MackCollier.com

by

Podcasting for Business: How to Start a Podcast (and Keep it Going)

More people are listening to podcasts than ever: 40% of Americans have listened to a podcast—that’s more than 128 million people! Now that car audio systems can play podcasts and every iPhone comes with a “Podcasts” app already installed, consuming podcast content is easier than ever, and podcast listeners are a valuable audience. According to Edison Research, podcast listeners earn more money, are more educated, and are significantly more likely to engage with brands online than the average consumer. 48% of monthly podcast consumers follow brands on social media, as compared to just 31% of the general U.S. population.

So if you haven’t started a podcast as part of your marketing mix, what’s stopping you?

I’m about to tell you everything you need to start a podcast.

The right topic

At first blush, choosing a topic might seem easy, but it’s actually deceivingly simple. I recently covered choosing a topic in some detail on Mark Schaefer’s blog, but here’s the approach in a nutshell: choose a topic that’s both relevant to your audience and genuinely interesting to you. Your podcast topic also needs to align with your business goals, just like any other piece of content you produce. So don’t make it overly salesy by covering your products or services, but do choose something that relates to what you sell.

For example, if you sell outdoor gear, you might podcast about camping (how to camp safely in winter, camping for beginners, exotic locations that allow camping, etc.). People who go camping would potentially be interested in your outdoor gear, so this topic is well-aligned with your business.

The right format

There are all kinds of different podcast formats. You’ve likely listened to podcasts with different formats yourself. There are some podcasts that feature a single host discussing a topic (or several topics). Others feature two co-hosts. Many use an interview format (I use it for Marketing Smarts), in which one or more hosts interviews one or more guests. Some podcasts effectively feature a panel of guests and multiple hosts, but those can get unwieldy fast in terms of scheduling and editing.

When you’re just starting out with podcasting, be realistic about what you can handle. If you don’t want to host all alone, consider an interview format or find a reliable co-host who’s good on the air. Mack Collier’s been gracious enough to co-host several special holiday episodes of the MarketingProfs podcast with me, and he’s always a big hit!

You should also choose a consistent publishing schedule and stick to it. Knowing when to expect a new episode will make it easier for your audience to stay loyal.

How long each podcast is depends on how much time you have to devote to podcasting. If you’re strapped for time, consider a shorter podcast, say 10 or 15 minutes. If you want each show to fit within the average person’s commute, consider producing a show that lasts around 20 to 25 minutes. You could go longer, of course, since people can stop and start listening whenever they want, but I prefer to keep episodes to 30 minutes or less when possible.

Also decide whether you will edit the show or air the raw recording (with bumpers at the beginning and end, at least). Podcasts can be polished works of art or they can simply be you as the host discussing a topic for ten minutes. If you stumble over words now and then, it’s unlikely to greatly impact the experience for listeners, but if you strive for perfection, it’s (almost) attainable. Just make sure you include a budget and some time to outsource audio editing or else learn how to edit audio using whatever software you prefer (more on that in a second). I edit my own podcast episodes. Depending on how high your standards are, it can take a few minutes or several hours.

The most important thing is to be consistent, so if you experiment the first few episodes to find the right format, that’s okay, but make sure you tell the audience what to expect once you’ve hammered out your plan. One-man show or interview series, two co-hosts or a panel—anything can work, but your audience needs to know what to expect each time you hit publish.

The right plan

Podcasting is easier than most people think, but it goes much more smoothly if you do some advance planning. Chances are your business has an editorial calendar. If that’s the case, look at the calendar and try to choose topics for each podcast episode that fit within the broader content plan. To keep track of your podcast planning, you can use spreadsheets or experiment with tools like Trello for project management, ScheduleOnce for booking guests, and Google Drive for sharing your list of upcoming guests or show topics. If your company uses a more robust content management system that includes a content calendar, make sure to use it so that your colleagues can see what’s coming up.

The right equipment 

Many people think podcasting is difficult or complicated, or that it requires a lot of expensive equipment. None of that’s true! Nowadays, you can create and publish a podcast with just a smartphone or tablet. There are apps that can help you to turn your phone into a recording studio: Check out bossjock studio for iOS or Spreaker Studio for iOS or Android devices.

If you want a higher-end sound, you could use your computer, a microphone, and some noise-cancelling headphones.

The right software

Once you know what equipment you’ll use, it’s time to install some software so you can edit audio (if you want to). Free solutions like Audacity or Garageband (for Mac users) can be a good option if you’re not sure podcasting will work out for you. Once you know you’ll continue podcasting, you might buy a program like Camtasia for editing, or set up a plan to record using Zoom or Ringr if you’ll be recording interviews with off-site guests. You can also use Skype to conduct remote interviews, but make sure your recording software is set up to capture “system audio,” or you’ll hear just you talking with long pauses in between.

I use a Rode Podcaster microphone ($229), but I’ve also recorded excellent quality audio using a Samson Meteor mic, which costs around $70. Add some Sony PRO headphones and choose a quiet location and you could easily create studio-quality audio at your home or office.

The right hosting service

For podcasts, you’ll typically create an .mp3 file or an .mp4 if you’re doing a video podcast. You’ll need to host your .mp3 or .mp4 file on a podcast hosting service like Libsyn, blubrry, Spreaker, or PodBean. You’ll upload the file, then copy the link you’ll use to share your podcast on iTunes, in Stitcher, or on your website’s RSS feed.

The right promotional plan

No one will listen to your podcast if they don’t know about it. Work to drive awareness of your podcast, just as you’d work to promote an ebook, whitepaper, or webinar. Optimize your podcast’s landing page for search. You could also get podcasts transcribed, which is good for both SEO and accessibility. Many podcasters use a transcription service called Speechpad for this.

Remember to make your posts about the podcast visually appealing. Even if your podcast is audio only, you need an image to accompany the podcast post. You should have a logo for your podcast, as well as custom images for each episode (ideally) that include the URL. It’s easy to create images promoting specific podcast episodes using sites like Canva or PicMonkey, or even mobile apps like Over. Share these images on social media along with a trackable link to the podcast episode so you can see how much traffic each social network drives.

And remember to use your email list. Podcasts are helpful, valuable content! Be sure to share a link to the podcast in your email newsletter.

In no time at all, you’ll have your podcast up and running. If you’ve chosen the right topic and format, keeping up with it should be manageable—even enjoyable—for you. Podcasting about a topic you don’t care about is work and you’ll quickly burn out. Podcasting about a topic you’re interested in is fun, and you’ll find it much easier to hold to your production schedule.

Happy podcasting!

