1. Find your aesthetic

Instagram is all about visual appeal. So how can you expect to have a successful profile without a visually stimulating aesthetic?

If the word aesthetic seems like a foreign term to you, don’t worry it’s definitely easier and more fun than you may think.

Determine what your colour palette will be. Dark, light, vibrant or calm, your profile is what matches your brand and message. Make sure to break it up and change it up, a busy, cluttered feed can put people off especially when someone is visiting your page for the first time. You want to inspire and engage your audience so they keep coming back for more. If you feel worried about how it will look, make a mockup feed in a document to test out the flow.

2. Make it clear what it is that you do

Your message is key for your brand image and purpose. Don’t forget to make your bio clear and enticing. Make it simple and snappy, something memorable and efficient.

3. Make your caption a question to encourage your audience to respond

The best way to encourage your followers to leave a comment is if you are able to lead them into it. It can be a simple question, just tie it into your content and you’re good to go. Don’t forget to reply to them as well, you really want to build that connection with your audience.

4. Find profiles that are similar to your brand or purpose and follow it’s followers

You’re not stealing anything from anyone, it’s simply finding your target market as efficiently as possible. There’s no better way to find followers who will connect and utilise your brand than to actively search for them and give them a follow.

5. From your website add an Instagram image feed to direct your audience

Another effective way to direct more traffic toward your social media is to link it all together. Especially from your website, adding an image feed from your instagram will draw people to follow your accounts.

6. Use relevant hashtags by researching which ones have a lot of traction on successful accounts

Gone are the days where you need dozens of hashtags. 4-5 # are the optimum now. Brainstorm strong words and trends that apply to your business and message, when you look them up on Instagram it will show you how many accounts use them and how popular they are. As I said before it is extremely beneficial to check out what similar successful accounts are using and how well they are working for them. Don’t forget to add your brand as a hashtag, get the trend started and get it out there.

7. Don’t go overboard with all of the different filters

A beautifully curated and original photo with a clear message will win every time over the latest and greatest. Find your ‘look’ and then stick to it so you are instantly recognisable in a feed. If in doubt, Mayfair is the most popular filter, but again, you are trying to create your own style, so find it and just go with that.

8. Quality and Consistency is key – never upload blurry or low-resolution content and frequently post on your feed and Instagram Story to stay relevant

Again, Instagram is a visual platform. I cannot stress enough that your photos and content need to be high quality if you want your account to look professional, legitimate and effective.

Instagram stories has grown significantly in popularity and effectiveness, so keep it flowing, plan your content or just start filming. The stories section is for your everyday material, the behind scenes of what you are doing. Keep your main feed for your curated and professional images, this is where you are more polished and thinking carefully of your overall brand strategy.

Keep at it everyday! As long as there is something for your followers to be watching you’re smashing it! Don’t worry about uploading the same content if it’s crucial to your brand message, just have it ready again for the next day for fresh viewers. As always, connection is incredibly important, make sure you or one of your team members are getting on there and putting a real face behind the brand – people want to know you are so don’t be afraid to show your personality.

Helena
Helena’s Weekly Marketing Tips!
x

PS – if you want to talk about content creation, your website, your social media presence or anything related to getting your profile out there… make sure you get in touch.

The post 8 Simple Tips To Grow Your Instagram Following appeared first on Divine Creative.

[Warning… 7 min read, but well worth it if you ever feel disconnected from what you are doing and wondering what all this ‘busy-ness’ on life is actually for…]

You’ve probably already noticed, the western world is going through a really big transition. The justification “but we’ve always done it this way” just doesn’t cut it anymore.

Retail and bricks and mortar businesses are having to reinvent themselves, the workplace is becoming far more flexible, shopping centres have become places where we go to have an experience rather than shop, expos and trade shows as a source of new clients are drying up, and multi-billion dollar companies that produce nothing except on-sell other people’s services are soaring!

There is a groundswell of people questioning the way that we do everything, and it’s fair to say that we have been living in an unconscious bubble for many decades. Blindly accepting traditions and busily numbing ourselves with the latest gadgets, shiny new cars, over-indulging in food, alcohol, trips to Bali and ridiculously expensive big houses… the thing is, it’s not actually working. Our bellies are bigger but our souls aren’t being fed!

Most people cannot honestly say that they are happy with their lives – no matter their personal wealth or status. We were sold the dream of “work hard, save hard, go into seriously huge debt to buy a house and you’ll be happy when you retire”… but, it’s not making us happy now. People in western society, in general, are pretty miserable because this is not the dream we were sold as kids.

So how does this all apply to business owners? Well for years I’ve been dancing around this, not quite putting it together and unconsciously doing this thing with clients that I now call Connection Marketing. It involves really getting to the core of what your business is all about, being as real as possible, and having a heretic-mindset towards how things are done in your industry. I came to notice that when a business really took off, it was when they were not following the path that others had laid out before them. They weren’t afraid to show the rawness of behind the scenes and the changes they were making in their industry. They let people come into their world, they turned their team members into heroes and they certainly didn’t care what their competitors were doing, because they were forging their own path.

It all came down to having a deep connection with their purpose, knowing what made them happy and having passion for every aspect of their life and business because they were part of something so much bigger than just making money. The business owners really succeeding were on a mission of change and they were rock solid about every aspect of their lives. And their businesses sky-rocketed!
We as a society have become so disconnected from our personal truths, that over the generations we have just blindly bought into the marketing hype of how we should be living, and we didn’t pull ourselves up and actually ask ourselves the question “are we happy?!”. Depression rates have been steadily rising since the mid-1930s and approximately 40 million American adults are said to have an anxiety disorder, and children are now medicated with psychiatric drugs.

So… bringing this all back to my title… how does this relate to Valentine’s Day?!

I’ve come to realise (and you might already be there) that we have been fed some pretty big stories in our childhoods, about all of these so-called special days. “It’s tradition”, and “it’s just the way we’ve always done things” no longer cuts it.

