Jim's Marketing Blog

Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business

Words matter

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marketing tips, marketing advice

They matter because your prospective clients aren’t mind readers. And they’re in a hurry. So, they need you to get to the point.

Think about it. There’s a world of difference, between measurable outcomes and superb results. Wasting 50 grand of your client’s money is a very measurable outcome – but it’s not a superb result! However, we see vague nonsense like that in marketing messages every day.

The key is to aim for clarity and impact. And only use as many words as necessary. (I used fewer than 90 words here).

5 Tips to help you build a huge, valuable newsletter list

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marketing, list building, subscribers

Here are 5 tips, to help you build a huge and valuable newsletter readership or list.

Let’s go.

1. Go easy on the pitches

Make sure it’s a newsletter and not a badly disguised advertisement. Here’s the thing: People avoid advertising. We skip the commercials on TV. We pay developers to remove the ads from the free version of their apps. We see advertisements as unwelcome interruptions.

If your newsletter reads a little too much like a sales pitch, it will be largely ignored. This leads nicely into the next point.

2. Be useful

The more useful your newsletter is, the more your readers will value it and share it. Your ultimate goal is to build a large, targeted reader community, who become either clients, customers or advocates. None of that can be achieved with predictable, pedestrian content.

Useful content is what gives your newsletter wings. It’s what inspires people to subscribe, stay subscribed, share and make purchasing decisions. So, before you hit send on a newsletter, make sure it contains valuable, useful information. Provide answers to your reader’s problems. Share useful tips. Point your readers to helpful resources. You get the idea.

The more value you pack into each newsletter, the more your readers will value it… and the more they will value you. Think about that for a moment.

3. Get the design right

Even if your content is wonderful, people won’t take it seriously if the design looks poor. The first bite is with the eye.

If your newsletter provides valuable information, but the design looks amateurish or outdated, it’s like serving a delicious meal on a dirty plate.

So invest in the best design or newsletter template you can. Because whether your newsletter looks cheap or is presented professionally, it all reflects back on you.

4. Ask readers to share

Even if readers think your newsletter is great, it may not occur to them to share it. People are busy. Really busy. By reminding them, you plant the idea of sharing the newsletter in their mind. Moreover, you do this at the exact point, where they have just read it and enjoyed it. I used to have a section at the bottom of my newsletter, which said:

“If you have found this newsletter interesting, please share it with your friends”.

When I added that short message to my newsletter, the results were immediate and measurable. It’s amazing what a simple reminder can do.

5. Help it spread

Convert people who had your newsletter forwarded to them, into subscribers.

Imagine your friend had just forwarded a great newsletter to you. You’d want to get a regular copy, right? You don’t want to have to rely on your friend, remembering to forward each edition to you. So, I added the following sentence to the above message:

“If you have had this newsletter forwarded to you and would like a regular copy, click here.”

Never underestimate the power of a subtle, non-pushy reminder.

Make no mistake, newsletters can be an extremely powerful marketing asset. It’s why I make my blog available in newsletter format. And it’s why I ask you to take your newsletter seriously and invest in it accordingly. Give it the time and effort it needs.

Because the rewards for getting it right are huge. No. Bigger than that.

How to make your marketing massively more effective

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content marketing, trust

Take a quick look at the following 2 statements. Which of them do you find the most appealing?

  1. I wrote this blog post, now I want you to read it.
  2. Business owners often struggle with this challenge, so I wrote this quick tip to help you.

Unsurprisingly, your marketplace is massively more attracted to the second statement. Despite this, the majority of small and medium sized businesses use the first approach in their marketing.

Rather than focusing on the wants and needs of their marketplace, they focus on what they themselves want. And it’s costing them a fortune in missed sales opportunities or client enquiries.

I received one such email earlier today. It started off with; “We’re delighted to announce our summer 2019 range is in stock and available to order”.

Let’s unpack that headline and see what message it sends to the reader.

  1. The vendor is excited.
  2. The vendor has an announcement.
  3. The vendor has new stock.
  4. They want me to order it.

As you can see, they’ve given me (I’m an existing customer) very little motivation to do anything. Their message is all about them and what they want. By switching the focus to their customers, they could have built a more compelling message. Instead, they’ll be wondering why that email’s response rate is so low.

The lesson here

The lesson is pretty obvious when you see an example broken down, like the one above. But sometimes in our eagerness to market our products or services, we can unintentionally make similar mistakes.

This is why I recommend you deliberately check, to ensure the focus of your future marketing is always about “them”. Also, review your existing marketing and shift the emphasis of any self-focused material, so that it’s them-focused… their wants and needs.

Show them how passionate you are about helping them. Show them you care.

And make solving their problems the cornerstone of your marketing.

Stop waiting for things to pick up

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Do you ever wonder what’s stopping you from getting enough high quality sales leads or enquiries?

This is a problem, which new clients often have when we first start working together. So today, I thought I’d share a very brief overview of how I turn things around for them.

Super-effective marketing is based on a 3 step process. It motivates people to take action, now. Let’s break that down.

