LJ Sedgwick

Content Writer for Coaches and Course Creators

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August 17, 2017 by LJ Sedgwick Leave a Comment

Do you need to revamp your marketing every month?

We’re just over halfway into 2017. The internet already buzzes with ideas about the need to revamp your marketing as we slide into the rest of the year.

Some experts even recommend changing things up every month. I can’t help thinking that makes a rod for your own back. How can you ever measure what works if you’re constantly changing things?

But some companies have managed to use the same advertising principles for years at a time. So the question remains…

Do you really need to revamp your marketing every month?

With the array of available marketing options, is it necessary to revamp your marketing every month? The success of Absolut Vodka says "no". Find out why!

Back in 1980, Absolut had just a 2.5% share of the vodka market in the US. They sold just 10,000 cases that year.

Something needed to change. So they hired TBWA to make a difference to their advertising.

Enter, the “Absolut Bottle” campaign.

It ended up running for 25 years and contains over 1500 separate ads.

This is the very first one.

With the array of available marketing options, is it necessary to revamp your marketing every month? The success of Absolut Vodka says "no". Find out why!
The very first Absolut ad in this campaign.

By the late 2000s, Absolut was importing 4.5 million cases per year.

That’s half of all imported vodka in the US.

So how did they revamp their marketing?

The product itself looks pretty boring. The bottles are actually based on traditional medicine vials sold in Swedish pharmacies.

After all, vodka was once prescribed to cure medical ailments in the 16th and 17th centuries.

TBWA couldn’t change the actual shape or design of the bottle. The restricted brief meant none of the usual advertising tropes applied, like portraying particular lifestyles.

So Geoff Hays took a different route. He chose to differentiate the product by telling a different story based on the bottle itself.

He paired an image of the bottle with a simple two-word headline.

The classic, simple shape of the bottle worked well with the concise, witty slogans.

So why did it work so well for so long?

The format was described as: “A bottle, two words, and a little bit of wit”. The underlying message remains the same in all 1500 of the ads.

The bottle, and thus the brand, was a modern icon.

Later in the campaign, objects were cast in the shape of the Absolut bottle.

With the array of available marketing options, is it necessary to revamp your marketing every month? The success of Absolut Vodka says "no". Find out why!
Absolut Geneva

A professor of popular culture at Syracuse University pointed out that “these looked more like covers of The New Yorker than advertisements.”

During the campaign, Absolut commissioned more than 800 artworks by Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Annie Leibovitz, Helmut Newton, John Irving, Lady Gaga and Jay-Z.

The message was clear. “A cool brand for cool people”.

Sadly the campaign did run its course. By 2005, commentators felt the brand looked tired, and “no longer as cool as it used to be”.

But getting 25 years out of a single concept just proves you don’t need to revamp your marketing every month.

What can you learn from the campaign for your own marketing?

1) Look at the story you can tell with your tech product or service.

Make a list of its core features. Now pair those features with what they actually provide for the user. The gap between the user before they use your product and their life after they use it is your story.

Absolut managed to tell a very subtle story using the shape of their bottle. It’s classic, simple, durable.

Just like those old medicine bottles.

2) You should also play with imagery.

Don’t just stick to the obvious. Look at popular culture. The below example only worked because of the controversy created by the Young British Artists in the 1990s.

With the array of available marketing options, is it necessary to revamp your marketing every month? The success of Absolut Vodka says "no". Find out why!
Playing with contemporary art.

When you’re brainstorming ideas, write them all on a large piece of paper.  When you’ve filled the page, fold it in half.

Force yourself to work with those on the lower half of the paper. They’ll be more interesting and less obvious than the first ones you came up with.

Your copy is crucial. Without the tagline the Absolut ads make little sense. If you need help coming up with your copy, drop me a line and we can talk!

3) Look for associations between your product and your target audience.

How can you tell people this is the brand for them in a more subtle and nuanced way? Remember their aspirations and desires.

People who bought into Absolut wanted to feel cool and clever too, just like their ads. People who buy Apple products feel differently about themselves than PC users.

