But what should you ACTUALLY choose? What’s going to make an impact TODAY?

I’m going to show you how I decide when I’m contemplating my next move.

You can use my 1-Move Spark Method.

Your Current Marketing Plan

These marketing activities might cross your mind of what you could do:

• A tutorial video
• A new blog article
• Design a new ad
• Create a 6-month research report project
• Set up a 5-step email campaign
• Call a prospect or current client
• Update a website page
• Write a checklist for your checklist of marketing ideas and tactics while you continue to go in circles And the list continues…

These are ALL super useful marketing tactics to use at various points of growth. I’ve done these many times and will continue doing them.

BUT are they getting you anywhere at this moment?

Sales + Marketing are One Team

I’m a big believer that Marketing and Sales team must work in tandem. Without Sales, there is no Marketing.

All efforts at the end of the day need to align with revenue goals. This doesn’t mean we’re not doing marketing campaigns, it means we’re putting our energy into strategies and tactics that align our messaging toward customers and potential customers.

The 1-Move Spark Method

What helps me decide what marketing or sales I’m going to do next?

How do I get from overwhelmed to action?

It’s my 1-Move Spark Method

I ask myself this question:

What’s the 1 thing I can do right now that can ‘spark’ and generate immediate revenue?

It cuts through any fluff.

It eliminates writing checklists.

It helps you not waste your day on filler tasks.

It focuses on the bottom-line – generating revenue.

The 1 thing to spark revenue and sales. Not 100 things, but 1.

Here’s what the 1-Move Spark typically looks like:

• Sending an email to an inbound lead
• Reaching out to someone in your network letting them know what you do
• Calling a current client to build that relationship and offer helpful additional services
• Writing a proposal for a prospect and sending it same day
• Following up with a warm lead
• Setting up a meeting with a partner company to co-market
• Posting about your product or service in a niche forum
• Building a list of prospects to reach out to over the next several days

Notice how most of these are focused on communicating 1-to-1 with someone or building toward that outreach.

Each of the 1-Move sparks has a higher potential to connect you with your next source of revenue.

This moves you one step further in connecting with someone, helping them find value in your product or services, and eventually, revenue.

Your turn to use the 1-Move Spark

Try using the 1-Move Spark Method the next time you get stuck on what marketing tactic or sales you should be doing.

Is this 1 activity going to spark and generate revenue?

Using this method, I’ve been able to stop getting overwhelmed by what marketing I should do.

It’s helped me ruthlessly eliminate distractions and focus on that 1 move that has the potential to generate a sale.

Just a 1-Move Spark can be all it takes!

The post My 1-Move Spark Method for Marketing and Sales appeared first on Hannah Wiginton.

In SaaS marketing, we’re always trying to better understand how our customers and potential customers view our product.

How does a customer decide “Is this the right software tool for me?”

How do buyers evaluate your software product? How do they decide “Is this the right tool for me?”

Here are 6 questions they may be asking themselves as they decide if it’s the right tool for them.

1. Does the product highlight my “features/use-case” questions on the website? 

– where do they look to verify?

– main product page with features bolded

– main menu features dropdown 

Takeaway:
List out features about what you’re product actually does AND highlight frustrations a user may have and how your product solves that frustration.

2. What experiences have others had with it?

 We all tend to do some research on a product before we dive in. They may search your product on Google, ask others in their professional network, review forums, ask slack/discord/reddit/facebook groups, or ask ChatGPT.

– does it do what it says it does?

– have others had a mostly positive experience with it?

– how’s customer support?

Takeaway:
Try to get reviews from your users and showcase them. This can be directly from customers, feedback in support tickets, or on forums.

3. Is the price reasonably in my budget for the return on investment I’ll get?

 – does it provide what I need and want?

 – even if slightly higher than my expected budget, do I think it will do the job I need?

– will it make me money in the long run?

– will it save me a significant amount of time and money?

