Is your strategy steering you wrong?
Is your strategy steering you wrong?
How to know if you're chasing the wrong goals for your business
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” —Lao Tzu
This week, our focus is on the small steps that build the foundation for our success.
Today’s agenda:
🌱 The root of sustainable business growth
📨 Boost your email subscribers
💻 Evergreen vs. classic content
💼 Briefly: AI clickbait, Photoshop alternatives, and childcare benefits
⏱️ Up & coming
🤔 Disruptive vs. pragmatic thinking
Do your goals center on disrupting your industry with a new concept, service, or product?
AI executive and WSJ bestselling author Alex Goryachev says this approach is actually counterproductive to what you want.
🍨 Leaders and teams who chase disruption end up focusing on the “flavor of the month”—and lose touch with reality
What to do instead
Think pragmatically: Rather than making your goal to revolutionize, use “small, measurable” milestones to test and refine your vision and maximize your success
Follow Dyson’s lead: Dyson’s founder sought to solve a simple issue with vacuum bags, created thousands of prototypes over several years, and became a smashing success by aiming to continuously make a better product
See value in each step: Remember that each step, whether it’s a failure or success, is building your business’s foundation and is crucial to the process
Stay in the know: Rather than “out-disrupting the disruptors,” keep your eye on your consumers and how their behavior is shaping your industry
💡 While disruption may no longer be the goal, it can become a byproduct of your success—as it was with Dyson.
🧑💻 Quick tips for more email subscribers
Basic email newsletter growth strategies are effective—but they have to be executed the right way for maximum impact.
📈 Here are the best ways to boost your signups, via Copyblogger:
Improve your lead magnet by enhancing its relevance and usefulness
Prominently and strategically position your CTAs
Add a signup within your emails for those who forwarded your email to someone
Create a referral program
Share your newsletter on your social channels
💡 Email newsletters are a powerful marketing strategy for businesses of any size, but they can be especially helpful for smaller businesses or solopreneurs due to the low cost and max potential impact.
✍️ Crafting classic content
Does your content strategy partially focus on creating “evergreen” content that will stand the test of time?
Robert Rose of Content Marketing Institute thinks the focus should instead be on “classic” content vs. simply evergreen.
📚 Here’s why:
Evergreen content aims to be “timeless” by not referencing time so it provides value forever—but not referencing time doesn’t necessarily mean it will stand the test of time
Classic content does two major things: It gives new readers something valuable, and existing readers ongoing value
Classic content’s relationship to its present moment is part of what makes it more relatable long-term
Classic content is rooted in powerful storytelling
💡 Rose’s ultimate argument is that classic content is going to be our “human advantage” against AI content—at least in the present.
Briefly
✉️ Compelling email opt-in examples that effectively seal the deal
🤖 Google is going to start cracking down on AI clickbait with “one of the biggest updates” in its history
📷 Image editing apps to try other than Adobe Photoshop that help you save without sacrificing the quality and features
👶 New study reveals that businesses with childcare benefits see a significant ROI
📹 YouTube shares guidance on the best times to post for maximum impact
Up & Coming
Want to know how Google SGE could impact your business? Check out the results from this new study.