Marketing tips, marketing help and advice

Who are you selling to? The answer will shock you!

September 21, 2017 by Jim Connolly

Are you selling to yourself?

That may seem like an odd question, yet it’s one of the most important questions in marketing.

Why?

Because business owners tend to market their products as if they were selling to themselves, when they should be marketing to their prospective clients or customers.

Now, if you are a lawyer and your prospective clients are lawyers, that works fine. However, if you sell to people whose needs and wants are different to your own, you need a different approach.

Here are a couple of examples, though it applies to every industry:

Read the marketing of most accountants and you will find lots of statistics and graphs. This is what accountants love, but not their prospective clients. The prospective client wants to know why they should hire this accountant and not an equally qualified competitor. They want the story behind the numbers. They want to know how the accountant will help them build a better business.
Read the marketing of most web designers and it’s filled with jargon and buzzwords. They talk about things like; HTML5, Java, CSS, standards compliance and responsive design. These are things designers know are important and love to talk about. However, those terms mean nothing to their prospective clients. Their prospective clients want a professional looking site. They want a site that is an asset to their business. They want to know how a new website will help them make more sales and attract more enquiries. They want to know they can trust the designer to do a great job.

Anyone using that approach is leaving money on the table every day. Don’t let it happen to you.

Match your message to their wants and their needs

Now what?

Take a look at your marketing messages from your prospective client’s vantage point. Determine if you’re marketing based on what they want (not need) to hear. Also, check to see if you are using their language or yours. Sometimes we get so used to industry terms and buzzwords, that we forget they are meaningless and confusing to everyone else.

In short, the better you communicate how valuable your services are, the easier you will find it to attract great clients or customers.

**Note: There are currently ~~7 spaces~~ 6 spaces remaining. When they’re gone, they’re gone.

How to create marketing that spreads and sells

September 19, 2017 by Jim Connolly

I have a very effective marketing idea to share with you today. You’re going to love this!

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 my clients and includes a brief case study, which you can learn from.

So, let’s get started.

Receiving 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 simple!

It’s cheap, fast and simple to create dull marketing and get it in front of a lot of people. As a result, there’s no barrier to entry today.

Things were very different a decade 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 in 2017 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. It’s never been cheaper or easier to push dull, uninspired, poorly thought out, uncreative marketing out the door.

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

Here’s what you need to do 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, blog posts, newsletters, mail shots, flyers, 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 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 useful, 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 grows and grows.

Soon, that vet (a 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… not Facebook!
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 valuable marketing asset, by sharing real value — rather than pushing unwanted messages. If you invest in creating this kind of value driven marketing, it will improve your business beyond recognition.

The lesson? Stop pushing predictable marketing at people. Focus on attracting clients instead! This means giving valuable information, something your marketplace will embrace and share.

Yes, you need to get the process just right, but as my client demonstrated, if you do it correctly, the rewards are huge. Soon, you too could have a valuable, growing community of people, who position you in their mind as the obvious choice, when they need the type of service your business provides.

Discover the safest, least risky way to grow your business

September 18, 2017 by Jim Connolly

Kelly emailed me with a great question. I know her challenge is something many small business owners encounter, so I thought you might find it useful.

Here’s an excerpt from Kelly’s email, shared with her permission, along with my answer.

“I started my business in 2009 and though it grew for the first 4 years things have been flat ever since. […] My main problem Jim is that I know I need to grow my business but that means changing things and it feels too risky. I carry on doing what I do because the risk factor stops me doing what I need to do. Why am I self sabotaging?”

Understanding risk

Like many, (perhaps most), small business owners, Kelly fears making some of the improvements needed for success. It’s easy to see why: Improvements require change and change feels risky. So, she repeats what feels comfortable, she works hard and hopes things will improve.

The challenge with that approach, as Kelly has discovered, is that it doesn’t work. It’s limited. Extremely limited.

Here are just some common examples of what happens, when we try to avoid risk:

We fail to get noticed. To get noticed we need to stand out, which feels risky. Riskier than simply working hard and staying in the background.
We fail to be remembered. To be remembered, we need to do something extraordinary. The ordinary is within our comfort zone. The extraordinary is, by default, outside our comfort zone. And leaving our comfort zone feels risky.
We fail to attract word of mouth referrals. People only remark on a business when it does something remarkable. It feels risky to deviate from the norm.
We fail to attract the best clients and the highest fees. Offering a premium service and charging a premium fee, feels risky. Risky enough for just a tiny percentage of business owners in your industry to even try.
We fail to deliver exceptional work for our clients. To do exceptional work, we need to risk delivering something different.
We fail to work on the best projects. The best projects go to those who operate at the top end of their marketplace. These are the providers who are daring enough to tackle the trickiest challenges. The mavericks. Maverick work feels way, way riskier than doing average work.

