DFY Mastery: Expert Strategies for Limitless Success In Business And Life

Creating a customer avatar is not easy, but it's crucial to your business success. No matter your business, you need to niche down and position your product to serve a particular market segment. That's a bold statement, but it is true for most small businesses unless you operate in a highly regulated market.

Before we dive into the how-to of things, let's explain what a customer avatar is, how a niche is defined, and what brand positioning means.

Whether you pronounce it “nitch” or “neesh,” one thing’s sure: the focus is king.  I designed this, printed it out, and it's hanging on my office wall to remind me daily how important, "Focus" is.

A niche, as defined in the Business Dictionary, is a small but profitable market segment suitable for focused attention by a marketer.

It's important to understand that:

Market niches do not exist by themselves but are created by identifying needs or wants that are not being addressed by competitors, and by offering products that satisfy them.

Have you ever considered how difficult it is for business people to say what they do in one sentence? Instead, when you ask them what they're working on, they list five or six things they do.

While, as a small business owner, you might be naturally multi-passionate, knowing precisely what you sell and to whom is of the utmost importance. Building a memorable brand by focusing on the one thing your business does best is part of your success.

By niching down, a solopreneur or small business owner can give a proven valuable solution to a specific group of people with a particular need instead of trying to sell a product that pleases everyone—and we all know you can’t please everyone.

Here are ten popular niches or categories in business, each with a brief description of a typical customer avatar:

1. E-commerce Entrepreneurs: This avatar is tech-savvy, likely between the ages of 25-45, and is interested in scaling their online store. They look for tools that help with SEO, inventory management, and customer engagement.

By knowing these customer avatars' characteristics, needs, and wants, businesses can tailor their products and marketing strategies for maximum impact and revenue generation.

As HubSpot explains, the ideal customer avatar or buyer persona is a fictional character representing your perfect prospect.

When complete, it will help you see the motivation, fears, dreams, and desires that influence your customer's purchase decisions.

Your ideal client avatar will help you streamline your promotional efforts, whether it be through Facebook ads, lead magnets, or landing pages. It will also help you understand why some offers sell better than others and how to do A/B testing correctly. Creating a customer avatar helps to surface critical gaps or inconsistencies in your brand message.

Figuring out your customer avatar involves qualitative and quantitative research, diving into demographic and psychographic factors influencing purchasing decisions. Here's a step-by-step guide to help you determine who your customer avatar is:

Before diving into customer research, know what you aim to achieve with your product or service. Are you looking to maximize revenue, extend brand reach, or enter a new market? Your goals will guide the characteristics you focus on in your avatar.

If you've been in business for a while, you already have a wealth of data. Analyze customer data from sales, surveys, and analytics tools to get initial insights into who your customers might be.

Collect basic demographic information such as:

• Age

Dig deeper and investigate psychographic traits like:

• Values

Study your competitors to see who they are targeting. Read their customer reviews, examine their social media, and determine the characteristics of people who engage with them.

Create and distribute surveys or conduct one-on-one interviews with existing customers to delve deeper into their needs, desires, and pain points.

Use platforms like Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, or specialized industry tools to gather data on customer behavior, interests, and interactions with your online content.

Don't limit yourself to a single avatar, especially if you have multiple products or services. Develop multiple customer avatars to represent various segments of your market.

Compile the demographic and psychographic information to create detailed profiles for your avatars. This should be a straightforward document that anyone in your company can refer to when making product development, marketing, and customer service decisions.

Your customer avatar is not set in stone. As you get more data and insights or release new products, revisit and adjust your avatars as needed.

By following these steps, you'll build a well-rounded understanding of your customer avatar, which will guide your marketing strategies, product development, and customer engagement activities.

One of the things I teach our clients is the Offer Framework, which involves creating a customer-a-customer avatar by asking a straightforward question...

Here's a workshop livestream that you might enjoy!

Positioning refers to the place that a brand occupies in the mind of the customer and how it is distinguished from products from competitors.

(Source: Wikipedia)

In other words, brand positioning describes how a brand differs from its competitors and where or how exactly it sits in a particular market. The differences might be tangible, but they do have no motivating qualities.

All three concepts, calling, customer avatar, and brand positioning, are interrelated and affect each other. Let's see how it all works together and how you can define your ideal customer avatar.

Start with this question: What valuable services can you offer your desired audience?

Think of services and products as solutions to problems; think of them as experiences that create a transformation from the present state to the desired shape. Understanding your industry and niche is the first step before painting the picture of your ideal buyer persona.

Here are a few prompts to help you through the process of determining your niche:

• What one word describes me?

Your answers can help you solve the puzzle of finding your niche.

When determining your niche, you want to find the sweet spot: the convergence of talent, interests, skills, and market demand. And you want to become an expert in that niche.

After you have defined your niche, you need to know who your ideal customer is.

Defining your buyer persona will help you to understand their situation, feelings, and needs, thus creating better products and marketing material with your ideal customer's needs in mind.

The better defined your customer avatar is, the easier it is to create a marketing strategy that establishes you as an expert in your niche.

