5 Project Planning Tips to Keep All Stakeholders Happy
These 5 project planning tips may not necessarily help you herd cats, but they will impress your boss once you get a stalled project up and running again or get a project back on track.
As a marketing manager, you’ll often be tasked with project planning and project management. Effective project managers are also good project planners. They know how to ask for, and gain, consensus. They know how to manage diverse talent and opposite personalities to get the job done. Part diplomat and part shepherd, they ensure that projects run smoothly from start to finish.
To make your new marketing projects run more smoothly this year, use these five project planning tips written especially for marketing managers.
Project Planning Tips for Marketing Managers
- Always start with the end goal in mind, and keep the goal visible and quantifiable. Without a clear-cut goal, projects tend to flounder. People lose interest. By creating a clearly defined and quantifiable goal for every marketing project you undertake, you’ll proceed with the end point in mind at all time. I used to write goals on big sheets of paper and post them at the front of the room during project meetings so that we could always point back to the goal when someone at the table agreed or disagreed with an idea presented. If the goal is visible and clear from the start, it helps focus the project and keep it on track.
- Identify key stakeholders, and then ask those stakeholders if they think everyone is at the table. Allow them to delegate someone else if they don’t have the time to work on the project or if they feel someone in their department is better qualified to work on the project. This also helps secure buy-in for the project, an important component for success.
- Use cost-benefit analysis or ROI to determine BEFORE you start a project if it’s valuable, useful and important enough to merit the team’s time. Show these figures to the team at the kickoff meeting or during the buy-in phase to make your case that they need to be part of the project. Not every great idea merits follow-through, and a cost-benefit analysis will help you weed out the time wasters from the potential projects on the marketing department’s slate.
- Scope out the project carefully, and include measurable milestones with details of who will achieve them on the team, how, and by when. Keep a running list of these details and follow up with team members frequently to ensure they’re on track.
- Communicate first, now and always. Just when you think you’ve communicated enough about a project, someone will complain they don’t know what’s going on. Communicate up to your supervisor about the project and communicate down to all the team members so they know what’s going on. You don’t need to write War and Peace every time you need to send a project email out; a short weekly follow up meeting where each team members speaks for 1-2 minutes and updates everyone on the project’s progress is fine, or consolidate weekly update emails into a bulleted digest email to share with team members. But do make sure that both the key stakeholders and the key approvers on the team are informed of the progress of the project.
Notice something missing from the list? Project planning software. While I’m not against great project planning or project management software, it’s not on my list because with even the best software in the world, people still need to manage projects, processes and other people. And that manager is you! If you’re a marketing manager, you will learn quickly that managing projects is mostly managing people and their divergent, creative, quirky personalities.
For more tips for marketing managers and business owners who handle marketing for their companies, listen to my free weekly podcast on Blog Talk Radio, Words That Work. Subscribe to our monthly newsletter too.
This post is by Jeanne Grunert writing for Seven Oaks Consulting. Like this post? Contact us about our content marketing writing services, marketing consulting, and marketing training and seminars for business owners.
How to Create Memorable Content for Your Blog or Website
Learning how to create memorable content for your blog or website is a matter of figuring out what will stand out from the crowd. And what stands out whenever you write something is passion - passion for your subject matter, passion for your audience, passion to solve a problem your customers have.
Passion means more than slapping several exclamation points on the end of a sentence or telling folks how wonderful something is. Passion, like art, is contagious. Passion seeps through the written word and oozes from every letter, every comma, every sentence.
We disbelieve people who tell us, "I'm passionate about great customer service."
We believe them when they actually SHOW us what that looks like.
If you want to write great content for your website, articles, blog posts or social media shares, find the person in your company who is most passionate about what you do. Find the person with a passion for writing. If you can't find that person in-house, then find someone like me, someone who writes daily, who plays with words for the sheer joy of it, and who has an inquisitive sense that enables her to learn new industries and delve deeply into the nuances of your product.
Whatever you do, do it with passion. Your passion for business is what helps your online content stand out from the crowd.