Thinking sideways unlocks more interesting marketing. Can you take inspiration from music, fashion, current affairs, or art?

4) Don’t follow trends.

Following trends can be great if you get stuck for ideas. Look at the major tech firms – almost all of them have switched their logos to flat design from the mad array of gradients, drop shadows, and fonts that we had a few years ago.

But the problem with following trends is that you get stuck in a cycle of having to revamp your marketing every time the trend gets stale. If you pick something intrinsically true to your product, the lifespan of that idea is much longer.

For example, Apple puts its ‘why’ before its ‘what’. Its ‘why’? They ‘think different’. Everything they do is different from what everyone else is doing. That results in the ‘what’; cool, sleek products that other companies rush to copy. Their marketing reflects that so they don’t need to keep revamping it because the why remains the same.

And if something works, stick with it! It did run out of steam but the Absolut campaign ran for 25 years.

Over to you! Do you revamp your marketing on a regular basis? Let me know!

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Filed Under: Digital Marketing Tagged With: absolut ad campaign, advertising, creative storytelling, digital marketing, marketing, revamp your marketing

November 9, 2016 by LJ Sedgwick Leave a Comment

5 awesome predictions for better digital marketing in 2017

Digital marketing has come a long way already.

But with new technology becoming more available, it’s predicted to alter its focus in 2017.

There are already hundreds of predictions posts online, so I’ve distilled them down into the top 5 common themes.

And if you’d like me to write posts like this for your business, then drop me a line!

With new technology becoming more accessible, digital marketing is predicted to change its focus in 2017. How can you get onto the trends and improve yours?
5 Awesome Predictions for Better Digital Marketing in 2017

With new technology becoming more accessible, digital marketing is predicted to change its focus in 2017. How can you get onto the trends and improve yours?

1) Virtual and augmented reality aren’t going away

You can’t fail to have noticed Pokemon Go in 2016. Even back in August, it still had 21 million daily active users. Nearly $3millon was spent every day on in-app purchases.

Augmented reality relies on the blurring of the line between reality and the digital space. Fortune.com predicts that gallery visitors will expect to see information about the artworks displayed alongside them. Shoppers may even be able to virtually ‘try on’ clothes instead of the old-fashioned method of using a changing room.

Virtual reality differs in its use of an entirely digital space. Yet marketers have already grasped its potential. In May 2016, Amnesty International began showing a VR film about a Syrian refugee to British people in the street. Sign ups for direct debit donations increased by 16%.

Immersing potential customers or clients in a virtual world stimulates better engagement and interaction. And with the industry predicted to be worth $120 billion by 2020, companies are only going to keep investing in the technology.

So how can you apply this to your own content marketing?

It’ll be pretty difficult, considering the cost of developing virtual and augmented reality spaces.

But you can stay true to the basic theme – immersive experiences. You can’t fail to have noticed the sudden boom in posts and courses about the power of storytelling. Well now’s your chance to perfect it.

Tell stories that bring your readers or clients inside your world. Let them experience your solutions. Show them your expertise. And help them.

If anything, today’s election result proves that people need to be a little kinder to one another.

2) Mobile devices will continue to be popular

The popularity of Facebook 360 and its reliance on a smartphone gyroscope indicates the potential of mobile technology. And now Google have announced the release of their Pixel smartphone – which has crossover with their Daydream VR headset.

Make no mistake, mobile devices are still your main source of traffic. 70% of internet use now comes via a mobile device. Back in 2014, Google prioritised websites in their search results that were mobile friendly.

Now, having a website that is mobile responsive is the cost of entry. Especially since Google announced that in future, the mobile index would actually be more up-to-date than their desktop index.

So how can you apply this to your own content marketing?

Banish popups! From January, Google will be penalising websites that feature “intrusive interstitials”.

So if users have to click past a welcome mat, or some kind of popup that appears the moment they land on your page, Google will knock you down the rankings.

You simply cannot expect visitors to click through a popup before they can even access your content.

You can still use them on desktop websites, but they’re a total no-no on mobile devices.