Buyer personas make it easier for you to tailor your blog and marketing content, messaging, product features, and services to match different consumer groups' particular needs, behaviors, and concerns.

You may feel you understand your target audience, but with buyer personas, get to know their specific needs, interests, and purchase drives.

If you're starting with your business or want to launch a new product, you can search on social media and find people who match your perfect customer. See what questions they're asking, what problems they're facing, what's important to them, and what makes them happy. It may also help to think about people already in your network who may fit your ideal customer profile.

But wait! Is every customer the ideal customer? Naturally, not every new customer you get will exactly fit your perfect customer avatar, but keeping your marketing focused will help you attract more of your ideal customers.

Now that we've explained what a niche is and how to create the ideal customer avatar, let's briefly discuss positioning and how all these notions—place, customer avatar, and positioning—fit together.

You have your niche, the part of the specific market that you want to serve.

You know your ideal customer, their needs and wants.

Now, you're setting off to create a product or solution for that ideal customer avatar in the specific niche. But what features will you attach to that product, and how will you market it so it attracts your perfect customer?

This is where positioning comes in place; frankly, it's essential to your business to get this part right.

As we previously explained in this post, brand positioning is the process of putting your brand in the minds of your customers. Brand positioning is also referred to as brand strategy or positioning strategy. It's all about the image that people hold of your brand. How valuable is it to them? What feelings does your brand create?

To create a strong brand positioning, you must find your brand’s uniqueness and determine what differentiates your product from your competitors.

Take a minute or two to contemplate the following brand positioning questions, and remember always to keep your ideal customer avatar in mind.

• How do I differentiate my brand?

The answers to those questions will most likely help you solve the mystery of positioning your brand better to serve your ideal audience in a specific niche.

Next, you need to impress your brand positioning upon your ideal customers. To do that, you must start from within your business.

Everything in your marketing needs to be consistent. This includes every member of your business that touches the customer. Each customer touchpoint needs to be the perfect expression of your branding.

Remember always to come back and revisit your ideal customer avatar when new prospects and sales data are available.  And if it's something you want help with, we're happy to work you through it.  Just schedule an Action Plan call with us here!

The post The Blueprint for Creating a Customer Avatar: Tailoring Your Marketing to Your Ideal Customer appeared first on Done For You.

When developing a content strategy, smart marketers & bloggers know that content marketing is much more than writing blog posts and sharing them on Facebook pages. When they set up their content marketing strategy they have specific targets and clear ways to achieve them. So why shouldn't you try to do the same?

Content creation is a big part of your overall marketing strategy and sales funnel...  And shouldn't be taken lightly. Don't just write blocks of text and expect visitors to rush to your website - take care of all marketing-related aspects.

Every website and online project are different but when it comes to developing a content strategy and overall content creation, you should always try to do the following:

• Create a visitor/buyer persona (your visitor's profile) and see what are they interested in.

If your current goal is to increase website traffic fast to your website, content creation should be your primary target. Your content will spread out around your website, other blogs and social networks that bring you the most benefits. For example, if you're specialized in B2B services, you'll probably have more success with content targeted for LinkedIn rather than Pinterest.

How does your content help you get more targeted website traffic? Well, just adding text to a web page won't help you get more visitors - you'll need a strategy (like we share a few moments ago) and some content creation tips such as:

Except for a small part of your traffic (direct), the rest of your visitors want to find out certain things about your products or your project's niche. You should always focus on useful content so your visitors feel they get the information they are looking for and come again or recommend your services.

There are several ways you can create valuable content. You should always create a persona for your niche and build up a list of topics they would be interested in. This will be the core content of your website next to which you'll add fresh content.

Take a look at your existing content and see what brings you the most web traffic. By looking at your Google Analytics statistics you will be able to create a list of top-performing web pages and update that content (ie. content optimization). Content creation shouldn't only be focused on adding new web pages to your website but also adding value to your old blog posts.

Have a list of tips & tricks from a few years that is still bringing you a lot of visitors? Update that page so it will be relevant for your current visitors as well.

One of the best ways to get more web traffic is to interact with experts from your niche and feature their content on your blog or social media accounts. You can choose to do the following:

• Interviews with experts

If you choose to feature their content or mention them on your blog, don't forget to add a link back to their website. Sometimes this will result in a mutual benefit, meaning that they will also mention you and send traffic your way.

When you interview experts from your niche, there is a high chance that they will share those articles with their followers.

Content creation shouldn't be just creating blog posts and sharing them on your social media profiles. In developing a content strategy, focus on delivering various types of content your audience can interact with. You can choose to start a podcast, a Youtube channel or use the new Facebook live video function.

Don't forget to analyze your content and see what works best for your project.

And if you'd rather talk with us about putting together your sales funnel for you, go here!

The post Developing A Content Strategy That Brings Traffic appeared first on Done For You.

Video content marketing is at an all-time high, with more kids (and adults included) wanting to be Youtube Stars than doctors and lawyers anymore.

People's attention to video has been always through the roof. It doesn't really have anything to do with what's on, we'll keep watching, and this happens because eyesight is our dominant sense counting for about 80% of the stimulus our brain gets. That's why television is the main source of information for so many people.

