Email marketing & mail shots Archives - Page 26 of 32

2 steps to improve your marketing messages!

By Jim Connolly | May 29, 2010

Did you ever hear that old saying; “You can’t keep everybody happy”? Well, when it comes to marketing messages, you shouldn’t even try! When you embrace this idea, it can provide a massive boost your sales figures.

It’s all about using a more targeted marketing approach.

Targeted marketing messages

A targeted marketing message consists of 2 equally important components:

The message is sent to a targeted group; those most likely to have a need for whatever you are offering.
The message is composed exclusively, with the people in that target group in mind. In other words it’s directly relevant to them and their needs.

Marketing to a targeted group

Every day, you will see offers in your mail and your email inbox, from companies offering things you have absolutely no need for. What do you do with these? You ignore them! That’s because no matter how great a product or service is, it will only succeed commercially, if it’s marketed to the right people.

For example, you may have just been offered the best deal ever on a new coffee machine, but if you are not a coffee drinker, that offer is not going to motivate you to buy the coffee machine. So, make sure that you are speaking, writing and advertising to the right people.

A targeted marketing message

Most of the marketing messages we see are very poorly targeted. The reason this is so common, is that amateur marketers often think that by writing for the widest spread of people possible, they stand the greatest chance of making a sale.

They want to ensure that everyone who reads or listens to their marketing message, will find “something” there that’s interesting. However, that approach is the exact opposite of what effective, targeted marketing is all about.

Effective, targeted marketing is about getting a directly relevant message in front of a targeted reader / listener / viewer. It’s about talking to that person, about their needs and what’s happening in their world, and showing how you can help them, with your products or services.

The bottom line here is this: The more compelling, inspiring and motivating your message is, the more successful it will be.

If you would like to see a better return from your current marketing efforts, take a moment to check who you currently market your services to, and also, how targeted your marketing messages are.

Some signs to help you to the top!

By Jim Connolly | May 24, 2010

This post is designed to help you advance further, faster – by helping you spot some warning signs, before they become a major issue. You know what’s great about this? When you spot a warning sign and act on it correctly, it is transformed from a warning sign, to a highly positive leap forward in your business!

Warning signs and flashing lights

I was prompted to write this post, after a conversation with a friend, who had been ignoring a warning light in his car. He checked the handbook and thought that as it seemed like a very minor fault, that he would leave it “for a while.” Fast forward 3 months and his car was broken down with a major engine problem! Apparently, has he heeded the warning light, he would have been able to avoid all this, with a small fix and for a very small fee.

The problem with the warning signs in business, is that they don’t come with flashing lights, like those in our cars. This means a lot of people miss them while they are still tiny problems – Then, like the car story above, they end up with a much bigger, costlier challenge on their hands.

From a marketing perspective, here are some early(ish) warning signs that are easy to miss:

Too large a percentage of your income is from too small a percentage of your customer base.
Too few enquiries from your direct marketing.
Your turnover or revenue figure has been static for more than 3 quarters or it has started contracting.
Not enough targeted people visiting your website or blog – and little sign of an improvement.
Your attrition rate is high. Your attrition rate, is the rate at which you lose clients or repeat customers.
Not enough sales or marketing enquiries from your website or blog.
Too few referrals generally – But ESPECIALLY if you are not getting regular referrals from existing customers.
A low conversion rate, when dealing with sales leads.

All of the challenges listed above are far easier to resolve, the quicker you take action. If you recognise one or more of those challenges in your business right now, don’t panic! With the right help, all of them are relatively easy to resolve.

I suggest three possible courses of action – depending on your resources:

Speak with a marketing professional. Pick someone you trust or if you don’t already know someone, ask a friend or business contact who THEY use for marketing. Most marketing professionals will be able to tell you very quickly if they can help and what’s likely to be involved in time and fees.
If you have a lot of marketing knowledge yourself, but have not been using it for whatever reason, get into action! List the challenges in order of importance and put a strategy together to turn it around. The key thing here is to get started.
If you don’t have the resources to pay for professional help and you are not an experienced marketer either, check out this post, which lists lots of free information and over 140 marketing ideas and answers. Also, use the search box on the right hand side of this post and search for other marketing tips and advice. There are hundreds of pages of answers here and thousands of ideas – all free.

Bottom line: Whatever your current marketing challenges are, they can be 100% resolved with the right action. You can achieve amazing results and see the kind of rewards that make all your hard work worth while – so long as you do the right things, correctly.

Go for it

As we approach the second half of the year, this is a GREAT time to renew your focus and start kicking the butt of your sales targets for 2010. Go for it!

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

Say it like you MEAN it!

By Jim Connolly | May 19, 2010

Have you ever noticed how powerful it is, when someone talks to you about something they are passionate about? It makes a massive difference to the effectiveness of their message and the energy created can be really infectious.

So, why do so many business owners totally fail to inject REAL passion into their communications with people?

Marketing and passion

Whether you are speaking with people, recording a message or writing about your product or service, you should be doing it with passion. After all, how the heck do you expect other people to be interested in you or your business, if you don’t sound like you are?

I decided to write this post, after watching a video presentation on a guys website, where the guy sounded half asleep. There was no energy or passion when he spoke. He talked about his services, like he was reading a shopping list.

Marketing and motivation

Equally, I read copy every day on websites and blogs, which is supposed to motivate the reader to take action – Yet the copy is pedestrian and lacks impact.

The bottom line: If you want to compel people to take action; to buy from you, call you, email you or click a link – you need to inspire them to do so. You need to motivate your site visitors, so they go from being a reader (passive) to a being a participant (active).

Just because you CAN does not mean you SHOULD!

By Jim Connolly | May 10, 2010

Have you ever wondered why there’s so much poor quality, ineffective marketing out there?

The answer is simple: Many DIY marketers do things purely because they can, rather than because they should!

Just because they can subscribe you to their newsletter list without your permission, they do.
Just because they can leave a spammy comment on your blog, they do.
Just because they can cold call you and launch into a sales pitch with no respect for your time, they do.
Just because they can send you a link to their wonder product via Twitter, they do.
Just because they can attend a local networking event filled with people trying to sell and no one looking to buy, they do.
Just because they can send you poorly targeted, poorly written emails or marketing letters, they do.

Business owners intent on handling their own marketing will often seriously damage their reputation, purely out of ignorance. They don’t add you to those lists, cold call you or bore the crap out of you at networking events etc to deliberately make you angry. It’s simply that they have no idea what they should be doing or how to do it correctly.

I genuinely cringe when I see the way some people use marketing tools. I often wonder if these people use the same approach when their computer needs repairing – Attacking it with a soldering iron in the hope that if they solder enough things together, something might just work.

Here’s a tip for anyone intent on handling their own marketing

Make sure that before you do anything, you run it past these 2 questions. Then, ONLY proceed if the answer to both of these questions is a definite “yes”.

Do I know for certain that the marketing I am about to use, is correct for what I want to achieve?
Do I know exactly how to use this form of marketing, in order to get the result I want?

It’s all too easy for small business owners to damage their reputation and waste time, energy and money by doing the wrong things – or doing the right things, but doing them incorrectly.

So, what if you can’t answer those questions or are just plain tired of watching your business spin it’s wheels?

If you want to finally start making real progress and real money, (remember, like you promised yourself when you started out?) then there are two options left open to you. You can either start investing all the time and money required to master small business marketing, or you can get the answers you need from someone who already has them.