Jim's Marketing Blog

Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business

Attracting attention Vs. Buying attention

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attraction marketing, earn attention

Typically, business owners buy advertising in order to get the attention of prospects. Today, I’m proposing you consider an alternative. Instead of buying attention with ads, I’m going to suggest you consider organically attracting attention.

I’ll include some examples of how this works, and I’ll explain some of the huge advantages of organically attracting attention.

Let’s go.

Here’s what we know about small business owners who want to be seen.

  • Some of them pay for ads on Google, Linkedin and Facebook, etc.
  • Others pay to be listed in directories.
  • Then there are those who buy ad space in publications.
  • And some buy radio ads or pay to sponsor podcasts, etc.
  • Or they do a combination of the above.

In those examples, the business owner is connecting with strangers and paying a fee every time. That’s a flawed combination. Why? Well, strangers are strangers. By default, a stranger is far less likely to hire you or buy from you, than someone who knows of you / your business and trusts you.

Buying ads also leaves you exposed to the threat of a better funded competitor, who can outspend you. I often hear from small business owners who have been priced out of online advertising, including Google Ads, because a competitor is outbidding them for the most important words and phrases. And that half page ad you run in a publication, becomes vastly less effective when a competitor decides to invest in a double-page spread for the next 6 months.

If you’re tired of paying to interrupt strangers or you want to avoid being vulnerable to a better funded competitor, it’s time to consider a different approach

An attractive alternative

Some business owners attract attention organically, build their own community and nurture their own long-term relationships with prospects. This leads to sustainable growth for the business owner, with increasing, not diminishing, returns.

Can you give me some examples, Jim?

Yes. Here are a few that came to mind immediately.

  • I’m thinking about a coffee shop owner, who decides to start a book club, (a crafting group or creative writing evenings), for their customers.
  • And a dentist, who provides a monthly class for people who have an irrational fear of dentists. They get the added benefit of free referrals from health professionals.
  • Naturally, I’m also thinking of my fellow content creators, who, like me, freely publish useful ideas to the market they serve.

In those examples, the business owner is growing a community of prospective clients or customers. They’re building their very own marketing asset and it increases in value all the time. Their community organically spreads the word, telling their families, friends, colleagues and general contacts.

And the connection to that community doesn’t belong to an advertiser, it belongs to the business owner!

Yes, in each of the above examples you’d need to invest some of your time.

However, that modest investment is building you your very own, extremely valuable community. A community who will get to know you, trust you, recommend you, hire you and buy from you.

How do I know?

I know because I use this approach and haven’t paid for advertising since the 1990’s. I also help small business owners to enjoy the same benefits. So yes, I strongly recommend you seriously think about it.

Ignore the uninterested. Target the unhappy. Here’s why!

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marketing focus, unhappy, uninterested

If your marketing is not attracting enough paying clients or customers, I have an idea to share with you. It’s based on a strategy I use with my clients and the results are amazing.

It starts with a foundational truth of marketing.

You can make a fortune if you market to the right kind of people. However, you will waste time and money, if you market to the wrong kind of people.

So, who should you be marketing to? And why?

Allow me to explain.

Ignore the uninterested

No matter how great your service is, people who are delighted with their current provider are highly unlikely to switch to you. That’s because they’re not looking for a new provider. They’re simply not interested in dumping a service, which they trust and are extremely happy with.

We call the people who are not in the market for your services, the uninterested. Whilst it is possible to sell to those with no interest, it’s an extremely low leverage activity.

It’s also totally unnecessary.

Focus on the unhappy

It makes a great deal more sense to focus on those who are eagerly looking for a new provider. We call these people the unhappy. They are actively in the market for what you’re offering. They’re ready to make a purchasing decision. They are the exact type of motivated buyers your business needs. I wrote this post about how to get your prospects’ urgent attention and immediate action, which you might find helpful.

Certainly, build an awareness of how great your service is. Make it easy for people to find you, when their relationship with their current provider sours. That goes without saying. However, if you want to quickly connect with people who will give you their full attention AND who are ready to hire you or buy from you now, create a marketing strategy that focuses on attracting the unhappy.

This is a specialist area of marketing and not suitable for dabbling with. But when you acquire the correct strategy, it’s hugely more financially rewarding than the typical, let’s see who responds to our marketing, approach.

