5 Day Challenge
Honor System, try to only Review ONE day at a time!
DAY 0
PREP DAY
Do you feel overwhelmed with marketing?
I created this 5-step marketing challenge that allows small business owners and solopreneurs to create 1 year of marketing in just 5 easy modules. Sometimes you just need direction.
READY TO GET TO WORK?
First some ground rules, you know you need this time to work on your marketing, I know you need this time to work on your marketing, but does your BRAIN know it. Probably not or you would have already completed a lot of these tasks.
THAT’S OK!
The next several sections you see below will help you get your brain on track and take your marketing journey from TO DO to DONE!
LET'S GET STARTED!
DAY 1
BRANDING DAY
On the Branding day you should complete the following:
Business Name / Register Domain Godaddy is still the cheapest and the best for Domain Registration!
Is your Messaging right for your audience?
Ready to get started?
Are you ready to commit to 5 weeks of work?
Take a moment and find a pen and paper. I know, what are those we use our phones so much! But seriously, this is a tactile exercise. Answer the following questions in as few words as possible. Write your answers down.
WHO Are You?
WHY do you do what you do?
WHAT do you do?
WHO is it for, who are you sharing it with?
Think about each of these questions.
Been in business a while? Ask: Does what you tell people line up with what you wrote down from the above list? If not, why not? If yes, What can you make more clear, what can you simplify?
Startup? Ask: Will my answers resonate with my intended audience? (Not sure, conduct a poll or survey of your ideal target)
Items you will need:
Logo / Brand Guidelines -
Color & Font Psychology
Business Card / Other Collateral -
Opt-In/eBook -
Hosting Registration
DAY 2
WEBSITE DAY
How is branding going? Are you ready to move on to your website?
Let's get started!
Start with a Solid Brand
Thankfully you are already on your way with this one. Make sure you are using YOUR colors and YOUR fonts when creating or editing your website. Branding Consistency is KEY!
Keep it legal (privacy, terms, disclaimer, EULA, accessibility code)
These documents are among the most important you can have on your website. I know, they cost money, But they are aimed at SAVING you more money. If sued, the average penalty for NOT having a privacy policy, for example, would be around $7500 per visitor for as many days as you DIDN'T have a policy. That's a lotta Moolah!
Termageddon is my go-to for Auto-Updating Policies: http://app.termageddon.com/?fp_ref=pampalone
Less is more: backgrounds are out, parallax is out
Keep it simple. I am not opposed to the occasional diagonal shaded area or a shaded box or two. Heck, I even enjoy creating sections with an image as a backdrop for a question or call to action. But if pull up your site with a wood-look background or so much as a floral or stripe, that's it, I'm out. Not to mention parallax and backgrounds in general slow down your speeds.
Navigation must-haves
HOME, ABOUT, SERVICES, and CONTACT. Don't be cute. Familiarity is the best thing you can do for your client. They expect your website to be "User Friendly" but if they get "The Lounge, Why we are the way that we are, Offerings, and Connected" instead of the ones I mentioned above, you will lose more customers than you gain!
Simple pages don’t mean EMPTY pages
Just because you are behind on a few things doesn't mean you can freely leave your website in disrepair! It is better to take down a page completely and remove all links to it than to have it empty, filled with junk text, or leave it with the ever-dreaded "COMING SOON!" text! YUCK! Take a moment and write the darn page. Progress, not perfection people!
On the Website day you should complete the following:
Sitemap
All pages with text and images and or custom graphics
Connections to all 3rd party sites like Booking, Email Marketing Etc.
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Must Haves
DAY 3
SOCIAL MEDIA DAY
How are your website edits going? Have you completed them? How about branding? Are you stuck?
Ah, the Bane of My Existence: Social Media.
Let's see if we can free you from its shackles, shall we?
First, know that you don't need to be on all platforms all the time. Be sure to do some research and find out which platforms your ideal demographic are using before jumping into the next part.
Below is a formula that I developed to help me streamline the multiple types of content that should I be posting by batching it in one single day!
Write 6 Questions that are evergreen and can be asked over and over to your audience. You will use these every 6 weeks in your schedule. Consider creating them as a graphic rather than just text. (Example: What can you outsource in your business?)
Write 6 Sales Posts. Make them all different, perhaps showcasing one of your products/services in each post. Be sure to include a link to that page on your website. No image is needed as the website link should provide an image.
Find as many holidays as you can. This is important to help you fill days. You can search for special holidays unique to your industry or you can simply choose the regular federal and calendar holidays.
Create a daily calendar for a week. Mondays are Motivational Mondays, Tuesdays are Tip Tuesdays, Etc. This will help you find more content in a shorter amount of time!
Schedule your content ASAP. There are so many schedulers out there but only a few are truly worth the $$. Click here to view some of my favorites!
DAY 4
BLOGGING DAY
How is your social media content coming along? Have you completed it? How about the branding and your website? Are you stuck? Would you like some help?
Blogging sounds like it might be hard, but it really isn't. The most asked question is:
WHAT DO I WRITE ABOUT?
and the most used excuse is:
I'M NOT A WRITER!
The latter isn't true and the former has a super easy answer.
First, let's look at your situation:
What questions do you get asked EVERY DAY?
Chances are a lot that you just answer because you don't even realize you are being asked anymore. It has just become second nature to answer. It is also very likely that there are more people that have the SAME questions than just the ones that ask. Probably around 50-100x more people than the ones that ask. Let's start tallying these each day for 1 week.
Now, with that content, Let's Create an outline for each question. Maybe add 2-3 bullet points to touch on for each question. Add more if the question is more complex. Try to stick with 5 as a maximum.
Once done, Write 2 sentences for each bullet/number. This makes a nice full blog.
Create a graphic for each question (Canva has a ton of templates!)
Write an intro and outro - This means create 2-3 sentences to explain why you are writing this article, then write 2-3 explaining where they can get more info or contact you.
Attach your intro and outro to your bullets/paragraphs and TADA! You did it! You wrote a whole blog post!
Now do it again, 12 more times!
DAY 5
EMAIL MARKETING DAY
How is your Blog content coming along? Have you completed it? How about the branding, website, social media? Are you stuck? Would you like some help?
Email is not dead.
But it can be dead on arrival if you are not doing it right! Here are some tips!
Templates are everything - Don't settle for the ones in the program you use, make your own. Once you make one solid clean looking template that is branded to the colors and style of your website, use it OVER AND OVER. You may get tired of it, but it will help your clients remember who you are and associate you with stability.
Sticky subject lines and emojis. The best subject lines are catchy and say exactly what the email is about. It's tricky to get started creating them, but once you do, its easy to create multiples. Keep a list of your best ones. Also, see this subject line has an emoji! Not many companies are doing this so use it. It can help you stand out in the cluttered world of online inboxes.
ONE THING - no more - If you notice, most emails I send have ONE call to action. Sometimes you can get away with 2 but 1 is more effective in the long run.
Branded is best - referring to templates again! Keep all the colors of EVERYTHING branded. Even the link should be a color that represents your brand.
Send regularly, no one will get tired of you and if they do, they can unsubscribe. This is true for ALL industries. There is never really such a thing as too many emails. There is such a thing as subscribers who are not a good fit! Keep this in mind next time you are down because you see multiple unsubscribes from our list. You don't want the ones you cannot serve to stick around.