I help companies like yours to develop social media strategies. My process is an informal one and I work collaboratively with you so you are involved at every stage of the development and implementation of the strategy. This helps prepare you to manage your social media when we are done, rather than continuing to rely on me.
For many clients the biggest challenges they have faced are:
- Feeling overwhelmed by the possibilities and rate of change online and having finite time and resources available.
- Not knowing how to connect and engage with their customers and communities online in a way that is effective to bring in new business.
- Lacking an effective website that is a hub for building their business instead of being a brochure for the company.
- Being unsure how to use the tools effectively for their business.
My goal with strategy development is to build a sustainable plan that draws on what the business is already doing and that gets results as soon as possible, instead of creating a huge plan based on “pie-in-the-sky” ideals that are rapidly outdated.
Below are two examples of successes clients had from working with me:
Your Web Department
Your Web Department (YWD) is a online hosted website development software. It’s a great product where you can design your website without having any developer experience. Their goal was to triple their business.
During our sessions, I identified that YWD’s major problem was people weren’t buying their software because it was too hard to try it first. An interested visitor would have to wait 3 days for a trial. The developers had designed this because they wanted to weed out people who weren’t really interested as trials meant more work for them.
Our first step was making trials easier, so when new visitors could try the product before they bought it.
They had also started to see the benefit of targeting graphic designers as collaboration partners. They could train and certify the graphic designers who could offer YWD websites to their clients. We looked for other potential collaborators and used social media as a way to start developing these relationships.
The strategy then became to have separate online identities for people who weren’t yet using YWD and those who were. This allowed them to separate information to potential clients about how to grow their businesses online and tips for existing users who wanted to know how to use the software better.
Within a few months they reported quadrupling their traffic and sign ups for their product using social media.
Check out the testimonial YWD wrote for me.
School Bakery Cafe
The owners of School attended my workshop Network Your Way To More Business Using Twitter and wanted to hire me to help them become the place to be during the World Cup. The problem? They approached me 5 days before the World Cup started.
I knew it would be impossible to generate that much buzz person by person in that little time. So I decided to go for groups of people. I made a list of teams that were likely to have a big fan group and then started using social media to find them.
I found a German group that were looking for a venue to call home. School organized to host all their games and even bought German beer and made German food for the fans. By the time the finals came around School had so many customers they needed to close down the road and erected a tent in a neighbouring parking lot.
This video shows the crowds at School for the World Cup Final (warning: there’s swearing in it!)
Check out the Globe and Mail article about my success with School and another past client, Positive Fabulous Women.
Website Creation
Having a great website that acts as a hub is essential for a successful online marketing strategy. Yet not having one was a reoccurring pattern for many of the businesses I work with. Many of my coaching clients didn’t have a web developer that they knew, liked and trusted.
My goal is to make my clients self sufficient. I wanted them to be able to update the content and design elements themselves.
I offer website creation using a customizable WordPress theme to my clients. This package was extremely popular because it was easier than dealing with a web developer, was affordable and I could deliver it within a week.
Once the site was designed, I would give them training on how to use the site. As a marketer I would also tell them how to optimize the site. Many of my clients experienced increased traffic from improved Google placement and got new clients after their sites changed over.
For full details visit Websites for Experts
Click on the pictures below to visit some of the sites I’ve built:
