BLOGGING: How to Effectively Sell Without Selling

From fake notifications of Facebook violations to emails threatening to disable business accounts, it can be hard to discern what is real and what is a scam.

Many business owners are drawn to the low-cost and seemingly easier option of using an offshore content creation team or aggregator. In this instance, you get what you pay for. Let's discuss how important it is to keep your content creation team local

It’s a different world today then it was just a few short weeks ago. Your business is faced with uncertainty due to circumstances beyond your control. You’re not alone. And, you’re more in control than you think. Your natural reaction right now may be to hunker down and wait out this storm. Now is not the time to be reactive, you need to be proactive in order to get through this. We have a saying in marketing: When times are good, you should advertise. When times are bad, you MUST. Today you have the opportunity to get in touch with your inner entrepreneur, you know, that voice inside that drove you to go into business to begin with? The one that said, “Hey, I have a really great idea!” You likely had a conversation with yourself and that voice convinced you to jump into business and you started innovating, brainstorming, creating, thinking outside of the box and then doing all the things!!!! FIND THAT INNER ENTREPRENEUR AGAIN! Now is the time to Adapt, Innovate and Initiate! Why now? Shouldn’t we be saving our pennies and tightening the purse strings? Not when it comes to marketing! Here’s why: Corporate Stability - People buy from people and businesses they KNOW, LIKE & TRUST. When they see you continuing with business as usual during a time of trouble, it gives them a sense of comfort during this crazy time. It makes them feel good. More importantly, it elevates the trust they have in your business, products and services. If you see businesses who have suspended advertising, you’re going to wonder if they’re still in business or will be in the near future. How confident would you feel buying from a business like that? When your old stove needs to be replaced, would you purchase a new one from a store that you don’t trust will be open in the near future if there is a problem with your purchase? Or, would you prefer to go to a store that doesn’t show signs of slowing business down? You’re competing for customers right now and you can’t afford to lose that competition! Noise Level - Speaking of competition, we all have it, it’s always there. It can be hard to stand out above the crowd. Right now, many business owners are doing exactly what you had been thinking of before reading this - hunkering down and waiting this out. That means there’s less “noise” in your industry. Meaning, there are fewer companies (your competition) trying to get their message out to potential customers (YOUR customers). This is the perfect opportunity to make connections with buyers who may not have found you before today! Back in the 1920s, Post was the leading cereal brand. Once the Great Depression hit, Post hunkered down to try and ride out the storm. They cut their advertising budget drastically. Kellog’s, on the other hand, doubled their advertising spend and invested heavily in radio (which was the best medium at the time, much like social media is today). Kellogg’s introduced a new cereal, Rice Krispies, and their profits grew by 30%. They became the industry leader and have held that position for decades. A more recent example is Amazon. During the “great recession”, their sales increased by 28% in 2009 because they continued to innovate during the slumping economy. Remember when the Kindle came out? Massive sales! And now Amazon is the massive company we know today. Digital Algorithms - Every piece of content you’ve posted on your website and social media has contributed to your search engine ranking. Think of it as climbing a rock wall. You and your competition all start at the bottom. The amount of focused effort you put into climbing (content) gets you closer to the top. There are a lot of other climbers on the wall. When you let go (stop advertising), they keep going. When you decide to restart your journey, not only have they climbed higher, you’ve also fallen down to the bottom only to have to start that same climb again. When you add in the trust from showing corporate stability and take advantage of the reduced noise levels, you’ll climb that wall a lot faster. You need to think about changing the way you do business. Can you move what you do online? Exercise classes - what would that look like? You may need to change up your class, but can it be done. Why do people join your class? To get healthy. So maybe instead of using particular equipment that you offer at your gym, have them use their own in any way they can but you can run the course - have the music playing, give the encouragement etc. The end result is still the same - improved health, but a different path to get there. Create a private Facebook group for your current clients and hold your classes there. You can also use software like Zoom or Google Hangouts. We need to socially distance ourselves but we also need community! This model works well with things like: Music lessons Martial arts Business Coaching Art Lessons Life Coaching Many others! By taking things online, you can service your current clients and still secure new ones. Can you offer touchless delivery for your products? Perhaps you have a natural foods store or sell dietary supplements. Hire a delivery driver who understands proper handwashing techniques and have your customer order and pay for products and receive them on their doorstep with a text from the driver when it’s placed. Both of these suggestions mean taking your products and services TO your client instead of them coming to you. What if these things aren’t possible? Now it’s time to start planting the seeds. There are many seasonal businesses around the world that function in the feast or famine mode - meaning high and low. The smart ones are busy in their slow times lining up the work for the busy times with a solid marketing strategy. HOW-TO VIDEOS: Maybe you own a bicycle repair shop. People aren’t dropping their bikes off right now, but you can live stream videos of you fixing common, simple issues. Explain as you go in simple terms. Now is not the time to show off your industry jargon. OFFERING ADVICE: You own a furniture store. Create videos or blogs about your preferred cleaning products and techniques for certain fabrics. ANSWER YOUR MOST ASKED QUESTIONS: What do you get asked over and over again by new customers/clients? Providing these answers will help educate your audience so they’re better prepared to buy from you. HOST A LIVE Q&A: Y o u’re the expert, prove it! Do a Facebook Live with people asking you about your industry. INVITE A RELATED INDUSTRY COLLEAGUE TO TALK : Me in digital marketing, I might have the owner of a sign shop on to talk. We both serve the same types of clients and refer to one another often. By connecting your audience to your colleague whose services they may need, they see you as a good resource. Barbara was a guest on the Teri Holland podcast, sharing tips and strategies to stay top of mind in the market place right now. Listen now! https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-teri-holland-show/id1001398897 These suggestions all provide exceptional value for your current and potential clients. You won’t be charging for them but you’ll be setting yourself up as the industry expert who’s secure in their business. When the client is ready to buy, they’re going to buy from you. When you set yourself up as an authority this also helps to connect with potential suppliers as well. They see you as a business with corporate stability, a business that they trust will pay their bills and be a long time client. This will often allow you to create enhanced partnerships with them in order to secure a better deal on the products or services they offer that you need. Find that entrepreneur’s voice and start innovating, brainstorming, creating, thinking outside of the box and then doing all the things!!!! Remember. .. When times are good, you should advertise. When times are bad, you MUST. Assisting You Social provides consulting, coaching, content creation and management for clients across North America. In order to help #FlattenTheCurve and protect the health of our team, we are currently working remotely. To reach Assisting You Social, please call 705-300-5565 or email us at info@assistingyou.ca

