Marketing planning and the real question to ask - Who is this Marketing FOR?

This week and most of next week I will be reviewing the marketing (especially the online and social media marketing) for The Apprentice Academy who are moving into helping employers recruit digital apprentices. 

This marketing planning review work over the last 6 months I also do in a much more haphazard way in my dreams (I do really and really do which is sad really and really sad.)

This morning I awoke to an imagine meeting with my MD about numbers for the next 12 months - only for the numbers and the vision to disappear in the 3 seconds it took me to awaken. Damn it all I will now have to do the real work too.

So this article from my hero Seth Godin nicely puts it all into simple perspective - something sometimes lost in the spreadsheets and analysis of modern online marketing...

Who is this marketing for?

Before you spend a minute or a dollar on marketing, perhaps you could answer some questions:

• Who, precisely, are you trying to reach?
• What change are you trying to make?
• How will you know if it's working?
• How long before you will lose patience?
• How long before someone on your team gets to change the mission?
• How much time and money are you prepared to spend?
• Who gets to approve this work?
• Who are you trying to please or impress?

It's cheaper to answer these questions than it is to spend time and money on marketing, but, alas, it usually doesn't happen that way.

I don't know if we can answer all of the questions above at The Apprentice Academy - but we can certainly try to answer the following in our next meeting. 

• Who, precisely, are you trying to reach?
• What change are you trying to make?
• How will you know if it's working?
• How much time and money are you prepared to spend?
• Who gets to approve this work?

The rest I fear are too political for me to dare to ask - what about for your organisation? Would people really answer....

• How long before WE / SOMEONE / you will lose patience?
• How long before someone on your team gets to change the mission?
• Who are you trying to please or impress?

The companies that can truly answer those types of questions honestly, are honestly, going to do rather well this next year. 

How to take your blogging to the next level - top tips from the professionals from 5 - 10.

Making a blog remarkable is hard work. It takes time and effort. But what about when a whole company starts blogging to help the search engine optimization of their website and get the company more social like with us over at The Apprentice Academy.

What happens then?   

What about the differences in quality?  What about the quality (or otherwise) of the grammar in the blogs produced?  Was it really up to the marketing manager to manage people's personal blogs? 

Is this a branding issue for the company?

So many questions and not many answers, especially not from me. As I have a bit of a love hate relationship with grammar due to my own grandma being very pushy on the subject (bad pun intended and polarizing I am sure...)

But in the continuation of 5 top tips it seems we may be onto something.Grammar might be more important than I first thought...

So here are the rest of the top ten tips on remarkable blogging… with a lovely quote to start off from the author – Heyo's Mike Sweeney

“Remarkable blog posts don’t just happen. The myth of the blog post that unexpectedly “goes viral” is just that…a myth. Behind every blog post that generates robust traffic, real engagement and quality sharing is a plan that addresses all of the items (in both blogs ) and even more.”

1. Remarkable blog posts follow a great headline with an even better opening paragraph.

There are plenty of things you can try here – some people like asking compelling questions or making a statement that might challenge common opinion on your subject, creating controversy in your reader’s mind. Others, like myself, typically start with a quick and personal story or include a jaw-dropping stat. Regardless of your technique, this is no different than the lead paragraph of a newspaper or magazine article; it is what has to draw the reader into the rest of your piece and capture attention. Your intro paragraph needs to contain a compelling hook—some reason to keep reading, and should always give the reader a succinct overview of what you plan to cover in your post.

2. Remarkable blog posts cannot contain sloppy errors.

The greatest ideas—and a remarkable post—can be ruined by the really simple stuff: spelling errors, formatting problems, murky visuals, awkward spacing, or broken links.

In carpentry, errors are avoided using a “measure twice, cut once” mindset. In blogging, I say it’s more like “edit thrice, publish once.”

3. Remarkable blog posts are optimized for humans…and for search engines.

This, like many of the other nine points, deserves its own post. If you’ve been blogging for an extended period of time, and you’re not seeing the benefits of organic search traffic, then you’re likely doing something wrong from an SEO standpoint.

