Brandmerry Blog Archives

brandmerry 10/4/18 brandmerry 10/4/18

The Importance of Consistency and My Top Tricks for Remaining Consistent in Sharing Your Message

10/4/18

Consistency is one of the most important parts of running a business. One of the things I’m super proud of about myself is my ability to be consistent. Since day one, I’ve always shown up, gave value and remained consistent. So I’m really excited to share 5 tips that will help you remain consistent in your own business and why it’s so important.

It takes 7 times for someone to take action on your offer, so if you are wanting to sell something in one week, how many times should you be showing up? Every FREAKING day. That’s why I can’t stress enough the importance of consistency.

I’ve outlined all 5 steps in this blog, but if you want to skip ahead and watch the in-depth training, just scroll down!

1. Stay Inspired

The key to motivation is constantly being excited about what you’re doing, and I think the same goes for inspiration - constantly being excited about what you’re working on. One of the ways I stay excited is because I’m taking the time to get inspired. I give myself time to write and reconnect with my inspiration. It’s so important to come from a place of inspiration rather than desperation.

2. Ask, ask, ask!

Ask your community. Ask the online space. Seriously, if you’re at a loss, just ask your audience what they want! If you are unsure what to talk about when you show up - look around you and see what your audience is asking for!

Post in a group and ask them “What do you need right now?” “What are you currently working on"?” And if you don’t currently have a community of your own, look in other communities. What are people talking about? What are they excited about?

I promise you if you take 10 minutes to look around social media, you will find tons of content ideas to use in your business.

3. Know Your Story Matters

One of the things I hear the most from my clients is that they don’t believe what they have to share matters. They don’t think people will care about their story or what they have to say. They don’t feel worthy.

So you have to know and truly believe that your story matters. You have to be so clear about who your ideal client is and how much value you’re going to give them because that’s who you’re talking to. That’s who matters. I want you to create consistent content that converts, and one of the things that is going to help you is feeling really worthy of your story. You are worthy of people receiving that content from you.

4. Plan, Baby Plan

Please start planning. If consistency is a struggle for you, it’s probably because you’re flying by the seat of your pants. Start getting in the habit of planning out your content and planning out your launches. Planning is so important and it’s going to help you show up consistently because you won’t have to rush at the last minute to get something up and ultimately end up not posting.

My favorite way to plan is with Trello. I encourage my clients to map out launches and content at least 30 days in advance to make sure they are always ahead of the game.

5. Pre-Schedule/Bulk

I’m favorite trick in improving consistency is to bulk schedule my content. Giving yourself a specific time to focus on content and be in your creative zone and a specific time to focus on client work will allow you to remain in an inspired state. On the days you are taking the time to create your content, I also encourage you to take it a step further and schedule your content to post later that week on your social media platforms.

You should not be waking up every day and then deciding what to post that day, that only leads to overwhelm. Creating content the day of should be in addition to the pieces you already have planned so they come from a place of inspiration, rather than a place of “Oh sh*t, I need to post something!”

I promise you, scheduling will change the game when it comes to consistency.

Want more details about my tips around consistency? Watch the video training below!

Head over to my Facebook Page and be sure to like and comment on the video while you are over there to help more people see this information ↠ https://www.facebook.com/brandmerrycoaching/videos/247553189277991/

And as always please share and comment on this blog post, I love connecting with you!

Branding and Business Coach | Michelle Knight of Brandmerry

brandmerry 8/16/18 brandmerry 8/16/18

How I Made 3/4 of My Income Goal in The 2nd Half of 2017

08/16/18

Last year, I had a goal to make $100,000 in my business. That number felt good to me, and the reason I'm sharing this with you today is because I made 3/4ths of that in the second half of 2017. Which means that it's to too late for you if you feel behind in your own goal for the year right now. My biggest months last year were September and October which were both right around $14k and December which was closer to $18k. So it's not to late for you to reach your goals, you just have to take some steps in order to get there.

Believed in My Goal

I believed so much in my goal. I was so grounded and rooted in hitting $100k - in hitting 6 figures. Be super clear and specific on your goal. I felt that number in my soul. I was invested and excited in that number.

