Justin Blaney's Blog, page 49
August 1, 2016
the mangled wire fence on its third or fourth life
the mangled wire fence on its third or fourth life surrounds the fruit trees and rows of onions and climbing beans on my parent’s property like barb wire in trenches stretched across 1942 french countryside, a sign of the endless battle between man and deer
the cold weather kiwi vines, male and female, grow over an arching trellis to hold hands and cuddle above a love seat where couples can kiss in the shade with the scent of basil hovering across the grass brown from august’s long days, perfect for watermelon and ice tea and flowing my dad as he shows off his vegetables and a tractor from the 50’s that still runs as good as when his grandpa bought it at the hardware store downtown, but I stop, unnoticed, his voice growing dimmer as the tour continues without me to stoop over flowers that my niece planted from seeds in the spring, thankful for their unplucked and long full life, lived here in the corner of wired in compound behind enemy lines
Purchase a paperback copy of my first 100 reverie, The Whispers Willow.Find out more about reverie here: justinblaney.com/reverie
July 30, 2016
Take me where the bumble fairies of Oregon valleys hover
Purchase a paperback copy of my first 100 reverie, The Whispers Willow.Find out more about reverie here: justinblaney.com/reverie
July 27, 2016
Why are flowers feminine?
Some thoughts on flowers and wondering why they're feminine in our culture ... I've been writing these little thoughts down for a while and thinking of sharing them more often. I guess I hope that it might start conversations that inspire or challenge. Would love to hear your thoughts. I'll try to write better in the future.
Join the conversation
February 18, 2016
Measures of Success: Marketing Percentage of Closing Leads Online
This week we’ll take a look at a closely related metric: marketing percentage of customer acquisition cost.
If your acquisition cost is what you spend to gain one new customer, your marketing percentage is what part of that investment went to directly to marketing. This is a direct reflection of how your marketing efforts impact the cost of turning a lead online into a paying customer.
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When this number is high or increasing (unless you’re in an investment phase that requires an extra push for marketing), there’s a problem. Either you have an issue with your sales team, or your marketing team has too much overhead.
Calculating Marketing Percentage
To find this number:
Determine your total marketing costs. This should include your expenses, salaries, commissions, bonuses and overhead for your marketing department over the period of time you’re focused on (monthly, quarterly, yearly).
Find the total of your sales and marketing costs. This will encompass your marketing costs plus advertising, salaries, commissions, bonuses and overhead for your sales department for the period you’re looking at.
Divide your marketing costs by your total sales and marketing expenses.
So if you spent $20,000 on sales and marketing, but $10,000 of that was strictly marketing, your marketing percentage is 50% (because 20,000/10,000 is 0.50).
This post originally appeared on Inkliss.com
Become famous for your helpfulness
Find out more about becoming famous through helpfulness with a free copy of the book.
February 10, 2016
How Blogging Is Still Innovative Marketing
One of the best ways to maintain awareness of your brand and build trust over time is with a blog.[image error]
This may not sound like innovative marketing, but consider the implications. A blog allows you to write about and establish your expertise in a number of ways to a wide variety of people. It gives your ideal customers a way to find you when scouring the web for solutions to their problems. A consistent, helpful blog is a dream tool for becoming famously helpful.
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The public expects much of what they consume today, even if it’s high quality, to be free. This concept works out for your reader as a consumer because they get your best ideas in exchange for their time and attention (aka no charge). It works well as for you as a business owner because all this helpful insight helps convert readers into paying customers.
Blogging as Innovative Marketing
Blogging is innovative marketing because it’s different than traditional advertising. Rather than shouting from a billboard, you can discuss the issues that matter to your ideal customers. Thanks to the comments section, you can even interact with them directly.
Think this through. You have something to sell, but instead of marketing it directly, you help your target market with information that illustrates your expertise. The better and more helpful your content, the more highly your audience regards you. They become fans and return again and again to get resources from you, disregarding the countless others vying for their attention. They do this because you’re consistently helpful. You don't waste their time. You make their life just a little bit easier. If we blog better than our competitors, we will see results, even with the enormous constraints on everybody’s attention.