3) Video is absolutely the way to go

The rise of video marketing parallels the wider availability of public wi-fi, and the higher amounts of data offered in mobile contracts. And video helps you to create much better connections with other people.

Think about it. Your potential clients and customers can see and hear you. They can tune in to your body language. Tone of voice goes a long way to forming a good impression.

And video isn’t restricted to pre-recorded content any more. Live streaming will bring your message to people in the here-and-now.

So how can you apply this to your own content marketing?

Take the time to get comfortable using video. Get used to being on camera. People seem to have forgotten that marketing is essentially about forming connections with people. Not leads, not clients, not sales. People.

Video offers an amazing way to connect with people.

Plan out what you’d like to share, but be open to live videos to respond to things as and when they happen. Live stream events and bring people inside your world.

The immediacy will create connections that blog posts just can’t.

4) Focus on better content, not more

Commentators have been discussing the sheer volume of information online for some time now. Back in 2014, Mark Schaefer coined the term “content shock”.

Not only that, but continual changes to social media algorithms make it more difficult for your content to be seen in the first place. In February this year, Twitter brought in the option for users to see the ‘best’ tweets first, instead of in chronological order. Instagram brought in a similar change in May.

Earlier this year, Pinterest altered its algorithm so content related to topics you’d previously pinned was displayed more prominently than pins created in real time.

And Facebook changes its algorithm as often as the weather.

Rather than pumping out more and more content in the hope it sticks, companies will focus on spending more time creating specific pieces. It’ll more important to track the effectiveness of those pieces.

So how can you apply this to your own content marketing?

Focus on creating excellent content! Is it valuable? Then post it. (Note: even if something is just entertaining, that’s still valuable) Is it just for link-building? Maybe give it a miss.

Learn how the different platforms work. There’s no point throwing lots of content onto Instagram without realising how people will (or won’t) find it.

And remember that a lot of other people are also trying to do the same thing. According to Content Marketing Institute, 88% of B2B marketers rely on content marketing. But only 48% have a documented strategy.

So make sure you know what your strategy is and you’re instantly off to a winner.

5) Don’t underestimate the Internet of Things

‘Omnichannel marketing’ means that no matter the time, place or device, the user experience is the same.

But the Internet of Things means we’ll also see everyday devices being connected to the web. Brands will be able to understand actual moments from their consumers’ day through the data transmitted by the devices.

Think smart kettles. Smart meters.

Intel even predicted there could be 200 billion of these devices by 2010. That’s an awful lot of data about user habits being sent back to the brand hub.

Scary, too.

So how can you apply this to your own content marketing?

You can’t really do a great deal at the moment. Until the data becomes accessible, it’s meaningless for those outside the brands using the technology.

But what you can take away from it is a need to have a seamless experience. Whether a user lands on your Facebook page, blog, Twitter feed or website, they should know that you’re behind it. Consistency will absolutely be king.

Over to you! What digital marketing trends are you interested in for 2017?


If you enjoyed this post, consider sharing it with a colleague! You may also enjoy;
4 things to learn from the DDoS attack to protect your blog
Are you making these 5 mistakes with your email marketing?
How will the new changes affect your use of Twitter?

If you’d like me to write posts like this for your business, then drop me a line and we can have a chat!

Filed Under: Digital Marketing Tagged With: 2017, augmented reality, content, content marketing, digital marketing, predictions, technology, video marketing, virtual reality

October 26, 2016 by LJ Sedgwick Leave a Comment

How To Promote Your Security Plugin for WordPress

You know that now, more than ever, businesses need to build security into their blog plan.

After all, in 2012, 170,000 WordPress sites were hacked. That number is easily higher by now.

But security is a difficult thing to sell unless you’re trying to fear-monger. And fear doesn’t actually sell that well.

So exactly how can you promote your WordPress security plugin without resorting to scare tactics?

As the internet matures, website security becomes increasingly important. But how do you sell a plugin to users who may not think they need one?
How To Promote Your Security Plugin for WordPress

Focus on the benefits, not the features

Sure, your plugin allows users to rename the wp-login.php to something totally different. Hide your login page so hackers can’t find it as easily!