I visualized every step of the way, every month, every time I hit a goal. I was super clear on my visualization process. I was really inspired by this number. It was about how that would make me feel. I also had to do the inner work. I really started to bust through my old beliefs around money, and I also had to release my inner perfectionist.

I was always checking in on where I was at in my goals and where I might need to pick up slack.

Planned for a Big Launch

I had planned for a big launch. Launches are a great way to bring in a big influx of money when you are trying to reach a big goal. I had been planning mine for 9 months and growing my list since January!

I did the prep work and knew this was a big part of the end of the year for reaching my goal, so I took time to prep for it and get those pieces in place.

I really focused on building relationships and nurturing my audience. I started going live regularly. I started doing more workshops and webinars. Building trust with your community is massive. I really credit the relationship building I did to the success of this launch.

I truly went all in on this launch! There was no holding back. Everyone knew I was launching. I put money in a mentor and Facebook Ads and the return on investment was huge.

Focused on New Eyes and Ears on My Brand

I focused on growing my list daily and taking sales action, but also community action.

I used FB ads, Instagram and organic reach through groups to grow my list through webinars, workshops, live videos, freebies, challenges, etc (everything I do has some sort of opt in ;))

I created a welcome sequence so people really got to know me through my free offer, so when I rolled out a new offer, they were ready to invest.

Strategically Stacked My Offers

I always had and still have a next step for my clients so they feel supported. If someone finishes a program, I have a next step for them. I planned out my launches and cart opens to lead clients from one into the other

With this in mind I heavily introduced my intensives as a welcome to coaching and focused on filling that from August - December, this led to my 1:1 clients at a higher ticket price. So you can bring people in at a lower cost level and then funnel them to the higher ticket prices.

Separated From The How, BUT Took Action

I had my big goal in mind and things I was working towards daily, but I wasn’t obsessed with one thing working over the other.

I focused my time and energy on taking action and if something didn’t work I found something that did.

I was constantly showing up, taking action and investing back into my business to get it to work. Always take action. Don't just wait for the best idea to fall into your lap. It will come, but always take action.

And as always please share and comment on this blog post, I love connecting with you!

brandmerry 7/5/18 brandmerry 7/5/18

How to Use IGTV to Increase Brand Awareness

3 simple steps to a client converting about me page for your online business

How to Use IGTV to Increase Brand Awareness

IGTV is a new addition to Instagram. It's another way to show up on that platform, get super visible and increase brand awareness and it's all about video. Not only are we going to talk about how you can use IGTV to increase brand awareness, but also how you can use it if live video really scare you.

What is IGTV and How to Start Using It

Essentially it is a longer, pre-recorded video platform on Instagram where you can share content and do more of a Youtube style video. This gives us a beautiful opportunity to get clear on our messaging. Smaller brands only have the ability to share 10 minutes of content per video, which will help us be really clear and concise in our messaging and the content we are sharing.

The other thing I love is the cross promotion within the platform which we will talk about a little later in the post as well, but Instagram is giving you the ability to link straight to your IGTV videos in stories. You can share as an in-feed post, etc.

The next thing I want to talk about is hashtags. Hashtags are searchibility on Instagram and now we can use these in our IGTV videos. There's so much flexibility in one platform which I'm absolutely loving. If you know your audience is on Instagram, you can now focus on this one platform to start building massive brand awareness.

Afraid of Video? IGTV is your answer

We know how important video is - it's where we, and every platform are going because it really takes your brand to a new level. It's all about taking your business and brand to the next level because when you do video, your ideal client will start to feel like they know you. So video is so, so important for increasing brand awareness and building a successful business.

I know from talking to a lot of you that live video can be scary. You want to be using it, but it scares you and this is where IGTV comes in. IGTV kind of takes away the scariness of live video, but has the same feel of live video. This gives you the opportunity to practice, record yourself and still ask for engagement. It's an introduction to video that is really going to be so powerful for those of you who are just starting out in video. Not only are you increasing your brand awareness, but you're getting yourself comfortable with the camera. You also have the ability to share this on various platform, and what I love about IGTV, you can grab the URL and send people from your email to your IGTV. You can even cross-promote on other platforms as well like Facebook.

