Tiny Business, Mighty Profits » Business Blogging

Using Content Marketing To Establish Yourself As An Expert

Russ Henneberry — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 04:43:19 +0000

Think about the formidable competitors in your industry. What makes them formidable?

Most likely, it is because they are considered by many to be the foremost authority on whatever products or services they sell. Whether it be shoes, art work or accounting services — we buy from those we believe are EXPERTS in their field.

How, then, can you establish your tiny business as an expert in your industry?

Chances are that you are already an expert in your field and if you are not, I am wondering why you chose to enter the market. This post will discuss the ways in which you can make your expertise known to your market.

Establishing yourself as an expert in your field can be done, over time, through the use of a Content Marketing strategy. Start engaging in the activities below on a consistent basis and watch your authority and your sales grow.

Write and Publish Articles

Text is still the king of all content creation and it is where all Content Marketing strategy should begin. Not only is it the preferred content type by search engines, but text is also widely consumed by nearly every industry.

Text can take many forms, the most important of which should be in the form of written posts on your business blog. You should be creating a consistent stream of valuable text posts on your blog. Your business blog should be the hub of your Content Marketing strategy and should house all of your content including text articles.

Seek Speaking Engagements

When you speak, you are perceived as an expert on the subject matter you are speaking about. It is really that simple. You should be looking for opportunities to get in front of an audience and teach them something about your industry.

When you do so, publish your Powerpoint through a service like Slide Share and embed the slide show on your blog along with some commentary and a video of the presentation. Pick up a cheap and easy digital video camera like The Flip camera. The video, slide show and text blog post you create gives your speaking engagement an infinite life span that will contribute to your perception as an expert.

Run a Podcast

Start a radio show. No — i’m not kidding. Start a radio show about the topics, trends, conferences, gossip, etc. in your industry. Interview vendors, competitors, freelancers and other members of your vertical on your program.

If your industry would lend itself well to an audio podcast, you will find that this will be a major boon to your level of perceived expertise.

All you will need is a decent microphone (less than $100) — I use the Samson CO1U and it does just fine for a beginning podcaster.

Create Online Video

Video is hot, hot, hot. Creating video around topics in your industry is a powerful method for increasing the perception of your expertise.

Creating video is not as difficult as it sounds — you can use the aforementioned Flip Camera or just a cheap web cam to shoot head-shot video. I use the Rocketfish RF-WED2C and it is less than $30. Most laptops and desktops sold today come with a web cam built in.

Upload your video to as many video sharing sites as you can using a service like Tube Mogul and then (of course) embed the video on your blog.

What about you? How do you go about letting your market know that you are an expert in your field and you deserve their business? Leave a comment!

Image credit – Pete Prodoehl

Which Web Host For A WordPress Blog?

Russ Henneberry — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 03:30:07 +0000

Hmmm... which web host should I choose?

If you just want the quick version of this — I have used and highly recommend either Bluehost or Hostgator hosting.

If you read this blog regularly (actually — if you read nearly any bloggers blog regularly) you know that WordPress is the most powerful blogging platform available.

You also know that in order to execute an effective Content Marketing strategy you will need to set up a blog and begin adding relevant, valuable and consistent content to your blog.

Setting up a WordPress blog is not difficult — in fact I have created step by step video on setting up a blog that will walk you through the process — it is painless. In order to set up your own blog you will need web hosting.

What is Web Hosting?

Think of your web host as another computer somewhere else in the world that is housing the files for your website. When someone types in your domain name (example: russhenneberry.com) your files will be fetched from your web host and returned to the searchers Internet browser.

How To Pick A Web Host For A WordPress Blog

Be sure to verify that your web host has the following attributes before purchasing:

Linux/Apache

First things first, you will want to find a web host that provides LAMP servers. This is a Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP server. Since WordPress runs on PHP and MySQL you will need to ensure that this is the type of server space that you purchase.

Fantastico/Simple Scripts

Secondly, I would not even consider getting hosting that doesn’t include either Fantastico or Simple Scripts. These two applications allow you to install your WordPress blog with a couple of clicks of a button — no technical stuff.

