Jim Connolly Marketing

Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business

How to create marketing that works

By

Marketing that sells

I have a very effective marketing idea to share with you today. I’m going to show you how to create marketing, which people will value and that’s powerful enough to inspire them to hire you or buy from you. It’s based on the work I do with some of my clients and includes a brief case study, which you can learn from.

So, let’s get started.

Receiving attention or paying attention?

It starts with understanding that there’s a huge difference between someone receiving your message and someone paying attention to it.

For example, TV viewers are sent targeted marketing messages (commercials) during TV shows. What do most of us do? We fast forward through them or if watching the show in real-time, we go and make a coffee. Just because they send their messages, doesn’t mean we are paying attention.

For your marketing to work, you need to get a great message in front of the right people. In order to get this correct, here’s the key question we need to ask ourselves:

If I stopped my email marketing campaign or I stopped publishing my blog posts, newsletter etc, would people really MISS them?

As a quick look at the marketing you receive every day confirms, for most people the honest answer to that question is NO! We get bombarded with dull, uninspiring sales messages all day and see them as an intrusion, rather than something of value.

Of course, for that tiny minority of small businesses who DO produce marketing, which people genuinely value and would miss if it were to stop, the sky is the limit.

I’m going to share the process required to make this work for your business later in this post.

First, we need to understand why there’s so much dull and ineffective marketing out there.

Dull is cheap. Dull is fast. Dull is easy!

It’s cheap, fast and easy to create a dull marketing message and push it to a lot of people. As a result, there’s no barrier to entry today.

Things were very different 15 years ago. Back then, if a small business owner wanted to send a mail shot to 50,000 people, she’d have to spend some serious money.

  • She’d have to cover the cost of the mailing list.
  • Then she would need to pay for all that paper and the printing.
  • Next she would need to pay a company to get the letters folded and inserted into the 50,000 envelopes.
  • Then there’s the huge postage costs for those 50,000 pieces of mail.

All in all, it would cost many thousands. She would need to think long and hard about the value of what she put into those envelopes. Get it wrong and she would pay a hefty price.

Today, everything has changed

That same business owner today, can hit 50,000 people using cheap email software and her laptop. It costs just a little of her time. If it fails, maybe tomorrow’s one will work.

In short, it’s never been cheaper or easier to push dull, uninspired, poorly thought out, selfish marketing out the door.

So, that’s exactly what millions of people are doing. This is why there’s so much junk in your email inbox and on your social networking accounts.

How to get it right

There is an alternative approach I want to share with you, so people welcome your marketing, share it and hire you or buy from you. It requires that you take the exact opposite approach, to 99% of the marketing you see out there. 

It’s about shifting the focus of your marketing, so that it’s primarily of benefit to the people who receive it and secondarily of benefit to you.

It’s about producing content (audio, video, articles, blog posts, newsletters, social networking updates etc), which provide independent value to those who receive it. This means they get genuinely valuable or useful information from it, independent of them needing to spend a penny with you.

An example of how this works, based on one of my clients

Imagine you are a dog owner and after a trip to the vet, you subscribe to their dog owner’s newsletter. It gives you useful tips and ideas, to help you keep your dog healthy, fit and happy. At the bottom of each email are their contact details, so you can call them when you need a vet.

You find this free information so valuable and interesting, that you send it to 10 of your dog-owning friends.

  • They subscribe and then do the same.
  • Then these new subscribers share it too, and on and on it goes.
  • The amazingly valuable, highly-targeted readership just keeps on growing!

Soon, that vet (a former client of mine) was talking to thousands of local dog owners and positioned themselves in their marketplace, as THE place to take your dog for all its veterinary needs.

Their newsletter was eagerly anticipated by it’s readers. Yes, people wanted to hear from them and valued what they had to share.

Compare that vet’s approach to the typical marketing messages we see.

  • That vet doesn’t need to run expensive radio ads.
  • They have no need to waste time on Facebook. They own the communication channel with their prospective clients (by using email)!
  • They have no need to buy mailing lists.
  • They don’t need to waste valuable hours at networking events.
  • They certainly don’t need to pester people on social networks or ask strangers for recommendations on Linkedin.
  • They don’t need to invest in anything, other than the creativity required to produce a genuinely valuable newsletter, with useful content.

