Why Content Marketers Fall Behind on Their Own Marketing

October 18, 2016

Some people say that teachers have the most unruly children and that doctors make the worst patients. Sometimes content marketers fall behind on their own content marketing. In 2017, we’re going to change this and we want to share with you how.

We’ve Been Busy Content Marketing for Clients

Triassic Media Group completed 200 to 300 client projects a month for every month in 2016. For a company that spends so much time ensuring our projects are top notch and our “smedium”size, this is a HUGE number. Like many of the business owners we meet, we’ve put our own internal content marketing campaigns on the backburner.

We Know This is Not an Excuse

Confession time? We’ve kept up with our Write Bytes Blog because it’s a great lead tool for us and we’re being syndicated. We know this isn’t an excuse for not focusing on our own marketing. As a team, we decided that if we can get stellar results for clients with content marketing, we need to show our future clients why they should choose us not only based on word-of-mouth advertising and our existing client portfolio, but on our own content marketing efforts.

We’re Revamping Our Content Marketing for 2017

We’re really excited about what’s coming in 2017 for our clients and us. You can expect:

Revamped website copy that more clearly articulates what we offer and why you should care.
New free guides, resources, and tools for our existing and future clients on topics you routinely pay our team for guidance on.
More consistent email newsletters, since we know you want to keep better tabs on what’s going on here.
and more…we can’t share everything right now. We want you to be surprised like it’s your birthday.

Thank you for continuing to support Triassic Media Group and relying on us to write the stellar content your company needs. We’re excited about our shared future.

Positive and Negative Language in Advertising

October 13, 2016

In copywriting, there are often multiple ways to deliver the same message. By highlighting either the positive or negative, marketers can position their products as they want to. Highway billboards offer great examples of positive and negative language can strongly influence how successful an advertisement is.

When to Use Positive Language

Businesses should try to use positive language in advertising whenever possible. They should highlight why their product or service is the best and avoid the negative angles. This is for two reasons. First, consumers may misunderstand the negative message and attribute that message to the brand. Second, people want to know why they should choose your brand.

For example, if a college offers online classes, there are many ways to say this. All of these are technically true:

Enjoy flexibility to take classes when you want to
Avoid drama with your fellow students by not seeing them
Save money with online textbooks

Of these three, the first is the most powerful. Taking classes online gives you the flexibility to complete work when you want to, despite working a full-time job or parenting. There’s nothing negative about this. This is why so many schools use advertising campaigns with this thought.

Avoiding drama with fellow students is probably true, too. However, it highlights significant weaknesses within online programs. There’s not going to be a classmate you can get coffee with. That’s kind of sad.

In terms of saving money with online textbooks, saving money is almost always good. However, there are a few aspects of this to consider. First, are schools with online textbooks respected as brick and mortar universities? Second, what kind of money do students need to spend for textbooks? In general, you want to avoid advertising that pre-empts these types of questions.

When to Use Negative Language

Charities and PSAs routinely use negative language to influence emotions of their target audience. These advertisers know that they need to make their point in a way that drives people to act. In some instances, negative language works the best.

For example, “Feed the World” is an okay advertisement, but its language is too positive to generate any action. The consumer thinks it would be nice to feed the world, but they don’t feel motivated to do anything about it. A billboard that reads “4,000 of your neighbors didn’t eat last night” with instructions on how to donate food items works much better. People can quickly see it’s a problem close to home that they can fix.

How you use language in your advertising campaign matters. Contact us today if you need a second pair of eyes for your current advertising campaign before it goes out.

Office Closure Due to Hurricane Matthew

October 6, 2016

Our office will be closed due to Hurricane Matthew scheduled to impact Florida starting tonight. We are currently scheduled to re-open on Monday, October 10th, 2016 at 9:30am EST. If this changes, we’ll post an update on our social media accounts and on our website.

Stay safe out there and avoid taking risks with your life, as the governor so eloquently said.