Here are a few starting tips:

• Do your keyword research. The Google keyword tool was already awesome, and they just made it even more useful.
• Complete your meta data. At a bare minimum, write a keyword-rich title tag and description tag.
• Tag your images.  Be certain to address the image file name, alt text, and title tag – all should include target keywords.
• Find opportunities to interlink. Make it a practice to link to previous posts on your blog.
• Link to outside sources. This will not only boost SEO benefits, but it creates friendly fellow- blogger relationships.

4. Remarkable blog posts are easily shareable.

Just today, I checked out a prospective client’s blog, and when I got there, I was pleasantly surprised at the volume of content. Then came the cringe-worthy moment…all that content, and so difficult to share. No LinkedIn sharing option. The Tweet button led to a dead end. And there was no easy way to forward along via email.

Creating remarkable blog posts is hard. Sharing them should not be. Allison Novak’s 7 Tips for Social Sharing will get you started down the right path.

5. Remarkable blog posts include a call to action.

If you’ve followed these steps and created a remarkable blog post, you now have a captive audience. They may want to move on to something else, but at least give them an opportunity to hang out and get more involved with what you’re doing.

Keep your calls to action short and simple. Some might offer the reader more information, like “Read these related blog posts.” Others might be calls for engagement, like “Anything to add? What else makes for a remarkable blog post? Share in the comments.” Another option is to offer a different piece of content that allows the reader to delve deeper into the blog post topic, like “Want more blogging tips? Download our ultimate guide to creating remarkable blog posts.” All will create an increased level of audience engagement.

So to answer the question posed by The Apprentice Academy's new blogging mission - perhaps the most important thing really is quality and we need to train our TAA staff and non training digital people, who may not love writing - or blogging - to get them to start to love editing. 

The same has to be done for our new digital apprentices - which ironically it is - in the course. 

Looks like my grandma was right. Which, to be fair, she was about a lot of other things. 

So is that sometimes (and this is where the irony must stop) "it's not what you say, but how you say it."

What do you think? 

More importantly, would you like to know more about how our new digital apprentices who will help your company (if you are based in Manchester and are part of a company of more than 5 people) get on the most out of social media? 

Then do be in touch with The Apprentice Academy we would love to help you recruit a digital Apprentice.

How's that for a call to action ;)

The First Five Top Things to do with Blogging beyond starting up and getting involved...

At my old agency - Great Marketing Works - we taught companies how to be GREAT at marketing.

Each letter in GREAT standing for something - see here - the R standing for "remarkable" - mainly taken from Seth Godin's wonderful works on the subject - if you have never read his blog - here is a link - which itself is a series of how to guides by example.

But for now, have a think, are your blog post remarkable? i.e. would someone who read them tell someone else, would they share it, would they comment on it?

Are you blogs really GREAT content?

With more and more people realizing that the old game of SEO has played out and that Clay Shirky (et al) were right when they predicted everyone would be a publisher soon under the great book title -  "Here comes everybody" - so the greatness or otherwise of your content has become a big issue.

Be that a PDF for your site, a little bit of link bait for your SEO, a well phrased personal blog to enhance your own expertise level on Linkedin, or now a days a nicely designed infographic for the informational hungry (time poor) visual consumer of today's SO LO MO world.

It's something that I have been thinking about whilst working helping The Apprentice Academy get more social (and help their SEO) and for their brand to become a thought leader in the realm of digital apprenticeships. Which it will - as God is my witness. As our new digital apprentices will kick ass, as I am one of their trainers, and the course looks amazing...

Anyhoo - this below is taken from Heyo's Mike Sweeney - and I like the style and the feel of the piece which raises some great points about blogging.

Most of which I have not adhered to at all in this blog for ironies sake. The first one makes me chuckle in a blog based on The First Five Top Things to do with Blogging.

