Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business
We live in uncertain times. And your marketplace hates uncertainty. It makes them anxious. It causes them stress.
When times are uncertain, people seek leadership. They actively look for those who display courage and direction.
If you’re a leader [or a leader in waiting], there’s never been a better time to demonstrate your leadership.
Because that’s what your marketplace is looking for right now. And they value it enormously.
The most successful businesses bake marketing into their services. In this post, I will explain what that means and why you should do the same.
If you have not heard the term before, baking marketing into a service (or product) means creating something, which is of so much value and interest that people want to buy it and also tell their friends about it. This is how products like the iPhone and services like Uber grew so popular, so fast.
Look around you at your competitors and you will notice how similar they are. Remarkably so. In fact, their similarity to one another is the only remarkable thing about them. So, they try and undercut one another on prices or fees, out network one another or outspend one another on marketing.
They are focusing their time and money in completely the wrong direction. They are trying to get people interested in something, which isn’t interesting. This is a costly, avoidable mistake.
I want something far better for you and your business!
Today, I am going to ask you to consider doing something bold. I’m asking you to consider adding value (huge value) to what you market… your core products or services.
Why? Because you can waste years of your time trying to sell a service, which is simply not interesting enough to the marketplace. Great marketing is no substitute for a dull product or service.
The reason there is so much uninspiring stuff out there, is that business owners tend to be passionate about the products or services they provide. This happens, regardless of how generic or average their products or services are. Business owners are often blind to just how insipid their offering is. In Steven Pressfield’s new book, No one wants to read your sh*t, he calls this mindset client’s disease.
Conversely, a service that is of exceptional value will often sell itself, as people are so impressed with it that they spread the word. I regularly speak with business owners who don’t need to spend a penny on advertising, because their customers and their marketplace are always recommending them.
Most small business owners use the opposite approach. Instead of inspiring people with the story behind their business, they try to motivate uninspired people to talk about their uninspiring offerings.
All of those work to a degree, but you can do massively better by shifting your focus 180 degrees!
Here’s why.
Here’s what we know: People do not need to be pestered or pressured into recommending a GREAT service. They automatically spread the word when they encounter something exceptional. However, we must first give people something worth talking about… a story worth sharing.
When we do, they can’t help themselves. They shout from the rooftops.
The alternative is to bake marketing into what you do. Here are some suggestions to get you started.
Just don’t fall into the trap of trying to get people inspired about an uninspiring service or product. It’s expensive, low leverage, frustrating and places a very low ceiling on your potential.
Give one person a pen and a pad and they will scope out an exciting, new idea or maybe compose a poem.
Give another person that same pen and a pad and they will write a shopping list with it.
The pen. The pad. They’re just tools. It’s what you do with them that creates the value.
You have an internet connection, which offers you access to a global audience of millions. And this access comes to you, with little if any financial cost attached. It’s an opportunity our parents and their parents could never have imagined.
The question is, what are you going to do with it?
Focus on the possibilities. Because, my friend, they are limitless.
This is a very important post. If you want to get more business, feedback and recognition from your blog, this could be exactly what you need to know.
The post was inspired by an email I received from Shannon. She kindly gave me permission to share part of it with you. Here’s the core challenge she wanted help with, along with my answer and lots of tips and examples to help you build a successful business blog.
Here’s what Shannon wanted to know:
“I’ve been blogging for close to three years now. It’s been frustrating to say the least! […] I have no idea what I’m doing wrong and I’ve followed the advice from [she mentioned a very well known blogging site] totally. I’m just about ready to quit. Can you take a look at my blog and tell me what I’m missing?”
I did take a quick look at her blog and it’s exactly the same as countless other business blogs, following the same, general blogging advice.
Here’s what the challenge is and how to resolve it!
I’ve worked in marketing since 1987 and nothing I have used, studied or witnessed, comes close to the marketing power of an effective blog. Period.
So, why has Shannon and the vast majority of business owners, seen such poor results?
Without doubt, the main reason is that blogging is often touted, incorrectly, as the written equivalent of painting by numbers. In other words, you follow a set of rules and success will follow. This myth persists because it’s repeated by well known bloggers, selling generic courses and programs on how to grow a successful business blog.
