Jim Connolly Marketing

Sorry to disturb you

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why email marketing doesn't work, why email marketing works ,email marketing

I received a marketing email earlier, which contained a serious error. This error will have dramatically reduced its conversion rate. Here’s what happened, so you can avoid it from happening to you.

The email copy started with the following 4 words: “Sorry to disturb you”.

There’s a lot of information packed into those 4 words. Enough for the vast majority of those who received it, to form an opinion on the sender.

  • The sender knew what they were doing was wrong, which is why they opened with an apology.
  • The sender also knew that their email was a disturbance. An unrequested interruption from someone I’ve never heard of.
  • Knowing all this, they still decided to send it anyway.

Like others who received that email, I stopped reading after the opening sentence. After all, a stranger had interrupted us, without our consent, to tell us that what we were about to read is just spam. It’s an instant delete.

What if the email had been valuable?

That email may have contained a useful message. It might have offered an outstanding deal. It could have provided details of a wonderful opportunity. But their email marketing let them down. So no one will know. The copy they used, the list they used and the tone of their opening line destroyed their email campaign.

Oblivious to this, the sender will be wondering why they received no positive response. Especially if they genuinely had something valuable to share. They’ll perhaps be pondering whether they need to lower their prices, or if email marketing is a waste of time, or if their great offer isn’t actually great.

If we consider this to be merely an example of ineffective email marketing, we totally miss the point!

It’s way, way bigger than that.

This example provides us with a powerful insight into how easy it is, for a business owner to offer an amazing product or service, only for ineffective marketing to let them down. It’s the difference between being inundated with sales and enquiries or being greeted with silence. 

The great news

Thankfully, it also gives you an insight into how quickly you can massively increase your sales, when you decide to improve just one area of your marketing. 

Now multiply that potential by every other marketing activity you’re doing, and 2024 can easily be your most successful year ever. This is true, no matter how challenging things have been for you. 

All New!

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When it comes to creating a powerful marketing message and attracting customers, the word ‘new‘ is overrated. Worse still, it’s a very loaded word and can absolutely ruin your marketing results.

There are 3 broad reasons for this.

  1. The newest product or service is always a riskier bet. At best, it’s a bigger gamble than the trusted alternatives. At worst, the customer feels like a paying guinea pig.
  2. The newest product or service is seldom the best. It lacks the improvements that come from years of feedback. It lacks the robustness that comes from stress-testing.
  3. New doesn’t last for long. This makes it a short-term marketing message. Anything that’s new is only new for now.

A dozen better alternatives

Given the challenges of using the word new, I recommend you replace it with something more compelling. More motivating. More attractive. 

To get you started, here are 12 alternatives.

  1. A faster way.
  2. A professional way.
  3. A cleaner way.
  4. A proven way.
  5. A stylish way.
  6. A profitable way.
  7. A premium way.
  8. A relaxing way.
  9. A friendly way.
  10. A safer way.
  11. A reliable way.
  12. A smoother way.

What next?

Take a look through your marketing and search for opportunities to replace new with a better alternative. This is usually in situations where new is used as the only adjective. 

Also, you can apply this to your presentations, negotiations or meetings. For example, if you’re trying to sell a new product, service or idea to someone, they’re more likely to pay attention when you tell them about your ‘more profitable way’ of doing something, than your ‘new way’ of doing something. 

Finally, in situations where you need to use the word new, such as a press release or product launch, always combine it with another word or words. For example, new and improved. 

Stop using buzzwords in your marketing. Seriously. Stop it

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remove buzzwords, marketing copy, clarity sells

One thing in business is certain. There’s no shortage of buzzwords and phrases. Here are just some that I’ve seen in use recently.

  • Knowledge transfer.
  • Price point.
  • Intersection.
  • Deep dive.
  • Disrupt.
  • Ruckus.
  • Knowledge transfer.
  • Ideate.
  • Pragmatic.
  • Whiteboard it.
  • Paradigm.

Buzzwords are used by people, in an effort to appear informed or fashionable. Interestingly, using buzzwords has the total opposite effect.

Here’s how they work against us and our marketing.

  • Buzzwords make informed people cringe. Not only is this embarrassing, it’s a terrible idea if we want our peers to take us seriously or recommend us.
  • Buzzwords confuse the uninformed. And that’s the last thing we need, when we want people to understand our message.

In short, buzzwords not only add nothing positive to our marketing, they actively weaken it. And because they’re totally unnecessary, we can remove them with no negative impact.

Remember: One of the keys to effective marketing is to always aim for clarity.

Photo by Kim Gorga on Unsplash

Small adjustments. Low risk. Amazing sales results

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From a sales and marketing perspective, which of the following do you think gets the best results?

  • A sign on your customer entrance that says “We’re open”, or a sign that says “Come in”?
  • A message in your marketing, which gives your “opening hours”, or a message in your marketing that gives your “drop-in hours”?

The second option in both those examples always performs better (sometimes by factors of hundred’s of percent) in tests.

There are 3 important points from that short exercise.

1. Small adjustments can produce massive improvements

Minor adjustments to your sales or marketing can create breakthrough results.

In the above examples, tiny changes to the text were made. However, by increasing the number of prospective clients (or customers) who take action, those changes can result in a very tangible, positive impact.