3 Tools to Make Content Marketing Easier

October 4, 2016October 4, 20161 Comment

Unless content marketing is your job, odds are good that you have to try to fit updating your social media platforms and blogs around your other responsibilities. It’s easy to let your content become out of date. Here are 3 great tools you can use to make your content marketing efforts easier.

Schedule Social Media Posts with Social Pilot

If your company markets on multiple social media platforms, such as Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, you’ll waste time if you try to schedule posts using the social media platform itself. Instead, invest in a tool like Social Pilot to schedule posts across all of these different platforms at once. You don’t necessarily want to post the same exact thing at the same time on every platform. However, sometimes it makes sense to share something on multiple platforms.

Make Sure Your Grammar’s On Point with Grammarly

If you write your own posts, invest in a tool like Grammarly. It’s better than normal spellcheckers and lets you know where your writing can be improved. There’s a free edition that points out problems with contextual spelling and grammar. For around $100 a year, you can get the premium edition that lets you know about advanced grammar issues in your posts.

Check on SEO Performance with Yoast

The goal of most business blogs is to generate traffic, engagement, and increased readership. To accomplish this, the post should be written with search engine optimization (SEO) techniques in mind. Yoast is a free WordPress plug-in you can install to see how you can improve your own SEO. It gives you pointers on keyword density and tactics you can use to help with SEO.

Always remember that marketing tools aren’t infallible. You want to still write stellar content that engages with your readers. If you need help with that, email us at info@triassicmedia.com and we’d be happy to help.

The #1 Business Mistake You’re Making

September 29, 2016

Even if you think you’re doing everything right to grow your business, there’s one mistake most businesses make and don’t even think about it. They don’t return emails. Whether they’re unsolicited emails or offers you’re not interested in, ignoring emails can make you seem less than professional. Plus, you’ll miss out on potential opportunities.

Why We Ignore Emails

As business owners, you get so many emails it’s hard to manage them all. In some cases, you may get hundreds of emails. Many business owners only respond to emails they feel are urgent or from contacts they already have. Others intend to respond to an email, only to forget about it.

Consequences of Ignoring Emails

When you don’t respond to an email, there are several things that might happen unintentionally. First, you overlook the amount of time the sender took to write that email to you. Maybe they want to buy your product or service, or would, if you responded. Maybe they could solve an issue you’ve been dealing with for awhile.

If someone came to your business’s door, you’d talk to them and not completely ignore them. You never know where you’ll see the person again. Maybe Jose Smith emails you and you ignore it. When you need something from Jose Smith’s company, he might ignore you or fail to give you a great deal.

Your New Email Policy

You want to preserve possible business relationships into the future, so it’s critical you don’t outright ignore emails. You want to be professional. Here is a new email policy worth considering:

Don’t:

Respond to newsletters or automated campaigns that have an “Unsubscribe” button.
Lash out at unsolicited emails. Don’t let your negativity be in writing.

Do:

Respond to emails that don’t have an “Unsubscribe” button, even if you’re not interested.
Create a template to quickly respond to these emails to express that you’re not interested, politely.
Use the opportunity to market your business. You never know who might need your services and when. They started the conversation, so it’s not unsolicited.

Here’s a version of our template we use to take advantage of the contact opportunity:

Hi there,

Thanks for taking the opportunity to contact the Triassic Media Group, where businesses get the professional copywriting and marketing services they need at a fair and flat price.

While I appreciate your reaching out, I don’t think your proposal is a great fit for our company at this time. I’ll definitely keep your information on file in case I ever need this or someone needs a referral to a company like yours. I’d love to send relevant work your way. We’re all in this together, right?

If you or someone you know ever needs copywriting services, have them check out our website at: http://www.triassicmedia.com. We’d love to help.

I hope you have a great day.

Thanks!

The Writing and Editing Team at Triassic Media

If you need help crafting your own email response, contact us at info@triassicmedia.com. We’d love to hear your ideas and help you with all of your content writing needs.