At Assisting You Social, the well-being of our team and our community always comes first. As a result, we will be migrating our staff to remote work for the remainder of March. Our Midland office is closed to the public effective immediately, and our Barrie office will close to the public later today. We are still "open for business" - just not at our physical offices - and will continue to provide the exceptional level of service that our clients have come to expect. We will be reaching out to anyone we have scheduled in-person meetings with to make alternative arrangements with phone or web calls. Any clients with urgent needs for announcements, additional content, updates, or support dealing with the media are asked to contact us via telephone (705-300-5565) or email ( jim@assistingyou.ca / stephanie@assistingyou.ca ). Our thoughts are with all of the individuals and businesses being negatively impacted by COVID-19 and the measures being taken to contain it. In our unique position in the social media world, we are seeing a lot of misinformation and negativity. When navigating through this crisis, we urge you to use reliable sources and avoid sharing information that has not been fact-checked. Social media is a very powerful tool, however using it ineffectively or irresponsibly can have significant consequences for our community. On behalf of Barbara and myself, I want to thank our amazing team (Stephanie, Brandon, Adam and our intern Kim) for going "beyond the call of duty" for our clients during these wild past few days. We are extremely lucky to have such a dedicated and professional group around us. Sincerely, Jim Lowe Creative Director Assisting You Social

