant to the existing group.

You can start with this: “Our tone is professional yet friendly, and the profile of our readers include…”

• Describe your audience. Good if you can provide an audience profile so he gets a realistic picture of who will eventually read his material.

• Simplify the jargons. Help him uncover the terms that may sound strange for a new comer in the industry; this way, his writing will not alienate the readers and the technical terms can sound naturally pleasant. Good to also recommend resources the can aid his research.

• Share the style and voice that you like to “hear”. You can refer him to a prior content output or other online references. The point is to get a grip of how he will narrate your story.

Just last month, I also wrote an article about 7 Pre-Writing Considerations that can come useful when engaging with a writer. You can also apply the given steps as you move forward in building a productive writing project.

Pursuing a Blog Project: 7 Pre-Writing Considerations

You have decided to start blogging for your company website and have line-up possible topics to discuss (as listed from the last month’s digital marketing blog: 6 Blog Ideas for Your Company Website). Perhaps you have also assigned your staff to draft an article; gathering write-ups for the content pipeline is fun but sometimes reading the content from your team can be disappointing for many reasons (content, voice, grammar issues). Or perhaps the quality is good, but the material is appropriate for another purpose—the flow of story is quite distant or out of sync with the website’s writing objective.  To address this, it helps if you are all aligned and has the same perspective on the project. 

Agree on the guidelines and follow them. Schedule a meeting with those involved to calibrate the tasks, understand the expectations, be clear with the instructions, reiterate the mandatory elements, and assign the person in charge.

Here are Your Seven Pre-Writing Considerations:

1. Identify the Tone – Proper tone has to be set. Is it going to be friendly, authoritative, serious, funny, conversational? Each of us has a different blogging style but we can tweak it according to the given tone.
2. Know Your Readers – Who are the target readers? What’s the demographic?  The site visitors are also readers of your blog; targeting the content and satisfying the purpose of their visit is a must to make them your returning visitors.
3. Use the Keywords – Ask your SEO consultant for the copy of your keywords. Use two or three of these search terms on the title and first paragraph of your blog.
4. Browse for Samples – Check for possible articles that you like to be the peg of your writers (review industry and competitors’ blogs to give you ideas). This will give them a specific direction of what to write.
5. Use Images – Make sure that all blogs have corresponding images (depends on the length but one or two would be okay) either original and retrieve from the net with proper credits.
6. Set a Deadline – When is the submission date? Delegate an “editor” role to one of the members. It is going to be his responsibility to make sure all blogs are submitted on time. He or someone else must also be commissioned to edit the write-up following the agreed guidelines and implement general grammatical fixes.
7. Writing Brief – After discussion, finalize with a blog brief and disseminate the gathered information to serve as the outline of the writing project (from the tone, keywords to use, number of words, and when the blog would be due).

Staying organize and consistent is vital for the success of your writing initiative. This effort can jumpstart a stronger online presence and drive brand advocates. Writing something of value goes a long way.

6 Blog Ideas for Your Company Website

Now that you have finally convinced your team to start blogging and drove them to appreciate its importance in terms of building the brand on the internet, the next question is always— what to write? Creating a blog is not a one-time activity so pipelining the contents would benefit the overall digital marketing campaign whether you are doing online in the Philippines or in other countries. 

Here are some quick suggestions that can help spark more ideas:

1. Industry News – Highlight the findings and mention the trusted source of the study while giving your own point-of-view and interpretation.
2. How-To Articles – Assume that not everyone knows your product or service so consider your blog as a gateway of explaining what you can do. Reach out to your target market wherever they are in the world and convert them to become advocates.
3. Answer Problems – Try to consider the inquiries you are getting from your fill-up forms—what common questions do you get? When you attend a face-to-face meeting with clients, what are their usual issues? Gather and answer relevant chunks of these questions then write contents of at least 300 words.
4. Your Own Stories – Bring to front your expertise and what you have learned from your profession. Take note of your experience, what you have learned in the process, and enumerate tips; become an authority in your field.
5. Share Your Events – Are you invited to do a talk in a conference? Attending an industry-related seminar? Joining an expo? Is your company inviting a guest speaker? Promote it on your blog and write a gist of what happened.
6. Check Your Search Query Report – If your website has a Google analytics installed or offers a summary of “Top Searches” report, you can use the information to discover what your site visitors are looking for and translate it to a blog post.

