A simple way to think about it:

• Social media helps people notice your judgment.
• Your website helps people verify your expertise.
• Your email newsletter helps people spend more time with your thinking.

You may use all three, but one should lead for the next 30 days.

Start With the Client Decision Process

Before choosing a channel, look at how prospective clients decide whether to hire you.

Ask yourself:

• How do people usually find me?
• What do they read before they contact me?
• How long have they known me before they inquire?
• Where do interested people seem to stop?
• What questions do they still have before they are ready?

This gives you better information than asking which platform is best.

The best channel is the one that helps repair the weakest point in your client decision process.

Choose Social Media When People Need to Notice Your Thinking

Social media is useful when prospective clients need to become familiar with you.

This may happen on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Threads, Substack Notes, or another platform where your people already spend time.

Social media lets people observe:

• What topics you return to
• What you notice
• What you question
• What you recommend
• How you respond to other people’s ideas
• How you think through a situation

For an experienced consultant, coach, or service provider, judgment matters.

A useful social post does more than share a tip. It shows how you assess a problem.

You might share:

• A recommendation you gave a client and why
• A marketing tactic you chose to skip
• A pattern you noticed across several client projects
• A choice that saved time or prevented wasted work
• A commonly repeated recommendation that lacks context

The post should give the reader enough information to understand your thinking.

It should also lead somewhere.

That next step might be:

• A related article
• A newsletter subscription
• A short assessment
• A service page
• A workshop
• A reply or conversation

Without a next step, social media can create recognition without creating a client path.

Choose Your Website When People Need Proof

Your website matters when people already know your name or have become curious about your work.

At that stage, they may be asking:

• Does this person work with people like me?
• Do they understand my situation?
• Have they handled this kind of problem before?
• Can I understand their process?
• What do they sell?
• What happens if I contact them?

Your website needs to support that review.

A homepage alone usually cannot do the whole job.

Your website should include pages that help prospective clients understand your expertise, your process, your offers, and your point of view.

This may include:

• Articles that answer questions clients ask before hiring
• FAQ pages that answer specific decision-stage questions
• Service pages built around client situations
• Case examples or client stories
• A clear description of your process
• Proof tied to the type of work you want to sell
• A next step that fits the reader’s level of interest

I would focus on your website when people know your name, but your inquiries are vague, inconsistent, or poorly matched.

That often points to missing information during the research stage.

Choose Your Email Newsletter When People Need More Time

Some services require more trust than one website visit can create.

A prospective client may be considering a longer engagement, sharing private business information, changing a process they have used for years, or paying for advice they cannot fully evaluate in advance.

An email newsletter gives that person repeated contact with your thinking.

Over time, the reader learns:

• Which problems you take seriously
• How you make recommendations
• How you treat clients
• What you believe leads to a good result
• Whether your advice fits their working style
• What kind of work you are available to do

This creates a record of your thinking.

But a newsletter needs to connect your ideas to your paid work.

A reader can enjoy your emails for months and still miss the fact that you offer a service that helps with the exact problem you write about.

Your offers need to appear often enough that the connection becomes clear.

You can mention a client question, explain part of your process, share what you are seeing in your work, or invite readers to get help with the decision covered in the email.

I would focus on your newsletter when people need time before hiring you, referrals matter to your business, or your best clients tend to follow your work for several months before getting in touch.

Give Each Channel a Different Job

You do not need every channel to do the same thing.

That creates extra work and mixed messages.

Instead, give each channel a clear job.

Once each channel has a job, choose one lead channel for the next 30 days.

Your lead channel gets your strongest thinking, your clearest invitation, and most of your attention.

The other channels support it.

For example:

You might publish the full article on your website, share one decision from it on LinkedIn, and send the article to your newsletter subscribers with a short story and an invitation to reply.

Or your newsletter may contain the full article. Your social post introduces the central idea, and your website holds the service page, FAQ pages, and related resources.

The point is not to be everywhere.

The point is to help the right person keep moving.

How to Know Which Channel Should Lead

Focus on the channel closest to the gap in your client decision process.

Choose social media when:

• Qualified people need to discover your thinking
• You need more visibility with the right audience
• People do not yet associate you with a clear topic
• Your network needs reminders about what you do
• You want to start more conversations

Choose your website when:

• People visit but do not inquire
• Your offers are not clear enough
• Your articles answer questions but do not lead anywhere
• Your expertise is scattered across too many places
• Prospective clients need proof before contacting you

Choose your email newsletter when:

• People need more time before hiring
• Your service requires trust
• Referrals matter to your business
• You want to build a stronger relationship with readers
• Your best clients tend to follow your work before reaching out

The lead channel can change.

You are not making a permanent decision. You are choosing where to focus your best effort for the next 30 days.

Connect Each Piece of Content to a Client Decision

A good piece of content should help the reader make a decision.

It may help them:

• Name the problem
• See why the problem keeps happening
• Compare possible choices
• Rule out a poor fit
• Decide what to do next
• Decide who they trust to help

Before you publish, ask:

What decision can the reader make after reading this?

Then ask:

What decision comes after that?

Your call to action should match the second answer.

For example:

The connection should feel natural. The paid offer should continue the work started by the content.

A Simple Channel Decision Check

Use this before choosing where to focus next.

If you cannot answer these questions, do not start by posting more.

Start by looking at the path a prospective client follows before deciding whether to contact you.

Examples of Weak and Strong Channel Choices

Weak choice

“I need to be better at LinkedIn.”

This is too broad.

It does not say what LinkedIn needs to do, who the content is for, or what should happen next.

Stronger choice

“For the next 30 days, I will use LinkedIn to show how I think about content decisions. Each post will lead to a related article or newsletter issue, so interested readers have a next step.”

This gives the channel a job.

Weak choice

“I should update my website.”

This may be true, but it is not specific enough to guide action.

Stronger choice

“I will update my service page and add two FAQ articles that answer the questions people ask before booking a marketing planning session.”

Now the website has a role in the client decision process.

Weak choice

“I need to send my newsletter more often.”

Frequency alone is not the strategy.

Stronger choice

“I will send one useful email each week that connects a client question to my point of view, then include a clear invitation when I can help with that problem.”

This makes the newsletter part of the path from trust to inquiry.

What Should I Do First?

Choose one channel to lead for the next 30 days.

Then give it one clear job.

Ask:

• Do I need people to notice my thinking?
• Do I need stronger proof on my website?
• Do I need more repeated contact with people who already know me?

Once you answer that, choose the channel that fits the gap.

Then create content that helps the reader make one useful decision and gives them a relevant next step.

You do not need your website, social media, and newsletter to do the same work.

You need them to work together.

If you want help choosing the right focus and turning it into a 30-day plan, Clarity & Action: Your 30-Day Marketing Plan gives you a focused session and 30 days of support to help you follow through.

Related Reading (Similar, and paid version has 5 advanced prompts to help you implement this system.)

The post Should I Focus on My Website, Social Media, or an Email Newsletter? appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

10 years and my message remains just about the same

Recently I was invited to be a guest on the New Bern Now podcast, interviewed by the New Bern Podsquad. Wendy Card, the founder, and publisher of New Bern Now, worked with me in a mentoring program about 10 years ago and she wanted to catch up.

Following is a 16 minute clip from the episode and we talked about my journey in online marketing, how COVID impacted business and most importantly, why businesses – local and online – need to have a website.

A lightly edited transcript with time stamps of the relevant parts (not the chit chat), follows below the video.

Edited Video Transcript

Kathy Morrison, First Vice President of the New Bern Historical Society (02:30):

We understand that you’re responsible for all of these great things that Wendy is doing. And Wendy has a whole list of things you’ve managed in the last year.

Denise Wakeman (02:42):

Well I’d say, I might have been responsible at the very beginning. But she’s taken off and implemented some amazing things. I’ve been watching.

Wendy Card, Editor-in-Chief, New Bern Now (02:55):

Honestly, I would have… If it wasn’t for you, … Before I met Denise, I was following everything that you did, that you recommended for people. You were giving free tips and tricks. So I would implement them here and there. And every single thing I did, it worked. So Denise is the real deal. And so I signed up for a six-month mentorship program. And every single thing, every assignment you gave me. And as long as people follow the assignment, they’ll be successful. And it just blew up and grew. But you really helped lasso that monster. And you do that every day with your clients, right?