And it’s amazing that your plugin blocks IPs when they’ve tried – and failed – to access a site 3 times in a row. It’ll certainly cut down on brute force attacks.

You totally need to tell people that your plugin also scans for malware. It’s a useful feature.

Some people will genuinely get a kick out of knowing all of that.

But people also want to know what’s in it for them.

Ultimately, you’re selling security to people

It doesn’t matter whether your target audience is other tech geeks or newbie bloggers just starting out.

They’re all still people.

They want to believe that your product will bring them peace of mind.

It’s called security for a reason.

So don’t just focus on the cool whizzbang features your plugin has (although sure, they’re still important).

Focus on the hours you’ll save them when your plugin stops an attack, and the blogger doesn’t need to reinstall a backup of their site.

Sure, you can focus on the loss of traffic to their site if they get hacked. But what does that really mean to them?

It’s not lost traffic. It’s lost time and effort. Possibly even lost sales. But it’s definitely lost visitors who won’t come back.

Remind them that your plugin works tirelessly in the background. It’s the Wyatt Earp of their website, patrolling the Wild West of the internet to keep out the Cowboys.

Let them know why you, and not someone else

Whether they’re a tech geek who wants to know the specifications, or a blogger who only has 6 regular visitors, they need to know the ‘why’ of your plugin.

Why do they need it? After all, if they’re not the same size as Buzzfeed, they might not think a hacker would ever attack them.

They need to know the risks they’ll avoid. But show them the benefits of avoiding them in a positive way. So less time spent tinkering with broken code, and more time creating awesome content. Fewer complaints about redirections to dodgy sites, and more insightful comments on their articles.

But specifically let them know why do they need yours above the others available?

Yours might do the exact same thing as the next plugin. But your interface is more user-friendly.

Maybe it’s a one-click set up.

Perhaps it has a better raft of features in the free plan.

Hell, maybe it’s cheaper.

You want to sell them on the need for your security plugin. So show them what that need looks like. Make it super easy for them to get your plugin. And get them secure and safe as quickly as you can.

After all, peace of mind is priceless.


If you have a security plugin that you need help in promoting, then get in touch! I’d love to help you reach your new fans.

Filed Under: Digital Marketing Tagged With: copywriting, plugin, promotion, security, wordpress

October 21, 2016 by LJ Sedgwick 6 Comments

4 things to learn from the DDoS attack to protect your blog

You may not consider the internet to be a fragile thing.

But today’s massive DDoS attack on Dyn just proved that we’ve been taking the internet a little bit too much for granted.

If you’re not sure what happened, then a whole host of extremely popular websites were unavailable not once, but twice.

A DDoS attack, or distributed denial of service, just means that useless data is directed at a DNS server. If you’re not sure, the DNS server is the thing that translates www.twitter.com into an IP address that it can understand.

The server can’t cope with the influx of junk requests, so it overloads. It denies genuine requests and no one can access the websites.

So Twitter, Amazon, Etsy, Spotify, Soundcloud and many others were essentially down between 7:10am and 9:36am ET, and again between 12:06pm and 2:52pm ET.

While some say it only really affected the US, Business Insider UK noted that the second wave did affect Europe as well.

The internet experienced a massive outage. So what lessons can you learn from the DDoS attack to secure your blog and protect your online business?
4 things to learn from the DDoS attack to protect your blog

What lessons can you and your business learn?

It means that you can’t rely on the internet! While attacks like this have so far been rare, Gizmodo predict that we’ll see a lot more of them in future.

You can’t hold back a DDoS attack, and as an end user you’re pretty much at the mercy of the attackers.

But here are 4 things you CAN do to mitigate the impact in future.

1) Keep a local back up of your files

It can be tempting to keep all of your data ‘in the cloud’, especially as accessibility improves. After all, cloud storage allows you to access your files from anywhere, as long as you have an internet connection.

