Jim Connolly Marketing

Powerful words for your marketing toolbox

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marketing toolbox, toolkit,

I’ve compiled a brief selection of powerful words, which can increase the sales effectiveness of your marketing. They’re in no particular order.

So, let’s dive in!

Limited

Fear of missing out is so powerful it has its own acronym, FOMO. Limited equals scarce and scarcity is a powerful marketing motivator. Limited time, limited stock and limited space/spaces are common examples.

Now

Now is a direct command that creates urgency. It inspires your prospect to act, and to act fast. All that power is packed into a tiny, one syllable word. Compare the following. “For more information, call us on the number below“, or “For more information, call us now on the number below.”

Simple

People prefer things that are uncomplicated. When your prospect reads or hears that something is simple, it can make them more confident to take the action required. You’re signalling to them that it won’t take too much time. And that it won’t be too taxing. Note – easy is also a great word to use, especially if you want to avoid repetition of simple in a marketing piece.

Just

When you want to show that something simple or easy (as above), another great word to use is just. Just implies your request takes very little effort. ‘To subscribe, just drop your email into the box below.’ ‘For more information, just click here’. And famously, ‘Just do it!’

Guaranteed

When a prospect sees that you guarantee your product or service, buying from you becomes a less risky decision. That’s because you’re offering them peace of mind and reassurance. So, if you provide a guarantee, don’t keep it a secret. Include it liberally in your marketing. Naturally, the better the guarantee, the more effective it will be.

Proven

When you tell a prospect that your product or service is proven, you’re telling them that it works. That it’s reliable. A known quantity. Low risk. This helps build confidence in what you’re offering and makes it a lot more compelling. Yet, many businesses omit proven from their marketing. They will often allude to it, hoping the prospect will join the dots. But it’s better to put that word, and the feelings associated with it, into your marketing.

You / your

Use you and your to directly address the prospect. It will help them to connect with what you’re saying, because it’s focused on them. Sadly, a lot of small business marketing is self-focused. This makes it sound impersonal. Your marketing should be directed to the reader, as if you were writing only to that specific person. For example, compare the impersonal “Our service is designed to help businesses prosper”, with the personal “Our service is designed to help you and your business prosper”.

By replacing just one word with a more persuasive alternative, you can significantly increase the marketing power of your message. So, if one of those examples jumps out at you, give it a try.

Want to regularly create great content marketing? Use these 3 tips

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If you’ve ever wondered how to regularly produce content marketing that converts prospects into clients or customers, this information is for you.

I’ve divided it into 3 core tips.

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 look clever. I don’t try and be edgy. I don’t try to shock people. I just try to be useful to you. And as long as I think you’ll find an idea or observation useful, I share it.

Many business owners are put off creating content, because they try to make it 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 duff content ideas block you

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

The challenge is that in order to get that 1 useful idea, you need to give yourself permission to have the duff ones.

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

So, regard your duff ideas as essential steps on the way to creating the content you need. This switches them from being disheartening, to highly motivating.

3. Your work is way better than you think

We often overestimate the ideas and the work 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 that were really interesting. She looked to see who wrote them and found they were all her own work, from 9 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 the quality and quantity of your content marketing, focus on being useful. See your duff ideas as necessary steps to your useful ideas. And give your content the respect it (and you) deserve.

Lists dominate content marketing. Here’s why you should use them

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lists, content marketing, power of lists

Ever wondered why so many articles, videos and newsletters are based around the idea of a numbered list? It’s because lists are extremely popular. People love them. Today, I’m going to explain why, and how, you should incorporate lists in your content marketing.

Why then are lists so popular?

Lists promise ideas. Lots of ideas. And fast!

Lists promises a number of bite-sized ideas or suggestions. And quickly. So when we see “21 Business habits of highly successful people“, we’re not expecting an in-depth examination of 21 habitual characteristics of people who have achieved business success.

No.

We’re expecting lots of ideas. And we hope that at least one of those ideas will help us in some way. If it does, it will repay the 3 or 4 minutes we invested in reading it. That’s a good return for just a few minutes of our time.

Now, I have a question for you. Does your content marketing mix contain list-based content?

If not, I suggest you give it a try. Lists are perfect for sharing, which makes them ideal if you want to expand your reach on social networks. New readers who discover your work through list content, will then get the chance to see your more detailed work. Others will follow you on the social networks, where they see your lists shared. Many of my most shared blog posts are lists.

Lists can also be very powerful, when it comes to increasing your email marketing open rates. Email marketing that has a list in the subject line, can result in significantly increased open rates.

Here’s why.

Most small business owners are not expert copywriters. As such, the subject lines they use for their email marketing tend to under perform. And poorly written subject lines result in low open rates. This means no matter how good their marketing message is, very few people will see it.

Using an average list title as the subject line of a marketing email, will always, always out perform an average, regular subject line.

Should you focus exclusively on lists?

No.

No you shouldn’t.

Seriously.

Don’t!

Allow me to explain.

True, there are YouTubers making a fortune from creating only list-based videos. And yes, there are sites that attract millions of page views, who rely very heavily on list-based content. The business model behind both of these examples is primarily advertising. If your business sells ads based on open rates, keep churning out the lists.

However, for every other kind of business, relying exclusively on lists is a bad idea. And they should be used sparingly.

For example, I could have written this article as a list.