Kerry O’Shea Gorgone hosts the weekly Marketing Smarts podcast for MarketingProfs, named one of the top business podcasts on the internet by FastCompany. The show features 30-minute in-depth interviews with smart marketers from all walks of life. Geoffrey James, a contributing editor for Inc., listed Kerry as one of 8 Great Role Models for Wowing a Crowd (along with Steve Jobs, Tony Robbins, and Marsha Collier).

by

You-Us-Me; The Only Formula You Need For Creating Content That Drives Sales

How to create content that drives sales

How do you create content that drives sales? It’s an often elusive goal for many businesses. Yet one of the incorrect assumptions that many blogging companies make is that their content isn’t ‘good enough’ to drive sales.  Often, the content is fine, it’s just aimed at an audience that either isn’t ready for it.

We see this with many companies that are creating content as a way to ‘build awareness’. Yet the content that they are creating is completely promotional in nature. A complete disconnect, based on their audience and goals.

So what type of content is right for your audience? It turns out that there’s a very simple process to follow in order to figure out what type of content is right for your audience.

You – Us – Me. It turns out, there’s only three types of content you need to focus on: You (Content written completely from the customer’s POV), Us (Content that focuses on a link between the customer and your brand), and Me (Content written that’s completely promotional in nature).

Let’s Talk About You 

This content is written completely from the customer’s POV. You focus your content on select areas that relate to your products, but that aren’t about your products. The idea is to focus on areas that are important to your audience, but from the audience’s point of view.

For example, let’s say your company sells cyber-security software. At this stage, your content would focus completely on helping your customer understand how to be more secure online. You don’t talk about how your software can help with this….YET.  At this stage you are only giving the customer content that helps them become more secure online.  This content helps build awareness, because it is completely focused on the needs of the customer.

Let’s Talk About Us

Here, you create content that focuses on a link between the customer and your software. You are still focusing on cyber-security, but here you will focus on specific areas of cyber-security that your product addresses. This helps the customer become more secure online, but it also helps them understand how your software will benefit them as well. At this stage the customer is beginning to understand how your software could benefit them.

Let’s Talk About Me

Now, the behavior of your customer has shifted again, so you also shift the focus of your content. By this stage, the customer is interested in purchasing cyber-security software. So you shift your content to focus exclusively on the benefits of owning your cyber-security software. You talk about the benefits of owning your software, and also give some insights into how the software works and what problems it solves. THIS is where you sell.  You sell here because the customer is finally READY TO BUY.  The customer is doing research so at this point they WANT content that’s focused on your software because they are considering a purchase.

 

You can use the You – Us – Me process to easily determine what type of content is best to create.

If you want to build awareness, then you always create content focused completely on your audience. The reason why is because the audience has no idea who you are (which is why you are trying to build awareness with them) so you focus completely on them, in order to win their attention.

If you want to create content that sells, then you need to understand if your audience is ready to be sold to.  If they aren’t aware of who you are, then you don’t sell to them.  If they are slightly aware of who you are, then you create content that helps them understand the connection between what’s important to them, and how your products/services relate (Let’s Talk About Us).  If your audience is researching a purchase, then you talk about yourself.  You give the audience more promotional and product/service-specific content, because that’s the information they are looking for.

Think about who you are trying to connect with, and where they are in their buyer’s journey.  That will determine if your content should be focused on You, Us or Me. Once you know where the customer is, then you can create the content they need currently, and give them Calls to Action that move them to the next level. Simply giving consideration to what content the customer currently needs will greatly increase the effectiveness of your content strategy.

by

Social Media Isn’t Hard, Your Company Makes it Hard

I spend very little time here breaking down how to use social media tools.  I don’t do the deep dives that some other sites engage in where they show you all the advanced tips on how to get the most bang out of Facebook or Instagram or Snapchat.

Here’s the reason why: It’s not about understanding the tools, it’s about understanding the people that are using the tools. Becoming a Facebook ninja isn’t going to help your business a damn bit if you don’t understand why your customers are on Facebook and what activities they are engaging in.  Understand your customers first, then you can focus on understanding the tools.

Here’s an example: I constantly teach clients how they can better leverage social media to connect directly with their customers and improve engagement.  A dead simple way to do this is to follow this process: Respond to every customer mention of a specific interaction with your company.  If the mention is positive, thank them.  If the mention is negative, followup with them to get more information and figure out how you can best resolve the interaction to the satisfaction of the customer.  Of course there are other ways to respond and engage with customers, but companies love and even need processes, and this is a great starting point.

In short, if a customer mentions doing business with your company, you respond. For those of us reading this that sit on the customer side of the fence, this makes complete sense. Yet for many companies, its waters they are hesitant to wade into for fear of the unknown.

But it really is low-hanging fruit that companies can easily grasp to improve their digital efforts to engage with customers and increase customer loyalty. Case in point, yesterday during #AdobeChat, we were discussing how businesses in the tourism and hospitality industries should engage with tourists or customers that are creating UGC. At one point I left this tweet:

Then later, Enterprise finds that tweet and replies with…

And then I reply with…

It truly is this easy. I mentioned Enterprise (notice I didn’t even mark the mention as a reply, which proves they were purposely monitoring brand mentions), they responded and thanked me, then I pointed out their good behavior to everyone in #AdobeChat. BTW, there were dozens if not hundreds of business travelers in this particular chat, so that type of positive promotion is golden.

And it all started with Enterprise being smart enough to engage. Why isn’t your company doing the same?

by

Want to Be a Content Marketing Rock Star? Focus on Your ‘Greatest Hits’

Let’s say you write two blog posts.  The first one gets 100 social shares, and you get quite a few comments from readers saying they enjoyed the post.  The second one gets 10 social shares, and no comments.

There’s two schools of thought on how to handle promoting these two posts moving forward:

1 – Spend more time promoting the first post, because that’s the one people are reacting to.

2 – Spend more time promoting the second post, because you need to get more people seeing it so it will be shared more.

 

My strategic focus is to invest more time promoting the posts that are being well-received, and less time promoting those that are not. I confine most of the promotion of my posts to Twitter, since the ‘shelf-life’ of tweets is so short.  So it makes sense to promote the same post multiple times, since most of my followers won’t see each individual tweet.

Over time, I’ve developed a core list of 10-20 posts that I consistently promote.  In rock star terms, these are my Greatest Hits.  These are the posts that always spark shares, engagement and discussion.

An added benefit from sharing these posts consistently is that I become ‘known’ or associated with the topics of the posts. Just as rock stars become known for singing their Greatest Hits, you become known for the content you create, and the content you share. But again, you have to be strategic about it. Just because a post is popular, doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily want to share and promote it.

For example, two of the most popular posts I have ever written here are ones I almost never promote or share. Why? Because the posts are related to writing and publishing a book. I wrote these posts while I was working on writing Think Like a Rock Star because I wanted to share useful content that would help others.  The problem is, this content isn’t really helpful to companies who need help with their content strategies (my potential clients). So I don’t promote these posts because they aren’t useful to potential clients, and it was also a lesson to me on not creating content that wasn’t interesting to the my desired audience.

So if you want to cultivate and curate your best content, here’s what you should do:

1 – Identify your Greatest Hits. The handful of posts that are relevant and valuable to the core audience you want to attract.  Additionally, these posts should be focused on the core topics that you want to be known for. I would suggest picking no more than 10-20 posts.  It would be better to pick 5 amazing posts than 10 ok posts. Don’t worry if you only have a few amazing posts, over time, you’ll write more amazing posts and your list of Greatest Hits will grow organically.

2 – Analyze your Greatest Hits and try to determine why they were more popular than your other posts. What topics did you cover, were the posts long or short? Did you cover breaking industry news, or were the posts all rants?  If you closely examine these posts you can probably find a few common traits that you can utilize in creating future posts.

3 – Experiment with how you promote your posts. Let’s say you’ve written a comprehensive post on the field service industry titled “Five Ways Augmented Reality Will Revolutionize Field Service”. You were convinced that this post would be a big hit with your audience, but when you share it on Twitter, you almost never get any clicks. It might be that promoting the post in a new way would make it more interesting.  For example, there might be a key research point in the post that you should promote.  If you tweet “Companies that utilize augmented reality in field service see First-Time Resolutions increase by 32%”, you may very well see more clicks vs just promoting the title of the post.  People love research, facts and numbers. These can especially be useful to your audience, especially if you are trying to connect with businesspeople. See if there are any research findings or facts that you could use to promote your posts instead.

BONUS: If you are determined to promote just the title of the post in your tweet, you could add an image to the tweet that contains the relevant facts or numbers on it.  Best of both worlds!

 

And if you need more help on how to create and promote your content like a rock star, check out this infographic:

How to create and promote content like a rock star

 

by

Want More Customers? Here’s the Two Keys to Improving Your Company’s New Customer Acquisition Rate

How your company can acquire new customersNew Customer Acquisition is often the top marketing priority for the average company. And the marketing costs associated with reaching that goal are often among the largest marketing expenses that company will face. Today I want to talk about two things you can do to improve your company’s new customer acquisition rate, and greatly decrease the associated costs.

Sell the Benefits, Not the Product

You can’t sell a product unless the customer is ready to buy it. One of the biggest marketing mistakes most companies make is they try to sell their product to the customer before they are ready to buy it. When trying to acquire new customers, most companies make the mistake of making the first marketing communications they deliver be product-focused. On the surface, this makes complete sense, you can’t sell the product unless you market it, right?

The problem is, a new customer by definition is a customer that hasn’t bought from you before. Which means at minimum they aren’t familiar with your company, but often they also aren’t familiar with the product you are selling. So if you try to sell new customers on a product that they don’t understand or know why they would want, that marketing message is going to be completely ignored. You are literally trying to sell a product to new customers that they aren’t ready to buy.

So if they aren’t ready to buy your product, what do you sell them?

You sell them the benefits associated with owning your product. New customers won’t know they need or want your product, but they will be interested in the benefits that your product provides.

If you think about it, this makes perfect sense. You don’t sell the product, you sell the benefits the owner gets from the product. And many of the most successful brands in the world have been adopting this approach for years:

Red Bull doesn’t sell an energy drink, it sells what happens after you drink it.

Nike doesn’t sell shoes, it sells the activities you’ll be engaged in while wearing its shoes.

Pedigree doesn’t sell dog food, it sells happy and healthy dogs.

 

New customers often won’t know they need your product, but they will know they need the benefits associated with owning it.  So that’s what you sell them. 

Consider this example: Let’s say your company sells spark plugs. If you want to acquire new customers that don’t know why they should buy your spark plugs (or even what a spark plug is), then how do you speak to them?

One option is to create product-focused marketing. You talk to new customers about what your spark plugs do. You talk about how your spark plugs create a hotter spark that leads to less carbon build-up. You talk about how your spark plugs are tipped with platinum instead of copper. You tell the new customer that you are trying to acquire how your spark plug is made from the best materials.

And the reality is, you might as well be throwing your money away. Because the new customer has no idea why less carbon build-up is important, or why a hotter spark is important. So your marketing message is completely irrelevant to them.

The way to win the new customer’s business is to instead sell them on the benefits of owning your spark plugs. You tell them that buying your spark plugs will make their car more reliable. You tell them how it will increase gas mileage by creating a more efficient burn of the fuel. You tell them how it will result in the car running smoother and with more power.

Those are the benefits that new customers are ready to buy. So you sell them what they are ready to buy. Then, after you’ve gotten their attention by communicating the benefits to them, at that point you can talk to them about the product features because at that point, they will be interested in learning more about the product itself.

Remember:

1 – Sell the BENEFITS of the product first to New Customers. That gets their attention and makes them interested in learning more.

2 – When they are ready to learn more, THEN you sell them on the product itself.

Still not getting it? Check out this post.

 

Excited? You should be, but hold on, there’s an even better way to improve the rate at which you acquire new customers…

 

Your Best Customers Are Your Best Marketing

The best salespeople for your company are your current, happy customers. Period. There’s four reasons why:

1 – Your current customers understand new customers better than you do. While you may not have an existing relationship with new customers, your current customers do. Because those new customers are often their friends and family. As such, your current customers can promote your products in a way that is relevant to their friends and family. They understand what’s important to their friends and family, and that’s why when they promote your products, they speak in terms of the benefits associated with owning the products. They use their understanding of what’s important to their friends and family and customize their promotion based on what their friends and family are looking for. And that makes their promotional efforts more effective than yours.

2 – Your current customers are passionate about your company and its products. By human nature, we want to share the things that help us and make us happy. This is especially true when we find a product we love, that makes our lives better. We want to tell others about that product because we want to see others have the same enjoyment from owning the product that we do. When you are in a store considering buying a product and a stranger comes up to you, unprompted, and says “I have that, and I love it!”, it makes an impression on you. Because you realize that they didn’t have to say anything, and did so because they truly do love the product. You’ll likely ask their opinion, which the stranger will happily provide. If you were even slightly considering purchasing the product beforehand, a ringing endorsement from a stranger would probably be enough to convince you to buy it.