Add On Domains

If you have even the slightest inkling that you may eventually start another website, you should ensure that your web host allows “add-on domains.” This means that you will be able to host multiple websites on the same hosting package while still retaining separate domains in the eyes of search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing.

My hosting providers of choice for a beginning blogger have been Bluehost and Hostgator. Both provide all of the above and then some. I have had good experiences with both customer support and product quality.

Leave a comment! What questions do you have about setting up your WordPress hosting?

Content Marketing Strategy Building

Russ Henneberry — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 05:25:05 +0000

Content Marketing Is Powerful

This is a condensed version of my free report that accompanies my Tiny Business, Mighty Profits newsletter. The Tiny Business, Mighty Profits Report goes into greater detail but this is a great primer for anyone that is interested in learning to market a tiny business in the Marketing 2.0 era.

The concept of Content Marketing on the Internet is growing as small, medium and even mega-sized businesses come to grips with the fact that traditional marketing techniques are not as effective as they once were.

Defining Content Marketing

Before we jump into the business of creating a Content Marketing plan, let’s define Content Marketing for the uninitiated folks.

Read this carefully:

I define Content Marketing as “the act of creating consistent, relevant and valuable content and distributing it to your target market with the aim of creating a mutually beneficial business relationship.”

Creating a Content Marketing plan has three major steps:

Finding and Listening To Your Target Market
Creating Content On Your “Hub”
Distributing Your Content Through “Spokes”

Step 1 – Finding and Listening To Your Target Market

If you have identified your target market, you have already fought half the battle. There is an entire section in my free Tiny Business, Mighty Profits report about identifying your target market.

Once you have identified this group of people, it is time to go out and FIND them. Chances are, members of your target market are congregating on the Internet in various places.

The video below shows you how I go about doing the research necessary to find my target audience in places like:

Blogs
Forums
Physical Meet-Ups or Networking Events
Twitter

You will find that something amazing is going on in the places I mention above. People are having conversations. People are building relationships. People are venting about their problems. People are providing solutions to those problems.

In other words, they are talking about the issues that surround your industry and niche.

You should be listening and taking note of these issues — you will be using this new found knowledge in Step 2 of your Content Marketing plan.

Watch this short video that shows you how I find and listen to my audience:

Step 2 – Creating Content On Your “Hub”

If you have already started your tiny business, you may already have a website or blog.

This is your “hub.”

It is where all of your content and thus your marketing messages reside. It is from here that you will distribute your marketing messages to your target market through the “spokes” we will discuss in Step 3.

Although you may already have a website for your tiny business, it is critical that your “hub” contain a blog. A blog (and a self-hosted WordPress blog at that) is the easiest and most powerful platform from which to broadcast your message. WordPress is far and away the most user friendly and well equipped blogging platform available.

If you need help setting up a WordPress blog, watch this 4 part video series that shows you EXACTLY how to set up your very own business blog.

Get My Hosting Package | Next Video

Index of All Videos – Click to Play

Video 2 – Installing WordPress
Video 3 – Design
Video 4 – Pages and Posts

You have listened carefully to your target market and you have taken note of the concerns, issues and problems that they are having.

It is time to deliver content via your WordPress blog that will solve these problems. Content creation can come in the following forms:

Text
Video
Audio
Images

Consider your strengths when deciding upon the form that your content will take.

Are you a strong writer? Are you a strong speaker? Would you be comfortable in front of a camera? Would you be more comfortable with just a microphone and no camera? Does your industry lend itself well to images?

The content that you create for your target market can take any of the forms above but your strategy must always follow The Three Pillars of Content Marketing:

Pillar 1 - Your Content Must Be Consistent

The most difficult part of any Content Marketing plan is consistency. You must continue to publish your content on a regular basis. A good rule of thumb is that you should be creating something of value every business day. It takes hustle, it takes perseverance and it takes will power to be successful with this type of marketing.