And most of all, enjoy writing! Writing a blog goes beyond the act of creating content. It encompasses the satisfaction of connecting with your audience, sharing knowledge, and leaving a positive impact on others. Still need convincing? Hop to my previous blog: 4 Reasons to Create a Blog Page on Your Website.

4 Reasons to Create a Blog Page on Your Website

Part of my online marketing recommendation to clients is to consistently create a blog post. Given an SEO perspective, a website is not complete without an article, insights, or news page. I encounter some resistance from site owners, especially non-writers, emphasizing that their website can survived without it. Perhaps it can, but has the site attained its main objective or has it reached the target market? Did the website with no blog provide a prominent impact to the overall marketing campaign of the company?

A well-thought, properly written blog that is published regularly may be considered a worthy investment. Schedule of publication may vary—it can be weekly, once a month or twice a week depending on your resources, but the idea is to do it religiously. What can blogging do for you?

• Makes you an expert in the field

Sharing your knowledge to the site visitors gives a signal that you know your industry, your business, and you are capable to deliver what your website is offering. Blog page is a good push to your “about us” and “testimonials” as it highlights that you are truly in the zone of your trade.

What can happen then? Site visitors can be converted to customers or clients. You can also become a top-of-mind resource when your service is suddenly needed.

• Builds engagement

If you hit the mark and was able to answer a specific question of readers, expect that they would be in touch with you or may ask more information about what you wrote; this is an ideal setting to offer your assistance and put your product/service at the forefront that does not appear imposing and hard sell.

Some readers would just appreciate the value of your effort and share your contents via social media. In a likely scenario, their friends might click the link, read your post, re-share, and be aware of your existence creating a ripple effect. Voila! You get the advertising your business needs for free!

• Drives traffic (or visitors) to your site

More readers mean more site visitors and more opportunity to develop awareness of the website’s core products/services. The created content is also a very useful material for social media posting that can convert followers to readers.

• Improves search engine ranking

There is no schedule as to when Google bots crawl a website but when it does, we need to make sure that the page is SEO-friendly with fresh updates. This does not mean that we have to constantly rewrite the texts found at the “mission/vision” or “contact us” pages; that is why a blog is necessary.

Simply put, a new post gives Google a cue that the page is alive and that it maintains a good number of web traffic. This is also a spot-on activity to strengthen your SEO strategy (as you simultaneously work on the keywords, meta tags, image optimization, Google analytics, and a heap more.)

A good blog also helps keep your visitors stay longer on the page and thus reducing bounce rate (the percentage of visitors to a particular website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page at a given duration) which may suggest Search Engines that something is relevant, readers are not leaving at once!  It serves as one of the many factors for better ranking on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). So, when someone runs a query using your preferred keywords, Google might then include you up on the list!

If you are not yet implementing a blog page to your existing website or if you are planning to (re)launch a new site, make this your mandatory feature. It’s going to be worth your writing time.

Digital Marketing and Other Company Departments: How Are They Connected?

Digital Marketing has to work hand-in-hand with other departments of the company. It cannot achieve full success without a good partnership with other Teams. Working together is vital to make sure that all efforts are being maximized. How is one connected to the other?

Accounting – The quick approval of payment and invoice processing is important. Some campaigns are delayed because it takes a while to identify what credit card to use or procrastinate to set-up the advertising account. Some consumed longer time to settle the Facebook boost or Google PPC billing. Sadly, there are even those who do not respect invoice dues and delay the payment to digital marketing consultants, website developers, and even to influencers thus bruising a good business relationship.