3 – Your current customers lower your customer-service costs. As current customers interact with new customers, they are able to answer questions and address complaints head on. They can also speak from the perspective of an owner, and speak to their experiences associated with owning the product being discussed. This can help overcome questions and worries the new customer may have, and can improve the chances that the new customer will become a current one. And this is an obvious cost-savings to your company, as every question that your current customers answer for you, that potentially eliminates an email sent or phone call made to your customer service department.

4 – New customers trust their friends and family more than they do your company. While your current customers know and understand the new customers you want to reach, those new customers also know and trust your current customers. So when a current customer recommends your product to their friends and family, or even to strangers, it carries a lot of weight. Perhaps more importantly, if a new customer is considering your product and a friend tells them NOT to buy it and instead buy a competitor’s product, that new customer will probably listen to their friend.

 

Here’s How You Get More Customers:

1 – When targeting new customers that have no attachment to your brand or knowledge of your products, you sell the benefits associated with the product. These customers aren’t in the market for your product because they aren’t familiar with it. So you sell them on what they gain by owning it. They will understand the benefits and how they are important.

2 – Let your current customers market for you. Your current customers are more trusted by their friends and family. Additionally, your current customers have a better understanding of how to connect with their friends and family than your company does. You should work with your existing customers to give them the tools they need to tell others about your company and its products. Research has found that customers that purchased 5 times from your company also referred 5 new customers, and current customers that had purchased 10 times from your company had referred 7 new customers. Your current customers are literally bringing you new customer at almost no cost to you. This is the type of behavior that you want to encourage.

by

Wendy’s Social Media Manager is Having Entirely Too Much Fun on Twitter

And I think it’s awesome.

Some people like Jay Baer, think Wendy’s is crossing the line and we shouldn’t be celebrating any brand’s ‘snaps’ game even if they are hilariously putting trolls in their place.  In short, Jay is saying that playing it safe is smarter than being ‘edgy’.

And he might very well be right. But I don’t think whether or not Wendy’s should play it safe is the key issue here.

I think the key issue is, how easily brands can be confused about how to use social media by listening to ‘thought leaders’.

We tell them that ‘safe is risky’, then when one of them tries something risky like this, we tell them that they should play it safe.

We tell brands that they should ‘be more human’.  The above tweet from Wendy’s is as ‘human’ as it gets.  But when Wendy’s acts like a human, we tell them to stop.

We tell brands to stop creating boring content and to create something that stands out. Then when a brand like Wendy’s creates content that suddenly gets everyone talking, we tell them to stop.

Which is it?

Personally, I don’t have a problem with a brand putting a troll in its place with social media. It can easily be a slippery slope and a short ride from putting a troll in its place to slamming a customer with a legit complaint, and the PR backlash that entails.  That’s a risk you take when heading down the path Wendy’s has started down.

What I do have a problem with is a brand that never experiments. Playing it ‘safe’ can be very risky. Jay makes the point that using social media to put customers in their places is a losing strategy for a brand.  I agree completely. But if someone is mocking and insulting a brand unprovoked on Twitter, and it’s not based on a specific interaction, then I think it’s safe to assume that the brand isn’t dealing with a customer, they are dealing with a troll.

I don’t believe we should hold brands to the same standards when dealing with trolls versus dealing with a disgruntled customer. And it can be tough for brands to sometimes understand the difference. I cover how to deal with trolls vs angry customers in Think Like a Rock Star: How to Create Social Media Marketing Strategies That Turn Customers Into Fans.

Here’s a quick and dirty way to tell the difference: A troll’s attacks will be vague and typically about the brand itself.  An angry’s customers attacks will be specific and often focus on a single instance or interaction with your brand.

For example:

“I heard you support the President, you suck!” – Troll

“I eat at your restaurant every week but today the food and service was horrible! You suck!” – Angry customer.

 

The bottom line is this, brands need to be braver when it comes to using social media. And more importantly, they need to listen to their own experience and intuition moreso than blindly listening to the ‘experts’.

by

It’s Time to Get Serious About Understanding Social Media and Content Engagement

driving engagement with social media contentA report released last September found that 5% of brand-created content accounted for 90% of all engagement.

Is that significant?  To hear that 5% of all content accounts for 90% of all engagement, well…it sounds significant, right?  If you could see that 5% of the content your brand created drove 90% of all the social media engagement, would you find that to be significant?

Maybe, but that’s not the whole story. The importance that social media engagement has as it relates to your brand’s content greatly depends on if your content and social media strategies are built to encourage and capitalize on that engagement. If you are creating content with engagement as a goal, and you are leveraging that engagement to drive a more significant business outcome, then engagement can be a very good thing.

The trap that too many companies fall into with their content strategies is that they place too much importance on gaining social shares. Smart companies don’t optimize their content for social shares, they optimize it for their customers.

 

Private Engagement Trumps Social Media Engagement

Too often when it comes to social media and content marketing management, what can easily be measured, is what gets managed. Content is often judged harshly on the number of social shares (engagement) it drives because that can easily be measured. The problem has become that social shares are no longer meaningful as a measurement of content being read. In fact, research has shown that the vast majority of social shares drive little or no actual engagement with the content being shared.

Then what does matter? Whether I’m working with a client or executing my own content creation and strategy efforts, the metrics I value aren’t found in social shares and comments, but rather in Google Analytics. I look for private engagement versus public engagement.

What’s the difference? I call things like social shares (Likes on Facebook, RTs on Twitter) and comments as being public engagement.  You can easily see this type of engagement.  You can look at this blog post and at the top see how many times it’s been shared on Facebook or LinkedIn.  Those are public engagement numbers.

The private engagement numbers are ones that only I have access to. Like number of search visitors that a post sends to my blog, or the number of emails that a post generates. Or the number of newsletter signups that a post drives, or the number of trial product signups.

Keep in mind that these are all forms of engagement. We’ve become almost trained to think of engagement around our content being either comments or social shares. If I read your post and as a result sign up for your newsletter, that’s engagement. In fact, that’s probably a more meaningful form of engagement for you than a RT or Like.

 

So I Engaged With Your Content, Now What?  