How can we keep indulging these traditions when we know the origins are so commercial?!

I know I could be seriously triggering all the romantics out there but the reality is, Valentine’s Day was commercialised by Hallmark Cards in the early 1900’s as a way to cash in on the lovely tradition of making hand-made gifts for loved ones to commemorate the romantic day. If you were actually serious about making a real connection with your loved one, wouldn’t you treat them like it was Valentine’s Day EVERY DAY?! You don’t need to buy over-priced roses and heart shaped chocolates on one specific day a year to show someone that you love them. It’s just become expected that we do it… even though we all know deep deep down that it’s a crock!

And while we’re at it… let’s talk about Easter. Mother’s Day. Father’s Day. Black Friday, (I still don’t even know what that is except that people seem to have all these big discounts for that week!).

And then there’s Christmas… did you know that the character Santa Claus was commercialised by Coca Cola in the 1920’s through to the mid 60’s, and it was an absolute goldmine for their marketing and branding for decades! It starts in September in the shopping centres and this phenomenally wasteful and excessive beast that we now call Christmas is completely out of control. Do you ever stop and wonder what are we actually personally gaining from it? It has become such a duty and financial strain. Do we seriously need to blow thousands of dollars EVERY YEAR on things we don’t need for people that we feel obligated to buy for…?

Now don’t get me wrong. Traditions are lovely when they’re personal to you and your loved ones and they have real meaning and authenticity behind it. We have plenty of self-imposed traditions in our home and they’re wonderful. But they’re personal to us and no corporation is telling us how to do it.

If you love the tradition of catching up with family and friends over Christmas… go for it! Human beings are creatures of connection and we have always moved in packs because our survival depended on it. Centuries ago when we lived in small communal villages and lived off the land, our traditions were stemmed in story-telling that connected people to each other and the land on which we lived and cultivated to survive. We didn’t live with excess, we all felt like we belonged because we each had a purpose that was critical to our collective survival. Life was certainly harder but it had purpose.

So fast-forward a few centuries to today’s modern world in what should be in the best times ever, and yet our ‘traditions’ are now orchestrated from media propaganda machines headed by corporations who only answer to their board and their shareholders!

So I guess the purpose for this article is to ask you to really question why you do things, in all areas of your life and business. And why do you accept things we have been told by corporations to be true? Are you doing things because it’s for the greater good and it truly makes you feel connected to what you are trying to achieve? Or are you doing it because that’s the way it’s always been done, even though it puts you in greater financial stress and you’re worried what people think of you if you don’t.

There is a wave of change coming, and it’s been happening for some time now. People are waking up and questioning the way that we do EVERYTHING! We are questioning western philosophies and turning to more traditional eastern ways of thinking. We don’t want to go back to living in primitive times, and I personally am very grateful for being a woman in these times where there are so many equal opportunities… but we can’t dismiss that we are craving to be far less busy, less consumed by ‘stuff’ and wanting to feel connected to ourselves and each other again. We want to do the kind of work and have businesses that has a positive effect on the world, and our environment.

It’s a very exciting time for businesses who can recognise this change and are able to embrace it. It’s also very terrifying for businesses who are stuck in still doing things the way they used to do it 10 and 20 years ago. Following these pointless seasonal trends and slashing your prices isn’t working. Trying to sell more ‘stuff’ that we don’t actually need is not the answer to long term business success.

Sustainability, consciousness, meaningful experiences, connection, providing real value for services and products that people really need and benefit from, innovating and finding solutions that help people to connect with themselves and their communities again is how your business could be providing real value moving into the future, and it can be your real point of difference.

We are living in a very exciting time because we will either botch it big time with the planet, or live through the most amazing time of change and innovation that we’ve ever known to make things right again. I’m very hopeful it’s the latter because I’m always the optimist, and I believe there are enough changemakers and heretics out there to make it happen!

I’d love to know what you think!
Melissa
x

Note by the author:
I reference the word heretic a couple of times. A modern day heretic is a free thinker, a renegade, somebody that holds an opinion that is at odds with what is generally accepted….
I wrote this article to encourage you to rethink how you live your life and to find more passion, meaning and joy in your business, and if you have a sense that you want to do things differently and be a business that supports innovation, connection and change. We recently started a new sister agency to Divine Creative, called Heretic Creative Agency and it’s for this type of entrepreneur and business owner. The 2% we like to call them! If you’re part of the 2%, why don’t you get in touch and let’s continue the conversation.

* https://news.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/212045/world-broken-workplace.aspx?g_source=position1&g_medium=related&g_campaign=tiles

The post Breaking with tradition in marketing – an anti-Valentine’s Day perspective appeared first on Divine Creative.

So you might be asking, what is a blog about a 4 day water fast doing on a marketing/business blog page?! Great question! It’s because some of the fittest and some of the unhealthiest people I know are business owners, and it’s interesting how differently we all cope with stress.

I’ve always been pretty committed to good health – physical, mental and emotional. And having lost my husband to a massive heart attack a couple of years ago, I’m even more committed to health and sharing of information. So after a few very stressful months I just felt like it was time to have a physical detox, and by water fasting, you are removing from your body all the backed up toxins that your body stores (mainly in the colon), and to activate the process called Autophagy, where the body recycles old parts to create new parts. Studies have found that autophagy can lead to a decreased risk of cancer, heart disease and alzheimers. Other studies found that autophagy can increase longevity by regenerating our cells.

For me… I was doing this for the health benefits, but also as an experiment to change my attitude towards food and stop eating for comfort, which is such a common thing in Western society where we have an abundance of choice and volume of food. I grew up in a family where we were rewarded with food! If I did well in my dancing exams, I got a full pavlova to myself, and I ate it too! It’s extremely fortunate I have a good metabolism, but this kind of attachment to food is unhealthy so I wanted to cleanse myself from the notion of ‘needing’ food other than to sustain myself and fuel me with healthy options.

