What effect, if any, did the press release have on website traffic?

The second chart answers this question.

Both the total number of visitors and total number of unique visiting sites nearly tripled the week of distribution.

Further analysis reveals that 71 percent of the visitors during this period were first-time visitors, and the site’s higher-than-average traffic rates lasted four days.

Online browsers found our paid press release on the first page of Google’s search results. And our paid press release continues to hold the number one spot in Google News for that keyword search.

Somewhat surprisingly, the number of people that viewed the software overview video also spiked one day after distribution. Unfortunately, the testimonial video did not fare as well.

What can we take away from this one case study example? Here are five PR lessons.

PR case study lesson #1: Expect a paid PR service to outperform free PR distribution services
When I compare the results of this press release to others I have done, the free distribution services performed better than expected. Normally, the paid PR service I use outperforms the free services by a factor of 4:1 or greater.

Are the premium distribution services worth the extra cost? You be the judge.

Granted it is not a complete, apples-to-apples comparison, but the first press release issued 14 months ago cost $380. Eighty-five media outlets picked up the story and we observed a two-day spike in web visitors (340 percent and 200 percent, respectively) immediately after distribution. Pre-release traffic levels resumed day three.

The second press release cost $99. Fifty-six media outlets picked up the story and we observed a four-day spike in web visitors (290 percent, 270 percent, 207 percent, and 165 percent, respectively). Pre-release traffic levels resumed day five.

If your goal is to minimize cost and maximize website traffic and eyeballs, a lower-cost PR distribution service fits the bill.

If on the other hand your goal is to strictly create a news archive to boost credibility and SEO, then the free PR distribution services are perfectly acceptable.

PR case study lesson #2: Low-cost and no-cost are not binary options
Companies can expand their reach by issuing press releases over a combination of paid and free distribution services.

In this one example, the free services accounted for 34 percent of the total press release views. We would have missed this significant audience if we had ignored the free distribution services.

PR case study lesson #3: Don’t expect long-term results from one release
Like any form of advertising, a single press release will yield a short burst of traffic.

To maintain momentum, you will need an overall PR strategy that involves distributing multiple press releases over the course of many months.

Stay tuned for the conclusion of this case study on August 3rd. If you can’t wait until then, you can download a copy of the entire case study by following this link:

http://su.pr/1dlOoF

Sue Anderson-Lenz
Marketing Lure, Inc.

+++ Late-Breaking Update +++
Five weeks after this press release was issued, it continues to demonstrate sticking power with the search engines.

A Google search performed just 10 minutes ago lists this press release in the coveted #1 spot of Google’s organic search results. Moreover, the release listed is not from the paid PR service; it’s from one of the freebie PR services! Amazing.

“It’s too expensive.”

“I don’t see the value.”

“We don’t have anything newsworthy to write about.”

These are just a few of the comments I hear from clients when the subject of PR comes up. Most people still believe that press releases are only for large corporations with deep pockets. But it’s time to put away those antiquated notions and recognize that a press release program has a place in any size organization.

Press releases not only work to build company credibility (something you need especially when you’re starting out), they are a source of new website traffic, they help boost SEO rankings, and they can be a relatively cheap way to reach your target market. Yes, I said cheap, because I’m not talking about the big-three PR distribution services. I have found that you can have just as much success (sometimes more so) using a combination of low-cost and no-cost PR distribution services.

Without giving too much away, I wanted to share with you the results of a recent press release I did for one client. The primary goal of this particular release was to announce a new software version, but they also wanted me to weave into the story some tantalizing information about a new international partner. Pretty standard stuff.

I issued their press release through two of my freebie PR distribution favorites and one paid PR service, which cost just $99. I also embedded two videos in the press release distributed over the paid service: a software overview and video testimonial, and I pushed the press release out to several social networks, including Twitter, Facebook, and Digg.

In total, the press release generated eight Google News alerts and attracted more than 500 eyeballs over a 10-day period. As you can see from the chart below, the paid PR service outperformed the two freebie PR services by a factor of 2:1. The press release issued over the paid service was picked up by more than 56 online media sites, including Google News and channel behemoth ChannelWeb.

That’s great, but what effect, if any, did the press release have on website traffic?

You’ll have to wait until my next posting on July 20th. In the meantime, check out my story, “3 Tried-and-True Free Press Release Distribution Services,” to see three of my favorite freebie PR services.

