20 Myths About Business Success Revealed

Did you know that many myths about success will steer entrepreneurs in the wrong direction? We want you to avoid a hard fall once you try entrepreneurship on for size. This career could make you very rich, but many steps must take place first. Here are 20 myths about success revealed: Hard work gets you […]

  • Did you know that many myths about success will steer entrepreneurs in the wrong direction? We want you to avoid a hard fall once you try entrepreneurship on for size. This career could make you very rich, but many steps must take place first. Here are 20 myths about success revealed:

  • Hard work gets you ahead. In reality, direct competitors also work their behinds off. The trick is investing in the right business model and testing it at the right time.

  • Anyone can lead. People imagine owning a business and directing employees according to their own values, but they must know how to facilitate work.

  • A business owner needs only a vision to start a company. This isn’t true. Good leaders are masters at setting goals, take an organized approach to goal implementation, and communicate often with their team members.

  • Meeting deadlines is the only way to succeed. Sometimes, you will start with a goal and define a date for it to be completed. If a goal isn’t reached on time, which could be due to various factors, it doesn’t mean your company has failed.

  • Success is built on maximum cost savings. Sometimes, business owners must invest first and wait for the payoff.

  • As a business owner, you’ll make more because your worth is higher than when you worked as someone’s employee. This way of thinking could be flawed because some employers do pay more for people with a depth of experience. You are the person who will influence what the business makes, but you will probably adjust the salary and bonuses that you take from your own company based on its current financial statements.

  • It’s possible to create a market and get rich. While introducing a new product or service is a short-term way to create a market, keep in mind that, once you launch a new idea, you could quickly face competition from people duplicating your idea.

  • Succeeding at business ownership makes your life perfect. Some people set their whole focus on the dream of entrepreneurship, but they get to the reality of it and discover how hard it is. There could be other aspects of your life that need to change (i.e. bad relationships or health issues) that won’t go away just because you start a business. In fact, you must find a work-life balance because being a startup owner can place more pressure on you to juggle competing demands.

  • Making the cheapest product will ensure that you sell the most. This is the case when the price is the primary motivation, especially if they have scarce resources. Many consumers recognize you get what you pay for. They might pay a little more for something that will last longer.

  • Employees care about your vision. The truth is that you may articulate the initial direction for the company, but they want to give input. Some employees just want a paycheck.

  • Change is good. Sometimes, testing new ideas can lead a business to a new stage of growth, and sometimes this leads to failure.

  • People will work to earn the most money. Surprisingly, many employees are dissatisfied with the corporate world and choose a lower salary in a startup, a public agency, or a non-profit.

  • You need to be rich to be happy. People with more economic resources have problems that others don’t. The key to success is finding contentment with what you have.

  • Health is not as important as wealth. Sometimes, biz owners make short-term sacrifices for long-term gains. Others want the almighty dollar. What’s the point in owning a business if you drop dead from a heart attack next year?

  • You need a university education to be taken seriously in business. This is so not true. Many people with backgrounds in IT and other fields have worked their way up by gaining on-the-job knowledge, but they never went to university.

  • Anyone can be a success. While this is true, it really depends on the pursuit that a person undertakes. If you try to make money doing something about which you know nothing, you could fail.

  • Rich people are debt-free. There are many myths about how people reach the place where they can be considered independently wealthy. Sure, you might wish to pay off debts (i.e. mortgage, car, student loans), but you may have to borrow for your business.

  • Finance-as-you-go is best. Some biz owners believe they should risk the money of investors. If you lose someone else’s capital while holding onto your own, how will you repay him? Try not to borrow more than you could reasonably earn back in the business after a few years. If you lose too much money, it could be difficult to find backing for your next business idea.

  • It’s ok to live on credit. A business might need a backup source of cash when sales are down, but you should be reinvesting profits into it.

  • People respect business owners more than employees. You derive your own social status from your role in business. You don’t have to be the top dog.

There are many myths about what it feels like to plan a business idea, to test it on the market, and to sustain it. Look hard at your motivation for starting a business and what it will do for you once you achieve it. The path to successful entrepreneurship isn’t the same for everyone. We want you to succeed in launching your startup. Please contact us for details on how W3 Business Minds can facilitate your success.

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4 Ways to Stop Burning Money in Ads but Still Get More Customers?