But things evolve. What we see remains the main way we learn, but the way we get our information has changed a lot over the past 50 years or so. Yes, television is still a huge thing, but with the development of mobile devices (laptops, tablets, smartphones) we have the opportunity to deliver our message to even more people, without paying enormous amounts of money to get on national television.

Having a video content strategy can make the difference between competing small businesses. One could spend a lot of money to get on TV but the other could take the better option - investing in video content marketing.

You know how big Youtube is. You see how rapidly Facebook is developing tools and new ways for video content (ie. Facebook Video Ads). You read about small businesses going viral with the help with video and now you want to start working on your own little video studio and start producing great video content for marketing. Here are some of our tips for those who want to jump-start their small business' video content strategy.

Don't get ahead of yourself. You should build a video content strategy, but first things first, you need to gather up data and analyze. Find out what's your target audience, what's your most selling product and how can you reach them.

If you're a local business, your video content marketing should be different than what another company who deals online should have. Be smart about the questions you ask and you'll get your answers.

Don't know if you should hire someone to apply the best video marketing tactics to your content strategy or if you should do it alone? It all depends on the size of your business. If you only have 2 - 3 employees and sell selected wine from your suppliers, maybe start your very own Youtube channel where you post wine reviews, tips, tricks and do your magic.

Don't worry if you won't get a lot of views at the beginning. You will improve your video content and those who are interested will find your videos entertaining.

The great thing about a video content strategy is that's always scalable. You can start small and then upgrade your video gear and team to make more professional videos.

If you're already a bigger business, then you should focus on hiring people who know what they're doing. Budget still low? Try to focus on students who study video marketing and production and those who still haven't made a name for themselves in the industry.

At least not at the beginning. If you have a small business, there's a high chance that your budget is limited so make do with what you have. While doing this, you should try to focus on using your resources to get good lighting, sound and scenery.

Like I said before, if you have a really small local business, you should focus on getting your content online and then improve your performance. Always mix your video content with online written content.

You can read my other article on how to find untapped sources for great content.

You may think there are two main video channels where you could share your content. That's not entirely true. Yes. You can make your video and upload it to Youtube or Facebook (and I'm saving the pros and cons for these on for a future article) but you shouldn't stop here.

More and more services start to show up and promote the video content marketing tools they have. If I was the owner of a small business I would do the following:

1. I would think of a video idea.

You can jumpstart your video content strategy in no time at all. You just have to be smart about it, do your research, choose the best ideas for video content and the right channels to promote it. Start small and analyze after every step. Is your viewer & customer base increasing? Do you get feedback? Are you happy with the outcome of your video content strategy? Always ask these questions and you should be just fine.

The post 4 Tips to Jumpstart Your Video Content Marketing Strategy appeared first on Done For You.

The buying process has evolved, and with it… Advanced lead generation systems are used to get in front of those prospects.

Marketers must discover new ways to generate leads and break through the noise. Instead of reaching audiences with mass advertising and bulk email blasts, marketers now focus on building brand visibility and customer relationships through Facebook ads funnels, paid traffic sources, and email marketing and drip campaigns.

Image source: trackmaven.com

The sales cycle is giving way to the new buyer's journey. Today’s buyers are in control.

According to Forrester's research, buyers seek out three pieces of informational content about a vendor for every piece received in a marketing or sales campaign. Nowadays, buyers are self-educated. Therefore, a marketer's job is to be heard through the noise and devise new ways for leads to find the brand.

Consumers are now up to 90% of their way through the buyer's journey before they ever speak directly to your company. Their mind is already pretty much made up when they talk to you.

To have a marketing impact today, you need a solid grasp of inbound marketing and advanced lead generation systems. Here are a few advanced tactics to help your business generate leads without breaking the bank.

Affiliate lead generation programs or partner programs are when the sponsoring business rewards participating websites for directing leads and sales to their site.

Sometimes, they are referred to in the industry as CPA programs. They're often "zip submits" or "email submits."  You want to ensure you have a general offer if you venture into this territory!

Now, affiliate marketing lead generation systems (i.e., affiliate programs) are created to spread the word about a business's products and generate more leads. A partner program benefits the vendor and the affiliate since the former generates more sales while the latter gets a commission between 5% and 75%.

Here's an excellent example of how a physical product manufacturer uses affiliate marketing tactics to drive lead generation and sales. Essentia Mattresses offers a certain amount for each sale through your referral link.

To launch a partner program, you can use a cloud app, like Ambassador, which is a bit pricey for a small business. There is also a more affordable solution, ReferralCandy, to reward customers for recommending your product.

Want to skip the tech setup altogether? Join an affiliate marketing network like ShareASale, where you can join as a merchant and get the technology worries out of your way.

A well-developed email or video course is like gaining free access to an actual training class. For busy marketers, this offer can bring high ROI for a meager investment.

