Jim's Marketing Blog

Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business

Your competitors are incompetent clowns

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Marketing, competitor research

When was the last time you researched your competitors?

It has never been easier for you to research the marketing you are competing against, than it is today. In minutes, you can tell if someone is serious competition to your business or simply a dabbler.

For example.

  • You can read their website and tell instantly if it looks professional and up-to-date or not.
  • Their site will also show you the range of services they offer and the guarantees they provide.
  • In some cases, you can see what they charge and whether they offer payment terms, etc.
  • You can also check their social media footprint and see if they are using it to broadcast or connect. You can tell a huge amount about the culture of a business by looking at what they think is appropriate to share on social networks.

Over the years I’ve worked with thousands of business owners. One of the things I see over and over again, is a tendency to underestimate the service offered by their competitors. This is a potentially fatal mistake.

Here are 2 of the main reasons why this happens.

1. Focused on their own hard work and dedication

They work so hard on their own businesses and care so passionately about their own clients, that they can’t imagine their competitors being equally committed. This is often not the case. The vast majority of business owners work their tail off and try extremely hard to keep their clients happy.

We need to avoid underestimating our competitors at all costs. It’s a mindset that causes us to ease off the gas. To coast. And in doing so, we make it way too easy for a hard-working competitor to eat our lunch!

2. Biased reporting

There are a lot of people out there, who will tell us what they think we want to hear. Others will tell us what they want us to believe.

Let me expand on that a little.

If you attract a new client, who was fired by one of your competitors for being a late payer or impossible to work with, that new client will seldom tell you. They don’t want to scare you off. Instead, they’ll often say they left because the service was lousy. Similarly, when you hire people who previously worked for one of your competitors, they’ll often trash-talk about them.

Many business owners use the same suppliers as some of their competitors. If you ask a supplier how your competition are doing, you’ll often get negative reports. Don’t take too much notice. Remember, those who are unprofessional enough to share news about their customers with you, are unprofessional enough to give fake feedback.

In short, if you’re going to assume anything, assume that your competitors are hard working professionals who are targeting your clients. That will stop any chance of complacency from creeping in.

Why email marketing doesn’t work in 2023

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email marketing doesn't work, email marketing does not work, why doesn't, newsletter marketing

A reader shared an interesting observation with me.

She told me she had “found out the hard way that email marketing doesn’t work“.

She asked me for my thoughts on why email is so ineffective. I said I’d share them here, as I’m sure some of you will find it useful.

Email marketing works

Email marketing works. In fact, email marketing works extremely well.

Just ask any business owner who’s using it correctly. Whether it’s used for newsletters or promotions, the return on investment is off the charts.

Email marketing also works more predictably than just about any other form of marketing. And the tiny financial investment required for email marketing makes it the most cost effective form of marketing out there.

why doesn't email marketing work, email marketing doesn't work, newsletter, email campaign

Email marketing doesn’t work when…

What doesn’t work is ineffective email marketing. Just ask anyone who’s doing it incorrectly. Here’s the thing: ineffective email marketing can’t work.

Here are just a few, very common examples of how small business owners get email marketing wrong.

  • A poorly written email won’t work. It will fail to motivate the reader to take action; to call you, email you, visit your website, make a purchase from you, whatever.
  • A professionally written email, sent to the wrong people, won’t work. It will fail to reach those with a want or need for your services.
  • A well written email, sent to the right people, with a dull subject line, won’t work. That’s because no one will open it. The subject line has to be compelling or no matter what your message is, it will literally be ignored.
  • A well written email, sent to the right people, with a compelling subject line, offering a generic product or service, won’t work. No one wants to switch to a service that’s no better then their current service.
  • A well written email, sent to the right people, with a compelling subject line, but sent on the wrong day of the week, won’t work. At least, it won’t be anything like as effective as it would be, if you research the best time of day and best day of the week, to send it.
  • Oh, and if you send your emails frequently, or not frequently enough… that’s right, your email marketing won’t work.

You get the idea.

In short, before you reject any form of marketing as ineffective, make sure you’re using it correctly.

So, instead of telling yourself that email marketing doesn’t work, ask yourself why YOUR email marketing doesn’t work. Otherwise, you’ll needlessly miss out on one of the most powerful forms of marketing on the planet!

Your top 2 marketing goals for 2023

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increase value, client retention, attrition

There are two essential marketing goals for you to focus on in 2023, which I’d like to share with you.

First, some context.

In recent months, we’ve seen the start of a massive change. Consumer spending is falling and company budgets are in equally sharp decline. This is forecast to get worse in 2023 as we enter a global recession. And it has already started to change the way your prospects purchase things. They’re having to take drastic action and cut back on expenditure.

  • They’re looking for cost savings on essential purchases.
  • They’re eliminating or reducing non-essential purchasing.