Takeaway:
The user has to already see tangible benefits they will get, whether in revenue, time saved, or concern of what will happen if they don’t use the product, before they will buy. You can provide this in the form of other user stories and how it helped them, a calculator of time or money earned or saved, addressing fears and concerns in your messaging, and highlighting both emotional and tangible benefits.

4. Can I get started and set up in a timely manner?

– if I pay right now, can I start the process of doing what I need?

– do I understand how to start using it, whether it requires me to set it up or an onboarding process?

– if I need help or need to better understand something, will I be supported in a reasonable amount of time?

Takeaway:
The user has to already see tangible benefits they will get, whether in revenue, time saved, or concern of what will happen if they don’t use the product, before they will buy. You can provide this in the form of other user stories and how it helped them, a calculator of time or money earned or saved, addressing fears and concerns in your messaging, and highlighting both emotional and tangible benefits.

5. How does it compare to alternatives?

– does it have each feature or most features I need compared to another tool?

– do some prefer one tool over the other?

– what’s the cost difference and does it matter in comparison to what I need and want?

Takeaway:
You’re probably not the only tool they’re reviewing. What features do you have that another tool doesn’t or what feature do you not have that users might request? Understanding the differences between you and the competition is something to keep in mind. This doesn’t mean you’re trying to be everything they are, but knowing what your user sees.

6. What’s my overall vibe about it?

– Sounds silly, but all of these factors in different ways will influence how they “feel” about it.

– What about the micro-interactions they have with your customer support, forum posts they read from others, or your brand?

Takeaway:
You can create a tool that helps people and present it to those who do need it. Their final decision is probably based on multiple factors. Some may connect and understand immediately and for others, they just may not be interested. That’s ok!

The post 6 Questions Your Customer Might Have Before Purchasing appeared first on Hannah Wiginton.

Case studies are a more extensive version of a customer testimonial or review. And almost 45% of marketing professionals say that customer testimonials and reviews play a vital role in moving prospects through their sales funnel.

What’s a Case Study?

In a marketing context, it’s an in-depth look at how your product or service helped a customer solve their challenges. It’s a story about how your customer was struggling with a particular challenge and how you were able to solve it.

What’s the Purpose of a Case Study

Its purpose is to show potential customers how your product or service helped another company and how it can also help them. It’s a customer success story and it’s effective for sales and ‘social proof’ to showcase how you’ve helped others.

Case Study Example

Let’s say you have a software app that helps birdwatchers track bird locations.

A large bird watching group, Bird Watchers of Texas, with over 830 members, needed a way for each person in their group to log in and track bird locations. They wanted to be able to work together to see everyone’s bird locations, be able to comment on each location, and for each person to have a profile.

With your software app, you worked with Bird Watchers of Texas to create a member portal so all members could create their own profiles, track bird locations, and comment on bird locations by others. You solved their challenges and helped them in a big way!

So, you create a Case Study about how you helped Bird Watchers of Texas address the challenges they had.

Now, Bird Watchers of California reached out to you to help them with similar challenges. Because of your Case Study, they know what you’re capable of and that you can help them solve their problems! Once you write it, promote it so others can see.

Let’s look at how you can do this for your company.

How to Write Case Studies

1. Interview the Customer
2. Ask the Right Questions
3. Use Your Customer’s Words to Write the Case Study

Interview the Customer

First, you need to interview your customer. This is the most important part!

Set up a time for about 30 minutes to discuss the project.

For the interview, be positive and personable! Start with small talk and ask them things like what they’ve been working on this week, etc. A little bit of kindness and genuine interest goes a long way.

Now, it’s time to get down to business and ask questions about the project.

Case Study Questions to Ask the Customer

Here’s a list of questions you can ask.

You don’t have to use all of these, but they can help guide the conversation.

You want to be sure you dig in to what their challenges were before you came along. (Plus, this helps you come up with a list of content ideas you can write about for other customers.)

It’s important to paint a picture of the issues the customer was having, so you can then showcase how you saved the day!

Overview about the Company

• Tell me about you and what your company does.
• What do you enjoy about it? (their job, company, values, etc.)

