Jim's Marketing Blog

Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business

Marketing 101: Pick a frequency

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content marketing, frequency

Here’s a content marketing tip, to help you attract the attention of prospective customers AND motivate them to buy from you or hire you. It’s all about one word that has two extremely useful meanings. That word is Frequency.

Allow me to explain.

I was prompted to write this after 2 emails I received.

  • The first was from a long time reader. Sophie got in touch to find out why I hadn’t published quite as many posts recently.
  • The second email was from a former reader. Rick emailed to say he’d unsubscribed from the blog, because I publish too often.

There’s a powerful lesson here for anyone who wants to grow their business.

Frequency

Clearly, I’ll never be able to keep everyone happy with the frequency of my posts. For some it will be too little. For others it will be too much. If I keep Sophie happy, I lose Rick. If I keep Rick happy, I lose Sophie.

So, here’s what I do.

Rather than try and get the frequency right for everyone, I use a different kind of frequency. A frequency that works. Every. Single. Time!

More importantly, it’s the kind of frequency, which you can use to attract more clients or customers and build your business.

The other type of frequency

There’s another kind of frequency. The kind radios use. If you tune your radio into the same frequency as a radio station, you receive their signal. You’re (literally) on the same wavelength as them.

When you’re on the same wavelength as your marketplace, you’re in harmony with them. And they’re in harmony with you. Sophie and I are on the same wavelength. If you’re a long time reader, you and I are on the same wavelength, too.

In short: I only write for you and Sophie.

Now, that won’t be the right frequency for everyone. But I don’t write for everyone. And there’s a very good reason why. It turns out you can’t keep everyone happy. And the harder you try, the weaker your signal becomes. Before you know it, no one is on your wavelength.

Though I used the example of newsletters / blogging for this post, the exact same strategy works for every kind of content marketing.

Supercharge your marketing

If your marketing isn’t resonating with your marketplace, it’s entirely possible your signal is too weak. This happens when you try to be relevant to as many people as possible.

By being vaguely relevant to as many people as possible, you become directly relevant to no one. And it’s only directly relevant marketing messages that motivate people to take action.

So, pick a frequency.

Shun the masses. Embrace the community you wish to serve. Focus on them, their needs and their wants. Be generous. And be generous as often as you can.

Pretty soon, you will have a community of people on your wavelength.

  • People who will value what you do.
  • People who will miss you when you’re not there.
  • People who will hire you.
  • People who will recommend you.
  • People who will talk about you.

Just imagine how valuable that will be for your business.

Bring your seed. Not your need!

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2021 marketing tips

I was talking with an amazing group of entrepreneurs earlier. During our session, I mentioned that I hadn’t sold my services to anyone in well over 20 years. I went on to explain that thousands of people have hired me or bought from me. But I hadn’t sold anything to anyone.

That’s not just a play on words.

It’s a way of operating!

And if you want to attract more customers, no selling required, you need to know about it.

Buying and selling

It starts with something that my first ever boss told me. It’s simply this.

“Everyone loves to buy things, but no one likes being sold to”.

And she was right.

Most small and medium-sized business owners do not ‘get’ this. Their marketing is little more than a series of needy pitches. They turn up when they want you to buy something. And it’s rightly ignored by the vast majority of prospective customers, because no one likes being sold to.

The smartest business owners focus on engagement. They look for opportunities to give. They seek out ways to be useful to their customers, prospective customers and the wider marketplace. They build relationships and earn trust. In doing so, they attract attention and create meaningful connections.

In short, those very different approaches look something like this.

  • Most marketing is about bringing your need to the marketplace. Sales pitches, special offers and closing sales.
  • Smart marketing is about bringing your seed to the marketplace. Growing engagement by contributing your knowledge, solving problems, sharing your passion, being helpful and opening relationships.

Smart marketing is more effective, develops greater trust and builds better relationships. And it works in every industry. Because regardless of what line of business you’re in and what marketplace you serve, people love to buy things.

Bring your seed, my friend. Before you know it, your business will blossom in a wonderfully predictable way. No selling required.

Get reflective: Your products or services will almost sell themselves

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marketing design reflective

Right now, there’s a motivated sales force out there, who happily work for free and are waiting to tell people all about you and the services you provide.

Here’s how to put them to work.

It’s based on an idea I borrowed, from studying the world’s top industrial / commercial designers.

One of the attributes of commercially successful design, is that the object needs to be reflective. This means it should cause us to think about it. To reflect on its utility, weirdness or beauty.

I’ve found that a commercially successful business also needs to be reflective.