Pillar 2 - Your Content Must Be Relevant

This should go without saying, but the content that you create for your target market should be relevant to them. People usually miss the mark with this when they skip Step 1 — and don’t listen to their target market first. They make assumptions and those assumptions are sometimes wrong.

Pillar 3 - Your Content Must Be Valuable

This is the most important of the three pillars. If you aren’t creating something valuable for your market, you will be ignored. And there is nothing more deadly to a business than being ignored. Concentrate on creating high quality content that provides a benefit to your target market.

Step 3 – Distributing Your Content Through “Spokes”

Example Hub & Spokes Model -- What Will Yours Look Like?

The last step in a successful Content Marketing strategy is DISTRIBUTION. The Internet can be used to “broadcast” your content, and thus your marketing message, using hundreds (perhaps thousands) of free tools.

The key to your strategy will be selecting a few “spokes” through which to get your marketing messages out to your market. You will need to bring the content to them, instead of expecting them to come to you.

Go back to the research that you did in Step 1 and determine the best places to place your content. DO NOT attempt to use every tool available. You will never get anything accomplished — remember that you must be consistent.

Download the full version of my Content Marketing strategy eBook entitled Tiny Business, Mighty Profits by completing the form below.

Content Marketing: A Real World Example

Russ Henneberry — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:26:22 +0000

This real world example of Content Marketing comes directly from my Tiny Business, Mighty Profits Report that is available on my website for free.

Read through this example carefully and apply the lessons to your own business. How can you implement a Content Marketing strategy the way that Dave has?

An IT professional in the St. Louis area has just started Tiny & Mighty IT Consulting. The owner (we will call him Dave) has recently been laid off from a large firm that specializes in setting up small to mid-sized businesses with turn-key software that will run the entire business. His former employer also sets up computer networks and provides 24/7 IT support.

Dave knows his tiny business cannot be all things to all people. He spent most of his time at his old job setting up networks as an engineer and knows this part of the business like the back of his laptop. ☺ However, he was never involved in the software side of the business. He loves the networking side of the business and has decided that he will concentrate on this part of the industry.

Dave also preferred to work with mid-sized businesses because he found that they had the on-site IT staff to support projects. Dave has made up his mind, he will concentrate on IT consulting for mid-sized businesses in the area of computer networking.

Dave is a smart cookie and after doing some research he decides he will go out and listen to his market on the Internet. He finds dozens of computer forums full of IT staff members from businesses across the country. He finds a meet-up group that comes together at a local Starbucks once a month to discuss geeky networking stuff. He also finds hundreds of IT professionals on Twitter that are constantly bantering about – that’s right – geeky networking stuff. He finds three blogs that have lots of IT professionals leaving comments.

While Dave is ramping up his business, he starts spending a couple of hours per day on these websites. He listens, he lurks. After a couple of weeks of listening to his audience, Dave realizes that one of the most common questions that he hears his market asking is:

“How do I keep my computer network secure?”

Since Dave is quite the expert in this field, he starts leaving valuable and informative comments in blogs, forums and in social media channels whenever he finds these questions.

Then Dave decides to add a blog to his own IT Consulting website. He has no shortage of topics to blog about and will certainly start by addressing some of the concerns that he hears regarding networking security.
He writes blog posts with titles like:

Top 10 Network Security Mistakes And How To Avoid Them
How To Back Up Your Network In-House
A Review of Three Popular Third Party Data Back-Up Companies

Dave notifies the people he has been networking with both on-line and off-line that he has started a blog and that there is good information about network security on it now. He sends it out via Twitter and mentions it over a mocha latte at Starbucks to his meet-up group. He mentions it in blog comments and puts a link to his blog in the forums he has been visiting.

Dave may not realize it but he has begun to implement a powerful marketing strategy — a Content Marketing strategy.

The people that Dave has been conversing with both on and off-line are very appreciative and gain instant respect for Dave’s knowledge in the computer networking space especially in the area of network security.
Dave goes to Best Buy and buys a cheap web cam for $60 and starts shooting video of himself giving 10 minute tutorials about network security; he uploads them to YouTube and puts them on his blog.

