Communication Tips Day 4|Be Relevant

One of my favorite comedies of all time is Steve Martin and John Candy in “Planes, Trains and Automobiles.” Martin and Candy play two polar opposite travelers trying to get home for the Thanksgiving holiday.Martin is a marketing consultant and Candy is a traveling salesman. Hmmm...kind of like an online sales marketers...

Take a look at this amusing video clip, that ends with Steve Martin saying, “Have a point; It makes it so much more interesting for the listener.” In other words, the effective communication tip here is, be relevant. To which John Candy (the sales guy) retorts with, “I like me. My clients like me. I’m the genuine article.What you see is what you get.” in this scene, Neil Paige and Dell Griffith end up having to share a double bed with each other much like your audience does when they hop on board to read your blog.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIwhjp_c1d0

In some ways, online business developers who blog are like Dell Griffith. We want everyone to like us. Sometimes our overall communication message gets lost in a sea of words that are not truly relevant to the consumer in our audience. Even though we are being authientic, we can end up rambling and not tying the message we want to communicate into relevant, influential content. And, if we aren’t strategic in our planning, we could end up adding content to our websites that has little relevance to the consumer in our niche audience which means we end up with effort that leads to no sales.

Kyle, co-founder of Wealthy Affiliate wrote an interesting post on the subject of understanding relevance.Check it out here: https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/training/understanding-relevance

COMMUNICATING RELEVANCY IN YOUR WEBSITE CONTENT

On Day 3 of Communicate Your Way to Success, we talked about the importance of truly knowing your ideal customer.Read it here: https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/rebeccas/blog/communicate-your-way-to-success-day-3-knowing-your-audience

When you know your ideal customer, you can create communication messages that are both relevant and influential to them which is the goal of both marketing and sales. In other words, marketing and sales should not be polar opposites as depicted in “Planes, Trains and Automobiles”. Instead, planned strategically, one dovetails fluidly into the other.

Remember, no matter what your niche is, you are in the business to market and sell products and services to repeat customers. To do so, your communication to them must be relevant. That means you have to tune in and really listen to your ideal customer. Listed below are a few tips to help you know what is trending and develop greater content relevancy to your target audience.

THREE POWERFUL WAYS TO ASSURE RELEVANCY IN YOUR WEBSITE COMMUNICATIONS

Don’t be a Dell Griffith and assume that your readers like you. Website audiences go to sites that have great value to them. If you want to communicate effectively with your audience, you must always endeavor to be relevant.

-1- Keep An Idea File

I like to keep an active “Idea File” attached to my website content plan. I use Excel for creating content plans for my websites.My idea file is a separate tab.Whenever I read magazine articles, watch TV programs, research websites or listen to radio programs, or attend seminars/webinars, I list ideas for relevant content to my readers and add them to my idea file.

I frequent websites that I think are relevant to my ideal client.For example, my websites target women who are seeking financial independence.I read articles in Forbes and the Huffington post to get ideas for my blog posts.I look at financial websites like “The Simple Dollar” and “Sharebuilder” and others.I also look at self-growth type of websites and websites for women in business.

Simply by glancing through current articles on those sites, I come away with dozens of ideas for relevant content that I can create to engage my readers and communicate more effectively.

-2- Visit Forums

Forums are excellent sources to gain knowledge of what is interesting and relevant to your ideal client. Think of a forum as an online message board. Forum members create “message threads” where any member can ask questions and comment on questions that are relevant to them.

You can find forums on any popular niche. Simply open up a web browser, type in your keyword followed by the word,“forum”. Here’s an example : "joint health forum". By typing those keywords into my browser I am presented with hundreds of sources for relevant information for consumers of joint health products.

Check out these popular forums for current information:

LinkedIn.com

Quora.com

Reddit.com

-3- Install Google Alerts

Google Alerts is a tool that helps you keep up with trends that your website audience is reading, listening to and watching.So, if I want to communicate effectively to stay-at-home moms, I need to know what they are reading and listening to.Google Alerts helps me do that.

Using Google Alerts is simple. Go to http://www.google.com/alerts and type in the topic you want to monitor and select the options to specify the type of information you want to receive and how often you want to be alerted.

Use the same procedure for every topic (keyword) you want to get current information on. By doing so, you will find out what your competitors are blogging about and you’ll get a perspective on what other bloggers think is relevant to their ideal customer.

I’ve reached the end of my message to you for Day 4.If you have enjoyed this post please do three things for me—1) “LIKE” it, 2) Leave your COMMENT OR QUESTION and 3) SHARE IT on Facebook and Google+

For Your Success!