Jim Connolly Marketing

Four questions that helped a subscriber boost sales by 68%

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building business contacts, better contacts

When I ask a business owner who their ideal customer or client is, they almost always reply with demographics; average age, location, income level, etc. 

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

Demographics will tell you who to target with your marketing.

However, to get that demographic to buy from you, you need to know what matters to them. That’s their motivation. That’s what drives their decisions. That’s what drives their actions. That’s what determines whether they buy from you… or don’t.

Demographics alone can be problematic. There are wealthy people who spend the lowest possible price for a reliable product. They’d happily buy a £5 pen, but wouldn’t dream of buying a £500 pen. There are also those on low incomes who would take a loan out, just to own that £500 pen. Income level is only part of the picture.

I was inspired to share this with you, after learning that one of my newsletter readers increased her revenues by close to 70% last year, partly by focusing on 4 of the questions I shared in one of my newsletters. By honing in on the right things, she was able to improve her marketing, so that it spoke directly to what matters to her marketplace.

These are the 4 prospective customer questions that worked for her.

  • What improvement are prospects looking for, from my services or products?
  • What do they primarily place their security in?
  • Which do they value the most, quality they can rely on or low-prices.
  • What do they give most of their attention to commercially?

By talking with current and former customers, we can get a good idea of what matters most to our typical buyer. Often we don’t even need to ask! For example, if our customers tend to wear designer names, quality and style are more important to them than the lowest-priced/reliable alternatives. 

Through observation and conversation, we can get a clear picture of what our prospects are attracted to. That’s an essential part of attraction marketing; marketing that attracts sales and enquiries from our ideal customer. 

I hope you found that useful.

Marketing 101: Vigorous, written marketing

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Most of the marketing copy I see is at least 75% too long. Overlong copy lacks impact. It also lacks clarity and fails to motivate prospective customers or clients.

I want to help you avoid this expensive mistake, which is why I wrote this for you.

Vigorous, written marketing

And it starts with one of the best-known quotes on the subject.

“Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that he make every word tell“.

Professor William Strunk Jr. – The Elements of Style.

The vigorous writing referred to here, is writing that is strong and full of energy. That’s the kind of writing that moves people to take action; to contact you, buy from you or hire you. It’s the kind of writing that gets the results you need.

How can you and your business benefit from the power of vigorous, written marketing?

The answer comes from understanding why the problem exists.

Google usually gets the blame

That’s because Google’s search algorithm rewards overlong, written content. It prefers 2500 words to 250. So, for over 20 years, online marketing writers have been rewarded for high word counts. That’s certainly not what’s needed for vigorous, written marketing.

But Google isn’t responsible for the wider problem.

Email marketing and off-line media is just as ruined by overlong content. Neither of those formats have ever required the writer to dance the Google dance.

The problem exists because most written marketing is created by people who lack sufficient training. It’s either written by business owners who ‘dabble’ or by below-par copywriters.

The solution?

The business owner wishing to switch to vigorous, written marketing has two options.

  1. Learn how to do it effectively.
  2. Pay someone who already knows.

How to decide?

  • The cost (in time) of learning is considerable. It takes years of practice. However, you’ll start seeing improvements relatively quickly.
  • The cost of hiring an expert is lower. And it’s a lot faster.

The price you pay for starving your business of vigorous, written marketing is far higher than either of those options. So pick one of them and run with it.

Photo by Cherrydeck on Unsplash

The horrible truth about marketing

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There’s a balance required if you want to rise above the competition. Yes, you should strive to be the best provider you can be. But that’s only one side of the scales. You also need to be the best marketed.

Think about it. There’s a world of difference between being the best… and the best selling.

  • The best selling album is never the best recorded album. It’s the best marketed album.
  • The best selling movie at the box office is never the best produced movie. It’s the best marketed movie.
  • And the best selling sportswear brand is never the best quality sportswear brand. It’s the best marketed sportswear brand.

You already know your best selling competitor is not the best quality competitor. It’s just their marketing that’s better. Note: this doesn’t mean their marketing is outstanding. It only means that they do more of the right things than their competitors. So, they get noticed more than you and/or they’re better at converting that attention into paying clients or customers.

Give your business the advantage

If you’re sick of watching competitors doing better than you, you need to decide to outperform their marketing, the way you already outperform their service. Because an average service that has great marketing, will always beat a great service that has average marketing.

The great news: If you decide to fight back, you’ll have better marketing and a better service. That’s an unbeatable combination. I’m telling you, your competitors won’t know what’s hit them.

The persuasion gap

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Today, I’d like to show you a great way to make far more prospects hire you or buy from you.

