BroadVision Marketing Blog

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Do your readers feel like they want to connect with you? Do you have a Call-to-Action that compels them? It won’t do you any good to publish and syndicate wonderful content, to have exciting titles, bewitching teaser paragraphs, creative content and a zinger of a conclusion if you don’t get your audience to return.

Topics: Social Media, Business Owner, Leadership

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Since I have been talking about what works with blogs and what doesn’t, I want to add some ideas based on Michael Stelzer’s recent remarks in Social Media Examiner July 22, 2011 at http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/top-7-reasons-blogs-fail-and-what-to-do-about-it/.

Michael talks about business blogging mistakes that can cause a blog not to get enough traffic or views.

Mistake: Writing about yourself

Have you looked at some of the tweets on Twitter and passed them by because they are selling their business with the same tweet over and over? Did you feel guilty for passing over them? I’ll bet you didn’t give it a second thought. So why would you blog about your products, your services or yourself? No one is interested in that to start with.

What people really want is help solving their problems, getting useful information or feeling like they are recognized. Can you see that if you focus on giving them what they want, they will come to see what else you have?

Topics: blog, Social Media

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At a Chamber of Commerce meeting recently someone mentioned that they were using niche blogging, but you didn’t have a chance to ask what that was. So what is niche blogging?

You already have a blog set up for your business, but what would happen if you set up blogs that could be used in your business from different angles. In other words what if you took a vertical move and created more than one blog that crossed several industries? These multiple approaches are called niche blogging and are a way to greatly expand your influence.

Topics: Chamber of Commerce, Niche blogging, Social network service, blog, website, Marketing Plan, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Business, Blogging

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Not everyone who reads the blogs I've been writing is an expert yet. If you are a newbie, do you know if you are writing a blog that is used for a website? What does it become then?

Mike Clough in his post of June 28, 2010 ( http://bestbizpractices.org/2010/06/28/is-your-blog-really-a-blog/) clarified the question by saying, “When a blog is used for website functions, it loses its value as a blog and in fact becomes just another website.”

Topics: Using Different Media, Small business, information, Web content, blog, website, Facebook, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Marketing Principles, LinkedIn, Blogging

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You have decided to add a blog as a marketing method. You’ve looked at questions that help you focus what you want to say. But throughout all the studying you have done, you are not really sure what you are using blogging to accomplish.

Many companies use social media to “connect” with their customer by talking about what their company has been doing lately, information about their products and service and awards they have received.  These companies have missed the boat.

Topics: marketing, Using Different Media, Marketing and Advertising, Customer, Company, information, Web content, blog, inbound marketing, Marketing Plan, Social Media, Marketing Principles, Business, Blogging

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Now that you have decided to write a blog for your business, you go on line and ask Google to do a general search on your product. What’s this? There are millions of blogs on the internet and it looks like millions about your product. One look at the competition and you are tempted to head for the hills.

But don’t do that. You can compete if you spend the time to create informative blog posts. This is not just a business whim, but a strategic point of your marketing campaign. If you want to be successful, you have only to take the time and effort to write content about your product. Before you start you might want to spend time answering some questions that will help you develop your strategy and actually help you write.

Topics: marketing, Using Different Media, Marketing and Advertising, Google, Google Search, Customer, readers, social media strategy, product, informative posts, brand awareness, blog, clients, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Marketing Principles, Business, Branding, Blogging

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When you are writing content for your business blog, do you know the basic rules for encouraging people to read and believe what you say?

In a recent Orange Soda blog by Erika Potter, as discussed in the July 25, 2011 MarketingProfs  article “Three Tips for Creating Credible Online Content”, Potter says that content matters because it creates credibility. “Without credibility, your chance of converting viewers into customers goes downhill fast. It’s vital that visitors to your site see your online business as a trusted resource,” she said.

Topics: Social Media, Marketing Principles

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Not sure about the importance of blogging for your business? Let's look at some information that might help.

What is blogging? There are blogs and there are blogs. In the beginning blogging was more like a web diary (the word “blog” is a combination of “ web log”, which meant a log you kept of your life on the web). Now blogs have exploded out of that narrow definition as people write and read blogs for all sorts of reasons. Small businesses have discovered the value of blogging.

Topics: Social Media, Marketing Principles

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Lead nurturing is a concept that is easily confused with sending out brochures or marketing copy focused on product information or company announcements. This is not the same thing as nurturing a lead.

To nurture means:  foster, help develop or help grow;  the act of nourishing or nursing; tender care; education; training; that which nourishes; food; diet; sustenance; the environmental influences the contribute to the development of an individual. Sending out information about you or your company is not the same thing as “feeding” your leads. When you talk about yourself, you are not focused on what the leads need or your relationship with them.

Topics: marketing, Using Different Media, Marketing and Advertising, lead, Company, Sales, Salesforce.com, Sales lead, nurturing leads, Marketing Plan, Social Media, Marketing Principles, Business Owner

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What is the ultimate purpose of social media? You want to get good solid leads that will convert into customers. Basically, social media tells you how your customers are getting interested in you and your company.

You use social media as a business process, which means that you develop a process in writing that you follow and test regularly to hone it. The sales department and the marketing department, as two very different entities, need to sit down together and discuss what criteria a lead must meet before being passed from marketing to sales. Furthermore, marketing needs to follow-up after the lead is passed on in order to find out if the sale occurred. Also in order to keep the customer for life, the marketing department needs to stay in touch with the client for future sales.

Topics: marketing, Using Different Media, Marketing and Advertising, Email lists, Sales, leads, Marketing Plan, Facebook, Social Media, Marketing Principles, LinkedIn, Business Owner, Business, Twitter