Here are those two essential areas I’d like you to be aware of, along with some ideas on how to put them to work.

1. Increase your value and let your prospects know

You need to greatly increase the value of whatever you provide. Then, powerfully market that greatly increased value to your prospects. Your prospects are thinking really hard about purchases, making value for money an essential if you want their hard earned cash or company budget. I give some tips here on ways to create value.

A common way to greatly increase your value, is to greatly reduce your fees or prices. Lowering fees is a bad idea in any economy. However, when your own overhead is increasing, lowering your fees makes no sense at all. It’s also totally unsustainable, given the long-term economic forecast.

Of course, once you’ve created a way to radically increase the value of your products or services, you need to let people know. This means attracting their attention. Then clearly explaining the compelling benefits you offer, in a way that motivates them to buy from you or hire you. If your service is faster, explain why that extra speed is so valuable to them. If the quality of your product is demonstrably better, explain why that superior quality represents amazing value for them.

Don’t just greatly increase how valuable your service is and expect prospects to ‘get it’. It’s critical that you tell them, in a way that moves them to take action and make the purchase.

2. Work harder than ever on client retention

You need to make retaining your existing clients, a top-level business activity. Their income or budget is being severely squeezed. This means they’re vastly more likely to shop around. This includes clients who until now, have been loyal for years.

To compound things, your clients will be increasingly targeted by your competitors with attractive reasons to switch. Your competitors are experiencing similar challenges to you. Expect them to respond with increased marketing activity and hunger.

In part, you will already improve your client retention by implementing the previous suggestion.

But you’ll need all the commercial firepower you can muster. So, I’m recommending you do what the leaders in client retention do.

It’s simply this: Maintain useful, regular contact with your clients. Clients are used to being contacted when it’s renewal time or when they’re involved with you in a transaction or on a project. The type of regular contact I’m referring to, goes beyond that. And it’s spectacularly effective.

How do you maintain useful, regular contact?

Some common examples include sharing useful resources with them, maybe an app, productivity tool, or useful piece of information [like this]. Also, if you have a contact that could be a great fit for them, connect them. And if you learn of an event that could be helpful to them, let them know. You get the idea.

It’s about being mindful of your clients as you go through your working day, and collecting any resources worth sharing with one or more of them. No, don’t pester them every few days. In my experience, a few times a month is a great place to start. It keeps you front of mind. It’s a great way to become a semi-regular part of your client’s business. The closer the connection between client and provider, the more value you can be to your clients and the harder it is for a competitor to get them to switch.

Thriving in tough times

As we’ve seen over the past 36-months, there have been some huge changes to what we consider business as usual. Each time things took a turn for the worse, some business owners went broke, others struggled but survived, and others thrived. As you’ll know, there were small businesses in each of those three groups in just about every town and city. This often included businesses in the same industry, targeting the same prospects, facing the same restrictions and challenges, yet with very different results.

Certainly, some went into those struggles with significant resources behind them. But that was not so for the average small business owner who thrived. What allowed them to thrive was that they adapted their business to the new ‘normal’. They didn’t hunker down. They didn’t just carry on as if nothing was happening around them. They remained agile and benefited from opportunities that their competitors were not even looking for.

You should consider doing as they did, my friend.

What you don’t know, will hurt your business

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Successful business owners think different

You, [yes you dear reader], are just one step away from someone, who already has a trusted relationship with more of your prospective clients or customers TODAY, than you could hope to reach in the next 10 years! And because this person is already trusted by your prospects, they’ll feel positively toward you when the contact recommends you to all of them.

Yes, there are people in that position who will do that for you.

Yes, this is something that happens all the time.

Better still… it’s just one of many tactics that wealthy business owners use. Tactics that allow them to make massive numbers of sales, incredibly fast!

Why I’m sharing this with you

The thing is, you’re not researching who that contact is. You’re not using a proven strategy to get their life-changing endorsement – – even though that tactic can make you rich. I know because I’ve used it for decades with people just like you, and it works in every industry.

Don’t be too hard on yourself.

You’re not working this amazing tactic, because you don’t know about it.

And it’s just ONE of scores of other powerful tactics, that you don’t know about.

All of which you could be using.

Any of which can improve your life forever.

So, in 2023 you’ll simply carry on looking for more sales leads, paying for ads, networking [oh my word], building your list or trying to get more traffic, or whatever low leverage tactics you’ve cobbled together over the years.

Enough is enough

You don’t need leads, ads, networking groups or traffic.

You need clients. Lots of great clients. And that’s where your focus must be.

If you were one of my clients, you’d have access to the right advice and someone who will help you. So, you would already have used the tactic I just mentioned, and you’d be enjoying the rewards. Today, you’d be looking forward to 2023 with justified confidence and excitement.

You wouldn’t trust an amateur to style your hair. That’s why you go to a professional. Someone who will provide you with exactly what you need.