How to Evaluate Competitor Marketing Efforts

September 27, 2016September 27, 2016

You should always know what your competitors are doing if you want to stay truly competitive within the market. If you sell soap, you better know what scents your competitors use, who they market to, and how they reach your customers. It’s not that you want to mimic their efforts, you simply need to know what’s going on. Use these steps to keep an eye on what’s going on with your competitors in the marketplace.

Step 1. Read through their website

You can get a lot of information about your competitors from their website, so make sure to take a regular look. Who do they market to? Do they talk about their company as an I, Us, or The Company? Do they post regularly to their website’s blog? Use their website to see how they present themselves to customers.

Step 2. Signup for their newsletters and freebies

While you’re on their website, go ahead and sign up for their email newsletter. If they send out a freebie, such as a free guide, get one and read it. In many cases, companies give the illusion that they have a newsletter even if they don’t have time to write one and send it out. Some companies use automated marketing funnels after you sign up. All you need to do is sign up for their free newsletter to know. If they send out a regular newsletter, you can find out about their specials and promotions.

Step 3. See what websites they advertise on

Most companies advertise on other websites to drive traffic to their own site. See what websites they advertise on. What does this say about their target market? How do they portray themselves?

Step 4. Do a quick Google search

When you do a Google search, you can see if they come up in results or if they pay for Google AdWords. (Hint: It says “Ad” next to the ones they pay for). Search their company name and see what comes up. Search relevant terms for your industry with your city and see what comes up. You might find that customer reviews come up before anything the company puts out about themselves. What do their customers say? We find that Triassic Media Group is referenced a lot in conversations on message boards and not review sites. When we ask our clients how they found out about us (which you should always do), they often say that someone recommended us on a message board. For this reason, it’s worth doing a thorough search to see where else your competitors are.

Step 5. Talk to them and create partnerships

Do not let competition keep you from becoming strategic partners with your competitors. At Triassic Media Group, our most prolific clients were once our “competitors.” Once we talked to them, we realized that we are positioned in the market differently and didn’t work with the same types of clients at all. We refer clients to each other that offer better fits.

For instance, we’re friendly with a few web developers. We offer website packages, too, right? Yes, but Triassic Media Group works with the copy and marketing, first and foremost. We use templates we can modify and that work for most businesses. We write all of the content, set up free-forever email hosting, write newsletters, and list our clients on reputable directories. We only work with other businesses, so someone starting their own blog about genealogy would not be interested in our services. Maybe they want a custom site they want to write the content for, with interactive elements such as a large, clickable tree. We’d refer this to the right web development guy because we’re the wrong fit.

Each business is different. Just because your competitors use a certain marketing strategy, it doesn’t mean that your business would benefit from the same or that it’s really working for your competitors. That’s why it’s important to test any new marketing strategy to determine whether or not it works for your business. If you need help creating a winning marketing strategy, email us at info@triassicmedia.com. We’d love to help.

How Business Owners Fail Marketing 101

September 20, 2016September 20, 2016

Working on 1,500+ marketing projects this year gave us an indispensable look into how the business owners of small to medium-sized enterprises make decisions about how they market their business. We uncovered certain aspects of marketing they struggled with and how certain marketing tactics performed in the “real world.” We made this list of the most common ways business owners fail in marketing so you don’t have to make the same mistake.

Focus on Cost over Expertise

Recently at a vendor event, we spoke to the owner of a small retail store. He confessed that blogging was a major part of his business strategy but a real pain. Evidently, he bought 500-word blog posts on Fiverr from overseas writers who receive $4 before PayPal fees to write the post. He confessed they were so poor in quality he spent a few hours cleaning them up before finding a royalty-free photo and scheduling it to go out.