When I work with a client on this challenge, I start by explaining how change is essential, if they want to grow a great business. Because no change equals no improvement. I then work out what’s blocking them and show them how to overcome it.

If you know there are things you should improve, which you’re not doing because the change feels risky, press pause!

Find out why you associate risk to the safest thing you can possibly do. Then develop a strategy for growth. That’s how you start the process of taking your business to another level. And another level…

Marketing tip: Put a number on it

September 14, 2017 by Jim Connolly

I have a great little tip to share with you today, my friend.

Decide what you want from your business, in all the key areas. Then, turn that “want” into a target, by putting a number on it.

Here’s the thing: You can’t hit a target, if that target doesn’t exist.

It’s ineffective to say you want “more customers”. Why? Because the thing you want is undefined. It’s non-specific. So, you can’t focus on it. As soon as you put a number on it, you have a target. And your target then allows you to make all future marketing decisions with clarity.

For example, there are things you’ll need to do in order to attract 40,000 new customers over the next 12 months, which you won’t need to do, if you only want to attract 40. The number is what gives you your target. And your target will then rule in, or rule out, certain strategies.

Here are just a few areas, where you need specific targets, in order to make the right decisions.

How will you know when you have enough money in the bank? Put a number on it.
How will you know when your business is valuable enough? Put a number on it.
How will you know when you are getting enough word of mouth referrals? Put a number on it.
How will you know when your profitability is high enough? Put a number on it.
How will you know when you have enough subscribers? Put a number on it.
How will you know when you have enough visitors to your website? Put a number on it.
How will you know when your professional network is large enough? Put a number on it.

Replacing general wishes with specific targets makes all the difference. And if you want to smash your targets, remember this is happening.

Who’s responsible for your results?

September 13, 2017 by Jim Connolly

I spent some time recently with the former owner of a local high street store. He explained that the reason his business flopped, was that the “economy was too weak”.

And he was wrong.

I know a number of the people whose retail outlets are on the same high street as his and although a few have flopped, they are a very small minority. Most are doing fine, others are expanding. Including those with the same target customer profile as him.

Not his fault?

He was blaming the wrong culprit. The reason that guy’s business failed, was that he did too few of the things required for success. In other words, he made it impossible for his business to succeed.

For example, he was trying to compete based on price, against online retailers who had a fraction of his overhead; so he was playing to his weaknesses, rather than his strengths. His in-store experience was also very average. He got way too few customer referrals. There was no buzz about his business.

As you’ve probably guessed, he did all his own marketing himself. He did it himself, because like most small business owners, he lacked the business sense and the confidence to get expert marketing help.

The sense, because he thought it didn’t matter.
The confidence, because he saw only risk and it scared him.

He told me, “Finding the right expert help isn’t easy, Jim”.

Yes it is!

Check their credentials. If they stack up, hire them. If not, don’t. If someone lacks the judgement to know good from bad, they won’t be in business very long.

Blaming the economy for the failure of his business is like a bank robber blaming the police for being in jail, rather than taking responsibility for having robbed the bank.

We need to be smarter than that. Which, let’s face it, isn’t hard.

You see the blame game everywhere

Listen to the coach of a losing team after a game and you will often hear all kinds of blame being dished out. Listen to the winning coach and you will hear them talking about how effective the planning was and how committed the team was.

The most effective people in any area of life take responsibility for their actions and inactions. The buck stops with them.

They wouldn’t have it any other way.

Why?

Because accepting responsibility gives them complete freedom. It motivates them to do the right things, correctly… knowing that the right results will surely follow. So, if you want more sales, get a better marketing plan and work that plan.

Every business owner is faced with just 2 choices, when it comes to the development of their business:

Take responsibility. Decide what you want. Get the help you need. Then do the work.
Or find an excuse not to.

Sure, that’s not much of a choice. In fact, if you want your business to thrive, it’s no choice at all.

Jim's Marketing Blog

Who are you selling to? The answer will shock you!

Match your message to their wants and their needs