9 Lessons On How To Attract High End Clients

It is every business goal to have high end clients — these are clients that can really create a big difference in the profitability of any business. They do not care at all about the cost as long as they can be certain to get superior quality.

However, not all businesses know the essentials of how to attract high end clients; most only go with the simplistic idea that as long as they work on their products and services and are at par with others, these important clients will come.

High-end clients don’t grow on trees—attracting clients with luxury tastes and budgets to match takes excellent service and great PR. The home improvement space is already full of competitors ready to try their hand at these customers. The Associated General Contractors of America estimates that there are about 6 million workers in the construction industry, which is a lot in the running, to say the least.

And from a global perspective, the American economy performed quite well in 2016, at least compared to other developed nations like Japan and many countries in Europe. That’s left Americans with much more capital, meaning an expected 5% growth in construction starts in 2017. And residential units will get a large share of that growth—there’s a projected 12% dollar rise in single family housing. And where there is money and growth, there’s the opportunity for luxury products and goods, and less need to advertise the savings of a particular service.

Here Are The 4 Lessons On How To Attract High End Clients

Lesson 1: Don’t Sell Yourself Short

Imagine you’re about to buy a car, and you’re presented with two options from your dealer. One model costs $5,000 and one model costs $500,000. Which one would you say is the better car?

Unless your clients come to you on a referral, they’re a lot like the customer in this example. That is, since they haven’t seen the product you intend to provide them—because it’s not built yet—much of what they know about you gets communicated through your prices.

Keep in mind that high-end clients aren’t necessarily looking for a bargain or the best value. To these consumers, a lower price translates as a lack of quality. And if you haven’t been in the business for a long time, chances are, you’re probably charging too little anyway.

Analysts who study this sort of thing note that most of the time, when the price on a product or service is wrong, it’s because it’s too low, not too high. In fact, that’s the case with about 85% to 95% of bad prices. As a small business owner, the first step to evolving your customer base is to step up your prices.

Lesson 2: Let Price Reflect the Quality

Providing economical or budget-friendly solutions is great, but if a business wants to appear thoroughly competitive and professional, the price it charges should always reflect quality like no other.

Every marketing expert says this: “High end clients do not care much for cheap provisions — they do not trust them.”

If the business is using prime equipment or technology and has the best professionals or experts in the business, in the mind of the wealthy and powerful, there’s no reason for the products or services to be cheap.

Lesson 3: Add Polish to Your PR and Customer Service

No brand wants customers to see how the sausage gets made—but particularly when you’re dealing with high-end clientele, customers will expect an experience that’s polished and thorough, from beginning to end. That means you may have to trade your work clothes for a clean collared shirt when you first greet your clients.

It also means branding your business using a well-designed logo and professional-quality photos of your past work (no more fisheye lens captures of that intricate cabinet work you did last summer). A trained graphic artist or photographer can provide these materials, and you can find many eager artists that will perform this work on contracting sites like Upwork.

Similarly, sensory touches—the ability to touch and feel wood samples, for instance, or walk through a showy display room—mean a lot to high-end consumers. Even very small touches, like your company cards, should be on textured cardstock meant to evoke a feeling of luxury and richness.

You may need to up your game when it comes to customer service, as well. That could mean hiring and training an employee to answer the phones when you’re out on the jobsite. It may mean investing in your website, or spending time responding directly to social media.

While every customer values their time, high-end clients are accustomed to fast, knowledgeable customer service exchanges. They prefer to be guided through the process by an expert, rather than doing a lot of it on their own.

Lesson 4: Establish a Top Quality Brand

Mahatma Gandhi once said, "It is the quality of our work which will please God and not the quantity."

It is the quality that will attract high end clients too.

Its the small attention to details that they notice. Things like a well designed site, quality photos, even the quality of the paper on your printed materials are all very important details.

You can also take a cue from one of the episodes of the '90s TV series "The Nanny."

Broadway mogul, Mr. Sheffield, only wanted an engagement ring for Miss Fine from the most famous jewelry stores like Tiffany and Co., Cartier, or Harry Winston because they are trustworthy and are known to produce the best money can buy.

A business should always strive and prove to be the best that money can afford because that solid reputation will establish a top brand that's reliable and worthy of respect.