The polar opposite is actually true: The CLOSER you follow the same general format, rules and techniques as everyone else, the LESS likely you are to achieve anything worthwhile from your blog.
Here’s how I created one of the world’s most popular marketing blogs, using a more individual approach.
I decided to write for my readers, not Google. This gave me the freedom to express my thoughts, rather than SEO my thoughts.
Shannon’s blog posts are written using SEO software. This means they are often too long, just so she can reach her minimum SEO word count and keyword density. Posts that should be information rich and 250 words long, are filled with fluff to make them more SEO friendly. It has totally robbed her of her voice and individuality.
Google likes it. However, it reads like crap. As a result, Shannon attracts drive-by traffic, rather than client enquiries.
Tip: Read this – Stop writing for Google. Really. Stop it!
I focused on building my readership, by producing the most useful content I could and then made it extremely easy for people to share it.
This approach works even better today than when I started in 2008, thanks to the popularity of social networking sites.
Many bloggers waste their best material on other people’s blogs, because their blog guru convinced them it’s a great idea. Guest blogging is one way to build your readership, but certainly not the best. [Or the second best.] Shannon told me that she has guest blogged a lot, with nothing to show for it.
She’s not alone. People tell me similar stories all the time. And it’s heartbreaking.
The solution is to build your own platform. Put your best stuff on your own turf. If your content is useful enough, 1 reader will get you 1 more. Those 2 readers will do the same. Before you know it, by turning up regularly with useful information, you will have built your own community of engaged readers. A subset of them will go on to become clients.
Just don’t sell yourself short. Don’t be someone else’s unpaid content provider!
It was almost exactly 3 years ago, in summer 2013, when I removed the commenting feature from my blog. Blog commenting is a vestige from the days before social networks. It was also a huge time suck for me, as I often got 2500 spam comments a day.
It was still a tough decision though. The only other person I knew who’d done it was Seth Godin, and he had a very different reason. But it was the right thing to do. So I did it.
Back then, I was attacked. Social media gurus said you HAD TO have comments on your blog or it wasn’t a blog.
Today, the mood is changing.
Since I removed comments, other popular blogs including; Chris Brogan and Michael Hyatt, have followed suit. Top news sites have done the same, including CNN, Reuters and ReCode. And they’re absolutely right.
My point is that you need to question perceived wisdom. Then if you believe something needs to change, do it your way. Don’t wait for someone else to tell you. Be prepared to lead. We need more leaders.
Shannon has comments enabled and she gets very little feedback. Many comments are from people trying to get backlinks or score free advice from her. This lack of so-called social proof, does nothing to enhance Shannon’s reputation. It also makes her blog look like a ghost town, when prospective clients check her out.
Disrupt, ruckus, growth hacking, big data, intersection… buzzwords like those fail twice.
Shannon’s blog uses lots of content marketing buzz words. This, combined with the keyword loading she does for her SEO, means readers have no personality to connect with.
I made a rule, which I have stuck to since 2008. It’s simply this:
I will only publish a post when I have something useful to share and I’ll make sure I find something useful, often.
This means I often write when it’s easier not to. I also update older posts daily, to keep the information relevant. Blogging is a primary business activity for me, rather than something I fit in. As a result, I write when I’m extremely busy, when I am tired and even when I’m not feeling great.
The Internet is packed with sites that offer largely the same, general advice on how to build a successful blog.
You should avoid it.
Their advice seems to make sense, until you consider that by following it, you become invisible – lost in an ocean of millions of other bloggers using the same, general advice.
If you’re following what they say, you will be able to identify with Shannon’s situation.
In short: Your blog needs to be as individual as you are. Otherwise, you’re invisible.
Tip: This post asks an important question: Bloggers: Are you 1 question away from 10,000 daily readers?
How secure would your business be, if an expertly marketed, high quality competitor started targeting your clients and prospective clients?
Most people only consider this scenario after the fact. They wait until an exciting new business, product or service shows up. It’s only then that they think about how to respond.
We have to be smarter than that my friend.
The secret to building a robust, thriving business, is to act as if that competitor had already arrived.
This means always, always looking for ways to improve the quality of your services. Listen to your marketplace, find out what concerns them and figure out how to help them. This will make your existing clients love you and ensure you attract a regular supply of new clients too.
