Jim Connolly Marketing

Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business

Here’s 1 word that can destroy your results. And 12 better alternatives

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marketing, copy, content marketing

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

There are 2 main reasons 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. A secure way.
  3. An enjoyable 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.

So, do a review of your current marketing and look for opportunities to replace the word new, with a better alternative.

13 Important things to ponder as you start your week

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get started, marketing

Here are 13 useful things to focus on as you start your week.

In no particular order.

  1. All business is personal.
  2. Optimism is extremely contagious. If you want better outcomes from people, bring optimism with you.
  3. To earn bigger fees, solve bigger problems.
  4. To be in greater demand, provide greater value.
  5. A business can only be as successful as the weakest link in its leadership.
  6. Opportunities come with a use-by date. When opportunity knocks, get moving!
  7. … and if opportunity isn’t knocking, build a door.
  8. Either you control your focus, or others will control it for you.
  9. You can’t eat low quality food and enjoy high quality energy.
  10. Be useful. Repeat.
  11. Either do what you love or learn to love what you do. Wealthy and miserable? You’re still broke!
  12. Ignore shortcuts to success. Take the next good step, instead.
  13. Whenever possible, be kind. And it’s always possible.

Discover how the top companies keep getting the best referrals

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In today’s post, I’m going to show you a powerful way to get more, great people talking about the services you provide. But that’s not all. I’m also going to explain how to overcome a major problem: how to get people to say the right things about you.

KFC image

I’ll even throw in a world-class example of how it works.

Okay let’s go

The starting point, is to decide exactly what you want people to say. Otherwise, you’re relying on them making something up on the spot. And usually, when someone is asked if they can recommend a provider, it will be a generic, weak message.

For example, if you ask someone if they have an accountant they’d recommend, the reply is usually something like; “Sure. We’re happy with the (Whatever) Accountancy Firm”.

That’s nice.

But all it really says, is that this particular person is happy with the service they receive. It’s the bare minimum. It’s vague. It says nothing about the service this accountancy firm provides. And it’s certainly not compelling.

Here’s why this matters to you: It’s entirely possible you’re already being regularly referred or recommended to great prospective clients. But you’re unaware, because, as in the above example, the referral is totally ineffective. And an ineffective referral is close to worthless.

Let’s see how the fastest growing companies overcome this problem.

How to get this right

Okay, let’s look at that accountancy firm again.

Only this time, they were professionally marketed and had already incorporated a short, memorable strapline in their branding. Something like “building stronger businesses”. If used correctly, that 3 word phrase would become an automatic part of their referrals.

So, instead of; “Sure. We’re happy with the (Whatever) Accountancy Firm.”

You get; “Sure. We’re happy with the (Whatever) Accountancy Firm. They specialize in building stronger businesses.”

That second referral is massively more powerful with far greater impact.

Think about it. If someone is looking for a new accountant, they’re clearly not happy with their current one. If we assume their existing accountant isn’t really interested in their business, a trusted referral about an accountant that focuses on building stronger businesses is exactly what they want to hear. Such referrals could be 2X, 5X or maybe 10X more powerful at encouraging people to call the accountant, than a simple “we’re happy with them”.

Here’s the thing: Most businesses make it too hard for their clients, customers or friends to know what to say when referring them. And it loses them a fortune.

Make it easier. Correctly integrate an easy to remember 3 or 4 word strapline into your marketing, so people don’t have to make something up on the spot. When you get it right, that strapline becomes part of the conversations people have about you.

That example took me 30 seconds to come up with. Now let’s look at a proven, world-class example of how this works.

How good is their food?

The marketing team behind Kentucky Fried Chicken wanted to give their diners a simple way to describe how delicious the food was. So, they made it very simple. They placed a short, powerful strapline on all their packaging.

It described their food as, “finger lickin’ good”.

And the rest is history!

Those who ate and enjoyed their chicken, now knew exactly what to tell their friends. Moreover, they were delivering an amazingly powerful, professionally written marketing message.

Regardless of whether you happen to like fried chicken, the mental image created with that message is powerful. The idea of people enjoying their food so much that they licked their fingers, would surely motivate their hungry friends to give KFC a try. Plus, because people who eat at fast-food restaurants know other people who also enjoy fast-food, it was pure, marketing gold.

