Jim Connolly Marketing

I’m off on a thinking trip – A “thinking trip”?

By |

What do you do, when you need to come up with some fresh, inspired ideas?

One of the things I do, is to take a break and have a dedicated 2 day thinking trip.  Today, I’m heading off for this year’s thinking trip – to the stunningly beautiful North Yorkshire Moors.

How my thinking trips work

Between now and Sunday, I will be spending time away from the people I love, to focus exclusively on new ideas.  I never pressure myself to come up with anything, but the change in environment works amazingly well, and the ideas always flow.  I tend to spend the days writing in the countryside and the evenings writing at the beach.  I make sure that I always have quick access to something that I can use to record my thoughts, as my best ideas usually come when I am mobile.  As I mention in this post, I always carry an audio recorder with me; but on these trips, an audio recorder is invaluable to me.

Once I have enough ideas recorded, I write the best ones down.  Initially, I get these ideas fleshed out using a fountain pen and a pad.  I discovered years ago that this helps my thinking, maybe because it slows the process down and allows me to think a little deeper, than when I speedily type ideas using a computer.  Then, on the last day, I type up all the best ideas and they are ready to get working on, when I get back home.

I’m wondering if anyone else uses a change of environment, to stimulate their thinking process?  What works best for you?

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

Get to the point!

By |

One of the fastest ways to improve the effectiveness of your marketing messages, is to get to the point as soon as possible, in as few words as possible.

For example, I recently helped a new client increase the conversion rate of a page on his website by 450%, after reducing the number of words on that page by 75%.  I have also seen response rates from email marketing soar by over 700%, when rambling copy was changed into a shorter, compelling and more powerful message.

Most of the written marketing I see is at least 50% too long.  This is because amateur copy writers feel they have to include everything in every marketing message they write.  They feel compelled to tell the reader about every benefit of what they do.  They don’t want to miss a thing, so they go into way too much detail.  Thus, what needed to be a brief, focused message with impact, becomes a meandering, diluted message instead.

If you are disappointed by the conversion rates of your written marketing, it might be time to focus more on brevity.  Concentrate on delivering your most powerful points and do it with impact!

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

2 steps to improve your marketing messages!

By |

Did you ever hear that old saying; “You can’t keep everybody happy”?  Well, when it comes to marketing messages, you shouldn’t even try!  When you embrace this idea, it can provide a massive boost your sales figures.

It’s all about using a more targeted marketing approach.

Targeted marketing messages

A targeted marketing message consists of 2 equally important components:

  1. The message is sent to a targeted group; those most likely to have a need for whatever you are offering.
  2. The message is composed exclusively, with the people in that target group in mind.  In other words it’s directly relevant to them and their needs.

Marketing to a targeted group

Every day, you will see offers in your mail and your email inbox, from companies offering things you have absolutely no need for.  What do you do with these?  You ignore them!  That’s because no matter how great a product or service is, it will only succeed commercially, if it’s marketed to the right people.

For example, you may have just been offered the best deal ever on a new coffee machine, but if you are not a coffee drinker, that offer is not going to motivate you to buy the coffee machine.  So, make sure that you are speaking, writing and advertising to the right people.

A targeted marketing message

Most of the marketing messages we see are very poorly targeted.  The reason this is so common, is that amateur marketers often think that by writing for the widest spread of people possible, they stand the greatest chance of making a sale.

They want to ensure that everyone who reads or listens to their marketing message, will find “something” there that’s interesting.  However, that approach is the exact opposite of what effective, targeted marketing is all about.

Effective, targeted marketing is about getting a directly relevant message in front of a targeted reader / listener / viewer.  It’s about talking to that person, about their needs and what’s happening in their world, and showing how you can help them, with your products or services.

The bottom line here is this: The more compelling, inspiring and motivating your message is, the more successful it will be.

If you would like to see a better return from your current marketing efforts, take a moment to check who you currently market your services to, and also, how targeted your marketing messages are.

A simple way to stay on your reader’s radar!

By |

As you may know, I’ve been on holiday for the past 8 days.  Because blogging is such a valuable part of my communications strategy, it was important for me to be able to maintain my blogging pattern, whilst I wasn’t here.

This post is all about how wordpress’ scheduled posts feature allowed me to have a fresh post here for you each day – even though I was holidaying with my family, and why scheduling posts can be so valuable for business bloggers.

WordPress’ Scheduled Posts feature

Scheduled postsLike many people who blog regularly, I often write several blog posts at once and then use wordpress’ scheduled post feature, to publish my posts over the coming days.

This is always a really useful feature, but when you are away from work and, as in my case, away from an Internet connection too, it’s pure gold dust!

Why bother posting when I’m not here?

There are a number of reasons, why it makes sense for business bloggers to maintain the regularity, with which they post.  I mention most of them here, in “why some bloggers post every day.”

However, on a very basic level, I have found that just as people get used to visiting a blog regularly, they can also get used to NOT visiting that blog just as easily.  This simple, long established feature of wordpress means that so long as you have the content written up, a blogger never needs to have those 7 or 14 day gaps, where they drop from their reader’s radar.

Do you use scheduled posts?

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

Say it like you MEAN it!