That example shows how a business can grow a massively powerful marketing asset, by sharing real value, rather than pushing unwanted messages. If you want to thrive in today’s exceptionally volatile economy, this is the kind of marketing you need.

The kind of marketing that increases in value every day.

The kind of marketing that requires zero advertising spend.

The kind of marketing that connects you with prospects in a way they actually look forward to and share with their friends.

In fact, the exact kind of marketing I have been creating for my clients, since the mid 1990’s. It works. And it works in every economy.

How to create a niche for your business, with zero competition

By

no competitors, zero competition, niche marketing

One of the things I work on with many of my clients, is the development of a valuable niche for their business. A highly profitable niche, with literally no competition.

Here’s a quick look at the approach I use, plus some ideas you can adapt into your own business.

The niche model I use is based on the strategy I developed for my own business. Here are just 3 of over 70 processes I’ve developed.

Enriching my competitors

Instead of focusing on crushing the competition, I focused on enriching the competition. When I started my business in 1995, my strategies were so different from the other providers in my industry, they were no longer competitors. This gave me the freedom to enrich, elevate, connect and promote their marketing businesses. That remains to this day.

The following is from a previous article I wrote on this subject – the full article is here.

“I chose to proactively seek out opportunities to help my competitors flourish, to open doors for them, to share new ideas and strategies I’d developed with them, to connect them with useful people, etc. I was in my twenties at the time and many in the industry said I was young and naive. I saw things very differently…”

Tip: If you found that interesting, I strongly recommend you read the full article.

Closing sales replaced by opening relationships

Instead of focusing on closing sales, I focused on opening relationships. It has always struck me as odd that good salespeople are referred to as good closers. So I decided to focus on opening instead of closing.

Opening relationships, to be precise.

Whilst sales closers have a toolkit of psychological closing techniques, I didn’t. Instead of seeing the sales process as a game of chess, pitting me against the prospect, I wanted to be on the same side of the table as the prospect. In their corner. Looking out for their best interests, exactly as I would if they were already my client. This transforms initial meetings with a prospective client. It switches things 180 degrees, from the usual chess game.

Yes, it does mean being willing to openly, honestly tell a prospective client if you don’t think you can help. When this happens, you’ve still planted some amazingly positive seeds.

You’ve just demonstrated to a prospective client that you can be trusted. You’ve also demonstrated that you offer an exceptionally professional service. In my experience, these same prospective clients often go on to become regular sources of high quality referrals.

This approach has set me apart and allowed me to further develop my reputation as a trusted adviser. That’s because it’s in such stark contrast to the usual strategy, of closing tricks and needy follow-up emails.

Building an influential network, not a big network

People in the marketing industry are known for the size of their networks. They’re at every networking event. They’re amongst the most active people on Linkedin. I took a very different approach. Instead of focusing on growing a large contact network, I focused on growing a small, but influential network.

Even when I was starting out, I never saw the value of what’s usually thought of as ‘networking’. For example, I think I had my last lot of business cards printed around 2002/3.

Oh, and I’ve never had a Linkedin account or had any need for one.

Why?

Business is all about people and the depth of the relationships you have with them. I chose to intentionally develop strong, meaningful relationships with people who I believed to be the best fit.

Initially my main focus was senior media people, marketing experts and mentors. I was 29 when I started my business, no one knew who I was and I needed to be around people who were able to help me get known and develop. If you followed the link I shared earlier, you’ll have seen how my first 6-months in business went.

As with every person I have shared this selective networking approach with, I too have found that you automatically get many of the benefits of a large network. Such as massively expanding the reach of your work, your opinions and your ideas.

For example, you’ll find that from time to time, your influential contacts recommend you and your work to their audience. An audience that respects their endorsement. Another example is media coverage, something I have professionally benefited from enormously. Lots of journalists have known me for years. They trust me and are comfortable enough to contact me, and cite me, when they need expert opinion.

Tip: One way to get started is to think who would be really useful for you to know in 12-months or 18-months time. And today, start to look for ways to earn their attention and then their interest. It’s not by cold emailing them or pestering them. It’s about being useful to them. Gently. Over time.

I hope that quick look at 3 of the 70+ processes I’ve developed, has encouraged you to seriously consider a more niche approach to the growth of your business.

Ultimately, you can choose to compete against the masses or develop your own, wonderful niche. You can choose to blend in or stand out. You can choose to be ‘yet another’ or uniquely you. It’s always a choice.

