What does it mean to be you?

To think like you do or to behave as you do? What defines you? 

These are the kinds of questions you should be asking yourself when it comes to personal branding, especially if you want to create a content plan.

You might be thinking ‘what the heck is that?’

Or you might be confident that you know what branding is; ‘it’s the type of perfume I use or the bank I’m with, not to mention my preference of fizzy cola drinks!’

Right?

Not quite.

While many brands may feature in your day to day life –  some may even feel inseparable from your character – personal branding is less about the products and more about the person behind them.

So, if you’re ready to look inward, keep reading to learn about personal branding and how you can use it in your life.

This blog will cover:

• What is personal branding?
• Examples of personal branding
• Why is personal branding important?
• Is personal branding just for influencers? 
• What is a personal brand statement?
• Step by step process for building a personal brand
• How to manage negative backlash online
• How to monetise your personal brand

What Is Personal Branding?

Personal branding is a way of marketing yourself.

A personal brand explains who you are, what you do and informs people why they should care about you.

Through your personal brand, you can curate a deliberate identity for either your professional or personal life, both on and offline.

The brand you present is typically a combination of your experience, skills and personality which creates a persona for you and influences how you are perceived by other people.

Personal branding is a unique person-centered approach to business and has become one of the most effective ways of creating a point of differentiation between yourself and others, in a content-saturated world.

So, whether you use your personal brand for a job interview, for someone to hire your services for their company or to get cast in a TV show – personal branding is front and centre of successful marketing communications.

Spending time developing your personal brand will help you to present yourself, your work and your skills in the best possible way. 

And getting this right is essential if you want to create a PR plan for yourself and your business.

Examples of Personal Branding 

There are excellent examples of impactful personal branding in every sector from politics to pop culture. 

Business Leader and best selling author Tony Robbins has curated a personal brand that motivates and inspires individuals and businesses around the world. 

His approach to self-help and positive thinking has helped individuals in the public eye from politicians to sports stars, all the while earning the moniker of ‘The CEO Whisperer’. 

If it’s good enough for his 5.8 million instagram followers, it’s good enough for us!

Bestselling author, podcaster and business guru Tim Ferriss has curated a successful personal brand through his committed approach to sharing his lifestyle optimizing tips and work week hacks. 

With 700+ Million downloads of his podcast The Tim Ferriss Show, the former entrepreneur and angel investor now shares insider knowledge and advice from world-class business performers. 

Why Is Personal Branding Important?

A strong personal brand can have a big impact in your professional life, bringing multiple benefits, such as helping to develop an online audience, drive sales or get traction in a campaign you are running.

Through personal branding, you can focus on things you are passionate about as well as using it as a space to promote your achievements.  You can excel in thought leadership.

In fact, the best personal brands don’t just shout about how good a person is, they share value and insight and become known for standing out from the crowd and making a difference. 

People connect more when someone is being honest and open about successes or failures and what they’ve learnt from those experiences.

Personal branding can also be instrumental in getting your next job.

Your online profile is readily available for the public and future employers to see so you need to make sure it gives the best first impression.

We’ve all heard horror stories of people being denied life changing-jobs after an employer looked on social media and found inappropriate comments or images from their mis-spent youth. 

Developing an authentic personal brand where you can present an honest, engaging persona, sharing your style, your values or your skills, will get you ahead.

Is Personal Branding Just For Influencers?

It’s true that if you want to be considered influential, a strong personal brand is essential for your success. 

Many people associate personal branding with influencer marketing and, alternatively, influential people in the public eye, because they represent a niche interest, skillset, area or audience. 

Influencers are able to utilise the public desire for role models and aspirational values in every field and sector.

From fashion and fitness to motivational speakers and scientists, social media influencers with professional skill sets epitomise the aesthetic and practical values of personal branding success. 

This is because they speak to an audience who are actively seeking advice, tips and ultimately, easy ways to be the best you can be.

However, personal branding should not just be seen as the territory of influencers. In fact, just about anyone with an audience can reap the benefits of personal branding. 

Many of us do this already, probably subconsciously, via the posts, images and ideas that we share on social media. 

With character limits and profile pics, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn provide the perfect opportunities to present yourself in a socially conscious and concise way. 

Whether you’re looking for a new job or wanting to engage with a wider network, curating a personal brand and streamlining your online presence can help you get on the path to success, whatever that may look like to you. 

What Is A Personal Brand Statement?

A personal brand statement is a short (1-3 sentences) bio stating who you are, what you do and why that is important. 

From it, people should be able to understand your skills and experience as well as what you have to offer. 

You want to aim for something that is not only short and sweet, but passionate, personal and professional at the same time.

Providing enough information about yourself to get someone interested, but leaving space for them to want to know more. In which case, they’ll have to get in touch. 

Alongside your online profile, your personal brand statement is a way to grab people’s attention online.

Having a strong presence online can attract opportunities from the employers that you want, and even those that you didn’t know you needed. 

If you’re already in a job you love, it’s worth remembering that many companies will appreciate your presence as a brand ambassador for them, it will support their digital PR work.

See how you can incorporate building a personal brand with the resources and networks that are readily available to you.

Building A Personal Brand Step-By-Step

1. Clean up your online profile – Have you got a long lost MySpace, Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr lurking in a dark corner of the internet with thoughts and images from your former self? It might be worth revisiting this ancient history to check there’s nothing out there that could be damaging to your personal brand.
2. Figure out what you want your brand to be – This could be governed by how you envisage your interactions with other people. Think about whether you anticipate social or professional interactions and craft your online presence in a way that reflects this. 
3. Find your niche – There’s nothing wrong with doing the same thing as the last guy or gal, but it’s not going to make people sit up and take notice of you. Finding a niche area of your sector or tapping into a gap in the market is going to make you, your skills and your ideas hot property and full of potential.
4. Write your personal brand statement – Write something that’s short, sharp and sexy to bring your professional skills and personality into one key idea.
5. Build your online profile – Now it’s time to align your online presence, linking social media profiles with your website, bringing your network together.
6. Remember security – Go through security settings and make sure you’re only sharing data that you’ve agreed to and that your profile is only visible to those people you want to see it.
7. Strategy – Now you need to get out there and publish some epic content. 

Your content strategy for your personal brand needs to reflect the values you uphold and the skills you bring to the people and projects you’re involved with. But this doesn’t stop at your personal branding statement – it needs to be reproduced throughout all your online content. 

Editorial mission statement

This should connect to your brand statement, uniting your personality with a professional mission. It includes your audience, the type of content you will provide, and how you intend for people to benefit from this.

Audience

When defining your target audience, you should consider the following questions. 

Who are they, why do they follow you and what are they going to gain by interacting with your content?

You need to target a specific group of roles or a sector, rather than trying to be everything to everybody. 

Once you have this, spend some time locating your audience online and noticing their behaviours. For example, what networking sites they use or what information they’re looking for when interacting with these sites.

Content marketing goals

Content marketing is all about creating digital content that people want to consume and sharing it with your networks. It should keep your audience interested as well as attract new interest and opportunities. 

• Get your name out there by building awareness of your brand and your mission. 
• Earn the trust of your audience as a reputable source of insight and information in your field.
• Build partnerships that strengthen your integrity and provide interesting content for your audience, building links and providing opportunities for engagement. 

Identify your style

This is a balancing act between your own interests as a content creator and your audience’s needs and interests.

The overlap of interests are the core areas which you should cover in your content when establishing your personal brand.

Build your content calendar

When setting your expectations for your content calendar it’s best to start small and build up as you feel comfortable. Trying to push too much content in too little time can get messy and stressful and lead to poor quality content. 

It’s worth finding a platform that allows you to plan, schedule and post content via one app, saving you time and energy along the way!

Create some epic content

It’s your responsibility to know what your audience wants and plan your content to give it the best possible traction with them. 

Engage with your followers through interactive polls, stories or surveys on social media and allow yourself to be open to feedback on topics and types of content.

Measure your progress

Taking some time to evaluate your progress will allow you to identify what works well, as well as what doesn’t.

This is important as it will allow you to streamline your content creation and really give your audience what they want. 

How To Manage Negative Backlash Online

We all say or do the wrong thing from time to time, but what happens when you make a mistake on the social media stage? 

Public opinion can be pretty ruthless when it comes to pointing out mistakes and criticising certain actions or comments, for example. 

Whether you agree that you’ve made a mistake or not, it’s important to take a measured approach, considering all sides of the issue, as your business, brand or following could be at stake. 

Be humble – Prioritise protecting your brand and minimise any lasting damage.

Be accountable – We all make mistakes. Period. If you recognize yourself as being at fault, take ownership of your mistakes and focus on learning and moving forward.

Make amends – You’ll need to put in the work to rebuild trust in your brand as well as any products or services.

Plan a positive campaign – Revisit your brand values, mission, and culture then action any changes through your services or products. 

This being said, when it comes to criticism of your personal brand, it’s hard not to feel like you’re being personally attacked. 

Constructive Criticism Or Online Bullying?

There is a difference between genuine criticism in light of a mistake on your part and social media trolls or bullies who are attacking your brand for reasons unknown. 

While you should acknowledge genuine issues or grievances that play out on social media, dealing with trolls is another story. 

It’s best to avoid any engagement with trolls online.

Not only will it fuel their fire, but responding to comments on public platforms (especially if you’re feeling emotionally provoked) could lead to unintended consequences. Such as other people getting involved. 

So, to avoid your brand ending up all over Twitter for the wrong reasons, the best policy is to ignore the online ne’er do wells. Instead make the most of the block button.

How To Monetise Your Personal Brand

Once you’ve got your brand established, it’s never a bad idea to use it to your financial advantage.

In fact, there are myriad ways that you can monetise your personal brand. These are all made easier by the accessible nature of social media and its power to connect people and ideas across the globe. 

In this section, we’ll take a look at a few popular ways to monetise your personal brand. 

Start a podcast

Podcasting has fast become one of the most popular outlets for professionals with personality.

Podcasting helps your audience get to know you better and can mix entertainment with topics that are mutually important. 

It can also be a great way to attract partnerships and sponsors via advertising products or services. Dedicated listeners may also show their support via Patreon or similar sites. 

Write a book

If you believe you have what it takes, then it’s worth a try to write a book.

Whether it’s your memoir or a self-help guide then a book is a one-stop-shop for sharing your knowledge. Not to mention your skills and passion to your dedicated audience.

This has been made even easier by ebook culture and self-publishing. 

Sell templates

If you know, for example, how to write a press release, your knowledge and experience could be invaluable for somebody who needs a helping hand. 

Creating bespoke templates for tasks is a fantastic value-add for your audience. Your template can save them value time and makes everything easier for them.

Any subsequent success’ from people who purchased the product helps to strengthen your brand as a go-to industry resource.

Advertise products

Product placement is huge on Instagram and social media. Companies send you free stuff and you share your thoughts on it with your followers.

It is now a requirement to warn your audience that you are posting an #ad. This is so that you don’t mislead anyone.

But promoting products on social media is still a strong way to build your brand. Especially if you genuinely love and use the product you are featuring. 

Just remember, your brand is a representation of you and your professional skills and goals. So be wary of anyone attempting to exploit your brand or jeopardize your integrity. 

Don’t get blindsided by financial offers that are too good to be true. Stay away from anything that you wouldn’t feel comfortable being associated with. 

A good personal brand is built on integrity and being genuine about endorsements.

Personal Branding: In Summary

We’ve covered a lot in this personal brand guide so here are our top 3 tips:

Have focus. Getting your personal branding on point is great, but for what? Keeping a strong focus throughout your branding journey will make you stand out for your speciality. And stay relevant.

Tell a story. A brand without a story is like food without a flavour. Consumers of your brand want to be continually nourished and satisfied by your output, not left hungry for more.

Be authentic.  The most important thing to remember when building your personal brand is that you want to be authentic. Without this authenticity, you will fail to provide consistency between your thoughts and actions. 

And if you’re ready to take your PR work to the next level grab our PR Starter Kit.

Our must-have kit has every template, script, strategy and guide you’ll ever need to do PR – all in one place.

