Here’s a quick question for you: Think about the websites, blogs and newsletters that are most valued. What do they all have in common?

The answer is that they all have something to say, which is not just a generic rehash of popular opinions. They dare to be different. The writers have the courage to state an opinion, which is not always in line with popular thinking.

As soon as you think about it, it makes perfect sense.  After all, no one is going to recommend a website to someone if it’s just saying what everyone else says.  These recommendations are how blogs like this one grow. I rely on you sharing my content for the vast majority of my readership.

It seems I’m in good company too.  I was listening to an interview with Chris Brogan yesterday, where Chris explained that most of his readers come via recommendation too. People (including me) share his content because it’s worth sharing.  Like me, Chris does not rely on Google to help him reach people. We rely on people instead.

The technology blogger Louis Gray is a great source of original ideas and insights. As a result, his blog is one or the most respected in his field.  Louis has a new feature on his blog, where once a month, he recommends a small number of less well-known blogs to his readers.  He told me recently that a key part of his selection process, is that the blog must have something original to say. If it hasn’t, no matter how cleverly it’s written, he won’t waste his readers time recommending it to them. He’s totally right – I mean, how many times does someone want to read the same opinions?

I have written a few times recently about the importance of having the courage to be yourself - to have your own authentic voice.  I believe that when it comes to developing a readership or even a community, it’s essential to let the real you shine through.

In a recent blog post, Seth Godin says:

In our desire to please everyone, it’s very easy to end up being invisible or mediocre. Far better to please the right people.

The majority of small business blogs, websites and newsletters are all-but invisible; because they are so similar to one another.  Their similarity acts as camouflage, which ensures they blend into the background and don’t get noticed.

Whilst I don’t advocate being ‘different’ just for the sake of it, I very strongly encourage fellow newsletter providers and bloggers to have the courage to be themselves and plough their own unique furrow.

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In case you were wondering how come I have not posted anything to the blog for the past couple of weeks, here’s an update!

Over the past eight weeks, I have been suffering with an increasingly painful trapped nerve at the top of my neck. The end result was that for the past two weeks, I have been totally unable to type with my left hand (hence no posts to the blog.)

After realising that the medication I was on was not going to work, I decided it was time to call in a Chiropractor – and there’s a valuable lesson here, for anyone in sales!

I actually met with three qualified Chiropractors, before picking the one I trusted the most to get me out of pain and mobile again. Interestingly, the one I picked was NOT the least expensive. He was actually the most expensive by some margin!  However, he WAS the only one of the three to actually ask me about how the pain was making me feel; how the sleepless nights were impacting my quality of life etc.  He engaged me on the most basic level, by connecting with me as a human being. He fully understood my exact position and all the problems the pain was causing me.

Twenty minutes later, he had a new client.  Within 24 hours of my first treatment, he had reduced my pain by around 50%, I was able to throw the pain killers away and most important of all, I started being able to sleep again, after weeks of sleepless nights.

Sales lesson?

There’s an old saying in sales, which tells us that; “you buy the person, not the product / service.” By identifying the impact the pain was having on my life as a whole and showing me genuine empathy, my Chiropractor had set himself apart from the other two people I met. Their talk was all about them, how great they were and how affordable their services were.  They came across like salespeople, which is always a mistake, because there’s so much resistance out there to sales / marketing messages!

As Seth Godin, a friend of this blog said recently, “Selfish short-sighted marketers ruined it for all of us. The only way out, I think, is for a few marketers to so overwhelm the market with long-term, generous marketing that we have no choice but to start paying attention again.”

By the way, you REALLY should subscribe to Seth Godin’s blog – it’s excellent!

I have made many, many millions of pounds and dollars worth of sales over the years for my clients and myself and can honestly say, I have NEVER sold anyone, anything! However, LOTS of people have bought things from me!

Enough with the pitches – it’s 2009 for heaven’s sake!

Look for ways to contribute for free to your marketplace.  Engage people and show them you understand their ‘pain.’ There’s a recession on right now and many of those in your marketplace are hurting – get out there and find a way to help as many of them as possible.  For example, I offer free advice to people via this blog and my marketing newsletter. 95% of the people who read my material never even say thank you or comment here or email me – but that’s not important!

You see, there’s a MASSIVE 5% of people; who say great things about me, who recommend me to their clients and friends, who invite me to speak on their TV shows and radio programs and who pay me to handle their marketing for them.  These people forward my newsletter on to other people, they recommend my blog to everyone and they link to me. That’s why this blog as almost 13,000 links, even though it’s just 6 months old.

This is also the reason why I have no advertising on this blog.  I don’t want to sell you anything. I want you to come here, knowing that there’s no sales pitch.  I want you to know that when I say Seth’s blog is great or that FriendFeed‘s a great service, I am saying it for free, because I genuinely believe it.  If you like my work, use my ideas and see great results and THEN decide you want me to work with you, you will have to dig around the blog and find the one page, which tells you about my services.

Attraction marketing

Some call this approach ‘attraction marketing.’  That’s a fairly accurate description, because it’s an approach to business development and sales, which ‘attracts’ leads, enquiries, sales, orders and new clients / customers – rather than the traditional ‘pursuit marketing’ model.  There’s another post all about attraction marketing here.

Have a great day and please feel free to be one of that rare 5%, who forward this post, tweet about it, get in touch or leave a comment!

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If you want to lower your costs, increase your sales and boost your profits, you need to get the most from online marketing.  This post focuses on 2 forms of FREE online marketing, which you can use to achieve amazing results for your business; Blogging and Newsletters!