 

1. Remarkable blog posts focus on one point and one point only.

 

One of the first things I do when I sit down to plan a blog post is determine the one and only point that every reader should take away after reading it. Sure, you’re going to need several supporting points, but if you stay focused on that one objective, your readers will stay focused with you.
For instance, after you’re done reading this post, I want you to think, “Wow. I need to start (continue) creating remarkable blog posts and use these ten tips as a guide, or my material will get ignored.”

 

2. Remarkable blog posts help someone out.

 

If you’re about to hit publish and you can’t say to yourself, “This is going to help at least one person—if not potentially thousands—do something better, learn something new, or discover a new way of thinking about something,” then you’re not doing your job.
The great bloggers understand that educating and entertaining the audience is the best way to keep them coming back.

 

3. Remarkable blog posts follow the same story structure you learned when you were nine years old.

 

A blog post should be written like any other piece of content—it needs a well-defined beginning, middle, and end. Start with an outline (like your fourth-grade teacher taught you) and your final product will almost write itself (almost). Keep it organized, both from a formatting standpoint and from a copy standpoint, and you will keep your reader’s head in the game. Who knows, he or she may even make it through the entire post, which brings me to my next point…

 

4. Remarkable blog posts are skimmable.

 

If you’ve captivated your readers enough that they are hanging on every word of your post, good for you. You’ve definitely created a remarkable blog post.
For the rest of you, make sure your blog posts are skimmable. Your reader should be able to skim the post, pick up the main points, and decide whether he or she wants to dig in deeper on a particular topic. Use methods like bullets, headings and sub-headings, numbered lists, and bolded call-outs to achieve this.

 

5. Remarkable blog posts use headlines that are both relevant and attention-grabbing.

 

My stance on headlines is a little different from others’. Some believe that you should focus exclusively on the attention-grabbing aspects of the headline, most times at the expense of the relevancy of the headline. Not only is that unfair to your readers, but when they do click over and realize that the headline doesn’t match the content, you just lost them.

I used to write my headlines last. That was a mistake. I now write them first, because a great headline can inspire a great post, or even change your initial direction for the post.

 Copyblogger is a fantastic resource for those looking to write great blog post headlines.


So we hope that these top five top tips taken from Heyo's Mike Sweeney are useful. There are 5 more to follow when I can find the time to edit them.

You see this is the other thing about blogging - is that it takes time. Time and effort. Time and effort that should be rewarded. Has to be rewarded. But as a business owner (if you are a business owner reading this) wouldn't it be great to have a digital apprentice to help you / your team on the editing? Or even on some of the production of some of the blogs?

The new digital apprentices from The Apprentice Academy are here to help your marketing team be more productive - so save your time and help you get the most out of this HUGE opportunity that social media is.  

Did you know that 77% of people would rather buy from a brand where the CEO blogs? Amazing isn't it.

But who says the CEO has to edit his own work....or put it out on twitter.

Today it was really interesting to read something about branding. Which made me think...

I used to do workshops on branding. And our branding back here at The Apprentice Academy is starting to get standardized - something I have been gently implementing for a couple of months.  The change is coming... we will get there. 

So today it was really interesting to read something about branding. Which made me think...

From the Linchpin Academy (like the name...) 

There is an  edited down a brilliant video that talks about BRAND.  

You will find the video here.

It is really well worth a watch. 

This video talks about lots of global brands which obviously have taken a colossal amount of money, time and effort to build the brand equity to where it is now.   

Couple of keys things to take away from the video were:

• Brand is an expectation you set and it's not something you own! 
• Expectation is set through a prospect's experience.
• Declaration of a promise or value is nothing more than words.  (saying you deliver great customer service isn't the same as experiencing great customer service)
• You have to pay to build a brand. You either pay with money or time. There are no shortcuts.

All the above is soooo true. 

Your customer MUST experience something which aligns with your story and your brand promise for it to become something they will tell people about. 

And you only have three things in life - money. time and energy. There are no shortcuts - what you pay with one you save with the other. 

There are no shortcuts to establishing a brand especially when you are in an established industry like we are at The Apprentice Academy. 

Apprenticeships are as old as the hills. But new modern apprenticeships like our digital and social media apprenticeships are brand new. But they do not make a brand. They start it.