Triassic Media Group charges $100 for a blog post. On an initial comparison, this is more money. However, in many ways, it’s not. First, there’s the time of the original writer working for less than $4 an hour. (What kind of writing expertise does that kind of money buy? We’ll let you make your own conclusions here). Second, there’s the three hours or so the business owner spent re-writing the bad posts at around $33 an hour. Surely the business owner’s time is worth more than that. Third, the business owner is not a writing or marketing expert. Wouldn’t the business owner’s time be better spent working on their business or own area of expertise?

Our blog posts are 500 words that you won’t have to re-write. They’re written by a writer who’s earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and who writes professionally 40+ hours a week. They have the expertise to know what performs well and how to engage readers. We find royalty-free photos for our clients and create the meta data they need to keep up with SEO rankings. Plus, we schedule the post for you.

Try to Do-It-Yourself Marketing

When business owners try do-it-yourself marketing, I can’t help but think of the time I thought it was a brilliant idea to lay down laminate tiles in my living room. It looked so easy and think of all the money we’d save! Let’s just say, it took us 2 weeks to lay down the flooring and it looks goofy around the edges. We’re saving money up to replace it because every time I pass it I only see the issues with it.

Do-It-Yourself marketing is the same thing. It’s true eventually you may get it, but at what cost? The loss of a lot of time and a giant learning curve.

Post Inconsistently on Blogs and Social Media

Blogs and social media accounts can be great ways to reach your customers. Many small business owners heavily create content for these channels in the beginning when they have time. When they get slammed with work, they stop posting regularly if at all. The problem with this strategy is that it negatively impacts your business. Don’t start something you can’t keep up with.

If you visit a business’s website with a blog that hasn’t been updated in 3 years, do you think they’re still in business? If a social media page you liked a year ago posts something randomly for the first time, do you unlike the page because you forgot about this business?

Put All Your Marketing Eggs in One Basket

Some marketing techniques work for one business but not yours. Some take a long time to pay out. Some work for a period of time before not working. In many B2B businesses we’ve spoken to, they feel that their existing technique is SO GOOD they don’t need a blog. A few months later, they’ll reach out because sending catalogs out isn’t working anymore. This is why you need to diversify your marketing efforts and not rely solely on one strategy.

Marketing can be expensive, time-consuming and overwhelming. If you’re ready to invest in a strategic partner that relieves some of this pressure, contact us today at info@triassicmedia.com. For $1,000 a month, your marketing is done at much less than the cost of an employee.

Why B2B Businesses Want Your Business to Succeed

September 15, 2016September 12, 20163 Comments

I sat with a prospective client at a coffee shop. We laughed about how sometimes putting a giant sign in front of your door isn’t always enough to draw in new customers. She owned a local Cuban restaurant down the street. She spent the last year struggling on her own. As a last ditch effort, she asked around her networking group what to do when you’re about to give in and close your doors. They referred her to me.

We discussed all the things a cursory glance told me about her business: confusing website, owner-focused marketing copy, poor online communication with dissatisfied customers, and an intermittent online presence. As I took notes, she tapped the table and asked me: “How do I get more lunch traffic into the restaurant?” I looked up at her and she quickly tacked on “you can add it to your consulting price and we can talk about it later.”

“We can talk about it now,” I said. We technically don’t charge for consulting services anyway. We’re writers, I explained to her, but based on the many small businesses we helped in marketing, we know what worked.

I told her about all of the stuff she should do that she couldn’t pay us for, from dropping off menus at nearby office complexes to creating a special lunch menu patrons could get and eat in less than 30 minutes. She took many notes before asking me why I didn’t charge her for this information. She looked genuinely surprised. Here’s why:

The Success of My Business Depends On Your Business’s Success

As a business who only works with other business, I need you to be my client. If all the businesses around me fail, I’ll have no clients at all. It’s in my own vested interest to help you find success.

Maybe you’ll still go out of business. Maybe you aren’t open-minded enough to allow in outside advice. Maybe you’ll take my ideas and not hire me. Maybe the zombie apocalypse starts tomorrow. With the law of averages, I should still help you. It will work out in my favor. It already has.