The eternal trick of marketing hits especially hard for startups and small businesses. How can you promote your business effectively, despite a limited budget? If you’re not careful, embracing advertising means little more than burning through your marketing budget without having much to show for. But that doesn’t have to be the case. In fact, […]

  • The eternal trick of marketing hits especially hard for startups and small businesses. How can you promote your business effectively, despite a limited budget?

  • If you’re not careful, embracing advertising means little more than burning through your marketing budget without having much to show for. But that doesn’t have to be the case. In fact, here are 4 ways you can stop burning your money in ads, and still increase your customer base.

1) Embrace Content Options

First things first: rather than spend money to push your message to an audience that simply might not care, draw in the users that matter to your content. That’s the philosophy behind content marketing, a concept that has built significant momentum in the past few years.

Global internet users are tired of outdated marketing tactics. They are installing ad blockers by the hundreds of millions, actively steering around the ads they encounter everywhere online. You may pay for that ad, but it never actually makes it in front of your audience.

Content marketing avoids that problem. If you can turn your website and online presence into a valuable resource for your audience, they will actively seek you out. Blog posts, whitepapers, webinars, and other content is effective in drawing your audience towards you.



2) Find the Free Alternatives

Not every marketing initiative you engage in actually impacts your budget. In fact, if you know where to look, you can actually promote your startup effectively while relying only on free tactics. Consider as examples:


  • Search engine optimization, achieved through a strategic design of your website. Your goal is to build the structure and content of your website specifically so that it appears near the top of search results for relevant keywords and phrases for your industry.

  • Organic social media marketing. Not to be confused with paid social media ads, the organic alternative means little more than building a business presence on a network relevant for your audience. Publish enough posts relevant to your audience, and your followers (and with it, brand exposure) will follow.

  • Email marketing. At some point in the sales funnel, you should seek to gather the contact information of interested members of your target audience. Now, you can nurture them through emails via one of multiple free tools available to increase their chance of customer conversion.

3) Limit Your Audience

Depending on your industry, relying exclusively on free and content-based marketing strategies may not be enough. In that case, you can still make sure that your advertising dollars are well spend. All you have to do is make sure the people who see your ads are actually relevant to your brand.


Especially digital marketing has evolved significantly in its targeting capabilities. For instance, Facebook allows you to limit the users exposed to your ads by geography, age, gender, education level, interests, recent purchasing behavior, and much more.


Your message will be more likely to resonate with a relevant audience. By limiting that audience, you ensure that the marketing net you cast is at once smaller, and less likely to allow anyone to fall through.



4) Engage in Thorough Testing

Finally, no marketing strategy can be reliably successful and cost-effective without continuous testing and adjustments. If you never compare your ads to anything else, you may simply never know whether you’re only burning through your budget or actually attracting customers.

A simple way to accomplish that feat is through A/B testing. Each ad you run should exist in at least two variations (A and B). The variations should be identical, with a single element changed (such as the image, the call to action, the headline, or the text itself). Depending on which outperforms the other, you can gain insights into what types of ads your audience actually wants to see.

Testing, of course, is meaningless without actual lessons learned. After a given period, evaluate your ads, and place your budget in the variation that outperformed the other. Now, you can feel more comfortable in how your ad dollars are spent – or engage in another A/B test to further hone the message.

Startup marketing on a limited budget is far from impossible. However, you do have to be strategic in order to make it work. The above tips can help you stop burning through your marketing dollars, while still maximizing your ability to attract new customers. To learn more about startup marketing, and growing your small business in general, contact us .

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What’s the Key to Creating Successful Conversion Content? and Grow Sales!

If you want to understand the world in which you live and then write about it, then you’re on the path to creating better conversion content. Accept that readers have a maximum of a few minutes to spare. More often, they have only seconds to read content. Make your words count. Understand Your Customer The […]

  • If you want to understand the world in which you live and then write about it, then you’re on the path to creating better conversion content. Accept that readers have a maximum of a few minutes to spare. More often, they have only seconds to read content. Make your words count.

Understand Your Customer

The rules for how to maintain good content on your site change each day. When you’re creating content, consider what your website visitors need. You don’t want to introduce content that doesn’t affect their buyer’s journey. The best content introduces issues or ideas that affect readers directly or will affect them soon. Some pieces of content also deliver solutions.


Some content persuades people to take an action, and others leave people thinking about an idea. This piece prompts you to explore the logic behind writing brand-reinforcing content. Not every piece that you write will prompt an action, but it could contain an idea or a link to a tool that will benefit readers. Conversion content may remind readers why they need to return to your site, but it doesn’t directly pitch them.