I am also practising mindfulness very seriously, newly practising yoga and meditating, so I wanted to be more congruent with my newfound appreciation of the Eastern practises and living a more Buddhist way of life. And just to ensure that you don’t think I’ve completely gone all zen and not my normal self… I wanted to drop a few kgs after putting on some weight when I gave myself a good dose of adrenal burnout this past year.

So what is a 4 day water fast? It’s when you stop eating any kind of food, and only drink water. In my case, each morning I had a large glass of hot water and some lemon juice squeezed into it. And that is it for 4 days. Please understand that I am NOT a doctor or anything medical, and this has all come from my research via Dr Google and chatting with friends. Consequently, there are people that should never contemplate a four day fast, including children, pregnant women, elderly, people with heart or thyroid conditions, diabetes or blood pressure concerns.

BENEFITS OF FASTING:

1. Having no calories in your system soon results in your body using your fat stores for energy, this not only results in fat loss but boosts the process of losing fat if you’re working out.
2. Increases insulin sensitivity due to less fluctuation in blood sugar levels.
3. Improves body repair, recovery and healing from decreased inflammation.
4. Lowers your stress levels, decreases blood pressure and rejuvenates the body.
5. Increases immunity due to better cell resistance.
6. Enables reduction in cancer cell proliferation.
7. Slows down aging and cognitive decline.
8. Lowers the risk of heart disease
9. Solves digestive problems such as gastritis, irritable bowels, constipation, diarrhea, gas, dyspepsia, and loss of appetite.
10. Also an opportunity for emotional and spiritual introspection. People have found that have greater control over their thoughts and diet after completing the fast.

So here’s how I went, day by day on my 4 day water fast…

DAY 1 –
Friday. My first official fasting day! It’s always a challenge when you know you can’t eat for the next 4 days, but in reality, it’s only a short time and I love the notion of mind control and being in charge of my thoughts and challenging myself.

I weighed in at 65.2 kg in the morning, and went about my normal day. I did some work, went to the chiro, and then headed to play an hours worth of tennis with a new group. I didn’t feel any hunger until around ‘lunch time’ after the tennis, but just got stuck back into my work. Towards the later part of the afternoon I did feel a bit sluggish and thinking a bit about food, but I have a very strong attitude and pushed it out of my mind. It really is mind over matter.

I went out that evening to the local pub with some girlfriends. I was interested to see that I was feeling very vulnerable and a bit insecure for some reason. I was noticing how much people bond over food and alcohol (which I was having neither) and I wanted to be anywhere but there. Not because I wanted to eat and drink so much, but I wasn’t feeling the vibe at all and starting to get quite tired. I went home at 9.00pm, and chilled out for an hour before heading to bed.

DAY 2 –
Saturday. I woke up at 6.00am feeling quite ‘normal’ except for the bad breathe feeling, and headed out to early morning yoga. It was great to not feel gassy/windy at all but I was still feeling quite vulnerable and a bit emotional, far more intensified since I had stopped eating. It really showed me how much I comfort and reward myself with food. (Not having that as an emotional crutch left me feeling really exposed.)

I was also very careful to drink enough water. I was at Cronulla so went for a lovely walk (slowish) along the esplanade and found a beautiful spot on the coastline and had a great coaching call with my performance coach – I was very in tune with my feelings and feeling very clear. I then watched my sons play soccer for a few hours and headed home in the late afternoon, admittedly starting to feel pretty tired and light headed. Not very hungry at all surprisingly.

The biggest symptom was actually how cold I was feeling, I did feel like my thermostat was really out. Once I was home around 4.30pm I felt like I’d hit a brick wall with energy levels and became a lounge lizard for the rest of the evening (which I never do!) and went to bed at 10.30pm after falling asleep during a movie. I just pretended that dinner didn’t exist and the kids helped themselves to food. I was feeling exceptionally tired and weary, muscles are sore, most likely from the yoga earlier in the day and feeling a bit nauseous. Very, very happy that I didn’t have to go anywhere as I don’t think I could have.

DAY 3 –
Sunday. Woke up naturally around 8.00am, but did not want to get up out of bed at all. I was quite lightheaded and feeling very ordinary – almost hungover. I weighed myself and I was 63.2kg. My goal for the fast wasn’t weight loss, but admittedly it was great to shed a couple of kgs that had crept on over the past year.

I read a bit, then dozed on an off until about 11.30am. My bowel was really feeling a lot of pressure and I felt nauseous when I got up, but no bowel movements, which I found disappointing because the whole point of a fast is to clear your body out of toxins… and so far that hadn’t happened! (Although possibly a compliment to my current healthy eating, no land-based meat for the past 5 years, next to no dairy and no caffeine for many years.) My bad breathe was almost back to normal, and apart from a couple of burps that’s all the toxin movement I’ve experienced for the full 4 days!

It was a gorgeous day so I dragged myself downstairs and did a little gardening and some sweeping out by the pool, but got very lightheaded when I had to pick it all up so gave up on that idea! I did a long meditation around 2.00pm which was  more awesome than normal and had some fantastic visions of things I want to do in the near future. I journaled some amazing stuff for over an hour – with some real clarity around some old issues. I was really focused and although I have a constant weird feeling in my stomach and light-headedness… I was able to give awesome attention to what I was doing and I loved that. It’s just good to not move too much!

Meal times are the weirdest. I just work through or keep busy. Time is going so slow without the distraction of eating or preparing food for my family! They are just on DIY until I return to eating. I did want to go out today to a market to see a friend’s stall, but there’s no way I should be driving unless I need to! So, it was a day at home for me!

I don’t feel so vulnerable or emotional by Day 3. And I fantasise a little about food, but all very healthy food, not junkie sugary treats which is interesting. Hunger isn’t the problem when you’re fasting, it’s incredible when you turn your mind to it that you can literally switch it off, it’s the fatigue and the sluggishness that I’m having the issues with. The evening was very cruisy, I read until about 9.30pm and then went to sleep, something I never do!!