The more content your readers consume, the more they’ll want to work with you. They may not initiate a transaction for months, but someday they will. When the timing is right, the budget is set and the need becomes apparent, you'll be the first person they think of.
Remember how success isn't about who you know, but about who knows you? And that the best way to be known by someone is to help them? If a stranger had the perfect solution to your biggest problem and gave it to you for free, you would remember them. If they did this consistently over a long period of time, they’d be well on their way to becoming your first phone call when issues arise. This is what you’re doing with a helpful blog.
Blogging is ultimately about helping people. So figure out who your ideal customers are and get to know them. What do they need? What problems are they facing? How can you help? Then get started. It's not a quick solution. Starting a blogging campaign today isn't going to help you meet your quota this month. But in the long run, there's no better marketing method for building a business.
This post originally appeared on Inkliss.com
Become famous for your helpfulness
Find out more about becoming famous through helpfulness with a free copy of the book.
February 4, 2016
Measures of Success: The Cost of Leads Online
This is why any content marketer you talk to will put such an emphasis on regularly reviewing your metrics.
Not All Metrics Are Created Equal
The trick to measuring the ROI of your marketing efforts is knowing which metrics to pay attention to. Open rates have their place, but won’t tell you if you’re actually gaining customers from your efforts to reach leads online.
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So which metrics matter? Let’s start with your customer acquisition cost. This is a metric used to determine the total average cost your company spends to acquire one new customer.
Calculating Customer Acquisition Cost
To define this metric for your own organization, determine the time period you want to focus on, whether monthly, quarterly or annually. Take the total you spent on sales and marketing for this period (include any programs, advertising, salaries, commissions, bonuses and overheard) and divide by the number of new customers you gained during that time period.
For example, let’s say your marketing spend over the course of a month was $300,000 and you gained 30 new customers. Your customer acquisition cost is $10,000 per customer.
This metric illustrates how much your company is spending to acquire each new customer. This should be, on average, a low number. A higher or rising average can indicate a problem with the efficiency of your sales or marketing.
This post originally appeared on Inkliss.com
Become famous for your helpfulness
Find out more about becoming famous through helpfulness with a free copy of the book.
January 21, 2016
The Busy Business Owner’s Guide to Blogging and Leads Online
It’s the place you share your most valuable information, attracting the people who are googling the questions you’re answering, building relationships with your online audience and converting visitors to leads. Even your emails link back to your blog in order to continue driving traffic to your website.
So blogging is important, but how do you manage to blog consistently when it’s so time consuming? If you’ve tried blogging, you know just how much time and energy it takes to plan out a strategy, decide which posts will be geared toward which part of your audience, gather your information, write the thing, have it edited, etc. How did a mere 500 words become so demanding?
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Practical Logistics
The more frequently you publish, the less time you have to write. So start with a manageable publication schedule like one post per month. This gives you to opportunity to remain consistent, which is vital to you relationship with your audience online, while building up a backlog of blogs. This backlog is incredibly helpful because there will be days when you just can’t seem to write anything you like.
With a backlog, you don’t have to stress because taking more time isn’t going to impact the consistency of your posting. For example, if you have two months’ worth of content ready to go, you can take an extra couple of days to write the next blog post and all will be well. As time goes by, build up your frequency and continue to pile up content for your backlog.
Less Isn’t Always More
There’s a lot of advice for how to blog more in less time, which is music to the ears of any business owner pressed for time. But remember that the purpose of your blog isn’t just to throw out a new blog on a regular basis. Your purpose is to help your ideal customers.
In doing so, you build a relationship with your online leads over time that proves you’re the expert they’re going to want to buy from when the time comes. You don’t produce quality content by hurrying through it. The world doesn't need more lists of the top four rules for social media or three great leadership tips you can implement today. These are the headlines that garner the most clicks, and there's nothing wrong with organizing your content in an easy-to-digest format like a list. Just don’t sacrifice quality for quantity.