Denise Wakeman (03:52):

That’s the idea. The key is… As you said, is taking action and doing the work. I can talk all day long, but if somebody doesn’t do it, then it won’t work. So that’s the beautiful thing about watching your progress, Wendy. Is that you’re out there doing it. And you take the next step, and the next step, and the next step. And here we are on Zoom (10 years later), with a video podcast.

Colleen Roberts, Public Information Officer of New Bern, NC (04:30):

For the folks who do not know, you tell us a little bit about what you do. I hear Marketing Trailblazers, I hear online visibility. Take us back to how it all started, and what your services encompass.

Denise Wakeman (04:44):

Oh my. Well, how it all started is a very long story. But essentially, I was with my then-husband in rural Canada, although I’m from Los Angeles. We wanted to start a business. And that was in 1996. And where we were … There weren’t very many people. So we realized that we were going to need the internet, even though it was still very new. Hardly anybody even had an email account at that time. And I just knew that I had to teach myself everything I possibly could about how to use the internet to reach people. And that’s what I did. We built a six-figure business coaching practice within a few years. And then I came back to LA, without the husband, and started working … I started my own business as a consultant, and helping people implement digital marketing.

Denise Wakeman (05:47):

And that was before there were blogs. And before there was social media. It was mostly websites, and pretty simple websites. They’re much more complex now, as you probably know, Wendy. Before podcasts, and before all of that stuff. So I work primarily as a consultant and done- with-you implementer. Because I feel that people need to know how things work for themselves. Mostly I work with small businesses, solo business owners, and small nonprofits to help them build their presence on the web. So that’s all encompassing. I look at a holistic picture. So the email marketing, that’s really critical. It’s the website, the social media. And look at what they want to achieve, and then create a system for them to get where they need to go.

Denise Wakeman (06:51):

So it’s a little bit different than when Wendy and I worked together because there wasn’t as much available for getting your message out. And as that changes on a weekly basis, if not daily. Now I say, “Okay, pick your platforms.” You don’t need to be every single place. But pick it, be consistent, and engage with people. That’s really what it comes down to, but there are foundational pieces too.

Colleen Roberts (07:24):

How did COVID affect your business? If at all?

Denise Wakeman (07:30):

It did affect my business, in that people sort of pulled back. A lot of business owners pulled back from investing in consulting or mentoring, that kind of thing. To some degree, not completely. It definitely accelerated the whole remote video thing. When people were saying, “Hey, have you ever used Zoom?” I’m like, “Yes, for about seven years now.” But you know, it didn’t stop. My business didn’t stop, but it changed more to outreach and community building. And I just continued putting stuff out there, putting stuff out there.

Denise Wakeman (08:25):

And then at the end of last year, everything exploded again. There’s a lot of people who reassessed what they were doing in the small business community. Whether it’s bricks and mortar, or online business. A lot of people are taking a look at, “Do I want to be doing this anymore? Or do I want to try something new? I want to get out of the corporate workforce and do my own thing.” I’m working with a lot of people who are starting new ventures right now. So it’s opened up a lot of doors, closed a few doors. It’s all good.

Colleen Roberts (09:13):

That was one of the reasons I asked you that. A lot of people did completely switch gears. You know, let me pull back from what I’m doing, get a new education, and something I’ve always been interested in. And then, teach me or spend time with me, showing me how to increase my outreach, my PR. A lot of people did that, I think, when they were stuck at home and couldn’t do anything.

Denise Wakeman (09:38):

Exactly. They were thinking, “What do I want to do? Where am I?” And what I’ve noticed, is more people who want to get their message out in one way or another. So they may be an expert in something. They’ve been working in a career for years and years and years, but they want to either start a side gig, a lot of side gigs starting. Or a new business, or an additional business that’s more than a side gig. But they may not know all the pieces that are necessary for this day and age for connecting with people out there. What do you need to get started? Why do you need those things? Who are they that you’re going to be connecting with? So it’s always different. And everybody brings something different to the table. Which is, I guess, why I like it so much still after all these years.