A strong business knows their target market and works to consistently message to them. Consistent, positive messaging to your audience promotes growth within their social circles and leads to more interaction with your business or brand. Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as just making a quick post and expecting everyone who sees it to give it a like or comment on it. Posts have to be engaging. Posts need a reason to be liked or commented on. But what’s considered engaging depends on the platform you’re on. In order to be like the people you want to engage with, you have to think and speak their language - and each social media site speaks differently. Facebook Despite starting out as a hangout place for college students, Facebook’s demographic has been completely reshaped since inception. Seniors are the fastest-growing demographic and they continue to grow. The share of seniors on the platform has more than doubled since 2012, and Facebook is by far their most preferred platform. This results in brands sharing friendly and welcoming images, with simple messages, staying away from gimmick posts that rely on tagging friends or posting replies with images or .gifs in the comments. Twitter Short. Sweet. To the point. You’ve got 280 characters to get your message out loud and clear. Twitter is a social media platform that gets 80% of its traffic from mobile devices, which means your message is being read on the go with almost no time to process as they continue scrolling through their feed. With a demographic that skews incredibly 66% male to 34% female, a more direct, almost sharper tone speaks to the users primarily made up of millennials (millennials being the group typically born from 1981 to 1996) Instagram The birth of the “influencer”. Instagram, with a usage rate as high as 72% among teens, is a social media site that has a user base that seems to completely embrace corporate messaging and sponsorship. An estimated 75.6% of US businesses will be on Instagram in 2020, with 69% of those businesses planning on spending the most of their advertising budget on the platform. When you’re speaking to your Insta-audience, hashtags and bandwagoning trends are how you stay popular. Instagram is all about appearance and posting photos and hashtags that people can aspire to. You wouldn’t write the same commercial for television as you would for radio. Creating effective content is the same for different social media platforms. While you can do the guesswork yourself, having professionals take care of your imaging and content creation, while also communicating with those who engage with your brand and business is the ultimate win-win. Professional imaging taken care of for you, while you’re able to focus on the areas of business you’re best at. Stay tuned for our next blog when we talk about the ins and outs of using LinkedIn to reach your target market. Got questions? Need help? Assisting You Social takes the stress out of social media by managing it all for you. We’ll create a strategy to earn trust from your target audience, help you be seen as an authority in your field, and ultimately result in more sales, customers or clients. GIve us a call today at 705-300-5565 and let’s get started.

Hi, my name is Kim Cruea, a student graduating in April from the Graphic Design Advanced program at Georgian College, is the winter intern for Assisting You Social.

Assisting You Social, Central Ontario's leading Social Media Management firm and "Barrie's Favourite Advertising Agency", had our Alliance Studios Grand Opening, in partnership with our friend Ian McIntosh of IGM Photography . Alliance Studios is a digital marketing hub that will better service our growing team and client base. Over 200 people attended our Grand Opening held on December 5th, 2019. Jim Lowe, Creative Director of Assisting You Social Barrie, and Ian McIntosh were joined by the ribbon cutting from many political representatives in the area. They include Councillor Barry Ward, representing the City of Barrie; Todd Tuckey, President of the Barrie Chamber of Commerce; and representatives for MP Doug Shipley and MPP Doug Downey also attended. Alliance Studios supported and hosted three amazing charities during the event!

Here we grow again! Assisting You Social, Central Ontario's leading Social Media Management firm and "Barrie's Favourite Advertising Agency" is pleased to announce the opening of Alliance Studios, a digital marketing hub that will better service our growing team and client base. Alliance Studios is located at 18 Alliance Boulevard - Unit #15 in Barrie’s North-East end, facing Highway 400 near the corner of St. Vincent Street and Bell Farm Drive. This unique facility is run in partnership with our friend at Ian McIntosh of IGM Photography . Not only does the new location provide us with much-needed additional space to accommodate our growing team, but having Ian’s full-service photo studio onsite means that we can better support our clients’ needs with advanced photography, video, and sound recording.

Since its founding in 2013, Assisting You Social has grown from a tiny digital start-up to a social media juggernaut with an active roster of almost 100 clients and full-service creative offices in both Midland and Barrie. Founder Barbara Lowe ( Meridian Women of Excellence Entrepreneur of the Year ) has become a highly sought-after digital marketing coach, strategist, and public speaker. Barbara travels around the world to help clients well outside of Assisting You Social's Central Ontario footprint. As a result of Barbara's high-profile speaking engagements, Assisting You Social now receives regular requests for social media outsourcing, consulting, and coaching from across Canada and the Pacific Rim. With an increasingly large portion of our business now coming from the West Coast, we have decided to expand our operations to Vancouver, British Columbia!