Sue Anderson-Lenz
Marketing Lure, Inc.

Here’re some of the most interesting points in the report:

IT buyers want to see vendor comparisons – especially in the final stage of evaluation but marketers resist offering them. When comparisons are not available IT buyers make their own. Isn’t this a great opportunity for marketers?

IT marketers are lagging behind demand in the availability of trial software. We’ve gotten better but not good enough. 35% of software companies were offering trial software in 2008; but 54% of IT buyers were looking for it. By the way, IT buyers (70%) say they spend two weeks or less evaluating trial software downloads. Does this surprise you?

Just because your product is expensive doesn’t mean buyers won’t appreciate a trial. True – most IT buyers (83%) are downloading trial software that has a final cost of less than $25,000, but some that are using it to evaluate software costing more than $500,000. 68% of all trial users are somewhat or very likely to purchase the solution after using the trial.

In the not-so-surprising category, 64% of IT buyers always use the internet to research information on technology solutions, 31% use it frequently, 5% use it sometimes (who are these people?); nobody never uses it.

While marketers tend to overrate it a little, white papers ranked the highest as the most utilized online content – used by 70% of IT buyers. Product literature came in second at 62%.

Email newsletters and e-books are useful to IT buyers during the awareness stage of the buying process. Trial software, vendor demos, case studies and comparisons are favored more towards the decision stage. This is important especially for those of you who are ignoring prospects in the early stages. Email newsletters and ebooks are a good way to hook these folks.

IT buyers prefer your videos or webcasts to be on-demand versus live. This is probably a convenience preference. The 10% who prefer a live performance do so because of the Q&A opportunities.

Search engines are the most used information source during the buying process (83%). Vendor website came in a number two (75%) followed by testimonials from peers and colleagues (65%) and IT publisher websites(64%). Interestingly online social networking groups were used by only 11% of IT buyers.

You can download a copy of the full report here: TechTarget 2009 Media Consumption Benchmark Report 2.  You’ll have to give up some contact details but the info is worth it.

Does any of this surprise you? If so, let’s hear about it here.

Blogger readiness assessment question #5: Who will be the voice in the blog?
The biggest benefit corporate bloggers say they get from blogging is recognition as an industry thought leader. Therefore, before you start blogging you’ll want to identify whom you want to serve as your thought leader. Often times, this is the company CEO, but the person you choose should reflect the type of audience you want to attract to your blog. If your goal is to attract technical people, then the CTO or CIO are suitable choices.

It’s fine to feature several people in your blog, but I recommend you limit the number of regular contributors to avoid confusing your readers with too many voices and opinions.

Blogger readiness assessment question #6: Are you willing to commit time and resources?
Probably the biggest hurdle to blogging success will be you. Most bloggers start out enthusiastic, but as time goes on their interest wanes and they find they have “more important things to do.”

Every designated blogger will need time to research, plan, and write content. For many professional bloggers, this equates to 10 hours or more per week. Factor in extra time and resources to review content and promote the blog.

If you can’t afford to have your blogger spend 25% of their time on blog activities, you can spread the workload by featuring multiple bloggers or guest bloggers (review my caution in question #5), or hire a ghostwriter to create the posts. Your blogger(s) will still need to make time to discuss blog topics with the ghostwriter, but over time, the writer can be a valuable addition to your blogging team.

Blogger readiness assessment question #7: Are you willing to commit to a schedule?
How many magazines and e-newsletters do you subscribe to that do not have a regular routine? Blog readers are no different. If they visit your site and see “the same old thing,” eventually they’ll stop coming altogether.

As a publisher (yes, you become a publisher when you start blogging), you should create an editorial calendar that covers three to six months worth of posts. The calendar will help you ascertain whether your proposed topic (question #3) is a good choice, but don’t feel locked into the plan. You’ll want to keep the editorial calendar flexible to respond to current news and events.

How many posts should you do each week? That’s entirely up to you. Some corporate bloggers post several times each week. Personally, I think that’s too much, especially when you’re starting out. I recommend setting an initial target of one to two posts per month, increasing the frequency once you are comfortable with the routine and time commitment. Here again, hiring outside expertise can help you stick to a schedule.

By now, I hope you have a better appreciation for what it will take to make your blog successful. It’s one thing to start a blog. It’s entirely different to keep it alive with fresh content.

