My own Lean Startup story explains why I created Geneva Lean Startup Group back in June 2012, and why – almost 3 years later – we have grown to be a lively community of over 600 members.

But first the essentials: Geneva Lean Startup is a monthly networking and training event where you’ll find like minded souls and learn about Lean Startup methodology, Value Proposition Design (VPD), Business Model Canvas and Design Thinking.

I recommend 😉   Sign-up to one of our next training events at Geneva Lean Startup Group

Why Geneva Lean Startup Group is successful.

Participants who sign up for our training are people with ideas (at various degrees of advancement) and a desire to meet local and like-minded souls. They take away practical learning nuggets.

Our workshops last 90 minutes and include plenty of hands-on exercises.

We cover the whole gammut of Lean Startup methodology:

• Run smart customer interviews to find out what our customers really want.
• Find market traction with Value Proposition Design.
• Validate ideas with meaningful hypothesis.
• Create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) before making our lives (and money purse) a misery… because we want to be perfect too early!
• Move quickly through the Lean Startup Build-Measure-Learn cycles. Setting up experiments and using lean testing tools such as Landing pages, A/B testing, Crowdfunding, AdWords and more.

Each of our workshops are designed with 3 concrete take aways in mind.

We’re always touched to observe how many of our participants proudly store them away in their satchels when they leave.

Join the Geneva Lean Startup group if at least one of these statements applies.

• You are bored in your job but you have a (secret) dream. One day, you would like to run your own business. You have some ideas but don’t quite know how to make a next step.
• You are in career transition. You hesitate to continue as an employee. This is THE good moment to make a bold move and start your own business!
• You’ve already created your startup. You are familiar with the Lean Startup method and would like to get better at applying its principles to your growing company.
• You’re a decision maker in a larger company. People tell you that Lean Startup also works in bigger organisations. You’re curious and would like to find out more, but without taking unnecessary risks.

Recommended! Sign-up to one of our next training events at Geneva Lean Startup Group 😉

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My Story

Who hasn’t failed at least once?

Some years back I needed to transition my long lasting and successful IT Training business to new pastures.

Problem was, you see, that my customer segment – i.e. professionals who held jobs during 1990’s and early 2000’s – started to vanish into retirement.

This was the older generation who enthusiastically bought our highly profitable value proposition: expensive and prestigious 3-day training packages for Word, Excel, PowerPoint (and more).

But the new generation of computer users to which you, dear reader, most likely belong, would not be seen dead in a 3 day Word course!

I realised that I had a value proposition that was no longer relevant and a customer segment that was running dry.

What happened at my first attempt.

I “fell in love” with a new idea.

Lean Startup says: Don’t fall in love with your ideas!

I went “down into the basement”, pouring much of my time and money into conceiving a new and perfect product: only to find out once ready, and to my dismay, that I did not have a product-market fit.

In other words, nobody wanted to buy my wonderful new product!

Lean Startup says: before you make your (perfect) product – you must have a proven product-market fit!

The Lean Startup toolkit saved my bacon!

Around 2008, I discovered Eric Ries’ Lean Startup book and its relevant toolkit which includes Alex Osterwalder’s Business Model Canvas and more recently Value Proposition Design.

If I later succeeded the transition of my company, it was in great part because I learnt how to apply (to my advantage) the tools proposed by Lean Startup methodology.

And what’s more, Value Proposition Design has since become an integral part of my Content (Inbound) Marketing services!

Convinced? Be curious and join us at one of our next training events at Geneva Lean Startup Group.

Looking forward 🙂

This article introduces an easy to use but powerful tool – Customer Personas. The Customer Persona technique is a visual way to describe your existing and potential customers’ needs, worries and aspirations.

If we want to grab our readers’ attention in a very noisy world, we best succeed if we are mindful and respectful. In other words, if we take the time to get to know our customers.

For example by asking ourselves how our product or service can help a customer be more successful, more confident, less worried?

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Too much information bothers all of us!

Statistics tell us that the average person receives 63,000 words of new information every day (Business Week).

How about you? How do you feel about information?  Do you get too much irrelevant stuff? Do you sometimes suffer from information overload?

If you have this negative feeling of plenty, your existing and potential customers are most likely to have it too!

To protect ourselves from being overwhelmed, most of us simply limit the inflow.

We will read and sign up for information only if it’s truly helpful and relevant to us, at this given moment of our professional and personal life.

As for the rest, we trash, unsubscribe or generally ignore: consciously or unconsciously.

So, to be smarter than the competition, we have to start by reviewing our current approach.

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Customer Personas show us the way.

Customer Personas are archetypes. They provide a framework that helps us describe our target audience in an intimate way. Indeed, a persona – if crafted with care – is much more than a customer segment on a marketer’s grid.

A well developped customer persona is like a close friend we’ve known for years.

With close friends we feel comfortable, we resonate and we’re more easily able to fine-tune our communication.

A friend going through a painful divorce, for example, will need words and attention much different from the teenager whom we must nag into doing his homework.

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Now it’s your turn.

Learn about Customer Personas by taking the 3 next steps:

1. Watch the 2.5 minute video here below.

2. Download and read a practical example, developed for an Asset & Wealth Management Bank.

3. If you are inspired by the above, create your own Customer Persona! For easy implementation, download the Customer Persona template (Word 2010 format).

What’s your first impression about the Customer Persona technique? Are you convinced and planning to use it in your company?

I am sooo curious! Please drop a comment (here below) and let me know what you think.

The featured photo is kindly provided
by Twig Aho via Flickr under the Creative Commons License.

A few years back, many organisations jumped on the social media (read Facebook) bandwagon. But few actually reflected on what business outcomes they could expect from such a move. For example by asking themselves: What does success look like?

Some time later, the same businesses were disillusioned. As they did not observe any return on their investment, they came to the conclusion that online marketing was just another hype. Why Swiss SME’s are reticent to embrace digital marketing.

This is a shame, because finding quality leads and customers online does work – provided you have a sound business model and a smart, digital (content) marketing strategy.

Are you detached enough?

Right now, I’d like you to find a cloud high high up in the sky –  and sit on it.

This is a rare moment when you get the chance to look at your business in an aloof and detached way. Imagine a gentle breeze, refreshing, tonifying, clearing your mind of all unnecessary clutter.

What do you see?

Your business is successful right now. But you observe that customer acquisition is getting a little harder every quarter.

And you’re left wondering how you could get more quality leads, without needing to squeeze your already busy colleagues, or hire new staff, with the inevitable hit on your budget.

To add to your unrestfulness, you observe a new set of competitors who joined your market space a few months back.

You’ve noticed that they they’re very active online and, in fact, just last night your supplier and good friend John told you that they’re hiring!

At three in the morning, when you’ve woken up because of a noise, you find it’s difficult to get back to sleep. Are these competitors threatening your existing customer base?

You have loyal customers who are your best ambassadors. They’re also the first to buy from you, when you have a new product or service.

But are you making the best out of your existing customer relationships ?

Everyone is just so busy in your company.

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Time to act.

1. Business Model Canvas and Value Proposition Design are techniques that help you look at your business in a new way. One of the major advantage of these tools is that they are visual and hence make sharing and explaining easy. Capturing people’s attention in a seemingly playful way is a great plus when you need to seek advice about the complex challenges you face.

2. As you’re reading these lines, you’re at a convenient place. Please have a quick look at the website whose link I am listing in the previous paragraph. Then take a moment and read through the 5 steps here below. These illustrate how you can make a first portrait of your company without needing to call in expensive consultants. The example we use is Le Cirque du Soleil – an amazing story of business transformation that merits its own separate article.

3. At the end of this blog post, I provide more resources, downloads and links to help you get familiar with these new techniques so that you can proactively manage your business strategy.

Before we go any further, let me say that neither I personally nor my company profits from recommending the above tools. There’s no hidden agenda nor any affiliate link. However, based on my positive experience I have created the Geneva Lean Startup Group. This is a growing community of >600 entrepreneurs who are offered monthly hands-on workshops, durich which we teach the proposed techniques.

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An example to help you understand. Make a portrait of your current business model, in 5 simple steps.

One of the most valuable actions you can take right now is to describe the current business model of your company. By understanding what you have today, you give yourself and your organisation the opportunity to create new strategic alternatives.

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Indeed, in an age where many certainties are challenged: think of the music, newspaper and travel industries – we must avoid becoming victims of our success. It pays to be smart for our businesses: by continuously scanning the landscape and assessing our industry and our strategy.

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To make a portrait of your business, reserve one quiet hour this evening to do a dry run, together with me.

If you like the approach, I recommend you repeat the process with your own team. I provide links to useful resources in the end chapter entitled Resources, downloads and links to proactively manage your business strategy.

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Start with these 5 steps.

Step 1

Download the free Value Proposition Design Canvas and Business Model Canvas. These documents are released under the Creative Commons license.

PS regarding the license: Anyone may use the canvas for their own work or to support others in understanding, analysing or changing their business models. This includes people who use the tool within their own companies or in a consulting capacity. The requirement is full identification and credit of the source of the tool. The source is Strategyzer.com.

Print several copies in A3 if possible, otherwise A4 will do.

Make sure you have Post-it® notes handy.

Photo Credit: stuffinjello on Photobucket

Post-it® notes function like idea containers that can be added, removed, and easily shifted between business model building blocks. (They’re going to be particularly useful for exploratory discussions with your team, when some elements might be removed and replaced multiple times, to explore new ideas)..

Step 2

Click on the image to watch this 4 minute video for a quick explanation of the Value Proposition Design canvas.

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Step 3

Make sure you have the printed document in front of you or pinned to a wall. When you’re ready, play the short animated presentation. I’ll walk you through the 9 building blocks of the Business Model Canvas.

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Step 4

Now that you have an overall idea, let’s take Cirque du Soleil as an example. The description and illustration are copied from page Page 228 and 229 of the Business Model Generation book.

Example: The Cirque du Soleil Business Model.

PS: The text here below is a direct quote from the Business Model Generation book.

The Business Model Canvas lets you systematically analyze a business model innovation in its entirety. You can ask the Four Actions Framework questions (eliminate, create, reduce, raise) about each business model Building Block and immediately recognize implications for the other parts of the business model, e.g. what are the implications for the cost side when we make changes on the value side? and vice versa.

Cirque du Soleil features prominently among Blue Ocean Strategy examples. Below we apply the blended Blue Ocean and Business Model Canvas approach to this intriguing and highly successful Canadian business.

First, the Four Actions Framework shows how Cirque du Soleil “played” with the traditional elements of the circus business Value Proposition. It eliminated costly elements, such as animals and star performers while adding other elements, such as theme, artistic atmosphere, and refined music.

This revamped Value Proposition allowed Cirque du Soleil to broaden its appeal to theatergoers and other adults seeking sophisticated entertainment rather than the traditional circus audience of families.

As a consequence, it was able to substantially raise ticket prices. The Four Actions Framework, outline in blue and gray in the business model canvas above, illustrates the effects of changes in the Value Proposition.

Click on the image to view a bigger format.

Step 5

Now that you’ve observed the train of thought, have a first go at sketching out the different elements of the canvas for your own business. Make sure not to write on the canvas itself, use the Post-it® notes instead.

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Resources, downloads and links to proactively manage your business model.

If you liked the dry run, your next step could be a team session to assess your current situation and brainstorm new opportunities. Best is to start out simple and as you evolve, get help: buy the book, download more resources and seek coaching or training.

Buy

Value Proposition Design & Business Model Generation.

These books take you by the hand and lead you through each step in a detailed and clear way. The accompanying illustrations are enjoyable and make for an easy and agreeable read.

