Jim's Marketing Blog

Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business

Why your subscribers aren’t hiring you (and how to fix it).

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Hannah has almost 2000 newsletter subscribers. Her open rates are always between 80% and 85%. And yet she’s attracted just 4 paying clients since 2019, directly from her newsletter readership.

She asked me what she was doing wrong. I suggested, (with her permission), that as this is a really common problem, I’d share my answer with you.

why wont people hire me

Accurate marketing data can cause us problems

We’re now able to test and measure our digital marketing with great precision. And it’s causing hard working small business owners to make very expensive marketing mistakes.

For example. Service providers like Hannah, often look at the open rates / clicks / shares data of their newsletters or blogs, then write certain styles of headline or content, based on what’s popular.

That seems to make sense.

Until we look at the massive difference, between what’s popular with readers… and what generates bankable income for our business.

The key point here.

  • Readers are mostly just that. They’re readers. They read our free stuff. That’s it.
  • Only a subset of readers are prospective clients. This is usually a relatively small percentage; especially if we use the content marketing model, (which Hannah uses, I use and you should be using too).

In short: The vast majority of people who subscribe for useful, free business information have zero intention of spending a dime with us. They’re looking for free information. Period.

Oh yeah. They really mess with your marketing data

That’s because the free stuff crowd are also the people most likely to open newsletters and click links.

They especially love sensational headlines, free special reports and free white papers, etc. They are attracted to them because they dabble rather than hire expert help, so their businesses are constantly struggling. Over-hyped headlines give them hope that they’re one ‘killer free idea’ away from solving their latest problem.

It’s not a coincidence that none of the 4 readers who hired Hannah directly from her newsletter, had high open rates or click rates. They almost hired her in spite of being on her list. This is because our ‘prospective client readers’ behave very, very differently from the ‘free stuff readers’.

The same over-hyped approach that gets opens and clicks from freebie hunters, leaves our prospective clients rolling their eyes!

Allow me to explain.

Yes, our prospective clients are certainly looking for great, useful information. And that’s a fact.

The BIG difference, is that they are also looking to provide their businesses with the resources and expertise it needs. This means when they consume our newsletters, blogs (podcasts, YouTube broadcasts, whatever), they do so with a prospective need for our services and are building a picture of us.

And unlike the freebie crowd, they’re looking for clues.

For example.

  • They’re looking to see how reliable we are over a period of time. If we regularly show up with ideas or go missing unexpectedly for long periods.
  • They’re also looking for clues as to whether we’d work well together or not.
  • They want to see if our communication style is consistently clear and easy to understand.
  • And they want to see just how informed we are; the depth and breadth of our knowledge.

Plus a ton of other things they pick up on, which guides their decision to hire us or not.

The freebie crowd don’t give a rat’s ass about any of that!

In a nutshell: For a service provider, the most valuable feedback from your content marketing, is if it’s generating high quality paying clients or not. So please, don’t chase the numbers that have little or no, real-world commercial value.

A list of business experts you absolutely must avoid

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marketing stop

In life there are certain people who you absolutely need to avoid. The same is true in business.

Some are easy to spot

  • The web designer whose website is a piece of crap.
  • The marketing expert, who embarrassingly needs to pester people on Linkedin because their own marketing doesn’t work.
  • The consultant or adviser who claims to be in high demand, yet offers free consultations.
  • The self-proclaimed leadership guru, who clearly isn’t leading.
  • The copywriter whose content is poorly-written and lacks impact.
  • The creativity expert who’s just like all the other creativity experts. (Think about that for a moment).

Others are trickier to spot

  • The marketing consultant, who used tricks to attract a million social media followers.
  • The accountant who understands numbers, but can’t clearly explain what they mean to their client’s business.
  • The strategist whose own strategy is failing.
  • The business development adviser who has never built a successful business of their own.

Protect your business from bad advice

The personal recommendation of a trusted friend is usually the least risky way to find an expert provider. Just make sure the friend has recent, first-hand experience of the quality of the provider’s work.

Another option is to hire someone whose work you’re already familiar with. For example, if you subscribe to a provider’s podcast, YouTube channel, blog or newsletter and they regularly share useful information, they’re giving you some powerful clues.

  • The fact they have turned up consistently, demonstrates a degree of reliability. This is especially the case if they have many years worth of material available.
  • You get to experience first hand, how knowledgeable they are from the quality of information they provide.
  • In addition, you’ll know in advance if they share information with the clarity you need.
  • You also gain an insight into their personality and mindset, which can help you determine if they’re the kind of person you work best with.

With an attractive looking website and some testimonials, anyone can claim to be an expert at anything. And that’s why you need to look deeper.

Because the cost of taking bad advice is far, far higher than the person’s fee.

A productivity tip, plus a note about notebooks

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notebooks productivity apps

Here are a couple of things I’d like you to briefly ponder. Plus, a productivity tip that many of you will find extremely useful.

  1. Isaac Asimov produced around 470 published books, and hundreds more short works. He did this using a typewriter.
  2. Productive people don’t buy productivity apps.

Those are two things that stood out, on reading last week’s entries in my current notebook (the blue one in that photo).

  • The first was a nugget of information I gleaned from Boston University.
  • The second was something I jotted down, while speaking with the developer of a popular productivity app. He told me that productivity apps are not marketed to productive people. That makes sense. After all, driving apps are not marketed to people who don’t drive.

Productivity tip

This reminded me of how we managed, before we had access to productivity apps. It also reminded me of a technique I used back in the day, which works just as effectively today.

Here it is.