Is it worth it? When asked, 53% of the corporate bloggers surveyed by Technorati say their 2010 plans include blogging more frequently; a sign that tells me it’s working.

Happy blogging!

Why bother with blogging? Because nearly half of all IT professionals rely on blogs as a resource when they are researching and comparing potential solutions. Okay, on with the questions.

Blogger readiness assessment question #2: Who is your target audience?
Knowing your readers is paramount because it sets the tone for your blog, determines the language you’ll use to communicate with readers, and helps you achieve secondary goals such as higher SEO rankings and more traffic.

If you want to attract technical folks, for example, feel free to use technical terms in your blog posts.

If your desire is to influence C-level executives, you’ll need to ditch the technical jargon and speak directly to their leadership and business challenges.

If your goal is to attract new clients, you will want to use more general terms when blogging so that people who don’t yet know the “industry lingo” will find you through search engines.

One thing I recommend you do before you start blogging is to create a list of target keywords and phrases to incorporate in blog posts. Over time, your repeated use of the keywords will lead to better search engine rankings, and they will help keep your blogging posts on topic.

Blogger readiness assessment question #3: What will you blog about?
Once you have a clear understanding as to why you want to blog and the audience you want to attract, it’s time to choose a subject (or theme) that interests you and your target readers.

If you pick a topic that is too broad or too narrow, you’ll either run out of ideas for new content or your posts will be all over the map. Either way, you’ll find it hard to attract a steady readership.

Likewise, avoid the urge to use your blog as an advertising platform. Remember, IT buyers visit blogs to learn — not to be sold to — so you’ll be far more successful if you use your blog to educate, discuss industry news and trends, and encourage an open exchange of ideas and opinions.

Your blog should be bigger than you or your company. Write for your readers’ benefit, not for yours.

Blogger readiness assessment question #4: How will you measure success?
The majority of corporate bloggers surveyed for Technorati’s “State of the Blogosphere 2009” measure success by counting unique visitors, reader comments, incoming links, and RSS subscribers. While these statistics are valuable, I contend they will not give you the entire picture when it comes to evaluating the impact that you are making with the blog.

You’ll also want to monitor what people are saying about you outside of the blog. Incoming links provide hints, but some people will talk about you without linking back.

Encourage discussions outside the blog by giving readers sociable links they can click when they Digg something you say. Then, monitor the discussions by searching social networking sites and search engines, or use a social monitoring tool like Social Mention. It sounds time consuming, but most sites have alert capabilities to automate this work.

Some bloggers also measure success by tracking the connections they build on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. If this is one of your objectives, encourage this behavior in your blog by giving readers quick connection links to these sites.

Of course, we all wish people would comment on our posts, but don’t be discouraged if week after week you see zero comments. Many readers prefer to remain anonymous. If they like what they read, they’ll send you an e-mail directly, or share it with others via the sociable links you include in your blog.

Finally, don’t expect miracles over night. Like any good PR activity, you need to remain patient, persistent, and consistent with your blogging. Give the blog at least nine months before you decide if it’s worth it to continue.

The answer is simple: IT buyers don’t hang out on Twitter, at least that’s the message from 1,685 IT professionals surveyed for TechTarget’s 2009 Media Consumption Report.

Where do they turn for information when searching for an IT solution? Blogs.

Contrary to popular belief though, “WordPress or Blogger” isn’t the only decision a new blogger needs to make. To attract the desired audience and keep the blog going long-term, you’ll need to start thinking and acting like a publisher. Here are seven critical questions to help you assess whether your company is ready for the blogosphere.

Blogger readiness assessment question #1: Why do you want to start a blog?
If you’re feeling pressured into a blog because your competitor has one, or because you want more website traffic or higher SEO rankings, you’re not ready for a blog.

Of course, all of these are fine secondary motives -– especially when you consider that the average technology blog garners 41% of its page views from search engines –- but these reasons alone will not help you when you are staring at a blank screen at 11pm, or when there is “other business” that needs your attention. When forced to prioritize, you can be sure the blog will always lose.

While an individual blogger’s motivations may vary, the one thing that all corporate bloggers agree you need to be successful is passion. This alone will keep you personally interested and excited long after the newness of the blog wears off, and it is what will attract readers to you.