The retailer who’s killing his business

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marketing content, copy

There’s a powerful marketing lesson I’d like to share with you, from my own personal experience.

I visited a store yesterday morning. In the space of just a few minutes, they damaged their reputation and lost at least 2 customers instantly. They will almost certainly have already lost more by the time you read this, as the story has now surfaced on a local Facebook group.

Here’s what happened.

I was standing in line waiting to buy a new razor, at a local, independent store. A customer in front of me was trying to exchange a faulty hair dryer she’d bought from them. The hair dryer was, apparently, 2 days past the store’s return policy. The customer tried to explain that she’d just returned from a 14 day business trip and couldn’t return it sooner.

The guy at the store wasn’t interested. He just kept loudly telling the customer there was nothing he could do. The customer left the store, vowing never to return. I put my purchase back on the shelf and decided to buy a razor elsewhere.

A better approach leads to a better result for everyone

The guy at the store was wrong when he said there was nothing he could do. There were a number of useful things he could have done.

  • He could have listened to the customer as she explained her situation. Instead, he chose to avoid eye contact.
  • He could have looked at her passport, when she showed him the stamps that proved she returned to the country yesterday. Instead, he chose to look away, rolling his eyes.
  • He could have spoken to the customer with empathy. Instead, he chose to keep repeating the same mantra, over and over.
  • He could have been flexible because of the customer’s situation, offering her a working hair drier or maybe a discount on a second one. Instead, he chose not to.

And he could have turned the customer’s problem into a positive story.

He could have given her a remarkable customer experience, which she would share with her family and friends. After all, he’d sold her a defective product and her passport stamps (which she showed him) proved she’d been out of the country until the previous day.

Instead, he chose to give the customer a very poor experience. The kind of experience she has since used as a warning, via a popular local Facebook group. When I last looked, her story had almost 100 reactions, with comments from others who’d had similar experiences.

All this is happening, when the store had a great opportunity to delight a customer and give her a positive story to share. It would have cost them pennies.

Small business should play to our strengths

As an independent business, they had the flexibility to deal with that situation in any way they wanted. And that’s exactly what they did. Whether the guy who served the customer was the owner or an employee, it was clear that they operate a rigid returns policy.

Certainly, the retailer needs to avoid customers taking advantage of them. However, it was very clear that this customer was an exceptional case. This is the exact kind of situation, where a small business can use their agility and win a client’s goodwill and loyalty. It’s a golden marketing opportunity. (I wrote this piece explaining why everything in business is marketing that you might find useful).

Our customers will talk about us, regardless. It’s the way we look after them that determines the kind of story they share.

Let them make you better, not bitter!

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marketing, usp, different

There’s an old saying that tells us, let your past make you better, not bitter.

Business owners should use a revised version of that saying, let your competitors make you better, not bitter.

I’ve worked with thousands of business owners over the years and noticed a strong tendency, for them to drastically underestimate their competitors. This then creates bitterness, especially toward the most successful of their competitors. It seems totally unfair.

I get to see both sides. And there’s always a reason why one business is ahead of the pack.

  • They market their services extremely effectively.
  • They offer an outstanding service.
  • They offer a unique variation of a service.
  • They do all of the above, plus more.

The most useful place to look when our business is struggling against competitors, is the mirror. We’re either failing to market our business as effectively as they are, (or / and) we’re offering a less valuable service. This means we either need to improve our marketing, or we need to improve what we do. Preferably both.

It isn’t luck.

It isn’t magic.

It is fair.

And it produces predictable results. Every. Single. Time. But only if we care enough to do it correctly.

A genius marketing idea from a 19th century artist

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Back in the 1800’s, Edgar Degas said: Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.

The same is true of great marketing

Successful marketing paints a compelling picture in the mind of a prospective client. It doesn’t list a series of facts or features. Instead, it talks directly to the needs and wants of your clients. It paints a picture of how you can help them. It illustrates how you’re passionate about helping them. Everything is rooted in what’s best for them. Everything.

Ineffective marketing paints a picture of the provider. It’s all about their business and the products or services they offer. It’s dry. It’s dull. It’s forgettable. And it fails to motivate people to take action.

The message, my friend, is simple. If you want to attract better clients, paint better pictures.

Have an unfair advantage over your competitors

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unfair advantage

Today, I’m going to give you an unfair advantage over your competitors.