Here’s an Example

In this post, content writers can see how to develop an idea into a piece of conversion content. Let’s say you own a startup business that markets laundry and dry cleaning services, but the angle is that drivers handle pickup and drop-off for customers. This is a dry topic on which to write. Users want fresh clothes for their professional and personal uses. On the buyer’s journey, there are customers who know they can afford the service and customers who need it but who aren’t sure they can afford it.


Conversion content should address both types of readers. I Googled the phrase “how pressed shirts look more professional AND 2017” and discovered a top link to a GQ article category. Another click led me to the article, “When It Comes to Casual Suits, You Should Copy a Frenchman.” One Google search gives me the angle I need for a blog post. I could write briefly about the sleek look of the Frenchman Vincent Cassel in the story or take a more broad look at fashion. I could compare his look with other actors (French or otherwise) or connect the piece back to needing expert laundry and dry cleaning services.


This angle gives readers concerned with their professional image something to read about while relating to their buyer’s journey. I could write a similar piece targeted towards professional women. I could turn this into a series of posts. This writing approach indirectly represents what my brand sells without appealing to readers for their business.



Why Pick a Concept

Writers want to develop conversion content around a concept. It could be a branding concept or an idea that matters to buyers. Sit with your laptop and tell yourself that you will communicate only the ideas that readers need to know (perhaps with examples), and you’ll be fine.


However, your writing product could be boring. When you reread a piece of content, ensure that there’s a hook to capture the attention of readers and a theme or a storyline woven throughout the text. Take readers through the points without losing their interest. Make your edits. Eliminate sentences that don’t support the theme or storyline (unless you’re refuting them for instructional purposes). Remove sentences that introduce other subjects. These are topics for future content writing.


Some writers maintain their focus by following an outline while other writers develop ideas in a more fluid process. They see ideas unfold around a paragraph structure, adding more details below their topic sentences. In the end, read the piece aloud and see if it answers the reader’s questions without exceeding the target word count.



Write Words That Matter

Placing yourself in a reader’s shoes, you can determine if a piece communicates a concept. Did you write words that matter? Did you babble on about the keyword phrase and turn readers away from the site? We live in a world in which consumers decide whether to keep reading content in a matter of seconds. Does the piece benefit them? Should they read more? Readers click away to other content if the writer wastes their time. For more details on converting readers into brand consumers, please contact us for more information.

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Inbound Marketing – Perfect For People Who Hate Selling

Many business owners and marketing professionals have a secret that they usually keep to themselves: they actually hate selling. The fact is, not that many people are naturally good at sales. For the rest of us, it’s a necessary evil, something we only do when we think it’s essential for our livelihood. The good news […]

  • Many business owners and marketing professionals have a secret that they usually keep to themselves: they actually hate selling. The fact is, not that many people are naturally good at sales. For the rest of us, it’s a necessary evil, something we only do when we think it’s essential for our livelihood.


    The good news is that the traditional approach to sales is rapidly becoming obsolete. The current generation tends to dislike the sales approach. So what’s the alternative? Inbound marketing, when done the right way, is not about selling, at least not in the way most of us think about it. It’s more about providing useful information and guiding customers to find products that actually benefit them.

The Problems With Selling and Outbound Marketing

Selling has long been an essential business skill. It’s also the approach that’s closely associated with traditional outbound marketing strategies such as direct mail (better known as junk mail) TV, radio and print advertising. Certain online marketing tactics are also outbound. Banner ads, telemarketing, and unsolicited emails (aka spam) fall into this category. All of these marketing tactics involve an aggressive, heavy-handed approach. Younger people, in particular, dislike this type of advertising. One study found that 84 percent of millennials distrust traditional advertising. This is a wakeup call to everyone in the business world.

Some of the characteristics of traditional selling and outbound marketing include:


  • Broad, untargeted approach. The typical TV commercial, spam email or print ad is designed to reach a broad audience. There’s little or no customization, targeting, or segmenting.

  • One-way communication. Selling is mostly about the salesperson or ad telling the customer why he or she needs the product. Sophisticated sales people are trained to respond to common questions and objections but the focus is on persuasion rather than genuine two-way communication.

  • Costly and resource-intensive. Because of the broad approach, outbound marketing tactics require a large budget and lots of time. If you’re going to send out unsolicited direct mail or emails, you’ll have to send out a very large number of them. Traditional print and TV ads are very expensive.