Instead of spewing out as many words as possible in less time, figure out how you, as a thought leader in your space, can deliver greater value than your competition. Then figure out how to present that value in the most digestible way possible. Most blog posts average 500-800 words, but there’s no rule about length. Your audience is unique and you need to serve them. So take the space you need, be it long or short.
Let the piece dictate how many words it should be. Write as clearly and concisely as possible in order to get your point across. One sign of an amateur writer is that they take seven words to say what could be said in four.
The Discipline of Writing
So how does a busy business owner take the extra time to write quality content? Discipline. This is going to look different for different people. Some writers work best by writing at the same time, for the same amount of time, every single day. Others start at the same time and end whenever they’ve written a certain number of words. These are good systems but, honestly, they don’t work for me.
I fare better if I’m open to ideas when they strike. When an idea comes to mind, I make time to write as soon as possible. I'd rather rearrange my day or take time that evening to write down something I'm excited about than let it wait. I get ten times as much done if I'm excited about an idea and it's fresh in my mind.
The point is, find what works for you and do it. Do it consistently. Get someone to hold you accountable if it will help. And keep thinking of all those online leads you can reach.
This post originally appeared on Inkliss.com
Become famous for your helpfulness
Find out more about becoming famous through helpfulness with a free copy of the book.
January 13, 2016
How To Not Boost Sales
People you want to work with have problems and you have the answers. What could possibly be more natural than building a relationship that will benefit you both? Just keep in mind as you set out to prove your merits that there is such a thing as too much helpfulness.
If your mindset is on helping and not just to boost sales, you’re more likely to avoid this faux pas. There is a place for aggressive helpfulness, but too much aggression is a major put off for many people.
Consider the people you admire and find helpful. Are they force feeding you their expertise? How aggressive were they with their offers to help and what does that look like? Do you hear from them constantly or periodically? Do their offers come across in a desperate tone? Consider how frequently you offer to help people, the posture you have when you make the offer and the language you use.
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The hard part is, there’s no formula. Connecting once a month is way too much for some relationships, but nowhere near enough for others. How do you know which is which?
In general, your timing should depend on:
The larger the discrepancy between your influence and theirs, the longer you should go between follow-ups.
If you've found people who could become clients but don't have an immediate need, staying in touch once a month is plenty.
Of course, both of these play off each other. A potential client without an immediate need and a whole lot of influence would benefit from a communication from you once or twice a year. If they have a more immediate need, increasing your frequency is entirely appropriate.
Whatever you do, make these communications count.
Rather than telling a potential client that you’re just checking in (aka “I’d like to boost sales this month, you want to buy something?”), be proactive. Be helpful. Send them a resource, make a connection for them, do something in line with the themes of helpeting. Do some research so you can tailor your offer to something they’re currently dealing with.
You might even offer to do some free work for them or consult on an issue you know has come up in their organization, just don’t do this out of desperation. Be reasonable and think it through before you hit “send.”
Too much, too often and too aggressive will push away the people you’re trying to help and, instead of helping you boost sales, will hold you back and frustrate your efforts.
This post originally appeared on Inkliss.com
Become famous for your helpfulness
Find out more about becoming famous through helpfulness with a free copy of the book.
January 6, 2016
Slow and Steady Wins the Leads Online
There are a few examples of people and companies who achieved great success or fame (not necessarily the same thing) in a short amount of time.
In a world of Internet articles on stratospheric rises to fame and fortune, it can be easy to get discouraged. Keep in mind, however, that (1) you’re more likely to be struck by lightening than to become an overnight success and (2) the vast majority of stories pitched as “overnight success” are actually one small portion of a story involving years and years of hard work.
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What does this have to do with your content and effort at generating leads online? It’s easy to start thinking that sudden success is normal, therefore if our marketing efforts don’t generate thousands of leads online within six months we’re doomed to failure. The truth is that the vast majority of success comes over a long period of time. This is true whether we’re talking about fame and fortune or generating enough leads online to keep your business growing.