I was just 29 years old when I started my first business. So I made darn sure to seek out as much advice and as many tips as possible, from those with lots more experience. That’s when I discovered what I’m about to share with you.

It’s so effective, I’ve used it with great success ever since!

It came from my first accountant, back in the 1990’s. He suggested I work 1-hour a day longer, than the average for my profession. This is what he himself did, and it gave him what he called “an unfair advantage” over his competitors.

I did as he suggested and the results were amazing.

Your unfair advantage

Here’s how it works, in just 3 steps.

  1. I’m an early bird, so I chose to start work an hour earlier than others in my profession. You can equally add your hour to the end of the day, or add 30-minutes to the start of your day and 30-minutes to the end.
  2. I would finish around the same time as them, so I just worked 1-hour more.
  3. The pay-off: Over the period of a working year, this gives you an additional 6 weeks (based on the typical 40-hour working week). That’s an amazing one and a half months worth, of extra, highly-productive time, to produce, create and deliver for your clients or customers.

The positive impact on my results came fast and were easy to measure.

But that’s not all.

You automatically get another unfair advantage

Yes, it genuinely helped me get a lot more done. But it helped in another way, too.

By knowing I was working while my counterparts were not, it provided me with an instant, mental advantage. It made me feel that I was more committed, more motivated and more driven than them. This may not have been true, but the inspiration it gave me, and still gives me today, is absolutely true.

If you’re in a tight spot right now or just want to give your business a sustainable, measurable lift, I strongly recommend you give yourself this unfair advantage!

Get more referrals with this simple idea

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marketing, referrals, word of mouth recommendations

Give this a try.

  • Think of some amazing things, which you would LOVE your marketplace to be telling their friends about your business.
  • Write those amazing things down.
  • Next, put a plan together of what you will need to do, in order for your marketplace to say those amazing things.
  • Finally, get to work on your plan.

This is a switch of focus, from the vast majority of advice on getting referrals.

Most referral advice is about how to motivate others to recommend your services or products to their friends and contacts. How to change their behaviour.

This advice is focused on you taking direct control. It’s about you crafting an experience, which makes people want to recommend your services or products.

People are naturally hardwired to communicate with each other. When we give our marketplace an experience worth talking about, that’s exactly what they do.

The wonderful thing about this, is that it means your referral stream is always, always under your direct control.

Suddenly it smashes you in the face!

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Jim Connolly marketing, fix your marketing

Marketing tactics and strategies seldom fail overnight.

Instead, they become a little less effective over time. The decrease in effectiveness is usually so gradual that for weeks, often longer, you hardly even notice it. Then you look at your sales leads, your upcoming sales meetings and your sales figures and the reality of the situation kicks in.

Your marketing is no longer effective and you’re about to feel some real pain, unless you resolve things.

One guy went 5 months without a sales lead, before he contacted me. He said, and I believe him, that he hoped it was just a long blip, and that things would pick up ‘next week’. It was only after his bank refused to increase his lending that he reached out for help.

That months-long period is how marketing problems usually manifest themselves. There’s a slow, very gradual decline in results. Then suddenly the numbers punch you in the face. It’s at this point, where most business owners will take action.

Other business owners do things differently.

Here’s what I see regularly, with new clients. They have been keeping an eye on their marketing and the results generated. They then paid extra attention as soon as they saw a negative pattern emerging. The moment they believed there was a bigger problem ahead, they contacted me.

So, why do most small business owners hesitate?

There are a number of reasons behind the decision of some business owners, to wait longer than others, before proactively taking control of their problem.

Here are the reasons I hear most commonly from new clients.

  • Some are sat on a fat bank account, which decreases their hunger to fix things. They’ll try to ride it out.
  • Some hate the idea of change, so leave it as late as possible.
  • Some have far less motivation or need to make money, as the vast majority of their family income is from their life-partner, wife, husband or parents.
  • Some have a well-paid job and their business is really just a hobby or pastime.

It boils down to different circumstances and different attitudes.

Whatever your current situation or mindset, marketing problems are easier and faster to resolve, the sooner you get started. Because the moment you start doing the right things correctly, you change the direction of your business.

Why you need a story. From the original Mad Man

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marketing, business, brand, story, ogilvy

Someone recently asked me why her business needed a story. She thought it was, “a load of trendy nonsense”.