5 Tips to Create a Customer Focused Website
Why This Website Wows, and 5 Tips to Make Yours Wow, Too
Five years ago, I tried to make jam for the first time. I'd received a bag full of persimmons from a neighbor and had no idea what to do with the fruit. So I opened my cookbook up and followed the recipe to make jam. Unfortunately, if you know persimmons, you know that one under ripe persimmon can spoil the entire batch of jam. I must have had several unripe persimmons, because the jam not only curdled, it tasted like fiery gasoline mixed with lemon juice. Yum, yum. I threw out the entire batch, jars and all, and swore I'd never make jam again.
Until July 4th, that is, when the wild blackberry bushes flanking my driveway yielded not one, but two quarts of luscious blackberries. I felt brave. But my cookbook didn't have a good recipe for blackberry jam! What to do? Search online for one, of course.
And what website did I stumble upon? The Ball Canning and Recipe website.
And this, my friends, is a website that WOWS - and I'll tell you exactly why, and not just because I made an awesome batch of tasty jam.
Why the Ball Canning Website Work
Here's the website: Ball Canning.
These are my top 5 reasons why this website works to acquire, retain and create loyal customers for the Ball Canning Company.
- It's super EASY to navigate. Many times I enter a website and find myself poking around odd corners of the site looking for what I need. I end up on virtual dead ends and digital alleys. With this site, everything I needed as a home cook was just one or two clicks away....easy!
- It made canning SIMPLE. I'm new at canning. This was the first time I've ever tried to make jam with blackberries. Pectin? What the heck is pectin and why do I need it? Why are there several kinds on the shelf at the grocery store and which one do I need? The Ball website seemed to anticipate my neophyte questions and answer them easily and quickly.
- The tone in the text was just right...neither too advanced to confuse me nor so simple that I felt talked down to. Instead, the copywriter made me feel like he or she was taking me under the wing and guiding me through the steps of the recipe...like I had a trusted friend in the kitchen!
- The site had handy calculators that meant I didn't have to think - the site did all the thinking for me. Plus it was fun to play around with the buttons and dream about making strawberry jam next.
- Speaking of fun, Ball makes canning your own food seem like a blast. The pictures on the website made me want to run out and buy new Ball jars - colorful ones. The entire site encouraged me to try new things and delight in my thrifty, creative canning projects.
What is the secret that makes this entire website work so well? The Ball corporation knows and understands its target audience - people like me who are new to canning.
My neighbors are country women; they grew up learning how to can food. They know intuitively how to make all sorts of tasty, delightful things. They don't need this website. They like the recipes, but the pectin converter? The explanations? That's for the likes of me, a former Manhattan executive who never learned to cook who now loves to explore home cooking and crafts.
The secret to a great website is to always keep the end user in mind. The target customer, your marketing manager might say. The entire website, from start to finish, should be about the visitor - not about you, not about your products.
Ball's site could focus on its nifty caning jars, it's useful jar lifters, or its canning products. All well and good. But that gets boring, fast.
Instead, they focus on ME and my PROBLEMS - my problems were:
- I'm new to canning and making jam.
- I'm confused about this thing called pectin.
- I only have 2 quarts of berries and the typical recipe calls for more; how do I adapt it?
- How do I convert the amounts to my smaller quantity?
- I need an easy recipe to feel successful!
YOUR KEY TAKE-AWAYS
As a business owner, you may be doing a lot of your own website work or blogging yourself. To make your website work FOR you, not against you, use these tips and tricks:
- Write up a simple visitor profile to help you imagine your typical customers. WHY does he or she come to your website?
- Now, what content can you add to HELP him or her SOLVE PROBLEMS?
- What benefits do your services offer?
- Can you provide examples, such as testimonials, of helping people who have had similar problems?
- How can you convey this through pictures (images) as well as through text?
Ball Canning does it right. Their website was a pleasure to use. I hope yours is, too.
Oh, and the jam? Delicious. Simply delicious. (Recipe is on my blog, here - Wild Blackberry Jam)
3 Tips to Get More Traffic to Your Website
Wouldn’t it be great if you get customers to flock to your website like this? While there’s no magic formula, there are specific steps that you as a small business owner can take to boost your website traffic. Here are my top 3 tips for improving your site’s search engine position, visibility and traffic. If you need help implementing any of them, contact me at Seven Oaks Consulting for a consultation.
Tip #1: Update your website frequently with juicy, interesting content and share-able graphics.
Search engines love fresh website content, and the more frequently a site is updated, the better. That’s one of the many reasons why website owners love Wordpress-hosted sites; the built-in blogging capacity offers easy site updates.