Lesson 5: Get to Know Your Ideal Consumer

It’s easy to get excited about consumers with good financials. A customer base with a ton of expendable income? What business owner wouldn’t want that? However, your customers aren’t just a tax bracket, so if you treat them like a walking wallet, they’re going to feel it in your interactions.

To understand your ideal demographic, it helps to design a profile (or multiple profiles) of your ideal customer. Imagine the specifics: where they live in your area, what their home looks like, what they’re coming to you for. For instance, a highly-paid professional with two young children may have different needs than an elderly, retired couple living in a luxury community.

Additionally, you may need to keep an eye on the trends dominating the market. With a lot more income at their disposal, these homeowners are more likely to want to incorporate the latest designs into their remodel or new construction. Staying on top of new features like solar panel installations or floor-to-ceiling windows will help you capture these clients’ interest.

Lesson 6: Provide Special Perks for Premium Clients

Put a lot of thought into the bonuses and special privileges to that you can throw in for big accounts.

These perks are great manifestations of the business's fine taste and effort to take care of big money clients.

The key is to add things of high perceived value, that act as a "sandwich" to your main offer.

Think of your main product as the "meat" of the sandwich. To complete your sandwich, you want to include bonuses that become the "bread" of your sandwich -- one for below your meat, and another that goes above it.

The "bread on the bottom" is a bonus that addresses something that may be preventing your ideal client from using your service.

The "bread on the top" is a bonus that you create related to your main offer that your clients use after you deliver it, to enhance the results.

Lesson 7: Network, Network, Network

It’s all about who you know, and that’s never more true than when you’re trying to rewrite your brand. Wealthy clients have the ability to consider reputation above price, so they’re looking for a standout business with a well-known pedigree. That can be difficult to accomplish with a small business: You’re likely not able to afford the kind of expensive ad space that you’d need to communicate your message.

One tactic that several remodelers have found successful, however, was asking former clients to post anniversary signs for their business in their yard. If you can, approach homeowners who live close to the neighborhoods you want to target. The signs communicate both your longevity—it’s your business’s anniversary, after all—and your good reputation in the community.

Another idea is to sponsor an event or charity function in those areas. Your business’ name will be plastered everywhere, and there’s no better way to meet the clientele you hope to draw.

Besides that, it’s an opportunity to gather intel about what your future clients need and want, so be sure to engage and ask plenty of questions as you talk to attendees—you might just walk away with a whole new customer base!

Lesson 8: Offer Consistent and Superior Customer Service

Customer support or service is a clear reflection of quality operations; be classy, eloquent and consistently ready to help because high end clients are used to being put first -- they do not like to wait.

A famous quote by Sam Walton reads, "There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else."

And since they have the resources to pay for any service provider, no matter how high the charges are, it's a big advantage to provide them the support or services when they need and want them to get them to stay.

Lesson 9: Develop Strong Lead Generation

Big ticket sales guru, Kevin Nations stated, "Nothing fuels high ticket sales like powerful, authority based lead flows."

Authority based lead flows are from sources where you demonstrate your expertise in a certain area. This could be things like a weekly podcast, blog or even a book.

By giving them this content, you position yourself as an expert that understands their problems and can help them.

The other route is to develop a "trip wire", a low cost product that can introduce a new customer to you and your business. The key is to keep the price low, so there is not a possibility of price objection.

This will build a strong relationship, and result in attaining premium clients. Remember that high-end buyers are not looking for quick fixes, hacks or tricks; They want quality. They want you to move them, serve them, and show them they are unique and special.

Make sure that you are being yourself with your clients and allowing your authentic personality to shine.

Top 5 Tips For Marketing On A Shoestring Budget

Local Business Owners Survive and Thrive by maximizing every dollar of a budget, every ounce of effort and every minute of time. An effective marketing strategy for your small business is crucial to efficiently grow revenue and minimizing wasted resources.

If you can maintain focus, understand your customers and your strengths, simplify your approach and maximize efficiency, you can find success with less. If funds are tight at the moment, try our 5 tricks for marketing on a shoestring budget for strong results without the massive price tag.

5 Ways to Market Your Small Business on a Shoestring Budget

1. Hone in and Focus

Big Companies with huge marketing and advertising budgets can afford to cast a wide net. For small business owners, a scattershot approach will deliver a very poor return on investment. Whatever channel you are focusing on, each marketing message must be targeted with laser-like precision.