If live video scares you:

Get comfortable with camera
Play with asking for engagement
Sharing on various platforms

How to use it in your biz for brand awareness

1. Focus on building one community - Instagram

The idea of being on all of these platforms can be super scary, so I always recommend to start with one and focus on it, get really good, and then add another. What I love about Instagram is it gives you so many touch points, so I think it's a great platform to start with.

2. More personal and less polished than other video

IGTV gives you the opportunity to be more personal and less polished than Youtube or even live video. It's about showing up as who you are with an already established platform.

3. Now have 3 points of contact on IG (posts, stories and IGTV)

This gives you the ability to show up for your audience in different ways on just one platform. It's so important for you at this stage in online entrepreneurship to have these multiple touch points.

4. Sharing options (cross promotion - within stories, via email, accessible in feed)

I can now use the swipe up feature to my new IGTV episodes. I really think easy access is so important and Instagram allows you to make your videos super accessible. You can also pull the URL from your video and share it in an email or on Facebook. Extend the life of your content!

5. CONSISTENCY!

Be consistent with your postings. What time, what day and what type of content? Think of a TV show. This helps build trust and accountability within your community.

You can watch the whole video for a more in-depth version of this and several bonus tips below!

And as always please share and comment on this blog post, I love connecting with you!

Branding and Business Coach | Branding Coach | Business Coach | Michelle Knight of Brandmerry

Michelle Knight is a Branding and Business coach for female entrepreneurs who are struggling to gain visibility and traction to take their business to the next level. She works with her clients to dive deep into their story so they can create a brand and message that positions them as an expert and allows them to create their desired income to free up time in their schedule for what matters most. Learn more >>

brandmerry 6/15/18 brandmerry 6/15/18

How to Add SEO to Your Squarespace Website

I know how important it is to drive traffic to your website if you have a blog. Otherwise, what's the point, if no one can actually see the content that you're creating? So today I want to support you in two pieces of the puzzle to improving the SEO on your website.

1. Content is Key

How to Add SEO to Your Squarespace Website | Squarespace tutorials, SEO for beginners

Number one is your content. I am telling you that none of the cool features matter if the content on your blog and on your website is kind of crappy and ultimately if your audience doesn't want it, then they're not going to be searching for it, so it's really important that you put the majority of your energy on creating content that your audience wants. You need to know who your audience is and, more specifically, what it is that they're looking for online and then you create the content to meet that need.

Some of my favorite ways to find out what my audience is searching for are to step in their shoes and imagine what they're googling online. Now if you're like, I don't want to imagine Michelle, I just want to know specifically, so I ask them. Go ahead in a group, in a private community and ask them what they're searching for online or what specific questions they have about the industry that you're in. Another fun tip is to go to blog posts that are in a similar industry as you would see, what kind of comments are coming through the bottom, see what people are asking about, and then create content that meets that need. Or, go into a facebook group and see what people are asking about your specific niche and create content that again meets that need. I can't stress enough to you how important content is and if you're struggling with coming up with ideas, it is as simple as asking your audience, what can I create for you?

Some of my biggest, most impactful, most traffic driven blog posts that I have are really specific, so the titles themselves need to be really specific as well. Some examples for you are "7 Tips For A Well Branded Photo Shoot" or "How to Convert Clients on your Website." Remember you. People are searching for the content that they need, so make sure that not only is the content amazing, but also the title is super descriptive and on point for what your audience is ultimately searching for.

2. Keywords

The second piece of this puzzle is my favorite thing to do, and that is adding keywords to your blog posts. Now, I do not suggest that it's just a keyword heavy blog posts, so it's just keywords, right? You're not actually giving value, none, no, no, no, no. Lead with value, but add in those key words that's going to tell Google, hey, that's what this blog post is about.

