Guard Your Business’s Greatest Asset: Yourself

by Mark Bloom | Jul 11, 2022 | Small Business Advice

avoid small business burnout

What Is Small Business Burnout?

As a small business owner, you end up juggling to keep all your balls in the air. You often have to do the work that your customers are paying you for. You have to keep your website updated (you do, don’t you?). You have to decide on how to market your business, products or services. You have to find and vet contractors, if you go that route, or employees, if you decide to hire.

It’s up to you to get a logo, use it everywhere and protect it. It’s on you to network, advertise and probably even keep the books. Solopreneurs face a danger of small business burnout. In fact, the numbers of businesses that fail are sobering:

18.4 percent of first-year businesses fail.
Almost half of all new businesses don’t make it five years.
More than 65 percent of businesses fail after 10 years.

How Can I Avoid Small Business Burnout?

Knowing your limits is great way to approach your business. While you want to succeed — everyone does — you can’t push yourself so hard and so long without physical, intellectual and emotional repercussions. Still, that’s easy to write and more difficult to implement. So here are some tips to protect your business’s greatest asset, namely yourself:

Guard your time off. Everyone needs downtime. You can’t be a solopreneur 24/7. Take time away from the business and don’t encroach on it. Tell your customers, as well as your employees, that you’re closed on Sunday, for example, and stick to it. Don’t answer the phone. Don’t check email. Unless you have an emergency service, it can wait until the next day.
Be conscious of how you spend your time. Spend your time doing the things that most help your business. Spend your time doing the things that only you can do. If you’re truly the most valuable asset of your business, make sure you use your time for the highest and best purpose. You don’t — and can’t — do everything yourself.
Delegate your less-important activities. When a task needs to be done, but you don’t need to do it, find someone else to do it for you. Delegate it to an employee or find a third-party contractor to do it for you. Things like creating your marketing materials or monthly newsletter are perfect for someone to do while you work on more vital projects, such as your business plan. This tip may be the best way to avoid small business burnout.
Streamline your business operations. If you have to do everything yourself, make it as simple for yourself as possible. That may mean downsizing your products and services. That may mean making your price list more standard (and sticking to it). That may mean focusing on only one or two social media sites. That may mean blogging monthly instead of weekly. These sacrifices may pay off in more time for the other business projects that are paying the rent.
Review and prioritize your time. Every few months, step back and review how you’re spending your time. Is something important slipping through the cracks? Do you need to focus on other things? This is the time to evaluate how you’re spending your time, to make sure your business is running smoothly, and you’re not overworking yourself.

If you suffer small business burnout, your business is doomed. Don’t let your endeavor become a statistic. To beat the odds and create a successful business, take care of your greatest asset: you. Protect your time and discover how best to spend the time you have.

Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.

How to Write to Sell

by Mark Bloom | Jun 27, 2022 | Writing

Write to sell and reap the profits

What’s the Purpose of Online Content?

Companies don’t create online content — for their website, blog, newsletter or social media — because they like doing it. No business owner likes to write content for the sake of publishing it. Businesses write to sell their products or services.

Even social media posts are ultimately trying to deliver leads, potential customers, to increase the company’s return on investment for creating the post in the first place. Businesses don’t do anything that doesn’t contribute to the bottom line. In other words, every business decision has to make money. Otherwise, why do it?

What’s the Formula for Writing to Sell?

There is a way to entice readers enough to encourage them to buy from you. As you can imagine, the formula is flexible enough to work for multiple industries, various products and a number of approaches. It’s therefore easy to learn, yet difficult to master. To write to sell, use the acronym AIDA:

Attention
Interest
Desire
Action

Attention is what you first need from your readers. Interest is what you have to generate through your written words. Desire is what you generate by accomplishing the first two things. Finally, action is how you inspire your readers to take the steps necessary to buy from you.

How Do I Get Readers’ Attention?