A Well-targeted online advertising is the most cost-effective option for most small businesses. But if you don’t understand your targeting options or if your net is cast too wide, you can blow through your budget without creating value. The biggest value comes when you can find opportunities your competitors are undervaluing, where demand is lower than it should be, and the clicks, or impressions, are relatively cheap. You don’t want to follow the crowd and subsist on your competitors’ scraps. Rather than copying the strategy of your larger competitors, find the opportunities that are more precise with smart use of keywords and by targeting less obvious demographics.

Stay on-message, with your best message - make it clear what you are offering that the competition is not. Be results oriented, set your KPIs (key performance indicators) before you spend any money and keep a close watch on your results.

Think in terms of high-impact messages that are clear and succinct. Your intent should be apparent and simple to understand. In assessing your target audience it helps to consider demographics. How old is the audience you are trying to reach? Are they male or female? You can also use psychographics and other segmenting tools to drill down and create narrow marketing channels. There is virtually no benefit in marketing to those you are unlikely to reach.

2. Keep in Touch

Engagement is crucial to maintaining your customer base. The dollars you spend attempting to gain new customers will far exceed the ones you spend to keep them, so you need to make sure you look after your existing customers. Use e-mail and social media to enable a regular flow of communication and preserve the existing link with your patrons.

What you must remember is that maintaining a relationship with your customers requires finesse. You know the old saying, familiarity breeds contempt. Find that balance between being overwhelming and being effective. Here's a tip. The more helpful, professional and informative your communications are, the better they will be received. Every communication shouldn’t be an outright sales pitch.

3. Publish Great Content

Content is King. Content marketing is still one of the most reliable and cost-effective methods of marketing for small businesses, and it’s a solid choice for those who are trying to eke maximum value out of a shoestring budget.

Stand-out content is a surefire route to higher sales conversions - but this requires a solid content strategy, something which can be intimidating at first. Simply creating content with no real thought or goal behind it is akin to casting too wide a net with your advertising dollars. Again, you need to be focused on getting the most out of a smaller marketing pot.

Prior to any content creation efforts, research how to reach your target audience. Don’t assume you’re already aware of exactly who your target demographics are. Consider conducting market research to find what specific keywords they use to describe your product, what they find compelling about your product and what related topics interest them that are adjacent to the product you offer. Are you reaching a local, national, or international audience? This information will help you determine how to best reach customers in your choice of both content topics and mediums.

Creating valuable content that engages readers and provides useful information is one way to get a top spot in the search engine rankings. We've all seen how easily something can go viral. Remember Chewbacca Mom? In the age of social media, content can be viewed literally millions of times in less than 24 hours. The key is to be first in line. Your content will have less value if someone else beats you to the punch.

If you have the ability to create superior content yourself, go for it. And don’t be afraid to outsource for inexpensive help - websites like UpWork offer a pool of talent for less. Making smart use of freelancers once you have a content strategy in place is a cost-effective way to get your content needs covered without having to invest in a long-term hire.

4. Giveaway Discount Coupons

Coupons leverage the eternal fondness most people have for saving money and getting a deal. As such, offering coupons has been a powerful way for brands to attract new customers for many years. Make this work for you by investigating platforms that can distribute your coupon to a large number of people for a small cost.

Once you’re committed to offering business coupons, you need to have a plan in place to convert those trying your business into long-term customers. Talk to your new customers as appropriate, and find out what you can about what they want as a customer. Which aspects of your business do they love? Are there any impediments to them becoming a long term customer?

The free trial is another useful tool in the penny marketer's chest. Some people appreciate the opportunity to try something before they commit. It doesn't even have to be a long period of time. Sometimes seven days of service can do the trick.

5. Grow Your Community

Your best marketing assets are the satisfied folks you've served before. They will work cheaply on your behalf if you treat them right. Try offering a free month of service or product discounts in exchange for referrals. In many cases, the act of giving the reward itself is more meaningful to your existing customers than its value. In other words, customers value being appreciated.

Networking is one of the most powerful things you can do for your business. It can also be one of the most time-consuming. When you can persuade your existing customers to take up the cause of promoting your business, the growth can be exponential.

Small Business Owners with a Strategic Marketing plan in place have a far greater chance of succeeding on a shoestring budget. Match your passion, skill, and self-awareness to use what you know about your own business and your target audience to deliver bright ideas that will win new customers over and over again.