Let's look at an example from a Buffer course. Buffer gives away 25 social media growth ideas over 25 days in exchange for an opt-in. Here is their page: https://buffer.com/email-courses

Buffer created the email course to repurpose existing blog content into smaller, more digestible pieces. They put it behind an opt-in gate to grab targeted leads to engage with over email.

To deliver an email course, you must create your opt-in page using any page builder.

Then, you'll have to embed a lead-grabbing form on your page. You will get the opt-in form code from your email marketing service provider (MailChimp, GetResponse, AWeber, etc.).

Finally, you must set up an autoresponder sequence in your email marketing service. This step aims to deliver a series of pre-written email messages, which are the actual content of your email course.

Also, you can quickly turn cold traffic into leads using a simple, proven lead-generation template you can download here.

Now, you can follow the same process to deliver a video course over email. Instead of typing in the content in the email body, you will include a link to the videos. Upload your videos to Vimeo or YouTube for free.

Alternatively, you may publish your free video course in marketplaces like Skillshare or Udemy. These marketplaces give you the additional benefit of free traffic from hundreds of thousands of people who visit those sites every month.

Organic search marketing is arguably one of the most valuable long-term advanced lead-generation tactics. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is primarily based on optimized content for specific keywords to attract search engine visitors.

DemandGenReport's B2B survey pointed out two trends that vendors need to consider to draw the attention and gain the trust of modern B2B leads:

• Relevant content is the key: 75% of B2B buyers said it is essential that the vendor's site highlight relevant content that speaks directly to their case; 66% said it is vital that the website addresses the requirements of their industry.

Getting to #1 in Google is much more complicated today than five or ten years ago, but the results will amaze you when you manage to get on the first page for long-tail keywords.

One of the most popular advanced lead generation systems is blogging because it is free and a great way to build up your visibility on Google. Publishing keyword-rich content doesn't mean "writing for Google bots"; You should always keep your reader in mind. An insightful piece of content is also great for building trust in your brand and helping to nurture leads through your sales pipeline.

Don't forget to put a form on your page to turn cold traffic into leads. See a proven lead-generation template you can download by clicking here.

Always get specific with your keywords. Know exactly what you want to rank for, and repeat precisely that phrase (or synonyms and variations) in your content. Be precise about the area and keywords you use in your local marketing campaigns.

For example, if you are a dentist in Las Vegas, do not just promote “Las Vegas Dentist.” Also, encourage your services, such as “Las Vegas Teeth Whitening” or “Discount Cavity Filling in Las Vegas.” The more specific you are, the better the chances your site will show up for that exact search phrase when prospective customers search on Google.

If you want to learn more about structuring your content for better SEO results and free lead generation, read this guide by Brian Dean of Backlinko.

Sales Navigator is a sister business to LinkedIn that operates independently from your LinkedIn entirely. It is rapidly becoming a much-needed tool for any B2B sales professional since LinkedIn has the largest database of business leads in Tier 1 countries and worldwide.

You can target your audience via 31 contact properties, like job title and date when they started their current role. You can also find prospective customers by 14 company attributes like the organization's size and location.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is an advanced lead generation system, but you can try it for free here: https://business.linkedin.com/sales-solutions/sales-navigator

If you don't have a system to identify visitors on your website, they remain anonymous. Knowing who has visited your website in real-time via email alerts allows you to identify new leads visiting your site for the first time and existing prospects as they revisit during later stages of the sales process.

Using Leadberry is a cost-effective way to determine who visits your web pages.

Google Analytics recommends Leadberry and can provide you with the names of the organizations visiting your site and the email addresses of the key contacts you target.

This lead generation tactic is all about partnering with companies with complementary products or services to raise awareness of your brand. Complementary goods are products or services that tend to sell together. So, finding companies that sell those products will increase your competitive advantage instead of hurting it.

Co-marketing partnerships are one of the most efficient business lead-generation ideas by far.

Take the example of Wistia and Infusionsoft. Wistia provides professional HD video hosting with viewer analytics. Infusionsoft is a Small Business CRM, Sales & Marketing Software. They put together a guide for small business video marketing and marketed it on this page:

Partnerships vary from highly complex relationships to more straightforward arrangements, where the small corner store partners with a supplier on a small-scale promotion. Such alliances will help your company to get marketing access to the audience of your partner company. Thus, it's a cost-efficient way to reach more targeted leads.

In sniffing around for a possible alliance, look for marketing-oriented companies that have a quality product and sell to the same customer persona as you do. You may also steer away from companies or people whose politics and values don't coincide with yours and could hurt your brand reputation.

Podcasting is having a Renaissance because the content is accessible for people to consume wherever they are. From the aspect of marketing, it’s a relatively high-growth and highly-converting channel. It’s perhaps 5 to 10 times more effective than a similar proven marketing channel: guest posting.

Why do podcasts drive higher lead conversion rates?

First, listening to someone on a podcast creates a much more personal relationship than reading a blog post they wrote.

Second, it’s more difficult to skim podcasts like you can touch an article so that people will look at the whole story behind you and your business; they won't just be exposed to the headlines.

Another long-term benefit of being featured on a podcast is boosting your SEO. Because the podcast host will publish it on a show page, they will also link to your website, similar to when you post guests. The Google ranking bots will love the diversified link profile.