About the Challenges

• What was going on that made you look for our solution/product?
• What were you struggling with?
• What made you finally decide you needed to solve the challenge?
• What were you using before?

How Our Product Helped

• How did you find us?
• What made you choose our product?
• What other options did you try and what else were you considering?
• What are you doing with it?
• What setup did you use? What does that look like?

Extra tip: It’s helpful to get them to give you a demo of their setup and how they use it! They will typically tell you more about it, in their own words, than answering your questions!

Results

• What can you do now that you weren’t able to do before?
• How has it improved your process?

In the interview, you don’t have to stick to this exact question process. Your customer might bring up something you didn’t think about, so you decide to focus on asking a couple of related questions to their comment.

Writing the Case Study – A Simple Outline

Now, that you have all the answers to your questions, it’s time to put together the Case Study article! Here’s an outline you can use for the article. Your customer has already given you all the answers to these!

About

About the customer’s company

Industry

The industry they’re in

Product

This is your specific product. Provide a description of what it is and what it does.

Challenge

Paragraph or two describing the challenges they were having. Then, 5-8 bullet points of the needs they had (that your product solves)

Solution

Talk about the specifics of how your product solved their problem, i.e. you created 830 member profiles, members can input bird locations on a map to track them, members could comment on other profiles and bird locations, etc.

Results

Provide bullet points of what your product was able to solve for them

Example:

• 830 member profiles created
• Over 3,500 birds tracked
• 8,480 comments written
• Enabled better communication between members
• Saved 15 hours of data entry each week

How You Can Use Case Studies

An in-depth look at your product through the eyes of a current customer can provide others with the proof they need to finalize their decision to buy from you.

Use this Case Study tutorial and outline as a way to capture stories from your customers about how you’ve made their business even better. If you need someone to create a Case Study for you, contact me to learn more about how I can help.

See a couple of example Case Studies I’ve written

The post How to Write a SaaS Case Study in 3 Steps (And Help With Sales) appeared first on Hannah Wiginton.

Our job is to connect to people, to interact with them in a way that leaves them better than we found them, more able to get where they’d like to go. 

Marketing is a continual process. You’re always adapting and learning new or better ways to share what you do. Get this list with over 90 genius types of digital content you can use to market your business.

Whether it’s the services you provide or the product you make, creating and sharing marketing content is key for helping others and getting customers or clients in the door…both figuratively and literally.

What is digital content?

It’s any form of content – written, video, audio, design – that helps your potential or current customer learn something that benefits them while sharing the expertise your business has. This showcases that you know what you’re talking about when it comes to what your business offers.

Content can be anything from a post on Facebook, a how-to guide, an annual report, a video, or a 5-page sales guide.

These are all ways to share what you do AND help potential and current customers.

What are the types of digital content?

I made a list of over 90 types of digital content you can create to market your business. Many are simple enough to create with information you already have on hand!

The types of digital content list includes ideas like:

• Infographics
• Checklists
• How-To Guides
• Services overview
• Quotes
• Weekly report
• Product use-cases
• Service reviews
• Customer interviews
• Audio snippets
• Company updates
• Industry templates

And 80+ more!

You’ll be inspired by all the options you have to create impressive marketing content.

Make many from just 1 type

What’s even better than 1 type of content? Using the one you created to repurpose it into another type!

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about:

You have a diesel repair shop and you have many construction companies who bring their broken dozers to you to fix.

So you create a Checklist (that’s your content) listing out the maintenance schedule for a dozer. It includes how often all the ins and outs, parts, and pieces need to be looked at on the dozer. You also include a place for them to add the date the maintenance was completed and a place for notes.

It’s something you know by heart, so you just open a word document and start making a checklist. You then share it on social media, your website, your email list, and more. Super simple!

The Content Repurposing Process

Here’s how repurposing your dozer maintenance checklist looks like:

FIRST, you create the checklist in a document

THEN, you create a 3-5 minute video going over each step from the list

THEN, you email the list and the video to all your current customers

THEN, you write a quick article on your site detailing what you said in the video (more repurposing!)