15 Important Factors To Consider Before Choosing A Web Hosting Service

Choosing a reliable hosting service is one of the very first and most important steps in your website development and marketing process. No matter how “maxim” it may sound, your website hosting is literally the foundation of your website online success.

Whether you’re looking to host your very first site or want to move an existing site to a new hosting provider, taking the time to think through each of the following items can help you feel confident that you have made the best decision that will meet your needs long into the future.

Physical Hardware

Physical hardware running your site being one of the most important considerations, take the time to research the server types of a hosting company is using. Is high-speed SSD storage included? Does it use redundant devices, such as RAID-configured hard drives? What is its response time when replacing failed hardware and are backups onsite?

Technical Support Team

No matter how good a host may be, it’s likely you’ll need to work with its support team at some point. Discover your comfort level when communicating with them upfront, as this may very well impact how quickly you arrive at issue resolution.

Response Times & Contact Options

Some web hosts require that you work through their ticketing system. Others have a phone-in option, use live web chat, or want you to reach them via email. So what is the best way to get in touch with them? Is the team available 24/7 or only during certain hours?

Reputation

In evaluating host contenders, reading reviews can help you make a more informed decision. HostReview is one of the resources you can use here—it’s a community of webmasters who share their experiences with different hosting providers to help find the most suitable option.

Hosting Features

Beyond providing you a server(s) where you can load your site contents, some hosts include many features, others make them available as add-ons, and still, others don’t offer any of them. These include:

• Bandwidth: the amount of data transfer (in GigaBytes) that you can use per month. Your site visitors utilize bandwidth as-as the traffic moves from your server to the Internet and vice versa; each time an image located on your server is loaded in a browser, data is transferred, hence bandwidth – which basically means, the more users you expect, the higher the bandwidth you will need. As a very rough estimate, 5GB bandwidth should be enough for a medium-sized site with moderate traffic.
• Disk Space: the amount of data you can store on your server. Today most (even quite cheap) hosting packages allow huge disk space. Most of my websites never occupy more than 1% of the available disk space. But you should know (to be able to estimate when needed) that if you are planning to build a simple website or blog, 3GB of available disk space would be obviously a lot more than enough (mind that a dynamic site (forum or blog) will need a lot of space for the database expansion).
• Operating system: two standard web hosting operating systems are Linux and Windows. Linux is the traditional choice with most providers as it is significantly cheaper and is compatible with plenty of Open Source applications and most scripts you may need (unless you plan to use any Windows applications).
• Control Panel: All hosting services provide some sort of a control panel where you will be able to add your domains and configure settings. Cpanel is the most common control panel found on any hosting service.
• IP Address: IP address is basically the unique number which identifies the location of your server on the Internet. Like we have mentioned above, if you are on a shared or virtual private server, your site should be sharing an IP address with a number of other websites. If you are on the dedicated server, you have a unique IP address.
• Server Location: tightly related to the above one, this one is important to mention for a number of reasons. For us, the most important reason is that Google considers the server “physical” location when ranking a website in both local and general search (for location-specific searches). So if you are creating a website for your local business and expect people to search it by location, find the hosting provider nearby.
• Server Uptime: Uptime refers to the percentage of time your server (and website) should be “up” and running. Uptime is an important SEO-relevant metric. Apart from obvious damage to your website performance, frequent crashes often negatively affect SEO. Google won’t rank your website high if it is often unavailable or down (see tip #2 in the list of the ways of increasing Google crawl rate). Most web hosting providers “guarantee” min 99.9% uptime (but it is recommended to do your research and check for real people’s reviews before jumping to any conclusions).
• (Free) Site Builder: Just don’t use them. period (hence the absence / presence of one should NOT be a criterion). You don’t need any (especially with various easy-to-install and easy-to-use website platforms like WordPress. Many built-in Site Builders are not SEO-friendly and limit flexibility; besides many of them are proprietary which means you won’t be able to painlessly move your site to another provider.
• Customer Support and Feedback: Every hosting provider (like any person or service) may fail at times but the availability of the customer service and the rate at which they solve issues and – that’s what defines a good service provider.
• The number of accounts per server: If shared server, it is advisable to know the number of sites with which you share the server. As if there are many sites on a server, the greater the chances of your site to load more slowly. Compare the number of accounts on a server with the number of accounts used by other hosting companies to have a starting point to negotiate. For full access to server, resources would better be up to 100 accounts per server.