They are wondering how to get featured on podcasts. One way is to look for podcasts people like you have been on. Who is an authority in your space and a few years ahead of you? Also, look for relevant new and noteworthy Podcast shows in iTunes. They’re fresh, so they will need more guests to release more episodes.

Sales is a numbers game. The more leads you feed into the top of your funnel, the more customers you will get. It is really that simple.

The pressure is always on the marketing team to deliver qualified leads to the sales department or through the sales funnel. We all understand the importance of lead generation – it’s coming up with fresh and practical ideas that can sometimes be tricky.

If you want us to create a lead generation funnel, click here to schedule a call!

The post Advanced Lead Generation Systems: The Ultimate Guide appeared first on Done For You.

Today, you're going to discover how to increase blog traffic no matter what niche or vertical you're writing in.

If you have an idea and transform it into a blog, that doesn't guarantee you success. It doesn't matter if the idea is unique and you're the first one to think about it. In the blogging world, there are some things you have to cross off your checklist to have a profitable and highly trafficked blog.

If the point of your blog is just to write stuff with no plan for the future, don't read any further, but if you want to get income from your blog and make it profitable, please go ahead and apply the following proven tips.

You may think it's easy to make a blog and start writing but that's not even half of your work if you plan to be seen as an experienced blogger with a valued opinion and a steady blogging income. This is a chapter from Blogging 101, containing tips for starting bloggers who want to achieve more and get rewards for their hard work.

You may see these tips as being easy to apply to your blogging strategy but you'd be amazed by how many people fail to even take them into consideration. Here's what new & trending bloggers should work on for a profitable blog.

More often than not, you'll start a blog for a hobby or for a niche you feel attracted to write about. In the other scenario you find a niche that can convert big time and you start a blog for the sole purpose of making money.

Either way, you have to do your research, learn and apply that to your blog posts. It may be easier for those who started blogging by following their passion but others shouldn't be too disheartened about this. People say you start an appetite by eating and I think the same thing can be said about writing. To some extent, you'll develop an appetite for writing as soon as you start doing it, even if it's not your hobby.

Being the best in a niche will help others see you as an expert in that field and they will recommend you to others.

Many new or trending bloggers will do the mistake of writing for SEO and not for their readers. My honest advice is to start writing for your readers and start building a community.

I'm not telling you to avoid SEO tactics for your blog, not at all. I'm just saying you should take a moment and analyze what are your readers' preferences and expectations. What are they interested in? What information are they asking for? Don't just write what you think it will be a good blog post.

If you want to have a profitable blog, make sure you pay attention to your readers and write for them.

You may write great content but if people have trouble reading it, you can't make it convert to income. When you start your blog try to choose a reader-friendly template. You will need to use a simple contrast, avoid to fill your page with ads and improve typography by choosing a good font and a reasonable size for it.

Another great I found on profitable blogs is the way authors write their blog posts. If you want to make your content easy to read then use short sentences, use paragraphs and don't forget about headings, subheadings and bullet lists.

When adding great content to your blog, make sure you also spice up your blog posts by adding compelling visuals. Videos, infographics, gifs are your content's salt and pepper. They make your visitors spend more time on your blog and interact with your content.

Using visuals in your blog posts can help you have a profitable blog by increasing the number of clicks you get on each post.

Another thing you'll want to do on your blog is to optimize the blog posts for shareability. The way you create your blog posts and how you want to attract visitors is entirely up to you but if you want more, you should optimize how your posts look on social networks to make people more interested. There are several ways you can do this:

SEO information - Using a SEO plugin add compelling meta titles and descriptions for your blog posts. This is the text people will see when your content is shared on social networks.

Most WordPress SEO plugins will allow you to change how your post looks on Facebook or Twitter.

Featured image - Try to research and see what are the best image sizes for your targeted social networks. Add a relevant featured image that people find interesting enough to click on your links and share it with their friends.

The blogging process doesn't end when you press the Publish button. You have to do some other things to ensure that your blog becomes profitable. First of all, start by sharing your content on Social Networks and follow-up on the discussions.

Then you can move on to blogs who wrote posts on the same subject and leaving comments, trying to redirect people to your own content. If you get links to your article from other people on blogs or forums, use this to create your visitors base by participation in the discussion.

The post 6 Tips On How To Increase Blog Traffic appeared first on Done For You.

Some businesses have the luxury of hiring a content creation team but what should you do if you don't have the resources for this? Are you going to give up on quality content on your websites? That would be a mistake.

You need quality content on your website or blog because it allows you to interact with your audience and to grow by increasing your chances to be found in search engines' results pages. Of course, there are other big reasons why a business needs a content creation strategy but we chose to focus on the most important stuff - getting seen by people and growing as a company.

Not just big companies need quality content added using some sort of publication schedule. Imagine a niche blog that makes money through affiliate marketing or own products. What traffic numbers would it have without quality content added frequently?

Bottom line:

quality content = more income & conversions for everyone working in online.

