Here’s How to Find the Right Mix and Fine-Tune Your Offer

Have you ever wondered if your strange collection of skills and interests could be woven together to build a profitable business?

If you have, you’ll love today’s Hero’s Journey article.

Lauren Pawell is a rare breed: she has a background in development and marketing. That’s a combination you don’t see every day!

Some people might have encouraged Lauren to choose one field or the other. But she persisted and has built a business that artfully combines her many passions.

Lauren’s story is this month’s Hero’s Journey feature. We’re tapping the collective wisdom of our community members to bring you reports from the front lines of the content marketing world. See all the Hero’s Journey posts here.

Read on as Lauren shares what she’s learned over the years and how you can use her hard-earned wisdom in your own business.

Building a one-stop revenue-building shop

Lauren Pawell: What sets Bixa Media apart is my background in both development and marketing. This allows me to sit at the intersection of business, technology and design.

We help entrepreneurs turn their WordPress and Shopify websites into revenue-generating powerhouses. We do that through a mixture of website design and development, content marketing, search engine optimization, paid advertising, and online reputation management.

Not only can we write killer copy, but we can also evaluate your technology options, decide which is best for your needs, and build everything for you, while keeping your business objectives at the forefront of the process.

I find our clients really value having a partner who can help them from A to Z.

Perhaps more importantly, we’re able to tell our clients where not to waste their dollars and effort, and where to focus their resources.

Even if this doesn’t always match what a client had in mind, our honest feedback resonates with business owners.

We offer two types of services:

• 1:1 online marketing services: For medium-sized businesses who are looking to outsource their online marketing, we offer a variety of services designed to amplify their online exposure and generate more customers.
• DIY programs: For small businesses or solopreneurs who don’t yet have the resources to outsource their marketing, we offer educational marketing programs through Websites That Generate.

My business is primarily online, although I do plenty of networking offline — I find they go hand-in-hand. The offline contact tends to tip the scale in our favor, especially when it comes to securing large contracts.

Putting the brakes on spinning wheels

Lauren Pawell: I started my business for two reasons.

First and foremost, after working in marketing overseas for a few years, I saw so many small-to-medium-sized businesses with a wealth of online opportunity at their fingertips. But they just didn’t have the right guidance.

As a result, they were spinning their wheels in so many different directions with little-to-no impact.

I wanted to help them pick that low-hanging digital fruit, so that they could continue to grow their businesses and entrepreneurial dreams.

So, in 2011, I moved back to the United States, booked my first client at a friend’s birthday party (notice that offline touchpoint!), and haven’t looked back since.

The best part of that story? Our first client still works with us today and has gone from a one-man business to a 20+ person company. Now that is why I started Bixa!

I don’t share the second reason with many people, but I feel it will resonate with the Copyblogger audience.

In 2011, I had been through one-too-many bad bosses and was tired of not being in charge of my own destiny, from both a personal and career standpoint. That freedom I craved drove me to start my own company.

My driving motivation is to help other entrepreneurial spirits achieve the same freedom I have.

Conversion experiments that paid off

Lauren Pawell: Converting cold traffic into qualified leads is a finicky beast, especially when it comes to selling online education.

It’s not hard to understand why — cold traffic doesn’t immediately pull out their wallets. It took quite a bit of trial and error to dial in our lead-nurturing process, but we did it.

A few highlights:

We use Facebook ads as our hook

A new email subscriber generated from a Facebook ad was not likely to immediately jump up and buy our program. However, when we started to establish trust and demonstrate our authority through a few different mediums, we were far more successful.

Here’s what we do:

First, we run the new subscriber through a long welcome series over email. We send them 7 emails over 20 days, all of which include a lot of copy. It helps us weed out unqualified leads.

While in many approaches we did not want a lot of unsubscribes, in this case, we welcome them. It allows us to filter out anyone who doesn’t immediately love us.

After this, we direct the subscriber to our private Facebook community

There we share weekly educational content over video and give 1:1 feedback, similar to what they would experience in our course. This also helps establish us as a trusted and authoritative figure.

Then, we deliver free educational webinars on specific topics

This helps the subscriber better understand their problem and the solution they need to transform their situation.

