Jim's Marketing Blog

Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business

Top newsletter tips – part 1

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As you may already know, I produce a very popular newsletter; with thousands of readers spanning more than 100 countries around the world.  I have developed my newsletter without any form of paid advertising; everything has been achieved through my website, blog, referrals and forwarding!

Here are a few of my suggestions, if you want to either add a newsletter to your marketing or increase the success of an existing newsletter.

Content

I believe the finest way to generate a massive, interested readership for your newsletter – is to build your subscriber base on the recommendation of your readers! Of course, the only way to get people forwarding your newsletter and growing your readership for you, is to provide them with stacks of really powerful, valuable information!

My marketing newsletter carries an original article (always written by me) and usually just one very brief news story.  Most newsletters I see are just a massive sales pitch, wrapped around generic content.  As a result, no one bothers to forward them!

People do not forward adverts to their contacts; they forward things they find interesting, useful or both.  Focus exclusively on high value content and your newsletter will ‘go viral!’  I get around 25 new newsletter subscribers each day using this approach.

Only write for your readers

If you want your newsletter to generate new clients or customers for your business, make sure that you only write material that is 100% relevant to YOUR specific market! Many newsletters make the mistake of trying to appeal to too wide a range of readers and as a result, end up being of little relevance to anyone!

For example; if you sell insurance broking products to small businesses within your area – everything you write should be relevant to the local, small business community.  If you focus on their problems, their opportunities and their interests, your messages will always be relevant to the reader.  You will find it far easier to grow your readership this way, than if you write general information with no local appeal.

Ask your readers to forward your newsletter

Every edition of my newsletter finishes with a request.

“If you found this newsletter useful, please forward it to anyone you think might find it interesting!”

This causes people who have just read and enjoyed your newsletter, to focus on people they know who might also find the newsletter useful.  This simple step can generate a 200% increase in the number of new subscribers you get after each edition – often more!

Offer new subscribers something to welcome them

You should ALWAYS offer people an incentive for taking the time to subscribe to your newsletter!  For example, when you sign-up for my newsletter, you get a free copy of my short eBook; “10 secrets to success!” People LOVE this brief eBook and it’s a great way to welcome new readers!

Just make sure that whatever you offer is likely to be extremely attractive to your ideal profile of reader.

No more than once a week & no less than twice a month

If you send people any form of email communication more than once a week, it is likely to result in lots of unsubscribe requests! People hate being bombarded with emails; even emails that contain really useful information, like your newsletter!  I get so few unsubscribe requests using this approach that I manually delete them.  I get fewer unsubscribe requests a year than many people get in a week!

However, if you leave too long a gap between emails (more than 14-21 days), response rates and new subscriber numbers start to drop!  For my newsletter, two emails a month seems ideal.

Let your readers know their details are safe with you

Never, ever sell, rent or share your subscriber database with anyone!  Also, make sure you let people know that you will never share their details!

You only need an email address

If you want to send your newsletter to someone, you don’t need anything other than their email address.  Did you know that every additional piece of information you ask for, drastically reduces the number of people who will sign-up?  It’s true!

If you think that by getting your readers names you will be able to ‘personalise’ their emails – STOP!  It’s not 1999 any more and EVERYONE knows what a mail merge is! You make your newsletter personalised by making the information specific to your target readership – not by opening it with Dear Bob!

Newsletter marketing is something I will be covering again in future posts.  If you have any specific newsletter questions, either contact me using the contact button above or leave a comment here.

….and feel free to subscribe to my newsletter, using the button below!

WordPress.com and business blogging

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I wrote a post a while ago, saying that WordPress.com was a good place to host your business blog, if you were just starting out and wanting to ‘test the water’ as it were.

However, since then I have been emailed by a reader; who pointed out some poorly publicised, but extremely important limitations to a WordPress.com hosted business blog!