So, you may choose to spend hours on creating long-form quality content and not resolve other important business tasks, or you could follow our guidelines to create awesome content, fast, and without losing quality.

Yes, writing a quality blog post can be done in under one hour. This means you won't have to spend more time on this and you'll be able to finish other business tasks. The following steps don't require you to be an expert content writer and ensure that you publish quality & fast content on your blog.

Before starting to write anything, you'll have to spend a few hours each week discovering great topics to talk about on your blog. We encourage you to have a content creation strategy and to use various types of content (long-form, short-form or cornerstone content). The alternative to spending that much time on researching topics is basically... to let others do it for you. Start by creating a list of similar blogs or inspiration sources, you'll need them further.

Using our web app to publish curated content requires you to create an account on Curately. Don't worry, it only takes a few minutes and you can visit your dashboard, where the content creation process begins.

Add those content sources you've researched in Curately and watch how the web app offers you blog posts ideas.

After adding your content sources in Curately, you'll be able to select any blog posts from those blogs and start creating your own quality content. Don't just copy/paste the original blog post but only use a snippet of text and start creating from there.

We recommend you to change the blog post title into a headline that will spark a conversation between you and your fans or readers. Don't forget that most people only read the headline of your blog post. Your blog post title should be short and descriptive while also intriguing your audience. If you choose to write a longer headline, don't forget that readers tend to absorb only the first and last 3 words of a given headline.

Since you already have the topic of discussion, the process of writing a quality blog post should run smoothly. You'll need to respect a few guidelines for your blog post to be a success.

Write a story. Even if you're using someone else's idea, you'll need to adapt it to your experiences. Writing to write a story from your own perspective will increase the number of full-page readers and their average time spent on the site.

Use a good featured image. Don't forget to add a featured image to your blog posts. Depending on the original story, you'll need to get publishing rights if you want to use the original image. The better alternative is to create your own (since you're providing your readers with a story).

Don't forget about headings. Your blog post needs a good structure and since we recommend a blog post length of around 1,500 words, using headings is a great way to mark off different parts of your blog posts. Headings also allow you to signal important pieces of content.

Add a conclusion paragraph. When writing long-form content, you'll need to respect the introduction, main content, and conclusion. This will allow your readers to better understand the information and your point of view - essential when using the curated content.

To learn more about the creation of the perfect blog post, you may want to read: 5 Questions & Answers About The Ideal Blog Post Length.

Even if your spending under 60 minutes to write quality blog posts, this doesn't mean you don't need to take care of every aspect. You'll want to add some sharing cues within the text of your blog post. For example, you can install a Twitter sharing plugin and allow people to share quotes from your blog post just by one click.

Add sharing buttons in the form of a sharing floating bar and at the end of the blog post.

Yes, you'll create a quality blog post in under one hour. When you do this, don't forget to spend at least 5 minutes proofreading the blog post and checking it for errors. Since you're doing this, you will also want to check any links you added and make sure to provide a link to the original blog post.

Your content creation strategy should include social media content, not just blog posts and web pages. Microblogging is equally important when trying to grow a business. Make sure your blog post has the right image size and meta information for different social networks.

You may also want to read our previous article on How to Choose Between 11 Social Networks to Grow Your Business.

The post How To Write A Blog Post Fast – In Under 30 Minutes appeared first on Done For You.

A lot of our clients ask us how to write better blog posts because content marketing is so crucial in this day and age...

When we created this blog post we meant it to help new bloggers but soon after we drafted the first ideas, we soon realized that even the older bloggers have moments when they think that they're not doing enough or aren't able to escape a writer's block. Improving your blogging skills is a subject of interest for all bloggers, no matter their experience in their niche.

Just having a blog and adding regular content isn't enough to maintain a high volume of targeted traffic. You'll always have to research, read about new things and apply new tactics. Since you're a blogger and you have some kind of passion driving you forward, you'll need to find creative ways to improve your blogging skills.

There are so many reasons why you'd like to learn how to write better blog posts:

• Your traffic is declining.

...or everything is working out great but you know that bloggers should always try to improve themselves so their content will get more social shares and comments.

Taking all of this into consideration, have you decided it's time to be a better blogger? If that is the case, read on because we have some recommendations for new and established bloggers alike.

Before we continue, you need to understand that sometimes, you don't have to make huge changes to improve yourself... it could just be something you overlooked and improving your blogging skills transforms into a matter of beating on your craft every day. Here's our take on becoming a better blogger - the creative way.

Learning how to write better blog posts isn't like fixing a broken widget on the blog sidebar. Most of the times, you'll need to be patient and spend your time reading, researching and trying out stuff. It may work, it may not - the secret is to learn from every action you take and see what went wrong or right, depending on the situation.

Like we said before, on your hunt to discover how to write better, the problem may not be entirely related to your blog or content. You could be facing a bigger problem related to your physical or mental state. Ensure that you eat the right foods and find creative ways to spend your time as this will be vital to your mental state thus improve your daily mood.

Start taking walks since they are both beneficial for your body and mind. They also provide you with a creative way to find ideas for new blog posts.

