Jim Connolly Marketing

Are the results you want right under your nose? Take a look

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Marketing results ideas

Image: Michael Kilcoyne

Important: Today’s post is not about email marketing. You won’t believe that at the start, though. So stick with it for the plot twist.

Just think.

  • You can make the offer in your next marketing email more compelling and get a far higher conversion rate.
  • You can improve the subject line of the email and get a massively higher open rate.
  • You can figure out the most effective time (and day) to send that email and get an even better open rate.
  • You can also send it a little more frequently and greatly multiply the impact of those previous increases.
  • You have now dramatically expanded the number of people reading your marketing message. And all those additional, prospective customers are far, far more motivated to buy from you.

You can get to work on all those things. If you’re not sure how, there are lots of people around who can do it for you. Even an average marketing consultant or freelancer, using the above model, should have no problem whatsoever increasing your sales.

Ask them nicely, pay them accordingly and they may do the same again and again and again.

Here’s the plot twist

After reading the above, at what point did you notice yourself finding reasons why it wouldn’t work for you?

It may have been right at the start, when you thought your email list was too small. It could have been when you thought that any changes might result in a backlash from some people of your list. Perhaps it was when you thought you’re just too busy right now, too busy to do the work and too busy to find someone to do it for you.

This isn’t about email marketing

As I said at the start, the lesson here is not about maximizing your email marketing results. Though that basic email model works really well.

It’s about the stories you and I, as business owners, tell ourselves regarding the marketing activities available to us.

Here’s the thing.

  • You will have current activities you feel comfortable doing, which produce predictable results. Some will work really well.
  • However, and really importantly, you very probably have other marketing activities and investments that you choose to avoid, which would improve your bottom line beyond recognition if you deployed them.

Today, I recommend you consider looking at one marketing activity that you know works for others, but you have (until now) chosen to avoid. Challenge your past assumptions. Make sure they’re accurate. Do a little research. Ask around.

If you do, experience assures me that it’s entirely possible you’ll find at least one activity, right under your nose, which is absolute marketing gold dust. So take a look!

How doing less can get you more

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Marketing focus

One of the best kept secrets in business, is something I call reduction. It’s a strategy I share with my clients and today, I’m going to share some of it with you.

Less can be more

Ineffective business owners strive to do more and more.

They focus on productivity hacks, growth hacks, life hacks and short-cuts. As an unavoidable result, they become increasingly busy, increasingly stressed, increasingly frustrated and increasingly disappointed.

Thankfully, there’s a smarter way forward.

The most effective business owners use a very different approach. They’ve discovered that the biggest wins come from doing fewer things. Less is more.

For example:

  • Fewer unfinished projects, leads to more clarity.
  • Fewer social media interruptions, leads to more focus.
  • Fewer repeated errors, leads to more progress.
  • Fewer dodged decisions, leads to more respect.
  • Fewer missed deadlines, leads to more trust.
  • Fewer hours wasted, leads to more productivity.
  • Fewer angry words, leads to more happiness.
  • Fewer broken promises, leads to more belief.
  • And fewer excuses, leads to more achievement.

If you find yourself stressed, working long hours and making too little progress, don’t add even more to your workload. All it will do is create additional stress.

Instead, focus on reduction. Because with the right strategy, less can be more. So much more.

The pandemic: Why your marketing needs to change

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pandemic, marketing tip

Obviously, the marketplace you serve has changed during the coronavirus pandemic.

So in today’s post, I want to help you successfully adapt to these changes, so your business absolutely thrives.

Let’s go.

Ask most business owners how they’ve adapted to the pandemic, you’ll hear very similar replies. They’ll tell you they’ve switched as much of their business online as possible. If they’re in hospitality, leisure, offline retail, construction, etc, they’ll tell you about social distancing measures, too.

Whilst those are important considerations, they’re missing a HUGE part of the picture. And it could lose them a fortune.

I don’t want that to happen to you.

Feelings

The big brands have a very different and more effective focus. Agile owners of small and medium-sized businesses do too.