He sends out notification to his group of friends that he has begun the video series. Again, he mentions it in the forums, on blogs and through social media. He also tells his meet-up group about it. His network loves the free, helpful information and they love Dave.

Dave sees an opportunity here because he has branded himself as an expert with his group of “followers” in the area of network security. He does a bit of research and determines that he can segment the niche market for his paid services even further by concentrating only on the network security segment of the computer networking market.

Dave keeps producing blog posts and video that is helpful to his audience and the traffic is rolling in on his website. He is getting mentions on other blogs and in forums. Some of his followers hire him and others give him referrals.
Dave loves referrals. They are much easier to sell than cold calls.

After several months of running this strategy Dave starts to get asked to do speaking engagements, guest posts on blogs and occasionally gets quoted in a mainstream newspaper.

Tiny & Mighty IT Consulting is doing well and Dave is able to select the projects he would like to work on and refers the others to colleagues of his as a gesture of goodwill.

Does this sound too good to be true? It isn’t. Your tiny business can achieve mighty profits as well by creating a valuable and trustworthy body of content on the Internet that will brand you and your tiny business as the authority in your industry.

Download the free report Tiny Business, Mighty Profits and read it from end to end to learn the details about this powerful marketing strategy.

8 Ways To Network Online

Russ Henneberry — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:46:09 +0000

The Internet is the ultimate business networking tool. Although I have maintained that there is nothing that can replace face to face networking, there is no debating the fact that strong relationships can be formed using the web.

Each day during lunch and usually a bit in the evenings, I spend time networking online.

Here are some of the activities I have used to create my online network:

Sending Tweets - Twitter isn’t for everybody, but if it is used properly you can make some very productive relationships on Twitter. You simply need to regulate the time you spend on Twitter so that you don’t become an unproductive Twitter addict.
Blog Commentiing - I use an RSS reader to keep all of the blogs that I follow in one place. This allows me to quickly scan my feeds and look for those posts that I find interesting. When I have something to add to these posts, I leave a comment. Honestly, there is no quicker way to a bloggers heart then to leave comments. Hint, Hint.
Facebook Commenting - Communicating with people via Facebook is a bit tricky. The protocol on Facebook is more personal than on any other networking site. Be wary of this and respect the fact that Facebook (for some) is purely for friends and family. However, if used with proper etiquette, you can grow a strong network through Facebook.
Writing About Someone - Do you have a blog yet? If not, set up your blog by using these videos. When you do so, you will open up a whole new world of networking opportunity. You can write about others on your blog and link to their business website with an endorsement.
Connecting On Linked-In – Spend an hour or so a month (or more) doing some networking on Linked In. Recommend others and ask for recommendations as well.
Subscribing To Someone’s Newsletter - Networking is about showing genuine interest in someone else’s work and passions. Subscribing to someone’s email newsletter shows them that you are interested in getting to know their business.
Shooting Out Email – Did you forget about this one? I know a guy who spends a lot of time sending people personalized email. He finds relevant articles, tools and video that people would find useful or entertaining and he emails them to the person. This can be very effective.
Addressing a Specific Problem – I do a lot of listening to the people that I network with. If I hear them expressing a problem that they are having, I will try to address that problem. If I feel like it may be a problem that my entire audience might have, I will address it on this blog and then point the person to the piece of content personally. In fact, the entire section of my site entitled WordPress U was a result of a series of questions I was hearing from my network.

None of these activities can be done for a short period of time and be effective. It takes a consistent approach to see any networking benefit from them. I would recommend picking a couple of these activities, grabbing a cup of coffee and spend an hour or so building your online network.

Image credit: luc legay

Finding Your Blogging Voice

Russ Henneberry — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:11:28 +0000

Starting a business blog was the one decision that has had the most impact on my tiny business. I owe almost every dollar that I have made to this website — it gives me a voice, it gives me a powerful marketing tool and it gives me authority.

But it didn’t start out that way. When I started writing on this blog I had to find my voice.

It evolved over time in both style and message. And it is still evolving. It will always evolve because that is the nature of a blog. The creation of my content evolves based on what I am hearing and seeing from my marketplace.