There’s definitely value in social media engagement. But what’s your plan for dealing with that social media engagement around your content? If someone shares your content, do you thank them?  If someone takes the time to write a 3 paragraph comment on your post, do you take the time to write a meaningful response, or do you just peck out a quick “Great thoughts, thanks for sharing!” response? If you’re going down the road that social media engagement has value for your content strategy, then you also need to have a plan for how to address engagement when it happens. You reward the behavior you want to encourage, and one of the best ways to reward people that engage with your content is to respond to them. That communicates to them that you appreciate their taking the time to respond to your content or to share your content. It also encourages them to move from being a first-time commenter, to being a regular reader and consumer of your content. My point is that if you are going to place a value on getting social media engagement around your content, then you need to work with your digital team to have a plan in place for how they will react and respond to that engagement.

 

Your Content Strategy Should Be Built to Drive Specific Types of Engagement

Every time someone interacts with your content, you should be trying to convince that person to engage in a certain action. Maybe you want them to comment, maybe you want them to share the content.  Or maybe you want them to sign up for your newsletter or email you.  The point is that you have to decide which forms of engagement are the most valuable to you, and create a content strategy that is built toward those forms of engagement.  I have worked with many companies that never got a comment or share on their content and could care less, they were more concerned with the long-tail keywords that their articles were helping them rank for in Google.

by

How to Sell With Social Media

Perhaps the reason companies cite the most for wanting to use social media is to ‘Build Awareness’. They want to get the word out via social media about who they are, and what they do. The thinking is that if people know who we are, they can and will buy from us.

There’s a fundamental flaw with this line of thinking: You are selling to a group of people who don’t know who you are, so by extension, they don’t know why they should buy from you. Yet companies do this every single day, and are confounded by the fact that their social media strategy isn’t driving sales.

So if you want to create a social media and content strategy that drives sales, when you create content you have to consider whether or not the customer is ready to buy. And if they aren’t, you need to understand what type of content creates the most value for them, and at the same time puts them in a position where they ARE ready to buy from you.

The concept of understanding the Buyer’s Journey has become a hot topic in regards to digital marketing in recent years. The idea is that most customers take a specific path before actually purchasing a product. What you want to do is create a content strategy that allows you create the appropriate type of content for your customers at each step of this journey.

For simplification purposes we are going to look at four stages of the buying process, and then discuss creating content for each stage:

Buyer's Journey, Creating Better Content

1 – Unaware, AKA Who the hell are you?. The buyer has no idea who you are, or why they should want to listen to you, much less buy anything from you. When companies talk about using social media to ‘Build Awareness’, this is the group they are targeting.

2 – Slightly aware and slightly interested. This group has begun to understand who you are, and can start to see how your products and services can fit into their lives.

3 – Interested and considering buying. This group knows who you are, knows what you sell, and knows how those products and services fit into their lives. Now they are trying to decide who to buy from, you or a competitor.

4 – Ready to buy. Take my money!

 

Now the problem is that most companies create a social media strategy that’s based on ‘Build Awareness’, and then create content that’s aimed at customers that are at Stage 4 (Take my money!) when the reality is since they have an awareness problem, the company’s customers are going to be at Stage 1 (Who the hell are you?). So this strategy is doomed to failure from the start.

So let’s look at each stage and the appropriate content you should create to not only give the customer the content they need, but the content that will move them to the next stage in the buying process.

Stage 1 – Unaware, AKA Who the Hell Are You?

At this stage, the customer has no idea who you are, or why they should care. So any company or product-related content you create for this group is likely going to be completely ignored. What does that leave you? Obviously if you can’t create product-related content or company-related content, the only thing left is customer-centric content. You create content about the customer you want to connect with. More specifically, you create content that focuses on common Passion Points that connect the customer and your company.

Wait, what the hell is a Passion Point?

I’ve blogged about the power of Passion Points before. Basically, a Passion Point is an idea or theme or belief that relates to your company and products, that your customers feel passionately about. For example, dog owners are passionate about making sure that their dog is happy and healthy. So Pedigree focuses its marketing and content on these Passion Points, happy and healthy dogs. As a result, dog owners are drawn to Pedigree because the brand is focusing its marketing on ideas and beliefs that dog owners are passionate about.

Now if Pedigree was a new brand just entering the marketplace, how would it create content focused on the Passion Points of happy and healthy dogs? It could create blog posts focused these topics. Some examples of blog posts it could create are:

“Ten Games You Can Play With Your Dog Every Day to Ensure It Gets All the Exercise It Needs”
“Want a Happier Dog? Science Says You Should Do These Five Things”
“Healthier Dogs Have These Three Traits in Common”

 

Notice these topics are focused solely on the dog and the dog owner. Each post is also connected to either the ‘Happy Dogs’ or ‘Heathy Dogs’ Passion Point. By focusing strictly on the Passion Point that is important to the dog owner, Pedigree can create content that interests them. And that’s the starting point.

On the other hand, if Pedigree would have written a blog post that was nothing more than a digital coupon for 55 cents off a can of its dog food, that content would have been ignored because the dog owner already has a source of dog food. But by switching its focus to creating customer-centric content that’s married to Passion Points that are relevant to the dog owner, Pedigree has gotten their attention.

 

Stage 2 – Slightly aware and slightly interested. At this point, the content created in Stage 1 has resonated with the customer, and they are paying some attention. But you still aren’t at a point where you should create content that directly sells your product. You want to shift your focus slightly from Stage 1, where you focused solely on creating content that connected to a Passion Point that interested your customer. Now in Stage 2, you want to create content that connects those same Passion Points to your brand. In the first step you connected these Passion Points to the customer, now in Stage 2, you want to connect those same Passion Points to your brand and its products.

Let’s return to the Pedigree example.  In Stage 1, they created content that was focused on the ‘happy dogs’ and ‘healthy dogs’ Passion Points.  Now in Stage two, the content will shift to focus on how Pedigree and its dog food connects with these Passion Points.  Here’s an example of some of the blog posts Pedigree could write in Stage 2:

“Want a Healthier Dog? Science says these five vitamins will boost your dog’s immune system.”  And the post itself could explain the five vitamins, then show how Pedigree dog food includes all these vitamins.

“Support Pedigree’s Adopt-A-Dog Program and connect loving families with loving dogs.” This post explains how Pedigree supports dog adoption and shelter programs around the country.

“Wet or Dry: What type of food is the healthiest for your dog?”  This post gives dog owners vital information on how to set their dog’s diet, but also give Pedigree an opportunity to explain how its wet and dry dog food can help dogs have healthier diets.

 

Notice these blog posts are still connected to the happy and healthier dogs Passion Points, but this content also makes the connection between Pedigree and these Passion Points.  It’s also helping readers to understand what Pedigree and its products are doing to help improve both the health and happiness of dogs.

