Home – New › Forums › Tell me straight… › What are your current challenges?
- This topic is empty.
-
AuthorPosts
-
January 4, 2015 at 8:34 pm #990388Up::0
Hi all,
I’m current doing some research for my business and I would love to get some feedback about what challenges you are currently facing. Here is a short survey http://goo.gl/forms/phbL65F0CF with 6 questions. If you could spend 5-10 minutes filling it out, it would be greatly appreciated.
Feel free to post up your answers here as well as on the survey. I would make for some interesting conversation.
Thanks
Nathan
January 5, 2015 at 3:37 am #1176695Up::0Concept, post: 205755 wrote:Hi all,I’m current doing some research for my business and I would love to get some feedback about what challenges you are currently facing. Here is a short survey http://goo.gl/forms/phbL65F0CF with 6 questions. If you could spend 5-10 minutes filling it out, it would be greatly appreciated.
Feel free to post up your answers here as well as on the survey. I would make for some interesting conversation.
Thanks
Nathan
Nathan,
My biggest current challenge is been asked to fill out surveys, which give no indication of what the input will be provided for. I think if you are going to ask people these questions you need to tell us what business you are in, what context you will use the results in, etc, etc. You are asking some personal information here, and we dont know what it will be used for.
January 5, 2015 at 4:04 am #1176696Up::0haha, yeah I have the same challenge. Gets me every time.
Thanks for your feedback. I’m sure other people were thinking the same thing too.
I am currently building a website for my coaching business where I will include a blog. The purpose of this survey is to determine what areas people are struggling with and create great content that serves them.
I was interested to see what challenges people on FS were dealing with. The only person that will see the information is myself.
You can find out more about me here:
http://www.flyingsolo.com.au/forums/new-member-introduce-yourself/32887-introducing-nathan.htmlAnd what I’m doing around my business here:
http://www.flyingsolo.com.au/forums/what-ill-do/33020-my-business-journey.htmlI hope that answers you question.
January 6, 2015 at 11:58 am #1176697Up::0Hi Nathan,
IMHO, you may want to think some more about the purpose of your website, who you are trying to communicate with, what your services are and how can they satisfy potential client’s needs.You talk about your “coaching services”. What sort of coaching do you offer? I see reference to a “life coach” – I don’t even know what a “life coach” does. If folk don’t know this, they can’t possibly see any benefits from a “life coach’s” services.
The point is, everyone goes through the “purchasing process” before they make a purchase decision. Your website needs to answer people’s questions as they progress through all steps in this process.
Then you need to focus on the needs of different potential customer types.
It seems you will be targeting potential clients around Armidale. How else can you segment them?
Are they male or female? Married, in a relationship or single? Do the have children or not? Are they working in businesses or on farms? Etc, etc.
“Great” content is relevant content. The only relevant content is that which is important to your target clients. You need different web pages to address the different needs of these different audiences.
What I can tell you is that if you post a questionnaire on Flying Solo, you will be asking the opinions of the wrong audience as the vast majority of FSs will be big city dwellers.
Forget about surveys on FS. You should already know what info about your services that your target clients want. You should also know what types of clients you want to attract.
Write your content around how your services can benefit all these different client types.
BTW, when you talk about the content of a blog, you are most likely talking about content for existing clients. Blog posts are less likely to generate new business.
Hope this helps.
Regs,
JohnWJanuary 7, 2015 at 9:19 am #1176698Up::0You’ve definitely nailed some great points John. Thank you
The survey form was put up here out of curiosity more than anything. I have already shared it with my target audience. It only takes 2 seconds to post up a link and I was curious to see what the people on FS had to say. I’ve had some great responses too.
I will disagree on the power of blogs though. In my experience I found blog posts could be a MASSIVE way to generate new business if done correctly. I’d be interested to hear what your experience is and how you have used it effectively. Feel free to PM me or start up a new thread (as not to go off topic here)
Cheers
Nathan
January 7, 2015 at 11:27 pm #1176699Up::0Concept, post: 205924 wrote:I will disagree on the power of blogs though. In my experience I found blog posts could be a MASSIVE way to generate new business if done correctly. I’d be interested to hear what your experience is and how you have used it effectively. Feel free to PM me or start up a new thread (as not to go off topic here)Cheers
Nathan
Hi Nathan,
“If done correctly” is the critical piece. In my experience, most people don’t/can’t.Blogging requires writing skills and time. I spend my professional life assessing client’s websites. There are lots of very successful websites out there published in blog format but all the ones I have assessed had a misguided purpose or poor implementation. It is simple to prove. You look up the client’s Analytics reports and compare blog pages with other site pages. Parameters such as pageviews, time on pages, bounce rates, entry point numbers, pathways and etc. make it obvious. Then there are non-Analytics parameters like email requests generated and phone enquiries…
To me the start point is:
- What are you trying to do? I assume it is to develop your business.
Then I’d define these issues:
- What products/services do you want to promote?
- Who do you want to promote them to?
- Where are they located?
- Which of their needs do you need to fulfil?
- Where in the purchasing process do you want to talk with them?
- How frequently do you need to communicate with them to achieve your objectives?
- What benefits do you need to offer?
- What actions do you want them to take?
- How are you going to deliver your messages?
Now would come questions about what web page publishing format best suits your needs and the publishing schedule you will require to achieve your objectives.
Typical problems I see include:
- Lack of skill, time and persistence by the blog writer/publisher
- Poor visitor targeting
- Creating barriers to the really important site content
- Poor calls to action
- Poor generation of SE referrals. (And don’t get me started on how useless/irrelevant blog SEO plug-ins are.)
To me, a business owner should be making broader marketing communications comparisons than whether to publish in blog format or not.
By the time you write, publish and maintain management of your blog commenters, let’s say you spend 1 day per week.
Would you generate more new business with this blog time investment or by (eg.) spending the same time dropping brochures in the letterboxes in your surrounding suburbs/town?
I am not anti-blog, I’m anti the misguided use and poor execution of blogs.
Some factors I’d use in deciding to publish in blog format…
- Where the target audience location is irrelevant
- Where the purchase process is very extended or frequent
- Where there is a high “news” factor in the communications objective
- Where there are tightly definable audience descriptions (eg. professions, occupations, etc.)
- Where you can provide a visitor self promotion factor (if talking to B2B audiences)
An incomplete list and the over-riding one is the publisher’s written communications skill.
Regs,
JohnW -
AuthorPosts
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.