DAY 4 –
Monday. I woke up during the night a couple of times but went straight back to sleep. Very animated and crazy dreams. Got up at 7.00am and felt a lot better than the day before! Although I do note that my heart is really racing, I measured it and while I was resting it was 90 beats a minute, and then slowed down to 80 beats. Which isn’t really a resting heart rate!

I weighed myself, now down to 62.4kg, so that’s pretty much 3kg weight loss in just over 3 days.

I had a very productive day working. Thankfully I was working from a home office and I got some very good work done. I have read that before that brain fog really lifts and you become really productive, and I’d say I was more focused than when I am eating. It’s just the lack of energy that is surprising me. Last time I did a four day fast I was out and about on Day 4, driving the car and taking my kids and dog to the beach. This time, I am nowhere near as enthused to do anything but sit at my desk and work.

Happily, I’m not thinking too much about food. I was considering that I might go another day, but I had meetings the next day and just couldn’t risk feeling that drained. By 6.30pm I tucked into a bowl of pumpkin soup and some buttered toast. It tasted good, but nowhere near as ‘celebratory’ as you would think! It took about half an hour to eat it. I got to bed around 10.00pm (which is early for me) and woke up the next day ready feeling pretty normal! I didn’t feel like going for a jog, but aside from the weariness, everything felt quite normal. I waited until 11am before I had my home made fruit juice (my usual breakfast) – because it’s not wise to hid solid food straight away. And by and large, Tuesday was a very normal day and I ended it at yoga in the evening.

Wrapping up…

I did this fast about 5 years ago when I was still eating land-based meat but I don’t think drinking caffeine. The first day was just as easy. The second and third days were rough. And the fourth day was a breeze. So not all that different… except… my bowel movements! From about Day 2 they were quite exceptional and my body was releasing A LOT of toxins. There is no way you would want to be away from the house for that period. And my breathe was a lot worse.

So this time around, leading up to the fast I had been eating a lot more salads, vegetables and fruit for a long period, and fish once a day. I haven’t drunk caffeine in years and cut down my sugar a lot before the fast so I didn’t get the terrible headaches. I have also been intermittent fasting for about a month where you eat for an 8 hour period only – I usually eat/drink breakfast at 11.00am and try to have dinner by 6.00pm. So what has pleasantly surprised me is the great state my body is actually in, because I didn’t not have any bowel movements at all after my initial evacuation of the dinner I had the day before. It was actually a little disappointing, but I figure it’s great that my body isn’t storing all of these toxins and I’m so committed to staying healthy and looking after myself as I approach 50, that I will commit to doing this 4 day fast every turn of the season.

SPECIAL NOTE: I’ll repeat, I’m not a doctor, have no medical training and doing this purely of my own back. If you want to do it yourself, please do not do so because of my article. Do your own research, there are lots of warning signs that tell you stop straight away.

So there you go, my 4 day water fast summation! Hope it inspires you to do some of your own research and improve your health, because as business owners, we are exposed to incredible pressures and unique stresses that many people just don’t understand. Here’s to your good health!

Melissa x

If you want to speak with Melissa in greater detail about how to get more out of the content you are creating, and how to have a functional website, blog, e-newsletter or marketing plan that will enhance organic SEO, then please contact us and we can have an obligation-free chat.

The post What I learned from a 4 day water fast… appeared first on Divine Creative.

Hot off the heels from our trip to Las Vegas for the mega NAB Conference for all things video, content, broadcasting and industry tech, I’m really excited to give you my wrap up of where marketing is right now and heading into the future.

How we used to do things is NOT how we do it now. Interruption marketing (a lot of paid advertising) is largely ignored. It’s now viewed as invasive bordering on obnoxious. People like to choose the way they consume their information, and paid advertising just isn’t believable anymore.

BUT… creating well-meaning, helpful and unique content is definitely where marketing is right now, and if your business doesn’t have a strategy around this, you could be really left behind.

The conference’s tagline ‘where content creates life’, couldn’t describe better how business’ should be viewing their marketing and the way we all need to connect with our audience.

This is where so many businesses get it wrong. We are so obsessed with ‘selling’ by shouting at our audience in an effort to get across how good we are and sharing all the great features and benefits of our products and services.
What we forget is the one really important ingredient we need to ensure that a customer will trust us and like us enough to buy from us.
And that is to connect with our audiences on an emotional level so they really feel that we understand them.
And I mean… really… connect.
Loyalty.
Engagement.
Trust.
To have no doubt in their mind that you are the best person at what you do. You do not get that connection from placing an ad in an industry publication because it’s just not believable.

So here is a summary of the main things that I took from the conference:

1. Every business should be creating a massive amount of content that is relevant for both your existing clients (because they need to be loved up) and to attract a new audience (because you’re so awesome it’s your duty to let them discover you!).Your goal is to stand out, to be heard and to be seen for all of your differences.And not in a weird, show biz way! It’s always tempting to try to be someone that you aren’t when you’re in front of a video camera or speaking about your business, but it’s critical that you stay as authentic as possible. People see through a ‘performance’ and they don’t like it.  There will be people that switch off because they don’t like you, and that’s okay. There is an audience for everyone if you cast your net far enough, and guaranteed people just like you, will love what you have to say. It’s better to niche into a couple of areas where you dominate and specialise,  and really own that industry, rather than try to be a master of everything. Nobody is valued for being a jack-of-all-trades.
2. You can have the largest audience and be obsessed with likes and fan numbers, but if they aren’t engaged with you and don’t value you, then you won’t be able to monetise your following and then it just becomes about vanity rather than financial success.The revenue that an influencer might get from YouTube alone isn’t going to make them retire on easy streets.You need to other ways to monetise your database and always know your end game when you are creating content. Likes and shares are great, but if it’s too the wrong audience, for the wrong reasons, then really, what is the point? Vanity metrics vs actual sales. I know where I’d rather have success!
3. There is a magnitude of ways that you can create engaging content with your audience, and be the brand that really touches them. Regular video content, consistent blogging and vlogging, helpful case studies, information sessions, webinars, engaging email, catchy infographics, live videos, clever copywriting, podcasts…You need to find your sweet spot and be in daily contact with your audience. It might feel like it’s overkill from your perspective, but not everybody is seeing you on every platform. So you need to become the master of repurposing the same content across multiple platforms so you don’t burn out, and keep it coming. It’s about consistency, regularity, quality and injecting your brand personality into the message.
4. Think globally. Even if your services only extend to your local area, you can be selling your knowledge around the world through online education. Multiple income streams are very desirable, and there is an audience for everything and you can sell to a worldwide community. When you visit the US, Europe or Asia for business, you quickly realise that while our skillsets are really high, Australia is just a drop in the ocean!
5. Personal branding is everything. A company branded message is going to be 8x more successful if it’s shared by a sales team member rather than just put out by the company profile. People engage with people, they want to know more about your business and the people within it. Feed them, let them see who you are, who your team is, what inspires you, and most of all what makes you unique. Dare to get real with your audience. They will love you for it.Your sales team are missing a golden opportunity if they don’t already market themselves within your company brand. They can engage with an audience through putting out live and pre-made content. As long as it’s personal and helpful, and tied in to your brand, it’s going to be so much more successful than anything you put out through the company. People buy from people that they can relate to and trust.
6. And when you are creating video content, try and look at combining it with relevant content that already has a high search rate so there’s a better chance that more people will find you. Just remember to keep it relevant. Whatever is a pressing issue right now in your industry, come up with a solution and then market your content around that.

Because… The best marketing, never looks like marketing.
It’s helpful, sometimes entertaining advice from a trusted advisor/friend.

Whoever is closest to the customer on a daily basis from multiple platforms… wins their trust, their loyalty and their business. And an engaged customer is a referring customer.

Creating wonderfully engaging content really is a win/win for all businesses, and something that your business needs to be involved with on a regular basis. If you need help with a strategy around this and implementation, just get in touch and we can have that initial conversation to get you started.

Melissa X

If you want to speak with Melissa in greater detail about how to get more out of the content you are creating, and how to have a functional website, blog, e-newsletter or marketing plan that will enhance organic SEO, then please contact us and we can have an obligation-free chat.

The post The Brand that is Closer to the Customer… Wins appeared first on Divine Creative.

As business owners, we live in a really fantastic time to get a strong message out about our business and our services.

Not too long ago (when I was a younger designer), you needed to be incredibly resourceful and spend lots of $ to be seen through paid advertising (newspaper, magazines, radio or TV), printed material or expensive PR where you bought your way into publications.

But… with the advent of technology, it has made marketing for small businesses quite affordable and easy to access an international audience if we want. In my opinion however, it has also made many business owners LAZY when it comes to marketing.

We invest initially in our website and then forget about it, maybe get an e-newsletter going but get no momentum with it, post up some social media sporadically, do the odd trade show but never market back to the names we collected for the database, and maybe write the occasional blog post if business is quiet… and then we declare “it isn’t working” when nothing seems to happen!

The answer is pretty simple, content marketing built on creating a solid, consistent connection does work… And if your marketing efforts aren’t working then it’s most likely too hit and miss in the messaging, not directed at the right target, or too sporadic in the delivery.

Did you know that 75% of consumers rely on social media to make their purchasing decisions, with 19% directly influenced by Facebook posts, and 18% influenced by YouTube?*

17 million Australians are on Facebook right now, and YouTube and Linkedin are fantastic business tools to share your great content and lead customers directly to your website via your blog. There are so many ways to connect with your audience both online and offline such as helpful videos, direct mail campaigns, e-books, emails to your database, industry publications, articles in online and offline publications, seminars and webinars, creating free online courses and instructional dvd’s! There is no excuse as to why you can’t produce really sensational and personalised content that is customised to your industry that gets you noticed and standing out.

OUR 4 TOP TIPS ON HOW TO CREATE GREAT CONTENT ENGAGEMENT:

1. It has to be interesting!!!

And it has to help your audience. You need to seriously think about who you are trying to talk to, and resist the temptation to sell to them. Rather, you want to provide information that people actually want to consume and will honestly make a real impact on them personally and their business.

2. It has to add real value to your potential clients.

Give them something they can use immediately and make a significant change to the way they do things now. You will always be remembered if you were the company that helped. And it breeds loyalty, trust, and positions you as the expert because they now believe that you know what you’re talking about, and they will continue to listen.

I have a client that provides free “master class” videos to their clients and potential clients on how they can get the most out of their camper trailers and caravans. They share it on their website, all social media channels, dvd’s in their showroom and shows, and email. Anybody can come and reference this free information – not just their current customers. But what a way to position yourself in the industry as the expert that actually cares!

This strategy also closes a customer when they are tossing up which company to buy from and shows the company to be proactive with their past customer service perception problems… so not only has this strategy helped in getting new customers and keeping old ones happy (and referring), it also goes a long way to helping them fix up their past brand problems.

3. Your content has to be consistent and show your expertise.

I’m sure you’ve all heard that a customer has to know, like and trust you before they will spend money with you. Well part of that process is that you also need to regularly keep dropping onto their radar for them to believe you.It’s pretty easy to build a rapport through video or friendly social media posting, but for people to bother to know more about you and trust what you tell them, requires you to turn up in front of them more than once or twice in their buying cycle.

“People can spend years researching before they make a decision, so your brand needs to be in front of them consistently for all that time to be considered when they are ready, and this could be a period of months or years.”

In Australia, it takes up to 11-12 positive touch points with your target audience before they will choose to give you their business. So if you are only sending out a newsletter once a month, or posting the odd article to Linkedin now and again… you aren’t going to stay top of mind.

Whereas a company that is posting to multiple social media platforms daily, emailing helpful, quality information weekly, keeping their website up to date with case studies and industry news, running webinars or seminars and and creating helpful videos that they can use as a source to make their life easier or more connected… is the company that is always going to win over a potential client every time because they have developed a relationship with the client.