Strategyzer.com

http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com/book/order

German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, check for other languages here.

Download

– The Value Proposition Design and Business Model Canvas: http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com/canvas

– A 72-page review of the Business Model Generation book

http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com/book – Watch out for this icon:

 Read the Harvard Business Review article.

Creating an entrepreneurial, innovation-based economy. An excellent article, available in Harvard Business Review, May 2013.

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Training & Coaching

Please contact me or leave a comment here below if you’d like advice and/or individual & group training about Value Proposition Design and Business Model Generation. We’re a complementary team of successful business owners, entrepreneurs and digital marketers who have initiated many training workshops around the above topic. We not only talk, but use these techniques to address our own professional challenges.

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Still keen? Here’s a BONUS!

The Silly Cow Exercise – 3 minutes.

Ask your colleagues to sketch out three different business models using a cow.

First, they should define the characteristics of a cow, for example: produces milk, eats all day, makes a mooing sound, etc.

Then they must use those characteristics to come up with an innovative business model (based on a cow). For example, Value Proposition=Lawn-Mower-Combined-Fertilizer.

The goal is to take people out of their day-to-day business routines and show them how readily they can generate ideas by disconnecting from orthodoxies and letting their creativity flow.

Enjoy!

Photo credits:
Header Image Creative Commons License. With thanks to steve-c-photo.fr
PS: We’ve cropped the black spaces on top and bottom of photo.

Statistics are to be taken with a pinch of salt. This one is innocent enough, revealing the phenomenon of mobile communication:

Every day across the world 371’124 babies are born and 377’900 iPhones sold! (February 2012)

Moreover, in 2013, between 30% and 50%* of users access the web via mobile.

*depending on the data source

And as of 2015, the mobile trend continues as can be seen in this chart, by ComScore and Morgan Stanley Research.

Every day, mobile devices, mobile usage, and mobile purchases continue to pick up speed – a trend website owners and marketing professionals need to be aware of.

This article covers 3 points:

1. Understand how your customers currently interact with your site.
2. Take a first step towards adjusting your existing site for mobiles.
3. As you develop your online presence, consider three distinct mobile design options.

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The Business Scenario

Helen sells beauty creams to teenagers. Recently, she’s read an article about constant connectivity and multi-screen behaviour. In other words, consumers are going online on many different mobile devices throughout the day. The article includes headlines such as these:

• Mobile is critical to massive future growth.

• Billions of dollars are being spent in mobile transactions.

• In order to survive, your business must embrace mobile.

Sales are doing fine and Helen is not obsessed by website analytics. And yet, the article she just read made her realise that she needed to understand her teenage clients better. For example: how much traffic comes from mobiles? Do mobile users remain on the site, or do they drop off more quickly than desktop users? Which pages are successful, which are not?

Helen is right to ask herself these questions, because mobile-designed websites and business success are ever more interlinked.

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The Solution

1. Understand how your customers currently interact with your site.

Helen decides to set aside a couple of hours to access Google Analytics, a (free) service that generates detailed statistics about website traffic. Indeed, this is one of two highly recommended and immediate steps a business owner or marketing manager should take:

1st step: Use web software such as Google Analytics or, indeed, an alternative web traffic analysis service to learn more about traffic and visitors to your site.

2nd step: Talk directly to your customers. Ask questions about the kind of devices they own and how they use them. Ask them for feedback about your site’s ease of use.

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Use the technique of Customer Personas to get it right.

The information you collect is invaluable and needs to be integrated into existing business processes and website design. The specific goal is to tailor and rearrange content such that both desktop and mobile users enjoy the interaction with your website. Update your Customer Persona(s) with a description of their multi-screen behaviour. You may want to check out my Customer Personas article which provides a useful summary of this customer-centric technique.

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The mobile-first philosophy.

The importance of presenting valuable content with mobile users in mind, is undeniable. Given the observed mobile revolution, new websites should ideally be (re)designed with mobile access as a priority (as opposed to desktop-priority).

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Constant connectivity is here to stay.

Constant connectivity means that people are going online on many different devices throughout the day, either sequentially or simultaneously. A typical scenario may be someone who’s using her PC at work, her tablet in the evening on the couch and her smartphone during commute hours.

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2. Take first steps towards adjusting your existing site for mobiles.

No business can afford to ignore the fact that more than a billion people primarily access the web with mobile devices. Even if you’re not ready to rebuild your site for optimal display on such machines, take one of the following two steps today:

Step 1 – Simplify your existing site’s design.

Loading speed matters! Test your website with Google Page Speed Insights. You’ll probably see the need for simple design changes right away. Discuss these with your web services provider.

To display well on mobile, ask for simpler page designs, large font sizes. Position your value proposition and other critical information at the top where it is immediately visible, and make data entry forms “fat-finger-proof”, i.e. bigger data entry boxes and buttons to press. Deliver key information by putting your name, phone number and a link to a map at the top left of your home page where it is easy to find.

Extract from a presentation by Janine Warner – Multiple Strategies for Multiple Screens

Step 2 – Create a mobile version of your site.

As an alternative to editing your existing website, you can create a parallel version, using mobile-site-design services, many of which are free or low cost. Check out Ginwiz, for example. But before you go for this solution, please read the next chapter for a review of mobile web design options.

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3. As you develop your online presence, consider 3 distinct mobile design options.

These 3 approaches are commonly used to create a mobile website for multi-device users.

1. Responsive Web Design (RWD)

2. Adaptive Web Design (AWD)

3. Separate mobile websites with their own URL

1. Responsive web design (RWD).

Responsive web design is a concept whereby you build your website once and the system – in the background* – auto-adjusts to display content properly on all devices (except the oldest cell phones).

*using CSS media queries and fluid grids.

The Boston Globe newspaper is a good example of successful responsive web design. Click on this link – enter the URL given on the picture – and view the resulting display on different devices.