Sales – When a Facebook send message boost or a website PPC campaign manage to convert into actual inquiries, the sales team has to mobilize and make sure that each valid correspondence by a possible client is properly addressed. The sales people must also be willing to adjust their monitoring practice following the online marketing metrics—identify sales across channels (website via google analytics, social via FB insights, influencers via utm tracking, among others). For a moment, this task may appear daunting because of the perceived additional work and technicalities but the long-term result will validate the entire effort.

You can get 50 to 150 inquiries for a Php5,000 to Php10,000 worth of Facebook ads but if sales department refuse to monitor the quality of leads and the conversion value then we cannot completely say that the goal is reached.

Customer Service Relations – We all know that sales is not the end of our relationship with customers. Upsell, repurchase, and getting their referrals are vital and we can only achieve these if they are happy. Let’s deliver what we promised and perhaps even exceed the expectations. Naturally connect with the clients and don’t abandon them after sales. Word-of-mouth still works and add a push from digital marketing efforts to make the impact exponential.

Feedbacks from customers, regardless if it is good or bad, must be valued and addressed. Complaints must be fixed in an amiable manner. Frequent questions can be converted to some forms of content. If several customers are asking for a specific question, like where to purchase the product, social media messaging can include posts related to it by providing contents about store details and buying process.

Other Types of Marketing – Marketing is a vast scope and digital is just category under it.  Contents on mainstream (TVC, radio, print), out-of-home (like billboards and wobblers) and below-the-line (such as events and live shows) must be integrated into a single voice and tone. This way we maintain one brand feel whether the touchpoints come from a TV commercial, YouTube ad, or from an underpass banner. It is important that we don’t alienate the buyers about our brand wherever they see us.

Digital Marketing is best in coordination with other departments; each one must be willing to join, initiate to learn, do their part to connect, and be of purpose.

Onboarding Stages with a New Client in Digital Marketing

When starting to onboard with a client, it is a must that each member of the team understands the purpose of the digital marketing project.

Everyone needs to have a clear grasp of the goals, along with their respective roles, to achieve success. No one should be left in the dark. Here are five stages on how to smoothly establish momentum when working with a new team.

Review the online assets – Find out what needs to be improved on their website, social media, and other existing digital footprint. Identify what initiative is working and how it can be better. Draft your initial recommendation.

Conduct a kick-off meeting – It is necessary to see the point-of-view of the client and his staff. Align the expectations. As you walk them with your analysis regarding their online presence, try to also listen and dive into their thoughts and business experiences. Understand how they define their achievements and how they manage the challenges. Sift through the pain points. Know who’s doing what. Ask questions.

Present the strategy plan – Be more creative, show more visuals, and lay down the numbers on your deck. Explain the metrics and why it is important. How onpage optimization can help increase website inquiry? Why boosting a post is necessary to get more private messages?  Welcome the inputs and tweak the campaign as you see fit.

Create a realistic timeline – Don’t over promise or commit to rank them on search engines in less than a month. Knowing the schedule will guide each one to their deliverables and will also help them be more committed to it. Assign an owner/co-owner of every task. Build on trust.

Depending on the size of the business, you might need to allot additional meeting time per department so you can discuss their assignment in detail. Managing a recruitment agency, for example, I met with the team heads first then the associates per practice areas. It is much easier to get the interest and contribution of the staff when the head has given an approval since some activity may require extra office time. 

Writing a blog and pushing their expertise as a resource person equally gives the company and the staff online credibility but of course, quality writing takes a while and allotting extra hours from this task may require approval from the boss. Publishing articles is also ideal for SEO and content marketing campaigns.

Implement the strategy and get everyone moving – results do not happen overnight, there will be hiccups on the process but as long your action is anchored to the plan and timeline then you will remain on track! Having a supportive team means a lot too and a huge factor to a successful campaign—more of this from my last month’s blog.

It is always exciting to begin a new project and keeping the fire has to be strongly maintained.

What Hinders the Success of a Digital Marketing Team?

Digital marketing plan is like a blueprint of your online campaign. It is created so the team can maintain direction, know each other’s role, and keep the goal. It includes a timeline so we know if we are on track and if the identified activities are implemented properly. When things get a little off, you can always go back to the plan and direct it back to the right path.