Good luck!

The post Personal branding: What it is and how you can build yours appeared first on Class:PR.

A content plan ensures you engage your target audience and keep them coming back for more.

It focuses on what’s important, strips away whatever is unnecessary, and laser-locks you on what you want to achieve.

Plus, a content plan will also keep you motivated during those times when it could seem much easier to give up.

This short guide will tell you everything you need to know to build a fool-proof and highly effective content plan.

So, let’s get started!

What is a content plan?

A content plan supports your marketing activity. It targets your potential customers at all stages of their journey by focusing on their wants and needs.

It also guides you on how to connect with them in a way that drives traffic and sales.

If you’ve created your content well, it will continue to generate interest for a long time after its posted.

That kind of content is called ‘evergreen’ and it is key to your business’s success as it keeps working for you for years afterwards.

Your content plan should comprise all your marketing assets and data-gathering functions. It should factor in everything from SEO research and engagement tracking to blogging and white paper writing.

An efficiently designed content plan shapes the content you want to create; not just its purpose, and the impact you want it to make, but by identifying who will be responsible for creating it.

A content plan gives your prospective customers awareness of who you are, educates them in what you do, engages their interest, and converts them into buyers or adopters.

Ideally, it will also help your business generate leads by creating content that your audience will want to tell their own followers about.

But, for all that to happen, your content plan must be smart, innovative, and in line with your business goals.

It also must be flexible, so that you can easily scale your activity up as you reach your targets and as your content marketing budget increases.

Why do you need a content plan?

A content plan is an essential part of every successful marketing campaign.

Companies who have a content plan are much more likely to produce effective, sales-winning content than those who don’t.

Research has also shown that of 89% of B2B marketers and 86% of B2C marketers use content marketing, only 37% of B2B marketers and 40% of B2C marketers have a content plan and a documented content strategy.

That means the majority of B2B and B2C marketers are simply producing content on a wing and a prayer, hoping that it reaches its intended target.

When you’ve got a contact plan, you’ve got clarity and direction. You’re also much more likely to stay several steps ahead of your competition.

Are a content plan and a content strategy the same thing? 

No, they’re not, although the two terms are often confused.

This is one of the biggest reasons why marketers who think creating a content strategy is enough are often left confused and disappointed when their content strategy fails.

There are five stages to the content production process:

• Content strategy
• Content plan
• Content production
• Content publishing
• Content distribution

Your content strategy should always come before your content plan because it lays the foundations for what your content plan will be.

However, as you can see, without the content plan, none of the final three stages can be effective.

Besides everything else, a content plan also provides checks and balances that the goals you’ve identified in your content strategy are actually viable.

If your content strategy is unfocused and wishy-washy, you’ll realise it as soon as you start putting the content plan together.

How else can a content plan support a content strategy?

A content plan makes the ‘wish list’ of your content strategy a reality.

For example, your content strategy may well include a list of keywords and long-tail keyword phrases that your SEO experts have told you to use in your digital PR.

The problem is, you can’t just throw keywords out there without any rhyme or reason.

Not only are search engines on the lookout for that kind of scattergun approach and will penalise you for it, but your audience also don’t want to read a shopping list of words with no meaning or message behind them.

They’ll simply turn off and go to your competitor’s site instead.

So, your content plan will show you how to use those keywords and long-tail phrases intelligently, to maximise their effectiveness in your marketing.

It will also force you to dig deeper and supercharge each piece of SEO content you create.

It will prompt you to ask yourself important questions before you even begin creating the content such as:

• What do people want to know about your product or service?
• What are their concerns and pain points?
• How will the content you produce answer those questions and convince them that investing in your product or service will make their lives easier?

It’s not just the keywords that your content plan will optimise, it’s the content too.

Also, as your content strategy evolves and your content plan evolves with it, it will help you stay on top of shifts and trends in content marketing and audience engagement methods.

That means you’ll always be flexible enough to modify your approach and change or add to the keywords you use.

This is another useful way to keep refreshing your content so that it stays evergreen and is always in line with your business goals.

How to write a content plan

Every company’s content plan will be different, but all will have commonalities.

Begin by asking yourself these questions:

• What’s your goal?
• What do you want your content plan to achieve?
• Do you want to build brand awareness?
• Which keywords should you use so that people using search engines will find you?
• Do you want your content to convert your audience’s interest into sales?

Content Plans for Brand Awareness

Content planning to increase brand awareness is a common business goal. Brand awareness means showing potential customers that your entire brand exists, not just one particular product.

Your plan should demonstrate the qualities that set your brand apart by:

• Educating your audience about your brand and products
• Highlighting what your company stands for, and what your values are
• Providing information that establishes you as a thought leader in your field and a voice your audience can trust
• Showing the products you produce can solve your customer’s problems

Social media is a great vehicle for building brand awareness.

Using Keywords / SEO content

Increasing the number of keywords, you use can push you up the rankings on Google and other search engines, making it easier for people who don’t know about you to find you.

However, you can’t just blitz the web with random keywords.

You have to incorporate those keywords into content that directly targets your audience and shows up when they enter a particular search term.

The aim of keyword directed SEO content is to:

• Target the keywords you know your audience will be searching for (which you’ll already have identified via keyword research)
• Match the keyword to the intent of the person searching for it
• Ensure that the content you publish reflects the keyword’s meaning, and provides the searcher with useful information that will prompt them to find out more about what you do
• Show you can solve the searcher’s problem and/or provide them with the knowledge they’re looking for

Using your content plan to convert your audience’s interest into sales

In other words, you want the content you produce to convince your visitors and followers that your product is worth buying and convert them into customers.

To do that, your content plan should highlight what differentiates your business and product from other brands, and why your product is better than your competitors’.

Conversion content needs to be:

No nonsense and no fluff content plans

From the opening paragraph, you must plant the seeds of what you want your reader to do; buy your product.

Compelling

Don’t overwrite. Use visuals and power words and concentrate on the value of what your product does and the awesome results it will deliver for the customer.

Full of Call to Actions (CTAs)

A Call to Action is the ‘do this now / click here now / contact us now’ part of your content.

You should include at least three or four CTAs if possible, arranged throughout the content in a way that’s organic and doesn’t feel like an off-putting hard sell (even though it is!).

At the very least, there must be a clear CTA in the last paragraph of the content so the reader knows what to do next and will be encouraged to click the ‘Purchase’ button.

It doesn’t matter if you are posting content on your website, creating SEO optimised blogs, or sharing your article LinkedIn the principle is the same.

Connect to your target audience with your content plan

Who do you want to engage with? What’s your audience’s personality?

Gather as much data on your target audience as you can. The more you know about them, the more successful your content plan will be. Use tools like web analytics (like Google Analytics) and market research.

Different audiences respond to different kinds of content. When you know who your audience is, you’ll be better placed to give them the content they need.

What problem will your content solve?

Do you know your customer’s pain points? What do they want to know?

How will the content/product you’re providing solve those pain points, give them the information they need, and/or make their lives easier and more productive?

What sets you apart from your competition?

Your content plan must highlight your Unique Selling Point (USP) because that’s what will convince your audience to engage with you instead of moving on to your competitor.

Your content plan needs to be clear on why your brand and solutions are the best.

What formats will your content use?

Different platforms and social media channels require different types of content. They also have different rules for the kind of content they’ll allow.

When you’ve identified your target audience, you’ll have a much better idea of the kind of content they’re looking for and the format they want that content to take.

Not every type of content will work on all platforms, so you’ll have to modify it accordingly. Also, not every platform will be suitable for the message you want to convey.

Look at what your competitors are doing to see what works for them.

Is social media getting them more engagement than blog posts?

Are videos working better for them than emails?

Your content plan should include every format you want to use; preferably, that will be a combination of plain social media, blogs, case studies, infographics, videos, podcasts, etc. depending on your audience, your message, and platform.

How will you create and manage your content?

Your content plan needs to clarify three important factors:

• who in your organisation will be creating the content, or will you engage a third party to create the content for you?

Creating your content in-house gives you more control, and it’s easier to demonstrate your expertise when the people who actually do the job are the ones putting the words on the page!

But, having said that, finding the time to create in-house content when you or your colleagues can be tricky.

Also, if you work with a third-party content creator who knows what they’re doing, they can be a terrific asset.

The key to working with a third party is communication, so they’re clear on what you want to say and have all the information they need to convey your expertise.

They must also write in a voice that perfectly reflects and supports your message and your brand.

• where the content will be published
• when the content will be published (i.e., when will it go live?)

Incorporate a calendar in your content plan

It’s important to keep your brand message consistent and avoid repeating yourself, which is very hard to do without a content plan. Scheduling is key.

It’s also useful to have an arc to your content, especially when producing blogs, so the reader feels like you’re taking them on a journey and will keep coming back to find out more.

One of the best ways to do that is to calendarize the topics you’re going to write about so that:

a) you can see where each piece of content starts and ends, so the next piece of content picks up where the last one left off, and

b) you’re not always scrambling to think up new ideas, which means you won’t be tempted to desperately snatch at the first thought that comes into your head.

Calendarizing your content also gives you an overview of what you intend to write before you write it, so you can be sure your company’s message stays at the forefront of everything you produce.

A content plan will help you keep your content well-balanced and varied.

It will keep you in control of your workflow and budget and ensure you won’t miss your publishing deadlines.

It’s essential to be consistent because that’s the only way you’ll drive engagement and continue to build your audience.

Top tips for creating an awesome content plan

Look closely at your competitor’s websites and social media.

• What type of content (i.e., blogs, videos, infographics) is getting the most likes, links, and shares among their followers?

Don’t forget, their followers are probably your target audience too.

• What content do their followers respond best to? Is it the content that relates directly to the product or services your competitor offers or is it the more ‘freewheeling’ content that simply tries to engage them without being too on-the-nose?
• How often do your competitors publish their content?
• Could your competitor’s content give you a launchpad for your own ideas? Remember, there’s a big difference between using someone else’s content for inspiration and reworking what they’ve already written to pass it off as your own. Please don’t plagiarise other people’s work. Not only is it essential to create original content that’s in your own unique voice, but plagiarism is unethical and can potentially damage both your reputation and your bank account.

Stuck for content ideas?

You’ve hopefully got at least a few topics to start with.

Dig down into each of them and look for ways you can both expand and go deeper into the topic.

For example, if your first idea is ‘food processing automation’, you could broaden that out into ‘Innovations in food processing automation’ or narrow it down to a specific type of food processing machine and its advantages.

By both opening up and narrowing down each topic, you’ll quickly start spinning off lots of new ideas.

Here’s a few things to think about if you’re stuck for ideas:

1. Go back to basics

• What are the questions your customers regularly ask you?
• Is there anything unique about your brand and product?
• Think about your business’s history, anything of interest?
• What’s happening in your sector that everyone’s talking about?
• Are reporters, news editors or the media interested in your sector right now?

2. Use a Keyword Explorer or Topic Generator to brainstorm blog ideas

There are plenty of keyword explorers available online, and all you’ve got to do is enter a keyword and be inspired by what the engine throws back at you!

3. Interview someone in your sector

Ask them how the industry has changed since they started in it, find out what their favourite tools and motivators are, give your audience a unique insight into how that person ticks.

4. Rework your existing content into a different format

Turn your old blog post into a more in-depth article.

Lift ideas from another blog post and turn them into an infographic.

Take a listicle, select the best bullet points, and transform each of them into a long-form piece.

5. Poll your audience

Ask them what they’d like to know and then deliver it.

You can also ask the people in your network to have their say on hot topics of the moment.

Many PR agencies use that kind of data to create press releases to engage their media list.

6. Have your readers commented on any of your previous blogs or posts?

Could you reply to their comment by creating a whole new piece of content, which will also demonstrate how open you are to engaging with your audience and receiving their feedback?

7. Share your opinions

People are naturally nosy, and we love to find out what others are thinking – sometimes, just so we can disagree with them!

Sharing your thoughts on an industry topic will reinforce your knowledge and expertise, invite feedback, and potentially start fresh conversations.