Finally, we open our doors periodically

Last, but not least, we sell our program through email during specific times of the year, and are available on live chat to answer any questions the prospects have. (This, again, is similar to our course experience).

Some may say we give away too much for free, but I find this really helps us find great students. Plus, it allows our Facebook ad spend to generate far more ROI.

When we didn’t follow this solution and jumped straight from Facebook ads to a webinar to a sales email, our conversion rates weren’t great. Now, they are stellar.

So, if you feel like you are wasting dollars on Facebook ad spend, consider the rest of your funnel. Now that we know what works, it’s far easier to justify scaling up our marketing spend.

Venturing into online education (one validated step at a time)

Lauren Pawell: In Q2 of this year, I decided to test the idea of online education programs.

I wanted to be less reliant on 1:1 client work, which can be unpredictable. And I wanted to help all the entrepreneurs we were turning away due to a full calendar on our end, and limited resources on their end.

To validate the idea, we began being incredibly transparent about our marketing tactics.

We educated our audience through a number of mediums, notably: email, online webinars, and a private Facebook community.

I believed that through great educational content, we could:

• Empower solopreneurs, allowing them to achieve quick wins in their businesses
• Determine whether there was a demand for our DIY programs

This effort has been quite successful. We recently presold an educational course (before it was created) that our audience was begging for.

By validating an idea through free content first, we were then able to dedicate the resources to creating paid educational programs. A course takes a lot of front-loaded work, especially content creation. The last thing I wanted to do was create a program no one wanted.

As an added benefit of this education-first approach, when 1:1 prospects come through the door, they are already sold on working with us. Because they already understand the “why” behind our recommendations, the selling is 90 percent done by the time we write a proposal.

The Rainmaker Digital products Lauren uses

Lauren Pawell: We use quite a few Rainmaker Digital products, including:

• Rainmaker Platform to power our online courses and membership programs at Websites That Generate
• Genesis Framework + StudioPress themes to power clients’ websites
• Copyblogger Authority and Digital Commerce Institute to continue learning and engaging with the community

I also happen to be a new Copyblogger Certified Content Marketer. And I’m attending the upcoming Digital Commerce Summit in Denver.

So, needless to say, I’m a Rainmaker Digital diehard!

Refining and scaling up for the future

Lauren Pawell: In the final quarter of 2016, we’ll focus on refining our sales funnels and scaling up our DIY programs.

Our educational courses at Websites That Generate haven’t been marketed on our website, or really even promoted outside of email. That’s because I wanted to run a few groups of people through our programs to ensure we really dialed them in.

Now that we’ve gotten the process down, we’re ready to scale up. The first step in that process requires some adjustments to our sales funnel. Then, we can scale up our lead generation through Facebook ads.

An unsolicited piece of advice

Lauren Pawell: If, like me, you’re considering creating an educational program to complement your 1:1 services, I highly recommend the Rainmaker Platform.

All of the technology was so easy to set up, allowing us to focus most of our effort on the course creation and marketing.

When it comes to selling a course and serving your students, the less you have to worry about the technology, the better.

Find Lauren Pawell online …

• Bixa Media
• Websites That Generate

Thanks to Lauren for appearing in our Hero’s Journey series.

Do you have questions for her? Ask them in the comments.


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4 Places Writers Leave Money on the Table

 

Sales copy, web copy, de-jargonized annual reports, useful blog posts, engaging email newsletters, podcast scripts, ghost-written business books … when it comes to content that writers are paid money for these days, the list is long.

But is no one knocking down your door asking for your expertise? Are prospects unaware of how you’re able to help them clearly and concisely communicate their thoughts? Why would that be the case?

Most likely it’s because your online presence doesn’t actually sell your writing services.

If potential clients don’t know you’re a “pen for hire,” or the type of “pen for hire” you are, how can they purchase your services?

Let’s look at four places writers tend to leave money on the table and how to fix these common mistakes.

1. Your website

When a prospect visits your website for the first time, here’s what he’s looking for:

Whether you provide the services he needs

As highlighted in the first line of this article, there are many different services writers can offer. The person visiting your website, however, is looking for a very specific type of writing help.

Does your home page or services page directly state the type of writing you specialize in?