Here’s what we know.

  • Testimonials from former customers or clients have limited persuasive effect on a prospect. Everyone uses them. And they’re always positive.
  • Samples of previous work we’ve done have limited persuasive effect on a prospect. Everyone uses them. And they’re always best-case examples.
  • Even being recommended to the prospect by someone they trust has limited persuasive effect. Everyone’s been let down by something recommended by a friend.

What’s left is what I call the persuasion gap: It’s the gap between how persuaded the prospect is, and how persuaded the prospect needs to be, before they will hire you or buy from you. 

So, how do you fill the persuasion gap?

We start by understanding a basic fact. When someone buys a product or service, they’re buying the future.

The future?

Yep!

It’s all about the future.

Think about it from the prospect’s perspective. Our product or service hasn’t been successfully delivered yet. It hasn’t worked as expected yet. It hasn’t provided the prospect with outstanding value yet. This is all future stuff. That’s what causes the persuasion gap. They simply don’t know if they’ll be delighted with buying from us in 12-weeks, 12-months or 12-years time.

To fill the persuasion gap, we need to convince them ahead of time. We need to convince them now, so they have a complete picture in their mind of a wonderful, future outcome. And to convince them, we need to confidently explain why we believe in the value of our product or service.

The more confidently we explain it, the better.

Why?

By confidently sharing the story of our product or service with prospects, and building their confidence in us, we help them fill their persuasion gap. That’s when they happily buy from us or hire us.

Photo by Cytonn Photography

Why email marketing doesn’t work in 2026

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email doesn't work 2026, why doesn't email marketing work, email marketing doesn't work, newsletter, email campaign

Photo by Le Vu

A reader shared an interesting observation with me. She told me she had “found out the hard way that email marketing doesn’t work in 2026″.

She asked me for my thoughts on why email is so ineffective. I said I’d share them here, as I’m sure some of you will find it useful.

Email marketing works

Email marketing does work. In fact, email marketing works extremely well. Better than ever, in fact.

Just ask any business owner who’s using it correctly. Whether it’s used for newsletters or promotions, the return on investment is off the charts.

Email marketing also works more predictably than any other form of marketing. And the tiny financial investment required makes it the most cost effective form of marketing, with the highest return.

Email marketing doesn’t work when…

What doesn’t work is ineffective email marketing. Just ask anyone who’s doing it incorrectly.

Here are just a few, very common examples of how small business owners get email marketing wrong.

why doesn't email marketing work, email marketing doesn't work, newsletter, email campaign

Image: Shutterstock.

  • A poorly written email won’t work. It will fail to motivate the reader to take action; to call you, email you, visit your website, make a purchase from you, whatever.
  • A professionally written email, sent to the wrong people, won’t work. It will fail to reach those with a want or need for your services.
  • A well written email, sent to the right people, with a dull subject line, won’t work. That’s because no one will open it. The subject line has to be compelling or no matter what your message is, it will literally be ignored.
  • A well written email, sent to the right people, with a compelling subject line, offering a generic product or service, won’t work. No one wants to switch to a service that’s no better then their current service.
  • A well written email, sent to the right people, with a compelling subject line, but sent on the wrong day of the week, won’t work. At least, it won’t be anything like as effective as it would be, if you research the best time of day and best day of the week, to send it.
  • Oh, and if you send your emails too often, or not often enough… that’s right, your email marketing won’t work.

You get the idea.

Here’s another reason why email marketing is so extremely valuable to you and your business. It’s the only form of digital marketing where you own your reach.

Social media followers, YouTube subscribers, LinkedIn networks etc., are not under your control. An overnight change to these algorithms can see your marketing reach just a tiny fraction of ‘your’ subs/followers/contacts. That’s because these platforms own your connection. And they can delete your account whenever they wish.

So, instead of telling yourself that email marketing doesn’t work, ask yourself why YOUR email marketing doesn’t work. Otherwise, you’ll needlessly miss out on one of the most powerful forms of marketing on the planet!

Risk reduction 101

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want something done, ask busy person, sayings

In business, reducing your exposure to risk makes sense.

Eliminating your exposure to risk make no sense whatsoever.

Why?

It’s impossible to eliminate risk from any business. Even if things are going great, and we decide to just carry on with whatever we’re doing, we risk becoming obsolete. We risk becoming irrelevant. We risk losing clients or customers to agile competitors.

In seeking to eliminate risk, we automatically eliminate every great, genuine opportunity. Think about it, every genuine opportunity comes with an element of risk. 

In short, reduce your exposure to risk, for sure. But don’t try to eliminate it.