The advantages of responsive web design:

• Maintenance is less costly because there’s only one repository of content. No need to worry about updating parallel web pages or web sites.
• Optimised SEO. No duplication of content across parallel web pages or web sites with different URL’s. Needless to say, responsive web design is Google’s preferred solution.
• Using one single URL for a piece of content makes it easier for your users to interact with, share, and link to your content.

The disadvantage of responsive web design:

• Considerable effort and resources are needed to adjust an existing website for responsive design. Best (and cheapest) is to start redesigning a website from scratch, applying the mobile-first philosophy.
• Using this method, your website will often appear to “adjust” itself as you resize your browser. You may find that it doesn’t quite cater for all your clients’ needs. Hence the importance of identifying your clients’ mobile behaviour and expectations. Use Customer Personas to do so.

2. Adaptive web design (AWD).

When a customer visits your website, it’s possible for your web server to detect and identify the user’s device. It then delivers a customised* web page, made to match the device’s capabilities. There need to be as many such customised web pages as there are devices that are likely to access the web site: cell phones, smart phones, tablets, desktop computers and even Smart TVs.

*Using a predefined template with fixed layout sizes.

Adaptive design is labour intensive and hence expensive. It is at the high end of website design. It’s often used by big companies that have a big budget and important online business objectives.

The advantages of adaptive web design:

• Just like responsive design, there’s only one repository of content.
• Sharing the same URL means optimised SEO.

The disadvantage of adaptive web design:

• This approach isn’t for the faint-hearted. It requires highly skilled web developers. Multiple predefined templates need to be managed and maintained, which raises ongoing maintenance cost.

3.  Create separate mobile websites, with separate URL’s.

With this option, you create a separate web site for mobile traffic, independent of your original desktop site. The browser detects if a visitor is on a mobile device and redirects him to the mobile-optimised version of your site.

Many web developers opt for a mobile version that sits on a subdomain of the main website. For example, if a desktop version is on www.swisscom.com, the mobile version might be on m.swisscom.com. A dedicated mobile site allows you to tailor the site specifically for mobile users and is often independently built and hosted.

For example IM Creator is an excellent mobile site builder.

The advantages of a mobile site with a separate URL:

• Quick and easier (hence cheaper) implementation.
• Comes in handy as a temporary solution. Allows testing and experimenting with mobile content.
• The ability to offer mobile-specific services, for example mobile coupons or QR codes – services that are not relevant to desktop users.

The disadvantage of a mobile site with a separate URL:

• As a parallel to your main site, it’ll need updating. Duplicate content on the web requires tricky technical gymnastics, so as not to confuse SEO and Google.
• More difficult for users to interact with, share, and link to your content.
• Google tolerates separate mobile sites and hence separate URL’s – but prefers solutions that only require one URL.

The option you choose will depend on your individual circumstances.

Each of the above 3 solutions allows you to create device-specific web content. But in the end, what matters most is how content on a page is arranged and delivered to the user, based on the device being used to access it.

If the end-user enjoys the experience and gets what he needs, our business objectives are more likely to be met.

Now it’s your turn!

1. Evaluate your current website with a tool such as Google Page Speed Insights, discuss the results with your web service provider and consider implementing a few basic changes, such as bigger sign-up forms and buttons.

2. Ask friends and trusted clients to connect to your website with a mobile device and give you (honest) feedback about how mobile-friendly your site is.

3. Review existing content and make it more device-specific.
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Video | A review of 3 important mobile design options.

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The world goes mobile – Recommended resources.

Mobile First – by Luke Woblewski, highly recommended!

How to approach multi-device sites for your Business – a Google perspective.

Mobile responsive design 101 – an excellent article from Copyblogger.

Three reasons why responsive web design is the best option for your mobile SEO strategy – by Searchenginewatch

Multiple strategies for multiple screens – an informative slide presentation, deposited on Slide Share.

Photocredits

Header image kindly provided by Thomas Hawk, Flickr

This article covers these 3 topics:

1. The equipment you need.
2. How to make your voice sound good.
3. Publish the audio file on your WordPress platform (How To video)

But before we delve into the details, let’s ask ourselves why we should bother with audio in the first place? Once again, I use a business scenario to illustrate a real life context.

This article is one of a series, adressing key issues of web content production. You may also want to check out: How to deliver valuable content with powerful video and script.

The Business Scenario

Global Insurance SA face the challenge of keeping their large pool of insurance account managers up-to-date about the products they sell.

Since the creation of the company over 50 years ago, it’s been a tradition at Global Insurance to organise two large corporate training events a year; an opportunity for account managers to network and be trained.

These days, product updates are on the increase whilst training budgets decrease.

The company needs to find new ways of communicating product updates to account managers in between the two traditional corporate training events.

The Solution

A brainstorming session with John, Frieda and Mary reveals that account managers spend a lot of time on the road: in their car or hotel room.

Both John and Mary love listening to talk shows while driving. John is an avid radio listener at night when settling down in the hotel room.

Based on many more discussions with account managers throughout the company, Global Insurance SA opted for product updates to be delivered via podcasts.

Account managers download audio files to mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets. Hence, product update information is easily accessible and may be “consumed” by account managers when it suits them best.

To summarize, here are 3 reasons why Global Insurance SA opted for the audio solution.

1. Insurance account managers, when on the road, spend a lot of time alone and generally enjoy being entertained by listening. The flexibility of pushing product update information via audio is being seen as positive by a large number of account managers.

2. Audio files are mobile device friendly. Their file size is smaller than video. Downloading is quick (important when Internet connections are shaky). Once available on the device, listening is possible anywhere, for example whilst driving a car.

3. Audio – as opposed to video – is technically less challenging and faster to produce. By opting for audio to push company critical information out to the sales force, Global Insurance SA has retained a low resource, cost effective solution.

How to create audio. General advice and equipment.

Microphone.

It is commonly agreed that a good quality USB microphone is the most straight forward way to produce quality voice recording. All that’s needed is to put it into a Mac or PC’s USB port. No other wiring is required.

