Category: business growth

How “Reopening” Too Early Could Be Worse for Small Businesses

While nearly 80% of the country supports ongoing shutdown measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a growing minority of U.S. citizens and small business owners that want to open up shop. No one will say that this process has been well-managed or easy. Every business is facing significant difficulties as a result of the pandemic. However, reopening your business too early could be worse for small businesses and employees.

Just because the government says it’s time to reopen, it doesn’t mean that you’ll have customers running through your door. The threat is still real, even if people choose to downplay it. Customers may have lost their own jobs and tighten their purse strings as a result. You cannot force customers to come to visit your restaurant or shop no matter how many air purifiers and hand sanitizer stations you invest in. If you don’t have customers, you don’t make money.

Businesses have costs, regardless of whether there are sales. Rent, electricity, water, internet, employees, supply costs, food costs, and more. Some of these expenses business owners have to pay regardless of being open, while others you can avoid.

Let’s say a restaurant decides to reopen its dine-in service, re-hire its furloughed employees, and take some precautions, such as operating at 50% capacity and wearing surgical masks (that do not stop the spread of COVID-19).

The restaurant has to buy food and pay employees, even if there aren’t any customers. There needs to be a certain amount of perishable inventory purchased, even if restaurants choose to only offer limited menus to mitigate some of this. Food will need to be thrown away and replaced if customers don’t order it. Staying shut while there isn’t demand reduces these costs.

Most restaurants operate at narrow margins, like other types of businesses. In some restaurants, this is only 10% to 30%, depending on food costs. Could a restaurant survive financially operating at  50% capacity and be profitable or pay staff and vendors? (Filling 50% of seats isn’t likely, anyway).

Employees in the restaurant industry largely earn money on tips. If they don’t receive tips because there aren’t customers, owners must pay them the difference up until their pay equals the minimum wage. This means that the wait staff is putting their own life at risk for very little money. In many cases, they will no longer receive unemployment if their employer opens up again. While this is great for the government paying these benefits, it isn’t best for employees or employers, who will use up more of their cash reserves and potentially go out of business as a result.

Also, what legal problems might your company face if someone actually catches COVID-19 at your business? A customer who believed in your marketed safety measures gets sick and dies, with your business being the only one they visited. Or a cluster appears from dozens of customers who visited the same day.

What happens if an employee you force to work gets sick and dies? What kind of legal action might their family take against your company? Could you survive that?

There’s this way people choose to cope by dismissing their own risk level. “I’m healthy,” they say, “so I won’t die.” Some healthy people die, too. The cases aren’t (yet) as high as were possible because more than 90% of the U.S. populace was ordered to stay home. Another problem is the instant gratification. People don’t see the immediate result of their actions, as you may not show symptoms until 2 weeks later.

No one is expecting you to stay alone, closed for business for 18 months until researchers develop and manufacture an effective vaccine for mass-distribution or enough people to survive the disease to develop herd immunity.  However, we don’t have the infrastructure in place yet for testing and mitigation yet (led by a poor government response, in part).

It will take time for businesses to get back to “normal.” The concept of normal may never be the same again. Yet, businesses will survive.

We are not the first to go through a pandemic and we will not be the last. Hopefully, we can learn what we can from this situation to protect our businesses and lives during the next one.

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P.S. All hope isn’t lost. There are still things that companies can do to survive this period. Some ideas:

  • Update your website
  • Invest in SEO
  • Schedule an obscene amount of social media posts
  • Invest in marketing
  • Pivot to new and/or digital offerings

If your company needs help updating website content, writing blog posts or press releases, or other forms of content marketing, email us at info@triassicmedia.com. We would love to help you.

How to be a Great Guest Blogger

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Guest blogging is when you write a post on another person’s website or blog. You write the post directly to their audience, usually with a small biography about you and your company to accompany the post. The posts can accomplish a lot for your business, such as connecting with new readers you’d otherwise have no way of reaching.

How Guest Blogging Benefits You

In most cases, you won’t be paid for guest blogging. However, that’s not the real reason you should write a guest post. There are many tangible benefits of guest blogging that include:

  • Establishing credibility through expert advice
  • Reaching new customers
  • Creating additional backlinks to your website to improve your own SEO
  • Building key relationships with influencers that can help you grow your brand

These benefits can be leveraged to help you grow your own company or brand’s interests. In general, the more people that become exposed to your offerings, the more people that will buy your products or services. If you don’t have a product or service, the exposure will help others see you as an expert.