  • Low response rate. Outbound marketing has always suffered from low response rates. This is only getting worse as younger audiences have less and less patience for this type of marketing. This makes the process even more costly and time-consuming.

Inbound Marketing: an Alternative to Traditional Selling

For business owners and marketing professionals who don’t like selling, inbound marketing is a viable alternative. Happily, this is also the approach that your customers increasingly prefer. Inbound marketing reverses the typical qualities of selling.


  • Highly targeted. With inbound marketing, you tailor your message to a laser-targeted audience. Ideally, you segment your audience into as many groups as possible by criteria such as gender, age, geography, interests, and buying history. The point is that you’re not trying to reach everyone; only people who can truly benefit from your product or service.

  • An educational approach. Rather than simply listing the features and benefits of your product, you strive to educate your audience. That’s why content marketing, whether with articles, blog posts, videos, or other content, is such a strong component of inbound. The best content isn’t directly selling but rather informing.

  • Interactive. Whereas traditional selling is mostly about telling people why your product is so great, the inbound approach invites communication. You interact with customers via email, social media, webinars, your blog, and other platforms.

  • Economical. An added benefit of inbound marketing tactics is that they’re cheaper to implement than outbound methods. Since you’re targeting your message more precisely, you don’t have to broadcast it as widely. This approach also tends to give you a better ROI, further reducing your marketing costs.

With inbound marketing, you can put aside many of the qualities normally associated with selling. You can forget about cold-calling, spamming, and writing cheesy copy full of hype. With this more educational, targeted, and toned-down approach, you connect with your customers in a more straightforward manner. This is better for both you and your customers.

To find out how we can convert your business ideas into money-making machines, contact us.

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The Worst Advice We’ve Ever Heard About Sales

There is some great direction, brilliant minds and creative thinkers in the world of business. These are sources we draw from, rely on and often use for inspiration, guidance and planning. Yet, like almost everything else, there are also two sides to this coin as well. For with good information, insight and assistance success is […]

  • There is some great direction, brilliant minds and creative thinkers in the world of business. These are sources we draw from, rely on and often use for inspiration, guidance and planning.

    Yet, like almost everything else, there are also two sides to this coin as well. For with good information, insight and assistance success is inevitable, while following misguided and just plain bad advice certainly leads to failure.

  • This holds a deeper and more meaningful message for the sales industry. Sales is not only one of the oldest vocations, it is also one of the most personal. This industry is defined by people, shaped by people and that includes years of crafting the trade. That also equates to countless years of advice, both good and bad.

    Now that we have this piece of information, this advice, what then?…

  • We know it is important to be a good decision-maker, right?

    We also recognize that this is because those decisions guide and ultimately determine our success. Part of that decision-making process is being able to discern the difference between that good intel versus that awful advice.

    Some of that bad advice may not be so easily recognized. Some bad advice is clearly obvious. Either way, this is here to help you recognize the smoke before you get too close to the fire.


The Worst Advice We’ve Ever Heard About Sales

1. It’s Not the Quality, It’s the Quantity:

Ever get those calls that come in at random and usually very inconvenient hours?

Dinner time or as you are ready to leave for work (technology has done a great job at minimizing and reducing these spam calls today) – that person on the other end either acting like a robot reading a script or sounding like your best friend for years.

That sound familiar?

Those are companies and outbound call centers aimed to make as many contacts per hour, per minute as possible. The oft-quoted Zig Ziglar said it this way:


“The top salesperson in the organization probably missed more sales than 90% of the sales people on the team, but they also made more calls than the others made.”

This may be a good strategy for people selling one-time items or not looking to build long-term business relationships. For most businesses, however, the goal is to win customers and build mutually beneficial relationships for both the company and the client.



2. Push Past Objections

Potentially the most harmful advice given, this is an old theology designed to overcome buyer objections and resistance. Many salespeople have been taught that consumers want to buy and that they often need a push in that direction.


The problem with this technique in today’s social media and internet influenced arena, is the risk of alienating customers and causing them to feel unheard. With a more personal emphasis on the buyer today, more care is given to their concerns and more effort is made to provide solutions.

There is a stronger “how can I help you” mentality today and less of a “buy this” pressure.



3. Don’t Pre-Qualify Your Leads:

Here is some bad advice that might look like good advice, because this sounds like it has some rhyme and reason to it, right?

That’s because it does.

When taken to the most literal interpretation it was meant to inform the representative to avoid making any assumptions about the “likelihood” of the contact being inclined to buy.