Provide something of value that’s in short supply

By

We know why the most successful businesses are always in high demand. It’s the same reason they command the highest fees.

They provide something of value that’s in short supply.

We also know why the average business isn’t in high demand. It’s because they provide something, which is in abundance.

Here’s the thing

It’s not enough to work hard, work smart and care about your clients. Most of your competitors already do that. To think otherwise is to underestimate your competition. And that’s a big mistake.

marketing, high demand, short supply

To be in high demand and earn the highest fees, you need to embrace the tricky stuff. The things that are in short supply, because they’re too challenging or uncomfortable for most business owners.

This includes a willingness to.

  • Set higher standards than your competitors.
  • Do work that’s meaningfully different. Work that has your signature all over it.
  • Initiate. Not always. But often.
  • Be there for people when they need help. This is critically important in today’s economy.
  • Encourage others.
  • Connect people.
  • Treat different customers differently.
  • Adapt to the rapidly changing threats and opportunities. Preferably before your competitors do.
  • Make promises and keep them.
  • Inspire your customers, your team and your marketplace.

Is this easy? No. It’s hard. Really hard.

Here’s a better question: Is it worth it? Yes, absolutely!

The very fact it’s so bloody hard is why it’s so rare, why it’s in such high demand and why it’s so valuable.

How to thrive during the cost of living crisis

By

cost of living crisis, marketing recession, marketing cost living crisis

Today, I’m going to share some ideas regarding how to thrive during the cost of living crisis. I’ll focus on just 2 of the main issues. Plus, I’ll share an amazing opportunity that’s waiting for you.

Let’s go!

What your prospective customers need from you is changing fast, as the global cost of living crisis takes hold. No one seems to know exactly how long it will last, which adds uncertainty to the mix.

Your marketing has to adapt to this radically different economy. This is especially the case, if you sell to small or medium-sized businesses, or to consumers outside the top income brackets. That’s what I will focus on today.

Here are a couple of major ways things have changed from a marketing perspective, plus some ideas to counter the negative impact.

1. Your prospects are thinking harder

You’re now (or will very soon be) marketing to people who are thinking a lot harder, before they spend their money or their budget.

People shop around a lot more whenever affordability becomes a greater priority. We see this on a small scale when an individual loses their job or an individual company goes through a serious downturn. We see it on a mass scale when the world economy is severely hit.

Here are some ideas for how to overcome this challenge.

More of the same isn’t a smart move

The focus of your marketing needs to address the new reality of your prospective customers. More of the same is not a smart move, because things are absolutely not the same. For example, the level of marketing motivation required will need to increase, as your prices or fees become a far bigger issue.

Timing is more important than ever

There is an important timing component to the marketing improvements you make. And it brings a huge, potential opportunity with it. (Not the AMAZING opportunity I mentioned at the start… you’ll get that in a few moments.)

The business owners who adapt first (and best), to the new requirements of their prospects, will be the net winners. They’ll gain the market-share lost by their competitors who sat on their hands.

We saw this during the pandemic and we’re already seeing it again now.

2. Your prospects hate uncertainty

The way people make decisions when faced with uncertainty is very different than in more stable times.

They are massively more aware of risk and the potential for loss. They also tend to put decisions off for as long as possible, even relatively small decisions. An uncertain mind tends to say ‘no’ regarding a purchasing decision, rather than risk making a mistake.

Here are some ideas for how to overcome this challenge.

Risk reduction and risk reversal

As well as the above recommendations, your marketing needs to include powerful, visible, risk reduction messages. In some cases, there are ways to very successfully offer full risk reversal on products or services; “total satisfaction or your money back” guarantees. I have one service that has always carried this offer.

Clearly, full risk reversal is not suitable for some products and services. But if there’s a safe way for you to reduce the risk, fully or partly, give it a go!

Long-term purchases need to be VERY compelling

The uncertainty over just how bad things will get and how long this will last, means people are now especially hesitant regarding any medium or long-term purchasing decisions. Making a decision that will be with you for a long time, is a great deal harder when you’ve no clear idea what the future holds. Again, your marketing needs to account for this and adapt.

This means placing a far stronger focus on highly compelling reasons for your prospects to take action now.

  • You believe in your products or services.
  • You know they are of outstanding value to your prospective customers.
  • You DON’T know if another provider will take care of the prospect.
  • This means you owe it to your prospects, to make sure they buy from you or hire you.

