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Success Through Strategy!

Strategy Matters delivers news, tips and strategies for effective communications through traditional and social media. 
Looking Ahead to a Successful New Year!

With the new year approaching, the thoughts of many turn to New Year's resolutions. It's an annual tradition of setting goals for the coming year that dates back millennia,  according to Oklahoma State University's "Newsline." However, while a  2013 article from Forbes estimates that roughly forty percent of American's make a New Year's resolution, only eight percent end up keeping that resolution! We think we can beat that number.

At Strategic Communications, we've long incorporated New Year's resolutions into our annual planning process. Just as with one's personal life, New Year's is a great time to look ahead to the coming year for your business, and take stock of where you're at and where you'd like to be at the end of the year. It's difficult to overstate the importance of monitoring certain leading indicators to help you stay on top of desired results.

Each year, we also create a list of recommendation resolutions for our communication and marketing colleagues. Here are some suggestions:
  • Create a plan-so often overlooked, yet so important. It doesn't have to be anything long or overly complex. Just identify your goals and measurable objectives and the strategies and tactics you will use to achieve them.
  • Commit to being "you" vs. "we"-focused. So many get this wrong. The more you can make it about them, them, them and the less about you, you, you, the more successful you'll be in the new year.
  • Stand out from the competition. Make sure you understand the alternatives your target audience has to choose from and how you stack up against those alternatives. Be different-be better!
  • Strengthen your brand! Determine how you wish to be perceived and how you are perceived, and make appropriate changes to your communication materials (and products/services) to support your desired brand image.
  • Boost innovation. Commit to coming up with at least one new initiative in the new year to build your business-maybe more.
  • Streamline! How could you do more with less; consider ways to boost your business productivity. 
Finally, celebrate your successes! Hopefully there will be many of them in the coming year.

Here's to a very successful 2016! 
Ideas for Choosing and Working Effectively With Freelancers

According to a recent article in Harvard Business Review, freelancers represent 34 percent of the American workforce. This includes more than fourteen million so-called "moonlighters" who have full-time jobs but use freelancing to supplement their incomes. The good news about this data for freelancers is that there are a lot of opportunities for freelance work. 

The downside is that there is plenty of competition as well.

We provide content to a variety of clients, ranging from traditional publications, to web content and blog posts, to large corporations and agencies. And, we work with a variety of freelance talent to help us out. We've found that the best freelancers share certain traits and characteristics:
  • Strong competencies - In our case, we're primarily focused on written content, so we're looking for people who not only have a strong grasp of grammar and spelling, but who also can create content that will resonate with a target audience and who can organize that content in a logical, meaningful way. Because our work is often somewhat marketing related, we also need freelancers to have the ability to develop a strong grasp of clients' goals, objectives and brand "voice," and to be able to write copy designed to achieve some specific, measurable outcome.
  • Accuracy - This is important not just in terms of spelling and grammar, but also from a reporting standpoint.
  • Reliability - We have a multi-step process we follow to create, review and deliver content to clients, with various deliverables along the way. We need to know that we can rely on freelancers to meet deadlines consistently.
  • Subject-matter knowledge/experience - This is challenging with millennials because their experience is obviously limited, and it's not always a deal breaker. However, we do find that our best freelancers are those who have background/interest in the subject matter. Why? It allows them to do a better job of getting inside the heads of the target audience to speak to their needs/interests.
  • Good listening skills - This comes into play both when learning about a new assignment, and when interviewing sources and gathering information.
  • Flexibility - Things change; sometimes clients change their minds. Just last week, a client decided to change the topic of a blog post that one of our freelancers had already started to work on. Sometimes clients request additional research or new source material at the last minute. Sometimes they ask for rewrites.
  • Thick skin - Marketing is a very ego-driven industry that can be somewhat subjective in terms of client feedback. Most clients aren't marketing experts, so their feedback is sometimes off base in terms of what formal training freelancers may bring to the table. But, all feedback is relevant and all is valuable.
Have you hired freelancers, or worked as one yourself? What additional skills would you add to the list? If you're a freelancer, what expectations do you have of your clients in terms of how they can help you be the best you can be?

Looking for assistance with content creation? We can help!

Featured White Paper

"10 Must Do's For an Effective Marketing Plan"

With 2016 just around the corner, if you haven't already begun your planning for the new year, there's no time like the present! This white paper offers a 10-step process for developing communication and marketing plans that provide you with the direction you need.

Request a copy.
Volume: 8 - Issue: 1
 January 2016
Strat Comm logo
In This Issue
Happy New Year!
Working With Freelancers
We're In the News! 

Putting the "Strategic" Into Strategic Content Marketing

Collaborative Storytelling

How Small Companies Can Share in Community Success

Blending Old and New Media for Advertising Success

Your Business Needs a Checkup

50+ Entrepreneurs Explain How They Came Up With Their Business Name (#11)
Research Matters
Some recent news and  research you may be interested in--we were!  
     

  EContent: How Ad Blocking Is Affecting Digital Publishers