Writing From The Heart!

Hi everyone...

Today our Garden Club call was about heartfelt writing. It was a great call and after it ended  I did a few exercises of my own while out walking that I thought I'd share.

First, just a quick review of being heartfelt.  Basically, it is just taking the time to "process" the layers that are part of every experience we have each day!  Sorting out the many moments that are within a single moment. Our "brains" focus on assumed and "out of habit" communications whereas our "hearts" provide depth and meaning, emotion and authentic communications.

So here's a quick exercise to let you experience the difference!  First focus on your mind and look at something.  I chose a tree.  Pay attention to what you brain feeds back to you about the tree or whatever object you choose.  Next, focus on your heart and look at the same object.  What does your heart feed back to you? Is it different information?  Bet you it is!  Now try it by thinking of an event. Then try it by thinking of a person!  Let me know what happens!!  Can't wait to hear your input. Hope it opens up lots of ideas for heartfelt writing experiences!!

You are also invited to join us on a Garden Club call every Thursday at 4PM!  Recordings may also be found on the right side of this blog. Listen to today's call now!

Keep Your Business Garden Growing!
margie

Do You Use "Call To Actions?" ... You Should!

What's a "Call To Action?"

You've probably heard of the term but do you really know what it means?  It's actually pretty simple .. a "call to action" is an image or line of text that prompts readers to take an action .. such as, subscribe to a newsletter, view a webinar, request a product demo, start a free trial .... all the more powerful when used with the words of "now" - "here" - "today"...etc.

It's important to know that they do work.  If you tell someone what to do, especially on the internet, readers and listeners will often do it!  In recent Twitter studies ... one of the stats showed that tweets that included, "Please Retweet" got retweeted 4X more than tweets without the call to action!

How many "Call To Actions" can you use?
People often create a mix of "call to actions" that span across different stages of the sales cycle.  And, you might now be asking, how do you create these unique "call to actions?"  You usually create them from just taking an educated guess, based upon previous information you know about your prospects.  You should have "some" idea of what they are looking for at each stage of your sale and also what you are looking for them to do at different stages of your selling process.

Where do you place "Call To Actions?"  You can place and use them everywhere! On social media, your website, blog, in your email signature, in your email message, on your voice mail, in a print ad.  Even in a presentation or just when out networking face to face!  Always have a "call to action" ready to use!!

Some guidelines to create the most effective "Call To Actions" include: 

*	Clean, concise and specific words
*	A sense of urgency! Be action - oriented.
*	Place them above the fold of the page, i.e. before scrolling down!
*	A relevance to the content on the page.
*	The benefits that come with what you sell.

Start randomly creating a few of your own! Make a list of all the actions you want your prospects and clients to take within our sales process for new, repeat and referral business!  Then assign them where they would best fit!  Keep them under your hat for spontaneous use as well.  

Best Ways To Use Twitter .. Now in 2013!

Hi .. 

Are you a Twitter user?  Long time? Short time?  Whatever the case, some interesting stats are giving us some defined ways to use Twitter!   This is great news because a lot of Twitter users are just shooting from the hip and that is never productive!! 

Let me go over some of the big ones ( for me, at least) and then if you want to know more, make sure you get on my newsletter mailing list. Will be detailing all of the recent stats in my next mailing!  The sign-up link is here on the right. You'll also find the links to my Garden Club calls. We discussed the Twitter stats in last Thursday's Garden Club and I will have the recording up later today. 

My favorite! Twitter is now defined as a broadcast medium with the ability to have interactive conversations.  Informative and "of value" tweets need only be broadcast to build your Twitter reach (number of followers).  Interactive Twitter communications are showing no added value in acquiring followers. This is huge for me as I have been trying, as when I first started with Twitter (when it began), to be interactive and it is just too large and overwhelming now to maintain that usage ... for me anyway. . The stats say that interactive works for the celebs but don't worry about it if you are a "regular" person.  

Along with the above, the most successful accounts, i.e. those with the most followers, had an average tweet count of 22 per day.  The take-away from this is to just know that unlimited tweeting per day is just fine!  Very few of us, if any, will do 22 daily tweets in the same account ... but its ok to go for it.  You would be in your reader's faces too much if you tried this on other networks.  So, from now on when using Twitter, let it rip!! 

Most unique! Place your links 25% in from the beginning of your posting.  Stats are showing more links are clicked open when placed there. Does that mean that people are too busy to read to the end of a 140 char posting? Maybe .. it 's a live feed we scan. So, give it a try.

And, along with the above, if you want stats on all your Twitter links, use bit.ly to shorten them. Open up an account (it's free) and keep track.  It's part of the fun of putting info out there!

Most interesting! The most retweets occur at 4:30 east coast time everyday. Also on Fridays at any time. They are assuming that the Twitter feed is less used during those time frames and the tweets get read more closely and thus readers have the time to retweet! Hope the above was informative. Again, if you want to know "all" the stats sign up for my newsletter or check the Garden Club recording. Both should be out later today! 

Keep Your Business Growing  ... 

margie

How Often Are You Blogging?

Blogging is such a mystery.  Why is it that we don't seem to have time for it when it is such a useful resource for building relationships? 

You may already know this but if not ....The history of blogging goes back to days of old when people kept diaries!  Fast forward to the internet -(from webopedia) the word blog itself is a play on the words Weblog, as most blogs will be displayed in a journal or log entry format.  Most are updated daily or at least more frequently than most Web sites are. Blogs often reflect the personality of the author or the company employees they represent. To this end the most accurate and fitting evolution of today's blog comes from online diaries where the diarist would keep an online journal of themselves.

