Email marketing & mail shots Archives | Page 3 of 28

Stop waiting for things to pick up

May 20, 2019 by Jim Connolly

Do you ever wonder what’s stopping you from getting enough high quality sales leads or enquiries?

This is a problem, which new clients often have when we first start working together. So today, I thought I’d share a very brief overview of how I turn things around for them.

Super-effective marketing is based on a 3 step process. It motivates people to take action, now. Let’s break that down.

Motivates people.
To take action.
Now.

Motivates people

Your prospective clients are busy. On top of this, they’re bombarded with notifications all day long, from people and apps demanding their attention. Faced with this reality, your marketing needs to rise above through all that noise. It needs to grab their attention, then generate enough desire for them to engage with your message.

None of this can be achieved, with the common marketing tactics you hear about in marketing seminars, or read about in marketing books / marketing websites. Why? Because those commonly taught tactics are already overused. People tune them out. They fail to make an impression. So they’re ignored.

To take action

To compel a prospective client to take action, your marketing needs to make a direct request. Note I used the singular ‘request’ there. Not request(s). The more options you offer, the less likely anyone is to do anything. So, make a single, focused, direct request.

Now

It’s not enough to ask the prospective client to take action. You need to ask them to do (whatever) now… while you have their attention and their motivation is high.

Why the rush?

Simple. Even if they love your message. Even if they’re genuinely interested. Their attention will soon jump onto the next thing. They’ll tell themselves “I’ll do it later”. And you’ll lose them.

If your marketing isn’t generating daily, qualified sales leads or client enquiries, it’s failing you in at least 1 of those 3 areas. There’s no need for this to happen to you. These are easy wins, if you choose to fix the problem correctly.

25 Recommendations to massively improve your business results

May 18, 2019 by Jim Connolly

Embrace brevity. Shorter messages are more powerful. Most marketing I see is 75% too long.
Stop waiting for the right opportunity to come along. Make it happen. Create it.
People buy what they want. Not what they need. It’s why people renew their phones every 12/24 months, even though their ‘old’ phone works fine. They want a new phone. They treat themselves to a new phone. But they don’t need it. Once you understand the difference, you can improve your marketing accordingly.
Keeping your promises is a proven way to build a great reputation. (Read more).
You don’t have any clients, customers or subscribers. They’re not yours. You simply borrow them. This means there’s no room for complacency. You need to earn and then re-earn their custom, attention and trust.
If you want your marketplace to talk enthusiastically about your business, do something worth talking about. If it’s remarkable enough, they’ll remark on it!
A confused mind always says no. Keep your marketing as brief and clear as possible. Fewer options. Fewer words. Less fluff.
The most successful business owners decide who their ideal clients are, then market exclusively to this super-valuable group. You should do the same. The average business owner relies on DIY marketing and takes whatever comes along.
People buy for their reasons. Not yours.
If you don’t receive regular referrals from your existing clients or customers, it’s a warning. A warning that, at best, you’re delivering what they expect. When you exceed expectations, they tell their friends. (Read More).
The word ‘Webinar’ carries a huge amount of negative baggage. Never use it. Because there’s always a better alternative. Always.
When you want to generate high quality cash flow fast, find new products for your existing customers. It’s far quicker and more profitable, than finding new customers for your existing products. I’ve helped hundreds of business owners enjoy windfall profits this way. Yes, windfall profits. It’s that easy.
Include deadlines in your marketing messages. They’re an exceptionally powerful way to motivate people to take action. (Read more).
Your brand is either working for you or against you. If you haven’t intentionally created a brand for your business, it’s working against you. It’s losing you money.
Everything your business does, is marketing. The way you answer the phone, your payment terms, the way you reply to emails, your location, the way you write, the design of your website, your prices, your social network activity… it’s all marketing. This means it needs to be intentional and consistent.
Don’t rely on Facebook, Linkedin or any third party for your communication channel. It’s like building a house on rented land. Instead, attract people via third party platforms. And then encourage them to subscribe to your email list.
Building an email list is a massively better option, than buying a list. The people on paid-for lists don’t want to hear from you. These so called opt-in lists are mainly just lists of people, who completed a form on a website once, without reading the small print.
The most successful business owners decide who their ideal clients are, then market exclusively to this super-valuable group. You should do the same. The average business owner relies on DIY marketing and takes whatever comes along.
Businesses with a fixed marketing budget never achieve much. It shows they regard marketing as a cost, rather than an investment. This is then reflected in their results.
The most powerful marketing is permission based. When people subscribe to your list, your message is treated very differently, than an unsolicited email from a needy stranger.
Learn how to make your marketplace curious. Why do prospective clients call you or email you? It’s because they need to know something and their curiosity motivates them to get in touch. So, you get a sales lead or client enquiry. And a chance to convert them into a new client or customer. As I said a few days ago, don’t explain everything in your marketing, unless you want very few enquiries. (Read more).
The more your services or products resemble what your competitors offer, the less visible your business is.
Avoid using buzzwords. Those who don’t understand them will be confused. Those who do understand them, will cringe. And buzzwords get old, really quick.
Tell the truth. It’s the easiest, least stressful way to build a great business and your marketplace will respect you.
If your business isn’t attracting regular sales leads or client enquiries, your marketing is broken. This means the very thing that feeds your business isn’t working. It’s losing you a fortune. Needlessly. Why are you allowing this to happen? Think about that for a moment.