8. Compile your blogs into an ebook or white paper

Creators often use an ebook or white paper as a lead generator and sales funnel.

You can offer it as a free download on your website, for example, and build an email list from there.

How will you know if your content plan is working?

It’s important to build regular ‘measurements of success’ into your plan.

If you keep monitoring your content’s performance, you will know what’s working (so you can create more of it) and change your approach when something isn’t connecting with your audience.

Data tools like Google Analytics will give you metrics like how many followers are engaging with your social media, how many people are opening your emails, and the ‘bounce rate’ of the individual pages on your website.

It will also tell you what types of content are working best for you, and which aren’t.

It’s a good idea to undertake this monitoring every few weeks at the very least.

When you publish content that you want to make an immediate impact, you should start monitoring within a few hours of its release to check that it’s working.

If it isn’t being picked up the way you’d hoped, that gives you time to rework the content or try reformatting it for another platform.

Are you ready to start creating your first content plan today?

It may feel like you’ve got a lot of work ahead, but we promise it will be worth the effort. Soon you’ll have a sensational content plan that drives results.

Then everything else will fall into place!

The content you create will be of a much higher quality, increase audience engagement and accelerate lead generation.

Whatever your targets are, having a detailed, comprehensive content plan is the surest way to achieve them.

So, what are you waiting for? Start creating your content plan today!

The post Content Plan: Easy Steps for Content that Drives Results appeared first on Class:PR.

You’re in the right place.

Podcasts can play an important role in the best public relations campaigns and should be at the heart of your PR plan.

But getting the technical side of things right can be tricky.

And that starts with choosing a quality podcast hosting platform for your show.

This is our rundown of the best podcast hosting platforms in 2022.

1. ZenCast

Get ZenCast

4. Captivate 

Captivate is one of our favourite podcast platforms for 2022.

The dashboard is so easy to use and everything you need is accessed in just one click.

For someone new to podcasting this is essential to stop you getting bogged down with the technology.

Captivate offers some great technology including advanced analytics and a free import of your show from another podcast hosting platform.

You also get your own podcast website which can use your brand colours or design from scratch. 

Better yet they’ve just announced that they have achieved IAB Certified status as a podcast analytics provider.

There are also some impressive marketing communications features that allow you to monetize.

This includes a podcast sponsorship kit PDF which will help you get those all-important sponsors for your show. The PDF lets you show download numbers and highlight recent episodes. 

The payment plans are based on downloads and start at $19 a month for anything up to 12,000 downloads.

There’s no completely free option here, but each plan comes with a 7-day free trial.  

Best for: Hosting multiple shows and advanced insights and analytics. 

Get Captivate

5. Podbean

Podbean is specifically designed for businesses, organisations and educational institutions to host a podcast.

So whether you want to broadcast internally to your workforce/student base, or increase your external reach, this podcast hosting platform is a great choice for you.

This state of the art platform boasts easy uploading and publishing tools, stunning templates, custom domains, social and promotional tools, embeddable podcast player, monetization tools and more.

Podbean is excellent at helping you decide which plan to go for based on your needs and budget.

Their pricing plans are clearly broken down into categories and the key components that you would want from a podcast hosting platform. 

Podbean is great for beginners – they make the process of ‘publish, distribute, measure and monetize’ very clear. 

There’s no difficult technology to learn.

There are more advanced packages if you’re looking for more sophisticated features on monetization and analytics.  

Best for: Easy publishing, unlimited hosting and a professional podcast website.

Get Podbean

6. Transistor 

Transistor’s message is simple: record; upload; distribute.

This streamlined process makes podcasting really easy.

Transistor offers detailed insights into listener trends, such as mapping how and where they listen, so you can use this information in your influencer marketing efforts.

Transistor also has an excellent blog hidden at the bottom of the site, which offers helpful guides on everything ranging from technical podcast hosting tips to industry insights. 

Best for: Pricing is competitive, at $49 a month for the ‘Professional’ package, you can expect a comprehensive range of features that allow you to be flexible and support the growth of your show. 

Get Transistor

7. Blubrry 

When entering the site, Blubrry offers the choice of podcast hosting, statistics and the PowerPress Plugin, all which lead to their own mini-sites.

This tailored approach helps to define your search and provide the tools to help you achieve podcast success. 

Blubrry offers seamless integration of your website and podcast by using PowerPress, a WordPress plugin feature.

This means you can access all the benefits of podcast hosting from your self-hosted WordPress site. 

Podcast plans are comprehensive and range from a standard $12 per month to the by request ‘Professional’ package.   

Statistics analysis plans are also available separately. They provide you with readable reports and visual aids to understand your podcast statistics. 

Best for: Blubrry take their analysis seriously and are one of the few companies to be IAB Certified Compliant with Podcast Measurement Guidelines. 

Get Blubrry

8. Spreaker

Spreaker is a great tool for new podcasters wanting to dive in because they promise to get your podcast up and running in 10 minutes or less.

Though the site and its features appear a little less refined than others, this is a great option for newbies and seasoned show makers who want to experiment with new online tools. 

Plus, you can still distribute and monetize your podcast on all of the most popular platforms, including Spotify, Apple and Stitcher. 

Not including the free option, plans start from $6 pcm for basic features including live podcasting and episode scheduling, which is a great deal for those starting out. 

You can also find a great selection of shows to listen to, a testament to hosting success with Spreaker and listen online or through the app. 

Best for: Free starter plan and live audio streaming. 

Get Spreaker

9.Buzzsprout

It’s easy to see why so many people choose Buzzsprout as their podcast hosting platform. 

The major attraction to Buzzsprout is the diversity of features available to hosts – from hosting, to promoting and tracking your show – they have it all.

The beautifully designed interface provides clear visuals of podcast statistics as well as an easy to use process for uploading and organising your shows.

Starting from a monthly payment of just $12, this allows you to upload three hours of audio each month with options for additional features at the best price. 

If you can afford to pay more there’s a whole range of technical gems such as the automatic episode optimization, which converts files with minimal fuss. 

They also make it super easy to automatically list your show in popular podcast directories such as Spotify, Apple and Google Podcasts.

This means that wherever people are searching, your podcast will appear in just a few clicks. 

Best for: If you want to make money from your show you’re in the right place because Buzzsprout have added a new affiliate marketplace. 

Get Buzzsprout

Which Podcast Hosting Platform Will You Choose?

So there you have it.

Our 8 favourite podcast hosting platforms in 2022.

As you can see they all offer similar types of service at comparable price points but some will appeal to you more than others.

My advice is to take the free trials where you can and play around a bit.

When you podcast regularly, as we do with The Famous Business, you’ll find you repeat the same actions time and again when you’re publishing.

That means you want a podcast hosting platform that feels intuitive to YOU.

And remember don’t keep your podcast in isolation, make sure it’s integrated into your wider public relations campaign.

A decent podcast can be the source of endless free PR.

And if you’re ready to take your PR work to the next level grab our PR Starter Kit.

Our must-have kit has every template, script, strategy and guide you’ll ever need to do PR – all in one place.

Good luck!

Disclosure: Bear in mind that some of the links in this post are affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase we will earn a small commission. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission we receive from your purchases.

The post Podcast Hosting Platform: The 9 Best Services [2022] appeared first on Class:PR.

Then it might be that your target audience research is missing the mark.

This complete guide for 2022 will help you identify the target audiences for all your public relations and marketing efforts.

We’ll teach you how to explore your existing customer base. Who are the people already connecting with your business and what messages resonate with them?

Then we’ll walk you through a smart but simple process to extend that reach with new data and by taking a look at how your competitor’s do it.

Learn from the best public relations examples and piggyback on their success.

A deep-dive into your audience demographics will ensure you target the best channels in your media relations so that you write a winning PR Plan.

Here’s what we’ll cover in 12 steps:

1. What is a target audience?
2. Why do you need a target audience?
3. Can you have more than one target audience?
4. Look at your own customers first
5. Who are your competitor’s customers?
6. Identify your audience’s pain points
7. Understand who influences them
8. Try Keyword Research
9. Ask Quora
10. Create a target audience persona statement
11. Evaluate your decision
12. Test, track and monitor your audience’s progress 

Let’s get to it.

What Is A Target Audience?

A target audience is the group of people who (you hope) are interested in your product, service, charity or campaign.

They are the people who will connect with your cause, buy-in to your brand and care about what you are selling, or how the service you provide can impact their lives.

Your audience has a set of characteristics or demographics that they share, they have similar behaviours and can be grouped by their personal preferences.

For example, if you’re a luxury fashion brand with a special resort wear line, your target will be affluent consumers, with a love of travelling and staying in exclusive locations.

If you’re selling mindfulness guides for families then your target audience is stressed out parents who are trying to cope with their toddler’s tantrums and manage a hectic work/life schedule.

Understanding your target audience is essential for business success.

The better you understand your target market, the more impact you will generate with any marketing or PR campaign that you launch.

Whether you are thinking about how to write a press release for an event, or you’re checking out the best marketing ideas for small business you need to know your target audience in detail.

Let’s talk about why it is so important to get your target audience right.

Why Do You Need A Target Audience?

In many ways targeting an audience is part of human nature, we do it right from an early age.

It’s all part of the exchange process that helps us form relationships and develop as humans.

Right from when we’re asking our parents for something, to when we start school and we look for groups of people who we can connect with and become friends. It’s in our human DNA.

If you want to increase sales and reach new customers then spending time making sure you are targeting the right audience is essential.

New statistics suggest that if you are targeted in your marketing communications then you can increase sales by 20%.

It’s a no brainer.

Once you are clear on your target audience you can tailor all your messaging, stories and adverts to increase buy-in.

If you want people to take an action then they need to relate to the tone and content of your stories.

This resonance will help build trust in your brand and lay the foundations of long-lasting customer loyalties.

This business-critical insight can influence all your paid-for advertising and free PR.

It means you can run the most relevant ad set, choose the most popular awareness days and make sure that the attention grabbing headline for your press release will actually stand out.

Can Companies Have More Than One Target Audience?

The short answer is yes.

Companies can have more than one target audience, products can appeal to multiple target audiences or different products can have different audiences.

However, be warned.

From a marketing and PR point of view, the more target audiences you have the more specialised your communications must be.

Each PR campaign or advertising set should target a certain audience – a general approach will not work here.

If you have different audiences then you’ll need to have specific content for each one otherwise you won’t see engagement and results.

If you’re just starting out with your brand then avoid multiple audiences.

Start simple and then develop multiple audience profiles as your company matures and your understanding of the market grows.

Look At Your Own Customers First

A great place to start when researching your target audience is your own marketing and PR efforts.

Wherever you have interacted with the public is an opportunity to learn more about who is connecting with your brand and what you offer.

Start with your website and social media channels. Analyse your website data.

Which pages are getting the most traffic and why? How long are customers staying on your site and what is their journey?

Look at your social media statistics. Who is your typical social media fan? Who is re-sharing your posts and watching your brand’s videos?

Look at their age, gender, profession, likes and dislikes, personality traits, behaviours and geographic location.

Everything you can think of to build up a profile of your typical customer.

Find out what is unique about them, what sets them apart from others but also unites them as a group.

Although they may seem different at surface level, often one customer will have something in common with another.

Uncover what that is and you’ll start to understand the wider connection between your customer base.

Who Are Your Competitor’s Customers?

One of the easiest places to garner information about potential customers is by looking at your competitors. Who are they targeting and what is the level of engagement like?

Have they run any particular marketing or PR campaign that has brought them strong results?

If so, look at the messaging, who was it aimed at, what are the group’s demographics?

Have a look at their social media feeds, especially if they are customer service focused.

What issues are their customers facing and what solution are they offering to help them?

Identify Your Audience’s Pain Points

Products or services sell best when they solve problems for consumers, making life easier and better.

Identifying customer pain points, the obstacles they encounter when trying to achieve their goals is one of the most important parts of your research.

You need to know what your audience is trying to achieve or the experience they want, and, crucially what prevents them from it.

Do they want to lose weight but can’t find the time to cook nutritious meals?

Do they want a high adrenalin, high octane experience but are caught up in the mundane day-to-day tasks?