Acquaint yourself with each host’s feature list in determining those that best match your specific needs.

Price of Hosting

Web host pricing is nowhere near uniform. Only by taking the time to comparatively shop will you finding a company that offers high quality hosting at a reasonable price. Determine accepted payment methods and look for discounts if you’re able to pay for service a year in advance.

Control Panel

A control panel or portal is the interface you’ll use to manage your website once it’s live. Here you can do such tasks as performing a manual backup, reset your server (if allowed), or configure additional domains. Two of most popular control panel options are cPanel and Plesk. Choosing a host that offers one of these helps make site maintenance easier.

Usability

As well as features like bandwidth and storage, you should look at the usability of the service. This will affect you if you are new to hosting and don’t have much coding or technical knowledge, or if you’d like more freedom to customize your website and hosting options.

The first usability feature to look for is whether the hosting provider has cPanel, Plesk, ispCP or ISPConfig. These programs allow you to set up and customize your website and hosting if you’re unfamiliar with the FTP (file transfer protocol) and is a must if you’re new to website hosting. Equally, if you plan to upload files from your computer to the website, such as header images and logos, you will need to ensure the hosting site provides FTP access.

Datacenter Geolocation

Having your site hosted at a datacenter that is geographically close to your target audience helps maximize site load speed experienced by your visitors.Having said that, organizations catering to a global audience should disregard this and consider using a content delivery network instead (see below), as it will replicate their website in multiple geolocations to improve performance.

Content Delivery Network

If your site is likely to have high bandwidth requirements, serve large files, or have other significant demands, you’ll want a content delivery network (CDN) to serve up at least a portion of your content. A CDN enables your site to quickly and efficiently serve a very high number of customers—performance that isn’t always possible using traditional hosting options. The host should also make CDN integration easy for you.

Email Features

This is one of those areas where you might not have considered asking your host for help. If you have a spam problem, then it may be because your hosting company doesn’t provide an adequate solution to stop it. Look into or ask about your provider’s spam solutions and general email practices. No matter what they say, email isn’t dead quite yet.

Upgrade Options

When you start a new website/blog, it is highly recommended to purchase a shared web hosting plan. This way you can save a lot of money on hosting bill during the time you grow you website/blog. Shared hosting is Web hosting in which the service provider serves multiple Web sites, each having its own Internet domain name, from a single WebServer. Most Web hosting companies provide the shared hosting plan nowadays.

As a rough estimate, the shared web hosting account is sufficient to support a properly optimized WordPress website with 5,000 to 100,000 unique visitors. However, if you are expecting your website to grow into a real big in next two or three years then it’s worth considering – what are the upgrade options web host provide you at the time of purchase. You may like to migrate from shared web hosting account to VPS or dedicated server for more disk storage, memory capacity and processing power with added security features. So, it’s very important to inquire about these upgrades options at the time of setting up web host account.

Security

In addition to other threats, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks is a frequent cyber attack form, with millions of sites being hit every day at a rate of tens, or even hundreds of gigs per second. Protection is a critical component for any website. Most web hosts offer basic security/firewall and DDoS protection, but the most effective threat mitigation available today involves routing all of your site traffic through a service that scrubs out nefarious traffic before it has an opportunity to wreak havoc with your content.

Scalability

In starting a new website, perhaps you only need a simple, shared hosting account. But once it becomes a success, your hosting needs will likely grow commensurately. In looking ahead, then, you may want to use a hosting company that provides such expansion options as virtual private servers (VPSs), dedicated servers, cloud hosting, and more.

Refund Policy

These days all web host companies have a refund policy or trial period and during which you can try the hosting services and decide whether you would like to continue or not. Remember that, if you forget to cancel your account before the last day of your trial period then you will be charged for the whole trial period. If you have this question in mind then it’s worth asking beforehand. Some companies do not require credit card information during the trial period and later when you decide to continue with then you will need to upgrade to your chosen plan after the end of trial period.

How to Generate Leads with White Papers

What’s the difference between selling $900,000 business software and a $0.99 iPhone App? One requires getting the attention of an executive in a company…

While the other requires a few taps of your fingers. If you’re in the business of selling complex, high price products and services – aircraft, enterprise technology, consulting to name a few – traditional, consumer oriented sales strategies will not work.