Every call was an assumed sale. There really isn’t anything about this sales ideology that doesn’t work,

but…

This is where the technological impact has shifted the landscape. With smarter data and data management combined with new and organic inbound lead generation (i.e. Social Media), things have changed – a little.

Technology has enabled us to create

  • enough leads (Quantity),
  • build relationships as opposed to using pressure sales (Push Past Objections) and then
  • prioritize not pre-qualify – based on customer-driven data.
Smart, right?


Don’t expend the greatest amount of your efforts on generating leads or qualifying customers. The answer to finding the best marketing strategy for your business is balance – then prioritize.

Contact us to get more information on finding that balance, developing that strategy or even some good advice – and we already know where that leads.



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The Ultimate Cheat Sheet On Startup!

Starting a new business venture is exciting, scary, all that and more. Right? The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, they say. But what should that first step be? Here, we’re going to give you a quick cheat sheet, map out that first step – and the next one, and the […]

  • Starting a new business venture is exciting, scary, all that and more. Right? The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, they say. But what should that first step be?

  • Here, we’re going to give you a quick cheat sheet, map out that first step – and the next one, and the one after that.

  • The Idea. It all starts with the idea (or ideas.) What made you decide to start your own business today? Get those ideas down on paper. We strongly suggest starting with a lean canvas, a simple one-page plan that lets you see everything in a glance, weighing the costs and benefits together with the possibilities. Once you’ve decided what you want to do, don’t forget to apply for any relevant trademarks and copyrights.

  • Market Research. Even the greatest product in the world needs an audience, and you need to know where it will fit in the current marketplace. What need – or want – will your idea satisfy? How are similar products faring? Who is buying them? What are the demographics related to your product – and how will that shape its overall design? Before you begin that first design phase, you should have a clear picture in mind.

  • Customer Engagement. Don’t forget to ask potential customers what they think of your great idea. Even if your potential customers are members of your local community, ask what they think, ask what ways your idea is great – or not – and could be better – or not. If you don’t want to give too much away, you can still be subtle about it. Quietly query the potential marketplace and/or quietly observe relevant conversations, taking careful note of what people say they really want. Ultimately, however, the choice is up to you. People don’t always know – or say – what they really want, after all.

  • Prototypes & Product Design. At some point, you will need to get serious about the idea. That means moving from an abstract concept to a functional product. At minimum, a prototype should perform all of the basic functions of the final product. It gives you a chance to work through design realities, explore materials and costs, and finally to show others what your idea will look like when it becomes reality.

  • Getting the Team Together. Once you have your idea fleshed out and ready to go – or perhaps even sooner if you’re doing this all as a team, it’s time to think about who is going to partner with you all the way. Choose these people carefully, based on relevant expertise, yes, but also on shared vision. Even if you are a one-man show, consider networking as a way to find emotional support and business savvy. No one should go this road alone – and sooner or later you definitely won’t be.

  • Investors and Where to Find Them. Getting investors can feel like a Catch-22 situation. Investors, it may seem, only want to invest in successful businesses who therefore don’t really need money. That is not necessarily true. If you have vision and commitment, especially as seen in hard work and personal investment and a sound business model, you might be surprised. That said, people aren’t going to come to you with money – and they (probably) aren’t going to offer money to a vague idea no matter how hard you ask.

  • Try. Try Again. Last but not least, setbacks will come. There will be moments when that great idea doesn’t look so great, when that supplier lets you down, when that investor walks away shaking their head. The secret to success is not to give up. If you’ve done your research, if you’re sure your idea will fit a niche, don’t let momentary setbacks get you down. These things will happen. You can depend on it. You can also depend on your research and your idea that lets you know sooner or later you will get this product out there – and people will buy it.

All of this can seem daunting, we know. Good news: you aren’t in this alone. Wherever you are in the development of your business plan, whether you’re just getting or started or you’ve hit an inevitable snag, you need the right business partners to help see you through from concept to market – and beyond. contact us today, and let W3 Business Minds help with your startup!

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How to Use Conversion Content to Turn Site Visitors into Qualified Leads

If you own a small business, trying to boost sales of your products using content marketing, you know it can be hard to get traction. You spend a lot of time (and money) struggling to generate leads with the content you create, but aren’t seeing the results you’re hoping for. Fortunately, there’s a simple formula […]

  • If you own a small business, trying to boost sales of your products using content marketing, you know it can be hard to get traction. You spend a lot of time (and money) struggling to generate leads with the content you create, but aren’t seeing the results you’re hoping for. Fortunately, there’s a simple formula to increase leads using content.