Identify Your Goals for Guest Blogging

Before you approach any blog owners, you need to clearly identify your goals for guest blogging so your posts will be as successful as they can be. If you want to establish credibility within your industry, you might want to only approach blogs and websites within your industry. However, if you want to attract customers, you should write posts on sites that your best customers frequent.

Ideally, you should find targeted guest blogging opportunities that closely align with your goals. Blogs open to guest posts want relevant, high quality articles that their visitors enjoy reading. When you know what your goals and markets are, you’ll know what websites to target. For example, if you are a plumber, you may want to look for how-to home improvement websites where potential customers look for plumbing solutions, a plumbing industry website with advice for other professionals, or a blog about people who own service-based businesses. All of these would provide access to a different group of readers that may advance your own strategic goals for guest blogging.

Research Potential Blogs

After you’ve clearly identified your goals and the type of blogs you want to target, it’s important to research potential blogs that might work best. Make a list of sites that you want to research further. Ideally, you want to know if the website is open to guest posts, what kind of posts they publish, the frequency of publishing, and who is in charge of the website. You’ll want to know how to contact them about your guest blogging post to see if they’re interested and to cater your post to meet the needs of their audience.

You also want to research more about the blog’s visitors and the website’s reach. Do visitors leave comments or share posts on their social media pages? Have you checked the site’s Alexa score? A website’s Alexa score reveals how much website traffic any site gets. You don’t need to be the website’s owner to find this out. Check your own website to see what kind of traffic you get and your ranking to compare to the guest posting site. You want to guest post on a website that has more traffic than yours does.

Approach Blog Owners

Even if the blog you want to write a post for doesn’t ordinarily accept guest posts, there’s a chance that you’ll still be able to write a post for them if you can persuade them. Consider the best topics for the site that aren’t currently covered on the blog and that closely fit in with the topic there. You want to establish that you’re very familiar with their content and their audience by selecting the best topic.

Write a well crafted pitch email to the blog’s owner. First, you should compliment their website and make specific comments about the content. For instance, “I love reading the content on [SITE’S NAME]. Recently, I loved the posts titled “RECENT ARTICLE NAME.” Mention how long you’ve read their posts and why you like their content. Then you want to tell them about your idea. Don’t write out the entire post but provide them enough information to know if it would be a good fit on their blog.

Last, you want to make sure that you tell them why you’re the best person to write this post on their site. Let them know about any experience, education, or expertise that you may have. Remember to stay brief and to the point, as you don’t want to waste their time.

Write a High Quality Guest Blog

Your guest post is a direct reflection of you so make sure that it’s of high quality. In most cases, you’ll want to write it in a similar style of what’s currently on the website. If existing posts are written in the third person and use H2 headers, your guest post should, too, unless the blog’s owner asks you to do something else.

Try to provide the most accurate and valuable information in your post that readers want to know. Don’t regurgitate the same type of information that’s found on other websites, although it’s important to do enough research to ensure that your information is correct. The better your article is, the longer it will be up on the site and shared. You may even be asked to write another guest post in the future.

Be Open to Feedback from the Blog Owner

The blog’s owner might want revisions to your guest post to more closely align with their brand. You may not agree with their feedback, but it’s okay. Ultimately, what the blog’s owner wants to post is their decision. You may not understand some of their suggestions, but it’s a good best practice to comply with their requests unless you feel that the changes would misrepresent the message that you want to say.

Drive Traffic to the Post

Try to make your guest post as successful as possible by doing what you can to drive traffic to the post. Plan on sharing the post on your own social media pages to increase traffic to the website. You want your guest post to be the most successful to reach the highest number of people and to have opportunities to write a guest post on other websites. These stats will be important later to showcase their successes.

Interact with Blog Viewers

Readers want to interact with guest post writers. If you see that your guest post gets comments, feel free to respond to them in a professional way. It’s best not to respond to negative comments unless you’ve been asked to. Instead, thank readers for their feedback and provide additional information in your response. You can even answer reader questions. Just make sure to check with the blog’s owner to get their approval before responding to every comment. They may want to be the ones to engage with their readers.