Ever wondered why? Let’s take you inside the buying process at a multi-billion dollar company. This example is based on a real bank that spends over $9 billion per year on suppliers and vendors of all kinds including multi-million dollar purchases with professional services firms and technology companies. This is how you generate leads with white papers.

Inside The Corporate Buying Process.
As a sales representation visiting Big Bank Inc, what’s the first thing you try? You might try looking up a prospect on LinkedIn and sending them a cold email (or call).

Unless you’re unusually well informed, you’ll probably get nowhere. Even worse, you might be told something like “Visit the procurement website: that’s where all our major purchases are done.”

You take the feedback in stride and check out the procurement website. Before you know it, you’re knee deep in “RFPs” (requests for proposals) that have endless requirements.

Big Bank Inc has eight people work on each procurement decision – a purchasing specialist, a technical subject matter expert, the end business user and more. With this kind of committee style buying process, you can expect to wait weeks or months to close a deal.

Why do companies –your potential buyers – have these complicated procedures? Why wouldn’t they just let you in to present your product?

It all comes down to one word: risk. In the corporate world, everyone is SCARED of killing their career by buying a million dollar software system only to have it fail. A procurement failure like that could set back your buyer`s career by years. Fortunately, you can soothe their fears by using white papers in your sales process.

The White Paper Solution.
How do white papers open new doors for complex sales? Let’s quickly define our terms. “A white paper is a persuasive document that usually describes problems and how to solve them.

The white paper is a crossbreed of a magazine article and a brochure. It takes the objective and educational approach of an article and weaves in persuasive corporate messages.” (from “Writing White Papers” by Michael A. Stelzner)

According to Stelzner’s research, over 80% of executives report that white papers are extremely helpful or helpful. Even more important – over half of executives state that white papers influence their buying decisions. White papers are highly popular and most heavily used in the technology sector.

However, they can be used in other areas where buyers are making complex or large budget decisions. In contrast to a presentation or visit from a sales representative, most prospects view white papers as non-threatening. If you’re tired of getting told no when you ask for an appointment, consider offering a white paper to your prospects instead.

2 Reasons To Market Your Business with White Papers.
Before you commission a white paper for your business, consider the following.

1) White Papers put Technical Stakeholders At Ease: Without a robust white paper, your sales effort may be defeated by the fear, uncertainty and doubt of a technical stakeholder.

2) White papers go where your sales team can’t: Getting your foot in the door at a large company is difficult. Assistants are told to keep away sales people like you. How do you get through the gate keepers? You need an insider to help you. When your white paper is read by one person inside a company, it may be shared to others. That peer recommendation opens new doors that would be difficult to open any other way. For this process to work, your white paper has to deliver highly valuable industry information and a subtle sales message.

5 ways to Build and Establish your Brand.

So you’ve taken a leap of faith and started your own business, Congratulations! For some, it’s an exciting time to venture out and put their entrepreneurial skills to the ultimate challenge, a challenge they’re so eager to embark on. For others, it can be quite terrifying to try something new, wondering if the world will appreciate what they have to offer as they determine the best path to take to success.

Your brand is how you want to appear to the world. How well do you want to be recognized? How will you build your authority and your following? We learned a thing or two about establishing your personal brand from thought leader, Thomas Smale, a contributor for Entrepreneur.com and Founder of FE International shared an insightful article on this topic. Here are 5 Brand Building Tips:

1. Be true to yourself
For a brand to be “authentic”, so should the creator. Your brand should tell your story, who you are, what you believe in, where you came from, and how you came to creating your own brand. People connect with people better than they connect with “things”. When speaking to others about your brand, wouldn’t it would be harder to fake it then to just simply be yourself? Just some food for thought.

2. Speaking Engagements
Are you a people person? Do you speak with knowledge or from a level of authority? Do you have the ability to intrigue and captivate others? Being an entrepreneur is all about developing good communication skills because part of building your brand is being able to speak about it on a regular basis.

3. Write thought leadership articles
This will build your credibility as a leader in the industry. Write about topics that talk around your brand and share your knowledge with people who are seeking this kind of information.