Your blog will evolve as well.

Here are four methods that I have used to find my voice as a blogger:

Write, Write, Write

When I started this blog, I made a commitment. A commitment similar to one you make when you are starting a diet or an exercise regimen. I made a commitment to post VALUABLE content on every weekday. This has been (by far) the most significant method for finding my voice as a blogger.

When you start your blog, no one will be listening. Like most things, you can see this as a positive or a negative. The negative side is obvious. The positive is that you can write in relative anonymity — you can use this time “alone” to find your voice. You will get the occasional visitor at the beginning but for the most part you will be left alone to FIND what you can add to the discussion that is going on in your industry.

Read, Read, Read

While you are developing your writing style and message, it is critical that you are reading other bloggers. Find the best of the best and put them in your RSS reader. Study their style and message. Look at the titles that they give their posts, notice how they use linking to create more value for their readers. Incorporate what makes sense into your blog.

Talk to Your Audience

Once you have moved through the “Anonymity Stage” you will begin to develop an audience. Now is the time to ask questions and to listen to your audience. What are they needing? Invite someone local out for coffee and ask lots of great questions — sit back and take notes. They will tell you exactly what they need, it is up to you to deliver.

Take a Step Back

Every once in a while you must step back from your blog and evaluate whether you are delivering a consistent voice to your audience. Are your topics focused? Are you using consistent structure in your titles? Is your posting frequency steady? Do your categories make sense?

Do this on a periodic basis. Put it on your calendar if you have to. Make the necessary changes and then charge forward having solidified your blogging voice further.

What about you? What kinds of things have helped you find your blogging voice? What kinds of problems are you having finding your voice?

Rebel With a Keyboard

Russ Henneberry — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:46:25 +0000

We are living in the most exciting time period for tiny business owners in history. Today, you and I have the power of the press.

We have both the [free] tools and the [free] platform to create and publish informational and entertaining content to an audience.

The Platform

I suppose the overall platform that is available to us is the Internet in general but this notion is deceiving. The Internet has undergone a fundamental change since its popular inception in the early 90′s.

The fundamental change has been the availability of publishing tools like the one I am using to write this article — WordPress. This has been the real game changer. WordPress (and other blogging platforms) has given the tiny business owner a free and easy platform from which to publish content.

Learn to set up your own WordPress blog by watching these short videos.

The Tools

In my eBook, Tiny Business, Mighty Profits I teach the strategy that I (and thousands of other businesses) are using to market their small enterprises. It is called Content Marketing and it uses the aforementioned WordPress blog as a “hub” from which to broadcast content to your target market.

The tools that are available to us to broadcast from this WordPress blog platform are many:

YouTube, Metacafe, DailyMotion Video Sharing Sites
Really Simple Syndication (RSS)
Email Autoresponders Like MarketVolt or AWeber
Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn Social Networking Sites

And the list of free “tools” for broadcasting your marketing message (your content) goes on and on.

Create your own Content Marketing plan by downloading my free eBook – Tiny Business, Mighty Profits in the upper right hand corner of my website.

You are not reliant upon anyone else to market your products and services. You are your own media house. You are your own publisher.

You are a rebel with a keyboard.

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

Russ Henneberry — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 03:36:10 +0000

Who do you want as a neighbor? Do you know?

If you know who you want to be associated with – that is half the battle. Let the power of online and off-line networking techniques find those people and allow you to build a relationship with them.

Become neighbors.

Look to become neighbors with several different groups:

Customers
Prospects
Competitors (They aren’t enemies, they are possible allies)
Industry Experts

Your goal, as a tiny business owner, should be to build your network and establish yourself as an expert in your industry. One of the best ways to do this is to build alliances and become neighbors with others in your industry.

Here are several methods short of baking an apple pie and knocking on their door:

Tweeting - Twitter is an unbelievably powerful communication tool. Find those that you would like to cozy up with and start communicating. Don’t come on too strong, look for some way to add value to their business.