Here’s an excellent review of quality USB microphones.

If you’re looking for higher quality mics, check out this site.

Recorder software.

Once your microphone is branched to your computer, you need software to record your voice. Both Windows and Mac have built in basic recording software.

I prefer using a free open source software called Audacity which allows me to play around with my voice recording. For example I can cut out impurities or make my voice louder, faster, deeper – whatever it takes to optimize my impact on the listener.

There’re tons of free and paying software tools for voice recording. Here are 10 tips and tools for recording audio.

Please record in MP3 format. It makes a lot of sense to use the most popular file format, and MP3 is the de facto format for voice recording applications.

Make the audio and your voice sound good.

Please remember that audio is a very intimate medium. When you record, imagine that you are talking directly to each person.

I’ve selected a few extracts of a long article that has been published a few years (2005) back by Jack Herrington, author of the book Podcasting Hacks. Excellent advice that’s still relevant today, despite technological advances.

Look after your voice.

Room-temperature water soothes the vocal cords and opens up the oesophagus. Ginger tea is particularly beneficial for the throat. Drink as much tea as you like to keep your throat relaxed and ready. Adding honey provides a bit of a coating for your throat. Don’t drink ice water, as it can tighten the vocal cords.

Don’t drink milk or consume other dairy products before a recording session. These create thick mucus on the back of the throat that results in much throat clearing and seems to restrict the vocal cords.

Microphone distance.

You should be about a hand’s width away from the microphone. Put your thumb at your lips and your little finger on the microphone and use your hand as a spacer between the two. By getting closer, the microphone will accentuate the lower frequencies. This makes your voice sound fuller and more intimate.

Microphone positioning.
Ideally, the microphone should be slightly above you (or below you) and off to the left or right by up to 45 degrees. The vertical elevation will cut down on mouth noises. And the left or right adjustment will suppress “plosives.” Plosives are the bursts of air that come out of your mouth when you say hard consonants like “p” or “b.” These will create a popping sound unless dampened.

Headphones.

A good rule of thumb is that anyone who has their own microphone should be wearing monitor headphones so that they can adjust their voice and position for optimal recording.

Exercise your voice.

Ready to record? I’m embedding an audio file with voice exercises you can do before a recording. The original file can be found on Ann Utterback’s blog Online Voice Coaching. Click on the image here below to launch the audio file.

And now it’s your turn!

1. Imagine a business scenario for audio, relating to your own organisation.

2. Watch my 4 minute video here below and learn how to embed an audio file into a WordPress page or post.
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Video | How to publish the audio file on your WordPress Platform

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Recommended books

Expert Podcasting Practices For Dummies

Podcasting Hacks – Tips and tools for blogging out loud.

Podcasting Bible – by Mitch Ratcliffe

Photocredits:

Header picture kindly provided by Zoomar, Flickr
under creative commons license.

As an increasing number consumers connect to the Internet with one or several mobile devices, video becomes a powerful way to reach new customers. In this article, you discover a roadmap which helps you make videos that actually have an impact, rather than ending up on the ever increasing heap of visual cacophony.

But before we delve into the nitty gritty of to do’s and not to do’s, let’s create a context, in other words, let’s do a scenario.

This article is one of a series, adressing key issues of web content production. You may also want to check out: visual communication, and how to respect copyright by using Creative Commons and it’s attribution license.

The Business Scenario

TopOfTheWorlds Corp. is a Management and Sales Training firm, serving senior management and executives.

Jana and her partners at the firm are fans of Content Marketing and presently produce two blog posts per month.

Using the technique of Customer Personas, they have been able to pinpoint specific problems and issues that senior executives struggle with.

Based on this preparatory work, the articles they write are truly helpful and relevant to their customers, because they cover clearly identified worries and preoccupations. And it pays! Over the past months, TopOfTheWorlds Corp. observed a steady increase of sign-ups to their mailing list.

Recently, Jana has come across an interesting report by Forbes, entitled Video in the C-Suite. Executives embrace the non-text web. The Forbes report talks about executives transforming their habits to be more open to video—the non-text Web—as a highly reliable and trusted source for gathering and filtering business information.

Jana is excited by these findings and sees an opportunity for her business. How can she go about, wrapping already existing, high quality content in a different way – hence giving her busy audience an additional choice in the way they acquire information?

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The Solution

This article covers 5 concrete steps which lead to your video success.

STEP 1 – Find out whether your audience is ready for video.

Before engaging company resources and money on video, it pays to have a careful look at your Customer Personas, and refine what you already know about their habits. It might be that your target audience hangs on Twitter all day, or on the contrary, avoids anything to do with social media. But it is most likely that the “truth” is somewhere in the middle.

There are two simple ways to find out:

1. Check out what the statistics say. A good place to get statistics is http://www.comscore.com/, a global leader in digital measurement and analytics.

2. Vital! Ask your customers. But be smart when doing so. Closed questions such as  “Do you like video?” may not give you the authentic feedback you need.

Prefer open questions such as “What is your favourite way of learning what’s happening in your industry” or “in an ideal world, what would make life easier for you when it comes to gathering news about your industry?”.

Finding out more about likes and dislikes of your specific target audience is a bit like peeling an onion, you strip the outer skins layer by layer, until you get to the core.

Remember, statistics and consumer surveys alone are not sufficient to justify the launching of a new project.

Here are 2 examples:

Example 1

Based on this chart, video does not appear to be the bees’ knees if your audience comprises women in France:

Male users account for 70 percent of time spent consuming online-video in France.

Example 2

However, based on this chart, it appears that women are consuming more video than men!

Women like watching video on the Web — even more than men do: 57 percent of Netflix.com visitors are women, and 59 percent of Hulu’s visitors are women.

PS: Netflix and Hulu are platforms that reunite in one place TV shows, online video clips and films (movies) – created by many different film makers and production companies. Click on the image to view the full report by Peter Kafka of allthingsd.com, entitled “Hey Ladies! Guess Who Loves Web Video?”