It’s not enough to simply swap out a picture or change a headline and call it a day. What are you saying on your website, both through your text and images? Are you using information to enhance your expertise, your brand position, your approachability?
Content offers entry points for visitors into your website. If you don’t have a content marketing plan, create one or talk to us about creating one for you. Content continues to be an integral part of online marketing and a great way to attract new site visitors once it is shared.
Tip #2: Share Content on Social Media
Share appropriate, brand-supporting links; build networks by commenting and interacting with your followers. Make sure you have social media icons prominently displayed on your website so that site visitors can find you and follow you on their choice of media platforms. Building a robust social media presence helps you generate links into your site when you share those links widely across social media.
Tip #3: Interact Beyond Your Usual Online Platforms
Broaden your outreach efforts. Consciously make an effort to visit new blogs. Bloglovin’ is a great place to find blogs of interest. You can type in the name of a blog you like, and the site helps you find similar ones. I also find fascinating new blogs through Pinterest. Many pinners share images from their blogs, and the link appears below the image when you click through to the original pin. It’s worth trying, especially if your business website is one that lends itself to images or blogger outreach.
Building website traffic takes time and effort. If your traffic is stagnant, it’s time to look beyond your current internet marketing efforts. [pullquote align="left|center|right" textalign="left|center|right" width="30%"]Getting customers to flock to your site is a combination of creating a great website with frequently updated content, sharing that content, and introducing yourself to a wider circle of acquaintances.[/pullquote] Try these three tips today and spend time this summer boosting your visibility online.
Three Ways to Generate Content When You're Stuck
Everyone gets stuck on occasion. I'm not talking stuck, like Winnie the Pooh in his tree or like a kid getting his head stuck in a stair banister. I'm talking creatively stuck, as in, "Oh no...I've got write four blog posts this month and I don't know what the heck to write about..."
Feeling stuck like that is no fun, especially when you're a business person with a pile of tasks waiting for you. It's easy to push aside content marketing and get back to things you feel like you can actually do right now, like pay the bills and check your Facebook account for the 100th time today (guilty as charged).
But if you keep avoiding the blank page, or in this case the blank screen, you'll be left without content and without the opportunity to share your expertise with the world. And what fun is that? None in my book!
I've pulled together three of my top tips for generating content when you feel absolutely stuck, like you're staring at a blank wall or that the creative well has completely dried up. Feel free to grab any of these tips and try them today if you're facing that situation.
- Compile your own "top 10", "top 5" or whatever list. Go back and look over what you've already created. Chances are good you've got several posts you can group together into a 'best of' sequence of posts. Write a one paragraph summary and introduction (surely you can do THAT), and then use bullet points to link to the original posts you wrote. Voila. Instant blog post!
- Create a meme, quotable quote, or Pinterest-worthy share. Use only your own original photos to ensure you're in the copyright clear. Find a quotable quote. Use a free service like Pixlr.com or PicMonkey.com, add the quote, and share. Instant content!
- Review a product, service or website in your industry or niche. I like this one because you can talk about something or someone else without feeling pressured to sell, sell, sell. Plus, you're sharing the love, by helping someone else sell without any pay off on your own. It's a feel-good way to get yourself writing again. I'd stick with only positive reviews, but that's just me. Negative may get you more press, but positive gets you more karma points.
The next time you're feeling stuck, think of this:
So take action!
Written by Jeanne Grunert, Seven Oaks Consulting. Jeanne is an award-winning writer, blogger and marketing consultant helping companies acquire, retain and create loyal customers. She is available for freelance work.
How to Determine the ROI on Your Social Media Accounts
When I'm wearing my marketing consultant's hat, I'm focused on the return on investment (ROI) for my clients. After all, most are small to mid-sized business owners, entrepreneurs and artists - folks who absolutely need to understand how, when and where their marketing investment is paying off.
Social media often seems like the big question mark in the marketing mix, but it doesn't have to be. You can track your company's return on investment in social media marketing just as you would any other digital campaign. The trick is to have the data available from your website, as well as from the social networking website you're using, and to put into place some smart best practices to help you move ahead.
I've written a new article for the website, Routing, detailing just how to do that. I've included three simple steps you can take to enact social media ROI tracking and analysis, but of course there are other ways. I'll share more in the future on this blog and other article.