I looked into this and found 3 REALLY IMPORTANT reasons why I believe you should NOT use a WordPress.com hosted blog for your business.  Here they are:

1. WordPress.com insert ‘hidden adverts’ into your blog

Automattic (the company that runs WordPress.com), inserts ‘hidden advertising’ into the blogs hosted on their servers.

Hidden?

Yes, the ads they place into your blog are hidden from you – so you can’t see what THEY are advertising to YOUR readers in YOUR company’s name! Because Automattic use Google Adwords for these ads, they could be advertisements for your competitors products or services!  This is perhaps why they feel the need to hide these adverts from their users?  Anyhow, many of their users have no idea these adverts even exist; because they will not be able to see them when they look at their own blog. The ads are only displayed to their readers!

As of last week, you can pay to have these adverts removed, the fee is currently $30 a year.  This is an improvement, as until last week you were stuck with them! However, there are two far bigger problems with hosting a business blog at wordpress.com!

2. WordPress.com won’t let you advertise anything

I have been in marketing for over 20 years and I own and run a very successful international marketing business.  I don’t know a single company, which has a commercial blog and does not use it to promote their business or market their services in some way.  The whole point of a commercial blog is commerce after all!

Although Automattic actually encourage people to host a commercial blog at WordPress.com, they forbid any form of commercial advertising!  So, if you have any desire to advertise your services in your blog; you simply can not use WordPress.com – full stop!

3. WordPress.com won’t let you link from your posts to your website

One of the major marketing benefits of having a business blog, are all the links you get from the blog to your main website.  These links can be really useful for a business blog!

For example, the newsletter button at the foot of my blog posts is a link; however, it would be BANNED from use on a wordpress.com hosted blog! Also, links from your business blog to your main website can really help with the sites Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

However, these links to your main website (what Automattic refers to as a ‘third party’ website) are forbidden on a WordPress.com hosted blog.  Their terms of service state that by making content available on your blog, you warrant that it:

“does not contain unethical or unwanted commercial content designed to drive traffic to third party sites or boost the search engine rankings of third party sites

Although it is impossible to understand what they mean by ‘unwanted commercial content’ (as this is always going to a matter of opinion), the threat itself is clear.  If someone at Automattic sees that your posts link to your business website – you could have your blog suspended until it is removed!

Conclusion

Even if you pay Automattic to have their adverts removed from your blog, you are still left with a blog that:

– You cannot link from as you wish
– You cannot market advertise or promote your services on or even insert adwords
– You cannot customise fully
– You cannot advertise other people’s products or services on
– You cannot add commercially useful plugins to

A ‘free’ business blog on WordPress.com, with the ads removed, your own url added, some slight changes to its look and some extra space will cost you between $70 and $145 dollars a year.  For not much more, you can enjoy full control of a blog and (most importantly) use it to market your business; by hosting it with another provider.

I love WordPress software and the people in the wordpress.com user community are fantastic! WordPress.com servers are really reliable and very secure too.  However, if you want a commercial blog that you can advertise your services on and you want the freedom to link when and where you wish – I believe you need an analternative host.

UPDATE: Because some people are commenting here, without checking the date of the post (September 2008), I have disabled comments.

2 years later, changes to WordPress.com Terms and Conditions make it slightly more business friendly, but ultimately it is still a platform over which someone else has control.  WordPress.com these days says you CAN link from the blog to your 3rd party site (or main website) though they decide if you are OVER linking!  Any time you elect to put your time and effort into building something, which someone else can suspend or delete, you are taking a risk.  If you are happy with that risk, WordPress.com is still the best free platform out there.

Think long and hard before you build your marketing on a platform they do not control.

Jim.

Avoid toilet paper web design

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Marketing is all about developing trust.  This is why I am always totally amazed, when I see an apparently legitimate company, using the exact same ‘toilet paper web design’ as used by online criminals, scammers and con artists!

What is a ‘toilet paper web design’?