Their focus is on the dramatic change, in the way their clients and prospective clients are FEELING during these most difficult of times. As feelings are what drive decisions (and sales) far more than logic, this is something you need to be aware of. And focused on.

With that in mind, think for a moment about your clients and prospective clients. Consider how they have been impacted by the pandemic. Now ask yourself, how has the past 13 months changed things like:

  • The way they feel about their immediate and long-term future?
  • The way they feel about money?
  • The way they feel about credit, debt, investments?
  • The way they feel about the people in their lives?
  • The way they feel about risk?
  • The way they feel about the value of their time?
  • The way they feel about their health?
  • The way they feel about travelling?
  • The way they feel about donating to causes?
  • The way they feel about long-term results?
  • The way they feel about short-term results?
  • The way they feel about various types of loss?

Take a moment to think about the current focus of your marketing. Include things like your messaging, promises, guarantees, benefits, deals and payment options, etc.

Then ask yourself the following question.

Is it speaking to the need and wants of your pre-pandemic marketplace or their ACTUAL, current needs and wants?

Because if you’re using your pre-pandemic marketing strategy, (with Zoom calls and social distancing bolted on), your agile competitors could suddenly sound a lot more attractive.

However, by aligning your marketing with the way your clients and future clients now feel, you cut through the noise. Your messaging will strike the right chord. Your words will be more compelling.

And your products or services will sound a great deal more relevant to their exact needs. That’s marketing gold dust, right there.

How to know if your business idea will succeed

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will my business idea succeed, how to know idea succeedImage: Toa Heftiba

Yesterday’s post attracted a lot of feedback. People wanted to know how to tell in advance if their business idea will succeed (product, service, opportunity, etc.,) is likely to spread and succeed.

To answer that question, let’s look at what happens when you share a truly exciting idea or opportunity with someone.

  1. They lean forward as you’re talking. You have their attention. They’re listening intently.
  2. Then they try and find a way to get involved with it. They can sense the promise of the opportunity. So they want in. For example, they’ll ask you if they can tell their friends about it or place a pre-order; you won’t have to ask them. That’s because great ideas have legs.

Reaction to an average or below average idea looks VERY different.

  1. People nod politely.
  2. Many will tell you they think you’re onto a winner.
  3. But that’s about as far as it goes. Because average ideas lack legs. More about legs in a moment.

Why am I sharing this with you?

I hear from small business owners regularly, who’ve wasted time and money developing dud ideas, after misinterpreting the feedback they received. This need not happen to you, so long as you know what to look for.

How to know if your business idea will succeed?

Start by filtering everything!

Never make a commercial decision based on surface-level thinking. Filter everything for accuracy.

Before you accept any feedback, remember that people often tell you what they think you want to hear, rather than what they actually think. Their intentions are good. They want to encourage you or be supportive. But their misplaced kindness can lead you into a huge commercial loss if you accept it on a surface level.

As I said yesterday, it’s what people do that counts. Focus 95% on what they do when you tell them about your idea… and 5% on what they say.

Here’s how: Look for how eager they are to get involved, without prompting from you to take action. Just explain the idea clearly. Then watch!

For example.

  • If your idea is a business product or service and includes a pre-order option, did they want to pre-order without you asking?
  • Did they ask you for a second meeting?
  • Did they request a sample of the product?
  • And did they ask if you’d like to demo the idea or give a presentation to their colleagues, boss or friends?

The key is to be guided by what they do, far more than what they say. It’s a proven, time-tested way to see if your idea has legs or not.

Why are legs so important, Jim?

I’ll use the example of an idea for a new product or service.

  • If your idea has legs, it means it will spread from person to person by itself. Every viral product or service works this way. People learn about (whatever it is) and tell their friends. Their friends do the same… repeat. These products or services require far less marketing and are massively more profitable.
  • If your idea doesn’t have legs, growth only comes when you tell people about the product or service. It goes from you, to the marketplace. Ideas that lack legs require lots of advertising, promoting, networking and are drastically less profitable. Growth is slow, expensive, frustrating and time consuming.