Read: Three Simple Steps to Measure Social Media ROI
Content Marketing for Small Businesses
If your business doesn't have a robust content marketing strategy in place, you might be losing out on the biggest innovation to hit marketing since the internet. I read a statistic this morning that made me really sit up and take notice. According to the article on Inbound Writer, 78% of chief marketing officers think custom content (articles, white papers, blogs, etc.) is the future of marketing.
Content Marketing Defined
What is content marketing? According to the Content Marketing Institute,
"Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action."
Why Content Marketing Matters
Traditional advertising's effectiveness is fading. The more people are bombarded with ads, the less effective the ads become. Consumers have grown wise to the tricks of the advertising trade, and eschew ads for information. And that's where content marketing comes in.
Content Marketing In Action: An Example
Most custom content produced as part of a content marketing strategy seeks to inform consumers, providing them with facts to help them make a purchasing decision. The other day, I was searching for background information to write a client's blog post, and found a treasure trove of woodworking project how-to sheets online. The major retailer producing this excellent content had uploaded a complete project library that anyone could access and download without having to jump through hoops. Each sheet had a simple format and clear drawings that showed the novice how to complete everything from a deck to a new pantry shelf system, with a shopping list of hardware, lumber, paint and supplies needed to complete the project. The idea, of course, was that once you found the project sheet, you'd download it and take it into the store as your shopping list.
Think about this content for a moment. Not only can it be printed and handed out in-store, but it acted as a search engine marketing tool, appearing on the first page of the search engine results when I typed in my search term. It was a potent marketing tool helping the company's website attract new site visitors, and by using clear, simple instructions, perhaps transforming the casual visitor into a buyer in the store.
Starting Your Content Marketing Strategy: The First Question to Ask
Any size business, from a sole proprietorship to a major corporation, can use content marketing to build their brand and acquire, retain and create loyal customers. The first step is to identify your content marketing strategy.
Why do you want to enact a content marketing strategy? Is it to boost your visibility on the search engines and attract website traffic? Is it to build your brand? Is it to increase sales for a specific product category or engage better with a specific group of customers?
Any and all of these are great reasons to begin your content marketing program. A good content marketing strategy begins by knowing the answers to these questions in detail. Take your time to develop your responses. Knowing WHY you want to begin a content marketing strategy is even more important than understanding the HOW of carrying it off.
If you'd like to begin work on your company's content marketing strategy, I'd be delighted to help you. I've created great content strategies for many industries and products, and for companies ranging from small start ups to major established firms. Contact me through Seven Oaks Consulting, and let's talk about how we can harness the power of content marketing to boost your website visibility and sales.
About the Author
By Jeanne Grunert, President and Founder of Seven Oaks Consulting. Jeanne is an award-winning writer, blogger and marketing manager with over 20 years of experience. She personally works with every client at Seven Oaks Consulting and creates expert content marketing strategies and written materials to build brands, attract site traffic, and acquire new customers. Contact Jeanne.
The Secret Reasons Why People Buy Your Services
MarketingProfs ran a story this week about the reasons why customers purchase B2B (business-to-business services). The reasons ranged from "collaborated with me" to "offered solutions". You can read the original article on MarketingProfs, but I wanted to offer my own take on the topic based on my years of sales and marketing experience.
People Are Illogical During the Sales Process
People purchase products and services based on a complicated stew of emotions, logic, and feeling. They may buy from one salesman because he reminds them of their favorite actor, while another person may buy from a different salesman because he looks like a favorite teacher. While most people apply logic to their choices, underlying the logic is their past history, their feelings and other factors outside of your control.
Your Task: LISTEN
Your first task when selling goods or services is to LISTEN. What is the person really telling you?
Number four on the Marketing Profs list was "Listened to me" but I believe that listening comes first on the list. If you don't listen to what the customer is really telling you, then you can't offer solutions.
Listening involves all your senses. It's not just what the person is saying, but what they're not saying. If they're coming to you seeking a solution, listen to the problem. Sometimes the problem is what they say it is, but often there's a "problem behind the problem" that needs to be explored.