I coined the phrase ‘toilet paper web design’ a year ago.  It refers to that ugly, hard-sell design style, where web pages are fairly narrow BUT REALLY, REALLY, REALLY LONG!  They just roll on and on like a long narrow roll of toilet paper (hence the name!)

Usually, these over-long pages use lots of different font colours and font sizes, plus pictures of expensive cars, piles of money or sometimes both!  There’s way too much use of underlined words and highlighted text – they look like a total mess!  Some even show fake copies of financial records and fake testimonials about whatever scam they are trying to fool you into signing up for.

They then end with a super, limited offer; for you to get a ‘bundle’ worth 299.99, for just 24.99!  The bundle is either membership of something or a photoshop image of a box, which looks like a 1970’s soap powder box!

Legitimate businesses should use legitimate marketing!

When someone visits a website, they immediately form their all-important first impression of that website and the person or business behind it! If they see you using the same online marketing style as a scammer, you are really in trouble!  Your image will be warning them NOT to go within a mile of you – that’s not good for your marketing!

Unbelievably, some of the most common users of toilet paper web design are legitimate business coaches, trainers and consultants! This con artist template is fine for con artists.  However, if you have a legitimate business with a legitimate product or service, it’s crazy to try and emulate what criminals do.

Whenever I have spoken to legitimate businesses, who use the toilet paper web design approach, they always say they did it after either reading some ebook or after seeing a site that claimed to be successful, using the same approach.

An ebook can be written and posted to the Internet in minutes and a scammer will never admit their site is not working!  They usually have dozens of sites and rely on each one finding enough vulnerable people to make a small profit!

If you know a legitimate business that’s using this approach – point them to this article and help them avoid being wrongly associated with Internet scumbags!

Is the mailshot dead?

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I have an interesting marketing question for you;
“if someone invented mailshots or ‘marketing letters’ today, would you or your business actually use them?”

Just imagine the sales pitch for a mailshot

“I’m Bob from the Post Office and I want to tell you all about this new invention – mailshots! You know how you can use email to get your marketing messages onto the desk of thousands of people, in minutes, for free? Well, mailshots are unreliable, take days to deliver, are expensive and massively labour intensive!”.

Mailshots are extremely expensive

My newsletter is written on my computer and then I press the send button – that’s it! The only real costs attached are the time it takes to write it, plus the cost of the emailing software; which was £200. To send that same newsletter out to my newsletter subscribers via a mailshot (at maximum bulk mailing discount) would cost me at least £4,000,000 or $8,000,000 a year!

Email marketing

I strongly suggest YOU consider using email to deliver YOUR marketing messages, rather than letters or ‘printed media’. In fact, I list email marketing as one of my essential “Top 10 Marketing Tips!”

You see, even if we forget the environmental impact of using all that paper and then sending it via road, rail and air – the time and money you will save is enormous.

Moreover, because email marketing is so effective, it has the power, when used correctly, to transform your sales results super-fast!

Email marketing & mailshots ‘head to head’

I know two small recruitment companies; one uses email marketing exclusively and the other uses mailshots. The company using mailshots can only send one mailing, to 1000 people each month – because of the cost attached to preparing and sending each mailshot is so great.

The company using email marketing sends a marketing mailing to their list of 5,000 people.  So, they reach five times the number of potential clients!  Also, they mail their list twice a month, because there’s no additional cost!  By mailing that list every fourteen days, the list stays up-to-date too; further increasing its value!  This means they reach five times as many people, twice as often AND it costs close to nothing!

Build your own email marketing database

The recruitment company using email marketing ONLY contact people who actually WANT to be contacted with information on their services.  How can they be so sure?  Because EVERYONE that they email has subscribed to them via a ‘sign-up box’ on their website – this is important.  It means that 100% of the people they email to have a confirmed interest in their business.

It also means their email marketing list didn’t cost them anything!  I recommend you always build your own email marketing list, you can read more about email marketing in my Top 10 Marketing Tips article.