Colleen Roberts (10:41):

Every day is different.

Do you still need a website?

Wendy Card (10:42):

And I have a question. So 10 years ago, you recommended, “Wendy, you need a website.” Because back then, I had a blog. I typed a website with HTML and CSS. So it was a static website. And then we finally merged into WordPress. But you said, “You have to have… That’s like your home base. And then social media, email, all that as is an extension. Podcasts.” Is that still your philosophy?

Denise Wakeman (11:17):

That is 100% still my philosophy. You need to have a place to send people that you’re meeting out in the world. So whether it’s meeting them face-to-face, or you’re meeting them on Facebook, or Twitter, or wherever you’re doing it… If you have a podcast, and you’re reaching people in an auditory or visual way with video, there needs to be a place to send people. And that home base is yours. That doesn’t belong to Facebook, and that doesn’t belong to Twitter, and doesn’t belong to anybody else but you. As long as you’re paying your hosting fees, that’s your home. And it’s really where people can go deeper, take a deeper dive with you.

Denise Wakeman (12:05):

So posting a nice picture and a quote on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, that’s great. That gives people a sense of who you are. It helps you connect. But then eventually, you got to take them home [your website/blog]. Yeah. And have coffee with them at home. But that’s where you can start sending them down the link trail to learn more about you. Send them to a more detailed About page. Ask them to sign up for a newsletter, or subscribe to your podcast or to your video, your YouTube channel, whatever it is that you’re doing. But if you’re only relying on those social sites, those social platforms, you’re on rented land. And they can close you down and kick you out without any hesitation. You may not even know why. I know this has happened to lots of people, so definitely start there. Email is the second foundational piece, after the website.

Wendy Card (13:17):

Well, that’s a great point. Because I know there’s a lot of businesses, specifically in New Bern, I’m sure around the world, that are only on Facebook. Or only on LinkedIn or something. And they don’t realize that those photos that they uploaded, if they don’t didn’t save them, they’re gone. Gone forever. And I try to tell people that, but they get tired of hearing me talk.

Denise Wakeman (13:51):

I would say, especially for a local business, you’re probably connecting with lots of local businesses. Because you’re Ms. New Bern. But yes, you need to have a page or a group on Facebook, because people are looking there. There are lots of people who check out what’s going on those sites. But in the end, you want to take them off in some way. Especially to get onto your email list. Because if… Let’s say all you have is a Facebook page, where you’re posting your menu or your daily deals, or whatever it is. And let’s say you post something that Facebook doesn’t like, and they shut you down. Well, if you haven’t been collecting email addresses, or sending people to your website, so they have no other way to get to know [what’s going on}. You’ve just lost all those people. They’re gone. Bye-bye. They’re on to something else where they can get that information.

Wendy Card (14:52):

Yeah. That’s so true. Wow. You nailed it.

Colleen Roberts (14:58):

You taught Wendy well.

Thank you to Wendy Card, Colleen Roberts, and Kathy Morrison of the New Bern Now Podsquad for hosting me on their show. One of my travel goals now is to visit New Bern, NC, and hike in the Croatan National Forest.

FREE Guide Reveals 18 Ways You Can Quickly Attract More Clients

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The post Do You Have to Have a Website? – Video Interview appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

Some of the topics Christina and I tackle on the show are:

• Why it is important for business owners to know how to build and maintain a website instead of having a webmaster take care of it
• What kind of people can benefit from learning WordPress
• What kind of websites can you build with WordPress?
• Why WordPress is better than other website tools out there
• What was Christina’s most memorable adventure

If you prefer, watch the video on YouTube here.

Download Christina Hills Free Report on WordPress Design

Recommended Reading

A Website Is Not Enough

10 Ways to Bring More Readers Back to Your Blog

Download the Audio 

For your convenience, the mp3 is posted below, from the live show with Christina:

[smart_track_player url=”https://soundcloud.com/denise-wakeman/christina-hills” title=”WordPress for Business and Visibility” artist=”Denise Wakeman” color=”#5181cd” social=”true” social_twitter=”true” social_facebook=”true” social_gplus=”true” ]

About the Guest

Christina Hills is a speaker, educator, mentor and Internet Marketing expert to non-techie entrepreneurs who want to build an online business using WordPress as their website platform. She puts the fun into teaching technology and empowers business owners to be in full control of their marketing.