4. Build and protect your internet presence
Claim your business online and be aware of how you appear or what people are saying about your brand online. Embrace online reviews, even the not so pleasant ones. Start a Facebook business page and ensure that it presents you in the best light possible. Meet your customers expectations by appearing in their search results, it further legitimizes your brand and your existence.

5. Never stop learning
You may be an expert in what you do but the development and advancement of your brand has no limits. In order to stay relevant in this ever-changing, ever-growing world of technology, continue to learn from other thought leaders and competitors in your industry. You can never have too much knowledge and perspective.

The most important thing to remember is to stay humble by being open to the opinions of your followings. Be honest about your weaknesses and strengths. There’s nothing more believable when it comes to branding than one that is “human” and one that people can relate to.

Content Marketing: 6 Steps to Building Your Editorial Calendar

I've seen content marketers in a state of paralysis, overwhelmed with the responsibility to create a constant stream of quality content. I get it. It's daunting to even get started because it’s not just about churning out blog posts, either; part of content creation is fitting each piece into an overall strategy. 

In the last B2B Content Marketing benchmarks, nearly half of those with stagnant programs said content creation was a major factor. Which makes sense. I get questions from marketers who ask me, "where do I even start?" Or claim, "we just don't have enough content." 

Let's conquer this together. 

It all starts with an editorial calendar. An editorial calendar is a tool you and your team can use to map out content for the entire year. Building out your calendar naturally focuses your strategy, ensuring that you have the right mix of content types, the right topics covered, and enough content for each stage of the buyer’s journey.

Now that you know where to start, here’s just 6 steps to building out your editorial calendar that I guarantee we relieve any paralyzed marketers. 

1. Find Your Topics

First things first -- it's your job to identify the most relevant topics for your audience. You’re looking for the sweet spot where your audience’s needs and your brand’s expertise overlap. But don't lock yourself in a room and stare at a blank whiteboard. Act like an investigative reporter and hit the streets, if you will, to understand what resonates most with your audience. 

• The Field: What are the conversations they're having with prospects -- what are their pain points, what keeps them up at night?
• Buyer Personas: Assuming you have these already, use these as a catalyst to understanding what's important to them. 
• Social Media: What content topics and thought leaders are your audience engaging with the most?
• Keyword Research: Leverage Google Adwords to understand the key phrases around your brand's expertise, their search volume and competitiveness. 
• Forums: Find where your audience goes to get answers and consume content. 

Basically, anywhere your customers are talking is a place your brand can listen. All of these sources will help identify the broad topics that will shape your calendar.

2. Audit Existing Content

When marketers tell me, "we just don't have enough content" for a content strategy, I quickly dismiss their argument. Sure, if you're literally launching your business today, chances are you don't have much content. But in most cases, your marketing team has been sending emails, promoting eBooks and whitepapers and publishing blogs for some time now -- perhaps just not at the always-on pace and volume of an effective content strategy.

So start your quest for sourcing more content by auditing the work you have already spent resources creating. Once you have your topics in place based on your research conducted in step 1, check your back catalog for content that fits. 

I always say if you have a 20 page eBook, you can squeeze 20 blogs from it. Or if you have just 5 blogs on a similar topic, you have an eBook. If you want to test me, find me on LinkedIn -- happy to prove my theory. 

Dig into your Big Rock assets and slice and dice. Look for older blog posts that still have value but are due for a makeover and re-launch. Find successful email content and convert into a blog. Turn webinars into Q&A blogs and presentations into SlideShare decks.

Odds are even your most popular content last year still didn’t reach your entire potential audience. So don’t be shy about adding new value and republishing.

3. Plan Content throughout the Buyer’s Journey

Once you have identified some re-purposed content that can act as tent poles to your calendar, it's now time to work on the gaps. Make sure each piece is targeted at a specific stage of the buyer’s journey, and aim for a healthy mix of early and late stage content.

Many marketers focus their content on the late stages, because perception is that this content is contributing more directly to revenue. But without a healthy proportion of early-stage content, you won’t be building an audience for the late-stage stuff -- a cart before the horse issue, if you will. 

For help turning your topics into blog posts, try HubSpot’s Blog Topic Generator, or Portent’s Content Idea Generator.

4. Set Your Cadence

Is it better to publish daily, three times a week, once a fortnight? Plenty of research has been conducted to find the perfect publishing cadence. But I'm sorry to say, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. The one thing we do know is that consistency is far more important than frequency.