The Reasons Behind the Reason
For example, a company called me to ask if I would conduct a teleseminar for their marketing staff on the topic of SEO. I gladly said yes, since it's one of my favorite topics to teach. However, they didn't need information on SEO - they could get that from books, online articles, and myriad other sources.
What was the real reason they wanted me to present on this topic? I had extensive industry experience that related directly to the audience's job functions. Because the industry is so specific and so insular, they needed someone who had actually worked "in the trenches" so to speak and who could teach from a place of knowledge, experience and education. Just hiring any old consultant wouldn't do. They wanted someone who their team members could trust, because she'd walked the path before them.
That was the 'reason behind the reason' for the assignment. My job wasn't just to impart the basics of SEO to the group, it was to reassure them that good search engine optimization is useful for all industries, and that it was possible to implement good SEO in their industry.
Why Do People Buy from You?
Let's look more closely at the Marketing Profs list of reasons why customers choose a particular vendor for B2B services. The reasons include:
- Educated me with new solutions.
- Collaboration (partnership)
- Showed me it would achieve results.
- Listened to me.
- ....more
Among the topics on this list, do you see a trend? Education, collaboration, results.
Do you educate prospects on the possible solutions available? Do they feel like they have a true partner with you, someone they can trust to deliver the results? Lastly, do they see a clear pattern of results in your previous work - results you can demonstrate to them?
Clearly Convey a Reason to Buy
Remember that if you sell online, your words must convey the reason to buy. That goes for people who use the written word, as I do here in this blog post, audio or video clips.
- Are you clearly articulating the "why" behind the "buy?"
- Do you show the results people can achieve with your services?
- Do you offer new solutions or educate them on ideas they didn't know before? (That's content marketing, much of the word I do here at Seven Oaks Consulting).
- If you have conveyed the "why" before the "buy," is it prominent on your website? Do you repeat it often enough? Saying it once isn't enough - people may need to read it multiple times to truly 'get' what you're saying.
In order to sell more of your goods or services, or acquire new customers, you've got to know, understand and apply tactics to address the secret reasons why people buy your services. Listen, learn, educate, respond and collaborate. It's the best way to acquire, retain and create loyal customers!
Jeanne Grunert is the president of Seven Oaks Consulting. She's an award-winning writer and marketing expert who works with clients in diverse industries to help them acquire, retain and create loyal customers through powerful direct marketing and content marketing strategies, great writing, and expert online promotion. Visit Seven Oaks Consulting to learn more.
What Is Quality Content?
What is quality content, and why is it important for your digital marketing efforts? Quality content is the key to attracting positive attention from search engines, and, more importantly, for attracting PEOPLE to your website. The people coming to your website are actual flesh and blood customers, people with a distinct set of wants, needs and desires. By producing quality content that speaks to the heart of their problems, and offers real, compelling solutions, you'll build attention, trust, and engagement with your audience.
But the first step is to bring them to your virtual doorstep, and that's where search engine optimization (SEO) comes in.
Google's Hummingbird Update and the Search for Quality Content
Google is the mighty king when it comes to search engine marketing. I think the last statistic I read on the topic indicated that Google maintains something like 80% of the search market, with Bing and Yahoo! coming up a distant second and third, and a handful of other search engines behind them. As Google goes, so goes the other search engines, so when I write or speak about search engine optimization, know that I am basing much of what I'm sharing on Google's trends.
Google's search engine algorithm was updated last year to focus more on "quality" content. What is quality? Quality means:
- Original content, not regurgitated or reproduced text from another source
- An original expression, idea or twist on a topic
- Content written by an expert
- Content shared on an authoritative platform
Search engines reward quality content by placing the URLs of these pages higher in the search engine results pages. We know that people tend to click on links higher in the results, and especially near the top of the first page. That's why companies strive for those coveted positions in the search engine results. The higher your page appears, the more potential site visitors you can attract, and the more people you attract, the more money you can make.
That's why people focus on SEO. Get it?
Originality or an Original Spin on a Topic?
I don't know if there really is anything original online anymore. I suppose there are pockets of information out there that still need to be shared, but if you want to know how to change the battery on a 2001 Buick LeSabre, knit Dr. Who's trademark scarf or clean the windows in your house with an organic cleanser, there's a blog, website, video or picture to show you how to do it.