Guest posting is a great way for companies and individuals to expand their audience and establish credibility. If it’s your first time writing a guest post, it can be overwhelming. Use these tips to ensure a smooth campaign.

Getting Tired of Your New Business? 5 Sources of Inspiration That’ll Rekindle Your Love

Keeping your business alive and well takes a lot of energy, effort, and planning. It’s quite frankly exhausting! When you feel that you’re at your wit’s end and that you don’t want to work on your new business anymore, turn to these 10 sources of inspiration to rekindle the love you have for your new business.

1. Talk to Happy Customers

It’s easy to focus on the negative, but at the heart of your business, you provide benefit to your customers. Make it a point to talk to them about their experience with your company. Learn why they love your company and what it does for them. You may be surprised at what you find.

2. Take the Day Off

Nobody can continue to work forever. If you’re feeling especially disillusioned, take off an entire day from working. The world will not implode because you took off 24 hours, we promise.

3. Imagine Going Back to a Day Job

A wise business comrade once reminded me that when you work for someone else, you’re making them money. When you work for yourself, you’re making that profit for yourself. Imagine going back to a day job and what that would be like. It may seem that it would seem easier, but there was a reason you decided to open your business and skip the 9 to 5. Remember why.

4. Invest in Business Training

Whether an ebook, an online course, or an in-person workshop, invest in business training to give yourself a new perspective of your business. It may inspire you to make changes or to deploy new growth strategies.

5. Find a Quality Outsource Provider

When you feel overwhelmed, you might just have too much to do so you separate yourself from your business. Find a quality outsource provider, like the Triassic Media Group, to take over some tasks you don’t need to do yourself. We’ll take care of your marketing, content writing, and website maintenance needs so you have more time for other things.

Crowdfunding Campaigns

Part Four: How to Write Copy for a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign

What you write for your crowdfunding campaign has a lot to do with its success. Nobody wants to support some shoddy cause. Here are some ways to have your crowdfunding campaign’s copy stand out.

Invest Time in Great Writing (Headlines + Body Copy)

While word-of-mouth advertising is important to your success, your written copy will be the most widespread communication method. Crowdfunding platforms, commercials, and most other forms of advertising use written copy to convey information. The writing you have done to promote your cause needs to be high-quality. Most people cannot write on the level needed to create effective, high-quality written copy. Invest in finding and hiring someone to do your written copy who has the experience and the skills to do the best job possible.

This is especially true for your crowdfunding platform and other online channels. They have the potential to reach people around the world and convince them to donate without ever talking to you. You want your headlines and body copy to be the highest quality that you can get to ensure your success.

Describe Exactly What the Money Covers

One of the best ways to ensure that people will donate to your campaign is to tell them exactly what their contributions will do. People don’t donate to problems, they invest in your solutions. You have to explain to them how your solution works and how their donations can help you develop it. Many organizations do this by providing a detailed description of their operations detailing what the organization is doing and how it channels donations to facilitate it. If you can show donors how their efforts will help you solve a problem, they are more likely to donate to your cause.

Use Excellent Photos in the Campaign, Reminder Emails, and Social Media

Next to your written copy, your imagery is the strongest method of communication. People often connect more with pictures than they do with written text. So, you want to use powerful and descriptive photos in your marketing efforts. One good picture can be the difference between a successful campaign and a failing campaign.

Social media and reminder emails are great ways of disseminating information through pictures. Social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter are exceptional methods of distributing pictures with text that can get donors’ attention. Take advantage of your social media platforms to grow support for you cause by periodically sending updates with eye-catching pictures to get people involved.

How to Promote Your Cause on Social Media

Social media is great for promoting your cause, but there is a right way and a wrong way to go about it. You want to focus on providing images and text that can draw a viewer in with a positive mindset. You also want to do it in channels with appropriate context. Sending pictures that are off-putting and negatively provocative in the middle of an Instagram feed for funny memes is the wrong context for your advertisements. Instead, focus on using imagery that gets people interested in a positive way in the channels that your target market uses. Tailor your content to your audience so that you are drawing more people in rather than scaring them away.

At Triassic Media Group, we love writing crowdfunding campaigns. Email us at info@triassicmedia.com for a custom quote for your project.

