Landscape Digital Show

Episode 50 of Landscape Digital Show reveals how to create better content faster by aligning it with the ultimate audience outcomes.  MailChimp® is an email marketing platform that recently changed the message on its home page. It reads: Send better email. Sell more stuff Too many organizations seem to be creating content without an apparent theme or purpose.  They may give some thought to how it positions their company, which may be as better, faster, or cooler. But does that help them to sell more stuff? Maybe, but not likely. What then is better content and why is it so important? Better content sticks to a particular theme that is congruent with what your products and services ultimately do for your audience of customers. Do you know how your audience is changed by your products and services? Or better yet, how your audience is changed by the experience of acquiring and using or consuming your products and services? That change is what drives your business. It’s your business mission, and it s also wh

Episode 49 of Landscape Digital Show reveals how to build and implement a channel plan to achieve your content marketing roadmap goals.   Before you build a content marketing channel plan you need to give careful consideration to your business goals, its ideal audience, and finding and perfecting your brand story. You can get that foundation from Content Marketing Roadmap: 3 Keys to Ideal Customers. If you know your ideal customer you know the problems they face that prevent them from choosing any company, including yours. This is especially true for services like landscaping or lawn care because they are not a must have like healthcare, for example, but a lifestyle choice, something people simply want to have for their own enjoyment. What is your audience hungry for that if you give it to them will move them closer to a relationship with your business? This may be solving a small problem with your content, such as an assurance that the pesticides your company uses are safe for children and pets. Solving

Episode 48 of Landscape Digital Show reveals 3 keys to a content marketing roadmap that creates alignment with ideal customers.   Great coaches start with a strategy, a roadmap or game plan, but they are prepared to make adjustments based on how their team is performing and how the opposing team is responding. They study, measure, evaluate and realign their resources to accomplish specific goals and objectives. That is how we are going to design your digital, social and content marketing roadmap. You just have to start well and make adjustments to its implementation as you make new discoveries about what your ideal customers want and how to give it to them. #1. Business and Personal Goals The starting point of your content marketing roadmap is your business and personal goals. You cannot separate the two because those personal details that answer why you are in business inspire people and build trust. Growth is probably the most common business goal, but you have to be specific about the type of growth you

Episode 47 of Landscape Digital Show reveals how to create a content style guide to consistently brand your marketing message. In an earlier episode of Landscape Digital Show, we discussed why it may be beneficial to take a production approach to your marketing. Your landscaping company is a production business and that approach to marketing should add order and discipline by giving it a familiar context. We are going to take this further with 5 steps to creating a content style guide for achieving greater consistency with your content marketing, including your website content, newsletter, blogging, and social media updates. In episode 42: Marketing Production: Manage Your Marketing Like a Factory, we noted there are many activities involved with marketing, but all of them can be organized into three content categories. 1. Ideation 2. Publication 3. Promotion All of the content you create and share should have a consistency that is congruent with your brand and what you want buyers to think, feel, see an

Episode 46 of Landscape Digital Show reveals how marketing consistency leads to being the trusted customer choice.  The Consumer Electronics Show is underway and buzzing with talk about Artifical Intelligence and Virtual Reality – two digital marketing technologies that we will be hearing a lot about this year, and most likely putting into practice in the years to come. There’s no question digital marketing is going to get crazy real, meaning, it’s going to be possible to have your website and other digital marketing platforms deliver an experience that is every bit as powerful as the real one. Oops! You may be thinking your live customer experience is pretty good, but it could be better. No problem, because that awareness alone is huge for making it better. One of the most important steps for improving that customer experience is making your marketing more consistent. In our recent Digital Marketing Report, which will be published in Landscape Management magazine next week, green industry marketers compare

Episode 45 of Landscape Digital Show reveals how to simplify your 2017 marketing for growth by getting an audience strategy that includes content marketing. Did you know that 80% of consumers searching for a product or service are using the Internet to support their decision? Ask yourself about your own behaviors. Most of us will even not go to a new restaurant without checking it out online. Not only that, we now purchase products and services online that we previously would have only purchased in person. And the reason for this is nowadays the risk of doing so is removed. There s more. But the point is marketing is getting complicated. And that is why you should make 2017 the year to simplify your strategy for attracting and growing your audience so that you can grow your business with the tactics that consumers have come to expect and will be most likely to respond to. Take Ownership of Your Audience You have to be the business your audience can count on — no matter what. This means not ignoring digital

Episode 44 of Landscape Digital Show reveals three digital marketing trends that you want to take action on to get results in 2017. I’m surprised to be seeing fewer 2017 digital marketing trend forecasts because it’s not whether your predictions prove to be right or wrong but that you get the conversation started. And that’s my goal with this episode. I am a fanatical student for all things marketing and these predictions are based on my research, observations, and study. But you should do your own homework to be sure. What I’ll be sharing with you today are backed by not just one or two people or companies, but many. This is what leading digital marketing experts are using to get practical results now and for 2017. Let s unpack them one at a time. #1. Human Conversations One of the reasons most content falls flat is because it was created by someone without an intimate knowledge of the customer or targeted audience. Our industry survey indicated landscaping company owners have the primary responsibility fo