 

Stage 3 – Interested, and considering buying.  At this point, the customer has read your content, and has made the connection between the Passion Points they care about, and your brand.  They are interested in buying your products, and as a result, want more product-specific information for comparison purposes.

Going back to the Pedigree example, this could be a case where a potential customer is coming to your blog or website looking for the exact ingredients that your dog food contains.  Maybe they are looking for these vitamins or these minerals.  The point is that they want detailed, product-specific information because they are informed customers that are ready to buy.

In many cases, you can attach Calls to Action for Stage 3 content while publishing Stage 2 content.  For example, one of the blog posts Pedigree could write in Stage 2 was “Want a Healthier Dog? Science says these five vitamins will boost your dog’s immune system.”  This post could explain what these five vitamins are, detail how Pedigree dog food includes those five vitamins, then also include a link to a more specific product page that includes all the vitamins and minerals included in Pedigree dog food.  This could be for a customer that reads the blog post, and decides they are interesting in learning more about exactly what ingredients are included in the dog food (meaning they have moved to Stage 3, they are interested and considering buying.)

 

Stage 4 – Ready to buy, take my money! This is pretty self-explanatory, you want to give customers a clear Call to Action for how they can buy your product.  If you are selling your product on your blog or website, give them a link to where they can purchase directly.

For the Pedigree example, this could include a link on where they can buy dog food on the main Pedigree website, or a link to where they can find a local dealer or grocery that sells Pedigree products.

Note: If you want to use social media to sell your products, you have to actually give customers a way to BUY your products! I know this sounds simple, but think about it: If you were a customer and came to your company’s website, how would you buy a product or service?  How simple or difficult is the buying process?  Are you actually selling anything directly on your website?  This alone could explain why you are having difficulty selling with social media!

Want to know How to Sell With Social Media? Here’s all 4 steps!

sellingwithsocialmedia

by

“How Do I Get People to Read My Content?”

I hear this question constantly.  From current and potential clients, from peers, from other bloggers during #Blogchat.  It seems we are all chasing the same unicorn: How do we get more people to read our content?

The short answer is, you write about your audience.  You help your audience make the connection between your products and services, and their lives.  How is your service going to help their business be more successful in 2017?  How is your product going to help the average customer live a happier life?

Unfortunately, many bloggers feel the need to sell themselves, especially business bloggers.  They feel the need to sell their products and services, because how else would you know to buy their products and services if you don’t know about them?

While this can make sense to the business, the reality is that it is a complete disconnect to your desired audience.  You have to make the case for why your business creates a product or service that’s worthy of their attention.  And you do that by creating content that’s focused on the customer.  You do that by creating content that focuses on the connections between your products and services, and the lives of your customers. You help them understand how your products and services fit into their lives, and make their lives better.

Watch this video from Steve Jobs.  This is a very short talk that Steve gave his employees when he first returned to Apple in the late 1990s as CEO.  He talks about how Apple’s marketing and messaging had gotten off course, and the talks about how Apple could correct that problem so that it created marketing messages that made an impact with its customers.  At the end he plays the first commercial that is relaunching Apple’s brand effort, and notice that the entire point of the commercial isn’t to talk about Apple and Apple products.  The commercial talks about Apple’s customers.  It talks about the type of person that would buy an Apple product.  The underlying message is obvious “If you’re this type of person, then maybe Apple is the company for you.”

How will your customers know if you are the right company for them? Your content should speak to them and make the case for why and how your company’s products and services fit into their lives.

by

Your Complete Guide to Creating Better Content For Your Business in 2017

Create better business content in 20172017 will be the year that brands and companies begin to seriously invest in their content creation efforts. We are already seeing major brands such as Cisco investing heavily in the hiring of content specialists and this will continue over the coming years. So now is a good time to start focusing on your existing content strategy and how to improve it moving forward.

A great way to get started is to audit your current content strategy. A content strategy audit is different from a simple content audit. A content audit typically focuses on engagement parameters only, whereas a content strategy audit analyzes your current strategy and measures actual results from your content strategy versus desired business outcomes.

Think of it this way: Your content is the stuff you create, your content strategy is what you hope will happen as a result of the stuff you create. For example, if you write 1 post a week for your blog, you can audit the engagement metrics associated with those blog posts, such as numbers of visitors, time spent on each post, social shares, etc. But if you audit that content in the context of a content strategy audit, you would analyze how that content led to other actions, such as number of white paper downloads, or times a lead-gen form was accessed, or number of email newsletter subscribers converted from that post.

For example, let’s look at the last post I wrote on this blog. If you just examine engagement around the post, you can see it did pretty well. It got over 200 social shares, and that’s not including shares on Twitter, which were probably another 200-300. So about 500 or so shares on social sites.

If my goal for this post was to simply generate engagement, then this post was a winner. It generated a lot of shares, a lot of chatter online, and gave my blog a 10-15% bump in traffic for a few days.

But if I want to look at this post from the context of how it impacts my overall content strategy, I have to dig a bit deeper. The end goal for my content isn’t simply to create engagement, I want to ultimately get business from the content I create. So engagement isn’t the end point, it’s closer to the beginning.

Think of how you would approach this if you owned a retail store in the mall. You send out a circular that announces the sales you’ll be running this weekend. That’s your ‘content’. You hope that ‘content’ will drive ‘engagement’, or in this case, people to your store. But the end goal isn’t simply to get people in the store, you want to sell them something.

So there’s a process that needs to happen:

1 – The circular or ‘content’ needs to drive people to the store
2 – Once inside the store, you need to convert them into customers

So if you approach your content in the same way, you need to first create content that drives engagement, but then that engagement needs to convert into a desired action.

Let’s go back to the last post I wrote here. We’ve already established that the post drove engagement, but we’ve also established that driving engagement wasn’t the ultimate goal of that post as part of my larger content strategy. I wanted that post to drive business for me.

So when I create the content, I position it so that it encourages the reader to engage in a desired action. For example, in the previous post, there was a pretty obvious call to action placed in the middle of the post in the form of this banner:

If you click on that banner, you are taken to the page that promotes my Content Strategy Audit service. So I want the content (post) to be engaging so that people read it, but once they arrive here, I want them to then click the Content Strategy Audit banner to go to that page. Then finally, I want them to contact me about purchasing a Content Strategy Audit.

Hit the bullseye with your business content in 2017So there’s three activities I want to track associated with this content:

1 – How many people viewed the content?
2 – After viewing the content, how many people then clicked on the banner and visited the Content Strategy Audit page?
3 – How many people after visiting the Content Strategy Audit page then inquired about purchasing the audit?