Armed with this knowledge you can shape all your messaging and stories so they speak directly to those pain points and helps your audience connect with your brand.

All the time building trust and brand loyalty.

But, make sure you don’t just touch on the surface pain points that you uncover, go deeper and find the root cause of these problems.

If people are stuck in a rut, if they want to change their situation but struggle to do so, it’s normally down to emotional and psychological reasons.

Speak to these pain points too.

Perhaps you don’t want to be overly emotional and aspirational in your messaging, that’s fine, not every brand does.

But don’t overlook this information.

Understanding your audience’s psychological traits, their dominate emotions and feelings is an essential part of your research.

Understand Who Influences Your Target Audience

Once you’ve understood what your audience’s problem is, how they feel about it and what they are trying to do to solve it, you should have a clear understanding of their perspective.

You can empathise with them and understand what they find important.

Next, you need to find out who or what influences them.

Having influence is all about what makes people take an action or make a decision.

Using influence is one of the most effective ways to sell. This is why influencer marketing is one of the biggest marketing growth trends of the past few years.

So how do you find out what or who influences someone?

First, check out social media.

Find users who fit your target audience’s profile and see who they are following and what they are liking.

The influencers they follow and the content they engage with will reveal important information about how they think and feel.

Make sure you check out YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and all the platforms used by your audience.

If you’re a B2B brand, or your targets are professionals, spend time on LinkedIn and see what content they are self-publishing but also whose posts they are interacting with.

And make sure you know how to post an article on LinkedIn.

But, don’t be fooled by recent hype.

Influence is not just the domain of YouTubers and Millennials, it is not a new concept. Important social and cultural personalities have influence too – they’re just not called influencers.

Find out what politicians they follow, leading thinkers, entrepreneurs, life coaches – anybody who might guide a decision or help take an action is important here.

You can also discover this type of information in person. Set up focus groups, interview existing customers over the phone.

You can also follow discussions in Facebook groups, blog comments, forums and social media. Quora is one of the most popular discussion platforms and we’re going to cover that later in the blog.

Where do they get their information?

So you’ve checked social media and analysed how they interact with your brand’s website but now it’s time to look further.

Widen your search and look at the many different ways your target audience can consume information.

Not only will this tell you how they like to consume information but it will also tell you more about their motivation and what stories they are looking to connect to.

This information will ensure that all your PR is relevant to them. Not only will your messaging and storytelling resonate but you’ll share it via the most appropriate channel to reach them.

Go through every media platform you can think of and see whether your target audience is active on them, or use them to get their information.

Here’s a channel checklist for you:

Try Keyword Research

More than 87% of consumers conduct online product research before buying.

What and how they search reveals a great deal about what they are actually looking for.

If you can understand your audience’s search behaviour, their intent and what content they are looking for, you’ll be best placed to give them what they want, when they need it.

The easiest way to obtain this information is through keyword research.

You don’t need to be an SEO expert these days to do this.

There are some fantastic search tools out there to assist in your data gathering and they manage all the numbers and spreadsheets for you. SEMrush is by far the best and the only one we recommend.

You need to get to grips with understanding the way in which your target audience thinks and how they search.

What questions do they ask in that search bar? What phrases or keywords do they enter?

Don’t assume that you already know the answer to this – you’ll be surprised.

Think more in terms of what pressing issues your target audience have and what solutions they are looking for.

Consider what they don’t understand about your sector or product and what they want to know more about.

Focus on the high volume keywords and phrases for the greatest reach to your audience but don’t forget the more long-tail searches too.

Yes, these may be less frequent and more niche but they are also more targeted.

Users involved in these searches are usually more committed to buy and will be more engaged with your content.

Ask Quora About Your Target Audience

Quora is a Q&A forum that has 300 million monthly active users.

That’s a hell of a lot of people you can ask questions on any topic you want.

If you need to know something, understand how people think or feel about a topic then Quora is for you.

Quora is easy to use and is particularly useful for target audience research because it allows you to go ask questions and read answers in a relatively short period of time.

It’s great at suggesting ‘related questions’ that your target audience might also be interested in.

As with any type of content you will see lots of less useful posts, but a quick glance at the number of views and users will tell you whether it’s relevant/popular or not.

These ‘Question Stats’ help you avoid tangents and keep your research focused on your target audience.

Create A Target Audience Persona Statement

Now that you’ve been through a thorough research process you should have a clear understanding of the audience that you are targeting.

To make use of this vital business information you must produce one simple statement that clearly describes your audience.

This sentence articulates their persona.

For example here’s Class:PR’s target audience persona statement:

Our target audience consists of marketing professionals and entrepreneurs, of any age and gender, across the world, who have been tasked with promoting their brand and need to learn how to do PR.  Quickly.

Our step-by-step guides, template packs and online courses make learning public relations fun, easy and accessible for the busy working professional, who needs to see results, fast.

Class:PR has a very specific niche.

We don’t target everyone and we don’t teach everything.

We’re specifically for marketing professionals and entrepreneurs who are responsible for marketing their own brand.

Marketing generalists often don’t have public relations expertise but frequently find it part of their job description and feel under pressure to deliver results, fast.

So we only teach public relations, for example, we share knowledge and resources on media relations, how to write a press release and how to write a media pitch.

Our combination of step-by-step guides, template packs and online courses help marketing professionals study in a format that suits them and helps bring the best results for their company.

We are not limited to geography, we are a global company with students around the world.

Now it’s your turn…

Give it a go and write a target audience persona statement for your company.

Include the information that you think is most important for your brand.

Some examples are:

Our target audience is [gender] aged [age range], who live in [place or type of place], and like to [activity].

Or

Our target audience is [gender] aged [age range], who earn [income range], , and need [a solution to problem] and need it [within timeframe].

Evaluate Your Decision

If you’ve gone through each of the sections above and produced a clear target audience persona statement then you should be pretty confident in what you’ve decided.

The next step is to test your audience and to see if they respond well to your messages, buy-in to your service and complete your call to action.

If you want to triple check you’re on the right track before you put resources behind testing then here are five important questions you can ask:

1. Do I understand how my audience think and feel? Have I understood what influences them?
2. Will my product/service/campaign bring value to my audience? Am I solving a problem for them?
3. Do I understand what the intent of my audience is? Where are they in the buying process? Will I get enough engagement?
4. Do I understand where they consume their information? Can I reach them with my message?
5. Is my audience size large enough to hit my sales target? If your audience is too niche you may not get enough buy-in and you’ll need to cast your net wider.

Test, Track And Monitor Your Audience’s Progress

And last but not least, remember to continually test, track and monitor the progress of your target audience.

Ask yourself: how and to what level are you connecting with your target audience? Want content is resonating best and bringing what result?

Does engagement lead to an increase in website signups or sales? Is your target audience responding to your Call To Action?

Does your company’s current customer profile match the audience that you have targeted?

Be led by your data.

If your customer base is showing you that you were slightly off the mark with your predicted audience then don’t be afraid to make some changes.

This is a continuous process of trial and error, refinement and adjustment. Consumer behaviour wants and demands continually change and this should be reflected in your targeting.

Now It’s Your Turn…

Research and refine your target audience – you’ll be amazed by the impact it has on your sales.

And if you’re ready to take your PR work to the next level grab our PR Starter Kit.

Our must-have kit has every template, script, strategy and guide you’ll ever need to do PR – all in one place.

The post Target Audience: Identify Yours To Improve PR and Marketing appeared first on Class:PR.

You should – PR is much more than just knowing how to write a press release.

Every single day, you send out or reply to emails with people you want to engage with.

Each time you do, they will see your email signature.

So, it’s a no-brainer to ensure that you have one of the best email signatures.

A signature that contains critical information and supports your broader PR plan.

It’s a great opportunity to subtly reinforce your branding, key messaging and include any content you are working on.

Better still, it’s easy to tweak your email signature, so you can adapt it to whatever is important right now.

Got a new blog out? Need to drive more traffic to your Twitter account? Want to boost the listener numbers for your podcast?

Put your email signature to good use in all of those scenarios. 

If you don’t know how to design one of the best email signatures, don’t worry.

We’ve created a step-by-step guide to show you the whole process.

We’re going to tell you exactly what to include and why it’s crucial.

Let’s get started.

Step 1: The Basics Of The Best Email Signatures

There are three pieces of information you must have on your email signature.

Your name – first name and last name.

Job title and company – the current position you hold and the organisation

Secondary contact information – your preferred method (telephone, website, etc.)

When you consider how to present your job title and company, think about what is most impressive for a client or key influencer.

If you hold a position at a well-respected organisation, it’s essential to include the name and logo.

This detail will immediately connect with the email recipient and positively inform their impression of you.

Don’t miss this chance to establish a correlation between you and a brand/school/university/company/organisation that means something to people.

If you have your own brand or company, make sure you get your logo onto your email signature.

Even if you are starting out, you want to ensure that as many people have seen and connected to your brand as possible.

The secondary contact information is also vital.

How do you want people to contact you?

They will already have your email address as primary contact information. Do you want them to ring you? Connect with you on Skype or another software platform? Would you like them to go onto your website and contact you there? 

Once you’ve decided, make sure that information is up at the top of your email signature.

Step 2: Get The Colours Right

Colour is a great way to draw the eye to important pieces of information. Using colour on your email signature will undoubtedly make it stand out.

But you don’t want to pick random colours and go to work. You need to consider the colours carefully and stick to two colours. 

It’s a good idea to start with the brand colours of your business or the organisation you work for.

If you don’t know what the colour codes are for the various colours used, this is a handy browser extension to help you. 

It’s called Colour Picker.

Using Colour Picker, you can direct the cursor arrow to the colour on the page that you want to match and it will show you the RGB or CMYK code you need.

Keep a note of the two dominant colours in the branding, so when you design your signature, you can use them.

Here’s an example.

Step 3: What Images Do You Want To Include?

With all the electronic communications flying around, it’s hard to remember that there are human beings behind keyboards.

Using a picture of yourself in your email signature can give it the personal touch.

All you need is a simple headshot, where you are smiling and looking directly at the camera.

If you are working in a creative industry or such like, you may want to be a little bit wacky with the photo. It can be full of personality, showcasing your fun-loving side, if that’s the impression you want to make.

Just ensure the photo is in focus and clear.

Also, you will want to make sure it’s the right size.

Think about the size limits of people’s mailboxes. They don’t need a huge image file clogging up their system every time they get an email from you.

It’s easy to change the size of your photo. Use an image tool like Be Funky.

Once you’ve got your photo sized up correctly, simply add it to your signature and – ta da!

Step 4: Include Your Social Links

If you use social media marketing tools as part of your public relations campaign, it’s a good idea to include them here.

Many professionals have LinkedIn profiles, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, Instagram profiles, etc. 

While it’s great to include them, think about the pros and cons of putting every single social profile you have on your email signature.

Our advice?

Only include the ones you actually use regularly.

You don’t want a potential customer to head over to your Pinterest page and find that you last pinned something in 2015.

Concentrate on the platforms where you share engaging and informative content with your audience.

Remember, you don’t need to stick to the brand colours used by the big social media companies. 

It’s easy to change the icon colour when you design the best email signatures, so feel free to use the ones that match your branding.

Step 5: What’s Your Email Signature CTA?

Many people think of email signatures as being there to provide basic information.

These people are missing a trick.

Where your email signature suddenly becomes a piece of public relations gold is with a CTA (call to action).

Your goal is to make the recipient click on your CTA.

Ideally, that action will help build authority in you and your brand and drive traffic to your website.

Example CTAs For The Best Email Signatures

Blogs – if you regularly produce content and want people to read it, why not include it in your email signature?

You can regularly update it with your latest post, or you can use a piece of cornerstone content that resonates with your target audience.

Audio – podcasting is one of the fastest-growing ways to grow your reach.

Whether you produce your own podcast or you have been a guest on another podcast, you can invite people to listen from your email signature.

If you are a musician or broadcaster, you may want to include a link to a song or broadcast you’ve made.