Another really cool thing that you could do is add keywords to the images within your blog post. If you watch the whole Youtube video below, I actually dive-in to my Squarespace site and show you exactly what I'm talking about here. As a result, I saw this was having a big impact on my SEO. You'll see I have a ton of images in my blog post. I have videos, I have all kinds of things. One of the things that I absolutely love to do is to go in and edit the image. Once you upload your image, you'll see a place for file name, update your file name, make your file name, the name of your blog post, or maybe a key word that is in relation to your blog post. This helps Google rank your content. So they're pulling all the different pieces from your website, including your images, so update your file name. It's as simple as seriously just clicking on here and typing what ever you want. I don't have captions underneath my photos, that you guys can see, but I do have things written. Again, giving google more to work with, with my site. Again, I show you exactly how to this in the video below, so be sure to watch if you're not sure what to do!

Bonus Tip

I'm going to give you guys one more bonus that I absolutely love. At the end of all my blog posts throughout my website, I have a lot of personal information, and I have a signature. This is another amazing space to add a little bit more seo to your website. You can go ahead and just type in your title right or maybe the name of your business. So for me, I type branding and business coach, and then I can also go into design caption below and you'll see branding and business coach. Okay, so this helps. This helps you rank on Google for your title. It helps Google know who you are, what it is that you do specifically. And again, all I have to do is do not display caption and hit apply. So fun little tip for you in improving SEO. Using images on Squarespace, making these small changes to the content that you're creating and the SEO that you are adding to your website in the form of keywords can have a big impact on your brand awareness.

Can I get an "A" for driving traffic to your website with zero ad spend? That's like the entreprenuers dream, but I also understand that coming up with content, coming up with ideas is kind of daunting. So I have a really cool free resource for you that you can grab here: https://brandmerry.lpages.co/content-creation-training/

It's how I map out 30 days worth of content and as little as 30 minutes, there's a really cool bonus video that kind of walks you through my process and they're really easy spreadsheet that you can use in your own business to kind of categorize what content you're going to create and plan it all out in advance. It's going to help you overall in your business, if you can start streamlining these practices now.

You can watch the whole video for a more in-depth tutorial of this with several bonus tips below!

Head over to Youtube and be sure to like and comment on the video while you are over there to help more people see this information ↠ https://youtu.be/H39rEQNWBdw

And as always please share and comment on this blog post, I love connecting with you!

brandmerry 3/22/18 brandmerry 3/22/18

How to Use Facebook Messenger Bots For Your Brand {Video Inside}

How to Use Facebook Messenger Bots For Your Brand

In today's video I'm going to be sharing with you three simple ways to use Facebook Messenger bots, specifically mini chat, to not only grow your audience, but also increase brand awareness, and more importantly, engagement. But before I dive into those three simple steps, I want to share with you an upcoming masterclass that I'm hosting on how to create an authentic brand that allows you to grow your community with ease and leads to more clients. You can find an upcoming time and all the information in the link below.

But before I jump into those three simple steps, I want to go ahead and invite you to an upcoming training that I am doing. I'm going to be sharing five steps on creating an authentic brand that grows your loyal community and leads to more clients. You can join here: https://brandmerry.com/authenticbrand

1. Using Messenger Bots for Live Video Notification

This has been so much fun for me in my brand and business, and I'm so excited to share it with you, because it has really not only increased live viewers, but also increased engagement, which is so important with the social media algorithm. We want people not only showing up to watch, liking and hearting your content, sharing and commenting. All of those pieces are really, really important.

So the more people that you can get on the actual live video, as opposed to watching it on replay, is going to help you stand out online. So how do you do this with mini chat? So there's so many different ways to use Messenger bots, but I absolutely love creating a really simple form in Manychat for an upcoming live video that you are hosting. Maybe for you it's a live video, a live training, a challenge, or a weekly or biweekly segment, like Mondays with Michelle, which I do biweekly on my Facebook business page.