In this day and age, it’s more difficult than ever to get anybody’s attention. There are distractions and alternatives in every direction, and your competition is always one click away. So when you write to sell, you have to put a lot of thought into the headline of your article, blog post, email or social media post. Your headline or title line has to:

Stand out from the background noise of everyday marketing efforts
State a fact, pose a question or articulate a problem your readers want to learn about
Be succinct enough to do it in less than 15 words

To craft an effective headline, subject line or title, you have to know what your readers are looking for. Your company’s products or services have to solve at least one of their problems. Once you know that, you can write to sell. Examples include:

Why Your Business Needs a Newsletter
Is Your Business Name Top-of-Mind in Your Industry?
How Your Business Can Reach New Customers Consistently

How Do I Generate My Readers’ Interest?

Just as knowing your readers’ problems helps you create a captivating headline or opening, this information is a necessary ingredient to capture their interest. When you understand the issues your readers are grappling with, you can offer solutions … assuming your company has something they can use. Remember to:

Clearly state the problem as you believe your readers experience it.
Deliver the solution your business offers.
Don’t focus on features. Instead promote the advantages and benefits of your solution.

It’s a compelling formula. It’s a successful strategy. And when you can make it personal or emotional, your readers won’t be able to resist your pitch.

How Can I Get Readers to Desire My Solution?

If your readers have stayed with your content through the headline and are interested enough to keep going, you’ve learned to write to sell. Now you have to generate a desire for your solution, be it your product or your service. Desire is interest personified and amplified. Desire is a reason to take action. You can create desire by:

Announcing a limited-time sale
Providing a free sample
Guaranteeing satisfaction with a money-back offer

You create desire by giving your readers a reason to buy now. Another effective way to generate desire is to show that others bought your solution and it worked for them. These testimonials are called social proof, and when you use real customers with real photos of them, it creates another compelling reason to buy from you.

How Do I Get Readers to Act?

When you write to sell, you ultimately have to get your readers to do what it takes to buy from you. That last step, buying your products or services, is the purpose of creating your content. To encourage your readers to take this final step, you have to present a call-to-action that’s simple. You can try:

A single, large button that says, “Buy Now.”
A simple form for them to enter their name and email address.

When you keep your call-to-action simple, it doesn’t get in the way between them and a sale. Write to sell, and this last step converts those readers into customers, feeding your company’s bottom line. And that’s the real purpose of creating content for your company.

4 Reasons Businesses Hire Third-Party Writers

by Mark Bloom | Jun 13, 2022 | Content Provider

Why Hire Contract Writers for Your Business?

Small to mid-sized businesses and online agencies — website developers, web designers and SEO firms, for example — often seek to outsource the tasks that they themselves can’t do or don’t have the time to do. Providing or delivering content is one of the leading reasons for hiring third-party writers. Smaller companies may not have the need to hire a full-time writer, but they recognize the need for specific projects or their own marketing demands.

Developing a relationship with a content writing firm like Ray Access allows you to draw on the expertise of these professional contract writers and editors whenever your need arises. Businesses and agencies usually give one of four reasons for seeking third-party writers, including:

Increasing your company’s efficiency
Tapping into additional expertise
Increasing your company’s internal flexibility
Reducing your overhead costs

1. How Do I Increase My Company’s Efficiency?

By hiring third-party writers, you assign the content to a professional you trust, who can run with the project. As a result, you don’t have to worry about it because you know it will be delivered on time. When you have a relationship with the writers at Ray Access, you can also expect high-quality content that fits your needs.

Your company runs more efficiently when you can assign projects to third-party writers. Your team focuses on the other tasks at hand that need to be completed before the content arrives. Your projects fall into place.

2. Why Should I Tap into Additional Expertise?

Some small and mid-sized businesses don’t hire full-time writers because the work hasn’t built up enough to justify the expense. Hiring third-party writers allows them to add writing and editing expertise to their team in a way that’s focused and cost-effective.

The Ray Access writers and editors do nothing else but that. They’re pros in both the art and science of writing online content. They use keywords appropriately, while writing for the targeted audience. Now you can tap into that expertise on a per-project basis.