Social Media – OK, so you’ve already got the icons there, but do you want more? Perhaps you want more engagement in your Instagram story. Invite people to watch it in your email signature.

Social Proof – There’s nothing potential clients like better than hearing what other people say about you.

If you’ve been featured in an article, been reviewed online or have any other kind of positive social proof, use it! Don’t be shy.

Videos – it takes a lot of time and effort to make great videos. Why not include your video as part of your email signature? It can be a basic ‘Watch This’ link they have to follow.

Or, in some of the email signature design software, you’ll generate a preview image so the recipient can get a flavour of your video straight away.

Step 6: Make Sure Your Signature Is Mobile Responsive.

There’s no point in doing all this hard work if your email signature isn’t mobile responsive.

That means that it will look good whether the recipient is reading the email on their desktop, tablet or smartphone.

Wherever they end up looking, your email signature needs to be clear and well-formatted.

That means ensuring your images are the right size and that the email signature template you use will adapt to mobile.

You can create an email signature and quickly test it on your mobile to check it works. Just make sure that wherever your customers see you, you look good.

Step 7: Track Your Email Signature Links

Once you’ve decided on the CTA you want to include and where the links in your email are going to – get tracking.

You can create a custom link to any URL so you can find out how many people have actually clicked through to consume the content.

By doing this, you can test and track what works well – and identify what doesn’t.

These insights allow you to respond quickly. It also means you can include the figures in the broader reporting about your PR campaign or marketing communications efforts.

For example for your blog, you can add the email signature diverted views on top of the figures you already have.

There are tons of link or custom URL services that allow you to access link tracking analytics.

Check out companies like Bitly, Tiddly Link and Tiger Bee and choose the level of reporting that is right for your business.

If you use social media management tools like Hootsuite, Buffer, etc. it’s worth checking if they offer custom URLs with reporting. Some may include them as part of your plan.

How To Create An Email Signature For Free

The good news is that you can test out your ideas for an email signature for free.

We’re going to show you five of the best websites to get an email signature template without having to pay for it.

1. Hubspot

The Hubspot email signature generator is a great free piece of software.

It’s laid out clearly, showing you where you need to input your information to customise it.

It suggests the fields that Hubspot thinks are important, but they do not constrain you as you can add as much or as little as you wish.

On the design side, you get a choice from six templates, so there’s a variety of styles available to help you stand out from the crowd.

You can also change the font, add your brand colours, put in your own images, logos and create custom CTA links or banners.

Once you are finished, you can download the email signature, copy the source code and add it straight to a variety of email clients including Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo! and Apple Mail.

It’s incredibly easy, and the results are excellent.

2. MySignature

Head over to MySignature to create a freebie email signature that looks good.

You can begin by hooking up your Facebook or LinkedIn account to the site to input your data, or you can add everything in manually. If you do this make sure you have a compelling LinkedIn headline.

On the contact information bar, you can add a decent amount of information for free, but custom fields are only available to users who’ve signed up for a paid package.

We particularly like their colourful range of social buttons that you can caption as you choose. There’s much more here than just the standard Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram options.

3. Wise Stamp

The free email signature generator on Wise Stamp has some useful functionality, but you need to hand over your email address to get going.

You can add the contact details, social media icons and choose from a classic or horizontal template.

There are some cool add-ons that you can utilise here. From a styled signoff, where you add your real-life signature, pre-designed banners with CTAs, videos, Instagram galleries or a green footer, showcasing your eco-friendly credentials.

You can also link up a diary so people can book meetings with you from the signature itself.

Interestingly, you have to take a PRO account to utilise their design functions for font and colour.

4. Designhill

If you are looking for a simple, effective email template generator, Designhill has what you need.

You begin by adding in all your contact information and job specifics, as well as a photo – they recommend using square images for better results.

Then it’s onto the social links to ensure people can find you wherever your posting content to engage or inform them.

When it comes to style, Designhill has a ‘Signature Theme’ section where you can reorder the information to suit your visual preferences.

It’s easy to make changes to your font, colours and the size of your text.

There’s also an entire section on creating a custom CTA.

This feature goes to show just how important it is to try to provoke an action from your email recipients. You can also add in a legal disclaimer to add extra protection to your correspondence.

5. SignMyEmails

We like the clear, concise design of the email signature generator from SignMyEmails.

All the basics are covered in the first section, allowing you to add all the fields you need plus images and logos. Go into their ‘Options’ section to change the size and shape of your avatar headshot, as well as fonts and colours.

There are eight templates to choose from, allowing you to try and test out different formats to see what looks best. Interestingly, you have to be on the pro plan to add in social media icons.

There’s a variety of add-ons to choose from. From disclaimers, banners, badges and links.

There are also options to add a ‘book meetings’ function, which is handy if you have a packed diary and no time for email ping pong.

Now It’s Your Turn…

Get creating one of the best email signatures, just like the ones you’ve seen here.

An email signature really is an open goal in terms of free PR. Don’t miss the opportunity.

Also, don’t forget to tell your colleagues to weaponise their email signatures too.

If your whole business is aligned to one PR campaign then make sure everyone’s email signature is fully optimised.

And yes – that even includes Kevin in accounts!

The post Best Email Signatures: Improve Conversions for 2022 appeared first on Class:PR.

Well, this article is packed full of marketing ideas for small business.

Have you tried traditional advertising but don’t know where to start when it comes to digital marketing strategies for your business? Have you read all the best marketing books?

As a small business owner, I know what it is like having to juggle the day to day and still find time for marketing. (Not to mention learning how to navigate the world of digital marketing and trying to keep up with its constant changes!)1

As the creator of several PR courses, I’ve worked with countless small businesses over the past decade helping them get remarkable results from their marketing, PR, and teaching them how to write a media pitch.

So I’ve taken everything I’ve learned about how to market a small business and listed it all here for you in this blog.

I’m going to share with you 71 simple but incredibly effective small business marketing communications tips.

I’ve split them into 7 sections:

1. How To Increase Sales On Your Small Business Website  
2. How To Boost Your Email Marketing For Small Businesses
3. Content Marketing Tips
4. Small Business Advertising Ideas
5. How To Generate Leads From Social Media
6. How to get more sales through free PR
7. How To Get Leads Through Networking

To make sure you put each one of these 71 proven ideas into action for your small business you can download our checklist for free.

Let’s get to it.

The Best Marketing Ideas for Small Business

How To Increase Sales On Your Small Business Website

1. Simplify your home page.  More clarity = more sales

What: Declutter your homepage to make buying your product as easy as possible.

Why: There’s a reason why your website comes first in a list of 71 marketing ideas for small business – it’s a low-hanging fruit .Your customers want a friction-free experience so start by making your home page clear into easy to navigate. Confusion obstructs the buying process so make sure your homepage communicates your key brand messages and why someone should buy from you.

How: Choose one or two ‘calls to action’ or opt-ins for the homepage e.g. Download Now or Work With Us and make these the focus for your customer. Remove any information that makes detracts from them. Less is more.

2. Create a compelling opt-in button on your home page

What: Visitors to your website give you their email address in exchange for something from you.

Why: Every visitor to your website is a potential customer so don’t let them leave without giving you their email address. But people aren’t just going to give you their email address for free they’ll want something in exchange for it.  

How: Give away some free downloadable content that solves a problem for them e.g. ten unbelievable hacks to keep your kitchen clean if you’re a cleaning company, or free workout programs if you’re a personal trainer.

3. Write a sales page for your product/ service

What: A sales page presents the argument for why someone should buy. It offers solutions to their problems and elicits an emotional response from the reader. It’s much more detailed than a product page and works on persuading someone to buy.

Why: Your product may be fantastic and potential customers may think that too but there’s a big difference between liking a product and then buying it. Customers need encouragement and persuasion to actually make the purchase. A sales page does just that.

How: If your website is on WordPress there’s a number of great plugins that can help you build amazing sales pages. I use Thrive Architect. Remember, this is a page of persuasion. The language must be right, it needs to make an argument and prompt people to take an action.  It’s a fine art to achieving the perfect sales copy.

Here’s a great blog from Jonny Nastor on how to write a sales page that converts.

4. Split test – figure out what works best with your customers

What: Measure what your customers respond to best. Does your new sales page sell more products? Are your opt-ins generating enough enquiries or could they be improved?

Why: Don’t think of your website as static – the process of optimising digital performance is ongoing. Like all small business marketing ideas, websites constantly evolve to find out what customers respond best to. As a small business, you are often well positioned to take advantage of this. You don’t need to sign off at multiple levels, you can action changes immediately and get ahead of your competitors.

How: Gather the data. Count how many leads your site is generating and which opt-in is working best? What traffic is your site generating and what % of this are you converting to leads? Could this be improved? Do the same for your sales page? How is it performing and what are customers responding well to?

5. Be visible on Google –  do an SEO audit of your site

What: Are you on the first page of Google for searches related to your business? If not, then audit your website to see what content you are ranking for and what you are not.

Why: If you’re not visible on Google then you are missing out on potential customers. If you don’t come up in a search for your key business terms than there’s a whole online audience that you are missing out on. Get visible and this can transform your business overnight.

How: Use services like SEMrush to see how your site is performing and what you are ranking for. You can also get domain overviews for competitors and see what strategies they are using to optimize their Google rankings.

6. Set up Google Analytics to track your traffic

What: Google Analytics tracks and reports website traffic, connect it to your domain to see how much your site is getting.

Why: Measuring how much traffic and where it’s coming from can help you focus your marketing efforts. If you are generating lots of traffic from Twitter and Facebook then put more resources into social media instead of other marketing like print or radio advertising.

How: Google Analytics has a user-friendly interface and a really extensive knowledge section if you get stuck. If you need some extra help then there are lots of explainer blogs available and really informative instructional videos on YouTube.

7. Get more backlinks to your site to boost visibility

What: When a website links to another website or page it’s called a backlink. When you have lots of these (from other sites to your own) then it helps improve your Google rankings.

Why: When someone creates a backlink to your site then it acts as a signal to search engines that they are vouching for your content. The more sites that give you backlinks the more signals the search engines get and it helps improve ranking. More backlinks = better Google rankings.

How: There is no quick way to get backlinks and you need a multifaceted approach. Here are a few ways that work well: 1. Conduct outreach with customers, suppliers, other business contacts and ask them to add you to their site. 2. Create content that people love, share it far and wide and people will naturally link to it. 3. Guest blog, appear on podcasts etc and backlinks will be included in your bio.

8. Build trust with testimonials

What: Include testimonials for customers on your homepage or sales pages to demonstrate why others think your product is great.

Why: One of the biggest obstacles to buying is lack of trust. Show why others trust you and you’ll help persuade new customers to buy. Also, there is no better type of lead than a referral from an existing customer. Make the most of your happy customers and share their comments on your website.

How: Reach out to customers that you know love your service or product and ask them for a review or testimonial. Include these on your website but you can also ask them to leave reviews for you on your Facebook page, Google Business or Tripadvisor. Where ever you get your customers from, make sure that others are singing your praises.

9. Install live chat to answer customer enquiries

What: Install a pop up messaging service that activates when a user lands on your site.

Why: Live chat tools are a fantastic way to interact with visitors to your site. You can quickly respond to inquiries, build trust with customers and ultimate generate sales. (They’re also more likely to be used than a contact form because they generate an immediate response.) Once you find the right system for your site you can also optimize it to start gathering email addresses too.

How: There’s lots available so do your research and find the one most suited to your needs. They are easy to install and you can be up and running within a few short steps.

10. Install exit intent pop up forms

What: Don’t take no for an answer. When someone goes to leave your site you can add in a pop up to remind them of some of the great free content that you are offering.

Why: It’s simple. Giving someone more than one opportunity to get free content and they are more likely to sign up.

How: It’s an easy job for your web developer or there are many excellent plugins that can help you do this yourself. For example, Thrive Leads lets you customise your own pop ups and seamlessly add them to your site

How To Boost Your Email Marketing for Small Businesses

11. Create a nurturing email sequence for new people on your database

What: The point when someone gives you their email address, is the point when they are most interested in your product or company. Most small businesses forget this and just wait to send out a quarterly newsletter. Strike while the iron is hot and share more useful content within the next day or two after they sign up.