You’ll Remember Me

The sneaky thing about helping you so earnestly and candidly is that you’ll remember me for a long time. When you grow enough to afford our services, you’ll pick me because we’ve already made that connection. Do you want to work with someone only out for themselves? I didn’t think so.

Plus, we’ll have more of a connection than my competitors. You’ll refer me out at networking meetings (see how that works?) and to the other businesses you interact with. When we save your business or grow it substantially, you’ll send me Hanukah cookies and we’ll drink Manischewitz at your company’s next Christmas party.

There is Enough Business Out There

Insecure business owners never admit this, but there is enough business out there for us all to be successful. My company can successfully manage only 40 new website launches a year and that’s the truth. Everything else is referred out to tested and proven competitors I have established relationships with, who profit from our relationship.

We work for and help out our competitors all of the time. While we don’t give them all our secrets and most of them don’t write as well as we do, we wish them well and refer them work that’s more appropriate for them. With so much hate in our world already, I’m not going to spend one minute wishing you harm and not opting to help you.

Call it naive, call me a dreamer, call me what you will…but you know what? It’s been working as a business practice and my clients are extremely happy. What more can a girl ask for?

Originally published on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-b2b-businesses-want-your-business-succeed-melanie-green?trk=prof-post

What Our 1,569th Project Taught Us

September 13, 2016September 12, 2016

Today the Triassic Media Group completed our 1,569th project since February 2016, when we switched to a new internal project management process. That means we’re completing, on average, 225 projects each and every month from our office in downtown Tampa. These projects include complete website projects, blog posts, and everything else in between.

We’ve learned quite a few things by staying so busy writing and editing client projects. We wanted to share some of our insights about our work, our clients, and our processes with you.

We Surprise Our Clients

Over and over again, we find clients and prospects surprised by the way that we work with our clients. As a company, we recognize how important it is that our clients remain very successful and profitable. Without their success, we wouldn’t have clients, since we’re a B2B business. This is why we routinely go above and beyond to make sure our clients grow and stay in business.

Sometimes we meet with prospects who don’t have the money yet to hire us. We help them anyway because they usually come back to us when they turn their business around. We want to be their champions and help them succeed. Evidently, our competitors don’t do this.

We Confuse Our Clients

We’ve discovered after re-writing our own website content that certain terms we use confuse clients. This is something we’re working on. The biggest confusion stems from our web development services. We’re a writing and editing company at heart. When we realized that many businesses who would use our web page and blog writing services simply didn’t have a website, we partnered with a web developer. This way, you get all of the content and marketing you need, plus the website (and everything else you need to be professionally online) for a flat price.

We Deliver Results for Our Clients

We love to hear what happens after we finish a project. These nearly 1,600 projects showed us that we’re good at what we do. Our clients have grown their social media networks, established reputable online retail brands, and secured money for new start-up enterprises.

We See Our Clients Come Back

Sometimes prospects think our prices are too high and proceed to call around to see if they get a better price from our competitors. Sometimes clients, for one reason or another, disappear and we stop working together. We noticed something shocking around project 1,200 or so. Our clients very often come back to us after working with our competitors, who they say aren’t as professional, charge exorbitantly by the hour, or simply write poorly. Prospects end up calling us in the end because they add up the costs of doing everything with different companies and discover we’re cheaper. (I promise you, we did the math and the calls around the first time). All in all, we have a very high client retention rate.

We Know the Importance of Strong Internal Processes

If you work on 225 projects a month, it’s critical to have strong internal processes in place to manage the work, especially when some of those projects are incredibly large. From working with clients and assigning tasks to writing, proofreading, and revising, it’s imperative to map out a process and stick with it until you’re able to make it better. We like watching that tv show, The Profit, where Marcus Lemonis transforms the internal processes inside a business to make it better. As such, we sometimes switch things up to make sure everything works wonderfully.

If you need content written and edited, or your complete online business presence created, call us to discuss how we can help you at 813-58-MEDIA. We’re looking forward to working with you.