3. How Do I Increase My Company’s Internal Flexibility?

If you own a small or mid-sized business or agency, you have to manage the workloads of every employee to maximize their time and your investment. It’s a large and important process that helps you grow your business. By hiring third-party writers, you’re able to offload that task outside of your full-time employees, allowing them to focus on other, no-less-important tasks.

That may mean you can assign your employees to other projects or to training, both of which help your business in the long term. Your employees may even thank you, especially if you wanted at first to assign the writing to non-writers. Use your internal resources wisely to grow your business.

4. How Can I Reduce My Business Overhead Costs?

If you hire a full-time employee to write the content you need, that expense must be offset with the business income that calls for that service. But in addition to the salary, you have other expenses associated with hiring a full-time employee. Hiring third-party writers, on the other hand, means you only pay for the project, as needed. There are no extra or hidden costs.

Contact Ray Access for the best contract writing work. We deliver on time and on budget, since you pay only for what you order. There are no minimum orders, as the Ray Access writers can create the content for a single blog post or for a 100-page website.

Technology and the Gig Economy

by Mark Bloom | Apr 18, 2022 | Small Business Advice

Technology and the Gig Economy

How Will Technology Impact the Gig Economy?

Welcome to the future. By the year 2000, many prognosticators expected the world to have flying cars, extraterrestrial colonies and robots. All those technologies are still in development, but the internet has changed everything about daily life, from how we communicate to how we work. That technology has impacted — and will continue to impact — the gig economy.

In particular, three technologies stand ready to change the way you will do your job, how you fit in and the type of work you do in the gig economy that’s already experiencing rapid evolution. These three technologies involve:

Artificial intelligence (AI)
The fifth-generation of wireless networks (5G)
The internet of things (IoT)

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Many gig workers fear AI, believing that artificial intelligence is gunning for their jobs. And some industries may see upheaval due to the development of job-reducing AI. But the goal of AI isn’t to steal jobs, but make the gig economy more dependable and fairer, broadening the access for gig workers.

In fact, AI is more likely to add jobs than steal them. What no one knows yet is what type of jobs the technology will add. Some reports suggest that gig workers will have to continue to learn new skills as they change jobs more frequently. AI may destabilize the gig economy, at least in the short term. The desired skills in the near future may include:

Agility in the job market
The ability to learn new skills quickly
Discipline and organization
Technical literacy, being able to adopt technology

Fifth-Generation of Wireless Networks (5G)

Like AI, 5G is going to reshape the economic landscape. The newest network capabilities won’t just make communication speed faster, but it adds bandwidth. 5G will enable new technology that we can’t even imagine yet. Gig workers are likely to benefit from the better communications capacity in ways that include:

Adding $1.5 trillion to the U.S. economy, which will include increases in gig workers’ income
Increasing productivity for gig workers will reduce project durations
Diversifying the job market, possibly including more gig workers

It may take several years for 5G to proliferate across the country and become the de facto standard for telecommunications, but it’s coming. By 2025, just three short years into the future, the gig economy may look very different, and gig workers are well-positioned to tap into the economic gains.

The Internet of Things (IoT)

If you’ve never heard of this term, you will. IoT will link more and more devices to the internet. You can expect smart cars, smart homes and smart cities as more things not only get connected, but leverage that connectivity into more features and capabilities. The ways that IoT will likely affect the gig economy may include:

Gig workers are the most prepared to use IoT in their jobs.
IoT will create new gig jobs in new and established fields.
The need for on-demand work will surely increase, benefitting gig workers.

In the final analysis, the world’s economy may change significantly over the next decade. It may become more democratic, allowing even smart workers in poor countries to participate on an equal footing. That means that gig workers today are well-suited to benefit from the technological changes, but they may face greater competition. To learn how content plays a role, subscribe to the Ray Access monthly newsletter.

4 Questions to Ask Potential Content Writers

by Mark Bloom | Apr 4, 2022 | Content Marketing

You can vet an online content writer with these four questions.