If you own or run a small or medium sized business and you want to reach more people, faster and for a fraction of the cost – give email marketing a go!

Clear marketing sells

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In marketing, clarity is extremely important!  Your marketing messages need to clearly state what you do, what the benefits of your services are and why a potential client should do business with you or buy from you!

Clear marketing

Clear marketing messages command a potential client’s attention with laser-like precision!

Sadly, most small businesses use a foggy, conversational approach to their marketing and as a result, they lose stacks of business unnecessarily!

Most small business websites lack clarity

When you read the wording (or the copy) on the homepage of a typical small business website, it rarely gives you the core information you need!  Instead, you usually find a welcome message and some general ‘blurb’ about the company.  There’s nothing there to motivate the visitor / reader to click anything or do anything. As a result, most people quickly leave these sites and stacks of potential sales and enquiries are lost. This vague, generalised approach to marketing is a complete waste of time and money!

For example

I recently saw a website for a company that had the following headline across its homepage…

“Providing integrated business solutions to SME’s.”

Apart from mentioning that they work with SME’s (Small to medium-sized Enterprises), I have no idea whether they are; business advisers, software developers, accountants, recruitment specialists, hr consultants or anything else!

To make your marketing message stronger- try this!

Take a look at your existing marketing.  Read your website, your sales letters, marketing emails and brochures or flyers etc.  Make sure that each of your marketing messages explains clearly:
1. What you do.
2. How it will directly benefit the reader.
3. Why they absolutely need it (right now if possible).
4. Why they should buy ‘it’ from you (and not someone else).

This simple exercise can produce immediate, measurable results!

Get YOUR mailshot letters opened!

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This post is all about how to get YOUR marketing letters opened.

When a company sends out a mailshot, it does so in order to generate enquiries or sales.  Of course, in order for these marketing letters to work, they must first be opened and read!  After all, you can have the strongest, most compelling and motivating marketing letter imaginable inside that envelope, but in order for it to generate business for you, the envelope must be opened.

Amazingly, although there’s stacks of information ‘out there’ about writing a marketing letter, there’s very little written about how to get someone to actually open the envelope (what some trendy marketing people call ‘the carrier’!)

Get your marketing letters in the right pile!

I was reminded of how poorly most companies deliver their mail shots earlier today, when the post arrived at my home.  My wife Sharon divided the letters into two, unopened piles.  I asked her what the piles represented and she said;

“The letters in the left pile are junk mail – the letters in the right hand pile are going to be opened”

Now, my wife has no marketing experience, yet she was able to spot junk mail without even opening the envelopes, with 100% accuracy!

Get YOUR marketing letters opened!

If you want to make sure your mailshot letters get opened, here are a few simple guidelines:

  • Make sure the name and address of the person you are writing to is displayed clearly.
  • Use ‘window envelopes’ with the name and address of the recipient printed onto the enclosed letter.
  • Don’t address letters to a job title or ‘the occupier.’
  • Be extremely careful about printing any kind of message on the envelope.  If you really must have a message on the envelope, make sure it is written by a professional copy writer.  If in doubt, leave it!  Get the message even slightly wrong and you could find 100% of your letters remain unopened!
  • Don’t address the letter IN CAPITAL LETTERS.
  • Never, ever, ever use printed labels for the name and address.  These tend to be mainly used for mass-mailings, so people tend NOT to open them.
  • Don’t use highly decorated envelopes unless you want people to know that there’s a sales pitch inside that letter.

Finally, here’s a quick marketing tip: Take a look at the mail you receive, which you instinctively think is either junk mail or a sales pitch. Ask yourself what it was that made you feel that way, before even opening the envelope.  Then, make sure you avoid the same mistakes. Then, check out the letters that you DO OPEN and ask yourself, what it was that motivated you to open those particular letters.

The bottom line here, is that you need to make sure that recipients of YOUR mailings are not thinking negatively about what might be inside your envelopes!