Join Me for Future Adventures in Visibility

•  Watch previous Adventures
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Do you have a question about how to create a more visible presence on the Web? Click here to record your question and I’ll include it along with my answer in an upcoming show! 

The post WordPress for Business and Visibility | Adventures in Visibility with Christina Hills appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

Do you remember the early days of the Internet? 1995 or so? It was all pretty basic back then, and most businesses did not have a website.

The first website I created (well, someone else built it) was in early 1997. It was simple, probably four or five pages, promoting the coaching business my former husband and I had just launched in Canada. We were way ahead of the curve with that site.

Fast forward 18 years, and there are few businesses that do not have a website. In fact, according to Netcraft.com there are 177,296,984 active websites as of February 2015!

Most business owners, whether local or online, know they need a website now. But that’s not enough anymore.

Recently I went off on a bit of a rant in a small mastermind group with my business coach. I was feeling frustrated because I keep meeting business owners who feel that all they need online is a website. No blog. No social media.

They figure people will find their site in search results, and that will be enough for prospective customers to pull out their wallets and buy their thing or make an appointment for their service.

Your buyers want a connection with you, so they feel good about making their investment. A website is not enough anymore! Click to Tweet

Wrong! It might work a little bit, for a few people, but, for the most part, buyers are more discerning now. They want to see proof. They want to know you know what you’re talking about. They want to know they can trust you. They want a connection, so they feel good about making their investment. And if you don’t give that to them, they’ll get it from someone else. I guarantee it!

Selling via the Web has changed.

A static website with a few brochure-style pages doesn’t cut it anymore, yet I still see them when I roam around the Web or conduct audits for clients. At least 10 years ago, blogging was added to the mix and is now regarded as an essential feature for a successful business site. And yet, so many business owners still don’t have a blog and don’t want to deal with publishing blog posts.

What does a blog do for your business? 

A blog helps you build credibility and authority in your niche. It helps create proof and trust, and demonstrates to the buyer that you know what you’re doing.

What about social media? Are you using Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube or Pinterest for your business? If not, you’re missing opportunities to create connection and trust and “seal the deal” with the people you want to serve. 

Why am I harping on this? Because I talk to small business owners who tell me they don’t want to deal with a blog and they don’t want to bother with social media. They just want to set up a website and leave it at that. And honestly, it frustrates me. It’s not effective, and the business owner is not going to see the results they say they want.

Today’s consumer is far savvier than 20 years ago and does their research before clicking the buy button. Without trust borne out of a relationship, you may have trouble getting that prospective customer to type their credit card number into your online order form.

In many cases, the relationship starts on a social network. It’s like chatting at a party, getting to know one another. Then when you offer entertaining and educational content on your blog, your fans may be ready for a date and some one on one time at your site (home base). Once there, you demonstrate your expertise and help them solve their problems. Finally, you move them into a more intimate relationship (your email list) with permission to send offers for your products and services.

UPDATE #1: I want to highlight a comment that was posted on Google+ by Stephan Hovnanian. What he points out really is the bottom line…it’s all about the customer experience and giving them what they want.

UPDATE #2: Check out this White Board Video from Rand Fishkin at Moz.com for serious reinforcement of my points…

Yes, it takes work. Yes, it takes time. It’s called marketing, and it’s about creating a successful, thriving business.

Before you start though, you need a clear strategy for building your online presence, and then you need to implement tactics to make it work. Please don’t approach your online marketing by doing the equivalent of throwing spaghetti at the wall to see if what sticks!

When I finished ranting to my coach, I realized it wasn’t about being frustrated by poor websites and lack of social savvy. It was about the passion inside me to show you the way, a way that is better than mediocre or incomplete, so you can be great and serve more people. 

If you feel like I’m talking directly to you and felt uncomfortable with my comments, let’s talk. I want your business to be great!

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