  • The moment I feel ‘stuck’, I grab the task and focus ONLY on doing the very first step.
  • I then do that one, small thing.
  • The task is instantly transformed from something I need to start, to a task in progress.
  • Momentum is created.
  • Momentum is the opposite of being stuck.
  • This one step pretty-much overcomes all productivity challenges for me.

Back to apps.

I chewed over that Isaac Asimov fact in my notebook. I mean, would Isaac Asimov have written more books, if he had a phone offering him productivity notifications and tips?

And what about Leonardo da Vinci? Would entering various data into productivity apps, then monitoring that data, have given him greater focus with which to create? I do know, that da Vinci kept copious notes. Maybe they were his productivity tool?

This leads on to the inspiration for today’s post.

A BIGGER point. About notebooks

One of the least mentioned benefits of using a notebook every day, is what happens when you read a few seemingly unrelated notes. They very often combine to create an idea. Like the idea for this post.

Only by reading those notes, taken 3 days apart, did I make a connection. Seeing them together helped me join the dots. At least 75% of my blog posts / newsletter ideas come from my notebooks.

Without exception, every productive person I know is a note taker. Some, like me, use a mix of paper notes and digital. Others choose just one.

If you don’t regularly take notes, I very highly recommend you give it a try. And the next time you’re in a productive slump, give my productivity tip a try.

Google: The long and the short of it

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google indexing, google keyword, google repitition

Hundreds of the posts on Jim’s Marketing Blog have been excluded from Google’s index. Close to a thousand.

I’m told that Google’s algorithm needs me to write longer posts. It also needs me to unnaturally repeat key phrases and key words, over and over. Otherwise, no indexing.

I suggest I don’t need to change how I write.

I suggest Google needs to radically improve its horribly limited search algorithm.

Here’s the thing. I write for people, not a poorly-programmed, easy to fool algorithm. This means I write short whenever I can. This post is 32 words long. That’s all it needed.

Whilst writing short drives Google nuts, people like it.

  • It’s people whose problems I seek to solve.
  • It’s also people who hire me and people who recommend me.

The next time you have to plough through thousands of unnecessary words online, for a couple of hundred words worth of information, you’ll know why the writer did it.

Publish the process: Field Offices

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field offices, change scenery,

In the early days of the blog, I’d often share a look behind the scenes at my working day. It’s something I call publishing the process and today it’s back!

Just as before, I’ll share ideas I’m working on, the tools I’m using, useful new resources, the way I collect ideas… as well as things like sources of inspiration, etc.

Let’s kick things off with: Field offices

Lots of readers have asked me about how and why I use field offices. It’s something I’ve mentioned in passing in recent blog posts and newsletter articles. But never in any detail.

It’s a relevant topic to start with, as I sit in a field office right now; sipping espresso, with my MacBook Air finally connected to the coffee shop’s WiFi.

“[…] We get into ruts at work by following strict routines. That’s the problem! […]”

Dr. Todd Dewett

How many times have you had a great idea or flash of insight, when you’re in the shower, or when you’re at the gym or stuck in traffic?

It happens to all of us and it happens a lot.

One reason for this is that the change of scenery disrupts your routine and provides you with multiple, different inputs. Fresh sources of stimulation. And each of these influences how we think and feel, to a lesser or greater degree.

Like thousands of others, I’ve found that the same thing happens when I deliberately choose to break the routine of working from a non-traditional working environment.

Field offices offer 2 major benefits

  1. Field offices provide you with the same valuable, fresh / different ideas and insights, that often come randomly in the shower. However, by deciding to deliberately kick-start the process, you have far greater control over when it happens.
  2. Because you’re equipped with the tools you work with, for me it’s a laptop or a notebook and pen, you can capture the idea or insight and instantly get to work on it.

I also find it helps to use multiple different locations and settings. Here are the ones I’ve used recently.

  • A bench on the Chesterfield Canal.
  • A coffee shop (in the above photo).
  • The grounds of Lincoln Castle and also Conisbrough Castle.
  • My garden.
  • Sherwood Forest.

As with anything like this, some people will find it extremely useful, others will find it a lot less useful. I strongly recommend you, at least, to give it a try. See it it helps and how it helps.

How it helps?

Yes.

Field offices work in different ways for different people.

I find that they’re of most use to me when I’m stuck with an idea. Other people I know, find field offices most useful when writing reports. Whilst others, still, use them exclusively when they’ve spent too many days at a desk, and feel they ‘just need’ a change of scenery.

I hope you found this look at field offices useful. Moreover, I hope it inspires you to give it a try the next time you’re looking for a creativity boost.

Discover the NEW way to destroy your sales results

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marketing tips

When it comes to creating a powerful marketing message and attracting new customers, ‘new‘ is overrated. It can also destroy your marketing results.

There are 3 core reasons for this.

  1. The newest product or service is always a riskier bet. At best, it’s a bigger gamble than the trusted incumbent. At worst, the customer feels like a paying guinea pig.
  2. The newest product or service is seldom the best. It lacks the improvements that come from years of feedback. It lacks the robustness that comes from stress-testing.
  3. New doesn’t last for long. This makes it a short-term marketing message. Anything that’s new is only new for now.

A dozen better alternatives

Instead of relying on new, offer your marketplace something more compelling. More motivating. More attractive. For example, instead of offering them a new way to do something, offer them:

  1. A faster way.
  2. A more enjoyable way.
  3. A greener way.
  4. A proven way.
  5. A stylish way.
  6. An original way.
  7. A premium quality way.
  8. An ethical way.
  9. An exciting way.
  10. A safer way.
  11. A more reliable way.
  12. A cost effective way.

In short, be extremely careful about how and where you use the word new, as you put your 2022 marketing strategy together.