We're not saying to give up blogging and start working at a farm (although you could do that if you wanted to). No - we're recommending to start a side project, maybe start a blog for another passion or hobby you may have? Starting something new is a creative way to encourage your brain to work better and allow him to switch between tasks.

Doing the same thing over and over again makes it easier but it won't improve your creativity.

Find out there's something wrong with the content you put out every day? Don't go running to eBooks or blogging manuals who claim to fix everything. There isn't a simple solution to improving your blogging skills. The creative approach would be to sit down and really think about what's wrong with your blogging experience and start from there.

What happened to you may have happened to others as well. Get involved in the local blogging community and start discussions in your Facebook group. You may be surprised but improving your blogging skills can happen just by talking to people who went through the same thing.

Depending on your blog's niche, finding great content to share with your readers can be problematic. Finding out what are the best sources of inspiration for your blog can be an ordeal when you're writing in a "boring niche".

If you'd like an Action Plan on creating content for your site OR would rather hand it off to a team dedicated to writing for you, click here!

The post How To Write Better Blog Posts appeared first on Done For You.

If you want to sell high ticket products and services, you must be in the game of consultative selling.  It's the only way to move high ticket digital products and programs.

The vast network of sales and marketing is filled with challenges. Clients want better returns, and the sales team works hard to achieve their target. Most professionals wish they had more time to pitch to their prospective customers.

However, in reality, outbound sales begin with lead generation, which is an ongoing and tedious process. It involves identifying leads, qualifying, and booking appointments with those qualified leads.

Salesforce is an excellent tool for lead generation and product consultation. However, it became more effective when the roles were split into two – specialized lead generators and sales staff. Simply put, the idea was to make things easier, which resulted in the concept of appointment scheduling.

Appointment scheduling is a tool that reduces new sales closing time, increases the rate of conversion, boosts appointment show-up ratios and leads to higher profits and revenues

At this point in digital marketing, it is crucial for improving the sales appointment schedule because:

• Appointment setting differentiates between handoff from sales development to sales.

In consultative selling,  something that is loosely tied to the immediate weak zone or commodity products, the second point is crucial. Note that 70% of all meeting happens when scheduled within a span of 9 days whereas 47% meeting when scheduled before 30 days out.

Time remains a critical factor for many prospective buyers. If you are able to secure a meeting at the convenient time and follow-up, it is a win-win situation. At DoneForYou, we are eager to help you achieve your target.

Luckily, technology is here to help. Appointment scheduling tools are very effective for this purpose.

Image Source : saleshacker.com

It is a dream of sales professionals to have their prospect clients calling up and booking sales appointment all by themselves. However, that does not have frequently.

With the help of integrated appointment scheduling, you can head straight to the point rather than beating around the bush. Companies can engage directly with its potential buyers across several digital platforms, offer them an option to book sales appointment or consultation quickly and as per schedule.

Whether a prospective client is viewing the company website, reading landing pages for a product or service, or simply browsing through Google search results for the business, an integrated process of appointment scheduling allows prospects to book sales appointment directly into the calendar. At a later stage of the sales funnel, the prospect starts and meets the best resources available to provide improved customer experience.

Then, one the time is booked in the calendar for the call, you or your sales rep can start the consultative selling process..

 The sales funnel is a crucial tool for the sales conversion process. Sales professionals move their prospects through the sales funnel, this leading to their goal. The number of steps in the sales funnels, the longer it might take to close a particular deal, which increases the chances of prospects losing interest. Also, sales taking longer to close are subject to arbitrary effects.

Active sales managers know how to mitigate against such issues by designing an appropriate sales funnel having fewer steps and a passive method to capture leads.  That sales funnel often ends with the consultative selling pitch.

Closing higher ticket clients with consultative selling is no longer a problem with TimeSlots.

TimeSlots are the latest tool that allows you to qualify your prospects better and begin selling more volume. It combines forms and appointment scheduling to help you gain immediate insight into prospects so that you can close quickly and effectively.

Sales professionals have their hands tied up every time. Spending the entire day in sales appointments leads to the funnel drying up. As a result, you have to indulge in more prospecting. In case if there’s a short of appointments, you have to spend time going through the list of potential prospects, making cold-calls and trying to arrange sales meetings.

• Adding appointment scheduling tools like TimeSlots, Assistant.to, and Calendly help sales stack. The paradigm of these tools was generic, easy to add any sales stack and process. It further hinges on integrating with websites, calendars, conferencing tools, communication, and CRM for logging activity and payment.

TimeSlots work by targeting your prospects; it is a network of prospects, leads, and clients, connected together.

Whenever you are scheduling an appointment, get-together, or a meeting, you can choose TimeSlots. It is the perfect tool for:

• Scheduling sales call with folks automatically

• Data Collection: The first step is to gather data. Ask questions to meet attendees with tech-free form builder

Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform is the latest to track website visitor behavior and deliver highly targeted oriented appointment opportunities to shoppers. Although AI is not new for appointment scheduling setting, using an AI-enabled appointment scheduling assistant is revolutionary.