But if any of those services become unavailable, for whatever reason, then so does your data.

The loss of power to a data center owned by Delta led to the cancellation of over 740 flights. That’s a huge cloud-based problem!

Keep files on your machine, if you can, and keep an external hard drive close by. It doesn’t need to be connected all the time, but make sure regular back ups are a part of your routine.

If one of the cloud services does have an outage, then you’ll still have access to your files.

I use a WD Elements 1TB External Desktop Hard Drive (aff link) and it does the job spectacularly!

2) Make regular back ups of your blog

There are plenty of plugins to help you back up the content of your blog.

It’s best practice anyway, since just updating a WordPress theme is easily enough to ‘break’ your blog.

If that happens, you don’t want to realise that everything you’ve poured your heart and soul into has disappeared.

So install a plugin like UpdraftPlus or BackUpWordpress and get yourself a little peace of mind. Both of these will perform regular, automated backups. The pro versions will let you backup to specified locations. Just make sure you download a local version of your backup too!

But if you do nothing else, then go to Tools and then Export in your sidebar. Download the .xml file that contains all of your posts, comments, and other data, and keep it on your external hard drive.

3) Check the security of your blog or site

I use the Wordfence plugin for WordPress and my web hosting comes with Cloudflare.

If you’ve never heard of Cloudflare, then it’s a service that explicitly offers protection from a DDoS attack for your site.

Sounds great, but Cloudflare were one of the sites affected by today’s attack!

So if you don’t have one already, install the Wordfence plugin (as a minimum) to help secure your WordPress site. A good alternative is iTheme Security, which gives a raft of settings you can change to bring you that extra peace of mind.

Even better – don’t use your default admin account to log in. Hackers will be able to guess ‘admin’ as a username, and it won’t take long for them to crack your password.

So set yourself up as a new user and use that to post your content instead. If you do want to use your admin account, give it a weird name that no one can guess when you set it up.

There are some awesome advanced tips here that you can try too.

4) Remember there’s a world beyond the internet

It can be really hard in the internet age to remember that business was conducted for centuries without email.

I know the internet makes things a lot easier. Heck, it’s how I’m talking to you right now.

But it’s okay to unplug and do things in the ‘real world’ from time to time.

Pick up the phone and call someone. Browse a local trade directory and make a list of potential leads. Brainstorm topics for your blog posts or email campaigns. Just work on paper for a while.

I didn’t even notice the outage because I was with my students. What were you doing?

Over to you! Do you think you do too much online, or did you completely miss the DDoS attack too?

Filed Under: Digital Marketing Tagged With: back up, blog, ddos attack, security, website

October 12, 2016 by LJ Sedgwick 4 Comments

Are you making these 5 mistakes with your email marketing?

Email marketing is the buzz phrase of 2016. You can’t move three feet in virtual space without being accosted.

“Do you have an email list yet?” “Why don’t you have an email list?” “Ohmigod you NEED an email list?”

So you set up an email list. And you even get subscribers. Amazing!

But what do you actually do with it? Well, you try not to make these 5 mistakes – and if you do, here’s how to fix them!

Everyone tells you to start an email list, but it's easy to start making these 5 mistakes with your email marketing. Here's how to fix them!
Are you making these 5 mistakes with your email marketing?

1) You don’t send any content.

You’ve followed all the advice and sent up a list. You’ve even got an opt-in form on your blog.

Mercy of mercies, people even sign up! But then you don’t send any content.

Maybe you’re scared people will unsubscribe. Or that you might annoy them. Maybe you just don’t know what to say.

Here’s the thing. People opted in. So they are interested. And if they’re not, and they do unsubscribe, then that’s okay too. It’s sort of the point!

Fix: Plan your content in advance, and come up with a schedule.

You’ll be able to tell from your analytics (or social shares) which of your posts are the most popular. Can you expand this content to send something exclusive to your email list that they can’t get elsewhere?

Or maybe your blog is focused on evergreen content. Send your email list content that’s more time-sensitive.

2) You do send content, but it’s too sales-y.