Consumers Want Content

According to a Hubspot survey, consumers on average will read between 3 and 5 pieces of content before they’ll speak with a sales representative. Said differently, offering valuable, relevant and informative content is critical to the buying process. Unfortunately, most marketers, including those who allocate substantial resources to content marketing, don’t know if their content marketing efforts lead to increased sales, and many don’t even have a formal plan for their content marketing campaigns.


In that same survey, B2B marketers report allocating almost 30% of their total marketing budget to content marketing, but more than half say they don’t know what content marketing success would look like. Only 30% felt their content marketing efforts were effective, and only 32% have a documented content marketing strategy.



Translation: Most Marketers Don’t Understand Why They Push Content

This isn’t to say that marketers are flying completely blind—certainly most are careful to link their content to specific marketing objectives, and many create buyer personas and target content to different market segments. What most don’t do is tie their content to specific stages of the buyer journey, from prospect to lead to qualified lead and, finally, to buying customer.



What Is Conversion Content And Why Do You Need It?

The goal of conversion content is to convert a window shopper into a buying customer—in other words, a visitor to your website into a qualified lead, actively considering buying your products or services. Certainly, not all conversion content appears on your website—some will appear in social media posts, for example, that link back to your site.


But once someone is on your site—whether what got them there is organic search results or sponsored adds or social media posts—you need to create a conversion path that moves site visitors from prospects to qualified leads. The first step on the path is a content offer, one sufficiently engaging that site visitors will click on a call to action to get it. That takes them to a customized landing page where you ask them to complete a form in exchange for the content. You then allow them to download the content.



How Conversion Content Is Crafted

Earlier you read that there’s a simple formula to generate qualified leads with your content. Here’s that formula, in 4 critical steps:

  • Create Your Content Offer: The content you choose must be appealing to the market segment you’re trying to convert—for example, if your goal is to sell accounting software to small business owners, you might choose a blog about new tax deductions for small businesses. Your content could be a white paper, case study, video, or eBook. In some cases, that content will already exist. At other times, you’ll need to brainstorm new content ideas. The bottom line is that however your content is created, it must be sufficiently engaging to make prospective customers want it.

  • Create an Action-Oriented Call to Action: The words you use in your call to action should be action-oriented and attention-grabbing, include keywords which match what’s in your content, and appealing enough that site visitors will want to click on it. For example, the seller of accounting software might have a call to action like, Read Our Blog to Get the 5 Small Business Tax Deductions You Don’t Even Know About.

  • Create a Customized Landing Page: The sole purpose of the landing page is to collect visitors’ contact information by persuading them to fill out a form. The landing page should be customized to a specific market segment (or buyer persona) as well as to where prospects are in the buying cycle.

  • Create the Form Which Gates Your Content: If you’re new to creating forms, you can get help from online forms tools resources. Using these tools, select your form. Choose fields for your form—in general, limit the number of fields to a maximum of 4 or 5 (prospects are reluctant to fill out excessively long forms), including first name, last name and email address.


Conclusion: It’s a Win-Win

In creating conversion content and an effective conversion path, you’ve demonstrated the reason inbound marketing is so effective—you’ve pulled customers to you by giving them something they want and need—and everyone’s a winner. Visitors to your website get information that helps them in their businesses, and you get the contact information you need to continue the conversation and move the buying process one step further. In the process, you establish trust and authority.

You need to ensure that your website is helping you achieve all of your business goals, from generating qualified leads to nurturing those leads to closing sales. To learn more about the ways we can improve your sales process and make your website work for you, contact us today.

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The 5 Sins of Marketing You Should Avoid at All Costs

How do you get your new business from 0 to 100? The key to success is startup marketing. At the same time, too many businesses think that simply throwing money at the problem helps to raise brand exposure, and inevitably gets the right clients in the door. That’s far from the case. Marketing is an […]

  • How do you get your new business from 0 to 100? The key to success is startup marketing. At the same time, too many businesses think that simply throwing money at the problem helps to raise brand exposure, and inevitably gets the right clients in the door.

  • That’s far from the case. Marketing is an art, and one that needs to be planned as well as any other aspect of your business. Are you looking to avoid the mistakes that some of your startup competitors are making as we speak? If so, stay clear of these 5 mortal sins of marketing.

