Jim's Marketing Blog

Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business

Pro tip: How to make your marketing totally, utterly unmissable

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marketing blog

What do the following have in common?

  • The trailer for a movie, which is part of a franchise you really enjoy.
  • A radio interview with a musician, whose music you’ve always loved, talking about their new album.
  • A Facebook post from an author, whose books you collect, announcing their new title.
  • A newsletter from a brand you like and trust, announcing an exciting new product.

The answer is that they are all examples of marketing you value. Marketing you wouldn’t want to miss. Marketing that doesn’t even feel like marketing.

How to create unmissable marketing

So, what was it that made those marketing examples unmissable?

  1. You gave permission for the marketing message to reach you. You tuned into the TV station or radio channel. You liked them on Facebook. You subscribed to their newsletter.
  2. The product being marketed (movie, album or book etc.), is something you’re interested in.

Without your permission, the marketer is being a pest. No one wants to be pestered with unsolicited emails, off-target advertising or unrequested social networking messages.

Without your interest, the “offer” is just another annoying, time-wasting, badly targeted sales pitch.

Making your marketing unmissable

Firstly, make sure you only market to people who want what you’re offering.

Secondly, earn their permission. How? Here’s a strategy that works:

  1. Think about the brands you have given permission to contact you.
  2. Write them down.
  3. Next, ask yourself why you did it. Why did you subscribe to their YouTube channel, their newsletter or their blog? Why did you like them on Facebook or connect with them on Linkedin? Why did you ask them to send you their catalogue or email you their updates?
  4. Finally, see what you can learn from their strategy, which you can adapt, to earn the permission of your prospective customers.

It takes more effort to create unmissable marketing. However, it can massively improve your results.

Going premium

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If your clients paid you significantly more:

  • You could give them considerably more of your time and attention.
  • You could provide them with a far, far better level of service.
  • Your clients would value you more. So, they’d keep returning, delighted with the service they receive from you.
  • Your clients would also recommend you to their friends, many of whom would then become clients.
  • And these new clients would be just as delighted. And recommend you to their friends.
  • Repeat.

Before you know it, you could have a premium quality client base, growing organically.

So maybe it’s time you considered offering a premium version of your services? Your marketplace already has a highly profitable subset, who value quality and will very happily pay more for it. In fact, they eagerly seek it out.

But that’s not all

The premium quality corner of your marketplace is not only the most profitable. It’s also, by far, the least competitive. It’s the middle ground, which is always overcrowded.

Now imagine for a moment how your business would thrive, with higher fees, higher profits, happier clients and less competition.

Average is overrated.

How to totally avoid fee sensitive clients. Yes, it works in your industry too

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marketing blogs, commodity marketing

You don’t need to sell your services or products based on price. You don’t need to waste your time on fee-sensitive clients or customers, either. In today’s brief post, I explain why.

Sort by price

One of the most common features on shopping sites, is the “sort by price” filter. It lets us see products in the category we’ve searched for, listed in price order.

The reason sort by price exists, is that the marketplace demands it. When presented with 5 or 50 options for a commodity product, the lowest price wins. This is known as the race to the bottom. Bottled water is bottled water. It makes no sense to pay more for it than you need to.

But what about Bob?

Bob is passionate about helping people worldwide have access to clean drinking water. He then finds a water brand, which donates money from every bottle sold, to build wells in areas where there’s no clean water. So, Bob’s happy (very happy) to pay more for his bottled water from this well-building brand. Plus, because people like Bob know lots of other people like Bob, he tells his friends. They do the same. Water gets sold. Wells get built. And people get to make a meaningful difference to the lives of those who need it.

The lesson here? If you want potential clients or customers to stop focusing on your fees, give them something more important to focus on. This means differentiating your products or services from the competition.

The good news? If it works for a commodity like water, it can definitely work for you. Regardless of your industry.

Stop competing for business. Seriously. Stop it

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marketing blogs, competition

In most industries, there’s no shortage of providers. Quite the opposite. There’s a surplus.

There’s way too much choice. And that’s why it’s so competitive.

Imagine this

Tomorrow morning at 9am, all your competitors decide to quit. They literally cease trading. Leaving their clients with no option, but to hire you.

As a business owner, this would present you with a huge opportunity. With no more competition, you would be able to cherry-pick the very best clients. You could choose to only work with clients who are happy to pay a premium fee for a high quality service. You could decide to only work with clients, who gave you the freedom to do your best work.

You’d be free to do things your way.

Now imagine this

Tomorrow morning at 9am, all of your competitors carry on as usual.

If you still decide to cherry-pick the very best clients. To offer a premium service for a premium fee. To only work with clients who give you the freedom to do your best work. To do things your way… you will still have no competition (or very, very little).

Competition is a mindset.

How to achieve more than ever, by doing less

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marketing blogs, gtd, progress

One of the best kept secrets in business, is something I call reduction. It’s a strategy I share with my clients and today, I’m going to share some of it with you.

Less can be more

Ineffective business owners strive to do more and more. They focus on productivity hacks, growth hacks, life hacks and short-cuts. As an unavoidable result, they become increasingly busy, increasingly stressed and increasingly frustrated.

The most effective business owners use a different approach. They’ve discovered that the biggest wins come from doing fewer things. Less is more.

For example:

  • Fewer unfinished projects, equals more clarity.
  • Fewer social media interruptions, equals more focus.
  • Fewer repeated errors, equals more progress.
  • Fewer dodged decisions, equals more respect.
  • Fewer missed deadlines, equals more trust.
  • Fewer hours wasted, equals more productivity.
  • Fewer angry words, equals more happiness.
  • Fewer broken promises, equals more belief.
  • And fewer excuses, equals more achievement.

If you find yourself stressed, working long hours and making too little progress, don’t add even more to your workload. All it will do is create unnecessary, additional stress.

Instead, focus on reduction. Because with the right strategy, less can be more. So much more.

P.S. Here’s another reason why you need to stop working so hard.

How to delight your clients and build a world class reputation

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marketing help, marketing advice

Today, I’m going to explain how the world’s best service providers keep their clients happy, generate valuable referrals and build a great reputation.

It’s all about the difference between delivering what a client wants and delivering what a client needs.

Wants and needs

Think about some of the most powerful commercial logos. Apple, McDonald’s, Nike, Adidas, Facebook and Target, etc. All of these designs look super simple. A child could reproduce any of them in a few seconds.

Now, imagine for a moment what happens when a business owner hires a great designer to create their logo. The designer then gets back to the client with a powerful, extremely effective, yet simple design.

Because the client is not a design professional, they want MORE for their money. So, they demand…

  • More lines.
  • More colours.
  • More detail.
  • More complexity.

If the designer gives the client what the client wants, the client ends up with a confusing piece of junk.

If the designer gives the client what the client needs, the client ends up with an effective, professionally designed logo.

How to get this right

The best service providers use education, to help the client understand what the client needs.

When the service provider does this correctly:

  • The client ends up with what they want and what they need.
  • The service provider ends up with a happy client, who has a great piece of work. That’s the kind of client who provides valuable referrals and the kind of work, which helps you build an excellent reputation.

Your clients deserve your very best work. And so do you.

Let’s grow your business!

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