So as you plan your calendar, plan to publish as frequently as you can reliably create high-quality content. Your audience may prefer short-form content every day or more substantial pieces weekly. Use your best-performing pieces from the past year, as well as your current capacity, to set a sustainable cadence.

5. Fill in Your Blanks

Now it’s time to actually fill out your calendar. This is the fun part because you start to really see your content strategy come alive. Start with your broad topics, then fill each of your content slots with related posts from your existing content and your idea generation sessions. Aim for a mix of content types for variety, and make sure to vary the stage of the buyer’s journey.

A few recurring series can help fill out the calendar, and can give your audience something to look forward to every month. For example, on the LinkedIn Marketing Solutions blog we do a Marketing Book Worth a Look and Millennial Minute each month, and a Trending Content roundup weekly.

It’s also a good idea to leave an open slot or two each month for timely posts, new turkey slices, guest posts, or news jacking—anything that would add value but is hard to plan in advance.

6. Adjust As Needed

Once your calendar is complete, it can guide you throughout the year. But don’t carve it in stone—it should be a living document, evolving and iterating. Evaluate how each piece of content performs, and use that data to make strategic tweaks to the calendar. The focus should always be on what is resonating with your audience, not what you planned six months ago.

Creating a year’s worth of content is a hefty challenge for marketers. Start with a quarter or just the next two months. Leverage your research to generate broad themes and then build out secondary and tertiary topics based on those broad themes. Add existing content, recurring series, and a few wild cards, and you will find your calendar starting to fill up in no time.

10 Powerful Habits for Building a Personal Brand

CREDIT: Getty Images

Building and promoting your own personal brand is as important for you as it is for any company. Maybe more.

We all know the power of brands. Who anywhere in the world isn't familiar with McDonald's fabled golden arches, Coca-Cola's distinctive red-and-white logo, or the green Starbucks mermaid?

But here's a secret--building and promoting your own personal brand is just as important for your success and happiness as it is for any business. In fact, since it's you we're talking about, it might be even more important.

In her book Personal Branding and Marketing Yourself, executive coach, trainer, and consultant Rita B. Allen explains that there are 10 habits you should adopt to market yourself while building a more powerful personal brand.

1. Identify specific target markets
When you're building your brand, it's better to first focus on a few, most-promising targets, than to try to reach out to the entire world all at once. You'll get the greatest payoff for your time and money by identifying the segments of your market where you are likely to achieve the greatest rewards, and then pursuing them relentlessly.

2. Know your marketplace
Your brand is only as good as you are. Stay up to date with your industry--the latest news, practices, companies, and other information. The moment you begin to fall behind is the moment your brand will begin to tarnish.

3. Be visible and "in play"
Building a brand means getting out of your office and becoming very visible to your target audience and potential customers and clients. Attend networking events and become active in your profession and community. The more visible you are, the stronger your brand.

4. Become a source of relevant information
You should be someone people contact when they want expert advice or information on a particular topic. When you build a following as a content expert, you put yourself in position to be viewed as a trusted authority, which will attract people to you.

5. Always give something back to your profession and community
When you give back to others, not only will you gain the personal satisfaction that comes from doing it, but you'll build your brand in ways that money can't buy. People will remember the good deeds you have done, and your personal brand will benefit as a result.

6. Practice networking etiquette
Networking is all about marketing yourself, but it's also about giving others the opportunity to market themselves to you. Make sure that your networking efforts are beneficial to both you and to the people with whom you are networking. It's a two-way street.

7. Maintain your shelf life and develop an effective social media presence
In the publishing world of which I am a part, you're only as good as your latest book. Don't rest of your laurels, as impressive as they may be. Continue to do great work and achieve great things. And in these days of social media, don't ignore your LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and other accounts.

8. Create a networking database
Keep an up-to-date computer listing or database of all your networking contacts and social media connections.

9. Have a clear, brief message to deliver
The founder of every startup has a well-honed elevator pitch--ready to break out at a moment's notice when the opportunity presents itself. You should have a similar pitch ready for your own personal brand. What is your value proposition? Why should someone work with you?

10. Don't ever stop!
Building and marketing a personal brand is all about generating momentum--and then sustaining it over a long period of time. Once you get the ball rolling, then keep it rolling. It's a lot easier to keep the momentum going than it is to start all over again from scratch.

Source: Inc.com