The Biz Insight August 2016

B u s in ess Learning

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I n s i gh t Local focal point

Biz Insight

What back-to-school means for businesses When you hear the words “Back-To-School” there are probably images that pop into your head.

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Small Business Success through life-long learning “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” It’s a popular phrase, but small businesses are learning the hard way.

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Take your content marketing back to school School’s back in session, so listen up and get ready to take some notes! 5 Lessons to boost your content marketing.

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Portage County Business Council, Inc August 2016

You can check out all the content on our website!

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TAKE YOUR CONTENT MARKETING BACK TO SCHOOL WITH THESE 5 LESSONS The easiest way to research your audience is to start engaging them.

Add a newsletter signup form to your blog and then send surveys out once every quarter asking your subscribers what they want to read about to get the answers and insight you’re looking for.

By: Ryan Kettler, Director of Communications for BoostSuite Content marketing is the process of writing and distributing valuable, compelling, educational and relevant content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience — with the objective of increasing qualified traffic and customers to your business.

School is back in session, so listen up and get ready to take some notes! © GraphicStock

Lesson 1: Research your target audience The first, and most important step for any content marketing campaign is to research your target audience to find out the following: • • • • •

Who they are (demographically) What they enjoy reading about What they’re afraid of What they need help with How they prefer to receive information ( or where they hang out online)

Finding this information will allow you to shape and structure your content in such a way that it’s well-received. It never feels good to publish a piece of content you think is amazing, only to have it be a complete flop.

Researching helps you avoid content marketing duds.

Lesson 2: Brainstorm your blog topics Now that you know more about your target audience, you should be able to easily come up with some relevant blog topics that are of interest to them.

Let’s say you’re a coffee roaster. Your company imports coffee beans from all over the world and roasts them to make some super-tasty, caffeine-laden work fuel.

You know through your research that your audience loves reading about the different regions where coffee is cultivated.

You have your first topic to write about! Not only that, this topic can easily be turned into a series where you highlight each of the countries that produce coffee and their cultures: Ethiopia, Kenya, Papua New Guinea, Honduras, Costa Rica, Guatemala, etc.

You can determine one region to highlight each month. This allows you to easily plan out at least a year’s worth of posts, which brings us to our next lesson.

Lesson 3: Schedule your content marketing calendar You’ve researched your audience and brainstormed some topics that would interest them. Now it’s time

Portage County Business Council | August 2016

to schedule your content marketing calendar and get to writing.

This means planning for, and writing one relevant blog post a week, for 52 weeks. It may seem like a lot, but trust me, you can do it. Don’t worry about length, instead try to make the articles as interesting and engaging as possible.

Set a day of the week when you’re going to publish posts so your regular readers know when to expect new content from you.

By planning and scheduling your content marketing calendar, you’re going to be way ahead of the game.

There are a lot of marketers who write content about topics without having the slightest clue if they’ll resonate with their audience or not. That’s a dangerous habit prone to producing fewer results.

Lesson 4: Build your audience through teamwork If you have an internal team or colleague that can assist you with your content marketing, that can take a good portion of the workload off your plate. Some of you might be working by yourself and thinking, “there’s no way I can do this” and “I just don’t have the time.”

I hear you loud and clear and want to share a secret — you can do it, and you do have the time. You just have to make it by prioritizing your content marketing.

One great way to save time is to work with other relevant businesses by having

3 them promote your content. This is called co-marketing, and it’s a super-tactic for you to implement in your strategy.

Going back to our coffee roaster business, we know that our audience is people who love and have a passion for all things coffee. That’s a pretty big audience which means there are thousands of other relevant businesses who you could provide content to in exchange for a relevant backlink. Links from other sites are even better than content on your own website, since they connect other audiences with your business.

For example, you probably sell coffee accessories along with your coffee: grinders, scales, pour-over setups, tea kettles, etc. You should reach out to some of the vendors whose products you sell and pitch them on some guest post ideas. An example would be reaching out to the vendor that provides you with the grinders you sell in-store and asking them if you can provide them with a guest article about “How different grinding coarseness affects your coffee’s taste”.

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I’m sure the vendor would agree to publish your article in a heartbeat. It’s a topic you’re already an expert on and it’s relevant to both of your businesses and audiences. It’s a match made in coffee heaven that’s sure to generate some buzz. Later on, the grinder vendor could reciprocate by providing you with a guest blog post for your website.

Lesson 5: Review and grade your progress After you have started publishing and promoting blog posts on your blog as well as your co-marketing partners’ blogs, it’s time to review and grade your results.

In order to do this effectively, make sure that you have installed Google Analytics on your website. This will ensure that each of your posts, both on- and offsite are tracked and analyzed. Another great way to keep track of your content partnership team and audience is using BoostSuite’s co-marketing audience metric.

Success with content marketing can be measured many ways: comments, shares, retweets/mentions, sign ups, form submissions, etc. The key is to have a goal in mind around one or a couple of these metrics.

Following these tips will allow you to quickly and easily review your results and give yourself a grade as to how close you were to meeting your goals. If you didn’t quite get there, then you should be able to tell how you can improve next semester. Obviously if you exceed your goals, you get an A+!

Ryan Kettler is Director of Communications for BoostSuite, the collaborative marketing tool for small businesses.

Ryan is an Internet marketing zealot, sports fanatic, devoted runner, avid golfer, beer connoisseur, and live music enthusiast.

Published By the Stevens Point Journal

Officals of Sentry Insurance were on hand outside their corporate office on Monday to unveil the company’s new logo as part of a rebranding.