4. It’s all about being authentic.

Thanks to social media, we are all voyeurs now! And quite often, potential customers want to know more about the people behind the business. Now I get that business owners want to be private, but as consumers, we do like to sense some kind of genuine interaction from the brands we buy from, and that they understand our problems and what we need. This means:

• Real case studies.
• Real client testimonials.
• Real stories about the good and the bad times. 
• Real sharing of genuine information that will make your potential client’s lives better.

When I had a personal tragedy in my life in early 2017, I had a lovely copywriter friend send me through a suggested short message that she thought I could send out to my database to let people know what was happening in my business during this period. The thing was, it didn’t feel authentic to me to send out something very brief and impersonal, when most of my customers and those who know me, know that I’m the opposite of that!

So, I chose to send out a longer, more personal message that I wrote from the heart, sharing a family photo and personal video for those that were interested. It just felt right to be honest about what had happened and to share the next stages of the business. And it was received wonderfully. You definitely don’t have to share every last detail, there’s plenty to keep private. But by keeping it real and consistent to who you are, and your audience will recognise and appreciate it.

So if you have read this far into this email, I would say that creating quality content is really resonating with you, and you are wondering what to do next.
Firstly, we suggest that you do the following:

1. Go back to the drawing board and look at who your ‘A’ clients are
2. Figure out how they want to be communicated to
3. Look at what their main problems are in business or their lives
4. Find ways that you can provide these solutions through marketing initiatives and good content
5. Set a plan to create that content and how you are going to deliver it, and how frequently!

We work with clients regularly on creating their marketing strategies, super-effective action plans with clear KPI’s, and then implementation by updating their website, their marketing material, creating blogs, social media strategies and video content. We’ve been doing it for over 18 years, and we do it really well.

And we’d love to work with you. If you want to make a change in your business and have the motivation to take the next step, we’d love to hear from you.

Melissa x

“Before I started working with Divine Creative Agency, I wasn’t absolutely convinced about the the whole concept of branding! But now that our advertising, social media, sales material and online marketing campaigns are far more consistent, strategic, and speaking directly to our target markets…
MDC Campers is correctly positioned in the marketplace as the largest and most successful manufacturers of camper trailers. We now walk and talk our brand.”

VAUGHAN HINDLEY
OWNER & DIRECTOR
MDC CAMPER TRAILERS

* https://shanebarker.com/blog/influencer-marketing-statistics/

The post What is Content Marketing? appeared first on Divine Creative.

If you don’t evolve as a business owner your business will become extinct.

For a business owner, you have 3 clear jobs when it comes to generating income and creating a consistent flow in your business. And not being up to date with social media or knowing how to create digital content is NOT a good excuse anymore.

1. You need to get the attention of your target audience.
2. You need to be able to build relationships and create engagement that then converts into trust and rapport, so it converts people into customers with regular transactions.
3. You need to ensure that you can maintain a product or services that delivers at a high enough level to ensure customers will come back for repeat business, refer to generate new business, and sing your praises on social media to instil more trust in new customers.

We are seeing businesses right now losing market share and being overtaken by more innovative and responsive brands because they aren’t evolving in the social media space and understanding the importance of creating CONTENT. Content that is of interest to your target audience and that ranges from anything from a blog post, to a successful case study, to helpful tips, regular email newsletters, regular video, ebooks, and podcasts. Feed your audience what they want to learn from you and create TRUST.

And… it takes time. It takes a strategy.

“If your business is earning less than $1 million in revenue, and you want to scale and grow, then you should be spending 80% of your time on sales and marketing.”

Are you evolving? Or are you becoming a dinosaur business owner?

Melissa x
(… You know that we can help you don’t you?)

Here are some useful stats for you if you’re struggling with the idea of creating content:

• Written articles, videos, and images are the three most engaging types of content on social media. (Clutch, 2017) (Source: https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics)
• Content marketing gets three times more leads than paid search advertising. (Content Marketing Institute, 2017) (Source: https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics)
• Product videos can increase purchases by 144%. (Neil Patel, 2017)
• Almost 50% of Internet users look for videos related to a product or service before visiting a store. (Google, 2016) (Source: https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics)
• 20% of people will read the text on a page, but 80% of people will watch a video. (My SMN, 2017) (Source: https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics)

If you want to speak with Melissa in greater detail about how to get more out of the content you are creating, and how to have a functional website, blog, e-newsletter or marketing plan that will enhance organic SEO, then please contact us and we can have an obligation-free chat.

The post The top 3 jobs of a business owner… hint, it all revolves around marketing! appeared first on Divine Creative.

Recently I met up with a really well-respected business man with a great business who’s been around for quite some time, but their marketing relies too much on him and his personal contacts, and they’re not growing quickly enough.

He asked me, “when you want to grow your business, what do you do to get the message out there?” And I thought I would share the answer with you!

“I do the same thing that I advise any of my clients… connect with them on a PERSONAL level and give, give, give. Know exactly who your target new client is, and give them free advice, free information, entertain them, surprise them, delight them, and inspire them. Use the language that you know they like, solving the problems you know they have, and feeling like the message is written specifically to them. This the whole basis of CONNECTION MARKETING, providing amazing and personalised content.”

We personally do this through:

• Facebook posts, which is my personal favourite platform, and then share across to other platforms such as Instagram and LinkedIn, changing it up if need be to suit the specific audience.
• The really good posts we also create as blog posts and share in our e-newsletters which I try to send out weekly.
• You can also do Facebook Lives (these can have huge success when you get into a regular time slot), and give away downloadable tip sheets etc that people request and have to give the email address for in exchange.
• You can build on your Youtube channel with how-to instructional videos, and create your own shows – something we are putting together right now to launch.
• Podcasts (watch this space!)
• and Webinars
• Any kind of giveaway from ebooks to cheat sheets/tips, case study sheets
• You can also get free PR spots on other people’s blogs, online magazines, real life magazines, chapters in books, write your own book…

the sky is truly the limit when it comes to creating great content and getting the message out there.