A business that’s useful has utility. A business that’s meaningfully different is weird. And a polished, professional business that runs smoothly is a thing of beauty.

Allow me to explain why this should matter to you and your business.

Your unpaid salespeople are waiting

Designers know that reflective products almost sell themselves.

For instance, my wife bought me some Apple AirPods just after they launched. Their unique look caused total strangers to ask me about them. Their build quality and ability to instantly connect wirelessly, inspired me to tell my friends about them.

Just by owning them and using them I became an unpaid salesperson for the product.

Take a look at your products, services or business model and look for ways to make things more reflective. Who knows how many unpaid salespeople there are, who’ll spring into action as soon as you give them something reflective to share with their friends.

The questions that helped my client quickly increase revenues by 150%

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marketing blog

So, who are your customers?

When I ask a new client this question, they almost always reply with some demographics; average age, location, income level, etc.

Whilst demographics are certainly useful, they’re just a piece of the picture.

From a marketing perspective, you’ll find it massively more valuable to know things like:

  • What do they believe?
  • Who do they trust?
  • What do they care about?
  • What improvement are they looking for?
  • What do they talk about?
  • Who do they talk to?
  • What do they fear?

Equipped with demographics, you’ll know who to target with your marketing.

However, to get them to buy from you, you need to know what matters to them.

That’s where the money is.

For instance, I was motivated to share this with you today, after learning a new client has increased their revenues by over 150% since the end of summer. Their profit margins are even higher. By focusing on the right things, correctly, we were able to increase their fees and their conversion rate. This will further increase in the coming months.

So, take the time to get it right.

Bon courage! It’s way, way more useful than good luck

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bon courage, good luck

I’ve never really liked the phrase, ‘good luck’.

I get the idea behind it. I also know people say it with the very best intentions. But to me, especially when related to business, it really isn’t particularly useful. That’s because it places things totally outside the person’s control.

My wife speaks, reads and writes in French. When we first met, she taught me a French alternative to good luck: Bon courage! I find bon courage far more relevant and useful than good luck. Especially when it comes to business. And that’s what this brief post is about.

Bon courage

There are a couple of ways to interpret bon courage. One of them is that you want the person to have the strength or courage required for (whatever).

Here’s how bon courage stacks up against good luck:

  • Bon courage is internal: You summon the courage.
  • Good luck is external: You wait for good luck to appear.

It’s impossible to achieve meaningful success in business, or anything else for that matter, without courage. Courage is required to stand out, when it’s easier to blend in. Courage is required to zig when your competitors zag. Courage is required to launch a new idea, when it feels safer to just do more of the same.

In fact courage is required for every major move we make; renting / buying our first home, falling in love, starting a family, starting a business, etc.

The next time you want a friend to succeed, try wishing them bon courage. If they ask you what you mean, explain it to them.

And next time you notice yourself wishing for better luck, find a way to summon bon courage instead. It really is hard to overstate what you can achieve, when you have a great plan and the courage to see it through.

Start with the end in mind

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marketing

Small business owners come to me regularly, asking for something they don’t want and they don’t need. I’m sharing this with you, because it’s a symptom of a problem. A serious problem that loses business owners a fortune.

Here it is… plus how you can avoid it.

First, here are some examples of dangerously misleading statements. I receive these pretty-much every day from small business owners.

  • I need more leads for our sales team.
  • I need more enquiries from my website.
  • I need more social media followers.
  • I need more traffic to my website.

They’re wrong. One hundred percent, provably wrong.

More sales leads, additional client enquiries, bigger social networks and more website traffic are not their desired outcomes. That’s because they’re not end results or ultimate marketing goals. What they actually need, is more customers, higher profits, bigger contracts, higher revenues or more sales, etc.

The challenge with searching for the wrong thing, is that it will lead you down the wrong path. You’ll ask the wrong questions, get the wrong answers and end up with the wrong outcomes.

Think about it

If fewer sales leads, BUT from high spending, profitable customers is exactly what’s required, you’ll never find it by asking the wrong questions.

If you can quickly (and massively) improve your profits / revenues, by developing new products for your existing customers, you’ll never find it by asking the wrong questions.

If you want to escape from the feast and famine cycle, by developing a reliable source of profitable new clients, you’ll never find it by asking the wrong questions.

So, start with the end in mind.

Get specific. Decide what your desired marketing outcome is. In other words, determine exactly what you need your business to achieve. Then, focus on that like a laser. This will help you get your marketing on the right track and ensure you’re aiming for the correct targets.