In the business world, I've always referred to blogs as the "water cooler" conversation.  Think about your business having a big corporate office and potential buyers come to visit and take a tour. The water cooler is where they are going to get the "skinny" on what makes your business work,  The culture, energy, loyalty, fun, etc are all discovered by the water cooler!  Do you agree?  Do you have another comparison that makes good sense? Sometimes I'll also throw out that blogs are like going backstage at the theater .  another impressive layer of connectivity and relationship is created between you and your experience watching the play. 

When blog first became popular again within the last 10 years, microsoft had all their managers create a blog so that potential customers could get some direct and behind the advertising info on the microsoft products.  Blogs are where "reality" resides.  Just thought of this, but guess you could also relate blogging to "reality shows!" 

If you can keep these visions in mind you'll discover that blogging is such fun, gives you perspective of your day and work,  helps build trust & loyalty, and is good therapy on top of it all.  Your answer to the above "title" question will be "daily" and my bet is that you'll have more than one blog going and getting your voice out there!  Let me know!  

Who has some good blogging stories?  Please share if you do! 

Keep your business growing ... 

margie

How Are You Doing With Google Analytics?

Hi everyone ... 

Have you activated your Google Analytics yet?  Are you reading them weekly or even more often?  There is lots of information waiting for you .... some surprises also is my bet. 

The most recent "surprise"  that happened within my client's analytic reports was with my jeweler.  The "Page" reports brought us some valuable information.  Knowing that diamonds are his expertise and that his ideal client is the young couple getting engaged, my knowledge of his buyers from his day to day activity did not match that.  What was known about his online engagement and "in store" buyers,  was that the older, already married, couple where the husband bought fine jewelry gifts for the holidays, birthdays, valentines day and more was the most interested buyer. Even the salespeople said that pendants are the most popular item bought by the shoppers. YET, the page report for the website said that "engagement rings" was the most, by a large degree, visited page on the site!!! 

Also of interest was that almost a third of his website visitors came from mobile phones. And 98% of those visitors used an iphone and/or ipad.  Time to do some mobile marketing strategies!!! 

What have you found on your Google analytics that surprised you?  Let us know .. . If you need to learn about Google Analytics  click here for my most recent mailing. http://www.todaysway.net/weekly/2013jan12_googleanalytics.htm   Join our mailing list and you'll get info like this almost weekly!

Keep Your Business Growing,

margie

It's 2013 - Got A Word For It?

Hello all ... 

It's here .... 2013 has arrived in all its glory. Appears to be a bit different in nature than 2012.. 2012 saw lots of internet marketing announcements and "new" ways of doing things.  It appears that in 2013, (remember, it's early), that much of last year's "new" has stabilized and during this year we'll be implementing and improving upon those announcements.  One thing for sure ... social networking is here!  It's not coming, it has arrived, and is an accepted and "must have" marketing resource for all sizes and types of businesses.   

All of this said ... how do you stay "on top" of your plans,  It's so easy to get distracted with so much information coming at us. It's also easy to get discouraged. You get set to go with one plan of attack and it takes longer, doesn't give you what you expected ... you get discouraged and let that specific task go by along with several others!  You lose sight of what you're doing and your January enthusiasm dulls.  

I was determined not to allow any of the above "negatives" get me in 2013.  As I did my planning last month,  my sights were set upon being in control of time. Time seemed to be my largest enemy in 2012, as you can see by my posting history here on my blog!!  Figured if I looked "realistically" and "honestly" at the "time" involved in all my goal setting ... daily, weekly, and monthly ... I would be more likely to keep in check with my progress and my emotions.  As I proceeded with this planning, a word popped into my head ... the word "maximize" kept coming to my mind.  Instead of just saying Friday afternoon I want to write my blog postings, I said," Friday afternoon is for blog postings. If I want to "maximize" the potential of each blog can I realistically get them done in one afternoon.  How many hours might it really take?  Using the word "maximize" got me "into the purpose" of the actual task in my mind and got me excited!!  The more excited I got about maximizing each task, I discovered what I was really maximizing was me, my business!!  Getting the very most I can out of  "me" for my success!   That gave me a whole renewed perspective for my 2013. 

Maximizing might not be "your" word.  It came to me by default, and after this experience I started hearing about choosing "words" as a planning method, from multiple sources.  Guess the idea of finding a word for your planning is in vogue this year.  As I spoke about my experience on the Garden Club call this week, one of my callers told me about a coach whose blog that week had recommended doing away with business plans and in lieu, pick just three words to follow and plan your year by!!  Then on facebook, one of my colleagues sent out a post for everyone to share the one word that described their 2013.  And now, ongoing, in one of the groups I belong to on Linkedin  ... everyone is submitting one word that represents their 2013 .. current count is over 188 different words! Here are a few:  Deliberate - Possibility - Shine - Build - Winner - Dare - Purpose - Go - Thrive - Persevere - Fearless - Focused - Optimistic. 

Give it a try.  Choose your "word" and as you go about planning your day, week and month ... have your word handy like a guardian angel over your shoulder.  Just let it remind you, energize you, keep you going, revive you ... whatever you need .. to keep you on your road to success.   It really does work!!! 

Enjoy! 

Keep Your Business Growing, 

margie