Why Do I Need a Content Writer?

No, this isn’t one of the four questions. But you need a content writer — or even better, a content-writing agency like Ray Access — if you don’t have an in-house writer. Every business owner today needs copy to remain competitive.

Without an active website, customers can’t find you. An active website that ranks well with search engines relies on high-quality content to:

Keep your website updated
Produce blog posts for the site and your social media platforms
Create press releases when needed
Develop newsletters to send to your customers and potential customers to keep you top-of-mind
Pen a downloadable book to entice website visitors to give you their email addresses

What 4 Questions Should I Ask a Potential Content Writer?

Whether you hire a staff writer or rely on contract experts like those at Ray Access, you can vet an online content writer with a series of four questions. These questions help you hire the right writers and trust them to do the job effectively and efficiently. So before you hire, ask:

Have you written for my industry before? A great content writer doesn’t need to have experience writing in your industry. They know how to research and ask questions that your potential clients may ask. But still ask for samples. Be prepared to explain your target audience, so the writer can tailor the language to them. Before your project begins, make sure your content writer knows your competitive advantage and customer base well. Point out websites you appreciate, not to copy, but to give the writer an idea of the tone you want to emulate.
How can you write in my voice? Hire copywriting experts who understand what your content is supposed to do. For example, is it primarily intended to inform current customers or convert visitors? The content Ray Access delivers is targeted for your business to your customers and potential customers; it’s not about you. It’s written in such a way as to increase engagement, no matter what the topic. The most effective website copy focuses not on what your business does, but rather what it can do for a customer: what problem you solve or need you fill.
Do you have a revision process? You want to know that a revision is possible when you need it and that it’s covered in your original price. Why should you have to pay for something you can’t use? When you need changes, content agencies like Ray Access have a revision process in place: one free revision on anything you get, as long as you provide feedback. When you hire a staff writer, you’re stuck with that person unless you go through the hiring process all over again.
How do I know I’ll get something I can actually use? Take steps to increase the chance of getting the kind of content you’re looking for by:
- Researching the copywriter to make sure they are who they say they are, and they’ve done this type of work before
- Communicating clearly and often to make sure the writers have what they need and there’s progress on your project
- Relying on your web developer, marketing company or SEO expert to hire the best content writer for your needs

If you need copy for your website, blog or newsletter, find the best content writers. And if you do take on the challenge of creating your own copy, at least call Ray Access to give it a second set of eyes and superb editing.

Do Your Website Visitors Buy or Bounce?

by Mark Bloom | Mar 21, 2022 | Website Content

Do your website visitors buy or bounce?

What’s a Bounce?

Before you can discover whether your website visitors buy or bounce, you have to know what a bounce is. In terms of SEO and search engines, a bounce is what happens when:

A person types a question, term or phrase into a search engine, like Google.
Your website appears in the list of the search engine results page (SERP, and yes, that’s a real acronym among SEO aficionados).
The person clicks on the link to go to your website. So far, your SEO efforts are paying to drive traffic to your site.
The visitor takes a quick look at your landing page and realizes that you don’t have the answer to the question.
The visitor hits the Back button, and you’ll likely never see them again. This quick “visit” is called a bounce.

Although it still technically counts as a visit to your website, it’s really a bounce that does not further your goal of adding customers and fans. While bounces don’t hurt your website’s rankings in SERPs, they are often point to other issues.

Why Do Website Visitors Buy or Bounce?

When people use search engines, they’re seeking answers, information, products, services or news. Sometimes, what they type into the search engine — or more frequently, say into their device — is a full-sentence question, such as: “How can I get visitors to stay on my website?” Other times, it may be just a word or short phrase, such as: “Website bounce” or “buy or bounce.”