STEP 2 – Indispensable! Write a script for your video.

It helps you stay focused when negotiating with your internal or external video production team.

Remember that people are inclined to watch video as a story, so structure what you say with a beginning, a middle and an end. While you may be tempted to explain everything (you love) about your business, keep it simple. Don’t drown your viewer with detail. Much has been written about web video scripting. I highly recommend you watch the 2 minute video for a quick summary and – if you want to learn more – check out my proposed “Homework” for you, as well as the links under Reading Materials Summary at the end of this post.

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STEP 3 – Embed calls to action in your video.

The most obvious place to embed your call to action is at the end. Every good story must have an ending!

A most effective ending is clear communication of what the person should do next. For example:

“Being stranded without a job is not easy, but we have the experience and the know-how to help you through this.
So call us, right now, and let’s get started.”

This being said, not everyone will watch your video to the end. Consider introducing calls to action at the beginning as well as in the middle of your story.

Tip. The link back to your web page must be easy to type and remember. Think about this when you first create your web landing page. Having to rename web pages later is a pain, especially when they’re already indexed and well positioned in search engines.

If you want to learn more about calls to action, check out the links under Reading Materials Summary at the end of this post. There’s a very useful PDF, ready for download.

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STEP 4 – Outsource the production of your video.

Latest statistic keep showing that quality is a major factor of video viewing success. Take this Comscore report: When supply meets demand. The changing shape of online video in Europe.

A lot is being written about how easy it is to create online video yourself. But in reality, creating high quality video is a skill that is best left to specialists who have dedicated their time experimenting with and learning this very sophisticated craft.

Experienced video producers give highest priority to sound. The best script and most awesome imagery are wasted if the sound is bad.

Another important element is lighting. When you get both sound and light right, your script shines and your business truly conveys credibility and authority.

A plea for outsourcing: dedicate your own time to what you’re best at, it’s cheaper in the long run! Who wants to spend (precious and expensive) hours grappling with complex video technology and end up with amateurish results that make your customers cringe?

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STEP 5 – You don’t need an search engine optimisation (SEO) guru to do fundamental search engine optimisation for video.

If you publish to YouTube, here are 3 tips that optimise lead generation big time.

1. Video Title: Getting the Title right is essential. Again, revert back to your Customer Persona and reflect about the keyword phrase she would enter to find a solution to her pain. Weave this keyword phrase into your video title and you greatly increase the chance that your business is found by the right target audience. Remember that the video title should be fewer than 66 characters.

2. Video description: Can be longer (2-3 sentences or more is fine). The same SEO logic applies as outlined in point 1. Write an attractive summary of your video’s content whilst integrating relevant keywords and variations of keywords. Important! At the beginning of your description, position a link (starting with http://) back to your website.

Why is it important? A cool benefit of video is its favourable impact on SEO. Google, for example, loves high quality video content. A video with relevant titles and description has a high potential to be well positioned in Google search engine results.

And don’t forget: If you video is found and viewed, make sure you “drive” viewers back to your website, specifically to pages that display clear calls for action. This maximises lead generation from YouTube.

3. Tags. Include at least 5-7 relevant keywords as tags for your video. Using tags will associate your video with other similarly tagged videos, which will allow your video to be shown as a “related video.” This will help you generate additional views from people who were originally watching other videos.

Now it’s your turn!

If you like to dig deeper into this topic, I propose a 4 step action pack. Hope you’ll find it useful. Please drop me a line and I’ll be glad to be of further help.

1. Watch my 2 minute video teaser about script writing.

2. If you have the time, dig a little deeper into script writing by watching this excellent 8 minute video, produced by a UK video production company.

3. Check out recommended reading under Reading Materials Summary (navigate to the bottom of this page).

4. Put what you’ve learnt into practice: write a script for a one minute video. Subject: promote one specific service or product your company is particularly proud of. If you so wish, I gladly read your script and give you feedback.

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Reading materials summary

A useful blog post about writing a video script – How to write a video script

Calls to action – An Introduction to effective calls-to-action (PDF from Hubspot)

Photocredits:

The header image is kindly offered by Adam Forster at Flickr
under the Creative Commons license.

“Without images, your ideas may be lost in a sea of words, and without words, the image may be lost to ambiguity”.

This is a quote from Robert E. Horn, an award-winning scholar at Stanford University’s Center for the study of Language and Information.

Horn goes on to say:

“When words and visual elements are closely entwined, we create something new and we augment our communal intelligence.

Visual language has the potential for increasing “human bandwith” – the capacity to take in, comprehend, and more efficiently synthesize large amounts of new information.”

And whilst we’re giving tribute to visuals, here are 3 statistics that reinforce the above statement:

1. 90% of information sent to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60’000 times faster in the brain than text. (Sources: 3M Corporation and Zabisco)

2. 40% of people respond better to visual information than plain text. (Source: Zabisco)

3. Publishers who use infographics attract 12% more traffic than those who don’t. The words “infographic” and infographics” are searched an average of 547’000 times per month in Google. (Source: AnsonAlex)

In this article, you’ll discover 6 highly recommended visual resources.

But before we delve into practical advice, let me put this topic into a context or, in fashionable marketing speak, let’s create a “story” (albeit a very short one).

The Business Scenario

In Lesson 3 we commiserated with business owner John about a reported low average visit duration on many of his web pages (as reported by Google Analytics).

If we asked Sherlock Holmes, his reply might well be: “Elementary, my dear Watson – you must learn how to write powerful headlines!”

The Solution

But what if the reason for low visit duration was not only due to weak headlines, but also because John’s web pages are bland and boring?

Boring web pages may well make the difference between a visitor abandoning a site, or wanting to stick around for a little longer.

This being said, and you may agree with me: finding an enticing image that complements a text intelligently, is a huge pain.

