Jim's Marketing Blog

Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business

1 Word that can destroy your marketing, plus 12 better alternatives

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Marketing words, power words

Photo: Shutterstock.

When it comes to creating successful marketing, the word ‘new’ is overrated. Moreover, it can critically damage the effectiveness of your marketing, losing you sales or client enquiries in the process.

There are 2 main reasons this happens.

  1. A new product or service is always seen as a risky bet. Untested. Less robust. At best, it’s a bigger gamble than the existing solution. At worst, the customer feels like a paying guinea pig. Ouch!
  2. A new product or service is seldom, if ever, the best. It lacks the improvements that come from years of customer feedback.

Yes, when you have an announcement to make, (like moving to new premises), people expect to see ‘new’ and they understand the context.

The challenge comes, when a key part of your marketing message is that you offer a new way to do something. Even some big brands struggle to sell ‘new’ to people, despite multi-million dollar marketing campaigns.

Thankfully, you can totally avoid this problem.

Use better alternatives

Instead of relying on ‘new’, offer your marketplace something more compelling. More secure. More attractive. More motivating.

For example, rather than offering them a ‘new’ way, look at the core benefit of your product or service. Then, market that benefit to them instead.

So, instead of a ‘new’ way, you could offer them one or more of the following 12 alternatives.

  1. A faster way.
  2. A secure way.
  3. An enjoyable way.
  4. A greener way.
  5. A stylish way.
  6. A stress-free way.
  7. An original way.
  8. A premium quality way.
  9. A proven way.
  10. An ethical way.
  11. A guaranteed way.
  12. A cost effective way.

So, use words that paint better mental pictures. Pictures that build trust and inspire people to take action.

For almost 25 years, I’ve helped business owners worldwide to achieve their best results ever. Today, I’m offering you the same opportunity, on my Marketing Mentor Program. Read this. It’s the most popular and the most valuable service I’ve ever offered.

7 Things that will grab the attention of your marketplace (and how to use them)

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markeing, get noticed

Photo: Shutterstock.

I’ve talked a lot lately, about the importance of being useful with your marketing. A number of you have asked me, if I can give you some specific topics you can use, which your prospective clients (or customers) will be attracted to.

And that’s exactly what I’ve done for you today.

So, for Ashley, Hasan, Thomas, Noah, JJ, Padraig, Ben, Melissa, Calvin and Georgia (and you, dear reader), here are some almost-universally useful topics. Each one represents something, which your clients and future clients are attracted to or extremely attracted to.

Start off by thinking about the services you provide or your product range. Then, consider the following topics and how you can incorporate them into your content marketing or general marketing messages. Each topic ends with a question, to help you focus on how it applies to your business.

  1. People have an inbuilt need to feel connected: What are you doing, to connect them with useful contacts? The Wall Street Journal wrote about how I achieved this, for one of my clients – 4 Marketing Strategies That Paid Off For Small Companies
  2. Everyone is trying to succeed at something: What are you doing, to help people achieve their targets, goals or dreams?
  3. We all need security: What are you doing, to help people reduce risk or feel secure and safe?
  4. We also share a common need for a sense of belonging: What are you doing, to create a community?
  5. Everyone wants to avoid wasting time: What are you doing, to help people maximize their time, or help them complete certain tasks, faster?
  6. People want to improve and expand their knowledge: What are you doing, to share useful information with them. This is the cornerstone of successful content marketing.
  7. Everyone wants to avoid unnecessary stress: What are you doing, to help people feel more relaxed and assured?

Are any of those topics missing from your marketing messages or content marketing? If they are, look for ways to incorporate them. Whatever industry you’re in, you should be able to benefit from all 7 topics. And if your business doesn’t do anything to address one or more of these needs, look for a way to add it to your services.

3 Ideas to help you create content, which your marketplace will love

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content marketing

Photo: Shutterstock.

If you’ve ever wondered, how some people are able to regularly produce effective content marketing; (newsletters, blog posts, articles, podcasts, etc), and how you can do the same, this post is for you.

1. Is this useful?

There’s a sign on the wall in my studio. It’s a small sign, containing just 3 words: “Is this useful”. That’s the mark I set for everything I create. Nothing gets published unless I believe you’ll find it useful. I don’t try and be clever. Just useful. And as long as I think you’ll find an idea or observation useful, I share it.

Some small business owners are put off creating content, because they try and make everything as close to perfect as possible.

The thing is, your prospective clients or customers want something useful, not perfect.

Once you stop aiming for perfection you’ll find it a lot easier. You’ll also get massively better results.

2. Don’t let crappy ideas block you

If you’re anything like me, you’ll find that most of the ideas you get are pretty average. But maybe 1 in 5 or 1 in 10 are good enough, to be turned into a valuable piece of content marketing.

The challenge is that in order to get that 1 useful idea, you need to allow yourself to have the crappy ones… without getting disheartened.

The way I overcame this, was to deliberately give myself permission to think of lots of crappy ideas, knowing that something useful would come from it.

When you view lower-value ideas as essential steps in the development of better ones, they switch from being disheartening to highly motivating.

3. Give your work the respect it deserves

We often overestimate the ideas of others and underestimate the value of our own. Here’s a great example of what I mean.