  1. Motivates people.
  2. To take action.
  3. Now.

Motivates people

Your prospective clients are busy. On top of this, they’re bombarded with notifications all day long, from people and apps demanding their attention. Faced with this reality, your marketing needs to rise above through all that noise. It needs to grab their attention, then generate enough desire for them to engage with your message.

None of this can be achieved, with the common marketing tactics you hear about in marketing seminars, or read about in marketing books / marketing websites. Why? Because those commonly taught tactics are already overused. People tune them out. They fail to make an impression. So they’re ignored.

To take action

To compel a prospective client to take action, your marketing needs to make a direct request. Note I used the singular ‘request’ there. Not request(s). The more options you offer, the less likely anyone is to do anything. So, make a single, focused, direct request.

Now

It’s not enough to ask the prospective client to take action. You need to ask them to do (whatever) now… while you have their attention and their motivation is high.

Why the rush?

Simple. Even if they love your message. Even if they’re genuinely interested. Their attention will soon jump onto the next thing. They’ll tell themselves “I’ll do it later”. And you’ll lose them.

If your marketing isn’t generating daily, qualified sales leads or client enquiries, it’s failing you in at least 1 of those 3 areas. There’s no need for this to happen to you. These are easy wins, if you choose to fix the problem correctly.

Marketing Tip: How to hide stuff in the fine print

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marketing lies, liars

Have you noticed something about the fine print we find in marketing and on packaging?

It’s printed really small.

And there’s a reason for that. They would rather we didn’t see it. So, they do their best not to make it stand out. It’s one of the reasons I hate sales and marketing.

The fine print is where they hide caveats. It’s where they bury disclaimers. It’s where they tell us that the promises in their marketing are grossly inflated. Or that their product doesn’t look as good as it does on the packaging, etc.

This got me thinking: Surely there’s an ethical, positive way to use the fine print?

So, I had some coffee.

Then I went for a long walk.

I came back to the studio, had another coffee, put “A Love Supreme” by John Coltrane on… then it came to me.

Imagine this.

  • How would you feel, if you read the fine print and discovered that it actually confirmed the product to be just as good as they said, in the LARGE print? Maybe even adding an additional benefit?
  • How would your prospective clients feel, if your fine print confirmed your marketing claims and reiterated you were being totally honest with them?

That’s the kind of eye-popping surprise that people remember. It helps build trust. And it’s also the kind of story, which people like to share with their friends.

Give your best ideas away for free. Here’s why

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content marketing

What I’m about to share with you may sound a little counter-intuitive. It isn’t. In fact, it could help you achieve breakthrough marketing results.

Allow me to explain.

I come across the following problem a lot. Mainly from service providers, who are struggling to attract new clients with their content marketing. Their primary concern looks something like this:

I know I need to provide good, free advice via my content. Surely if I give my best ideas away for free, no one will pay to hire me?

I’ve already explained why you should be stingy with your time, but not your ideas. However, there’s another, excellent reason why you should provide outstanding, free advice.

And it’s this…

Think for a moment about the alternative. Imagine you publish a newsletter, videos, a blog or a podcast. Now let’s also imagine that instead of sharing great advice, you share weaker information. Average free stuff. Nothing special. Nothing that really stands out.

Guess what?

You’ve just given your marketplace a weak, low-impact insight into your work. You’ve painted a lousy picture of how good you are. So, not only will people be highly unlikely to hire you, they’ll also be unlikely to share your newsletters, videos, podcasts, blog posts or subscribe to you. That’s a huge lose, lose. (Actually, that’s wrong; it’s a lose, lose, lose, because you’ll also be damaging your reputation as a knowledgeable professional. Ouch!)

Here’s what really happens when you give great free advice

Yes, freebie hunters will certainly gobble up all your free advice. But that doesn’t lose you a penny. Why? Because they were never going to hire you anyway. Freebie hunters are the dabblers. The DIYers. So, they were never a prospective client. (Tip, read this: Don’t let greedy amateurs get you down).

Yes, a subset of genuine prospective clients who take your free advice will do (whatever) themselves. Of course, if they find your ideas so powerful that they actually use them, they’re highly likely to subscribe to you and share your work. That’s how every successful resource spreads. Also, I know from experience that many of them will later hire you.

However… there’s also a hefty subset of prospective clients who will find your high quality advice extremely valuable. Now, this subset of prospective clients are the ones who value their time. They love the peace-of-mind that comes from getting expert help. They value professionalism.

These prospective clients will hire you, so you can do the job properly for them. And yes, they’ll also share your newsletters, videos, podcasts, blog posts and subscribe to you.

How do I know for 100% certain that this works?

Simple: It’s how I grew my business!

It’s why I get enquiries from prospective clients, multiple times, all day long, every day. And if it works for me, it can work for you too. Just make sure to offer as much value as you can, as often as you can. Hold nothing back.

P.S. Here’s that article I mentioned earlier. It’s well worth a read: Be stingy with your time, but not your ideas.