So, get feedback from people. Especially those in your target market for the product or service. Look closely for signs that the idea has legs, by focusing on what people do. Are they leaning forward? Do they want to get involved? And remember that actions speak louder than words.

I know what you’re thinking…

At this point, business owners ask me whether it’s possible for their existing product or service, which lacks legs, to be transformed into a runaway success.

The answer is yes. Of course!

I do it every day, helping my clients pump massive extra value into their products or services, which gives it the legs required.

3 Business ideas I shared with a Zoom group today. In just 70 words

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Marketing cold coffee

  1. If you’re struggling with a new challenge, you probably need a new strategy. If you’re struggling with an old challenge, you absolutely need a new strategy.
  2. Your competitors work hard and are passionate about building their business. Not all of them. But enough of them to destroy your business, if you underestimate them.
  3. If you have a business challenge and you can’t talk about it, now you have two challenges.

Every List: Discover my super effective list writing technique

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list writing, creativity lists, list technique, every list, jim connolly

Image: Shutterstock.

If you ever find yourself struggling with a business challenge and want to get it resolved, here’s one of the fastest and most effective ways to do it. I use this daily and have taught it to thousands of people.

It’s about making a list… but not just any old list. I’m specifically referring to what I call an every list.

If you’ve never used an every list before, here’s a quick look at what they are and how they work.

How to use an every list

In this example, let’s imagine you want to improve your email marketing open rates. You’d start with a list called something like:

Every way to increase my email open rates.

Then, you would begin writing every possible way to increase your open rates.

When you start, you find the first things on your list come easy.

  • Write subject lines that are more compelling, so people are really curious about what’s inside.
  • Make sure my subject line doesn’t contain trigger words or characters, which are blocked by some junk mail filters.
  • Use fewer images, as these can also trigger junk filters.
  • Identify the best time of day and best day of the week to send my emails, by testing new times / days.
  • Try different gaps between emails – increasing or decreasing how often I send them.
  • Improve the content. If my emails have become less useful or interesting, my readers will be less inclined to open them.
  • Use professional email marketing software, from respected providers. They are experts at getting emails delivered and bypassing the kind of hurdles that block emails. They also use clean IP addresses, which increases delivery rates.

Then it gets trickier, because you’ve listed the most obvious things. However, you still find some more.

  • Put fewer links into my emails as this can be a red flag for some email servers.
  • Use fewer merge tags.
  • Check the meta data in the images I use.
  • Clean my list, so abandoned (hard bounced) email addresses are removed.
  • Make my emails look more like regular email.

Now things get really tough. You’ve already listed the obvious and the less obvious ways to increase open rates. Plus, you now have a number of options to look at, so it can be tempting to start working on those.

Here’s where the real benefit comes from

It causes you to dig deeper. Because you know there must be more possibilities. This additional commitment to keep going, even though it can be extremely frustrating, pushes you to the edges. And it’s at the edges where we find the innovative, creative answers.

So, you keep going. And find one more possibility.

  • Look at my open rates over the past 12 months and see if there’s a point, where open rates started to drop. If so, there’s probably a clue right there.

The example used here is based on a marketing professional I’ve mentored, and her experience using the every list technique with one of her clients. In this case, the 2 things that created 75% of her client’s improvement was cleaning the email list… and the very last possibility; examining historic open rates and looking for clues.

Had they stopped after the first 8 or 10 items on their list, they’d have missed the answers they needed. And they wouldn’t have massively increased their open rates.

When we’re faced with a pressing challenge, we need to invest the time and energy required to solve it. And the every list helps us do just that.

Einstein famously said, “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” Well, he was “so smart”. He was a genius. Yet his core point is solid. If a man like Einstein is willing to dedicate more time and dig deeper, when solving problems, then surely we should too.

Use an every list and keep looking for ideas even when (especially when), you think you’ve exhausted the possibilities. Because you almost certainly haven’t.