Creating quality content is a way to help you achieve the long, steady rise. Most audiences grow like a savings account. You plug a little money away, as much as you can afford, for a really long time and then you wake up one day to find you've got ten million bucks in the bank. The growth of content’s effect is painfully slow for a really long time until it hits some sort of critical mass and starts to accelerate.
That’s not to say you can’t expect any quick results. You're not likely to land on the moon in your first year, but genuinely helping people wields more power every time you try.
Small Wins
As a practical guide, I've seen most people experience some measurable benefit from helpeting in the first year. They were able to get a better job. Their sales increased by 10%. They secured a new client or two. Small wins like that. Somewhere two to five years in, things really start to accelerate. Many people might be fine settling in at that rate of success, but others, those who keep pushing hard for decades, are the ones who end up playing a big role in making this world a better place.
Who have you held up as a model for success? Do you need to adjust your expectation of what’s likely and how long it might take? Read a few biographies and company case studies that show a more realistic view of what it takes to make an impact. Talk to people who are raking in theleads online and ask about their marketing history.
Whenever you feel you're not measuring up to whatever preconceived notions of success you have, bring to mind the stories you uncover of those who won in long game.
This post originally appeared on Inkliss.com
Become famous for your helpfulness
Find out more about becoming famous through helpfulness with a free copy of the book.
November 30, 2015
The Importance of Patience in Innovative Marketing
The difference between failure and quitting is the difference between greatness and mediocrity. Great people fail. Mediocre people quit.
Helpeting is an innovative marketing practice and helpeters don't quit helping people no matter how boring it gets, how shiny the new distractions are or what other opportunities present themselves. No matter how little thanks they receive, no matter how bad the press reviews are or how nasty the troll comments get or how slowly the follower counts grow or how many people unsubscribe or how many critics tell them they shouldn't quit their day job, helpeters keep going.
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This is vital to keep in mind as you start generating leads online: it takes time. It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of a clever approach to innovative marketing and expect it to yield instant results.
While you will see improvements quickly, they will be small. More people might open your email this month. That’s a win. Not the multi-billion-dollar business break you were hoping for, a but legitimate win nonetheless. Next month it might be a click rate that rises 1%. Again, this is a win, even if it doesn’t seem like much. Keep pressing on, keep seeing what works best with your target audience, and over time those 1% increases will become the growing business you’re hoping for.
Helping People Is Hard
The world is filled with people who are willing to try something for a while. This is why workout equipment is so cheap on Craigslist. Just like weight loss basics, the principles of becoming famously helpful are not new. They've been used by the most successful people on earth since the beginning of time. Yet most people don't achieve a great level of success from helping people because sooner or later they get tired of helping.
This is the counterintuitive part about helping people. Helping is hard. It's way harder than selling. It's harder than working for minimum wage. It's harder than sitting on a couch. It's harder than hoarding our talents for ourselves. It might seem like helping would be easy because who wouldn't want to be helped?
Part of the problem is there are so many people willing to “help” that you've got to cut through the clutter just to get someone's attention. Another part of the problem is that people are worried your help will actually create work or problems for them. Most of all, people are skeptical. They just assume you have an angle and they worry you're just trying to get close to them so they’ll give you stuff.
People who become great through helping don't stop helping when it gets hard. They persist. It takes time, but eventually people will see your true intentions, whether for good or bad. You can prove that you're different from all the other fake helpeters by playing the long game.
You can increase your odds of success from helpeting by anticipating the ugly. Expect the troll comments and the one star reviews and the people who falsely report your emails as spam even though you can prove that they signed up, because helpeters aren't helping people in order to grow their mailing list or compile a portfolio of glowing reviews.
They're helping because they want to help people and they know that it requires persistence to break down the barriers people put up all the time. Helpeters believe they can help and that helping is worth sticking with it. That's why we call it innovative marketing.
This post originally appeared on Inkliss.com
Become famous for your helpfulness
Find out more about becoming famous through helpfulness with a free copy of the book.