Episode 43 of Landscape Digital Show reveals how to interview customers to create case studies and get customer stories that sell. Why did Dos Equis fire the actor responsible for its highly successful World’s Most Interesting Man campaign? According to their vice president of marketing, We re trying to reach a new audience. That comment says a lot about knowing your business, its competitors, and the audience you are trying to reach. Content is created to accomplish specific objectives. And that job is to attract, engage and inspire a targeted audience, with the ultimate objective of driving profitable actions for your business. Your role as the marketer or business owner is to know your audience, the one you have now, and the one you want to attract. Maybe they are the same or not. Incidentally, Dos Equis new World s Most Interesting Man is younger, more athletic, and he speaks Spanish. That should tell you a lot right there. Clearly, Dos Equis has done their homework and they are making an intentional sh

Episode 42 of Landscape Digital Show reveals how managing your marketing like a factory will increase your marketing production and efficiency. It turns out there is a very good reason for taking a production approach to marketing, as opposed to automating it. The Zeigarnik Effect states that people have a better memory for incomplete complete tasks because the mind is actively working on what’s undone. Once tasks are completed they no longer merit your attention, and that s not a good thing with most business activities. This may explain why people are often overwhelmed with marketing. Because as much as they would like it to be, marketing is never done. It requires constant attention to be sure resources are being properly allocated, tracked, and evaluated. So, the good news is that if you are a little overwhelmed with marketing you are in a good place. But let s take you to a better place by giving you a structure for organizing your marketing so that you can minimize that overwhelm. The idea is to ap

Episode 41 of Landscape Digital Show reveals how creating content people trust depends on the authority of the source and its relevance. “What kind of content should I create?” This is a common question that has an easy answer. Create content that people trust. Google defines this as: 1. Content that is relevant to your target audience. 2. Content that enhances your authority Relevance and authority are what Google uses to determine the content that will see the light of day. Obviously, there are hundreds of secondary factors involved, but what Google presents for search queries is what is most relevant, and that is greatly influenced by the perceived authority of its source. To be more accurate, Google has consistently stated that its primary objective as a search engine is to deliver the most relevant information as quickly as possible for every search query. To do that, they rely heavily on authority because that earned credibility assures Google the information is likely the most trustworthy Authority T

Episode 40 of Landscape Digital Show reveals 3 small business PR tips for reaching a larger audience with media publicity. How many buyers can your business help that are not aware of its existence? Probably hundreds, if not thousands. This is the opportunity of media publicity. As you know, marketing is a process of getting buyers to know, like and trust you and your business. So, the first step is helping them get to know you. One way to reach these potential buyers is by getting other media companies to help you tell your story. And let s be clear about one thing. You are a media company too, and thinking and acting like one will enhance your media. The truth is we all create media and need to think about owning the fact that the most important media we have is what we create, because if we do that right we own it too. This is your website, your blog, email newsletter, and your hosted podcast or video series if you are doing that too. The challenge is driving traffic to your owned media properties from

Episode 39 of Landscape Digital Show reveals how to overcome obstacles and plan for new and greater results with a marketing refresh.  One of the challenges with marketing is the uncertainty about whether or not your actions will produce results. That doubt kills your ability to come up with new ideas. And it crushes your will to enthusiastically do the work that needs to be done to move your business forward. Fortunately, there is a solution. It’s one that I experienced firsthand when I created the plan for Landscape Digital Institute. You simply have to rewrite reality. Your current reality is where you are at right now. This is your baseline. So, the first thing you need to do is write out the current marketing reality for your business. Be honest about what’s working and what isn’t. This works best if you literally write with a pen to get physically and emotionally engaged with it. Then set that aside and hand write your new reality, what you envision for the future. Here’s why this exercise is so valua

Episode 38 of Landscape Digital Show reveals how to enhance the website conversion rate of your website with targeted calls to action. If you were asked what you want your website to accomplish would you be able to quickly give a definitive answer? Most likely your response would be to show off your best work or describe your company and it’s capabilities. Those are both a good start, but there is something vitally important that s missing and that’s a specific call to action that engages your process. I would imagine you want to sell more work. For that to happen your website visitors need to know what you want them to do next. You have to be very clear about what that action is to increase the website conversion rate. Have you ever gone to your inbox to retrieve an email, been distracted by new ones, answered a few and then after a while realized that this is not why you opened your inbox? This happens to all of us. In fact, you may not even remember what you were originally looking for in that inbox. The