I see this a lot from authors, in particular. They’ve been told they need an email list, and they need to sell their books…but that’s all they do. I don’t want to go months at a time without hearing from you, only to get an email every week for a month telling me about your new release.

You’re not Top Shop, so send me stuff other than promotions, yeah?

I only send content once a month to the mailing list for my fiction efforts. I send a mixture of;

  • updates on cool places I’ve been that month (which I get comments on so I know it’s appreciated)
  • folklore titbits that I don’t put on my blog or on Twitter
  • book recommendations
  • free short stories

My readers get a whole host of content that’s not about selling. They might only get a ‘sales’ email once every five months!

Fix: Find other things to talk about other than your product or service.

What can you teach your subscribers to do? Or can you entertain them? Remember, most people’s inboxes are groaning under the weight of sales pitches. Something light or amusing can be just as welcome as a fabulous discount!

Everyone tells you to start an email list, but it's easy to start making these 5 mistakes with your email marketing. Here's how to fix them.
Does your email inbox look like this?

3) You only send your blog posts, rather than exclusive content.

I know, I know, this is the easy option. You’re not sure what to send, so you just email your post instead.

(Unless you’re a geek like me and you sort of use email like a weird form of RSS)

Now, I can totally see the logical behind doing this. After all, email marketing is all well and good, but your content isn’t searchable. You might send out absolute diamonds every week but no one can stumble across it by accident. It’s not shareable.

Blogs are. So putting your content on your blog, which is shareable, and sending it to your email list seems like a good idea. You get the best of both worlds, right?

Well sort of. If I can read it on your blog, why am I going to sign up to get it in my inbox?

Fix: Give your post some content within your email.

Sending posts can be a totally valid way of finding content to send. But if you’re going to do it, make sure you add some backstory as to why you wrote the post, what the main takeaways are, etc. Humanise it! Tell me a story. Make it impossible for me to not click the link to your post!

4) You don’t reply to the emails you do get.

This one is a huge problem. Say you send an email and in it, you ask your readers a question.

And they respond. What do you do? Do you;

  1. ignore their response. After all, you’re far too busy to reply
  2. send a five word reply that shows you at least saw their response, but you didn’t care enough to craft a decent answer?

I’ve had both – and from authors with smaller lists and fewer Twitter followers than me. Hell, if I can reply to every email I get, then you certainly can!

Fix: Reply to your emails!

You might not get to them immediately, or even on the same day. You might have way more people replying than I do, but some kind of response, even a few days later, is definitely appreciated. I’ve become firm fans of a few marketers and copywriters because they take the time to reply.

Remember these readers are your customers, your clients, your readers, or even your fans. You want to forge a genuine connection with them, and you won’t do that by ignoring them.

5) You don’t get permission to send emails in the first place.

This is a HUGE no-no. I’m sure you’ve suddenly had a raft of emails appear in your inbox and you know you didn’t subscribe for any of them. What gives?

Everyone tells you to start an email list, but it's easy to start making these 5 mistakes with your email marketing. Here's how to fix them.
Do not send junk.

Some new marketers think they can add emails from people they’ve been in touch with to their lists. No. Previous content is not permission.

Same as you can’t scrape emails from blog comments, or forums. And you certainly should never buy a mailing list.

Put simply, if someone didn’t manually put their name and email address into a form, and click a confirm button, then they didn’t give you permission.

What’s even worse  is if you send emails with RE: in the subject line, as if you’ve already spoken to them before. Just no!

Fix: Make sure you get permission!

This is so simple. Just make sure you only add people to your list that come via recognised opt-in forms. All the providers I’ve encountered will even provide you with forms you can embed on your blog. Simple!

Email marketing can be quite daunting, but once you get started, it can become fun. I love emailing my fiction list, and I love getting replies! It’s totally worth doing. Just make sure you do it properly!

Have you made any of these mistakes with your email marketing? Let me know in the comments below!

If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it with your friends or colleagues!

 

Filed Under: Digital Marketing Tagged With: content marketing, digital marketing, email list, email marketing, marketing

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