If you’re running a business, you most certainly have passion already. Your goal is to articulate that passion and channel it into your blog.

I’ll continue my readiness questionnaire on March 2nd, which should give you plenty of time to mull over this first question.

In the meantime, if you haven’t taken my grammar survey yet, please take one minute now to complete it. It’s just five questions long and your answers will provide valuable insight into how writing errors influence buyer behavior.

Follow this link to start the survey:
http://bit.ly/6yXttb.

Thanks in advance for your help and opinions!

Sue Anderson-Lenz
Marketing Lure, Inc.

Last week I wrote about the marketing metrics we track at Clicks ‘n Conversions and I promised to share the secret to developing a tracking system that drives change. Well, here it is: to be truly useful, a marketing measurement system must do more than just track where you are with certain metrics. It must compare where you are to where you should be.

I’ve come to think of marketing tracking systems as falling into one of three phases of measuring. The first two are by far the most common.

Here’s a look at each phase using “deals in progress” as an example.

Phase I is the tracking phase. When companies first begin measuring sales and marketing activities, they often look at a single number for each metric. In this phase, a monthly report would read something like this:

Deals in progress = 10

But this single number by itself is just a snapshot; and while it’s good to know you have 10 active deals in progress, what does that really tell you?

Phase II is the trend phase. Once you’ve have been tracking metrics for a while, you might begin to include data for previous months. The new report looks something like this:

Better. Now you can see trends. You know if you’re improving at something or getting worse. That’s certainly more informative than just a single number by itself, but does it really give you anything to act on?

Phase III – Plan versus Actual. Here’s what separates trailing indicators from data you can you can do something about. In this phase, we add a third data point – where you expected to be at this point in time. The new report looks like this:

Now you have something really useful. With a quick glance at a chart like this one you would see that you’re running behind plan and if you don’t make a change now, you’ll end the year with too few deals.

Doesn’t this beat the heck out of finding out things are running behind when it’s too late to do anything about it?

This is how we look at our important metrics at Clicks ‘n Conversions. Those little gaps really keep us focused. It’s easy enough to do yourself with few basic Excel skills – and what a difference it will make!

If I could get you to do one single marketing-related thing in 2010 it would be to start actively measuring – and acting on – the performance of your marketing program. If you’re already measuring, start holding people accountable. And if you’re already doing that, call me. We probably have some valuable data to share.

It doesn’t matter what size company you are. Setting objectives, measuring progress and holding yourself – or someone else – accountable may not be sexy, but it will make a huge difference in where you are this time next year.

I’ll admit my interest in getting you to start measuring is not without a self-serving factor. I know you and your company will get great benefit from it, and I also know the more aware you are of your marketing programs’ performance the more likely you are to turn to Clicks ‘n Conversions for help when the time comes.

You don’t have to take my word for the power of measuring. Just try it for yourself.

Over the next few articles, I’ll give you a little peak into how we measure things at Clicks ‘n Conversions.

What we measure

At the highest level, we track our progress with a weekly report that shows us the following:

• Deals in progress. Chances are good many of you already track this metric. We define a deal being in progress when an opportunity has been defined and we can put a potential revenue number to it. Ours is a complex sale and our website is a lead generation site. For those of you with a simpler (I didn’t say easier) sale and an e-commerce site, this metric might be something like free product trials.
• Warm prospects in the pipeline. This metric separates the casual inquires or simple website visitors from the people who really may have a need for our services and the resources to work with us. If you have a conversation with us by phone or by email and we agree there is something worth pursuing then you become a warm prospect.
• New business secured. This one is easy. It’s a sale. Who doesn’t track that?
• Website Visitors. This metric is important to me because I know how much traffic we need to be driving to our website under our current conversion efficiency to ensure we’ll have enough opportunities to hit our sales objectives. You can figure this out too (if you haven’t already done so) by using our Website Traffic Calculator.
• Current conversion rates. There are a bunch of these. At the top, we look at the percentage of website visitors who eventually step forward and want to communicate directly with me. You might call this a sales-ready lead. For an ecommerce site, this metric would be the percentage of website visitors who become paying customers.

There are also multiple sub-conversion rates we pay attention to. These metrics track how many people took the action(s) we wanted them to take – such as downloading a report or whitepaper, subscribing to a newsletter or contacting us.