Originality, then, must be something more. The search engine companies certainly know that there's a ton of content out there on the same or similar topics! I read somewhere that 2 million blog posts are published every 24-hours on the internet. Out of those 2 million posts, how many do you think are about Google's Hummingbird update and quality content? How many are about making the perfect chocolate cake, or planting snapdragon seeds, or any of the other myriad topics that have already been covered to death? Plenty. So then what is originality?
It is being yourself online. It is having a unique voice, style and method of presentation. No two people are alike, and no two expressions of the same thought are alike.
Authority and Credibility
Are you an authority on your topic?
Are you a credible voice on it?
I am authority on marketing. I have an advanced Masters degree, various certifications, and 20+ years of experience in the trenches, on both the agency and client side of the marketing desk. My writing tends to be credible on the subject because I write what I know.
I would be neither an authority nor a credible voice when writing about, say, astronomy. It's not that I don't like astronomy; I do. Every night when I walk my dog, I look up at the velvety night sky and try to identify constellations. I know Orion and Taurus, Cassiopeia, the Big Dipper and the Dragon, and that's about it.
If I tried to write about astronomy, it would quickly become evident that I do not know a lot about it. I could write credibly as a seeker of knowledge, as someone trying to learn astronomy. But I probably couldn't pull off ghost blogging for Carl Sagan or the Hayden Planetarium.
Niches Can Build Credibility
Content produced consistently about a particular niche area tends to build credibility. Why? Because it proves that you are serious about the topic. Finding and sticking to a niche can help you build credibility in a particular content area.
Are you locked into a niche once you build it? No, you can branch out, but be careful how you branch out. Branching out from a central niche must make sense to your readers. If it's too far out, you'll lose credibility.
Exploring the World of Quality Content
Quality continues to become more and more important to all who produce online content, whether that content is written, audio or video. To learn more about producing quality content, see:
- Blog Talk Radio - Podcast on Quality Content by Seven Oaks Consulting
- Google-Friendly Sites, Webmaster Tools
- Hubspot: Quality Content
Five Simple Business Networking Tips
Did you catch my interview with Cathy Jennings of No Pressure Networking? Cathy shared some wonderful tips to help you network in person and online. I always feel self-conscious when I go to networking events, but I hope to use Cathy's tips for my next foray into the world of in-person networking. In the meantime, I've committed to more online networking, setting aside a few minutes daily to connect and reconnect with former colleagues. I hope you found Cathy as inspiring as I did.
If you missed the show, you can listen to the recording online on Blog Talk Radio (it's free.)
How to Network: 5 Business Networking Tips
Business networking doesn't have to feel like a foreign language. Based on my conversation with Cathy, here are my favorite five tips that emerged from the show.
- Adding people to your email list, without their permission, after you've met them at a networking event is a big no-no. I was shocked when Cathy said that folks do this. It's smarmy and not good marketing, folks. Instead, reach out personally to each contact you've made. You can call, drop them a quick email, or send an old-fashioned card. Always ask for permission before adding anyone to your email list and include a prominent "opt out" message so people can leave your list at any time.
- Ask people what they do when they're not working. It's a great ice breaker. Everyone has a hobby, an interest, a sports team they're passionate about. Ask! It's a good conversation starter.
- Networking isn't only about business. Yes, you go to networking events to connect with people who may be a valuable business connection. But you have to be a friend, a person first...people do business with other people. Don't jump into your sales pitch the second you meet someone.
- Speaking of sales pitches, have a creative way to state what you do and how you help people. Don't rely on canned elevator speeches, and don't answer people with one word answers when they ask you what you do. "I'm a lawyer." "I'm a writer." Boring! Instead, how about, "I'm a writer for magazines, publishers and marketing agencies." Something interesting, at least.
- Bring your business cards with you. I was almost rendered speechless (okay, almost - it's impossible to render me entirely speechless unless you gag me first) by Cathy's statement that many professionals don't bring business cards to networking events. My goodness, people, then what in the world are you there for? The free watered down Chardonnay? Honestly, bring and share those cards. And they don't have to be traditional business cards. I'm thinking about having bookmarks printed up with my contact information on them. For a writer, that makes sense. How about you? What would you bring? Bring something that has your contact information on it. How can people find you after the meeting?
Cathy offered more great tips. I hope you'll take a moment to visit No Pressure Networking and listen to the half hour recorded show on Blog Talk Radio.