Indeed, there are many free resources for stock photography out there. But I have found that digging around mediocre sites takes a lot more of my time and energy than I would like to invest.

Hence the importance of acquiring the smart approach, which starts with knowing where to go.

The right image doesn’t need to be expensive. It’s more a question of relevance, imagination and an intimate understanding of your audience’s values and beliefs.

If you get your image right, it could even be said that you better your chance of reaching your business objectives.

Because a powerful image attracts eyeballs and enhances your standing, whilst cheap looking visuals have the opposite effect: they undermine your authority and credibility, and make your website look amateurish.

There’re lots of images for sale at very reasonable prices. Starting with 3 Euros, you can get a small sized picture that will do to your website what steroids do to your muscles!

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My 6 favourite image data banks.

Images: 1. iStockphoto  2. Fotolia  3. Flickr

Infographics:  4. VisualLy  5. DailyInfographic  6. Kissmetrics

1. iStockphoto
Has a wide selection of stock photography at very good prices.

2. Fotolia
Similar to iStockPhoto. Hard to describe the differences between two very large banks of images, but in general Fotolia seem to have more artistic (and less corporate) images.

3. Flickr
Flickr is equal to both iStockphoto and Fotolia, but it has different strengths. Flickr is strong on landscape and botanical photography. It also has a range of great (and unusual) images of people.

Flickr Licensing
I used to be worried about doing the wrong thing regarding licensing and avoided Flickr because of that. But since I’ve understood how Flickr handles licensing issues, I am totally reassured. What’s required is to search for images under the Creative Commons Attribution license and make sure to give credit by naming and linking back to the photographer. (I have done exactly that at the very end of this article).

Navigate down this page and watch my 2 minute video which explains how to search for images with the Attribution license.

4. VisualLy
This website’s tagline is Telling Stories with Data. This is a platform and marketplace where both buyers and sellers of infographics meet and share visuals. It also provides a few simple tools that allow you to create your own infographics, if you’re that way inclined.

5. Dailyinfographic
This is an infographic curation site. Every week day they publish a stimulating infographic based on their findings on the Internet. If you’re heavily into infographics, subscribe to their RSS feed to get a daily infographic delivered to your Inbox.

6. Kissmetrics
They’re a sophisticated web analytics platform. Their (wide) range of infographics tends to focus on Internet marketing. But it’s well worth a look.

Publish infographics on your site

Most infographics ask nothing more than to be shared. Some sites (visual.ly) provide an embed code. By pasting this code into your web page, the infographic will display directly on your website, without the visitor needing to click a link.

Unfortunately, not all sites make it that easy for us. If there’s no embed code, save the infographic on your computer as an image file. To do so, click with the right mouse button on the image and execute the command Save as image. Then it’s simply a question of inserting the image file into your web page.

Important:

Infographics are usually subject to the same Attribute license we discussed previously.

Please make sure you link back to the site where you found the infographic, and give credit where it’s due!

Now it’s your turn

1. Watch my 2 minute video about how to search for pictures in Flickr with the Creative Commons Attribution license. (navigate to the end of this page)

2. Select a picture in Flickr and insert it into your website. If you do not know how to do this, please leave a comment here below and request help.

3. Please view Thinking Visually – a slide presentation by David Armano. Effective communication is everyone’s job—whether you are trying to sell a concept, convince a client or simply rally people around an idea. Visual Thinking can help us take in complex information and synthesize it into something meaningful.

Reading materials summary

The Power of Visual Communication

The Lazy Blogger’s Guide to Finding Great Post Images

10 Tools for creating Infographics and Visualisations

Logic + Emotion – David Armano’s Blog

Authors and Books

The Design of Business – Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage – Roger Martin

Photocredit:
The header image is kindly provided by Paula Bailey, Flickr.com
under the Creative Commons license.

And the harder you try to get something going, the more your brain seems to return a blank.

It’s not that you lack talent, motivation or know-how – you’ve always been on time delivering great content in the past.

But hey, you aren’t superman(woman)! As much as it’s tempting, you find that there are earthly limits to putting on that cloak.

And there are challenges when you launch your fountain pen to magically deliver ideas to a pile of blank sheets, whilst you jet up and down office floors, pleasing colleagues, clients and other people in distress.

If you happen to be in a (temporary) situation of low creative energy, here’s a way to borrow it from somebody else – either content, or ideas, or both.

The Infographic comes from Copyblogger.

And if you want the words, check out 21 Ways to Create Compelling Content When You Don’t Have a Clue

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Like this infographic?

Get more ideas about Content Marketing from Copyblogger and, of course, from SoYouWantAChange.com, right here in Geneva, Switzerland 🙂

Writing a Newsletter is strategically delivering words that get people to take some form of action.

Do you agree?

The Business Scenario

John runs a small business. He has 3 employees and works hard to stay competitive in an increasingly globalised market.

He’s just spent Sunday afternoon writing an article for the electronic newsletter he plans to send out on Monday.

It’s an important Newsletter because it announces the launch of a new product.

A previous Newsletter publishing a new service did not yield much interest amongst the clients and leads on his distribution list.

This time, John wants to do better. He asks himself:

What do I need to do so that more people read and sign-up to my Newsletter?

The Solution

Let’s start with the objectives: what is our main goal for writing anything to be published online: be it an email, a newsletter, a blog post or a tutorial?

No doubt we want people to read what we write, right?

Let’s examine 3 core principles for delivering words that have an impact on your audience and – key! – help us reach our business goals.

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1. Get the next sentence read.

Every element of writing has just one purpose: to get the first sentence read, and then the second sentence, and so on until we’ve led our reader to a call for action which may be an offer, or a sign up form or a file download.

The first in the line is, of course, the Headline. The second is the opening paragraph. Guiding our reader from one sentence to another, kindling interest and curiosity with each phrase – here’s a truly artful endeavour.

Consider this: Legendary copywriter Gene Schwartz often spent an entire week on the first 50 words of a sales document: the headline and the opening paragraph.