• Deals lost. A sad metric but an important one as well. This tells us how well we’re doing at closing deals. We track not only those we lost to a competitor (fortunately a consistently low number) but also deals that were lost for lack of a decision (much more common in our world).
• Performance of individual marketing programs. At a more tactical level we also track how each of our marketing programs is performing.

Lots of companies track at least some of the information listed above – especially the ones that are closer to the point of sale. But most companies I’ve been exposed to fail to do the one thing that makes all of this meaningful In my next post – next Wednesday – I’ll reveal the secret.

See you then.

For whatever reason, my name was added to a non-profit’s prospect database after a prior working relationship I had with them. Since that time, I’ve received e-newsletters (which I unsubscribed to), e-mail solicitations regarding their annual, “premier” event, postcards asking me to donate to their charity, and finally (what was to become the last straw yesterday) a phone call from their membership services team.

It was clear that the person on the other end of the phone wasn’t interested in listening to what I had to say. She had a job to do, and that job entailed updating my contact information and converting me to paid membership.

The first question out of her mouth (after she identified herself and the company she represented) was whether I had heard of them. She seemed to ignore me when I explained our working relationship, because she proceeded to say she noticed that my membership had lapsed. At this point I became mildly irritated. Again, I told her I had done work for them, and was not a member.

Relentless in her pursuit for information, she then wanted to know if I was still working for XYZ firm and what role I was playing. At that point I had had enough. I asked her why she was calling me, and her response was that she was “reaching out to members.” Now totally irritated, I curtly said I was never a member, wasn’t interested in becoming a member, and therefore would like to be completely removed from their database. Finally, she got the hint and ended the call.

Why am I telling you this story?

Because here’s a prime example of a marketing effort that can dramatically change how people view your company.

The sad part is, this company is not alone in how they conduct business. Maybe it’s the fear of a declining list size, eternal optimism, or sheer lack of time that stops marketers from cleaning out their lists, but the consequences are many when we don’t purge. We waste:

Cold hard cash — In terms of direct mail costs, e-mail costs, and more.

Time — On both sides of the house, marketing and sales, when our people chase after the truly disinterested.

Our reputation — When we irritate contacts to the point that they vent verbally to friends, flame you in forums, blogs, and on social networking sites, or report you as a spammer.

Moreover, we lose the ability to accurately measure how well our marketing messages are working, because the stats get watered down by folks that will never be customers.

As 2010 approaches, I’d like to propose that we vow next year to have better, not bigger lists, and here are 3 ways to stay true to that resolution.

List-Cleansing Tip #1: Remove folks that repeatedly don’t open your e-mails.

If an e-mail recipient has never opened an e-mail from you, they’re sending you a strong message that they’re not interested. Likewise, people that rarely open or no longer open your newsletters are also talking to you via their actions.

Every company is different, so it’s up to you to decide what level of inactivity merits disinterest, but I beg of you, please act on this information.

Create a policy to purge the disinterested, and if you’re still nervous about removing a possible prospect, include in your policy the action to send a final e-mail giving your recipient one last opportunity to stay connected, lest they be dropped from all future mailings.

List-Cleansing Tip #2: Give folks the ability to opt out of absolutely everything.

CAN-SPAM dictates that we must give people a way to opt out of our e-mails, but I haven’t seen many companies give people the opportunity to opt out of other forms of communication.

I know this may sound absurd, but given that direct mail and personnel time is more costly than e-mail, I think it makes good business sense to give contacts in your list the ability to opt out of all communication forms. You’ll save money, and you might even grow revenue as reps “save themselves” for your best prospects.

List-Cleansing Tip #3: Listen and learn.

To get people to raise their hand and say “I’m interested,” present them with a variety of opportunities to engage. Free, educational webinars (and I don’t mean sales pitches or product demos), and interactive opinion polls are two ways to get people involved, and it gives you insight into what’s going on in their minds.

Then respond inkind to their behavior, by separating out and tailoring subsequent messages, treating them to special perks, content, etc. not available to the general public.

Finally, watch, but don’t fear, the unsubscribes. Instead of considering it a slight, I challenge you to view the unsubscribes as helpful information that enables you to more fully concentrate on your best prospects and customers.

And with that, I’d like to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday season, and prosperous 2010!

– Sue Anderson-Lenz

Marketing Lure, Inc.