Episode 37 of Landscape Digital Show reveals how integrated marketing systems using stories create predictable science backed results. Have you been noticing the phrase science-backed in the media lately? I know I have, and I like it because it gets your attention. We all want to cut through the clutter and find what works and that s often going to be what s backed by science. I have a science background myself, so naturally, I look for that foundation before buying into an idea. For example, in the early nineties, I started getting curious about meditation. It was discovering the science behind how it works that got me to try it, consistently practice it, and ultimately become certified to teach it. What does science have to do with your marketing? Let s talk about that. If you are familiar with the scientific method you know that it is causal. It goes something like this. If you do this in this way and I do this then together we should get this result. That’s how it should work in a perfect world But we d

Episode 36 of Landscape Digital Show reveals 3 essential email marketing practices for converting attention into profitable outcomes. Email is my favorite marketing channel, and I’m certainly not alone in that. But it hasn’t always been this way. I used to dread my weekly email newsletters because it was time-consuming to create them, partly because I was not sure my topic ideas were the right ones. The right email topics are the ones that lead to productive changes. Those challenges exist with any marketing channel, but email is the one that gives you the most control for managing them. You can (and should) try different strategies and tactics and learn from them. That’s what I did and it s how I discovered these 3 vital email marketing conversion practices. #1 – Listen to Your Audience Your email newsletter appearance is vitally important because it’s a presentation. And while most people will tell you to be yourself when you get on stage, the truth is you are playing a role. You re performing. If you get

Episode 35 of Landscape Digital Show reveals how to grow your business network for referral marketing and most important, why.  Most landscaping companies, and for that matter, virtually every brick and mortar small business will tell you that the majority of their work comes from referrals. That was certainly true for us during my two decades as a landscape business owner. The problem with depending on referrals is you are limited by both the size of your network and it’s ability to refer you. In this episode, we’ll solve both of those problems. But before we do, I’d like to frame this referral marketing discussion. In our soon to be published digital marketing report, respondents with companies from under $100,000 in annual revenue to over 25 million all named referrals as their #1 source of leads. In fact, it wasn’t even close. Referrals were nearly three times organic search results, which came in 2nd. Now, here’s what’s interesting. We also asked about the top business challenges and getting more leads

Episode 34 of Landscape Digital Show reveals how to communicate the customer experience with a brand story that leverages your superpower. In the previous Episode 33, we discussed the significance of the customer experience, what it should be, and why every business should commit to making it everything it can be. We discussed why a website is a poor substitute for a human-to-human customer experience. That said, in a future episode we ll discuss how virtual and augmented reality is going to change that and why you want to get ready now. If you are curious how this will work, check out Mark Zuckerberg s recent virtual reality video (in the show notes below). You ll discover that soon the web experience will soon be quite real, and even more contextual than what you think of as reality today. But before you consider those possibilities you have to take a hard look at the real-life customer experience with your business today. Is it everything it can be? Does each and every customer get an experience that is

Episode 33 of Landscape Digital Show reveals an introduction to the integrated customer experience, what it should be and why it is important. In this episode, we discuss why your business needs to carefully design the customer experience to be certain that what happens at every single touchpoint is everything it can be, from the moment they first encounter your business, and long after. Regardless of whether people buy, their experience with your business should be guided for as long as it takes for them to either choose to buy or move on to a relationship with another company. As we ve previously discussed in Episode 32, email should definitely be part of this, because as long as someone agrees to accept communications from you there is an opportunity to earn their trust. It’s One Fluid Process If you cannot deliver an exceptional customer experience live, how can you expect to do it digitally? In live situations, you can read people’s expressions and body language and make adjustments. That’s not possibl

Episode 32 of Landscape Digital Show reveals how to use email marketing to create anticipation that grows an audience and ultimately sells more services.The most reliable digital practices for generating leads and converting them to sales today are: Paid social media advertising Email marketing We discussed Facebook advertising in detail in the previous episode. But what are your top social media advertising objectives? One of them should be growing your email list because unlike social media, it is a digital marketing asset that you control. Let’s talk about that, specifically, how your email newsletters can ultimately sell more services. Getting Email Newsletters Opened and Read The trick is delivering news that people want to read. Show your audience that you care about them and understand their fears, needs, and wants. Do you think they lie awake at night worrying about their lawn? Doubtful But I’ll bet they do worry about something that you can help them with, like maybe having their outdoor environm

Episode 31 of Landscape Digital Show reveals how to use advanced Facebook advertising tactics to find and reach your ideal buyers. In episode 29 we discussed why it is becoming increasingly difficult to attract the attention of of ideal buyers. If you are not using social media advertising to reach that audience, it’s time to make this a regular practice. You can advertise on LinkedIn and Twitter to extend your reach, but for really targeting your ideal buyers, the platform of choice is without question Facebook. Facebook is the one platform where most people regularly hang out. To be clear, I’m talking about people, not businesses. And it doesn’t matter if your business is commercial or residential, a person, not a company, is making the buying decision. And it doesn’t matter if you are Facebook friends with your customers or potential buyers, or even if you want to be. You can still target them if they have a Facebook account 5 Facebook Audiences to Target Here are the 5 types of audiences you can create