Marketing Without The Marketing

The coronavirus outbreak is having a huge impact on small businesses, including my own. Here are a few specific strategies to help you weather a prolonged downturn, and an offer to use what expertise and experience I have to help you directly, one-to-one, for free. The post How Small Businesses Can Survive the Coronavirus Crisis appeared first on Control Mouse Media.

In Episode 168, I question the concept of getting a large social media following. Large numbers of "eyeballs" often don't do us much good compared to the tight connections of smaller groups. A counterintuitive approach involves using a Facebook Group, LinkedIn Group, or the group chat features of messaging apps to cultivate an ardent community of supporters. The post Small Groups vs. Large Followings: Social Strategy 201 appeared first on Control Mouse Media.

Domain scammers have upped their game. I encountered a new variant of the Domain Name Expiration Scam recently. Episode 167 is about how to spot this new strategy and what to do if you are targeted. The post Domain Renewal Scams: How to Avoid Them appeared first on Control Mouse Media.

By treating our marketing efforts like an experiment, we can set metrics, collect data, analyze the results, and then make the necessary adjustments. Episode 166 is about how to put a simple plan in action to help you get better results from your social campaigns. The post Measurement and Iteration: Social Strategy 201 appeared first on Control Mouse Media.

The algorithms are working against us now. Episode 165 offers two strategies to adapt to the new, more restrictive world of social media marketing: How to do an end-run around the algorithms, and three steps to lean into what is still the best part of social. The post Rethinking Our Social Media Interactions: Social Strategy 201 appeared first on Control Mouse Media.

The glory days of social are over. Free organic reach is a thing of the past. What used to work is no longer effective. So how do we respond? Are there still ways for us to use social media to build relationships with an audience without having to pay-to-play? Of course there are. The post Social Is Not What It Used to Be: Social Strategy 201 appeared first on Control Mouse Media.

Email marketing is one of the most important tools for any small business. Can we come up with something other than "email newsletter" to call it, though? This has been bugging me for a while, and I haven't come up with a solution - so I thought I'd ask for your help. Send me a reply once you've had a listen! The post No One Wants to Read an Email Newsletter appeared first on Control Mouse Media.

Your business is at risk if you don't have ownership of one of your most important assets: Your audience. While a Facebook Page is convenient for connecting with customers, what happens when your account gets hacked, deactivated, or deleted? This happened to a client of mine. Episode 162 is her story. The post Your Facebook Page Has Been Hacked appeared first on Control Mouse Media.

You can't do good email marketing without maintaining a clean email list. Good list hygiene not only helps you save money, but it also helps you increase your open rate and click rate. Let's look at some strategies for proper email list maintenance, including running periodic re-engagement campaigns. The post List Hygiene and Maintenance: Email Marketing 201 appeared first on Control Mouse Media.

Automation is key to today's email marketing. In the last episode, I covered some basic automation strategies to get you started. Let's take a look some more advanced techniques for when you are ready to go beyond a basic email newsletter strategy: RSS-based sequences and nurture sequences. The post Intermediate Automation: Email Marketing 201 appeared first on Control Mouse Media.

Adding a little bit of automation to your email marketing strategy can help nurture "cold" leads without a lot of extra hands-on effort. Building on the last episode about list segmentation, let's look at the two types of automations that I recommend to clients when they are just getting started: Welcome sequences and follow-up sequences. The post Basic Automation: Email Marketing 201 appeared first on Control Mouse Media.

Good list segmentation in email marketing lies at the intersection of what's meaningful to your audience vs. what's important to you. If it's one or the other, it won't work as effectively. There are 3 distinct ways to segment your email list: Listen to Episode 158 for how to apply them to your own email marketing strategy. The post List Segmentation Strategies: Email Marketing 201 appeared first on Control Mouse Media.

Participation is a signal. When you are a part of the community that you aim to serve, it shows that you're invested. That it's important to you. That you care. Not only is it a way to develop trust, but it can also help you see emerging trends in your sector. The post Be a Part of the Community You Serve appeared first on Control Mouse Media.

Have you noticed that social media is not as effective anymore? That your website traffic is down? That people aren't opening your email newsletters as much? Content marketing has changed a lot over the past 5 years alone. What used to work isn't a sure thing anymore. How do we adapt to stay ahead of the curve? The post Content Marketing Has Changed appeared first on Control Mouse Media.

Repurposing content is one of the best ways to get more out of your blog as a small business. With some careful planning up front, you can think a few steps ahead and save yourself time - while building a set of content as a valuable business asset. I lay out my entire process for repurposing content in Episode 155 of Marketing Without the Marketing. The post Repurposing Content: Blog Strategy 201 appeared first on Control Mouse Media.

Are you famous? Have I heard of you before? Most of us don't have the luxury of being able to answer "yes" to these questions. In a world where attention gets more and more scarce, what can we do to overcome this without being the one who simply yells the loudest or without resorting to cheap stunts? The post Are You Famous? appeared first on Control Mouse Media.

Building anticipation is a terrific technique for getting readers back to your site. Producing a blog series is a great way to achieve this. It has the added benefit of an SEO boost around one of Google's strongest ranking factors as well. There are two strategies that I use Episode 153 covers both so you can apply one (or both!) to your blog, podcast, or vlog. The post Building Anticipation: Blog Strategy 201 appeared first on Control Mouse Media.

It's worth highlighting ethical business practices since they are often the exception to the rule. This week's episode breaks from the regular format of the show and presents a story from an experience I had last weekend. Celebrate the good people in the world! The post A Simple Example of Ethical Business Practices appeared first on Control Mouse Media.

Each post you publish is an opportunity to get found by a future customer. Let Google help you. Optimizing for search is one of the best things you can do for your business blog, and it should only take an extra 5-10 minutes for each post. Episode 151 goes step-by-step through my SEO Treatment Plan. The post Optimizing for Search: Blog Strategy 201 appeared first on Control Mouse Media.

Aggressive marketing tactics might have been effective in the past, but today's consumers are more savvy. They see right through the lies, deception, and whitewashing. Ethical marketing is the only way to set yourself apart - to treat your customers with respect. The post Ethical Marketing Is Not an Oxymoron appeared first on Control Mouse Media.