Creating a really simple opt in form using Manychat, putting a cool little title telling them if they sign up they'll get a notification right in their Messenger box, so they don't miss a single thing. Then, when they sign up, you can schedule a broadcast to all of the amazing women and men who have signed up to get the notification, and send them a really cool notification that says "Oh my gosh, we're live." They can click the button and join you live right there and then.

It's also a really cool idea to follow up with any posts afterwards asking if they have any takeaways or questions, or reminding them about a special offer that you mentioned on the live video, which they will hopefully be live on, with that really awesome reminder.

It takes the guess work out for people wondering "When is that person going to go live? Do I have to set a reminder?" And what if they forget, because life gets in the way. We are all by our phones most of the time, so it's really cool to have just a little Facebook Messenger pop up and say "Oh yeah, I'll watch right here on my phone."

2. Using Messenger Bots for Pre-Enrollment to a Launch

So maybe you're rolling out a new course, or a new program, and this is a strategy that I absolutely loved doing for my signature course, Your Brand New Adventure. And it worked really, really well. So what I did is I created a wait list on my website, by embedding a Manychat form onto my website, so that they could go to my website, to the sales page, and click to get a messenger reminder when the cart opened.

Then about a week before the cart opens, I sent a Facebook message to them, just letting them know that they had signed up to join the wait list, and the offer was now available. It was so powerful, I had 50% women buy on the very first day, and the other 50%, yes 100% conversion on a wait list, signed up before the cart closed.

And all I needed to do, because they were an engaged audience, is send them a reminder message mid way through, just letting them know that that special pre-enrollment offer was ending, and then again on the final day, saying "Hey, now if you're interested, here's the information to learn more."

It saved me a ton of time when it came to pre-enrollment for my launch, I didn't have to send out a ton of emails. It was just three simple Manychat messages, and I was done. So it's a really cool tool to use in your arsenal.

One thing to keep in mind is that Manychat and other messenger bots do not allow sole promotion. So you want to make sure that the people who sign up for your wait list are engaged before you actually promote a free order. In order to do that you can add a couple of questions like "Are you still interested in the Brand New Adventure that you signed up for. Click yes or no." And once they respond, they will be considered an engaged audience.

3. Using Messenger bots to Announce a YouTube Video or a Blog Post that just went live

This is really important, especially when it comes to YouTube, because Google wants to see that people are responding to the video shortly after it's published. And the same goes for your blog post.

So the more eyes that you can get on that content right away, the better. So using Messenger bots to send reminders to your audience when a blog post is published, or a YouTube video is live, is really, really powerful. You can create a simple signup using something like Manychat, where they can just sign up for notifications, and then every week, or biweekly, or whenever your schedule is for your blog, or your YouTube channel, you can send a little reminder to their inbox saying "Hey, here's today's topic. I'd love for you to head over to the website, or YouTube. Hit like, write a comment, and let me know your feedback."

It's a great way to get instant feedback, and instant eyes on the content you're creating. Messenger bots are seriously exploding, and I'll share with you my personal favorite, which is Manychat. It's free to use, it's a really, really great tool to add to your online business. But it's really important because it improves engagement, and engagement is so important with the way Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, basically every single algorithm, is functioning today.

So the more people that you can get onto your live videos, or into your programs, on to your blog posts or your YouTube video right away, the better it is going to be for you and your brand. But here's the thing, I shared with you three simple steps today on how you can incorporate Messenger bots, but if you don't have a clear voice for your brand and your business, none of that stuff, that fancy stuff, makes any sense.

Which is why I'm really going to encourage you one more time to join me for my upcoming masterclass on five simple steps to create an authentic brand that allows you to grow your community with ease, and leads to more clients. You can click the link right here https://brandmerry.com/authenticbrand to sign up at the time that works best for you.

You can watch the whole video for a more in-depth version of this and several bonus tips below!

Head over to YouTube and be sure to like and comment on the video while you are over there to help more people see this information ↠ https://youtu.be/zc19LlZCIu0

And as always please share and comment on this blog post, I love connecting with you!

Brandmerry Blog Archives

The Importance of Consistency and My Top Tricks for Remaining Consistent in Sharing Your Message