So, the message spread. Millions or billions of times. Worldwide.

Try this

Take some time to think about want you want people to say about your business or the service you provide. Then, spend as much time as necessary crafting a powerful, extremely short strapline. If you don’t have the time or expertise to get this right, find a professional who will do it for you.

Just don’t keep missing out on great word of mouth referrals or targeted sales leads, because people aren’t recommending you correctly.

Boost your sales. With Time Wasters!

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deal time wasters, convert time wasters, marketing time wasters

How do you feel about people, who either ask you questions about your service or look around your products… then leave without buying?

Some business owners get angry. That’s understandable. They perceive these people to be time wasters. In doing so, they miss out on an extremely valuable opportunity. They leave a huge business asset on the table, untapped. An asset, which could help them massively improve their sales figures.

The asset I’m referring to, is the feedback that so-called time wasters can provide you with.

Allow me to explain.

You attract time wasters for a reason

If you’re attracting too many of the wrong type of enquiries, there’s a reason.

It’s usually a sign that:

  • Your marketing message needs to be improved.
  • You are marketing to the wrong people.
  • Or both.

It’s very easy to learn which applies to your marketing, so long as you ask for feedback. Armed with this information, you can then adapt and improve your marketing so you attract the right kind of enquiries from the right prospects.

Before they end the call or leave your premises, ask something like: What was it that prompted you to (visit or call) us today? This will give you some outstandingly valuable feedback to work with.

For example

  • If people often say they were looking for a low-priced whatever, (yet your prices are average or above average), you need to review your marketing message. Take a look and see if you are overstating how low your prices are.
  • If you are not overstating how low your prices are, then you could well be targeting your marketing message at people with too small a budget.

You get the idea.

The key is to get as much feedback as you can from those who fail to hire you or buy from you. It will help you improve your marketing message, improve your targeting and generate more (lots more) business!

So, reframe how you think about time wasters. Speak with them. Listen. Learn from their feedback. Then, make the necessary adjustments and improvements to your marketing. Don’t just assume that someone is a time waster and therefore of no value to your business.

Their feedback could be commercial gold dust.

In fact, it usually is.

Marketing money versus Marketing creativity

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Ever wondered why I don’t write about how or where to spend your marketing money?

Today, I spill the beans.

creative marketing, creativity

Marketing money

There are a lot of ways you can spend money on marketing. Advertising and promotion is available via thousands of providers. It’s so easy.

  • You pay them the money.
  • They say they’ll get your message in front of X number of prospective clients (or customers).
  • Hopefully, a percentage of these will contact you.
  • And a percentage of that percentage, could spend money with you.

So far so good, right?

It would be, if your competitors didn’t have the exact same options. But they do. And as you know, competing businesses advertise to the same marketplace.

Here’s why this matters: Your ads will always be competing against their ads. Whoever spends most *should* get most of the attention. This is equally true when you advertise on different platforms, as digital advertising reaches the same target groups regardless of where they are.

Buying attention via ads and promotions is also extremely precocious. Your reach will always depend on the marketing dollars your competitors choose to spend. It’s out of your control. It’s also impossible to plan the future growth of your business with confidence.

Why?

A well-funded competitor can, quickly and easily, wipe your visibility out before you even know what’s happening.

Thankfully there’s a much better alternative.

Marketing creativity

I choose to focus 100% on a very different marketing model. It’s a model that is impossible for your competitors to copy, as they can’t see what you’re doing, unlike paid ads / promotion.

  • They’ll know that you get talked about a lot more often.
  • They’ll also sense there’s a real buzz around your products or services.
  • They’ll notice their existing clients or customers switching to you.

BUT they won’t know why.

That’s because my marketing model is entirely based around creativity, not money.

It’s about attracting attention, not buying attention. It’s about giving your prospective clients something to talk about. It’s exceptionally effective. In fact, The Wall Street Journal came to me for an example of how I achieved massive marketing success for small businesses, using creative marketing strategies – – and NOT A PENNY spent on advertising or promotion.

In short, I don’t write about how to buy attention because it’s a risky, lazy and exceptionally limited way to grow a business. And there are hundreds of better options, which I love to use with my clients.

So now you know.