Linking- Use your blog or website to link to their business website, Twitter profile, YouTube channel. Review their products and services and (again) look for any way to help them fulfill their goals.

Commenting - Comment on their blogs, Twitter feed, LinkedIn profile, Facebook page, etc. Spark up a conversation with them and do so with nothing but good intentions.

Off-line networking - Find out where they are hanging out off-line and attend those meetings. Go to their speaking engagements. Find others at networking events that would be possible business partners or referrals for their products and services.

Speaking - Look for opportunities to get before an audience of those that you would like to be neighbors with. Speaking is one of the best ways to establish authority in your industry.

What about you? How do you make new neighbors both online and off-line? Leave a comment!

3 Websites Where I Buy Quality WordPress Themes

Russ Henneberry — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 05:02:15 +0000

At the center of my tiny business marketing strategy is the content “hub” that resides on a business blog. I recommend using a WordPress blog over all other blogging platforms because WordPress is:

Easy to use
Search engine friendly
Well Supported
Stable (Is secure and doesn’t crash all the time)
And Free!

Designing a WordPress site is very easy. You will find a theme and upload it into your ‘wp-content’ -> ‘themes’ folder on your server. Watch this video on uploading a WordPress theme for the full details.

I almost always recommend purchasing a premium WordPress theme because:

There is usually support forums to lend a hand
They are usually more search engine friendly
They are usually easier to manipulate from the WordPress admin panel

I say “usually” because there are times when I have bought themes from developers and didn’t get the above benefits.

Use one of these premium WordPress theme developers to ensure that you are getting a high quality theme with all of the above perks:

iThemes - I use iThemes when I need a non-blog website but I want the ease-of-use and SEO benefits of WordPress. These themes are extremely easy to use with great functionality in the admin panel. In other words, you won’t need to know code or FTP to make many of the changes you will want to make.

Solostream - Solostream has an arsenal of outstanding WordPress blog themes. The layouts are very clean and they have some extremely cool features. The support forums are a little quiet for my taste but I haven’t needed them as the themes are very well developed. These Solostream blog themes are second to none in the area of allowing changes to be made without messing with code and FTP.

Woothemes - Woothemes has several very nice blog themes and a couple of good non-blog themes. The support forums are very active and I have been able to get quick responses to my questions from other members or moderators. The themes themselves are not the best in terms of allowing changes to be made within WordPress itself, but if you like the look of the theme out of the box or if you are not afraid of getting your hands dirty in the code from time to time — Woothemes is a great choice.

Image Credit: Kristina

The Big Pink Elephant In Your Office

Russ Henneberry — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:03:00 +0000

You have a business. But you have no website (or a poor one) and you have no presence (or little presence) on the most powerful and most inexpensive tool available to your business — the Internet.

You know that you should.

You just don’t know if you can.

This is The Big Pink Elephant that is sitting in your office. Staring at you — and yes — with some strange black glasses on.

The Facts are These

This isn’t going to be a pep talk. I will simply state what I have come to know as the facts.

Fact 1 – If you don’t have a web presence you are seriously damaging your chances of being successful in business.
Fact 2 – If you run a tiny business like mine there is no one that cares if your business succeeds or fails except you.
Fact 3 – Building a sales-generating presence on the Internet has never been cheaper or easier than it is today.

Let me elaborate on Fact 3 as I believe that the first two facts can stand alone. The truth is that there are tools available to you that will allow even the least technical business person among us to get a website and a web presence.

There is a tremendous amount of money changing hands on the Internet and the companies that are developing these marketing and communication tools know that they must make it EASY and AFFORDABLE (free most of the time) to use their tools.

All of the following are FREE tools that are ridiculously easy to use:

WordPress blogging platform
Facebook
YouTube
Twitter
RSS Readers
Email
iTunes Podcasting Platform
And the list goes on and on

It is up to you to take the initiative and invest the TIME to learn these technologies. Your prospects have. They are waiting for you online.

Will you put your business in front of these consumers on the Internet or will you spend another year sharing office space with The Big Pink Elephant?

Image Credit – jcarwash31