Kate Toon, creator of Hot Copy Podcast and The Recipe for SEO Success Show, shared the following benefits to her business since launching her podcasts:

“Since creating my podcast I’ve seen a definite shift in my business. It’s helped me built more of a following, more authority and, personally more confidence. In terms of specifics, my copywriting podcast generated around $10-20k in course and resource sales last year, and through being on other people’s podcasts I’ve landed speaking gigs. Podcasting helped my business so much, I’ve actually just launched a second one.”

One of my greatest marketing tools I ever created for myself was a 36 page booklet that I wrote and had printed up called the 50 Things About Websites You Should Know. It would be completely out of date now, but it was such a great little tool and would be worthwhile updating it into an ebook now, as it would be a wonderful resource. The most important thing to remember, is that it has to be PERSONAL and customised to YOUR brand. This is the really important step that some people forget. It can’t be generic and copied from your competitor’s material. It really does need to have your flair and individual flavour so it stands out as being truly unique.

We have a content creation package that might be able to help you out if you have the budget to get an agency like us to help you out.

We were visiting a new client doing exactly that today when I saw these angel wings on the side of the building and had to take a photo! For our client, we know who the target audience is, what he wants to achieve, and he’s pulled his SEO budget with another company and dedicated it solidly to our content creation plan of creating custom video, blog posts and a monthly e-newsletter using the same budget. It’s all organic SEO anyway, and google LOVES video, so it’s highly likely his website won’t dip down in the rankings and will have a lot more organic, personal content on there that is branded and positioned to make their business stand out even more. His competitors won’t know what him them!
Win/win.

Are you creating content that connects you to your audience?

Melissa x

If you want to speak with Melissa in greater detail about how to get more out of the content you are creating, and how to have a functional website, blog, e-newsletter or marketing plan that will enhance organic SEO, then please contact us and we can have an obligation-free chat.

The post What do I do when I want to get more customers? appeared first on Divine Creative.

The greatest compliment you can ever give me when you see me speak at an event or watch one of my vlogs… is to say that I gave you some really helpful advice you can action, and that you felt I was being real. Nothing else honestly matters.

There are so many marketing messages being delivered these days, by polished speakers that are rehearsed and polished within an inch of their lives! I used to be intimidated because they would stand up and speak so proficiently, but conversely when I spoke to a room I tend to keep it pretty simple, basic and human. Comparing myself to others is just my own insecurities speaking to me, and I’ve learned how to get over myself and focus on just being me.

And I know it’s insecurities like these that are holding so many business owners back from marketing their own businesses as well as they can. So many people freeze up in front of a video camera, or refuse to do a live video post, or produce overly-scripted webinars and death-by-powerpoint presentations because they are paralysed by the notion of being perfect. Marketing is all about connecting to your audience’s problems and concerns. Being polished doesn’t make you connected.

I read this blog this morning from Seth Godin, the Godfather of marketing, and had to share a few of his thoughts.

“Don’t memorize your talk. Memorize your stories. Ten stories make a talk. Write yourself a simple cue card to remember each story’s name. Then tell us ten stories.
Be you.
We didn’t come to hear your words. If that’s all we wanted, we could have read the memo and saved a ton of time.
Bring your heart.”

So, know your subject, share your personal stories. Be relatable. Ask questions, and stay really relevant and real. Sharing your knowledge with a good heart will connect you far better to your audience than memorising facts and figures and sticking to a soul-less script.
Perfectly imperfect.
Happy marketing your business!

Melissa x

If you want to speak with Melissa in greater detail about how to get more out of the content you are creating, and how to have a functional website, blog, e-newsletter or marketing plan that will enhance organic SEO, then please contact us and we can have an obligation-free chat.

The post Are your insecurities holding you back? appeared first on Divine Creative.

Hell to the yes! I just came away from a 2 day retreat at the Nan Tien Temple in Wollongong, and it was as powerful as any business seminar I’ve ever attended. Maybe even more-so because learning to control your mind could be a business owner’s greatest tool.

I went there thinking I was just going to learn to meditate, and came away with so much more, and really wanted to share it with you. From anybody looking for deeper meaning to what they do, looking to quieten their ‘monkey brain’ and learn how to better master their mind… then this retreat is an incredible way to do that.

“The mind is like water. When it’s turbulent, it’s difficult to see. When it’s calm, everything becomes clear.”
Buddhist vision

It started on the Saturday morning when we checked into our modest but very adequate accommodation. Straight away, I was a little alarmed by the uniform. Being a creative, any kind of mandatory uniform makes me shudder, let alone a shapeless oversized grey smock and with big puffy pants! But, that was the uniform and I had to suck it up!

We then met down at reception, formed into our lines, men at the front, women at the back. (Again a little disconcerting!) And with that, the weekend meditation retreat began and we were all asked to be in NOBLE SILENCE for the experience. That means no talking. I actually failed in the first few minutes because I’ve come to learn that my brain is so busy and cluttered, I actually talk to myself! But, not to be put off, I stitched up my mouth and kept quiet for the next day and a half.

We were directed to a beautiful meditation room and I sat with 40 other inspired humans that were mostly embracing the silence, and we learned about the philosophies of mindfulness, practising to have a quiet mind through meditation, and why it’s a good daily practice to learn how to control our busy brain chatter so we can direct our brain’s focus when we need to under all sorts of circumstances. All great characteristics for a great business owner when you think about it!

It’s a buzz phrase right now, but in case you were wondering, mindfulness is the ability to see things as they really are without the cloud of feelings, prejudice, or mood, and a really grounding way to live in the moment.

We learned about kindness, empathy and compassion to all living creatures but most especially, to ourselves.
We learned about the beauty of doing one thing at a time, with grace, elegance, and complete mindfulness.
We learned the power of doing one thing at a time and doing it right the first time (that one really resonated with me).