  • It would have taken me a lot less time to write.
  • It would have been shared a lot more on social networks.
  • And the email version of the post would have been opened by a lot more people.

However, I wanted to dig a little deeper into one subject; the content marketing effectiveness of lists. I didn’t want to weaken that focus with “10 Reasons why lists dominate the internet”.

Going a deeper than a list

Sometimes, you need to offer more substance around one subject. Other times, an issue could be impacting your audience and you need to address it. And there are times when you want to share one really useful idea, which wouldn’t work if you broke it down into a list of sub-ideas.

The surface level approach that makes lists so popular, renders them ineffective for anything that requires depth.

So mix it up. But include lists as part of that mix.

In short, if you haven’t already used list-based articles, videos, podcasts episodes, posts or newsletters, give it a go.

Experiment. Test different types of list. Measure the feedback. Check the numbers, including; sales, client enquiries, open rates, social shares and new subscribers, etc.

And let the numbers be your guide.

Marketing 101: Use shorter sentences. Here’s why

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Jim Connolly marketing, write short

Here’s a quick copywriting tip, to help you improve your marketing results.

Your prospective clients prefer to read short sentences. This is especially true when explaining detailed information. For example, how your service works.

I’m not suggesting you use fewer words than required. Far from it! Use as many words per sentence as you need. Don’t remove a necessary word. Just don’t use more words than you need.

Why is that, Jim?

Over-long sentences lack impact and clarity. Those are essential elements of effective marketing. Most amateur writers tend to write over-long. Learning how to write shorter helps you avoid that mistake.

Tip: One way to shorten sentences without losing anything important, is to remove extraneous words. Look at the 2 examples below.

  • People should exercise on a regular basis.
  • People should exercise regularly.
  • We have no news at this point in time.
  • We currently have no news.

A whole story in 6 words

It’s amazing what can be achieved using fewer words. Ernest Hemingway once wrote a story in just 6 words. It’s a powerful story, too.

“For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn”.

Inspired by Hemingway’s brevity, look for opportunities to keep your sentences as short as required. Aim for clarity. Remove the fluff. And keep sentences confined to one thought.

It’s not as simple as it sounds. But if done correctly, your results will reflect the additional effort.

This word can ruin your results. Here are 12 better alternatives

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Marketing, words, content writing

Photo | Buro Millennial

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

There are 2 main reasons why this happens.

  1. A new product or service is thought of as risky. 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. Who remembers ‘New Coke”?

Thankfully you can totally avoid this problem.

Here are some far better alternatives

Instead of relying on new, offer your marketplace something more compelling. More secure. More attractive. More motivating. And a great deal more appealing.

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

Here are 12 alternatives that I have used very successfully over the years. All of which offer the prospect a more attractive benefit.

  1. A faster way.
  2. An enjoyable way.
  3. A secure 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.

The key is to intentionally use words that paint better mental pictures. Pictures that build trust and inspire people to take action. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen this simple adjustment lead to radically better marketing results.

What next? Do a review of your current marketing and look for opportunities to replace the word new, with a better alternative.

Assess. Improve. Execute

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marketing tips, curiosity, sales leads, sales

Photo Finn Hackshaw

Today, I’m going to open-up a marketing idea with you that helped me increase a client’s sales results by just over 180% in 9-months.

It can be summed up in 3 words: Assess. Improve. Execute.

Here’s how it works.

Assess

The first step to improving your sales results is to assess your current situation. I spent some time digging into my client’s sales and marketing process and identified his company’s primary problem. It turned out they offered a superb service and when the right prospects learned about it, they absolutely loved it. This means I needed to greatly increase the number of high-quality prospects he got in front of.

Once we identified the root of his problem, it was time to improve things and free my client to dramatically increase his company’s sales results.

Improve

There was a number of areas in my client’s marketing that were under-performing. And others, he should never have used. You see, like almost every small business I’ve met, my client had been focusing time, and money, on lead generation. BIG mistake.

By making a small number of essential improvements at the very beginning, we were able to considerably increase his results. And fast.

I remember the easiest adjustment I made, was to improve the focus of their marketing message. It had previously focused on what their business did, how great their service was and how amazing their team was. 

If your marketing has a similar focus, it’s a bad, bad idea!

And here’s why.

No one buys a service or a product. They buy the result. For example, you don’t buy exercise equipment.
You ‘buy’ looking good and feeling great. So, sell the result of investing in your service or product.

Anyhow, we then dug a little deeper and uncovered a series of similarly untapped, windfall opportunities.

One of them was for us to switch the focus of their marketing copy. I needed it to make prospects feel massively more curious.

Curious?

Why curious, Jim?

Think about it. Every client or customer enquiry you have ever had, or will ever receive, only happened because that person needed to know something. So, if you want your marketing to attract massively more prospects, it needs to create more curiosity… and answer fewer questions.

Previously, their marketing tried to answer as many questions as possible.

  • I made sure it provided just enough information.
  • Just enough information to inform the prospect and magnify their curiosity.
  • Just enough information to compel, motivate and inspire eager prospects to contact them with a high-quality enquiry.

We wrapped these ideas into a plan, along with half a dozen other tactical improvements. Now we were good to go!

Execute

In a recent newsletter, I mentioned the importance of energy and excitement. Without doubt, this is the stage of working with my small business clients that excites me most. It’s why I do what I do.

Assess.

Improve.

Execute.

Focus like a laser on those 3-steps. Do it correctly and literally watch your business grow.