Why: You’ll keep them engaged and they’ll be more likely to buy from you.

How: Use an email marketing software such as ActiveCampaign or MailChimp which will allow you to automate sending out the emails. You can set it up in advance and the emails can be timed to be sent 1 day / 2 days after sign up.

12. Create a content sharing sequence

What: Keep your email list engaged by regularly sharing your content with them. Send weekly emails directing them to your latest blogs and content.

Why: Many people on your email list may delay buying from you or may spread their purchases over a number of months, so in the ‘downtime’ keep your list warm and connected to your business through an automated sequence of emails.

How:  Use ActiveCampaign or another email marketing platform to set up your automated sequence to share a new blog/interview/podcast each week. Make sure you add all new signups to the sequence.  

13. Offer exclusive discounts to your email list

What: Offer your email list (those signed up to your database) an exclusive discount on your product or service. Only available for a limited time to add scarcity and to prompt them to buy.

Why: Your email list have been interested enough to give you their email address and if you’ve sent them extra content they’ll be really seeing the value you have to offer. So take advantage of this connection

How: Use ActiveCampaign to set up the email sequence for the offer and set time deadlines or time related coupons through your ecommerce package i.e. WooCommerce or Shopify

14. Maximise your email open rates

What: Look at the data – how many people are opening your emails? Don’t just send them out and forget about them, look at open rates and click rates to see how successful you are

Why: If people aren’t opening they aren’t buying and you’re missing out on customers. Use the data to write the most engaging subject headers and figure out what works best with your database

How: All email marketing platforms provide this data. Geek out on their reporting function and find the solution that works best for your customers.

15. Upsell products via email marketing

What: Entice customers who have bought smaller/cheaper products to spend more money with your company through your email marketing.

Why: Often a customer will try before they buy. They are more likely to make a small purchase first before they invest a larger amount of money, to test product quality, fulfilment experience or even your returns policy. But because they are inundated with emails and offers from other companies, they may need nudging to spend again with your business.

How: Once a customer has completed a lower value purchase add them into an automation so that they receive a sequence of emails upselling them a larger value product.

16. Downsell products to your email list

What: Offer customers, who did not buy a larger value product as part of an offer, a new promotion for a lesser value item.

Why: Customers who did not respond to bigger ticket promotions may be more tempted if the cost is less. The price may have been a barrier to buying, so make it easy for them and offer them something cheaper.

How: Once the customer completes the automation for the main promotion add them into an automated downsell funnel. Use the power of scarcity and add a time limit for your offer, if they don’t buy within 24 hours then it’s gone.

17. Always include a call to action

What: Make sure that every email you send out to your database includes a request for them to perform an action i.e. click on this link, download your free product, send you feedback etc.

Why: A passive audience is less likely to buy from you. Keep them active and engaged and the statistically they are much more likely to make a purchase.

How: Add links to blogs/interviews/podcasts that you want your audience to engage within the main text body of your email, send out a survey, or ask a simple question in your email.

18. Target your emails – segment your list

What: Do not send the same emails to everyone on your database. Divide them by interest/geography/demographics etc so that the email marketing you send them is tailored.

Why: Consumers are inundated with email marketing from companies now so only the best will stand out in an inbox. Unless the email is personalised and relevant, then they are not likely to engage.

How: Each email marketing platform has various functions that allow you to tag or label individual contacts based on their behaviour – what they’ve bought, what emails they have opened and which links they have clicked. Get your geek on and learn how to drill down into your database and make it as targeted as possible.

19. Make your marketing emails mobile friendly

What: Many of your customers will open your emails on their phones so make sure they are formatted to fit mobile devices.

Why: If an email has images that don’t scale or header text that breaks up and becomes illegible split over a few lines it is a complete turnoff. Users will delete or worst case scenario, unsubscribe from your database.

How: Most email marketing platforms have a mobile function within the design element of the email campaign, use that to get the fundamentals right. Send yourself test emails and open on your phone to double check.

20. Include links to your social media channels

What: Let your database know how they can stay connected to you on social media by including the links within your marketing.

Why: Social media is perfect for sharing content on a daily basis to generate engagement everyday way interaction. No-one wants to get to have their inbox clogged up with an email each and everyday, but if your database wants more frequent news from you they can connect with you on their preferred platform.

How: Make sure you have one of the best email signatures. Each email marketing provider offers simple design functions which allow you to easily add in social media icons at the bottom of your email (or wherever you prefer!).  

Content Marketing Tips for Small Business

21. Climb up the Google rankings with keyword blogging

What: Use keyword search terms as blog topics to help your Google rankings.

Why: Keyword focused blogs rank well on Google and will help drive traffic to your site. When a customer enters the search term and your blog shows up you have an opportunity to demonstrate your authority in a topic and build trust with a new audience.

How: Do your research and find the relevant keywords for your product or service. Think creatively about how you can incorporate the search term in the title and throughout the copy. But… don’t fall into the trap of creating poor quality content – everything you produce must add value to the user experience. Be informative, share knowledge and skills, offer opinion and be engaging.

22.  Get niche and target specific audiences

What: Target niche sectors or keywords with your content to reach smaller but more engaged audiences

Why: popular search terms are harder to rank highly or so be more specific with the terms that you use to target niche topics which are easier to rank for. A popular blog on a niche topic will be far more for your business than a less read blog on a major search term.

How: think laterally are there more specific search terms related to your business that you haven’t targeted yet. Is your service applicable to a particular niche interest that you can target?

23. Create an editorial calendar so there’s never a gap in content

What: Plan out your content so that you know when you should post content and what topic you should be covering.

Why: Content marketing works best when there is a continuous flow of content keeping your audiences engaged and driving SEO. But it can be hard to keep up with demand, especially if you’re trying to fit your blogging and content production around the demands of running a small business.

How: Create an editorial calendar so you stay on track. Decide what frequency you are going to post – weekly, fortnightly, monthly? How long will the blogs be – will they be epic or shorter pieces? What format – list, interview, explainer blog? What search term are you targeting? What is the topic of the blog?

24. Create instructional videos

What: If you’ve got knowledge to share then create instructional videos for your audience.

Why: Video is the perfect medium to use for teaching – people often learn more quickly by watching than reading and they are easy to film and upload to your site. It also helps keep people on your site for longer and that’s great for SEO and domain authority

How: Plan out what you want to teach or talk about during the video. Break down your knowledge into memorable steps and easily understandable sections. You can film the video on your smartphone just make sure the lighting and audio quality are good.

25. Recycle your content

What: Review existing content on your site and see if you can ‘recycle’ it (edit it, add more detail, change the format) and then reshare with your email list.

Why: If its good quality content then your audience will love to see it refreshed and updated. If they missed it the first time around then here’s a second chance for them to see it.

How: Look back over old posts and see what would benefit from an overhaul. Choose posts with topics that have remained relevant so that you continue to offer value to your customers. Don’t forget that your email list wants to get something out of this too.

To make sure you put each one of these 71 proven small business marketing ideas into action, you can download our checklist for free.

26. Delete old content from your site

What: Remove old posts or pages that don’t get any traffic

Why: Google actually penalises your site rankings if there’s lots of poor performing content.

How: List out all your pages and their average traffic. Delete the poor performing ones at the bottom of the list. Be brutal.

27. Vary the format of your content – different types of posts

What: Vary the format of the content that you create to stop your audience from getting bored and switching off

Why: No one wants to receive the same old content in the same old format. Your email list will soon unsubscribe and you’ll miss out on sales.

How: Keep things fresh and your list engaged by varying your formats between list posts, explainer posts, interviews with guests, instructional videos or even podcasts.

28. Use images/infographics to make your content more engaging

What: keep it easy on the eye and Break up slabs of text with images or infographics.

Why: if you present your audiences with just a page and of text they won’t read it. Cut down on text with an infographic.

How: design one yourself on photoshop or an easy to use graphics tool like Canva. Or there are lots of freelance designers available on Fiverr or UpWork you can turn the job around quickly.

29. Guest post on other business sites

What: Write a blog for another business’ site to share your knowledge/opinion but also promote your product or service. Guest blogging should become a regular part of your small business PR plan.

Why: Guest posting is a great way to reach new customers. Their readers are more likely to respond positively to your blog because it is on a site that they like and trust. Your job is to convert that trust into sales.

How: Outreach to other businesses and pitch the idea of a guest post on a topic that you know they’ll love. Research what have been popular posts for them in the past and pitch a similar but improved idea.

30. Invite guest posts on your site

What: if there’s someone that you know can produce great content and that your audience will love then invite them to guest post on your blog.

Why: More original and engaging content for you and your audience. There’s a brand halo effect – by featuring a trusted authority on a topic or sector on your site then your business will benefit from their good reputation. Plus they’ll be used to promoting content so they will share the post across their social media channels and your brand will reach new audiences

How: Ask your networks who they would be interested in receiving content from. Research their online profile and choose who regularly produces great content and who has a strong social media following.

How to use advertising to get more leads

31. Google Advertising –  define your customer’s intent

What: Understand your ‘customer intent’ (the thoughts directing a customers’ decisions or actions toward a particular purchasing event) and you’ll have the crucial intelligence needed to create impactful advertising campaigns

Why: Knowing why and how your potential customers are searching online, how they are thinking and feeling towards a product or service can help you understand their buying psychology. Armed with this data you can target your advertising campaign, increase click rates and reduce ad spends.

How:  Think about the problem your customer is trying to solve when searching online e.g. mattress for back pain or skin cream for bags under the eyes. Consider where they are in their buying cycle – are you targeting those who are researching or those who are ready to buy? In addition, gather as much peripheral information as possible – understand the needs, habits and preferences of potential customers as these will all influence their buying intent.

32. Google Advertising – maximise your keywords

What: Research, analyse and select the best keywords to target to drive traffic from search engines to your website.

Why: Understanding the exact terms that people are searching for will enable you to optimise your SEO efforts and maximise the amount of traffic that your site gets. Ranking well on Google for specific search terms, in particular on page 1 of Google can transform your business overnight.

How: Use SEO tools to find what are the most popular search terms connected to your target audiences. Don’t forget to incorporate ‘customer intent’ so your terms are as targeted as possible. Look at what your competitors rank for and try to out rank them.

33. Google Advertising – Create the best free content

What: Getting your Google ad seen is just half the battle you need to make sure users click on the ad too. The most effective way to do that is to give away the most value.

Why: Your Google ad campaign will sit at the top of the page amongst the other top bidders for that search term so your offer needs to better than the competition to attract the most clicks.

How: Give away free content that brings more value than your competitors – the most comprehensive free guide, or strategies that are guaranteed to produce results. Alternatively, offer greater discounts on must-have products.

34. Create a landing page for social media sales

What: If you’re running a specific offer on social media, or on Google Ad Words then create a tailored landing page to maximise customer engagement and opt-ins.

Why: If someone clicks on your ad, looking for a specific promotion, but then just gets sent to your homepage, where they need to search for information, then they are likely to leave very quickly! Users attention spans are short so make it easy for them and give them everything they need straight away.

How: You can build your own landing pages using services like Lead Pages and with plugins such as Thrive Architect. Or it will be a relatively simple job for your web designer. It’s important not to overwhelm the user with irrelevant info. Focus on persuading them to buy your service or product.

35. Facebook – tell your story

What: Bring your small business Facebook profile to life by telling the story of your business instead of just plain text adverts.

Why: Facebook advertising will only enhance your business if it generates interest and to do that you need to stand out from the sea of content out there. Telling your story is the most engaging way to do that.

How: Use images, videos, gifs to make your adverts visually attractive. Use human curiosity to prompt engagement, with ‘you’ll never guess what happened next’ style adverts.

36. Instagram – your image is everything

What: Don’t use second rate images in your Instagram advert – images need to be natural but top quality.

Why: Instagram users pride themselves on the quality of images they share on their own personal account – so they have even higher expectations of businesses and brands. If your images are not first class then don’t use them. And crucially, even though you are advertising your post should not look like an advert.The original appeal of Instagram and its influencers was the natural documentation of everyday life, and, although the platform has moved towards a much greater monetized experience as it has matured, users are still less likely to click on your advert if it looks like one.