Of course, I recommend you do as I have done and avoid having any competitors. Yes, it’s absolutely possible. Here’s everything you need to know.
The message here is simple: Don’t allow the arrival of “some guy’s business” to be what determines when YOU up your game. A new provider, product or service WILL show up in front of your clients. Take action now and be so well prepared that the new competitor doesn’t stand a chance.
Here’s one of the most important questions in business: What are the biggest problems facing your clients and prospective clients?
Whatever these problems are, you need to focus on how to solve them. Here’s why!
The vast majority of your competitors offer a predictable range of services, which provide answers to a common set of problems. That’s why they [and maybe you right now] compete on fees or attract fee-sensitive clients.
I recommend you take a more profitable route. A route taken by the most successful people in every industry and profession.
Decide to solve bigger and better problems! If you do, you’ll attract more clients, earn higher fees AND always be in demand, because you will have pretty-much zero competition.
It’s an extremely effective way to grow a highly profitable business.
Think about it. You already solve problems for your clients or customers. So why not deliberately chose to solve the biggest [and most valuable] problems?
A business owner with passion is a formidable force. Here are 5 powerful advantages these passionate people have, over the average business owner:
Passion is something we create ourselves. It happens when we have a clear and highly compelling goal, which we believe we will achieve. Foggy goals are no good. Puny goals are no good. We need goals that are clear and inspirational. And we need to believe we can achieve them.
Dream big dreams. Convert the dreams into goals… then create a plan to make your goals a reality.
It’s impossible to overstate the positive impact this can have on your business and your whole life. I hope you found this useful, but more importantly, I hope it helps you and your business.
Karen from Delaware emailed me with a question earlier.
“I’d love for you to post on your blog every day like Seth Godin does. Is there a strategic reason why you don’t?”
That’s a good question. The answer is that you need to match your publishing model to the business model behind your blog. Allow me to explain.
It’s easy… very easy, for me to publish something every day. However, my business model doesn’t require me to keep tapping you on the shoulder [reminding you I’m here] with daily posts.
Why?
I market just 2 services via my blog. There’s a limited number of clients I can work with and every post generates client enquiries.
Daily publishing, [which I did a few years ago], caused me to receive way too many enquiries. The huge momentum created by daily publishing is disproportionate to the few additional posts I was publishing each week.
If I decide to change the blog’s business model, so my income is primarily from the sale of products or advertising, I will need to adopt a daily publishing model of at least one post a day. It’s all about getting the balance right for what you want to achieve.
Whatever his motivation, Seth Godin uses a business model that rewards daily blogging. His blog is a kind of single author book store. Every post displays a carousel [on the left of each post], which is stacked with around 20 or so books.
His superbly written, daily posts are what create traffic to his book store. Visitors to his book store are also extremely well targeted, because the topics covered on his blog match those in his books. If you like the posts, you’ll love the books. Seth’s daily publishing model also pre-markets his books, by referencing new books in his posts long before they are published.
So…
That model clearly rewards daily publishing. Fewer posts would equal less traffic, fewer subscribers, fewer shares and fewer sales.
The key take-away here is this: Your blog publishing model should support whatever you want to achieve. So, choose the best frequency for your business, rather than copy what someone else is doing. Their approach could be totally wrong for you.
If you’d like to get more from your blog or you’re thinking of starting a blog, here are a few free resources to help you.
Here’s how to launch a successful blog.
This explains how to make your blog stand out and build a large, valuable readership.
Ever wondered if you need to write long blog posts or if short posts are OK? Well, here’s the answer.
This is a list of 7 blogging mistakes, which you need to avoid.
Every failing small business I have ever encountered had the same problem. Here’s the problem and more importantly, how to avoid it happening to you.
I need to start by asking you a slightly odd question: What do you do if you have a problem with one of your teeth?
OK, the answer is easy. You visit your dentist. The dentist will then either treat the tooth or as a last resort, they will remove it. Simple.
It looks like this:
Now look how differently that same small business owner acts, when they have a business problem. They apply none of the logic above.
It looks like this:
With even the most extreme toothache you can get pain free by having the tooth extracted. That pain is nothing, compared to the pain the business owner suffers when they slowly go broke.