Reality: No matter how smooth we aim for it to go, there will surely be drawbacks; at most time it is fixable especially if you are working with a Team eager to troubleshoot and repair without a fuzz.  (Thankful that I mostly work with a supportive batch!) But we cannot avoid a scenario that can signal real trouble! Major commotion in a project does not only come from software glitch or malfunctioning platform… it is rather the behavior of the people we are working with that can cause a real burnout. Here are some signs that a plan would likely not succeed unless each one sorts the issue as soon as possible.

• Indecisiveness – Cannot keep an eye on one objective and changing directions weekly, even daily. No focus.

The company might have too many overall goals but the Team must identify what to prioritize under the digital marketing scope and given the budget. If you are a new company, awareness must be the main step. Pin the most important and realistic approach. It is not right to build a campaign as you please or instantly imitate what the competitors are doing. All the efforts should be anchored by what you aim to achieve along with proper metrics.

Quick fix: Stick to the plan and don’t be swayed easily.

• Not communicating – Making abrupt changes without advising the team.

Let’s not forget that we are a “team”, regardless of size. Everyone has to move in sync with the known plan and adjustments must be made in alignment with those involved. It is not ideal to alter the content of your homepage without signaling your Web and SEO Team. They made codes and onpage optimization that can affect, worse omit, the company’s SEO approach.

Quick fix: Reach out and be open to the Team. Discuss new ideas without hesitations.

• Not listening – sometimes you wonder why the owner hired a digital marketing team if he will apply his own process and deviate from the plan he took part to create. Trust the expertise of each team member. Listen to their recommendations. Ask questions. Share your thoughts.

Quick fix: Listen to expert.

• Not telling the truth – lay down the cards and let the team know the real standing of the company so everyone can function accordingly.

If you are launching an app and you are aware of the glitch, then tell it to the team. Don’t go around the bush and make sure to present the real hurdles  so they would know how to tackle the situation. If you aim to immediately release the next version in three months then the team must know the schedule.

Quick fix: No sugar coating.

• Rushing – not following the timeline. Digital marketing is not magic, you have to work and wait and analyze and tweak the strategy and obviously, it can’t be done in a snap. You have given the list of keywords last week and you wish to rank today, wake up.

Quick fix: Respect the timeline.

Another red signal— those procrastinating the tasks and functioning in pessimistic mood. The quick fix is to do it according to timeline and maintain positive attitude. If you don’t get “send message” to your Facebook campaign, no need to be harsh. Review the targeting and creative strategy, adjust according to the data gathered.

We cannot be in control of algorithm changes, privacy restrictions affecting results of reporting, or even faulty dashboard update but we can always manage on how we deal with the challenges on and off line. Make real goals. Keep the cool. Stay committed. Move on. Learn. Work happy.

The Impact of Digital Marketing on Your Business

What validates the real success of a digital marketing campaign? Your online marketing consultant gave you an update that your top keywords are now on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) position #1 and #2 and that your Facebook advertisement got 30 messages for a small budget of Php1000. This is good news and your Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is achieved!

Yes, that phase of work is well done but that’s not the end of the task; you need to align these milestones to your business goals.

Being number #1 on SERP means a lot for your SEO team! Months of optimizing your website and sifting through the net for quality backlinks have paid off!  Google and other search engines crawled your page and found it relevant to be ranked as #1 among hundred of sites vying for the same keywords. This will result to more organic visits and you can see the data as it happens in real-time for free through Google Analytics. More people will go to you—check your contents, read your company information, and take action (call, request a demo, subscribe to your newsletter, and/or send a message). You should have some promising leads!

What if you have more visits but got higher bounce rate (it is the percentage of visitors who enter the site and then leave without going to other pages)? Your Digital Marketing team can say we are #1 on SERP but what you must ask next is, how does it improve our business?

If you are #1 on SERP with keywords not being used by your target audience and if you are getting a lot of visits but no one is doing your desired action then you are not maximizing the effort.

