Digital Marketing made easy

Blogging sometimes can be a lonely journey. Right from the realization that you need to create a blog to actually working on one, trying to build an audience, all this can be pretty gloomy at times. To top it, all of this takes time [ a long time, actually]. So how do we stay motivated as a blogger?  1. Acceptance  Instead of constantly comparing yourself with other successful bloggers, accept the fact that certain things in life take time, discipline and hard work - the tough things that we want to pass over. But it is these tough things that can produce some of the best work of people’s lives. Even with discipline and hard work being there in equal measure, out of a thousand ideas, only a few succeed.  2. Persistence  The ability to persevere despite hardships is a great skill to have. Too many people give up being quite near to the goal. But how do we know when to persevere and when to give up?  Do I really have the skills to make it big in blogging [or any

I know - it's frustrating. Writing one post - after another, then another. And waiting for the readers to come. The comments to start pouring - but sometimes they never do. So, what can you do to write content that really clicks with your target audience? How to write content that literally explodes [better yet, catches fire, goes kaput and crazy viral].  Okay - not all that, but how about content that really resonates with your target audience? What are the tips to writing better, more useful and more readable content?  Read on.  1. Writing what the reader wants to read about  People are busy, trying to juggle multiple things in their lives and are perennially short of time.  Would you read some random blog by a person who you don’t know - just like that, out of casual interest?  No!  We are all consumed by what concerns us in our immediate sphere of influence: our jobs, our household, our family, friends, our goals and this b

In my previous post on how to create content for your blog , I had mentioned a few tools which I think can come handy for every marketer out there. Creating impactful, value driven content every day is tough - especially if you are doing everything on your own and have no external help [read freelance designers, video editing friends]. To enable you to crate your blog content independently and quickly, we will go through a few tools that might make your everyday life a tad bit easier. Lets begin by identifying your everyday tasks. Designing images / infographics Writing content Posting content Sending emails To make your everyday tasks easier, here are a few cracking tools that you will get addicted to: 1. Design Canva For the longest time, I reached out to a friend for creating the graphics for my blog. However, I always yearned to be independent. I struggled with a few tools, didn’t like them. Combined with my zero graphic designing and illustratio

Imagine a sailor in the olden days - would he set sail without his compass and map? Not Vasco da Gama - no Not James Cook - definitely no. Jack Sparrow - maybe . Your blog is a voyage too, helping people learn, acquire skills and knowledge and in the interim, helping you learn (and perhaps earn) as well. But how can you stay on course if you don’t have a compass/ map? Your blog’s mission statement is just that for you. Having a mission statement is important and not just for anecdotal reasons. Why do you need a mission statement? 1. Audience - content fit If you don’t have a mission statement, you will not be able to reach out to the correct target audience with the relevant message. Let me explain with an example. The mission statement of my blog is Helping early stage marketers, entrepreneurs, and small business owners to understand & implement marketing better. In the early stage of my b

There I was - struggling to churn out one post. And the blogs in front of me were belting out post after post after post. I was struggling to maintain something of a frequency. But they were churning out 30-50 posts of 4000 words each per month. I realized that I needed to tackle this problem head on, and not be passive. I needed to be in control of my own blogging destiny [easier said than done] So what can we do to write more blog posts in less time? We all know the (vicious) cycle of blog content: write, promote, repeat. But sometimes it is not enough - Sometimes, trying to compete with the countless authoritative websites [many of who are doing it full time] may seem like an uphill battle - but hey, everything worth having came with discipline and practice. The entire blogging process can broadly be divided into these phases: Pre-writing Researching Writing Scheduling Promoting And today, we are going to look at the fi

An important part of your blogging journey is choosing your blog’s target audience. You cannot be everything for everybody. I have been writing this marketing blog since 2013 and initially it was just a broad commentary on marketing trends and updates. I struggled to document, churn and curate the massive volumes of content generated in marketing, with very little success. 2014 - after a year of struggling - I realized - enough is enough - time to hit reset. I decided to focus on something slightly narrower, and hence I chose to focus on digital marketing. Along this time, I realized that along with topic specialization, I also need to narrow down my readership profile as well. Obviously, I was not catering to the CMO demographic. So I further refined my target group to early stage marketers - an area where I knew I could add value. So both in terms of topic coverage and readership profile, I managed to trim down the audience who I believed was not the corr

If creating content for your blog literally feels like it is sucking the charm out of your life then you are not alone. This constant debate has plagued every marketer / blogger out there: What do I write about? Will my readers find this content interesting? Am I doing enough to create unique high quality content? All this can cause even seasoned bloggers to abandon the content-writing cause midway - but worry not - I have few strategies & tips and in no time, you will be posting great content on your blog, continuously. As a newbie blogger, my constant worry was “ What should I post about” leading to lots of frantic strategizing and brainstorming. Let's break things down a bit into bite-sized components here. You have 4 things you need to tackle while writing a blog post Headline Content: Outline + Type + Headings + body Images Call to action Let's begin with content: 1.1 Content: Outline Typically, I’d begin with a wo