Crowdfunding

Part Three: How to Get Your Donors Excited About Your Crowdfunding Campaign

It is entirely possible to find funding for your cause. People generally want to help solve problems, especially your family and friends. If you go about it in the right way, you can easily find the support that you need to raise funds for your cause. Crowdfunding is a valuable source of support, and will likely continue to be a major influence around the world. Here are some ways that you can keep your donors excited about helping you.

Set Clear Goals and Timelines

Supporting a cause is much like any other action that you take in your personal and professional lives. You need clear goals and timelines so that you can efficiently manage your efforts and produce results. Set clear and achievable goals so that you have something to aim for. In a way, it gamifies your efforts by giving you something to achieve. This works for your donors as well. People are more willing to donate if they feel that they can help you achieve a tangible goal. You are most likely to get donations when people see that you are close to reaching your next goal. It helps them see that even though they can’t donate a lot, the little that they can donate will make a big difference in reaching your next goal.

Thank Donors

Donors want to feel involved and appreciated when they contribute to your cause. When a donor sends you money and support, be sure to thank them immediately. A simple thank you note is enough in most cases and has a big effect on whether that donor spreads the word about your campaign. The more positive feedback that you can give donors, the more likely they are to donate higher amounts, donate multiple times, and tell others about it.

Crowdfunding platforms automate this process for you by automatically responding to donations. You can design a thank you note or gift to send to your donors as a way of giving back to them. The message or gift depends on the campaign that you started. If the campaign is focused on creating a product, you might send them one when it is finished. If the cause does not have a tangible product, then a well-designed thank you note is appropriate. The point is that you want them to feel appreciated for helping you.

Keep Thank You “Gifts” Low in Value

Regardless of the size of the campaign or the donations, thank you gifts should have a low monetary value. Expensive gifts cut into your donations and rub donors the wrong way. They don’t want to feel like their donation is used to send people fancy gifts. They want to know that the money goes towards the solution that you presented that convinced them to donate. Simple, thoughtful gifts are the key to creating a successful thank you gift. For example, a heart-shaped gift with a thank you note on it is appropriate for a campaign that is focused on solving heart-related issues. It is easy to find or design a heart-shaped gift that is relatively inexpensive. The fact that you put in the time and effort to create a relevant gift shows donors that you are more focused on the cause then other things.

Take advantage of this growing trend to make the changes in the world that you feel are right. Don’t forget that your family and your friends can be your biggest supporters if you give them the opportunity. Give everyone the opportunity to support your cause by setting up a campaign and spreading the word.

Kickstarter

Part Two: How to Pick Out the Right Crowdfunding Platform

If you want to collect donations for your cause, then you should use one of the popular crowdfunding platforms available online. Crowdfunding platforms make it easy for people to send you money for your cause. Without one, people won’t know where to send the money to. They also help you spread the word about your cause to a wider audience which increases your chances of getting the funding that you need.

In recent years, crowdfunding platforms have made it possible to raise billions-of-dollars for different causes ranging from helping people to creating new products. GoFundMe, Kickstarter, and Patreon are three of the leading platforms, and they each focus on a different type of cause. Here is some information about the most popular options available.

GoFundMe

GoFundMe is likely the leading crowdfunding site for personal causes. If you are looking to find support for a cause like paying medical bills or taking a trip for yourself, then it is the best option. It focuses on the personal cause funding market and has raised billion for these personal projects.

Kickstarter

Kickstarter is a leading platform for funding creative projects. It doesn’t allow you to fund personal projects, but you can use the funds for developing products or starting your business. It is a great way to get started if you want to make a product that can help people, but you lack the funding to finish its development.

Patreon

Patreon is used mainly for creative work that does not produce a purchasable product.  Podcasters and other entertainment creatives use it to fund the development of their shows. It is a great way to find funding without having endorsement deals with major companies. Instead, you can get the funding directly from the people that enjoy your form of entertainment even though it’s on a platform where you cannot charge for it.

There are many other platforms that you can choose from. It’s important to read the fine print about these platforms first. All crowdfunding platforms charge fees for their services. Some charge you while others charge your donors. All of this information should be listed on their site or in documents when you sign up.