Looking at this list, you can see there’s three conversions that need to take place; You need to read the post, then once you arrive here you need to click on the banner ad for the Content Strategy Audit, then once you’re on that page, you need to email me to discuss buying the audit. Let’s take each one separately:

1 – How many people viewed the content? I’ve already stated that this particular post had higher than average social sharing, as well as traffic. So simply from an engagement standpoint, this post did its job.

2 – After viewing the content, how many people then clicked on the banner and visited the Content Strategy Audit page? I can check Google Analytics and find this information. But it’s worth noting that there are a lot of variables that can impact this on-site conversion. Maybe the banner would have converted better in a different location like at the end of the post. Maybe a different graphic would work better or maybe different wording. All of these variables must be considered and it pays to tweak things and see how conversion rates can be affected. I already have some ideas in mind for how I want to make some changes.

3 – How many people after visiting the Content Strategy Audit page then inquired about purchasing the audit? This is another conversion point. By clicking on the banner to come to the Content Strategy Audit page, you are assuming they are interested in learning more about the audit. How well this page converted into purchases of the audit gives me insights into whether or not the content of the Content Strategy Audit helped convert those visitors. So there are more variables that can be played with, such as giving more of an explanation of what’s included in the audit, or maybe less. Or maybe I could increase conversions by simply removing the price.

Now if all this seems like it’s getting a bit ‘in the weeds’, you’re exactly right. But, the bottom line is that if you truly want your content to be effective for your business, you need to invest the time to critically examining whether or not it is truly effective in helping you achieve desired outcomes for your business. As I’ve said before, engagement without desired business outcomes is just noise. Noise is easy to create and measure.

Meaningful outcomes are far harder to create, but create more impact for your business.

So when you audit your content strategy, you want to first decide What Is The Goal? Why are you making the time commitment to creating content in the first place? What are you hoping will happen? Create the goal first, then work backwards from the goal, creating content that will help you reach that goal.

For example, if the goal is to generate more product signups, then you need to create your content with that end goal in mind. You need to think about how your content will help move a visitor closer to wanting to singup for your product. You probably want to think about including relevant Calls to Action in your content that encourage the reader to signup for your product. I did this in the previous post by including both links and a banner ad that pointed to the page for my Content Strategy Audit. Because I wanted visitors to go to that page.

And before you think ‘All content needs to do is create engagment’, I beg to differ. I just did a search for Content Marketing Manager positions on LinkedIn. Here’s some of the job requirements that employers are demanding for these positions:

“to increase brand awareness, grow subscribers, and attract leads.”

“Develop and manage a global content strategy that drives XXXX’s brand awareness, website traffic, lead-generation efforts, and new customer acquisition”

“Accountable for all content marketing initiatives to drive traffic, engagement, leads, that deliver sales and customer retention.”

As you can see, most companies are expecting more than simple engagement from their content. They want that content to move people to perform specific actions. Think of it this way, let’s say you are a marketing agency, and you have a competitor that is also crafting a content strategy for 2017. If your content goals for 2017 are a 15% increase in ‘engagement’ and their content goals for 2017 are a 15% increase in leads generated, who do you think will have the better year? Probably your competitor, because their efforts are focused on creating content that comes closer to impacting that agency’s bottom line.

Now at this point you may be thinking “But Mack in your previous point you said that you can’t create content that ‘sells’ if the customer isn’t ready to buy, and now you’re saying that good content should do more than just create engagement. Which is it?” My point is that your content should aspire to a higher purpose than simply creating engagement.

Remember the AIDA model from your college marketing classes? AIDA stands for Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action. You make the customer aware of your business, you get them interested in learning more about who you are and your products, which creates a desire to own those products, and that leads to a purchase (action). Your content needs to be positioned so it can move the potential customer through the buying process. Many businesses focus on creating content that builds awareness, that establishes thought leadership and that helps get the ‘name’ of the business out there.

But then what? Creating content that builds awareness is fine, but what about the next step? What about creating content that builds interest? And if you can get me interested in your products and services, I might become interested in actually buying those products and services. Your content needs to be there to hold my hand and move me closer to a purchase.

Now as part of your content strategy, you may find that certain tools or platforms are best suited for creating and housing different types of content. For example, you might use the content on your blog primarily as a way to build awareness for your business. Then maybe you then move those customers to another tool or channel to build their interest and to ‘close the deal’.

However, none of this will happen until you make a commitment to get serious about your content strategy in 2017. That means taking the time to put together a strategy, to decide what it is you want to accomplish, then executing that strategy. Then along the way you can continually audit your efforts so you know if you are making progress or not, and adjust as needed.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Engagement without desired business outcomes is just noise. ” quote=”Remember, engagement without desired business outcomes is just noise. “]

 

The Importance of Topic Buckets

I’ve written here before about Topic Buckets and why they are so important. Topic Buckets are the 2-3 areas that your content will focus on that are associated with your business. Think of Topic Buckets as your business’ elevator speech. If you meet someone in the elevator and they ask you what your business does, what would say? Think about the 2-3 areas that you would want your business to be known for. Those are your Topic Buckets. You should try to fit every piece of content you create into one of your Topic Buckets. This brings clarity and focus to your content creation, but it also helps to establish your business’ association with these 2-3 areas. By constantly creating content that’s focused on your 2-3 Topic Buckets, you are helping others to understand what your business is about and what it does. Additionally, you are helping to establish your expertise around these areas.

For example, this post is focused on Content Strategy, which is one of my Topic Buckets. This is a very long and in-depth post that is written to help companies create better content strategies in 2017. I want to be known as someone that can help companies create better content strategies, so I wrote a very detailed and instructional post that will teach companies how to do exactly that. Ideally, this post will help establish my expertise in helping companies create amazing content strategies. The added bonus for me is that it will help others understand what type of work I do, which can lead to more referrals.

But honestly, at the end of the day this post is nothing more than a commercial for my consulting services. However, I purposely did not write this post to be an advertisement, because very few people want an advertisement. They want content that creates value for them. So if I can write a 3,000 word post on how to create better content in 2017, that creates value for the reader. Which means I can gain the reader’s attention, and once I have their attention, I have a chance to convert them in some way that I’ve determined has value for me. Notice there are multiple links back to my Content Strategy Audit page. Those are there as a reference point within the post, but are also included because I hope people will click the link and check out that service. This is because I am always viewing my content as being promotional and thinking about how I can add relevant Calls to Action within each post.