This article was originally published on the Tatum Marketing Technology blog on December 10, 2008.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what keeps good business owners from running a good marketing program. Based on my double-digit years of marketing experience, I feel comfortable in saying that the real reason most companies have less than stellar marketing results is not because of lack of knowledge – anyone can get that.

And it’s not due to lack of budget – that’s where creativity and strategy come in.

And it’s not even the economy that’s the real issue.

Nope. Most marketing programs fail to deliver results because business owners and leaders can’t – or won’t – make time for it. It’s as simple and as difficult as that.

When it comes to problematic business leaders and marketing, I’ve found there are basically three types:

1. Leaders who think marketing is too inconsequential to worry about. These business leaders either a) toss marketing responsibility to someone else and never look back, or b) believe their company can get along fine without it. I hear from these types all the time. They’re the ones who call us in a panic when sales hit the skids and they need something done NOW.
2. Then there are the business owners and leaders who think no one can do it but themselves. These leaders have a delegation problem. I firmly believe that the top dog must always stay involved in marketing to some extent, but all companies reach a point where the leader must learn to delegate some marketing responsibility if their companies are going to grow.
3. Finally there are the business owners who know they need to do a better job of marketing but just can’t find the time to get started. I talk to a lot of these people too. They’re usually feeling pretty stressed and frustrated about not getting marketing done.

I’m not bashing business leaders. I help run a business myself. We’re all overwhelmed with the myriad of things that must be done.

But when it comes to being overwhelmed by marketing, I think I can help.

The reason that marketing overwhelms so many leaders is tied directly to inefficiency.

• Inefficient marketing programs don’t produce enough results to justify the cost or the effort – and they leave us looking elsewhere for new business opportunities and leads for the sales team. We need better designed programs with measurements, accountability and regular improvements.
• Inefficient marketing processes keep things from flowing smoothly. We waste precious resources through leaks and dropped balls or by constantly re-inventing the wheel. We need better workflow.
• Inefficient people reduce the power of the system as well. We need more personal productivity in ourselves as well as others.

So how do you get more efficient when you’re busy running a company? How do you find the time?

Productivity guru David Allen, who has trained thousands of professionals to become more personally productive, would argue that lack of time is not really a major issue. He believes the real issue is lack of clarity and definition about what needs to be accomplished and what next steps should be taken.

David promotes a bottom up approach to overall productivity that he has found to be more effective because, as he says, most people are so consumed by their day-to-day commitments that they can’t focus on the larger horizon. He’s found that once you get the mundane tasks under control then you can focus on ideas and visions.

I’ve followed David’s Getting Things Done (GTD) approach – off and on I admit – ever since I first read his book in the late 90s. I know it works for overall productivity, and I started wondering if at least some of the concepts of GTD could be applied to marketing.

Usually we advise clients to stop what they’re doing and take the time to do some planning. But now I ask myself, is it too overwhelming to have to sit down and think about a marketing plan or an entire marketing program? Can companies successfully improve marketing results by taking small steps first?

Here’s an exercise to try. It’s borrowed heavily from David Allen and it’ll take you less than two minutes to do.

1. Write down the marketing question or project that is most on your mind right now. Maybe you need to be generating more new leads. Maybe you suspect you’re wasting a lot of resources and not getting enough back for it. Maybe your website needs to be revamped. Maybe you’re thinking of hiring outside help. Maybe you just need to get started. Pick one.
2. Now write a one-sentence description of what “done” would look like. In other words, what would need to happen for you to consider this marketing question answered or project completed. This could be a very broad sentence such as “launch new website” or more focused such as “talk to potential marketing firms”.
3. Finally, write down the very next physical step that you need to take to move this forward. What action should be taken? Should you schedule a meeting with your sales team? Should you review your website statistics? Should you ask your associate who handles their marketing? Write it down.

How do you feel? I know your marketing probably hasn’t suddenly fallen completely into line. (If I could come up with a 2 minute exercise that did that – well, I’m not exactly sure what I’d do with it).

The point is that progress can happen – you can break through mental barriers and move projects forward – when you take just a few minutes to really think about what outcomes you expect and what step needs to be taken next.

So maybe the best way to approach marketing really is from the bottom up, clearing up all the day-to-day things that bother you until you have time to see the forest for the trees (and other clichés).

It worked for me when I got stuck. It’s worked for others. Try it and let me know if it works for you.