Successful Crowdfunding Campaigns

Part One: How to Get People, Friends, and Family to Donate to Your Cause

Most people have a cause that they want to support. People do it through volunteering their time or raising awareness of the issue. Most people support causes by donating their money to fund it. In the past, most people struggled to find funding for their causes. Spreading the word, gaining support, and collecting donations were time-intensive endeavors. Technology and the development of crowdfunding platforms have made getting support for your cause much easier.

While you can use crowdfunding to fund your efforts, some people still find it difficult to raise the needed funds. There are specific steps that you need to take to gain support for your cause. If you are looking to find funding for your cause, here is how to get people, friends, and family to donate to your cause.

Decide on a Cause

Before doing anything to find support for your cause, you have to decide exactly what your cause is. Without a firm understanding of what you are working towards, you won’t be able to articulate it to other people. That’s a sure way to fail at getting donations. You need to determine what your cause is, what it is not, and what you want to do.

Your cause needs two components: a problem and a solution. Start by identifying a problem that needs to be solved. It can be a personal issue like finding a way to pay for medical bills. You can also pick a socially conscious cause such as supporting changes in local legislation. Once you have identified a problem, find a way that you can solve it. People are more likely to invest in a solution to a problem than they are to invest in a cause that won’t produce any positive changes.

Find Out if People Will Support This Cause

Once you pick the cause that you want to work for, do your research to see if others want to work on it too. Working towards a cause is pointless if you cannot get the support that you need to make positive changes. You will need the support of your community, family, and friends. Start with your close acquaintances like your family and friends. Poll them to see if they would support you in both monetary and non-monetary ways. Slowly expand your polling to others outside of your network. If there seems to be support for your cause in the community, then it is worth pursuing.

A fast way of researching your cause is to see if other people have tried to support it before. Some causes are universal and can be found around the world. If there are other groups working towards the same goal, then you can probably find the support that you are looking for.

Define a Target Donor Market

While it may be tempting to market to everyone, you will likely not be able to get the support you want without focused efforts. Choose a donor market to target when you advertise to get the most return on your time. For example, you will need to raise in the hundreds-of-thousands, if not, millions-of-dollars to make a tangible change in cancer research. So, you will want to target millionaires, billionaires, and their companies. These people and organizations are most likely to have the resources be able to donate enough for you to reach your goal. If you are working towards a cause that needs less funding to make a tangible change, then you can target people with fewer resources. Likewise, you’ll want to focus on local donor markets for local causes. Local donors will be more likely to donate since they are affected by local changes in the community.

Once you figure out your cause and donor market, it’s critical to pick out the right crowdfunding platform, get people engaged, and write the best copy. Learn how with our upcoming series about writing successful crowdfunding campaigns.

3 Strategies for Customer Acquisition You May Not Have Tried

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For many businesses and websites, customer acquisition can be cumbersome and costly. You want to use strategies that work and set you apart from your competition. Most modern businesses know they should be writing a blog on their own site, sending email newsletters, and harnessing the power of social media hashtags. Outside of these common tactics, there are other customer acquisition strategies to try.

Create a Free Downloadable Guide

If you’re familiar with content marketing, you may hear about creating a marketing funnel that starts with giving prospective customers something in exchange for their email address. Its effectiveness in securing new leads is high, which is why many businesses opt to participate in some type of funnel in the marketing and consulting spaces. However, businesses of many varieties can benefit from such a guide. If you currently don’t offer a free downloadable guide, invest in creating one that speaks directly to your target market.

You don’t want this free guide to be particularly long because then leads might not read it quick enough. You don’t want it to be too short, as potential customers might feel taken advantage of. Focus on delivering valuable information related to your product or service. Create an engaging landing page that’s SEO friendly. Some customers will sign up for your email list just for the free guide and unsubscribe immediately. Don’t take this personally, as not all of your potential leads will.

Write SEO Posts in Industry Forums

Most SEO centers on what you can do on your own website. However, you can use common sense SEO tactics on industry forums to guide new visitors to your website. Write informative answers to posts from other forum participants and link your website.

You can participate in forums for your industry and for your target customer’s industry. Most of the time, it is easier to get customers when you focus on posting in forums your prospective customers visit.