We learned that “the body keeps the score”. And that if we don’t deal with it and process our problems and emotions, that our bodies will stuff it all away and that it eventually comes out in us as disease. (Something I personally experienced when I was widowed at 45 and my husband passed away suddenly of a massive heart attack at 48. Now that I have just turned 48, the health of my mind, body and spirit is paramount to me – hence why I’m sharing this experience at the meditation retreat.)

We learned that disconnection from the head and the heart in our western society is very common, and it leads to unethical business decisions and attracts equally disconnected people to your business. So by choosing to lead a more authentic and grounded life where you actually care about business outcomes and doing right by your clients, and by running your business as a heart-centred, mindful, conscious entity, it will attract and inspire others to practise business in the same way. With compassion, generosity, playfulness and the main focus always being the well-being of your team, your clients and your suppliers. To choose to conduct your business with your heart as well as your head leads to attracting more heart-centred people and businesses to you, and we can all flourish.

We learned that everything starts with a seed.
And if you want to see change in your industry, be the change.
Show your success by planting the seed, and it will steadily encourage the change that you want to see for your clients, your industry and if you play really big, the world.

We also learned that surprisingly ‘stress’ isn’t always a bad thing. When harnessed it can generate great energy and achieve some amazing things in a short time-span when channelled mindfully. You just don’t want to live in that space permanently!

Probably the most incredible thing I learned and experienced was that when you quieten the ‘monkey mind’ through daily practise of meditation, you can channel the most amazing and clean creative thoughts and solutions to problems that you have had for a long time. So often as business owners we are wearing multiple hats, fielding so many thoughts and issues with the day to day running of our businesses that we don’t sit and contemplate the big and important issues that will really get us to where we want to be going. We clutter our minds instead with the less important but demanding tasks at hand, and don’t make time or have the mental capacity to spend time on the bigger picture of marketing and growing our businesses.

You just need to be clear enough in your head to be able to shut out your internal voice, and to tap into your inner wisdom. So many people pay a lot of money to ‘experts’ to solve their problems, when often the answer is locked away inside of you. We all have the potential, we just need to learn how to harness it.

So that was my Buddhist meditation retreat experience! As always, I’m happy to chat to anybody personally about my experience at Nan Tien Temple if this is of interest to you. I found the experience to be really illuminating, humbling and so useful that I am now practising meditation twice a day, to stay focused, driven and on task. And… peacefully happy!

Ommmmmmmmmm!

Melissa x

“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.”
– Buddha

If you want to speak with Melissa in greater detail about how to get more out of the content you are creating, and how to have a functional website, blog, e-newsletter or marketing plan that will enhance organic SEO, then please contact us and we can have an obligation-free chat.

The post Is there room for mindfulness and being heart-centred in marketing your business? appeared first on Divine Creative.

Fear is a very natural and essential part of growth, and as business owners, we often find ourselves side-stepping rather than embracing it! It’s a natural human response that we want to try and avoid anything that makes us uncomfortable, however we all know that growth comes from stepping outside of our comfort zones, and what feels like a bold move today will gradually become the norm if we keep pushing ourselves.

But… why do so many business owners still hesitate from the fear of the unknown when it comes to marketing their business?

Today I spent the morning at the Hand Hospital in the city with my son and had a few spare hours to really devour this great book by my girl crush Gabrielle Bernstein, and she speaks a lot about fear and how to move through it rather than avoid it. She says:

“I’ve learned that fear is simply an illusion based on past experiences that we project into the present and onto the future… Fear does not own you unless you let it! When confronted with negative thoughts, we always have the option to choose differently. Replace fear with a more empowering belief that makes you feel good!”

We see time and time again brands both big and small take the safe advertising route with a nice but predictable marketing message. The unimaginative campaigns, the cookie cutter websites, the average photos, the less than exciting videos… it’s all very nice, but it could have been so much more if we didn’t let fear get in the way.

The fear of being judged harshly really stops so many great businesses from going to the next level with their marketing. The fear of being too different is crippling. We spend so much of our lives trying to be accepted that we miss the opportunity when it really matters to stand out, to shake up our industries and be original.

Think of the greatest brands and personalities of our time. They didn’t let fear get in their way. They pioneered and created whole industries by thinking differently. Businesses of any size can do this.

Quite often, the things that we fear most are exactly what our business needs to have a real impact and grow. Such as:

• Calling that great new prospect you met at a networking function and actually ask for the work.
• Say yes to that exciting new advertising campaign pitched to you by your designer.
• Create that new company video you have been meaning to do for ages.
• Overhaul your website and develop a content creation system that you can roll out to your audience and prospective new clients.
• Get those new corporate photos by a professional and make them exciting.
• Learn more about how to use social media in your business and implement a plan moving forward, and not just leave it up to some young 20 something in your company.
• Create that new webinar series to bring in new customers.
• Develop an online course that you can onsell to prospects who can’t afford your services but still want a taste of your business.
• Work with that marketing coach on a 12 month plan to bring in new business and crack new markets.
• Write and publish that manifesto to turn your industry on it’s head and stop doing things the ‘old way’.

You need to get really honest. What is it that you actually fear about moving out of your comfort zone?
Is it a fear of judgement and being criticised?
Or is a fear of your harshest critic, yourself… when you do have a go and possibly fall short to your unrealistic expectations?
Or maybe the opposite will happen, you’ll exceed your goals…
Maybe your fear is actually succeeding and then having no clue of what’s next?!

The key is to just take it one step at a time. Evaluate and plan your next move, and then take that courageous step out of your comfort zone. And then another one, and another one.

Because on the other side of your comfort zone are some pretty exciting adventures just waiting for you! Fear really is imaginary. It hasn’t even happened yet. So what’s to fear anyway?

If you want to speak with Melissa in greater detail about how to get more out of the content you are creating, and how to have a functional website, blog, e-newsletter or marketing plan that will enhance organic SEO, then please contact us and we can have an obligation-free chat.

The post What do you Fear in Marketing Your Business? appeared first on Divine Creative.