How to build a list that builds your business

May 15, 2019 by Jim Connolly

People often ask me for tips on how to build a bigger list. They want more subscribers; more readers, more listeners, more viewers, more followers, etc.

The short answer is simple. It’s this.

Do something useful, which is worthy of people’s attention and make it easy for them to subscribe.

If you do that, you’ll attract more people and because your “something” is useful, many of them will subscribe. Think about it. That’s the exact process, which motivated you to subscribe to every list you’re on. Something attracted you, you found it useful, you subscribed.

This begs the question: If the answer is so simple, why is it so darn hard to build a large and valuable list?

Here’s the answer.

The advice is simple. The process is tricky!

There’s some tricky stuff between you and that massively valuable list you want.

Finding something useful to share, on a regular basis, is tricky. Remember, if you just churn out the same stuff as others in your industry, you won’t attract subscribers or retain them. This means you’ll need to be willing to do some research. You’ll need to become a regular note-taker. A collector of ideas. It’s interesting work, but if you’re not already someone who studies and takes notes, it can be a tricky transition.

Finding the time to create content is also tricky. You’re already busy, right? Developing content around all that interesting material you have, takes time. That time is easy to justify when you have a huge list. It’s harder to justify, when your hard work is being consumed by just a small number of people. You’ll need to push through the tumbleweed and crickets of the early stages. And I know from personal experience, that can be a real challenge. I explain why here.

Summoning the courage to publish your stuff is tricky. Why? Because if you do it right, you’ll attract critics. Someone once told me that we have a choice to make. We can either be criticized or be ignored. If we’re being ignored, we’re invisible. That’s not good for any business.

The alternative is to not only expect criticism, but to welcome it as a positive sign that we’re no longer being ignored. Don’t set out to attract critics. Set out to be useful and worthy of attention. But see criticism as an inevitable part of becoming visible.

Note: Here’s why people criticize you and how to deal with it.

Once you know what’s involved, building a valuable list is pretty easy. And the rewards are huge.

Picture this: Just imagine what a difference it would make to your business, if you were in regular contact with thousands of prospective customers. Not via advertising, which is usually seen as an unwelcome interruption. But via a subscription to your content, which people proactively requested because they WANT to hear from you.

The opportunity is amazing. And it’s right in front of you. Right now.

The critical marketing problem that no one talks about

May 13, 2019 by Jim Connolly

I was in a coffee shop once, when a guy with a very obvious hairpiece came in. He had natural, thick brown hair around his ears, with a jet black wig on top. Of course, no one mentioned it to him. People just smirked when he wasn’t looking. Whether this guy needed the hairpiece for vanity or medical reasons, it’s entirely possible he has no idea that his wig is so poorly matched to his natural hair.

A very similar kind of silence happens regularly in business. And it can lose you a fortune.

Allow me to explain.

We go to a website to check out a potential service provider, find the site is amateurish and decide not to consider them. We don’t call them to let them know their site created such a bad impression. We silently move on.
We start reading a poorly-written piece of marketing and quickly discard it. We don’t email the company and tell them their content is losing them business. We silently move on.

So, faced with all this silence, how do you figure out if what you’re doing is working for you?

Simple. You ‘listen’ to what your results are telling you.

For example.

Your website should be a 24-hour, business generating machine. If it isn’t, it’s telling you something. It’s telling you that it urgently needs to be improved.
Your content marketing should regularly attract sales, sales leads or new clients. If it isn’t, it’s telling you something. It’s telling you that you need to quickly improve your strategy.

The lesson here?

Don’t wait for someone to tell you your marketing sucks. Because they won’t. Your friends don’t want to upset you and strangers don’t give a rat’s ass. Instead, listen to what your results are telling you.