Copywriter Kate Toon’s home page spells out the exact writing services she provides and how her work helps her clients:

The services page on Trudi Roth’s site does the same.

Does your website take away the guesswork for your prospective client?

Your writing voice

Your writing voice distinguishes you from other writers. I know for a fact that every time someone has hired me as a writer, voice has been the deciding factor. (The same applies to the times I’ve hired writers for myself or clients.)

Does your website show off your unique personality and style? Or does your website copy sound like anyone could have written it?

Your level of competence

There are two main indicators that show people whether you’re competent enough to write for them.

The first is whether your website copy is well-written.

Unlike painters who can get away with shabby-looking houses, writers cannot have shabby work gracing their online homes. I’m always stunned when I find boring, grammatically unsound copy and spelling errors on writers’ websites.

(Pro tip: If you’re struggling with your website copy, because it’s difficult to write and edit for yourself, ask a writer friend for help. Offer to edit his website if he’ll edit yours.)

The second is whether your clients recommend you.

One way to show clients’ reactions to your work is to display strong testimonials prominently on your website. Here’s an example of powerful video testimonials from Lucinda Lions:

Written testimonials, like the ones Kristi Hines has on her site, work just as well — especially when they’re from well-respected people in your industry.

2. Your blog

I’ve lost count of the number of writers who write blog posts aimed at other writers.

That’s appropriate if other writers are actually your target market, but for most writers, they’re not.

The target market for most writers is business owners, so offer information that demonstrates how your writing services help their businesses.

3. Guest blog posts

I edit a large business website in Australia and writers often submit articles to me for consideration.

It’s surprising to see how poorly written some of those articles are, but I shouldn’t be surprised; I used to submit sub-standard writing to large online publications too.

(Luckily, those publications always did me a favor by rejecting those articles.)

When you expose your writing to a new audience with a guest post, you’ll benefit the most when you submit your very best work.

I’ll repeat that advice because it’s something that took me a very long time to learn, to my detriment:

Guest posts submitted to large online publications should be your very best content.

4. Social media

Social media sites present wonderful opportunities for writers. Think of the huge advantages we have over other users:

• We’re clever with words.
• We’re articulate.
• We’re able to communicate complex thoughts and ideas in simple ways.

Are you finding and interacting with your target market on social media?

My friend Kerri Sackville has been able to turn her engaging and entertaining content on Twitter and Facebook into book deals and paid (yes, paid!) newspaper columns.

Other friends have landed magazine work and gigs writing branded content for large multi-national publications.

Spend time crafting your social media bios, too. They need to make it clear that you sell writing services. Bonus points if they also offer a glimpse of your unique voice or USP.

Your action plan

Take advantage of every opportunity to stand out from the crowd.

Start with your website. Once that’s humming, get busy writing high-quality guest posts and leveraging social media to catch the attention of people who don’t yet know you — but should.

This will help ensure that when prospects have money to spend on writing, you’ll be the first writer they contact.

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How to grow a Successful Online Business Using Social Media

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13 Simple Questions to Help You Draft a Winning Content Strategy [Free Worksheet]

 Welcome to the year of adaptive content. The choose-your-own-adventure era of content marketing. The age of the customized customer experience.

We’ve already tipped our hand by publishing two podcasts on the topic: Adaptive Content: A Trend to Pay Attention to in 2015 and Behind the Scenes: 2014 in Review and the Road Ahead.

And 16 Stats That Explain Why Adaptive Content Matters Right Now is a foundational blog post that briefs you on the subject.

At this point, it’s only natural that we jump right in to the heart of adaptive content.

But after reading two dozen articles and at least one white paper, flipping through two SlideShare presentations, listening to a few podcasts, and reading four books, I realized if I want to prepare you to implement adaptive content, we have to go back to the beginning …

And start with content strategy.

Can you really trust your content strategy?

Content strategy needs to be precise. See, before you even put pen to paper, you need to know the direction you are heading.

Most of us who work online, from freelance writers to small business owners, probably have a content strategy. But there’s just one problem: it’s up in our heads.

