Practicing What I Preach. Setting up for success in the New Year.

27 Dec Practicing What I Preach. Setting up for success in the New Year.

If you were REALLY organized you’d have thought of the new year back in October.  But let’s be honest, it’s hard to think about the new year when you’re still hanging on to summer with all your might, as I do.  It’s usually during that quiet week between Christmas and New Year where you actually have a little downtime.  The phone and inbox are not clogging up with their usual enthusiasm, so why not use that time to think about how this year went, and what you hope for the next.

I usually spend the time thinking about what worked, what sort-of worked, and what really didn’t work at all. Everybody’s list is different, but I can say one thing really worked for me and that was gaining new business using digital marketing.  By that I mean utilizing my website and social media better in order to gain visibility and new business, and being able to measure that.  It’s what I do for others, but you know the old adage “the cobbler’s children wear no shoes” – that’s right, I am always paying more attention to other people’s business than my own.  But this year was different.  Here’s what I did:

• I blogged consistently on my website, sometimes twice a week.  I may not have written a novel, but I wrote something.
• I shared the posts on linked in, facebook and twitter – not all at once, but on different days, so I could track the results easier.  It also looks less automated.
• I actually stopped what I was doing to improve the imagery I was going to use with that post, even if it meant it was going to take my attention away from something else for some greater amount of time, because I knew I would have that artwork again to reuse another time.
• I created or reworked old videos and cataloged them on YouTube – it’s so nice to have a playlist of “advertisements” I can either integrate into a site, play on a screen somewhere, embed in a blog, or show somebody on the road. Plus you get more “google juice” (youtube=world’s second largest search engine)
• I created more artwork, and cataloged it properly for a change, so I wasn’t always searching for things when I needed them.
• I really leveraged my website, more than ever.  Not just by blogging more, but by using the home page to reflect what was going on Right Now.  That meant when people landed on my site they were directed to where they needed to go alot faster than ever before.  Two clicks and done.
• I tracked my time with a mobile app, even if I was doing something for my own business, so I could get an accurate idea of how my time is being spent and how better to manage it.
• I always keep a notebook, I’m one of those visual learners, a doodler who remembers better if I write things down, but I made sure to write down when something worked or didn’t work and WHY, or other note, so that I could plan better for next year.

The results?

Business was definitely up as a result.  I was able to keep my page on page 1 of google for free (well, time), usually falling in 1st or 2nd place.  I was able to see spikes on my site that directly correlated with my efforts. And I got business from people I didn’t know.

In summary, I just did what I always tell others to do but never did very well for myself.

If you would like help setting yourself up for success in the new year, give me a shout.  We can not only improve your website or imagery, but help you with your process so that you can get better at doing this for yourself.  Our website reviews are always free and you are never under any obligation to proceed, and they are well worth the time.

You CAN do it!

We can help.