Their commercial toothache is numbed with painkillers, rather than professionally treated. The painkiller of choice is to tell themselves that business will just get better if they hunker down and work harder. Things will magically improve next month, or when the economy picks up or after the next election, etc. This self-talk acts as a narcotic, to ease the pain of the reality of their situation.
We need to treat the health of our business with the same care we give to our teeth!
It starts with accepting that there’s a problem and that it won’t just disappear. Burying your head in the sand does nothing to help the situation. It just makes things worse.
The first step is to get the expert help you need. If cash flow is a problem or you have a tax problem, talk with an accountant. If you need more customers, more sales and bigger profits, speak with a marketing expert. If you have a legal problem, discuss it with a lawyer.
The barrier here for non-entrepreneurial business owners is money… or rather, how they feel about money.
In short: They’re scared of investing. That’s because they run their business with an employee mindset. They genuinely believe it’s safer to starve their business of essential investment. That’s because they still have not emotionally understood the difference between spending money and investing it.
So they see the riskiest thing possible [failing to invest] as being safe, and the safest thing possible [investing when needed] as being risky.
Think about it: If a business isn’t growing the way the owner wants it to, all they need to do is get the correct strategy and work that strategy. It isn’t rocket science. When a business owner works hard for too little reward, it’s because they have deliberately chosen to do so, by choosing not to invest in the help they need.
When I speak with entrepreneurs, the picture is very different.
Entrepreneurs never have this problem. When an entrepreneur sees an area of their business needs help, they take intelligent action. They speak with an expert. They get the right strategy. Problem solved. They treat their business the way they treat their teeth.
In short: If your business needs help, think DENTIST not DABBLE.
Here are 7 success tips that every business owner should know.
I hope you found these quick tips useful. More importantly, I hope you do something with them.
Is your business benefitting from one of the most powerful principles in marketing?
You’ve seen it happen again and again. The media reports that something is about to be in short supply. Then, all of a sudden, we see footage of people standing in line… just so they can get it before it runs out.
Whether it’s the new, must-have smartphone or the latest hot Christmas present, demand shoots through the roof as soon as people think they could miss out. It happens because of something Dr. Robert Cialdini calls the principle of scarcity.
So, here’s my question for you:
Is there a product or service you offer to your clients, which has limited availability built-in?
If not, create one now. Otherwise you’re leaving money on the table.
My friends Colleen and Matt went for a meal recently. It wasn’t a pleasant experience. Matt’s dessert arrived on a dirty plate. They told me that from that moment onward, their dining experience was ruined.
That restaurant could have the best chef. It could use the freshest ingredients and have the highest hygiene standards. Their staff could be top of the pile, too. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because they allowed food to be served to a diner on a dirty plate.
Imagine you decide to send flowers to a loved one. It doesn’t matter that the florist picked the most beautiful flowers and arranged them with amazing artistry… if they fail to deliver them with care and your loved one receives flowers that were damaged in transit.
The lesson here is simple: We can ruin a great deal of hard work and maybe lose customers, if we fail to pay close attention to the way we present the end product.
When you look to the months or years ahead for your business, what are the main things you focus on?
I ask you this question, because many small business owners can increase their results and reduce their stress, by making 1 simple adjustment to their thinking.
Here’s what you need to know.
There are some things in business that we can’t control. For example, the arrival of a super-smart competitor. The economy. The next trend.
When faced with these uncertainties, we have a couple of options. We can worry about the things we can’t control or we can focus on the things we can control.
By focusing on what you can control, you place yourself in the driving seat. The destination of your business is under your direction. You can then put ideas and strategies in place, to make your business stronger.
You can set your sail for what you want to achieve, whatever the winds of change throw at you.
None of us know what the future holds for our industry, our marketplace or our economy. However, the world’s most successful business owners have shown time and time again, that so long as we focus on what we’re able to control, the future can be ours.
PS: Here are 21 habits behind highly successful business owners.
I heard a business owner earlier making an amazing statement. Here’s what he said, along with a massively valuable marketing lesson.
The business owner was being interviewed on local radio. They asked him how his business was doing. He replied that it was really struggling. When they asked him why, he replied:
“That’s simple. The marketplace is too stupid to understand how good my service is, so they hire cheaper providers”.