Online marketing is changing

Not that many years ago, online marketing reached a relatively small, fairly select group of people.  These were either technology enthusiasts, businesses run by technology enthusiasts or multinationals.  Because only certain groups of consumers and businesses used the Internet regularly, online marketing was of limited use to the average small business.

Of course today, that’s all changed! Almost everyone in a ‘developed’ country now has Internet access at home, work or both. This means it’s now possible for you to use online marketing to generate either sales or leads, for just about any kind of product or service.  It also means it has never been quicker, easier or less expensive to market your business!

Free online marketing

Right now, armed with nothing more than an Internet connection and a blog, you can generate leads or sales for your business for free.  Moreover, these can be highly targeted leads and highly profitable sales too.

Practising what you preach

I have not used any form of paid marketing for my business for years.

That’s right – 100% of my non-referred business comes from either my newsletter, my website or this blog!

All I have to do is make sure I give away as much valuable marketing information as possible, to as many small businesses as possible.  Then, when these small businesses want someone to help them market their products or services, they give me a call.  When they want their blog or website transformed into a goldmine, they already know my work and that I get results – so they get in touch!

Fast results?

Oh yes – You can see results in seconds! For example, once you build a list of newsletter subscribers or a group of regular blog readers, you can start generating either sales or leads, less than a minute after you send a message or post something to your blog!

Of course, most people with newsletters or blogs have very few readers. Just as with everything else, you need to do the right things, in the correct way, if you want to achieve the desired results.  That’s why it’s important that you spend a little time doing some research, before you start!

Blog marketing

There are lots of online networking sites and ‘social media’ tools you can use, to build up a targeted network of prospective clients or valuable contacts.  In fact, the number of websites offering these facilities is so vast, that it has become a problem in itself.

In my experience, the foundation of your free online marketing should be a blog.

A simple blog, if used correctly, can help you develop a massive community and allow you to showcase your talents to your prospective clients / customers.  It can help you find out about the needs of your marketplace and also develop a special relationship with thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions of prospects.

Getting a blog

You can get yourself a free blog right now, from wordpress.com or blogger.com, and be blogging in minutes.  Each blog platform has pro’s and con’s.  I use a paid-for version of wordpress for this blog – you can see the benefits of a paid wordpress blog here.

However, before you invest your time starting a blog, make sure you get some advice from someone with a successful blog.  I recommend you take a look at Chris Brogan’s blog, which covers business blogging (and also other forms of social media.)  It’s a great resource and well worth a read.

Blog marketing is a massive subject and I can only scratch the surface in this post, but there’s going to be a LOT more information to come – So subscribe to my RSS feed, using the button on the top right of the page and make sure you don’t miss a thing!

Newsletters

By far, my biggest ‘network’ is the readership of my marketing newsletter.  The newsletter has been going for almost three years and has thousands of valued readers, spanning over 100 countries around the world.  Each newsletter is sent just a couple of times a month and contains an original marketing article (like this one).

I use the same principle to grow my newsletter, as I use to grow this blog.

I provide high value content, so people share it with their contacts. These contacts then subscribe and they share it with their contacts…

Which businesses can benefit from Newsletters & Blogs?

Any business, in any industry can benefit from a Newsletter and / or a blog.  That’s because the same process outlined above is universal.  Just make sure your blog or newsletter content is designed exclusively for YOUR target market.

In other words, if your business offers web design – write about great web design ideas, tips and tricks.  If your business offers insurance, write about how people can lower their premiums or get better cover or share some funny insurance stories.  If you are a coach or consultant, blog about your subject and give great tips and ideas to your readers. Most newsletters are little more than advertisements and because of this, people do not forward them on and they fail to grow.

Make sure you pump as much valuable information as possible into everything you write.  This showcases your talents, positions you as an expert and shows the real value of your products or your services.  It also makes choosing you as a provider almost risk-free to your readers.

Conclusion

I know people in just about every industry, who get the vast majority of their leads or sales through free online marketing.  I also get emails from people every day; who are wondering how to generate the leads or sales their business needs in order to survive.

If you want to know more, take a look at the free resources mentioned above and also check out the guides and articles in this blog.  You might also want to look that this, it’s all about how to build a successful newsletter.

If you have found this post useful or you have anything to add, please leave a comment and share your feedback with everyone!

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If you want your marketing emails to work, they need to actually REACH the people you send them to.  After all, the best marketing message in the world won’t work if no one receives it.

This means your marketing emails need to be written,  designed and sent in such a way that they are not wrongly mistaken for spam, by the various spam filters out there.  Avoiding spam filters is a huge subject, but you can quickly learn many of the things to avoid – simply by doing the following……

Read the emails in your junk mail filter

Take a look at the emails that have been caught in your spam filter and you will find that they all fit into 1 of 2 categories:

1. Emails from spammers, which were correctly detected as spam.
2. Legitimate email from people, which was wrongly detected as spam.

In both cases, the reason these emails were detected as spam is usually because of the way they were written, designed or sent.  There were things about those emails, that your spam filter thought was suspicious enough to merit them being blocked.  You need to look for some of the common factors and where these blocked emails differ from those you received, which were not blocked.

Common email marketing mistakes

There are a large number of things that can lead to an email being regarded as spam, from; using terms like ‘click here’ inside the email to the over-use of exclamation marks!!!!

The use of a graphics within the email can also cause problems, as can things like having too many upper-case letters in the subject line of the email.

Sadly, you can send a perfectly crafted email to your readers and STILL have it blocked – simply because someone using the same mailhost and within your ip range is a spammer.  Without you doing anything wrong, your ip address then gets blacklisted.

These are just a few of the things you need to look out for.  You will find lots more when you start to examine the emails that get caught in your spam filter.

So, what kind of things have YOU noticed that cause emails to be wrongly detected as spam – let us know.

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