THEN, you create a couple of snazzy graphics and post on your social media accounts

THEN, okay, okay, okay I’m done for now.

Create then share your content

Can you see how you can create and share digital marketing content…like forever?!

It’s like the never-ending happy content wheel!

You create one and it just keeps going and going and going.

Here’s the full list

Download the 90+ Types of Digital Content Worksheet

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And when you’ve finished making this hodgepodge of content, you have to tell others about it and share!

Grab this list of 6 quick content promotion strategies to start right away!

Final Thoughts

Creating content to market your business involves a little bit of time, but can have big payoffs for your business. Don’t wait until you think it’s the right moment, get started right away! And if you need someone to help strategize, make a plan, and create content, learn about my services and reach out to me.

The post 90+ Genius Types of Digital Content to Market Your Business appeared first on Hannah Wiginton.

A simple way to do this is through sending an email regularly with relevant and helpful content for their business. I’ve included a list of ideas to help you get started.

To save all the content I find, I use a content curation template in Notion. You can save articles, videos, and social media posts to share with others.

Content ideas you can send to your list

Here are some ideas you can send to your email list.

• Details about your process (behind-the-scenes)

• Quick video tips about their interests and how you can help

• Helpful articles discussing issues they may be having in business

• Advice based on your expertise and experience

• Templates they can use, created in Google Docs, Excel, or any other app they may use

• An Ebook

• Your most recent article or articles

• Thought-provoking articles you come across while browsing the web

• “Cheat Sheets” to reference for any category of knowledge

• YouTube videos of others in the same industry

• Coupons of discounts for your product and service

• A round-up of some helpful individuals who can help with business operations

• Information about your products

• Information about your services

• Instagram or Twitter posts you think are interesting

If you’re looking for more content ideas, check out my list of 90 content types you can create.

Notion Template to Curate Content

Here’s a Notion template I use to curate content like interesting articles, ideas, and notes I want to share!

Get the Content Curation Template

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Feel free to use this template to start gathering resources and ideas to send to your clients and customers. It’s a template in Notion, a sleek note-taking and database app.

If you need a bigger list of content ideas to send your customers, check out my list of 90+ content types.

The Notion template is easy to use and you can quickly save a link into the template from any webpage you’re on.

How to use the Notion content curation template

The best way to save articles while browsing is to download the Notion Web Clipper Google Chrome extension.

To save an article with the extension:

• Click the Notion button
• Choose the database where you want to save the article
• Choose Save Page.

The web clipper automatically scans the article and adds the text from the article into your Notion database!

To quickly get your ideas into Notion via iPhone, read my article to learn how to set up a quick add button for Notion on the iPhone.

The post Content Curation Tool: Save helpful content ideas for your customers (14 ideas + Notion template) appeared first on Hannah Wiginton.

6. Record yourself discussing the main points of your article and upload to YouTube

You can use your phone or a simple screen recording software like Loom. Don’t overthink the video.

Stand in front of a single-colored wall, a nice bookshelf, or outside with no weird objects in the background. Then, make a few 30-second videos discussing each point in your article. Finish by making a video, no longer than 2 or 3 minutes discussing the entire article.

Don’t let your article sit in a corner without telling others about it! Promote it, share it, and repurpose it into many different pieces of helpful info.

Download 6 Quick Content Promotion Strategies

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The post 6 Quick Content Promotion Strategies After You’ve Hit Publish appeared first on Hannah Wiginton.

Yes, you can research. Yes, you can read, watch videos, and talk to other people about it.

But, sometimes you just have to jump.

Just take the leap and start

The post Just take the leap and start appeared first on Hannah Wiginton.

Maybe…

• You save them hours of time
• You get their business running again
• You give them an avenue to help others
• You give them the space to showcase their talents
• You provide a fix that gives them comfort and peace of mind
• You provide expertise that allows them to make important changes

You give them a helpful, positive experience they didn’t have before you.

When writing about your business or brand, write in a way that showcases how your service or product changes their life.

It might feel strange at first to write about YOU. But if you’ll focus on how you make real-life, better changes for your customer, it will be much easier. 