A business owner told me how she was taking some files off a computer for archiving, when she discovered an old documents folder. It contained loads of articles, which were really interesting. She looked to see who wrote them and found they were all her own work, from 6 years earlier!

She didn’t publish them at the time, because she thought they weren’t good enough. It was only when she thought they were written by someone else, that she saw them for what they really were. Your work is almost certainly way, way better than you think.

So get it out there.

In short, if you’re looking to improve your content marketing in 2020; focus on being useful, see your average ideas as necessary steps to your useful ideas, and give your work the respect you deserve.

Exposed: Why email marketing doesn’t work

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marketing tips, email marketing

Photo: Shutterstock.

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 was so ineffective. I said I’d share them here, as I’m sure some of you will find it useful.

Email marketing works

In fact, it works extremely well. It works predictably, too. Just ask any business owner who’s using it correctly. What doesn’t work is ineffective email marketing. That’s because 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, whatever. And almost all small business marketing emails are DIY attempts.
  • A professionally written email, sent to the wrong people, won’t work. It will fail to reach those with a demand 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.
  • A well written email, sent to the right people, with a compelling subject line, offering a generic service, won’t work. No one wants to switch to a service that’s no better then their current service.

You get the idea.

In short, before you reject any form of marketing as being ineffective, make sure you’re using it correctly. This is something to keep in mind, as you look to grow your business in 2020 and beyond.

Liar, liar, their pants are on fire

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marketing lies, liar

Photo: Shutterstock.

Are you tired of prospective clients (or customers), who don’t get back to you when they say they will? If you are, here’s something you may find extremely useful.

Here’s the thing. When a prospective client tells you they didn’t have the time to meet you, return your call or consider your offer… they’re lying. They had the time.

The biggest lie in business

They had the time to do all the urgent or important things. They also had time to do the stuff that interested them. And they had time to attend to the things that captured their attention. Its also safe to say they had enough time to check their social media accounts.

What they lacked wasn’t time.

What they really lacked was the motivation to do whatever you requested. As far as they were concerned, it wasn’t important or urgent enough. So, they didn’t consider it a priority. And that’s why it didn’t get done.

Okay Jim, how do I stop this from happening and massively improve my results?

Great question!

To motivate your prospective clients and customers to take action, you need to do the following.

  1. Make your offer as attractive as possible. Look at what you’re asking people to do and make it more captivating. More interesting. More compelling. Remember, motivation comes from the words Motive and Action. When the motive is powerful enough, the action follows. So, use all your creativity to make whatever you’re offering as compelling as possible.
  2. Then give them a deadline. Deadlines focus the mind. They create urgency. Here’s why marketing deadlines work.

Make no mistake, the most powerful way to motivate your prospective clients to take action, is to provide them with a highly compelling offer, which is attached to a deadline. Get those 2 steps right and you’ll find the marketplace will always have time for you. You’ll also enjoy a dramatic improvement in your sales and marketing results.

I’m busy. You’re boring. And I’ve never heard of you!

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marketing busy, marketing noise

Photo: Shutterstock.

The most successful marketing is built on strong foundations.

And here’s one of them: Before you market anything to anyone, there are 3 essential questions your prospective customers need you to answer.

  1. I’m really busy. And I get pestered with sales messages all day. Why should I give you my attention?
  2. Everyone promises an outstanding service. Most fail to deliver on that promise. What meaningful reasons are there for me to risk buying from you (or risk switching to you from my current provider)?
  3. I’ve never heard of you. I’ve never done business with you. Why on earth should I trust you?

The most successful brands answer those questions fully in their marketing. And they answer them with clarity. In doing so, they capture attention, create a compelling message and build the trust required for their marketing to succeed.

In comparison

Now, let’s compare that with the marketing we see every day from small and medium-sized businesses.

  1. Instead of capturing the attention of their prospective clients, they pester people with uninspiring, needy marketing messages.
  2. Instead of providing a compelling proposition, they offer very little motivation why anyone should switch to their brand.
  3. Instead of building trust, they become instantly forgettable.

Failing in any one of those areas is enough to ruin your results. That’s why it’s critical to be as strong as possible in all three areas. Here are a few pointers to help you get it right, if you’re a DIY marketer.

  1. You’ll already know if your marketing is capturing attention, by measuring your response rates. If too few people open your emails, read your newsletters, respond to your advertising etc, see what you can learn from the vendors, whose material YOU always open. What do they do, which you can adapt into your marketing?
  2. Crafting a compelling message is a skill that takes years to develop. This is an area where almost every business owner, who writes their own marketing, has real trouble. It’s a skill that eludes not only business owners, but many marketing providers! It’s why you see at least one marketing provider at every networking event, because their own marketing sucks, so they need to network for leads. So, if at all possible, get expert help with this from a proven professional.
  3. Building trust is something I covered in my previous post. How to add  credibility to your marketing.

One of the big shifts in business over the past decade or so, is the speed at which great marketing can spread. A natural consequence of this, is that average marketing (the type that kind of worked in the past), is less and less effective. It becomes hidden under the marketing messages that get shared and talked about.

Yes, the advent of low-cost digital communications has opened up a world of opportunity. However, if you want to benefit from this amazing opportunity, it’s vital to create marketing that your prospective clients will embrace and share.