By |

Have you ever noticed how powerful it is, when someone talks to you about something they are passionate about?  It makes a massive difference to the effectiveness of their message and the energy created can be really infectious.

So, why do so many business owners totally fail to inject REAL passion into their communications with people?

Marketing and passion

Whether you are speaking with people, recording a message or writing about your product or service, you should be doing it with passion.  After all, how the heck do you expect other people to be interested in you or your business, if you don’t sound like you are?

I decided to write this post, after watching a video presentation on a guys website, where the guy sounded half asleep.  There was no energy or passion when he spoke.  He talked about his services, like he was reading a shopping list.

Marketing and motivation

Equally, I read copy every day on websites and blogs, which is supposed to motivate the reader to take action – Yet the copy is pedestrian and lacks impact.

The bottom line: If you want to compel people to take action; to buy from you, call you, email you or click a link – you need to inspire them to do so. You need to motivate your site visitors, so they go from being a reader (passive) to a being a participant (active).

So, you want more blog readers?

By |

I wrote a very popular post recently, about getting more blog comments.  This post is all about how to get more blog readers and it starts with a question:

“Have you noticed how some blogs and websites are really difficult to read for any period of time?”

You know the blogs I mean, right?  The blogs where you find yourself just skimming the content because after a glance of the page layout, you just don’t feel like reading the whole thing?  If you want to attract more blog readers and increase reader engagement on your blog, you need to make reading your posts a comfortable experience.  Otherwise, people will just skim your content and miss what you have to say.

There are already millions of posts that explain how to get more readers via SEO / social media etc.  This post offers you some easy, yet super-effective ways to massively improve the readability of your blog and by extension, it’s reach, impact and readership.

So, let’s go!

Column width

There’s a lot of research, including my own, which suggests that once the width of a content column (that’s the part of the blog you are reading now) goes beyond a certain limit, it becomes less and less readable.

Although some have said that the maximum width should be just 65 characters (including spaces) I have found that there’s almost no difference until you go past 85/90 characters.  I did a test a while ago, where I increased the width of the content area on one of my blogs to 100 characters and had to stop after just a week, because of the massive drop in every reader-based metric!  I saw a huge drop in the average number of pages per reader, fewer comments and a drop in the number of times a post was shared.

So, if your current blog layout goes beyond 95 characters – consider reducing it.

BTW: The content area here is 502 pixels wide and I use a 15px Arial font, which equals a limit of around 85 characters.

Fonts

If you want people to be able to comfortably read your blog content, they need to be able to see what you’ve written without squinting!  Many blogs use very small font sizes and as such, are way too hard to read on normal monitors and almost impossible to read, on smaller laptops and netbooks etc.

I use a 15px font size here, similar to that used by many other marketing and social media bloggers.  You may want to use something a  little smaller, but I strongly advise you not to go too small.

Black and white? Not quite!

Most new blogs use black text on a white background.  Although black text on a white background REALLY stands out, it can be harsh on the eyes; especially tired eyes!  That’s why it’s a really good idea to use a dark grey font on a white background, as used on many popular sites, like; The BBC, Seth Godin’s blog, Problogger and many other leading sites.

On this blog, I use the same shade of grey as The BBC, which is #464646.

Don’t let Bob or Mary screw up your blog

Whenever you make changes to the layout of your blog or website, you will get feedback from people, like Bob and Mary.  Bob’s a great guy and has a passion for blogs with really wide content columns and super-small fonts.  Mary’s also a wonderful warm human being, who loves those blogs that have jet black text on snow white backgrounds.  They are both entitled to their opinions, but you must not change the basics of your blog design based on what Bob or Mary might prefer.

The vocal minority will often unintentionally lead you to make piss-poor decisions about the look and feel of your blog.  As bloggers, we need to be a lot smarter than that.  We need to look at the facts – The metrics we can measure.  If after making a change, you notice; greater engagement, more comments, more people sharing your content, an increase in the number of pages the typical reader reads – then you are on track.  Even if Bob or Mary’s intentions were good, they were simply expressing their unique preferences.

Listen to all your readers, not just the vocal minority!

Some advice on making these changes

If you are like me and know nothing about HTML or CSS coding, it can be an expensive pain in the rear, to have to make changes to the layout of your blog.

This is why I recommend you consider doing what I did, and start using the Headway wordpress theme; which will allow you to make changes to your blog, without learning how to code.  Headway (affiliate link) lets you make the kind of changes mentioned here, in seconds.  In fact, I built this blog from scratch, with zero need for expert help, using Headway.  It’s given me total control over the blog and saved me a fortune.  It’s also the ONLY product I have ever endorsed here!

Summary

Ultimately the decision regarding the look and feel of your blog, is down to you.  However, there’s an old saying in business, which assures us that; “success leaves clues.”  There’s a reason why so many of the world’s most respected and popular blogs do things in a certain way.  They have already done the testing and measuring.  Beauty is certainly in the eye of the beholder, but when it comes to the readability element of your blog, it’s a wise move to make the experience as good as possible for your readers.

I’d like to know what additional tips you have, for making content more readable.  Equally, do you have any experience of changing any of the elements mentioned in this post?

Let us know what you think!

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

Image: TEIA MG