If your website shoes up on the SERP, especially if it’s high on the list, that means your site has been optimized for the keyword the person has used in the search. That’s what SEO is supposed to do: rank your website for relevant keywords to attract people looking for those terms. But when people visit and bounce, the causes may include:

Your website had too many distracting bells and whistles when the visitor just wanted to get to the information.
The keyword that brought the visitor to your site has other meanings, and yours wasn’t the right one. For example, perhaps the person looking for “how to stop bounces” wanted to know how to get their kids out of the bouncy house at a birthday party.
Your website has made it difficult to find the desired information through poor navigation choices.
Your SEO is targeting the wrong keywords for your business. If you’re seeing a lot of bounces from your site, make sure you understand your audience and the terms they’re using to find your business.

How Can I Stop Bounces?

You won’t be able to stop all the people bouncing from your website for the same reason you can’t please all the people all the time. But you can take steps to make it easier for visitors to make their buy or bounce decision. It takes a combined effort involving your website design, your SEO and your content. Steps to take include:

Refine your keywords to better attract visitors who are looking for your products or services. For example, Ray Access wants to attract businesses who want to hire us, but we recognize that people visit our site to get tips on writing website copy. As a result, we often include keywords our target clients use, like “content delay” or “newsletter tips.”
Streamline your website design to make it easier for visitors to find what they’re looking for. Employ a clear navigation menu and include links to interior pages in your copy. For example, Ray Access makes it easy for people looking for blog writers by including an obvious link to our blog writing page from our landing page.
Revisit your website copy to make sure it clearly states what your company offers. Website visitors want reassurance — you may even call it instant gratification — that they’re on the right website that provides the information they’re seeking. Don’t make them think too hard. Provide easy-to-read information.

As experts in online content, Ray Access can help you with the last tip. Once your SEO has directed a visitor to your site, it’s up to your website design and content to help that visitor decide to buy or bounce. Which does your website encourage?

What Good Are Newsletters for Business?

by Mark Bloom | Feb 21, 2022 | Small Business Advice

Newsletters for business works, as long as they impart value to your list.

Why Do I Need to Have a Newsletter?

Many businesses, especially small businesses, may consider a newsletter to be an added expense. And it’s true: unless you have the resources in-house to produce a newsletter on a regular basis, it’s going to cost you some money. So, why should you pursue a newsletter for your business?

Newsletters for business do many things to promote your business, such as:

Put your business name and branding in front of customers and potential customers who gave you their email addresses — in other words, these are already warm to hot leads
Allow you to reuse your blog content to reach an audience who are already interested in your business
Give you another platform that you control, unlike social media, to share insights and information

How Much Do Newsletters Actually Cost?

There are many facets to putting out a newsletter on a regular basis, by which we generally mean monthly. Some of the tasks involved include:

Designing your newsletter, a one-time expense
Creating content for each newsletter — or collecting content from your blog
Building the newsletter each month
Managing your email list
Arranging and paying for a newsletter service, such as MailChimp

Each of these tasks takes time, meaning each newsletter costs you both time and money. But newsletters aren’t really that expensive. Ray Access, for example, can do all this (not including the start-up costs) for about $100 per month, assuming you have blog content worth sharing, plus whatever the newsletter service charges. Depending on the number of contacts in your email list, the total cost is likely to be less than $300 a month.

What Value Can I Derive from a Newsletter?

In business, every decision impacts your bottom line. No company is going to throw away even $300 a month if it serves no business purpose. Newsletters for business should deliver more than what it costs, although you may have to wait several months for the benefits to kick in.

Having a newsletter gives you a valid reason to collect email addresses from your customers and potential customers. An email list in itself adds value to your company. But it’s the new business and income that make newsletters for business worth the expense. An effective newsletter can:

Nurture your existing customer base to conduct repeat business
Persuade new customers to buy from your business

What’s an Example of an Effective Newsletter?

At Ray Access, we walk the talk. We’ve been producing monthly newsletters since July, 2016. Every month, we publish and send out a new edition to the subscribers on our email list. And every once in a while we promote a new giveaway to add to that list.

We invite you to review our newsletter archive, where we have links to every newsletter we’ve ever sent out. After looking through these newsletters, you may want to sign up to receive them yourself! Newsletters for business works, as long as they impart value to your list.