Same goes to your Facebook campaign. Receiving an increase number of “quality” messages must be your advertising goal. What is 30 inquiries if you did not convert or if they are only spammy? You should drive more leads then translate it to higher sales and not more messages with no conversion.

Online marketing and sales department must work hand-in-hand to reach the business goals. It is like a choreographed dance and every step must be synced with each other.

How do you plan to execute your online marketing campaign? What signals its effectivity in relation to your company’s target? Let’s talk.

5 Mindsets When Reaching Out to Your Audience

There are many digital marketing tools available, most offer huge assistance to push our online strategies while others appear complicated than it should be. Be wise in picking what’s best for your company so you don’t have to spend so much time (and money) familiarizing the dashboard. Yes, there are many platforms made-ready to amplify your brand but don’t drown too much on the technical jargons or the need to join the bandwagon. Sometimes what works is the authentic and simple means to communicate. Don’t forget these human ways of reaching out to your audience.

• Build on trust – No false claims. No over the top promises. No hazy deal. Follow agreed deadlines. Offer and deliver what you can—no excuses. When trust is present in any transaction, clients can even recommend your service to others and become repeat customers. 

• Converse naturally – Create a clear picture of your audience and keep this in mind in making advertising materials and content plan. Do not alienate them. Resist saying too much without being understood.

• Strengthen reputation – Be the go-to expert in your industry. Provide relevant advice based on your experience. Be open to learn and be willing to share your knowledge. Attend trainings. Speak or write; join an activity related to your business.

• Offer help – Yes, the main agenda of all this is to sell BUT it cannot be the only reason of your operation. Give aid. Make the lives of your customers easy. Find a way to solve their problems directly or indirectly related to your product.

• Be present – Respond promptly (and politely) to messages regardless of what gateway they got in touch (phone call, e-mail, messenger, website).  Stay consistent when it comes to your social media posting schedules.

Maintain one voice as you present your product or service. Make use of online marketing platforms and integrate your overall plan-of-action without losing the essence of your main goal.

Go Local with Your Digital Marketing Strategy

When you have a local business and your goal is to amplify your product or service to the community, you can implement the following approach to your digital marketing initiative. This does not require a strong technical expertise and proper attitude plays a huge role. You have to be patient, consistent, resilient, and always eager to learn. Good, effective results in digital marketing is not an over night gig. It is always correct to have the urge to begin a campaign—polish, run, evaluate then tweak as needed based on existing data. You must start today even if the tasks appear mundane (and at time really slow and repetitive if internet connection is bad).

• Own Your Google My Business – claim and verify your profile. This is one of the first touch points with your customers. When they search for your company name or related keywords in Google, it is important to provide them with the right information and drive their interest to engage with you—go to your website, make a call, find you in the map.

• Join Facebook/LinkedIn Groups – Find a buoyant local industry groups and be an active member. Provide value by sharing quality posts or giving well-thought answers to valid questions; this effort can put your expertise forward.

• Create Directory Listing Profile – Find quality listing websites and create an account. You don’t have to update as often like the efforts required with social media but you need to be properly presented there. Include a catchy profile, add your website and contact details, and back it up with nice photos. Give it a month or two and you will see traffic data coming from these listings from Google Analytics and Search Console.

• Boost on Facebook – Depending on your budget and audience, run a geographically targeted advertisement and support it with specific modifiers related to your brand (what’s their age bracket? Interest?  Job?) Note that running a paid promotion is not just limited on Facebook but it is one of the most affordable means to advertise versus other platforms.

• Connect with Niche Influencers and Industry Experts – Send them your product and request them to review it. Conduct an interview. Sponsor a post or a blog. You will be surprised to meet a lot who will not charge a big amount for the featured contents as long as they are happy with the product.

• Capture Local News Blogs and Forums – You don’t have to be everywhere but just in those sites that makes sense to your business; websites where your audience are present—commenting or even asking questions. Reddit and Quora has a solid community worth joining.

Other than reaching out to your local target audience, this proposed strategy can equally benefit your SEO campaign. Just send me a message if you have questions on how to carry out any of the given activity.