I guess that’s one way to look at things.
Clearly, when prospective customers are failing to understand the value of the services you provide, it’s your job to build a better, clearer marketing message. Writing the marketplace off as being stupid is… well… stupid. It also shifts the focus away from the business owner [who can fix the issue] to the prospective customer [who can’t].
If your prospective customers are failing to understand the value you bring, there are lots of things you can do. Here are just a few.
There are more customers and clients out there than you could ever need. Plus, it has never been easier to reach them. This means you never need to settle for a business that’s under performing.
It’s 100% within your control.
One of the most effective ways to grow a business, is to become an engaged observer. It’s a skill that anyone can learn and the results can be incredible [and fast].
Here’s an example of what I mean.
Here’s another example.
Engaged observers look beyond the obvious. They’re always studying what works. It’s not about copying. It’s about learning from the success of others and adapting it, so that it works for you.
One of the most common questions I get from small business owners, is how can they make their marketing more effective.
That’s a good question. Maybe a great question. However, it only addresses 50% of their actual need. And that’s what today’s brief post is all about.
When it comes to spreading awareness with their prospective clients, business owners have 2 options.
And as you can tell from the endless spam, cold calls, dull advertisements and social networking pitches you see, most opt for that first option. Instead of making their service more attractive, they make themselves more irritating. And in doing so, they make things unnecessarily difficult for themselves.
A better way forward is to stop trying to make a dull service sound interesting and create something worthy of people’s attention. Then, the service becomes its own marketing. People hear about it, talk about it and purchase it.
It looks like this: When your message is about a genuinely interesting service, the first 10 people who hear about it will tell another 10. That 10 will do the same… rinse repeat. This is how every successful product or service spreads.
There are a few signs, which tell us that the marketplace isn’t interested in what we’re offering. These include the following.
Assuming you have reached an initial 10, highly targeted prospective clients with your message, none of the above points should be happening. Your marketing should be creating a wave of interest in you and your business, because it’s sharing something interesting. It’s sharing what you do. And if what you do is interesting or remarkable enough, you win and you keep on winning.
With most small business owners, I start by looking at the service they provide. In just about every case, my first task with them is to make their service more interesting, compelling and remarkable. Not with snazzy words or marketing tricks, but by working with clients to actually pump more value into what they do. THEN, we work on crafting an attractive marketing strategy.
In short: When you’re finding it hard to attract the clients or customers you need, make your service more attractive. It’s far more rewarding than irritating your marketplace, with something they’re not interested in.
As I’ve said previously, everything a business does is marketing. The customer service we provide is a prime example of this. It’s the core of our whole business. It’s what determines whether we lose clients or retain clients who recommend us.
This begs the question: When customer service is this important, why do we regularly experience such poor service?
The answer is simple. Bad service, like good service, is a reflection of a company’s culture.
A company’s culture is what nurtures the kind of service their customers receive. It attracts and rewards incompetence or it attracts and rewards excellence.
For example.
In both examples, employees find out what is expected of them. They then know what they need to do, to comply with the company culture. They know how low or how high the bar has been set.
As business owners, we create the customer service culture of our businesses. Whether we are a solopreneur or have a team, we determine what’s expected.
This means we can choose to shoot for service excellence. And service excellence is the culture that attracts the best employees and the best customers. Plus, we’ll retain our customers for longer and they will become passionate advocates — recommending us to their friends.
That’s why customer service excellence is a foundational part of effective marketing. That commitment to excellence is also an outstanding way to build a business.
Here are 2 posts with examples and ideas, to help you improve your customer service experience:
Your next 10 clients will usually be a lot like the previous 10. They will pay you a similar fee, have similar requirements and expect a similar level of service too.
That’s great news if you already attract high value, high profit clients.
It’s not such great news, if you tend to attract fee sensitive, average clients.
If you want to build a more valuable client list, start today by getting specific about the type of clients you want to work with. When you have done that, consider the following:
As service providers, we have the freedom to choose who we work with. Deliberately selecting the kind of clients we want, in advance, is the key to building a highly valuable client base.
In every sense, it pays to choose wisely.