1) Marketing Without a Strategy

We’ve all been guilty of it: in the momentum of promoting a new business, it’s easy to jump right into developing ads and placing them on relevant channels. But in reality, marketing needs to be strategic in order to proceed.

Start with your business goals: what are you trying to achieve? Then, build measurable marketing metrics that your individual ads and content can accomplish, from website visits to lead conversions.

Consider your audience, and choose your channels strategically. Only then should you actually develop the content that will drive your marketing implementation.


2) Trying to Blanket the Market

The idea is tempting: for a new business, more coverage equals more awareness. But in reality, you probably don’t have the budget to take an approach similar to some of the largest brands in your industry.

Instead, startup marketing needs to be targeted in order to succeed. Analyze your audience, and place targeted ads in the channels they are most likely to frequent.

The same concept also applies to your content marketing efforts. Rather than looking to appeal to as broad of an audience as possible, develop niche content designed to get to the audience segment most likely to become your customers.


3) Pushing Too Much Promotional Content

Too many marketing novices, old school thinking still prevails: marketing needs to be promotional. But increasingly, that is no longer the case.

In reality, your audience is likely tired of banner and pop up ads. More than 60 percent of mobile devices in India now use ad blockers, a clear indication of their thought toward more traditional, promotional marketing efforts.

Instead, try a value adding approach. Develop ads and content that, once seen buy your audience, actually answer a question and solve a pain point. A value focused marketing approach will be much more likely to succeed in today’s digital environment.


4) Failure to Connect the Dots

Random acts of content creation are a surefire killer of any type of marketing momentum. An ad, blog post, or social media video that doesn’t fit into the rest of your brand presence will alienate, rather than attract your audience to your brand.

Instead, your entire marketing strategy needs to be consistent and build on each other. When an ad links to your website, the visual and textual message should remain the same for one, simple, successful message.

In other words, every one of your marketing efforts needs to play its part in connecting the goals to a larger, strategic framework.


5) No Adjustments Over Time

Finally, try to avoid falling into the set it and forget it mindset at all costs. To be successful, your marketing tactics need to be evaluated and adjusted regularly.

Audience preferences change on a dime. An ad that was successful last week may have overplayed its welcome, requiring a creative refresh.

To accomplish consistent marketing success, plan to regularly evaluate every message you put out on a regular basis, and according to the metrics established in the first step above. Then, make adjustments as needed to make sure your outreach remains as effective during the seventh month as it was during day one.

Succeeding in the art of marketing your business requires careful planning, strategic execution, and continuous evaluation. Avoid the 5 mortal marketing sins mentioned above, and you will be well on your way to growing your business and becoming a force to be reckoned with.



Over to you: have you been guilty of any of the above sins? How do you plan on stepping into the same pitfalls as countless other new businesses before you? Share your thoughts in the comments below, or contact us for more strategic advice on building a sustainable marketing strategy.

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How do you get your 1st 100 paying clients?

Every business has trouble getting its first few clients. Without any market validation, these customers are taking a big risk. They have no reviews to believe and they don’t know if the quality will be up to their standards. Still, companies can use different methods to make these initial sales. The first 100 clients will […]

  • Every business has trouble getting its first few clients. Without any market validation, these customers are taking a big risk. They have no reviews to believe and they don’t know if the quality will be up to their standards. Still, companies can use different methods to make these initial sales. The first 100 clients will be a test case. They may then refer friends or people in their social network to grow the business even bigger. However, the first few clients are the toughest.

Search Engine Optimization and Search Ads

The first thing any product marketing or ecommerce company should do is optimize their landing page for search engine hits. Whether they want Google, Khoj, Rediff or Bing, these search engines bring a flood of visitors to a website. For beginners, getting an outside consultant to provide the latest updates on SEO techniques is usually advisable. These change frequently and require an expert to keep up with all the new information.

Secondly, you should buy search ads and slowly optimize for the ones that produce a better outcome. Start with 15 or 20 popular search terms for your category. For example, if you are selling new apartments you can include “new home”, “new flat”, “apartment” and other terms. Monitor which terms lead to more visitors and focus more energy and money on these terms. Over time, you will spend less total funds and receive more web visitors.


Place a Call to Action on the Landing Page

Optimizing the design of the landing page is another crucial factor in gaining the first 100 clients. These pages should focus the visitor’s eyes and mind towards making a purchase. The product highlights should be in bold along with flashy pictures and an easy to find link at the top of the page to the checkout. Visitors to the page that have been delivered through search engine marketing, advertising or channel partners will be much more likely to make the purchase with these glaring calls to action.


