Welcome to the Conference

I’ve been there with you at the conference registration table scoring my ID badge. Then packing the daily itinerary from 7 a.m. coffee meetings if you’re on a committee to dancing the meringue at the 10 p.m. closing Ball. And of course there are always more sessions than you can keep track of let alone attend. Conferences are great for expanding your network, face time with like minded professionals, and opportunities to cram as much knowledge into your poor brain as humanly possible. But is it the most effective way to expand your business?

Cost

No question that conferences present a delightful selection of new ideas and interesting people…kind of like speed dating for subject matter experts. But never have our budgets been more strained unless you’re a member of the corporate elite. Freelancers and small businesses are always strapped for cash so let’s do a rough estimate. If the conference is more than a few states away, you’re flying…roughly $500 round-trip. Registration: $500 or more; hotel and food for a few days: $500 at least. And I’m not including extras like a round of drinks for potential clients that quickly add up. Can you more effectively spend a tax deductible $2000?

Connections

As much as we want to make them like vacations, conferences are in fact business trips. What you spend should ultimately be an investment yielding a profit. Are you really drumming up new business or instead elevating your stature in the field? Your bread and butter comes from convincing people who have never heard about your service or product that it’s worth buying. You have advanced specialized knowledge but have to communicate it simply for customers or they won’t buy.

Converting Knowledge Into Paying Customers

People learn best when presented with chunks of information, not a steady arcane deluge. Persuasive Type converts your insider industry knowledge into bite sized, easy-to-understand web marketing. Search engines and customers looking for solutions thirst for it!  Let’s say you are a financial planner. Drumming up business on the social media driven web requires not only telling people you are the expert, but showing how you are helping your clients reach their retirement goals….again and again. Having a blog is the best way to personalize your advertising and this requires a steady stream of fresh content. Persuasive Type takes your vast knowledge and crafts it into simple wallet grabbing messages.

Here’s Your Alternative

So instead of attending that Financial Planning Association Conference this year in Denver, how about investing your hard earned $2000 on building your online presence? With Persuasive Type’s reasonable rates, you can have at least 30 web articles or blog posts tailored to your potential clients posted directly to your site. That’s a steady stream of content for months to share on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and for Google to place you higher on the results page. It’s as simple as that, the clearer and more targeted your online content, the more people will learn about you over the competition.

The Sky's the Limit with Web Marketing

Are you a small business who has a web site or blog but rarely has the time to keep it up-to-date and fresh with new content? After keeping a steady stream of clients happy, you barely have time for payroll and other administrative tasks let alone maintaining your website. You can bet that you’re losing out on new business if your site is little more than a 1 page post card listing your contact info. and a bullet list of your services with a stock photo added for good measure. Now more than ever, people want to see what you do and be convinced that you’re the expert. Posting something new at least once a week shows potential customers that you’re confident and on top of your game. Having something new to say that’s useful separates you from the competition.

Get Them to Your Site

Let’s say you are a plumber and somebody in your town is looking to hire one who can be trusted to respond, show up on time, and do the job right at a fair price. Many people start off with a quick Google search before asking friends or searching specific sites like bbb.org. They type in “Best Plumbers Grand Rapids MI”. Only sites that have a steady stream of new content stand a chance of making it to the first Google search results page. Not only do you want your business showing up on this page, you want it to be compelling enough for people to click on immediately. Once they click and reach your site, that’s where you want to keep them.

Inform Them

Show them what you have done in the past and talk about future projects. You are the plumber so show them how you fixed problems for people in the past. Testimonials are good but combine these with a few before and after pictures, and describe what they are seeing. Your credibility is established. Next, show them how you are learning to solve future problems. Top quality work requires knowledge of the latest technology. Blog about new materials and tools you are using, your current pricing plans, and projects you’re currently working on. Chances are great that repeat visitors to your site become established customers. They may try some advise you offer on your blog and it either works or they need professional help to finish it. And right there is a button to contact you directly.

Persuasive Type Does It For You

Your website or blog isn’t just useless chatting. It gets your brand and message out there to people who otherwise would never know you existed. The phone book, local newspaper ads, Chamber of Commerce membership, and good ‘ole fashioned word of mouth are still options but not enough to grow your business. Blogging generates online buzz at a fraction of the cost of traditional media. Since a continuous stream of compelling content is your key to success and you don’t have the time to do this, ask Persuasive Type for a free quote. We can put a blogging package together so all you have to do is give us your ideas in the form of e-mail, press releases, and advertising material, and we will make it SEO (search engine optimized) and web friendly. You’ll know exactly what to expect from us each month in terms of price and number of blog posts.

photo courtesy of proz.com

Print is Dead

Over the past 5 years, print media and traditional advertising have quickly lost their relevance. Circulation has taken a nose dive for nearly all major newspapers while magazine sales continue plummeting. And I probably don’t even have to mention that if you still have a phone book, it’s best used as a door jam. Does this rapid disappearance of print mean that writing is obsolete?

Print is Now Online Content

Just because print publications are rapidly disappearing doesn’t mean people have stopped reading. Now the web is our go-to source for information. We can pick and choose what we want to read instead of having it force fed to us issue by issue. Best of all, online content can be constantly updated reflecting changes or updates. Unlike print on paper that’s old news even before it hits the shelf, web content is always late breaking with a multitude of competing sources within a click away.

What Happens to Your Message

Reading online is different than paper. We skim the text rather than reading from beginning to end. There are simply too many sources competing for our interest. We may read the first paragraph of the latest post on a blog, click on a link which leads to another site with more information, suddenly remember that we need check our Facebook profile, search several sites for prices on drapes we’ve been meaning to buy, and then take a closer look at that op-ed on nytimes.com that we browsed yesterday. Serendipity rules our activity, much like we used to browse books and magazines in a library only now it’s much easier.

So what does this mean for your business? It means that your message is competing with other bits of information from across the globe within a quick flick of the finger. In this environment, nobody takes the time to read what you have to offer from beginning to end. Bullet points, concise language, and small paragraphs are essential. Writing for the web has to illustrate a point rather than describe it and this is how persuasivetype.com develops your message. We take the time to learn your product or service and then match your message to how customers can best use it…in bits and pieces that work just as well together as on their own. Why not get in touch for a free assessment?

photo courtesy of visualeditors.com