For instance, a client of mine made a change I suggested, live on our first Zoom meeting. He was able to see a clear, measurable improvement with a tiny textual change to a call-to-action button on his website that same day. He then rolled it out to all his relevant pages the following day, with equally outstanding results, but this time across his entire range of services. We tested, measured and adjusted until he squeezed out close to a 175% increase in the click-through rate from those pages, to his sales pages.

Test, measure and adjust?

Yes.

If you’ve followed my work for any period of time, you’ll know that every marketing adjustment you make needs to be tested and measured.

  • Tested: Put into play in a real world setting.
  • Measured: Results compared against past performance. If it improves things, you keep it and then seek to further improve it with your next adjustment.

That process is then repeated until you see no further measurable improvement. Then, you move on to the next marketing element to adjust and improve.

2. Low risk

The type of subtle adjustments I’m referring to here, either cost nothing or very little for you to put into play. This means they can be deployed quickly.

So, you now have the freedom to make adjustments to each part of your sales and marketing. In fact, that’s exactly what EVERY professionally marketed business already does.

3. One size does not fit all

Different marketing adjustments, tactics and strategies work differently in different industries. And even within the same industry, there are dozens and dozens of things that will determine how effective any change to your marketing will be, for your specific business.

Some of the most common factors include.

  • The profile of client you sell your products or services to.
  • Your pricing; whether it is higher, lower or around average for your industry.
  • How well, or poorly, any changes you make, work alongside your current branding.
  • Your location.

Small, low risk adjustments that are specific to you

You don’t need to make major changes.

You don’t need to spend major money, it usually takes just a little of your time.

But you do need to find out what works best for you and your business.

You can waste a massive amount of time focusing on the wrong things to adjust. You can waste even more time, making the wrong adjustments. And in both cases, you’ll be leaving a potential fortune on the table.

This is one of those areas of marketing where it makes no sense to dabble with it yourself, unless you absolutely have to. So, if you can afford to invest in expert marketing help, do.
Note: I explain why in more detail here.

When done correctly, this strategy will give you a huge spread of improvements that will combine to increase your sales. It’s a proven, low risk, highly effective and exceptionally robust way to grow your business in any economy.

Photo by Ross Findon on Unsplash

Selling simplified: Get your prospects to say ‘yes’

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marketing, pick you, choose you

Here is a very quick marketing tip. It works online and also when you’re giving a presentation to a prospective client or customer. It’s based on one of the foundations of successful selling:

A confused mind always says ‘no!’.

In other words, when faced with a buying decision, a confused prospective client will not proceed. They’ll say ‘no’ or walk away, rather than risk making a bad decision. And you, the business owner, are the one who pays the price for that lack of clarity.

Clarity sells

With this in mind, I’d like you to think for a moment about all the different options or choices your prospective clients are faced with.

Here’s why it’s critically important for you to get the balance just right.

  • The more options you put in front of someone, the more choice they have.
  • The more choice they have, the harder it is for them to decide.
  • The harder their decision-making process is, the less likely they are to make the decision to hire you or buy from you.
  • They move on.
  • You lose a prospective client or a sale, to a less confusing competitor.

We don’t want that to happen to you.

The marketing power of clarity

I’d like you to take some time to go through all your marketing materials, especially your website. Then review the content of your sales presentation; what you say when pitching to a prospect.

Now, look closely for all unnecessary confusion.

Some good places to start (depending on your industry) may include.

  • The number of service levels you provide.
  • Your various pricing options.
  • The number of different bundles or packages you offer.
  • Any over-long feature lists.
  • The amount of information you require on your enquiry / contact forms.

You get the idea.

Now consider whether you actually need to offer so much complexity, so much potential for confusion. And if not, reduce. Everything that needs to be there should remain. But if it doesn’t need to be there, remove it. Cut the confusion. And make more sales.

Photo: Shutterstock.

It’s a love thing

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benefits features, marketing, people buy benefits

It’s your business and quite rightly, you love it. You love your products or services, too. This partly explains a very common problem with small business marketing. It’s a mistake that’s a twist on the old benefits and features idea, and even some marketing providers make it.

Allow me to explain

When you love your business, it feels right to focus on the amazing things your specific product or service does. After all, you put a huge amount of time and effort into building your product or developing your service.

The challenge here, is that those details, points and features are not what convert your prospects into customers. Your prospects are motivated by the value your business, products or services will give them. They’re inspired to buy based on the benefits and amazing value you’re offering them. And you almost certainly already knew that.

You see, whilst every business owner knows that people buy based on benefits, not features, many of them still make the mistake of marketing based on features.

Why?

Because they don’t know they’re doing it!

It’s a ‘love thing’.

They’re so passionate about their product or service that they just have to tell you what it is, how it works and how proud they are of it. For example, they may have spent years of their life and invested a fortune financially, to develop (a training course, software package, consultancy or whatever). They want you to know how clever, amazing or comprehensive it is.

Often, they do that and completely forget to tell you how it will directly benefit you. Or leave it too late to tell you, so you’ve lost interest and moved on.

Take another look at your marketing. And seek out every opportunity to shift the primary focus away from features and onto the benefits of hiring you or buying your product.

By sharing these compelling benefits, so your prospect can clearly see and feel the value you’re offering, you massively increase the likelihood of them buying from you.