Showcase how you can move them from having a problem into having the problem solved.

Show your clients or customers how their life can improve with you in it.

The post Show your customers how their life can improve with you in it appeared first on Hannah Wiginton.

The article was 45 SEO Experts Share Their Most Effective Content Optimization Strategy by Vincent D’Eletto of WordAgents.

D’Eletto reached out to each expert asking them for their most effective content strategy to boost rankings.

He asked advice from individuals who spend their days learning, creating, and implementing SEO strategies for their clients and themselves (including Brendan.)

As I read through the article, I found a treasure trove of actionable and practical advice to create better, in-depth content for businesses in order to drive sales. I decided I better take notes!

First, what is SEO?

According to Moz, SEO is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results. (organic = not paid ads)

Why is this important?

With well-implemented SEO strategies, you can achieve organic success by writing helpful content. You’re guiding others to learn about your niche, topic, or your product where they then take action, such as purchasing your product or services.

Alright, let’s get to the good stuff.

The Strategies from the Experts

1. Answer actual questions

2. Use internal links throughout all your content

3. Look at actual search results for what you want to rank    

4. Focus on true psychological intent behind the search. @brendan 

5. Remove thin or irrelevant content

6. Use high-quality images with relevant alt keywords

7. Review content regularly and perform content updates and upgrades

8. Spend time and energy on the title. Research your keywords and make your article better than others.

9. Have an end goal of creating true value with each piece of content. Ask yourself, How can this content drive actual conversions?

10. Create user-focused content

11. Add nicely-designed media – graphics, videos, statistics, quotes, etc.

12. Make it scannable and easy to consume. Use headers, lists, and bullet points throughout.

13. Test, test, test. If after 60 days, it’s not ranking where you want, rework it.

14. Build topic clusters

15. Find out what Google already likes for a query (top 10), then do better

16. Use topics and phrases with little competition but ones that are still searched. Especially useful for niche sites and blogs.

17. Review search queries on your current content in Google Search Console. Bridge the gap if any keywords you want to rank with don’t appear in the queries.

18. Create Power Pages. These are pieces of content to rank for one grouping or topic of keywords. Meant to be the most informative piece of content on the subject matter.

19. Map your user’s journey before starting to write. Match your content to their search needs.

20. Address, in-depth, the primary and sub-topics you’re trying to own

21. Add entities – people, places, things, events – that Google expects to see for a keyword

22. Choose the right competitors. Find those that are ranking high with optimized content. Add common words and phrases.

23. Lean on psychology and motivations instead of just keywords and volumes. 

24. When a reader is on your site, optimize to answer their next question. Guide them to their next best course of action.

25. Write supporting content. Drill down into sub-topics and link to your main content.

26. Match the type of content with the right format. Review the top URLs in the search. What type of content ranks? 

27. Analyze the top URLs and determine what they cover better than you and what are they missing. Then, improve.

28. Repurpose your content. Update your content. Review pages that used to rank but aren’t as much anymore.

29. Content depth. Cover all around a topic.

30. More content doesn’t mean better. Prune the unnecessary then develop a content plan with a solid foundation.

31. Search “What is + topic?” Reduces bounce rate because you know what the searcher is looking for.

32. Give direct answers. Add supporting facts to your answers. Show related sub-questions.

Learn something new?! I hope so!

It’s a lot of information, I know! Save this and reference it often.

Be sure to read the article, 45 SEO Experts Share Their Most Effective Content Optimization Strategy, to gather more insight and see the entire strategy for creating better content. 

The post 32 Practical SEO Tips for Better Content Rankings appeared first on Hannah Wiginton.

From design to posting on social media to organizing everything, these tools will help you stay organized, look professional, and will propel your business forward.

In this article:

Get Started with Marketing
– Design Marketing
– Social Media Marketing
– Email Marketing

Get Started with Marketing

If you haven’t already, create a company page on at least 1 of the 3 major social platforms – Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. The right one really depends on where your target customer spends their time. However, I’ve seen more success for small businesses on Facebook or Instagram.