Guarantees

Te easiest way to reduce risk for customers is to guarantee cash back if they have any problems with their product. This is especially true with fitted products like shoes and clothes. Companies can offer to exchange the product within 30 days with no questions asked. Generally, people will not send the goods back unless there is a major problem because it is a hassle. For that reason, companies should not be too concerned about this risk.

Companies simply need to write this guarantee on their web page and on the checkout page. That will provide the consumer with the security they need to make the purchase.


Distribution Partners

Building up a pipeline of channel partners is immensely helpful because it increases your exposure without any upfront cost. While the sales commission is often high (ranging from 10% to 30%), this price is well worth it.

To build up a sales channel, call, WhatsApp, text or email wellknown influencers in your space. Those could be bloggers, Instagram celebrities or community leaders. They could also be found on popular sites that focus on your product. For example, a fashion brand might go to the owners of Shopwati for help distributing their shoes, shirts or scarves.

Set the distribution partner up with a referral link. Any time one of their visitors clicks on the link and visits your page, the partner will get credit for the sale. Partners will be grateful for a new source of income and you will be on your way to your first 100 clients.

W3 Business Minds is a leading online marketing firm that helps turn your vision into a real business. The firm helps business owners, entrepreneurs and founding teams convert their business ideas into real revenue and an ongoing company. For more information, please contact us.

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5 Things to Notice Before Hiring a Content Writer

Have you ever thought about just how much of your marketing strategy comes down to written content? From your website to social media and just about any other marketing tactic, the text is the most important element to attract, engage, and persuade your target audience. There’s a reason content marketing is on the rise. In […]

  • Have you ever thought about just how much of your marketing strategy comes down to written content? From your website to social media and just about any other marketing tactic, the text is the most important element to attract, engage, and persuade your target audience.

  • There’s a reason content marketing is on the rise. In an age where your audience is tired of promotions, value added content can be the difference maker that propels you above your competition in the eyes of your audience. So you look to a content writer but you have to make sure you get the right one.

  • As Ann Handley points out in her bestselling marketing book, everybody rights. Finding the good writers is the challenge. To help accomplish that feat, here are 5 questions you should answer before hiring your next (or first) content writer.

1) Can They Actually Write?

Obvious? Maybe. But it’s difficult to overstate just how much your everyday interactions with prospective hires say about their writing skills.

Go beyond writing samples, and look to email communications and social media posts. Are their sentences structured well, short, and easy to read? How do you think they would perform on a Flesch-Kincaid readability test?


2) How Persuasive Are They?

Once you answer the most basic question, it’s time to move on to a more complex topic. Even the best technical writer will not help your business if they don’t know how to persuade their audience.

How well can they make a point? How do they use supporting materials (such as statistics or quotes) to underscore it? Do they need five paragraphs to start calling for action, or do they get to it right away?


3) What’s Their Industry Experience?

When it comes to marketing writing, content experience specific to your industry also matters. Your audience may be used to jargon, background knowledge, and other items that a writer who hails from a different industry simply cannot follow.

Sure, they can learn. But especially startups tend to need hires that can jump in right away. A content writer who is already familiar with your industry (and the audience you are looking to target) will add immense value.


4) Do They (Seem to) Enjoy Writing?

You know the old saying that if you love your work, you will never work a day in your life? It rings particularly true for content writers. Their tasks can quickly become repetitive; love of writing is essential for quality output.

Consider, for example, an active social media presence. On Twitter, studies suggest posting 15 times every day promotes the most engagement. Only a writer with a passion for short, snappy 140-character messages can keep that amount of content interesting for your audience.


5) What Might Collaboration Look Like?

Finally, go beyond writing. Sure, you don’t know exactly what working with the writer will actually be like once they’re hired. But you should at least attempt to estimate what collaboration might look like down the road.


Writers, and creative types in general, can be quirky folks. They might even be introverts. Through your initial interactions, try to notice whether their personality lends itself to, or works against a high-quality, mutually-beneficial relationship.


Especially when you first get started in marketing your business, you need to rely on quality content. That, in turn, calls for hiring a professional writer who can develop the content while you focus on growth and scaling your idea.


But it can only be successful if you actually hire the right person. Technical and persuasive skills, relevant experience, a passion for their work and a proclivity to work well with you are core things to notice when hiring a content writer.


To learn more about what it takes to start, grow, and market your business, contact us.

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