In good times and bad, businesses need a competitive edge. It’s easy to think of paid marketing efforts, but fortunately there are many options out there that cost nothing other than some of your time. Yet they offer you the opportunity to develop awareness and recognition as an expert in your field. Here are a few to consider.
Submit articles to your trade publications. Editors are always looking for copy – saves them the effort of developing an article – and they expose your business to a much wider audience. Read the magazine’s editorial guidelines and review the editorial calendar. Contact the editor if you have any further questions.
Consider writing columns for local business papers and the business section of your local daily. These guest editorials cover a wide variety of topics and are read by decision makers and influencers.
Offer to speak at chamber of commerce meetings and before Kiwanis, Rotary, and other civic organizations. These provide the added benefit of interacting with your audience before and after your speech. Use that time to expand upon your topic and offer suggestions to specific questions raised.
As is the case with articles, your speech should cover material that is relevant to your audience. Avoid sounding like an advertisement for your firm. You are there to offer helpful advice, not to sell your product or service.
Develop a regular writing and speaking schedule, and over time your business will grow along with your following.
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Elana – Thank you for the kind words. You made my day. As a writer, I set a pretty high bar for myself. The ultimate test, however, is when people visit. Are they informed? Are they enriched? Were they treated to professionally written, error-free copy? Believe me: I re-read each post several times to make sure it’s right. So, it’s always nice to receive a compliment.
The theme is called Titan, and is one of umteem dozens in the WordPress family. The site is hosted at GoDaddy. I originally was at WordPress.com. After hearing that it’s best to host your own, I brought the site to GoDaddy. Set up the same theme, but there were a few differences in the styles. That photo in the top right corner, for example, is in the hosted version (sometimes referred to as the WordPress.org version) but not the .com version. Don’t know why. Worse, I don’t know how to get rid of it. I think I found the HTML code for it, but I’m sure if I deleted that I’d mess up the site big time.
Other than adding the widgets, I used this theme as is.
Hope this answers your questions. Feel free to stop by any time. If you’d like to get on my e-mail list, just fill in the form. I like to keep people informed of new columns, videos, webinars, or other helpful thoughts that come to mind.
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Thanks, again, for stopping by. Hope you have a great day and week.
Tom
P.S. Do you have a blog?
I am really impressed with your writing skills as well as with the layout on your weblog. Is this a paid theme or did you modify it yourself? Anyway keep up the nice quality writing, it is rare to see a nice blog like this one today..
Thanks for the compliments. I try to post nearly every day, so watch for columns on a regular basis.