Now it’s time to quit treating the lifeblood of your business as a DIY job and go to a marketing professional. Someone who will provide you with exactly what you need.

Liars, surveys and Steve Jobs

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steve jobs

Image credit: Shutterstock.

Steve Jobs understood something about marketing. And it gave him a huge competitive advantage. Today, I’m going to share that advantage with you.

It’s really simple to understand. It’s easy to deploy. It can save you an absolute fortune and also dramatically improve your results.

It starts with this age-old business fact: There’s often a very big difference between what people say and what they actually do.

Talk is not cheap

I spoke with a business owner once, who had recently surveyed his newsletter readers. He wanted to know if they’d be willing to pay for a premium version of his most popular service. He accurately described the service, including the fee.

In total, 78 people took time to respond, with 73 saying they would “happily pay for the service when it became available”.

With 73 people happy to pay for his new service, he built it, and launched it. However, despite what they said, just 8 of them actually signed up. He estimates that he lost almost $40000 in the process.

Steve Jobs understood this better than any of his competitors

Sure, it’s important for us to listen to what our marketplace is saying. But when we listen, we need to do so through a filter. We need to understand that in many cases, people will tell us:

  • Things they think we want to hear.
  • Things they think will make them look good.

This is why Steve Jobs shunned focus groups. He learned that people in focus groups tended to say smart, generous things in order to look good. He found their feedback to be not only of little real value, but potentially misleading. That’s a dangerous mix.

Whilst we need to listen to what people say. We tend to make massively better decisions when we watch what people do.

Early birds

This is why entrepreneurial business owners sometimes offer an early bird discount when they launch something new. For a short period of time, they offer the new (whatever) at a slightly reduced rate. They do this, primarily to measure what kind of genuine interest there is.

Here’s why.

  • If the marketplace is eagerly buying, the business owner knows there’s a significant demand. At least, at the early bird price.
  • However, if the marketplace isn’t interested, even at the reduced price, then something is wrong.
  • Maybe the marketing needs to improve. Perhaps the product / service itself needs more value pumped into it. And it’s possible that both areas need to significantly improve before the actual launch.

That kind of real-world feedback provides data you can make decisions on, with far greater confidence than data from a survey.

Polling people with a survey can be useful. However, in business we know that actions speak louder than words. After all, great ideas are not anointed.

Maximum or minimum can make you a fortune in 2023

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Business 2023

There are 2 business models, which have proven time and again to be extremely successful.

In today’s post, I’ll show you how both of them work, PLUS how to keep your current business model and open up a whole new marketplace!

The 2 models I’m referring to are:

  1. Focusing on the maximum you can deliver.
  2. Focusing on the minimum you can deliver.

Let’s start by looking at those 2 models.

The maximum model

The business owner who takes the first option, will focus on providing excellence. They’ll place a premium on exceptional customer service. They’ll set the highest possible standards and achieve them. They’ll need to unceasingly focus on delighting their customers at every opportunity.

There is a marketplace who are desperate to be treated this way. And they eagerly, willingly pay a premium. It’s an exceptionally profitable marketplace, too.

The minimum model

The business owner who takes the second option, will focus on cost efficiencies. They’ll consistently search for ways to lower their overhead. They’ll embrace automation and AI. They’ll know exactly what the minimum required is and then deliver on it.

There is a huge marketplace willing to pay for a stripped back product or service. We see them everywhere; no-frills airlines, feature phones, low price stores, etc.

The minimum model works. Really, really well.

Just don’t land somewhere in the middle

The problem comes if you fail to choose, and end up somewhere in the space between those 2 successful business models.

For example.

  • Better than the minimum quality, but not premium either.
  • Less expensive than the premium brands, but not inexpensive enough for the price-sensitive buyers.
  • Products or services that are absolutely fine, but not remarkable enough for people to tell their friends.

By failing to choose the maximum or minimum model, you land in the anonymous middle ground; where there’s very little interest and where it’s really, really hard to get noticed.

Middle ground businesses are why networking groups exist. They have to push for referrals, because their message doesn’t spread wide enough or often enough by itself. They’re stuck in a frustrating, unending and very expensive fight for attention.

Your highly lucrative, new income stream

Here’s something worth considering for 2023. Something that can help your business thrive, whilst still retaining your existing model.

What is it?

Develop an additional, new brand; dedicated exclusively to either the maximum or the minimum edge of your marketplace.

Think about that for a moment.

This gives you the safety net of your existing model. Plus, it provides you with all the amazing opportunities that come from serving one of those highly lucrative edges. It opens up a lot of potential, yet with relatively low risk.

Yes, it takes planning. But I’ve worked on this with many clients over the years, and the results can be spectacular. It will allow you to open up a whole new legion of prospective customers or clients. I’ve seen what’s possible and it’s definitely worth considering, as part of your 2023 business development plans.