But if you say, “My business is not that complicated, and neither is my content strategy. I know where I want to take this business. I don’t need to commit it to paper,” then this stat should make you take pause:

Only 39 percent of B2B small business marketers have a documented content marketing strategy. The rest either have a strategy that they have only talked about (47 percent), have no strategy at all (12 percent), or are unsure (1 percent).

That’s from the 2015 benchmarks, budgets, and trends study by Content Marketing Institute (CMI) and MarketingProfs. So, let me explain the danger behind an undocumented content strategy.

First off, the difference between keeping that content strategy pinned to your mental wallpaper and taping it to the physical cinder blocks in your basement office is that your supposed strategy that you talk about may be no strategy at all.

Ouch.

The CMI study also found:

• 39 percent of companies who do have a documented strategy are “more effective in nearly all aspects of content marketing than their peers who either have a verbal-only strategy or no strategy at all.”
• 60 percent of those with a documented content marketing strategy consider their organization to be “effective” at content marketing; only 33 percent of those with just a verbal strategy say the same.
• 62 percent of those with a documented strategy say that their strategy closely guides their content marketing efforts; only 29 percent of those with just a verbal strategy say the same.
• Companies with a documented strategy are more than twice as likely to be successful at charting the ROI of their content marketing efforts than those with only a verbal strategy.

Furthermore, this lack of a documented content strategy could be a factor behind one of the most surprising results of another study, Copyblogger’s very own 2015 Cost of Online Business Report, which revealed 51 percent of online business owners are struggling to make a living online.

So, that notion you call your content strategy may be causing you to leave money on the table, publish ineffective content, and aimlessly feel your way to your destination, which might end up being the wrong destination after all.

You need a clear and focused content strategy to produce optimal results.

Answer these 13 content strategy questions

We’ve already made the case for content. But if you need a little reminder, here are some words of wisdom from Authority Rainmaker 2015 speaker, Ann Handley.

She writes in Content Rules that content will “position your company not just as a seller of stuff, but as a reliable source of information.”

But it can be tricky. Especially if you target more than one audience. And CMI’s research reveals that 54 percent of small businesses say they target at least two or three audiences.

Only seven percent said they target just one audience.

Throw in the different tactics you can use, social media platforms, paid advertising methods, as well as a limited budget and resources, and it becomes clear that a defined content strategy is necessary if you want to have any hope of remaining focused.

Certainly having a content strategy is better than not having one. But a documented one is superior.

As Kristina Halvorson and Melissa Rach write in Content Strategy for the Web:

Your content strategy defines how an organization (or project) will use content to achieve its objectives and meet its users’ needs.

Your content strategy helps you see clearly, avoid excuses, and remove distractions. It’s there to keep you accountable.

But creating a content strategy doesn’t have to be a frighteningly massive affair. You can create your first draft in less than a day, just by answering a few questions.

So, square away an afternoon, ask yourself these questions, and document the answers in a notebook, on a whiteboard, in Evernote, or in the handy PDF we’ve created for you below. Have fun!

1. Who are your users?

Identify and specifically describe the members of your audience.

For example:

• She is a working mother who would like to feed her family a healthy meal three times a day.
• He is an African American who wants to become a lawyer so he can give back to his community.
• She is retired, without any concerns for money, but simply wants to be productive and not bored.

As mentioned above, you may be speaking to more than one target audience. Define all of them. This may require you to delve pretty deeply into their heads.

2. Who are your competitors?

And I’m not just talking about your direct competitors. Who or what can take prospects away from you?

For example, a web designer is not only competing against other web designers, but also against tools that allow non-designers to design.

3. What do you bring to the table?

There is a reason I discussed your customers and competitors first. They give you an idea of the shape of the market and how you can fit into that market.

I say this all the time to people who are trying to build a business and a brand: Your mission and strategy will change over time. It will evolve as you learn about your customers and competitors.

With that research in your belt, you now can ask: How do you fit into the market? What do you bring to the table that no one else can? What makes you unique?

4. What do you hear?

Hopefully voices. But not the ones in your head.

I mean the voices from your customers and ideal target audience. What are they saying? What are the recurring themes, in regard to their dreams and challenges?

If you don’t know where to hear these voices, find the online water coolers where your prospects like to hang out. They could be on social media sites like Reddit, Facebook, Google+, or Twitter. Also consider LinkedIn discussion groups, forums like Quora, or membership sites like Authority.