Pete McPartland, Sentry’s chairman of the board, president and chief executive officer, said “We decided we needed to give it a facelift, and the reason for that is we want to capture the personality of Sentry as a business insurance company,” McPartland said. “That personality simply put is very high touch, high customer service, engaged with its customers, has strong dialogue with its customers, a premium brand that emphasizes tailoring of the relationship with our customers.”

Founded in 1904, Sentry Insurance and its subsidiaries sell property and casualty insurance, life insurance, annuities and retirement programs for businesses throughout the country and employs more than 4,000 people.

The new logo, which features the name Sentry followed by the dual-piece symbol reminiscent of the yin and yang, was developed along with the brand through a collaboration with FutureBrand, a global brand experience company. According to a release, the identity was developed through research focused on current customers, prospects, Sentry associates and retirees, and the general public.

The new logo replaces the image of Captain John Parker, a minuteman who led the first American encounter in the battle of Lexington against the British troops in the American Revolution. McPartland said that logo, which had been used by the company for 53 years, would continue to be honored in different ways within the company.

Portage County Business Council | August 2016

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What back-to-school means for businesses DIRECTOR’S INSIGHT- TODD KUCKKAHN When you hear the words “Back-ToSchool” there are probably images that pop into your head. Fresh Paper.

Unsharpened Pencils (do students still use them?)

New Apps?!?!

Freshly ironed new clothes (in spite of technology we all need clothing).

At the Portage County Business Council (PCBC), it means much more than that. Don’t get me wrong, PCBC hopes you buy local and support our hundreds of businesses. I’m sure you are also looking forward to checking grades on the Skyward platform.

We don’t stop there, though!

What “Back-To-School” really means for business is making the connection between the education community and the business community. Our Partners In Education (PIE) initiative at PCBC makes that partnership happen, mostly through the work of our PIE community and countless volunteers. It is all about talent development in our community.

On August 16th, for example, we are connecting with the leaders of our area school districts to find out more about how business can better engage with education and how education can better engage with business. There is more to education than spewing content. Our students deserve knowing what is coming down the road for them after they leave the education community.

What alternatives exist? Life after education is vastly different than when their parents and teachers left education for the workforce.

technology through coding. Last year’s third grade coding project with Pacelli Catholic Schools and local business was a huge success.

So much so that we learned at our annual Business-Education Summit that Pacelli is growing that program into a K-12 initiative. The Summit, “Entrepalooza”, as we called it, shared many real life experiences that are going on in the schools better preparing students for the business and entrepreneur world.

Students also experience the “real” world with our Reality Workshops.

Students are provided an economic scenario related to a career of their interest and then go into the “real” world to learn more about finances and the challenges their parents face on a daily basis.

Career Expos expose students to the many options in the workforce.

There is not a one-size-fits-all for post-high school education and a career expo is a great way to learn about the many options in education and the workforce. We are blessed in our education community to

In partnership with our schools, PCBC offers a look into the world of Portage County Business Council | August 2016

have the resources of Mid-State Technical College and UW-Stevens Point to achieve certifications and beyond to doctoral programs.

PCBC and PIE are also excited to partner with Skyward in hosting our annual new educator reception. We want to connect our new education community teachers and staff to the business community so they both can bring synergistic ideas to the PIE model. PCBC members and new K-16 teachers and staff will be invited to attend on Oct. 5 at Skyward.

Contact Kayla Rombalski at 715344-1940 for more information.

I hope to see you in our stores taking advantage of “Back-To-School” bargains however I also hope we cross paths advancing talent development and our businesseducation partnerships. Let us know how we can better bring more economic vitality to our community.

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SMALL BUSINESS SUCCESS THROUGH LIFE-LONG LEARNING By: Jim Blasingame “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” It’s a popular phrase, but in the Age of the Customer small businesses are learning the hard way that their old dogs need to learn some new tricks — and quickly.

In the second century B.C., the Roman statesman, Cato, began learning Greek at the age of 75. When asked why he was undertaking such a challenging educational enterprise at his advanced age, he replied, “This is the youngest age I have.”

No matter what we do, no matter where we go, owner or employee, we must continue to study, train and learn. Everyone in your organization.

Everyone, every day, needs life-long learning. And in the age of globalism and interconnectivity, it is more important than ever before.

Are you feeling threatened, maybe even frightened these days with all of the economic challenges, plus the changes brought on by the advent of the information age? Me, too.

Sometimes it seems we’re like Alice – running as hard as we can just to stay in one place. And in our Wonderland, everything is changing so fast that what we learned today may be obsolete tomorrow.

The irony is the thing creating so much potential for anxiety is also the thing that can help you stay competitive.

That thing is called technology.

Specifically, the unprecedented wealth of information available on

the Internet.

When I feel threatened by all of the new knowledge and capability that’s emerging, I just make a point to learn something new every day, with emphasis on social media and e-commerce, or how my industry is adapting to the virtual marketplace.

When I acquire that new understanding or capability, I smile like Alice’s Cheshire Cat because learning makes me feel stronger, as if I’ve gained a little ground in the marketplace. Maybe today I put the heat on a competitor.

Advantage: Me.

Give it a try. The only thing better than your garden variety smile is one that comes from knowing you just got a little smarter.

Remember the wisdom of the statesman: This is the youngest age you have.

It’s your moment of relevance. Take advantage of it.

Jim Blasingame delivers powerful prose, poignant examples, and practical advice in his new book, The Age of the Customer.

The Biz Insight is a monthly digital publication published by the Portage County Business Council, Inc. For information please contact us at admin@portagecountybiz.com or at 5501 Vern Holmes Drive; Stevens Point, WI 54482 | www.portagecountybiz.com | 715-344-1940

Portage County Business Council | August 2016