Now transfer your passion into powerful marketing messages, which will inspire your prospects!

Trust: Get your stars out

Your marketing also needs to build as much trust as possible. This is always extremely important, but in times like these, it’s essential.

One proven way to do this is to get your stars out. In other words, if like me you’ve been trading for a long time (27 years in my case) or have impressive accolades / achievements, these need to be far more prominent in your marketing.

If you would like to see an example of getting your stars out, here’s how I do it and it works extremely well.

Limitless potential and opportunity

The commercial potential ahead of you right now is incredible.

The opportunity is immense.

What?

Yup!

You’re facing incredible potential and immense opportunity!

History assures us that EVERY time we encounter a major economic crisis, literally every single time, there are business owners who win huge… business owners who win huge, in industries where their same-sized competitors floundered.

These are the business owners who focused on thriving, when their competitors focused on surviving.

How did they do this?

Well, here’s the most important factor I know.

They followed the direction of travel

Let me explain that. It’s the most important message I have for you today.

If you want to know the way things are heading, you need to closely observe the current direction of travel. This was a key philosophy of mine, as I successfully led clients through the pandemic. It’s the same concept Wayne Gretzky shared when he said; skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been.

The business owners who thrived previously, paid very close attention to what their prospective customers were doing. They also studied social media channels, to learn what their prospects wanted and needed. They got a very valuable snapshot of the future.

And they ran with it!

They adapted their products, services and the way these were marketed, to perfectly match what their prospects were crying for.

The best overall advice I can give you right now, is to be willing to do the same. To be willing to adapt and improve. And sooner rather than later.

How to get great business ideas

By

How to get great business ideas, how to, get business ideas,

In today’s post, I ‘m going to show you how to get great business ideas and how to put them to work for your business.

Think about it: Behind every successful business are a series of ideas. Great business ideas, which open up new opportunities or set the business on a new path.

The challenge with great ideas is that they often look like average ideas, until after they become hugely successful. As a result, most great ideas never see the light of they.

In fact, I bet you have a few tucked away right now, without even knowing it.

Here’s an example of what I mean.

How a great business idea was mocked

In 1985, The New York Times announced the death of laptop computers, in an articled entitled; “Whatever happened to the laptop computer?” They wondered why laptops never became popular (seriously). Here’s how one of the greatest business ideas in history, was openly mocked:

“[…] I.B.M. never legitimized the market with its much rumored ”Clamshell,” probably because the company realized that laptops are a small niche market, not a mass market.”

Erik Sandberg-Diment. New York Times 1985.

And when the electric light bulb was invented, most people said it would never become a mass market product. It was thought that there was no affordable way to get electricity to enough homes.

How to get great business ideas that win!

Business owners sometimes ask me what I think of an idea they have. The challenge here, is that it doesn’t matter what I think or what their friends think. Great business ideas are not anointed. If you want to know how good your idea is, you need to get it out there.

If you do, you will find it’s almost impossible to fail.

Really?

Yes, really!

It’s a win-win thing.

  • If it IS a great business idea and it flies, you’ll have a success on your hands.
  • If it flops, you’ll learn something. Something that you can invest in the next idea and greatly increase your chances of success.

Ironically, the only way to guarantee a business idea will fail, is to try and protect it from failure by locking it away.

It’s a lose-lose thing.

  • The idea you fail to ship can’t succeed.
  • The idea you fail to ship can’t teach you anything new.

This not only insulates you from success, it also insulates you from learning and growing. This used to be a problem for me, when I started out in business. I was just in my 20’s and lacking in confidence. I’d sometimes get a great business idea, but I wouldn’t put the idea into action.

I knew I needed to do it. I also knew it couldn’t work if I didn’t ship the idea. But for me, putting an idea into action, even one I thought was great, was easier said than done.

Thankfully, I discovered a way forward, which I’m going to share with you.

Here’s the business idea strategy, which worked for me

I’ve shared this strategy with countless people over the years and the results have been amazing. It’s actually really, really simple.

My breakthrough came when I figured out that the part of my mind responsible for putting ideas into action, was weak. It needed improving, conditioning, strengthening.

I thought one way to do this, would be to treat it like a weak muscle. To make a weak muscle strong, you start off by working with very light weights. As the muscle grows, you slowly increase the weight you’re working with. Eventually, the muscle becomes strong.

