Jim's Marketing Blog

Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business

A comfortable way to attract new customers

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marketing approachable

How easy is it, for your prospective clients or customers to get in touch with you?

I’m not talking about how visible your phone number, email address or contact form are. I’m referring to something that is just as important and yet seldom written about: How approachable you seem to be, to a prospective client or customer.

For example.

  • When a prospect is reading your newsletter, how approachable do you sound to them? The best newsletters are written, so that the author comes across as friendly and informed. The worst are written by people who come across as lacking in personality or distant.
  • When a prospect reads your comments on social media, how approachable do you sound to them? Some business owners can appear patronising or sarcastic when people dialogue with them or ask questions. This is a really, really bad move, if you want prospective clients to feel comfortable contacting you.
  • When a prospect reads the about page on your website, how approachable do you sound? Many small business owners write their about page in the 3rd person, rather than speak directly to their reader. Instead of saying; ‘Hi, thanks for stopping by. My name is Bob and…’ they start with ‘Bob has worked in web design since 2002…’

Why does this matter to you?

All things being equal, we much prefer to do business with the vendors we like. We also tend to remain loyal to them and recommend them to our friends and contacts.

By building the human touch into the very foundations of your business, including your marketing, you start to nurture a positive relationship with your prospects. You help them form warm feelings toward you, long before you ever speak with them.

This combines to help them feel massively more comfortable contacting you, hiring you or buying from you.

Marketing in a hurry

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marketing blogs

I shared the following idea with a group of very smart entrepreneurs. They found it useful, so I thought I’d share it with you.

It’s simply this:

“Marketing isn’t something you do in a hurry, when business is sluggish. It’s an ongoing part of running a successful business”.

Successful business owners already understand this. As a result, there is a growing awareness of them in their marketplace. And because successful businesses use content marketing, their prospective clients (or customers) will regularly receive useful information from them. This useful information not only informs their prospective clients, it helps build trust.

Awareness and trust are essential. And ongoing, content marketing achieves both. Here’s how it works.

The rest market sporadically. Usually, when business is sluggish. So they take their need for sales to the marketplace, via special offers or out-of-the-blue advertising.

Because they fail to market on an ongoing basis, their prospective clients have no real awareness of them. And no awareness means no trust. So, even if the prospective client has a requirement, the marketing fails.

It has to fail. That’s because people buy from providers they trust. And a competing provider, whose marketing they regularly receive and whose brand they know, already has the prospective client’s awareness and trust.

In short, make content marketing an ongoing part of your business. Not something you do when times are tough. Get it right and you’ll find you never have to market from a position of need again.

How to have inspiration, ideas and answers on demand

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marketing ideas, marketing inspiration

How would you like to have access to inspiration, ideas and answers whenever you need them? That’s what this brief post is all about.

I found the above note in an old Apple Notes file. I think it was part of some research I did, for a blog post I never published. Anyhow, discovering that note this morning reminded me why I take (and keep) lots of notes and how extremely valuable they are.

I thought you might find it useful, so I’ve decided to quickly share it with you.

Now, as you can see, that note by itself is just a snippet of an idea.

But that note isn’t by itself. It’s part of a massive body of ideas I’ve jotted down over the past 20 years. They’re mostly pen and paper notes, though I also have thousands of digital notes, like the above example.

It’s this stack of ideas and observations, in note form, that’s extremely valuable for anyone involved in problem solving; which is every person reading this.

Inspiration and answers on demand

As a marketing professional, I can’t ‘wait’ for inspiration to arrive. When work starts, I need to command inspiration to appear. If I’m more than one coffee into my day and I’m struggling to get into the flow, that’s where the notes come in.

I grab a notebook or search my digital notes and usually within 5 minutes, my brain is in a highly creative state.

An old note with a nugget or two of information, soon points my thinking in a massively more productive direction. That new direction helps me focus on new ideas and new solutions, which I couldn’t possibly have accessed otherwise. I use these to help my clients build great businesses, develop new products or services and spot windfall profits they never even knew existed.

More importantly, just think how valuable that kind of asset would be for you and your business. Imagine you were able to know in advance, with confidence, that you could tap into a powerful source of inspired ideas and answers.

Start by collecting ideas. The sooner you start, the sooner your stack of ideas will grow. And don’t just collect your own ideas, but ideas from others (like this one). And definitely spend more time on ideas from outside your industry. Grab ideas from books, movies, artists you love. Don’t limit yourself. Collect your ideas in a format that’s easiest for you.

And most importantly, make it a daily habit.

Bring me your problems

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bring me your problems, marketing blog

There’s real power in the following 4 words: Bring me your problems.