When I answered her question, she emailed me back to say it had changed her perception completely. She said it would improve her approach to marketing forever.

So today, I decided to share my answer with you. I hope you find it just as useful.

Why your brand needs a story

My answer begins with a quote from advertising legend, David Ogilvy. Ogilvy was the inspiration behind the hit TV show, Mad Men.

Here’s what he had to say.

“There isn’t any significant difference between the various brands of whiskey, or cigarettes or beer. They are all about the same”. “[…] The manufacturer who dedicates his advertising to building the most sharply defined personality for his brand will get the largest share of the market at the highest profit”.

That message isn’t new. It was written decades ago, as you can tell from the examples he uses. But it’s even more valid in 2023, than when Ogilvy shared it.

Think about it. Apple’s iPhone is the best selling mobile phone in the world, despite being one of the most expensive. It doesn’t have the best display, the best camera, the best signal reception or the best battery life.

But it does have the best story.

Emotions drive decisions

Your prospective clients or customers are motivated by emotions, far more than logic. The way they feel about you and your brand, is what will drive their decision to hire you, buy from you and recommend you. And it’s your story, which determines how they feel about you. (I explain why in this post, Does your business pass the coffee shop test?, which you might find useful).

Build a story, my friend. A story that people will embrace and share.

Is it easy? No. It takes a little creativity.

Is it possible? Yes. Very possible.

Is it worth the effort? Absolutely.

How to get your prices right: High, medium or low?

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how to set prices, get your prices right

One of the best things about owning a business or directing the path of a company, is that you have the freedom to adapt and improve as things change. With this in mind, I’d like to share an idea, more of an opportunity really, with you. Something you may not have considered before.

It’s all about which segment of the market you should serve and how to get your prices or fees right.

High priced, medium priced or low priced?

Long before the current economic turmoil. Before the pandemic. In fact, for decades now, here’s what we have seen.

High priced, quality brands are doing really well.

Low priced, budget brands are doing really well, too.

The average priced, average brands are struggling.

Yes, those are general observations. But the core message is loud and clear. It’s a lot harder to sell an average priced, average positioned product or service. Average prices (or fees) are too expensive for those with limited budgets. Average prices are of no interest whatsoever to those who demand the best possible products or an exclusive, premium service.

Why then, is the middle ground where the great majority of businesses land?

Obviously, most new businesses set their prices where they feel they have the best chance of making sales or attracting clients. In my experience, they’ll start off a little higher or a little lower than whatever the average is. By default, this means most businesses begin life within the average price range. And that’s where most of them will remain, adjusting prices roughly in keeping with their similarly priced competitors.

Are your prices or fees pitched correctly?

If you’re currently serving that highly competitive middle ground, and you’re finding it hard to thrive, I’d like you to consider leaving it. (I wrote this helpful piece about how to leave the middle ground that you may find useful).

I’d like you to think about one of the following alternatives.

  • Embracing the opportunities that come from serving the high price, high end of your industry or profession.
  • Or embracing the opportunities that come from being a successful, budget provider.

By the way, there are huge opportunities at the budget end of things, if you get the balance right.

Poundland, a budget retailer in the UK, generated revenues of over $1.5Billion when its most recent figures were announced. Similarly, service providers who are able to put robust, highly optimized systems in place, can make a fortune whilst charging significantly lower fees for their services. I’ve seen this low-fee model work extremely effectively, many, many times.

So, should everyone reading this reposition away from the middle ground?

No. It totally depends on your answer to the following question.

Did you intentionally chose the middle ground?

Over the past 25 years, I’ve found that business owners tend to naturally gravitate toward the middle ground and average pricing. Very few of them intentionally set out to be there. It just happens. The reasons are many and varied.

My suggestion is that it’s a good idea to consider your options. All of them. Is the segment of the market you find yourself serving today, taking you where you want to be in the next 5 or 10 years?

  • If it is, then you’ve landed in the right place.
  • If not, then examine the opportunities open to you, serving one of the other segments.

In short, make sure you intentionally choose where you set your prices or fees. Determine what part of the market you are most likely to succeed in. Many business owners ‘happen upon’ the right segment, others happen to get it wrong. We need to be smarter than that and deliberately decide for ourselves.