5. What content do you already have?

You need to assess the content you already have on your website, blog, and social media platforms — and how far along you are into the content marketing game will determine how painful this will be. But it’s important it gets done.

Yes, this is a content audit.

Ultimately, you want to determine the type of content that would be the most beneficial to produce going forward.

6. What is the purpose of your content?

This is perhaps the most important question.

Is your content intended to drive sales? Generate leads? Build authority? Increase organic search traffic? Please your mother? All of the above? More than likely “all of the above” is the case, but each individual piece of content will accomplish a different task.

For instance, the purpose of an article you wrote on another blog may simply be to drive more traffic to your website. But not to just any page on your website — a landing page specifically designed for that guest article. A landing page designed to convert those visitors into email newsletter subscribers.

And that email newsletter is designed to strengthen your relationships with your readers and educate them on your products or services. For instance, one email you send may be crafted to drive those subscribers to another landing page designed to sell them your product or service.

It’s important to understand the purpose of your content. And the purpose of each piece of content can be determined during your content audit.

7. How often should you publish content?

Once a week? Daily? Answers to these questions boil down to your resources. How much time do you have? Who is going to create all of this content? Is the content converting?

Here’s some insightful research from Andy Crestodina to help you make that decision.

8. How will you distribute your content?

Content that isn’t shared is content that is ignored. No matter how great you think it is.

So, which social media platform(s) will you focus on? Where is your ideal audience? Who is going to share your content? Are you going to use scheduling tools?

9. Who is in charge of your content?

Is it you? Should it be you?

Like Michael Gerber said in his classic book, The E-Myth, a business owner should be in a position to work on his business — not in it. Otherwise, you may find it difficult to grow. You may need to hire someone to write new content and manage existing content.

10. Who will produce your content?

You may have a lot of wishes and desires. And no shortage of ambition. But allow human nature to teach you a lesson: We are all limited in what we can do.

If you want to create 12 infographics this year, who’s going to do the research? Write the content? Design it? Will these people always be available when you need them?

11. Who is going to maintain the content?

The content on your website is like a garden. It needs to be cultivated.

For every new blog post you publish, there are five rotting away with broken links, outdated facts, and topics that are now irrelevant.

Who is going to clean up this mess? Name that person, and create a schedule.

12. Who is responsible for the results?

If you’re the only content creator, easy enough. You are responsible for everything.

But if you have a small team, make each person responsible for some area of the content. As Patrick Lencioni explains in his book, 3 Signs of a Miserable Job, you will provide motivation to your team by measuring their performances.

Make sure these goals are measurable, achievable, and specific — and not ultimatums. In other words, don’t say, “You’re gone if you don’t meet this.” Allow room for mistakes, corrections, and growth.

In addition, you should be held responsible for an area of the content as well. Your people will respect that.

13. What’s your destination (core strategy)?

All the preceding questions build to this final one.

This is about stating what you need to accomplish, determining the type of content that will help you achieve this goal, and creating a plan to help you accomplish it.

Use these guidelines to create a core strategy:

• Aspirational: Create a goal that gives you room to stretch, fail, get back up, and grow.
• Flexible: Your core strategy should allow you to adjust as your environment changes around you, without having to make a drastic pivot.
• Meaningful: Does your core strategy align with your values, and will you be able to sustain it and endure challenges over the long haul?

Here’s an example of a core strategy from Content Strategy for the Web:

Curate an entertaining, online reference guide that helps stressed-out law students become successful practicing lawyers.

This is similar to five things every good marketing story needs: it’s clear who the hero is, what her goal is, what the moral is, what the conflict is — and, of course, you are the mentor.

Your turn …

Once your draft is complete, your next job is to download (221 KB) and print this nine-page content strategy worksheet.

Fill it out, and pin it in a spot you will see every day.

In the end, your core strategy will guide you through the distractions and difficulties that accompany building an online audience with content. But the rest of the information you collect will tell you where you are now, where you need to go, how you are going to get there, and the resources you need.

Editor’s note: Many thanks to Copyblogger’s Pamela Wilson for designing this worksheet!

Image source: Jeff Sheldon via Unsplash.

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