Once you’ve set up your platform, make a commitment to post consistently. This can be 2 times a week, every day, or 1 time a week.

I recommend you post no less than 1 time each week. If you don’t, you risk not being seen in news feeds. When you are posting consistently, people know you are engaged and available for business.

Design Marketing

Creating designs for your social accounts or for your business doesn’t have to be a struggle. Use pre-made templates and you have accomplished 75% of the job. While these don’t replace a custom design by an established designer, you can make almost anything to help market your services and products with this tool.

Canva

Canva is one of the easiest design tools to use. They have a variety of ready-made posts. You search for template size, add your text, and change a couple of colors.

The example above shows an Instagram template. It’s sized to correct Instagram dimensions and displays several pre-made designs on the side.

Social Media Marketing

Now that you have a way to create your posts, you want to post them when your customers are using Facebook or Instagram or Twitter. (You probably don’t want to post at 12 AM when they are most likely asleep!)

Instead, schedule your posts for when your followers will most likely be active and engage with your post!

A scheduling tool provides an easy way for you to create a calendar of posts to automatically send on a schedule. One of the easiest tools I use is HootSuite.

HootSuite

With HootSuite, you can create several posts at once and schedule them on different days.

Maybe your business is selling insurance. You can create 5 different posts about each type of insurance you sell. Monday’s post is about home insurance, Tuesday’s post is about life insurance, Wednesday’s post is about car insurance, and so on.

HootSuite gives you the option to schedule each of the posts on different days at whatever time you would like. You don’t even have to think about it!

Email Marketing

Next is engaging with your customers where you KNOW they are paying the most attention – their EMAIL INBOX!

Email is still one of the most connected digital mediums available. It also has the best Return-on-Investment (ROI). This is a great avenue to focus on to engage your customers or potential customers in a personal way.

(Image from Emma email marketing)

With all these emails you’ll be sending, you want to send them using a proven and reliable email service.

>> Don’t send an email to hundreds of customers with your basic Gmail or Yahoo email account! Your account will be marked as Spam by many other email providers and your customers won’t receive your emails.

Promise me you won’t do that, okay?

Use a trustworthy email service like MailChimp.

MailChimp

The simplest free solution to use when you are just starting to collect emails is MailChimp. Silly name but intuitive email service.

MailChimp has several template layouts. The service guides you through each step of creating the email from writing the subject line, organizing your email, and choosing the right people to receive your email.

For existing customers, always ask for an email! They have used your services and have an immediate connection with your business.

Once you have a customer’s email, you can send occasional updates, sales, discounts, or just get some feedback.

What’s amazing about email is you can send it and they can read it when they have a moment to spare. You know it will land directly in their inbox as opposed to hoping they see it on a social media news feed.

While I still think phone calls are one of the best ways to stay in touch with your customer, you can use email as a way to communicate in between those phone calls.

If you need ideas for more in-depth email designs, go check out Really Good Emails. They have a variety of categories to see what others have done.

Organization

You have all these great ideas for posts and emails, now you need one central location to keep everything organized.

Notion

Notion is your all-in-one organizing tool! You can save notes, images, and more.

This handy app available in your browser or on iPhone or Android will help you keep track of your social media posts and marketing ideas.

(Notion can do SO much for your business. We’ll get to that in another post soon!)

Here’s what my Notion blog post organizer looks like. This can be used to keep track of what you posted on social media.

I even made you a template to get started!

All you need to do is create a Notion account. Once your account is created, click on my Social Media Post Calendar and click Duplicate at the top to add it to your dashboard.

Related: How to Add a Quick Note to Notion on iPhone

Don’t be stuck wondering when you posted or forgetting that stellar idea you had about an email to send. Stay organized with this tool.

Now you’ve got the tools to start connecting with your customers and potential customers online. Create a post, schedule it, send an email, and keep it all organized. Start marketing and create a space for your business in the digital world.

The post Marketing Tools for Your Small Business appeared first on Hannah Wiginton.