Join HARO

HARO, or Help a Reporter Out, is an online service that connects business owners and regular people to reporters, journalists, and writers that need sources or people to interview for their stories. After you sign up for free on their website, requests are emailed several times a day in batches by topic. If you meet the criteria the reporters look for, send the reporter a response to your query with your quote and how to contact you if they need additional information. If the reporter uses your quote, you and your company will be mentioned, if not linked, to the article. Potential customers reading the article see you as credible and will go to your website if they need your product or service.

Always be on the lookout for new customer acquisition strategies that you haven’t tried. You never know what strategies will make the difference for your business. Comment below with your favorite customer acquisition strategies.

How to Answer Common Questions to Improve Your SEO Rankings

When people use a search engine like Google or Bing, they are very often looking for an answer to a question they have. Maybe they’re discussing the net worth of Taylor Swift with friends and want to prove they knew the right answer. Perhaps they want to know the prices and reviews of a new restaurant in town. People use search results to answer common questions. Once you identify what common questions exist in your market, you can use this information to improve your website’s SEO.

Determine What Your Product or Service Solves

Your business solves a problem. When users search for an answer to this problem, you want your solution to show up. For instance, a wood flooring company sells and installs floors. Homeowners will look for more information on how to install flooring online to see what the process entails. The prospective customer will look up “how to install wood floors” using a search engine. This is the problem the wood flooring company solves. Ideally, the wood floor company’s website should be optimized so that search engines list it as an answer.

All companies solve at least one problem. In many cases, companies solve many problems. Each of these should be incorporated into your SEO plan. For example, a hair salon offers a wide range of services to different kinds of customers. They create updos for proms and weddings, as well as stylish cuts for men. These customers find the company’s website differently. Each of these should be considered and included in different ways, such as “how to find the perfect prom hairstyle,” “how to pick a stylish haircut for men,” and “how to find wedding hairstyles.”

Create Content Highlighting Answers

After you realize what problem your company solves, you need to create content highlighting these search terms. For the wood flooring company, they should create a blog post or other resource that lets prospective customers know how to install wood floors, making sure to use that verbiage. They should list all the tools homeowners would need to do a professional quality job, knowing most homeowners won’t have the tools, the time, or the desire to complete the project themselves once they understand all that is involved.

It’s important to position your product or service as the answer. The blog post about installing a wood floor should provide high-quality answers and alternatives, such as DIY, hiring a wood flooring company, and perhaps a handyman. Provide prospective customers with the pros and cons of each choice. A handyman might be cheaper, but lacks the expertise needed and doesn’t carry the same kind of liability insurance. The wood flooring company may cost a little more, but the job is done right the first time without any hassle. By creating honest and helpful information, you can increase your search engine traffic, distribute highly shareable content, and grow brand awareness.

Add a FAQs Page to Your Website

If they’re certain questions customers routinely ask, put up a well-rounded website page of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). This page helps customers outside of SEO by providing them with a centralized location to have their questions answered. It also can help generate search engine traffic if users search for answers to their common questions. Just remember to keep the answers short. Nobody wants to read an entire blog post worth of content when they need a quick answer. Remember that FAQs might use many different keywords on a page, which is ineffective. Use FAQ page in conjunction with other efforts.

When you understand what your target market wants, it is much easier to create SEO strategies that work. By answering relevant questions through your website, you can increase search engine traffic.

Easy Marketing Strategies for Great Results

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Business owners are busy enough without adding complicated marketing schemes on top of everything else. Sometimes you just want to invest in easy marketing strategies that work. These are our favorite marketing strategies that are easy and simply work.

Email Newsletters

You get email addresses for current customers and prospects. You send them an email a month that passively reminds them you exist. If you’re lucky, they forward it to friends (new potential customers). There’s a reason most companies still do this.

Blog Posts

Blog posts do three things:

  1. Establish that you’re credible and know what you’re doing.
  2. Generate traffic through search results.
  3. Show customers you’re still actively working your business.

Social Media Campaigns

Triassic Media Group has a complicated relationship with social media platforms. Facebook can be a way to distribute shareable content, advertise special deals, and engage with your customers. However, most of your followers won’t see your content, it quickly moves out of your feed to become obsolete, and has a very low ROI (which is very important to us). We think social media is a good complementary strategy. It should be a part of a larger strategy, not the entire strategy.

If you don’t want to waste another single minute writing your own blog posts, social media campaigns, or email newsletters, contact Triassic Media Group for a custom quote.