How: Invest in a decent DSLR camera. Yes, you can take great photos on a smartphone but brands and influencers are using professional kit so you need to match up.

37. Twitter – Be succinct and clear

What: To create a successful Twitter campaign you need to get straight to the point as well as be engaging (no pressure huh?)

Why: The shelf life of a single tweet is four times shorter than stuff on Facebook, so you need to make an immediate impact, otherwise your ad will be forgotten within seconds.

How: Concisely sum up your proposition and have a clear call to action. Contests are a great way to drive engagement since there’s something in it for the end user – ask a question, get a response and give out a prize. Use real people in your photos and be human – make an emotional connection.

38. Linkedin – it’s more than an online CV

What: Get in front of the professionals that you most want to target by knowing how to post an article on LinkedIn.

Why: Linkedin is now far more than just an online CV platform and has developed into the largest and most sophisticated social media platform for professionals. It includes news/post feeds, self-publishing tools, an e-learning/course section, groups, messaging – you name it, it has it. If you’re a professional services company or you target a specific profession with your product you would be crazy not to advertise on this platform. Also, make sure you have a winning LinkedIn headline.

How: Just like Facebook and Twitter, Linkedin has its own advertising platform so you can manage your campaigns and target certain groups. In my experience, LinkedIn is more expensive than the other platforms but it’s incredibly targeted so worth the money.

39. Radio – be memorable

What: If you want your radio advert to stand out within a crowded market then it needs to be easily memorable with a clear call to action. 

Why: Often adverts are the part where the audience typically switch off. Ultimately they aren’t listening to be sold a product, they are there for the music or the DJ/guests, so you need to connect with them emotionally to get their attention.

How: Your advert could be humorous, it could be outrageous or provide a solution to a problem that no-one else is talking about, but it cannot be beige. Make a statement and be memorable.

40. Print Advertising – focus on your key messages

What: Adverts that work best are well designed but prioritise focusing on key brand messages that lead to sales.

Why: Knowing where to start with your print advertising can be a challenge. They have to look stylish, be attention-grabbing and communicate product/service information all within a small space. If it’s not clear what action you want your audience to take they won’t do anything. Don’t try to do everything within one advert. Focus on your priority brand messages and the main actions you want your customer to take.

How: If it’s getting too crowded, simplify and prioritise what information you should include. Run more than one advertising campaign to split the messaging and make it more simple for your target audience.

How To Generate Leads From Social Media

41. Be conversational

What: Don’t just be a one-way broadcaster on social media, have genuine interactions and conversations with your audience

Why: Social media is not just a one-way street, yes your followers want to hear your news but they also want to be part of your story. They want to participate in your journey and the more and more they can do this, the more you will establish a genuine relationship with them. Authentic conversations build brand loyalty and they are more likely to buy from you.

How: Be transparent and share your thoughts and feelings with your social media followings. How are you building your small business? What challenges are you facing? What successes are you enjoying? Take your audience on your small business journey and they will feel more engaged and connected to you and your product/service.

42. Add value

What: Be creative and think about how your service or product can improve their lives. Be informative and share your knowledge.

Why: Users interact with social media to feel connected to something or someone and ultimately enhance their lives. Whether that is by seeing posts that make them laugh, updates that give them ideas for their next holiday or just to feel part of a community, users want something from their social media activity. The best way for your small business to be a part of that is to add as much value to their experience as possible.

How: If you’re a stationery shop share your secrets to an organized diary, recommend the best products of a home office, curate the ultimate stationary kit to get you through a freshman year at university.

43. Treat your channels like a website

What: Social media channels now have such sophisticated functionality that you should treat them just like a website – a crucially important digital interaction point between your brand and your customers.

Why: For some, this will be their first point of contact with you and your business so you need to spend as much time and effort perfecting your social media management tools as you do your website.

How: Make sure your bios are catchy and clearly articulate your proposition – explain who you are and what you do but don’t be dull. Attention spans on social media are very limited. Make sure you have a good quality banner photo, correctly sized for the channel. Take time to categorize your content to make it easy for the user to find what they are interested in. If it’s a YouTube channel you can curate playlists and on Instagram, you can pin your favourite stories to the top of your profile.

44. Start live broadcasting

What: Do a live broadcast on your social media channels to interact with your audience in real time.

Why: Audiences respond well to live content. They may not be as interested in you and your small business as they are in their favourite fashion vlogger on YouTube but that doesn’t mean you don’t have anything interesting to share. If you’ve got an important event such as a product launch or a special promotion then think about how producing live content can support your marketing.

How: Make a start. The first time you speak live is always the hardest but with practice, you will find your rhythm. If you need to share any particular information or you want to cover certain topics then map them out beforehand so you remember to include them during the broadcast.

45. Tell your story

What: Make your business more accessible by telling its story and sharing content that brings the human element of your business to life. If you’re always wondering ‘what does PR stand for?’ story telling is at its heart.

Why: It’s all in its name…Social media is about being social. It isn’t about just advertising and one way broadcasting it’s about proper engaging content and the most effective way to do that is through storytelling. It’s how human beings have entertained each other for centuries.

How: Use your social media channels to offer a look behind the scenes of how your business works, the people that you employ and the exciting new developments for the company. Be original – try to share stories that you haven’t revealed elsewhere

46. Create video content

What: In addition to photo and text updates, make sure you include video content within your social media posts. This is of the often mentioned and rarely acted on marketing tips for small business.

Why: Video is the fastest growing form of content on social media so keep your brand relevant by including video within your content.

How: It’s quite easy to record, edit and post your video from any smartphone. But where you can make your video stand out is by getting it right in the preparation phase. First, you need a stellar idea that will make your video stand out. Look back over your other content and see what has got engagement for you before. Which blogs got the most reads? Which emails received the most responses? Look for current trends that are very popular on social, is there a way your business can contribute something? Plan your videos, create a storyboard and make sure you include your call to action or important brand message.

47. Use subtitles on your video content

What: Include subtitles on the videos you film for social media to boost engagement.

Why: Subtitles are reported to boost video shares by at least 15%. For example, sometimes it isn’t possible to have sound whilst watching videos. Have you ever watched a video on mute at work, I know I have! Another reason is not everyone speaks your language, so subtitles enable international shares.

How: Very easily. Apple Clips can create Live Titles, or real-time captions, Facebook can add them automatically to your video, and the YouTube video manager also has the functionality to add them.

48. Run competitions

What: Give away a prize to your followers (or anyone on social media) in exchange for them fulfilling some entry criteria. The criteria normally includes likes, comments and re-sharing.

Why: Running social media competitions is a great way for small businesses to increase their likes, comments or shares. Competitions incentivize people to engage with your content and then it gets shared to a much wider audience and a whole bunch of potential new customers.

How: Choose an audience to target – the same competition won’t appeal to all your customers. Choose a great prize that you know the audience will love – don’t cut back on the prize because it will influence your result. Make sure one of the criteria for winning the prize is the re-sharing of your post so that you get the competition in front of as many people as possible. There are terms and conditions about running competitions on each of the social media platforms so make sure you check them out before you launch and stay within the guidelines.

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Then this guide is for you.

Today I’m going to cut through the hype and explain how to create an influencer marketing campaign that leads to actual sales – rather than just likes and follows.

These types of campaign differ from a traditional public relations campaign.

If you want to know how to create long-term partnerships with digital creators who genuinely love your brand, this guide will show you how.

Here’s what we’re going to cover:

• Who is an influencer?
• What is influencer marketing?
• Why is influencer marketing so powerful?
• What are the risks of influencer marketing?
• How to do influencer marketing
• Setting goals for influencer marketing
• Choosing your influencers – how to do it right
• Creating content for your campaign
• How to measure the success of your campaign
• Can small businesses or charities do influencer marketing?

When you partner with an influencer who is genuinely aligned with your brand,  it can be a highly profitable relationship for you both.

But there are risks with influencer marketing. And you still need to know how to write a media pitch.

Let’s go through the essential points first.

Understand these points and you’ll get the best return on your investment.

What is an influencer?

An influencer is someone who creates content (usually images or videos), shares it on their social media channels, and has built a large and engaged audience.

What makes them different from a movie star or actress who has a following on social media is, influencers were not famous before they started creating content. Their content has grown their following – and this has all happened organically rather than through advertising.

Over the past five years, influencers are increasingly monetizing their content through partnerships with brands, launching their own products or branching out into TV or film.

Don’t miss our epic guide on how to write a press release!

For example,  Zoe Stubbs (aka Zoella), a previously unknown 27-year-old from Brighton, UK, who started her own YouTube channel in 2009 posting beauty and makeup vlogs.

Fast forward nearly a decade and she has two successful YouTube channels, Zoella, and More Zoella, with a combined subscriber total of 17 million.

Zoella has developed her own beauty line and has written a novel. She has an estimated income of $70,000 a month.

Sometimes smaller is better

As a subcategory of influencers, you also have Micro Influencers. These are Influencers with mid-size followings. Think tens of 1000s rather than millions, but their audiences are very engaged within a specific niche.

Brands are increasingly interested in working with Micro Influencers because they have a higher level of engagement, likes and shares proportional to the size of their following.

An example of a Micro Influencer is @chantalumali from the Philippines who documents her weight loss journey through yoga poses. She has recently collaborated with Marie France (Slimming Centre) as one of their ambassadors.

What is Influencer Marketing?

Influencer marketing is when brands pay influencers to promote their product or service.

This can range from simple image posts (on Instagram or Twitter) saying what they love about a product to much more elaborate multiple post campaigns or video series.

Influencer marketing is not the same as a celebrity endorsement, which is when a celebrity lends their fame to a brand or a product, in a more traditional broadcast advertising style. You can read more about this in some of the best marketing books.

Instead, influencers are in conversation with their followers and offer a much more engaged audience.

Think of it as an introduction into an existing community of people who are all interested in what you have to say – the ultimate word of mouth referral.

Influencer marketing is big business, growing exponentially over the past five years. According to an ANA and PQ Media study, estimated total brand spending reached $101 billion by 2020. It’s gone WAY beyond free PR.

Increasingly brands are creating their own in-house teams dedicated to influencer marketing communications, and soon it will be rare for any brand to launch a campaign that doesn’t involve at least one social media influencer.

In 2019, we’re likely to see more brands establishing long-term relationships with individual influencers, positioning them as brand ambassadors within complex campaigns. There are some great marketing ideas for small business here to inspire you.

Why is influencer marketing so powerful?

The clue is in the name – influencers hold influence over their audiences. Followers trust influencers and are loyal to them. If they say they love a product, their followers are far more likely to buy it than anything else.

Trust is THE most important component in the sales process. If you trust a recommendation, you buy.

When an influencer shares branded content, they pass that trust on to the brand and a new audience is much more likely to purchase.

So an endorsement from an influencer on anything – dog food, where to go on holiday, what shampoo to use, is more effective than a traditional ad spot.

Even when an influencer is paid to promote brands, followers believe that they have chosen the product because they genuinely love it.

Add that to the rise in ad blockers – in the U.S. ad-blocking usage is 40% on laptops and 15% on mobile as consumers have become fed up with pop-ups and banners.

And a decline in radio and TV viewership – viewers prefer to stream content on social media platforms, that they have selected, on topics they want.

Influencer marketing is a no-brainer.

What are the risks of influencer marketing?

With businesses generating $6.50 for every $1 invested, there’s no doubt influencer marketing is lucrative for all involved.

But be careful, big profits also come with big risks.

Here are some influencer marketing red flags to look out for:

Fake Followers

Not everything is as it seems. There’s a real risk (for brands and marketers) that an influencer’s follower numbers are padded or outright fake –  meaning they have paid for them.  Fake followers mean less engagement and fewer sales for brands.

Unilever’s CMO Keith Weed has led the campaign against fake audience numbers and declared that the company won’t work with influencers who are found to have any fake followers or have used bots to grow their accounts.