Is Your Message Bothersome … or Beneficial?

by Mark Bloom | Jan 24, 2022 | Small Business Advice

Is your message reaching an audience that wants to hear it?

How Can I Tell if I’m Reaching an Audience?

Most businesses know their customers. They’ve done market research, sent surveys or just talked to the clients they meet. Collecting customer data is often the first step toward creating marketing copy, website content and other outreach collateral. But even if a small business can’t afford a high-tech marketing firm, its owners at least have an idea who buys their products and services.

After all that hard work, your small business can’t rest. Reaching an audience, no matter how well you think you know them, requires continual tweaking, editing and revising. Most importantly, don’t ignore your website content since it represents your company online. If it’s not working, you’re paying the price.

What’s the Price of Ineffective Website Content?

If you have a brick-and-mortar store, you or your sales staff interact with customers who walk through the door. Your goal may be a sale, but in the process, you help customers narrow down their search and pick the most appropriate product. Your website has no sales force. The content, as well as the design and graphic elements, have to function as:

Subject matter expert
Salesman
Trusted resource

The price of not reaching an audience is the deafening sound of silence. If your website connects with your audience, you notice an uptick in contacts and possibly even greater sales. If your message fails, you miss an opportunity to build your customer base that you may never get again.

How Can I Avoid a Bothersome Message?

There are many ways to mess up your message. The more you know your customers, the less likely you are to fail, but it can still happen. To avoid creating a bothersome message, follow some tips that include:

Respect your audience.
Don’t waste their time.
Don’t use a tone that patronizes them.
Provide valuable information they may not find elsewhere.
Give them options, when appropriate.

When your message is all about you or what you’re promoting, that means you’re not delivering timely, valuable information. When your message connects, you’re reaching an audience that may buy from you.

How Can I Make My Message Beneficial?

Reaching an audience means delivering appropriate information at the appropriate time. This involves your website hierarchy. When visitors land on your site, your site has to guide them toward what they’re looking for. Structure your website so that:

Your Home Page provides broad information about your business, its competitive advantage and the problems your products or services solve — you can’t know what they’re seeking, so provide options.
You provide choices where to go next without overwhelming your visitors — make your navigation menu as short as it can be while keeping it clear.
Your Products or Services pages delve into more detail about each — if a visitor’s found these interior pages, they’re closer to buying, so state your case.
You’ve placed call-to-action buttons or links clearly and strategically on your site — be ready whenever the visitor’s ready; reduce the obstacles when visitors want to contact you.

And if a page title promises information about a specific topic, that page had better deliver the goods. Don’t fool your visitors. Don’t mislead them. Don’t even surprise them. Give them the exact information they’re looking for, and you’ll become a trusted resource and they’ll become a customer. If you want help crafting effective website content, contact the pros at Ray Access.

The Best Way to Improve the Value of Your Website

by Mark Bloom | Dec 28, 2021 | Blog Writing

Improve the value of your website by blogging

Start Blogging

The advantages of a blog on your business website are clear:

Blog posts allow you to explore areas related to your business.
They allow you to incorporate a broader range of keywords into your site.
Blog posts allow you to attract new visitors and satisfy your existing customers.
A blog provides a platform to address your audience directly.
Blog posts allow you to get the most out of advertising your products or services.
They let you share your values so you become more trustworthy.
Most importantly perhaps, blog posts force search engines to re-index your site to include your new content, so blogging increases your search engine optimization (SEO) effectiveness.

The only downside of blogging for your business is the time it takes to write and publish the new content. You can avoid this hardship by contracting out the blog writing to professional writers who understand both your business and your audience. Contact Ray Access to learn how affordable our blog writing can be.

Happy holidays to all our readers. May the year 2022 bring you continued success and growth to your business. Remember that Ray Access exists to help you reach your business goals online, through blogging, newsletters and your website copy. Make 2022 the year that your business takes off.

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