The AI platform understands that users prepping to purchase are reading all technical information and comparing specifications. It automatically uses this understanding to provide the prospect with an opportunity to speak with the subject expert on the products or services of interest.

Once the prospect accepts this appointment, it is immediately booked in his/her web browser. A conversation is arranged between one or two people, either as a phone call or an in-person meeting.

IBM Watson is the latest example of AI used for appointment scheduling.

TimeSlots are the simple, centralized appointment scheduling for e-meetings. You use some dedicated resources to acquire quality traffic to the website. You use your sales funnel and track them. You invest in content creation and paid ads. You want qualified web visitors who can easily schedule strategy calls with you or maybe book a demonstration of the product.

This is an exact scenario.

However, the best possible way to qualify prospects and turn them into your active customers is to provide them with an easier way to schedule meetings directly with you. To make sure this is effective, it is very important to implement it centrally and automatically.

TimeSlots are crucial and lifesaving marketing technology tools here. Combing forms as well as appointments online, it allows you to qualify your prospect clients so that you can close the sale. Within a click, everything you want is sorted. It saves your time, limits frustration and ensures you have smooth sales.

However, having tools is not enough. You would have to master the technology too and know when to use it optimally. It is very important to deliver the best performance using these hassle-free tools that take up excessive energy. Even though these tools seem to be simple to use and set up, you might not want to go through the lengthy process of onboarding but want a solution instead. To get all the vital steps done in one shot, choose a company that delivers quality and proficient services in this field. DoneForYou is just that company you’ve been looking for.

DoneForYou team of professional handle the heavy lifting and sets your business up with new marketing stack in no time. Our team also ensures that your accounts are configured properly, and individual tools are accurately integrated with the site so that it works as thought.

Click here to schedule your appointment with us. Allow us to help your business grow right away.

The post Consultative Selling: How To Get High Ticket Sales With Strategy Sessions appeared first on Done For You.

Facebook Live Streams or "Facebook Streaming" isn't new.  Not by a long shot. There are several services online that allow you to stream live video. You can do this on Youtube, Twitch, Livestream and other similar websites but you'll have a limited audience since (almost) everyone is on Facebook.

This is probably the only advantage people who stream live video on Facebook have - you can reach a bigger audience and build up engagement rates by making fans and friends react to your live streams.

There is a good way to start using Facebook Live Video for your business so read on to find out how to use this service to grow your fan base and boost the engagement rate.

Before learning how to do this, let's talk about the mistakes you should avoid while streaming live on Facebook.

Don't worry about being perfect or having the perfect room or backdrop.  You do want to make sure that there isn't anything behind you that you'd rather not be there...  I've had our cat run around behind me, jump on the desk, etc.  That's no problem.

Before you start streaming, ensure that your mobile device is capable and the video is reasonably high quality. You want a good internet connection too.  And, of anything, audio is probably the most important aspect!  Keep background noise to a minimum.

Don't just use Facebook Live Video and stream for 2 minutes just to say hi. Your live videos should be more complex and have specific goals for your business.

Facebook users seem to have some fun using Facebook live video but as a business, you should have specific goals what you're trying to accomplish. You can try to redirect people to your website, grow the number of your fans or build up your engagement rate by encouraging your viewers to leave comments.

We use live streaming to build an audience of people we can retarget and create lookalike audiences with.

Here's the right way to live stream on Facebook and get the most out of it.

You should have a goal for each live video event you host on your Facebook page. In the week before your live video, ask your fans what would they be interested in seeing. Maybe they would like a Q&A session or they would like to see how you do business.

These things are different from business to business and research makes it easier to understand your fans' behavior.

Just like you make a calendar for your Facebook posts, you should consider creating one for your live streams. I wouldn't recommend going live each day but limit the number of broadcasts to 2, max 3 per week.

Creating a schedule will allow you to boost your engagement rate since your fans will have a clear picture of the live video broadcast time frame.

Your live streams are limited to 90 minutes but you don't need to be online that much. Usually, it's better to have live videos longer than 5 minutes so most of your fans can start watching but you'll see the number of viewers will decrease over time.

As in, specific calls to action.  When a business starts a live video event on Facebook, it should a clear goal for that broadcast. You should find ways to promote your services, your products or even convince people to sign up to your email list.

Call-to-actions help you boost engagement on your Facebook page. Encourage people to leave comments and ask questions and remind them to subscribe to your live events. Seeing how you can't add other buttons on that page, use audio CTAs to redirect people to your website.

A good way to build up your Facebook page engagement rate with the help of live video is to start these broadcasts within relevant groups or event pages. You can do this if a group administrator allows you so do your research and check to see if you're allowed to do this.

Starting a live video in a relevant group can bring you more Facebook fans and spark up really interesting conversations.

As soon as you tap on the finish button, you'll have the option to save your broadcast as a video post for your Facebook page allowing people to watch it even after it's finished.

Take a look at the video statistics and match them up with what happened during your broadcast. See after how much you reached your highest number of viewers and when that number started to decline. This will allow you to create better broadcasts in the future.

The post How To Build Your Audience Using Facebook Live Streams appeared first on Done For You.