I started, by acting on what I considered to be small ideas. Ideas that were unlikely to set the world on fire if they worked, but where there was relatively little downside if they failed.

Here’s how it worked.

  • I’d get a great business idea… just a small one.
  • Every time I put one of these ideas into play, I’d write it down in a journal, along with the results.
  • With every new business idea in my journal, my ‘idea muscles’ grew a little.
  • I also noticed that even with these small ideas, my business was starting to see some very encouraging results. This further built my idea muscles!
  • Pretty soon I found it easy to get great business ideas, big, meaningful ones, and ship them.
  • Every day since I’ve eagerly looked for ways to get great business ideas to help me make opportunities or solve problems.
  • And if they’re interesting, I ALWAYS (always) put them into play.

As the frequency and size of the ideas you act on increases, so does your ability to get great ideas. This is reflected in the development of your business.

And something else happens. Business in general becomes a lot more interesting. That’s because working on new business ideas, even small ones, is extremely invigorating. It causes you to think differently, meet new people and explore new opportunities.

Just remember to start with small ideas. Slowly build it up. And be sure to chronicle your results, so you can see the progress you’re making and also learn from the feedback.

So, how do you get great business ideas? You put the small business ideas you already have into play. Each time you do, your ability to have great ideas and ship them increases.

How top professionals turn deadlines into a superpower!

By

marketing deadlines, professional

If you want to work with premium quality clients, on hugely rewarding projects, you’ll find what follows really useful. It explains how the world’s top professionals use deadlines like a superpower.

To start, let’s take a look at how the average service provider avoids actual deadlines. It’s similar to the examples below.

It will be ready as soon as possible:

Soon… when is soon? And how is a client supposed to know if their project is running late? How is a client supposed to know what a provider is possible of? The ‘As soon as possible’ line is just an excuse, offered in advance, to justify anticipated disappointment.

It will be ready for you by the end of next week:

That’s better than the previous answer. Which isn’t saying much. But at least there’s an ultimate end-point. The date still remains vague, which makes forward planning challenging for the client. They’re left wondering if it will be with them tomorrow, the next day, the next day, or perhaps sometime next week. It also signals that the service provider isn’t managing their time well. It’s the epitome of average.

In both of those examples, the so-called deadlines are not deadlines at all.

No.

They’re strategies to let the service provider off the hook. Off the hook with their client and with themselves.

A better attitude to service is called for. A professional attitude, that works great for the client and the service provider.

Professionals set deadlines and stick to them

Here’s what the client wants. At least, any client worth working for: It will be completed at 2pm on Tuesday 7th, as promised.

That’s a real deadline.

It means the client knows what to plan for. It also means the client knows you’re undertaking their project in a structured way. And it reassures them that they’re working with a professional.

Professionals meet their deadlines, because they CHOOSE to. To do this, they look at the scope of the project. They determine a realistic time scale for completion, based on experience. Then, they set a deadline of that date and time. And because they’re professionals, they do everything to deliver on that promise. They’ve allowed enough time to do a great job. And on almost every project, it works just great.

Almost every project?

Yes, almost! Professionals are human and fallible. Shit happens.

  • Dedicated professionals occasionally get sick. Though interestingly, this ‘magically’ seems to happen far less often to them, than it does to the average provider.
  • Dedicated professionals occasionally miscalculate the time required. A supplier they’ve relied on could let them down. That same supplier they’ve relied on might move more swiftly than expected.
  • When shit happens, they make sure the client is updated and kept in the picture. They inform the client to let them know the project will be ready a little earlier, or a little later, than the deadline.

Professionals put it on the line. They know that’s how to build a world-class reputation. They also know that once you learn how to accurately schedule your work, and develop the focus to do the work on time, it becomes second nature.

That’s to say, setting deadlines and achieving them is just the way they do things.

What does this have to do with marketing?

Everything!

A professional attitude to setting and achieving deadlines, as promised, is foundational to your marketing.

Clients value it mightily. And they very happily pay a premium for it, too. They learn they can rely on you.

So, they tell their friends.

Some of their friends hire you, then tell THEIR friends. This creates an ongoing flow of premium quality clients and wonderful opportunities.

THAT is bloody powerful marketing, right there!

Seriously, this deadline setting attitude to service is an essential marketing component. But especially for those interested in working on the best projects, with the best clients!