According to Digiday, fake followings are rife within influencer marketing and it isn’t just the influencer’s who are to blame, the PR agencies linking influencers and brands are in on the act too.  Agencies have been known to buy followers for influencers and then take a commission for each client they connect them to.

This is why our suggestion is to learn how to write a press release and keep your marketing in-house.

Awol Influencers

You’ve done your research and carefully chosen an influencer. Unfortunately, there is always a danger that their content or behaviour can change and be at odds with everything your brand stands for.

See the story of PewDiePie losing his deals with Disney’s Maker Studios and YouTube over some ill-advised pranks.

Influencers going awol is not uncommon and brands do need to be cautious when investing in new relationships.

Contract Catastrophes

Yes, this can happen, just as with any supplier or business partner. Influencers can agree to share a certain number of posts or attend brand events but fail to do so and break their agreement.  This isn’t to say you should avoid influencer marketing for your business, but you do need to stay on top of your relationships.

Just like the recent case of Instagram Influencer Luka Sabbat, who is being sued by a PR agency who claim he violated the terms of a $60k agreement to promote Snapchat’s Spectacles product on Instagram.

Brand Backlash

Blatant product placement can land brands – even the most popular influencer in hot water  – when followers doubt the authenticity of the content. It’s essential that your brand matches and makes sense with the influencer’s audience.

Take the online abuse received by Instagrammer Scarlett London when she published an over the top product campaign for Listerine that went negatively viral.

The influencer received death threats and Listerine were hammered on multiple social sites for ridiculously staged content that bore no connection to reality. Getting some quality media training is probably a good idea.

Despite these risks, Influencer Marketing is still by far one of the most popular and effective marketing strategies of the moment.

If you’re up for making big profits then let’s get to the nitty-gritty – how to actually do Influencer Marketing.

How to do influencer marketing

Big brands are having serious success with influencer marketing and it isn’t just because they can pay big money (although that does help!).

They have entire teams dedicated to their campaigns, coordinating each element ranging from research to content creation, and everything in between. They have a comprehensive PR plan, of which influencers are one part.

Little, if nothing, is left to chance. Although posts may look organic and spontaneous, they are in fact the product of some very strategic and careful campaign management.

But don’t worry, even if you can’t match the budgets of big brands you can still compete in terms of campaign planning and management.

Our top tips for a marketing campaign

Here are my top four tips for executing an awesome marketing campaign:

• Set specific and measurable goals: decide now what you want to achieve and when
• Research and choose wisely: take time and choose the right influencer that is aligned with your brand
• Create content in partnership with your influencer: make sure the campaign engages their audience but retains the authentic feel of the channel
• Measure the impact: analyze what is working and what isn’t. Don’t want until the end. Assess as you go and be ready to adjust

Now let’s dive into each of these.

How to set goals for influencer marketing

Influencer marketing goals all too often focus on creating a ‘buzz’ around a brand or increasing awareness. Unfortunately, this rarely translates into a return on investment.

If you want to run a campaign that positively impacts your bottom line then set realistic and measurable goals.

Here’s what you need to remember:

• Be data driven. Link the campaign from the offset to web traffic, offer signups and most importantly sales.
• Be direct. Use a direct URL for your offer so you can track all new traffic to your site generated by the campaign.
• Don’t overlook the average. Don’t judge influencers on the total followers, or buy into the hype of peak posts that go viral. Instead look at what an influencer’s average engagement rate is over a set period of time (i.e. 30 days) and base your forecasts on that data.
• Be realistic. It is virtually impossible to achieve 100% engagement rates.  Use an average performance rate instead so you can set realistic expectations about what can be achieved, and ultimately at what budget.
• Share these goals with your influencer. They need to know that you’re running a targeted campaign, and success of the promotion is based upon achieving these targets.

Setting the right goals for your campaign will help you figure out which kind of influencer you want to work with.

Don’t go on to the influencer research phase until you can answer these two questions::

1. What do you want to achieve?
2. Why do you want to achieve it?

How to choose your influencer

Choosing the right influencer is critical to the success of your campaign. Luckily for you, social media is awash with 1000s of them so it can be difficult to find a long list of potential influencers.

If you have the budget then you can pay people to do this research for you.

There are a multitude of influencer agencies, with new ones launching each month, who have a range of influencers on their books, all waiting to partner with you.

Agencies can match your brand values with the best-suited influencer – they’ve done the research already and profiled their clients accordingly.

What you should consider:

But if you don’t have the budget to do this, here’s what you need to consider with your research:

• Take your time: There’s no shortcut. Dedicate a set number of hours to search social, watch videos, and engage with content in and around your industry.
  You need a consistent creator, who produces impactful content and will deliver on your investment. This can’t be rushed.
• Brand values: Remember your relationship with the influencer needs to be genuine, you both need to be aligned with the same values. Your product needs to fit in their lifestyle and they need to be matched with what your company is associated with. A mismatch will leave their audience doubting the authenticity of the campaign, and your current customers confused about the direction of the company.
• Look for your niche: Don’t just choose the most popular influencer you can find. Look for someone who has an active interest in your product area. It will make creating engaging and authentic content so much easier and their audience will be more receptive to your product.
• Look who’s talking: Search for your brand or product name on social media. Is anyone talking about you already? If so, approach these people first. They will be much warmer to partnership approaches and will love endorsing your brand.
• Don’t be fooled by fake followers: Accounts with multiple zeros are not always genuine. Monitor the account over time and see what the average level of engagement is to establish just how much influence the creator actually holds over their audience.
• Choose more than one influencer: Don’t put your eggs all in one basket. There are no rules about influencer exclusivity. If your campaign would work better with a number of featured influencers then create a shortlist of who you want to work with and approach them.
• Small can be beautiful: Don’t overlook micro-influencers, those with 100,000 followers. They generally vlog and share content on niche topics. And because they are specialist it means they have a much higher rate of engagement. It’s not always about attention grabbing headlines or big awareness days.

How to create content for your campaign

Now you’ve nailed your research and chosen the perfect influencer for your brand, it’s time to think about content.

Influencers (and their teams) are used to being in charge of their content. But when it’s your dollar on the line, content creation needs to be a collaboration between brand and influencer.

A successful campaign will carefully balance authenticity, the influencers own unique style, with the required promotion. Each relationship will be different and you’ll need to figure out who plays what role in it.

Here are a few things that you’ll need to consider during content creation:

• Messaging: What do you want the influencer to say about your product and is it the right fit for the tone of their channel? Have no more than 3-4 priority messages that you want to be shared. Too many messages become confusing and they won’t be remembered.
• Call to Action: Do you need to share a direct URL, mention a particular offer or ask followers to take a specific action? Give clear instructions and you’ll get clear results.
• Sign off: Are all parties agreed on the content? Are images on brand and is the copy getting across the key elements of the product without being a blatant hard sell?
• Scheduling: When will posts be scheduled, day, time and frequency? Do the posts need to link in with specific events or occasions? Are you considering global time zones when posting? Large brands have dedicated team members to manage scheduling, particularly it is a multi-influencer campaign.
• Going live: Despite best-laid plans there can often be issues in the posts when they go live, make sure you check on all platforms how posts look and how they are performing.

How to measure the success of your campaign

Remember those goals that you set at the beginning of the campaign? Now it’s time to measure the success of your campaign against them.

What were the engagement levels? How much web traffic has the campaign generated? How many sales?

Revisit your goals every few months. Don’t be afraid to reassess and hold your hands up to say this isn’t working.

It can take a few attempts to get the right working partnership with an influencer. It can take a few versions of content to score a widely popular post. In the early days of a campaign, you need to be prepared to make adjustments to get the best results.

Although the market has matured and we are now past the Wild West early days of Influencer Marketing, there are no hard and fast rules for what works and what doesn’t. You need to test, measure, and tweak.

Brands and marketers that are willing to experiment and be flexible in their approach, changing tactics quickly when necessary, are the ones who will continue to make the most gains.

Can small businesses or charities do influencer marketing?

Yes, small businesses and charities can do influencer marketing. Just because you can’t compete on budget, doesn’t mean you can’t compete on content. But to be effective, you have to be creative.

It will be harder for you to attract the attention of influencers if you’re not waving a wad of cash but that doesn’t mean that it is impossible.

That said, be realistic. Don’t go for the big hitters, you won’t get past the gatekeepers.

Target Micro Influencers instead, if you’re a right fit with their channel then they’ll be more open to partnerships.

So how can your brand be different, how can it stand out and make Influencers sit up and take notice?

Here’s where Influencer Marketing crosses over into Public Relations – you need to convince Influencers to partner with you despite your lack of budget.

Their endorsement can come from what PRs call, the Editorial Value of your product. This means they promote your product because of its own merits, or because of your compelling presentation of it.

It’s not easy and there won’t be as many quick wins. but if you’re prepared to be persistent and dedicate some serious time and effort to influencer PR, you can (and will) secure success.

Here my top three tips you need to know to secure the ultimate influencer partnership:

PR Tip 1: Relevance

First up, you need to be relevant. You may have an amazing product but if you aren’t going to be of interest to their target audience they won’t want to partner with you.

Now that doesn’t mean that you have to pretend to be something that your brand is not, it’s all about positioning and the story that you share with the influencer.

In PR terms, it’s called being newsworthy. And the best way to make your product newsworthy is to somehow connect it do the current news agenda.

In brand terms, that’s asking, what is hot right now? What is the latest trend? And how can my product fit into that trend?

PR Tip 2: Positioning

If that doesn’t work and you’re not the latest hot thing then position your product as part of a Feature.

Not sure what that is? A Feature is a magazine-style story or piece of content that covers an event, a travel destination or a humorous incident.

Much of popular social media content follows the features format – influencers aren’t concerned with news angles. Instead, they share knowledge or expertise in Life Hacks or How To Guides, cover events or travel destinations in their Travelogues, or do stunts or pranks.

A great way to secure a free Influencer partnership is to suggest a possible Feature for the social media star to use in their content.

Let’s look at the example of beauty YouTuber, Rachel Claire Levin aka @Rclbeauty101, and her video series Doing Makeup in Weird Places.

These are videos where she tries to put on her makeup in the weirdest places she can find – in a giant balloon, in zero gravity or in 500 pounds of jello.

Features

In PR terms these are all ‘Features’. And if you’re a business owner of some weird and wacky event space you should contact her and suggest that you would be the perfect venue for her next feature in the series.

Influencers are under pressure to produce content and come up with new ideas. So when you give them a genuinely stand out idea they will respond favorably to it.

And if you’re offering to organize the event, supply them with the products and make their work really easy. Do this and they will say yes, especially if you know how to write a press release for an event.

If you’re not sure what the difference is between a news story and feature story examples then check out one of our most popular articles ‘What’s the Difference Between a News Story and Feature?’

PR Tip 3: Think Thematically

There are certain times of the year where Influencers need to produce content linked to particular events or anniversaries, holiday seasons or major public events.

They need ideas for content around these times so get ahead of the game and suggest things for them to do that involve your product.

For example, have you ever heard of Vlogmas?

Vlogging and Christmas =  Vlogmas!

It’s when YouTubers post a video each day in December up until December 24th (Christmas Eve). 24 videos is A LOT of content and a whole lot more opportunities for you to get your product featured.

It’s not just Christmas that this can work Think about all the holidays or anniversaries of the year that Influencers need to cover – Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Thanksgiving.

You name it, any holiday is an opportunity for partnerships. If you need inspiration, here are 46 proven public relations examples.

Be creative and think about how your product can be featured within this anniversary content and you’ll be surprised by the positive responses you get. And make sure you use one of the best media monitoring services to track your success.

Take advantage of influencer marketing in 2022

At this point in 2022, your small business, charity, or product still have the opportunity to take advantage of an effective marketing channel that has still not hit the mainstream.

Influencer marketing will indeed go mainstream and all your competitors will still be trying to figure out how to make it work.

Your advantage is to get started today. If not, you will be playing catch up for years to come.

Want to know more about how to get partnerships with influencers through PR? Then take our free PR course.

The post Influencer Marketing: The Definitive Guide 2022 appeared first on Class:PR.