Here’s an example of an article that takes the reader by the hand and leads him through each sentence. It’s drawn from a recent article by Sonia Simone of copyblogger.com.

Example

2. Properly convey product benefits.

When we write a document that is destined to boost our business goals , we’ll need to stress benefits, not features. Identify the underlying benefit that each feature of your product or service delivers, because that’s what will incite our potential customer to buy.

In other words, focus on the reader – make an important promise early on that tells the reader what’s in it for her.

To quote Brian Clark of copyblogger once again.

“We’re not as logical as we’d like to think we are. Most of our decisions are based on deep-rooted emotional motivations, which we then justify with logical processes.”

Highlighting benefits over features – seems easy enough. But in practice it’s often more difficult than we imagine. Let’s give it a try.

Example

A major challenge writers face is to avoid phony benefits. Here’s a short example inspired by a blog post by Clayton Makepeace, widely regarded as the world’s “Highest-paid Copywriter”.

Let’s take this title, written by a Tennis Coach as part of a blog post.

Play tennis perfectly.

At first glance, it sounds benefitial. But when we get right down to it, this text does not contain a real benefit.

Makepeace suggests that we apply his patented “forehead slap” test to see if our writing truly contains a benefit to the reader. In other words, have you ever woken up from a deep sleep, slapped yourself in the forehead, and exclaimed “WOW… I really want to play tennis perfectly!”

Most probably you have not. Getting someone to attend a tennis lesson on the grounds of learning to play perfectly may well prove difficult.

Now, let’s give it a different slant, by identifying the real benefit hidden in that title.

Hardly anybody aspires to play tennis perfectly. But most of us will not continue to play if we never ever win a match. Because, it’s not just about winning, it’s about earning the respect of other club members (the desire for winning is amplified if you’re a young man in search of a girlfriend).

So how about the title “How to win at least one tennis match a month” ?

3. Include a clear and concise call for action

This implies 2 things:

1. Don’t be shy

Make it straightforward for the reader to grasp that you have an offer. Avoid being shy or discrete about the action you seek. Choose words that help you come accross assertive rather than agressive. Your readers are not innocent wall flowers. If you genuinly strive to provide valuable solutions to your clients, they are perfectly fine with your including a call for action.

2. Make it easy

Readers are busy. Make sure any call for action is only one or two simple mouse clicks away. Missing or badly positioned sign-up forms are a dreadful way to loose a potential client or lead, especially if you’ve spent lots of time and effort writing a great article.

Example

A call for action, only one click away.

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Now it’s your turn

If you’d like to learn more about the topic of writing for business success, I recommend the following 3 steps:

1. Watch the 4.5 minute video tutorial about benefits and features (navigate to the bottom of this page).

2. Practice writing a newsletter for your business that contains a) a Headline, b) an opening paragraph and c) 3 paragraphs, each describing a benefit, based on your product’s features.

3. Check out my selected reading materials (down here).

Reading materials summary

How to highlight benefits over features – Brian Clark

Make your product’s benefits sparkle – Clayton Makepeace

Authors and Books

Breakthrough Advertising – Eugene M. Schwartz

Photocredits:
Header picture kindly provided by Magdalena Pestana, Flickr.com
under Creative Commons license.

Writing a headline that draws the attention is some form of art, but it’s also a skill you can learn.

Today I reveal some of the secrets of great headline writing.

This article is part of a series which addresses key issues and opportunities of web content production. To complete the techniques we propose here, you may also want to check out: How to craft words that boost your business goals | Learn how to master features and benefits.

The Business Scenario

Company XYZ Investments have done a great job getting their blog articles found on the Internet by potential customers whom they had carefully targeted.

A recent blog post they wrote, offers free financial advice to French nationals living and working in Switzerland. Indeed, the most recent Google analytics report indicates a burst of new visitors. They seem to have hit the jackpot!

However, studying the Google analytics report in more detail, they observe a very low average visit duration. People seemingly don’t stay for long on the site, which indicates that they don’t read the content.

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There’re many reasons why a website returns low average visit duration rates.

One easy way to improve, is to review existing Headlines.

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The Solution

Now, let’s discover sure fire headlines that are proven to work.

But in fact, what is a headline?

It has been said that a headline is a promise to your audience. It’s the benefit you’ll deliver – for example in a written document or a video – in exchange for a reader’s valuable time.

Here’s how you learn

Let me guide you through a 3-step “action pack” which brings you up to speed with headline writing.

1. Watch the 3.5 minute video (down here)

2. Follow the Headlines Guide (also down here) and create 5 headlines relating to your own Customer Personas. If not already done, discover and learn about Customer Personas by clicking on the link.

3. Navigate to my Reading Materials Summary (also down here). Improve your headline writing skills by reading as much as you can.

The Headlines Guide

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1. HOW TO Headlines

It’s been said that it is almost impossible to write a bad How To headline. But what comes after these two words can make all the difference. Here are a few examples. Look at the Customer Persona you’ve crafted for yourself, and imagine a headline that truly vibrates with your persona’s goals and pains.

2. LIST Headlines

This kind of headline builds on your authority and demonstrates a mastery in your area of expertise.

3. ATTENTION GRABBING Headlines

If you consider How To and List headlines a little common, here are attention grabbing variations that you can easily adapt to your own needs.

Starting a headline with “Who else wants…” is a classic of social proof strategy that implies already existing consensus desire.

The “Here is a method that is helping…” headline is easy to set up and gives excellent returns. Simply identify your target audience (Customer Personas) and the benefit you can provide them.

And last but not least, there is the classic “Have your cake and eat it too…” headline, and who doesn’t like that?

Reading materials summary

How to write magnetic headlines

Authors and Books

Influence – Robert Cialdini

Advertising Headlines that make you rich – David Garfinkel

Photocredit:

The header picture is kindly provided by John Ragai, Flickr
under the Creative Commons license.