You should approach your content in the same way. You should understand that your content is there to promote your business, but you should at the same time understand how to promote your business in a way that also creates value for your audience. This is why the concept of Topic Buckets are so important, because it allows you to focus your content creation efforts on 2-3 areas that relate to your business. And if you approach your content as being promotional while also creating value for the reader, you will create content that promotes the topic areas that are relevant to your business.

Or if this whole idea of creating content that promotes your business makes you feel icky, think of it this way: If you have created great content, you have earned the right to ask for something from your reader. Remember the PBS pledge drive example in my previous post. PBS aired a wonderful live concert of The Highwaymen, it was great content that I loved, so I didn’t mind a few short breaks within that 90-minute performance from PBS asking for donations. PBS earned the right to ask for donations by providing amazing content.

Your focus should be the same, especially if you feel uncomfortable ‘asking for the sale’. Simply create amazingly valueable content and not only will you have earned the right to promote yourself, the odds are your audience will WANT that promotion. If I stumble across a site that creates value for me around a topic I am interested in, what will I do? Subscribe to new content from that site. I am communicating to that site that I want to get new content from them as soon as it is available. Whenever we interact with someone that creates content that has value for us, we want more. I know this from my own experience as a content creator. Whenever I create a piece of content that’s very popular and well received, I see an increase in traffic from that content to the following pages:

1 – My bio. People that have never read my content before want to know who I am.

2 – My Buy Think Like a Rock Star page. People that find value in my post become interested in buying my book.

3 – My Speaking and consulting services pages. People that find value in my post become interested in hiring me as a speaker or consultant.

No doubt, you have seen the same thing whenever you create content that is popular with your readers. This indicates that IF you have created content that’s valuable to your readers, then those readers are more OPEN to promotion from you. In fact, if you have positioned your content correctly, a relevant Call to Action (such as asking for a download of a white paper, subscribing to a newsletter or buying a product), should be expected and WELCOMED by your readers. So just think about that as you are creating content, you want your content to promote your business, but you also want that content to be so insanely valuable for your readers that they don’t mind the the promotion, they even welcome it.

Before I wrap up this post, a final word on why Topic Buckets can be so helpful to your content strategy. Remember that Topic Buckets are really the 2-3 things that you want to be known for. Once you have decided what the Topic Buckets are for your business, ideally you should then prioritize these Topic Buckets. So you know what Topic Bucket is most important to your business, then you can rank the others after that.

Additionally, having Topic Buckets helps you better organize your content calendar. For example, let’s say you have 3 Topic Buckets. If you have an editorial calendar that requires one new blog post per week, then you could write a new post on each of the 3 Topic Buckets, and the 4th post could be on the Topic Bucket that you prioritize as being the most important to your business. This instantly solves the ‘what will I write about?’ problem because you know to write about your Topic Buckets. You just pick which Topic Bucket each post is about, and go from there. So it greatly simplifies the writing process from the standpoint of picking your topic. Which, if you’re like me, if often the biggest issue you face when writing a new post. Using Topic Buckets has greatly helped me with this, and I believe it help you as well.

The Checklist You Need For Each Piece of Content You Write

1 – Remember the goal for your content strategy. Every piece of content you create should be associated with that goal. If your goal is to generate sales, then your content needs to be created in that context. If your goal is to build brand awareness or to establish thought leadership, create your content with that focus. Remember the saying ‘Begin with the end in mind’ because it applies here.

2 – What Topic Bucket does this piece of content fit in? Figure out the 2-3 things that you want to be known for, and try your best to make sure that every piece of content you create fits into one of these Topic Buckets. Also, prioritize your Topic Buckets so that you cover each and also focus more on the ones that are most important to your business.

3 – Create content worthy of the ask. Get in the habit of viewing the content you create for your business as being promotional, but do so with the understanding that it must also create value for the reader, or else you’ve wasted both your time and the readers’. Remember the PBS pledge drive example; Strive to create content that’s earned the right to ask for a donation. If you truly create great content that’s valuable to your readers, they will WANT to get more information about that topic, or they will want to sign up for your newsletter or subscribe to your content, or buy your product. Remember, the value you create IS the promotion. Think about what value each piece of content creates for the reader, and how that will ultimately create value for your business as well.

4 – Carefully consider your Calls to Action. This ties in with the above point especially. Create content that’s worthy of the ask, then carefully ask for the exact thing you want, that’s also relevant to the content you have created. Should every piece of content you create include a Call to Action? Not necessarily, but every piece of content you create should be worthy of you asking for something in return from the reader. Maybe it’s something as simple as asking them to visit a page, or leaving a comment. Maybe it’s directly promoting a product or service you provide. But the idea is to think more carefully and deliberately about not only the content you create but the time you are asking your readers to invest in consuming that content. If you have created value then you have earned the right to ask for something.

5 – Understand how you will measure the success of each piece of content you create. If you are writing a blog post, think about what needs to happen in order for you to realize that the time you spent on that post was worth the effort. Know what KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) you and your boss will use to judge the effectiveness of each piece of content. This is also useful to keep in mind as you create the content because it will help you create the content in such a way that relevant KPIs are impacted by the content.

Write better content in 2017 with Ommwriter

Finally, I wanted to close this post by letting you know about a very cool writing tool I just discovered from Peter Shankman’s blog. This tool is OmmWriter. It is designed to minimize distractions when you write so you can better focus. When you run OmmWriter, it takes over your screen so all you are left with is a blank screen with a background that you set (I prefer the snow scene). All system notifications are turned off so there’s no distractions. Additionally, several musical tones are provided (I prefer #5) that really help me get sucked into the writing and it also helps with focus.

Case in point, this is the first post I’ve written while using OmmWriter, and it is going to end up being around 4,000 words. Prior to this, the longest post I had ever written in 11 years of blogging was right at 2,000 words. I found it much easier to focus and just ‘get in the flow’ and write more in less time with OmmWriter. Now it does have a few obvious limitations to discuss. First, you can’t insert images or a lot of special formatting so you can’t just write a finished post with OmmWriter. You’ll still have to do some editing and formatting before it’s ready to publish. And it’s not free, although you can buy it for as low as $5.11, that’s the minimum price you can pay and the creators of OmmWriter let you decide what you will pay.

So definitely try out OmmWriter and I hope you love it as much as I do. My problem has always been that it takes me way too long to write a really good blog post. My ideas seem to come in spurts, and it often takes me 5-6 hours to write a substantial 1,000 word post. I wrote this post in about 4 hours, and it’s right at 4,000 words. OmmWriter really helped me focus and write more in less time. Here’s the link to check it out, and I’m not getting a penny from them, just wanted to share a really cool writing tool that I think you’ll love.