If something scares you, it’s the very thing that’s worth doing. –Ann Hadley
I wasn’t particularly blown away by this, and actually can’t even find a raison de entre as a marketing strategy, but, hey, who am I to bother with the why?
BOOKS
1. Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide for Ridiculously Good Content, Ann Hadley, 2014.
2. Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, e-Books, Webinars, and More That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business, Ann Hadley & C.C. Chapman, 2012.
NEWSLETTER
Ann Hadley’s Newsletter, “Total Anarchy.” Great title. Email Newsletters are the most effective marketing tool. It’s about the letter, not the news” says Ann Hadley. Podcasts are the 2nd most effective marketing tool. Art of curating content for those who insist they can’t write.
Email inbox is inherently personal. She offers some interesting tips on writing in her 5 top posts:
WEBSITE
Ann Hadley.
TWITTER PAGE
Ann Hadley.
Your audience wants to hear about how your business can help them, so that’s what you need to focus on in your newsletter and business. People care about themselves. I care about me. I care about my own stuff than anything else. –Ann Hadley
She takes their responses from a sign-in question and puts them in a spreadsheet.
In this video, she talks about a small Glasgow, Scotland flooring company, McKay Flooring, who was competing against giant flooring company, like Armstrong Flooring, and how they created a blog to highlight their brand, their story, their niche of providing unique flooring options like pennies and reclaimed whiskey barrels. They went after something that was very niche, far less competitive. That is interesting.
One law firm wanted to make their lawyers more human, and they found that lawyer profile pages were the most visited pages on the firm’s website. The firm hired a video company to produce very, very short video vignettes on the lawyers, not so much their law degrees, where they went to school, and so on but “What’s your most prized possession?” “Where would you go if you could time travel?” “What did you want when you were a little boy?” They showed their human side.
We still see marketers producing content that is still product-focused and not customer-focused. Create the kind of content your customers will thank you for.
We need to share resources with our customers, solve problems for them, and not just talk about ourselves.
On newsletters, say Thank you. I am glad you’re here.
Decent podcast here. She does a shoutout and gives all sorts of resources. Give her own spin on other people’s resources. Original or curated content? Here’s what good curated content looks like. There’s an art to curating content. Look at your Analytics a week after you send out an email.
Email is that special place that people have opted in . . . so if the goal of your newsletter is deeper engagement with something more special, then I think you have to send it at off times, at downtimes, when people are relaxing. Friday afternoon . . . Sunday mornings . . . where she wraps it around an essay or story of some kind. Pictures readers opening up an email on an iPad or something. The goal was to be different around awareness. Then on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursdays.
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