Why?

Because everyone has problems. And nobody wants them. That includes your prospective clients. What they want (and need) are answers. They want to get unstuck. They want to free themselves from frustration. They want reliable service providers, who they can trust. And this is extremely important to them.

In short, your prospective clients are highly motivated to get their problems solved.

Okay. Hold that thought for a moment.

Now let’s look at the service you provide

Your service is the answer to a problem. Or a series of problems. How do I know this? Simple. Every service provider is a problem solver.

So, I’d like you to answer a question: When was the last time you asked people to bring you their problems?

Sure, every service provider markets the services they provide. They have them listed on their websites, they mention them when they speak with prospective clients, they may even mention them in a newsletter, blog, vlog, podcast or on social networks, etc.

But that wasn’t what I was asking.

My question was a lot more literal than that.

In very literal terms, when was the last time you used these four words [bring me your problems] in your marketing?

Bring me your problems is a powerful, direct request. It bypasses all the fluff. It cuts right to the chase. It strikes at the core of what your prospective clients want and need. And this is especially the case when those 4 words feature prominently, in the right place.

Here’s how it works

It looks a lot like this.

  1. Your prospective client has a problem.
  2. She finds your website (or any of your marketing assets).
  3. She can see that the services you provide are related to her problem.
  4. She then sees a direct request, asking her to bring you her problems.
  5. Boom! Your message has engaged with her needs like a laser.
  6. You’re now massively more likely to have motivated her to contact you and hire you.

Easy?

Absolutely.

But no one said that powerful marketing had to be complicated.

1 Essential word your marketing needs. Plus 1 you absolutely MUST avoid

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business growing, how to

Here’s a very quick tip, to help you improve the sales effectiveness of your marketing. It’s all about a word you use regularly, which is negatively impacting how people feel about your business.

That word is change!

People are hard-wired to fear change.

We know that change, good or bad, is a source of stress. Even something as positive as the change that comes from getting married, buying a new home or setting off for a week in the sun, is a cause of stress. In short, change is a trigger word, which places the prospective client or customer in a suboptimal state.

Because of the negative way people feel when confronted with change, it makes sense to remove the word from your marketing. Don’t worry, I am going to give you a massively more powerful, motivating alternative!

Improve, rather than change

Whenever possible, use the word improve, rather than change. Improve, is a positive word. It’s an attractive word too, because we are always looking for something better.

For example, look how the phrase below becomes far more powerful, when change is replaced with improve.

“This copywriting tip will change your marketing results.” (It could make them worse)

“This copywriting tip will improve your marketing results.” (It will make them better)

Your prospective clients or customers fear change, but want things to improve. So, stop offering them what they fear and give them what they want.

The serious marketing problem that no one talks about

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marketing tips, free marketing, marketing advice

I was in a coffee shop once, when a guy with a very obvious hairpiece came in. He had natural, thick brown hair around his ears, with a jet black wig on top. Of course, no one mentioned it to him. People just smirked when he wasn’t looking. Whether this guy needed the hairpiece for vanity or medical reasons, it’s entirely possible he has no idea that his wig is so poorly matched to his natural hair.

A very similar kind of silence happens regularly in business. And when it does, it costs you a fortune.

Allow me to expand on that.

  • We check out the Facebook page, Linkedin or Twitter account of a potential vendor. We notice their updates are mostly just a series of desperate sales pitches and quotes from famous people. We don’t tell them they put us off by looking so needy and bland. We silently move on.
  • We start reading a poorly-written piece of marketing and quickly discard it. We don’t email the company and tell them their content is losing them business. We silently move on.
  • We go to a website to check out a potential service provider. We then see that their site is amateurish and decide not to consider them. We don’t call them to let them know their site created such a bad impression. We silently move on.

So, faced with all this silence, how do you figure out if what you’re doing is working for you? Simple. You ‘listen’ to what your results are telling you. That’s where the most accurate signal is.

For example.

  • Your website should be a 24-hour, business generating machine. If it isn’t, it’s telling you something. It’s telling you that it urgently needs to be improved.
  • Your newsletter should regularly attract sales, sales leads or new clients. If it isn’t, it’s telling you something. It’s telling you that you need to quickly improve your strategy.

The lesson here?

Don’t wait for someone to tell you your marketing sucks. Because they won’t. Your friends don’t want to upset you. Your competitors don’t want you to become a threat. And strangers don’t give a rat’s ass.

Instead, listen to what your results are telling you. Follow the direction of travel and see if you’re happy with where you’re likely to be next month, next quarter and next year.

Then act accordingly.