Social media marketing Archives - Page 11 of 60

The death of blogging

By Jim Connolly | January 19, 2018

I’d like to share something with you, which has greater potential to improve your marketing, than anything I have ever known.

Imagine you were able to communicate with your prospective clients. Not through advertising. Not through pestering them for attention. But through building a relationship with them, where they value your expertise. So they look forward to you communicating with them. And they want to hear from you.

Does that imaginary scenario remind you of anything?

Here’s a clue: You’re reading this. You’re a business owner. I provide services to business owners.

Blogging isn’t dead

Every year since I started blogging, people have claimed that blogging is dead. It isn’t. In fact, it’s vastly more effective today than it was 10 years ago, when I wrote my first marketing blog post. And back then, it was already the most powerful marketing tool I had ever known.

Blogging is so much more powerful now.

Why?

Here are just a few reasons.

1. People are eagerly looking for blog posts

There are close to 2 billion people using social networks. Many millions of them are actively looking for relevant information to share with their friends. And that’s exactly what they do. If a post is interesting and marketed correctly, it will be shared.

This sharing increases your reach, as new people subscribe to your blog. And not just “people”, but new people who are interested in what you do. Yes, prospective clients and customers!

2. The power of email

Email distribution of blog posts allows people to have a one-to-one communication channel with the blogger. If you’re reading this via email, hit reply and your email will arrive in my inbox. Readers do this every day. Think about that for a moment.

How useful would it be for your business, if prospective clients were reaching out to you every day?

And how valuable would it be, if you had a growing email list of thousands of prospective clients, who eagerly want to hear from you?

3. Your prospective clients or customers read blogs

People wrongly assume THEIR prospective clients don’t read blogs. And they’re wrong. (I wrote about this here.)

Did you know, Wordpress blogs alone account for almost 30% of ALL INTERNET traffic? Well, it’s true! Here are some you may have heard of: CNN, Time, The New York Post, Variety, USA Today, The Star Wars website, Sony Music, MTV News, BBC America, The Walt Disney Company website, The Harvard Gazette, The New Yorker, The Mercedes Benz website… all these sites (and millions more) are built on the same WordPress blogging software as mine.

If you’re serious about growing your business today, you need a blog and a darn good blogging strategy. Otherwise you’ll miss out on the world’s most powerful marketing tool.

How to regularly attract motivated clients

By Jim Connolly | January 18, 2018

I shared a proven success factor with you in my previous post, which is common to every successful business owner (read it here). Today, I’m going to share another.

This tip is very easy to use. And the results come extremely quickly. Let’s go!

The basics

One of the absolute basics of marketing, is that people buy based on feelings rather than logic.

It’s often said that the decision to buy a house, the largest purchase most people will ever make, is based on the way they feel about the house in the first 60 seconds!

This begs the question: How can YOU make people feel that way about your business?

The feel good factor

Unsurprisingly, people are extremely attracted to things that make them feel good. We call this the feel good factor.

The iPhone is a great example of the power of the feel good factor. It explains why so many people on low incomes go without things they need, in order to own the latest iPhone. They feel good about ordering the iPhone. They feel good about collecting their new iPhone. They also feel good about people seeing them with their iPhone.

As a result, this luxury item broke sales records every year, during the last economic recession. Think about that for a moment. It makes no logical sense. After all, fewer people could afford it. Yet more and more people bought it.

In fact, they not only bought iPhones in record-breaking numbers, but they started upgrading their phone every 12 to 24 months. Previously, people replaced phones when the phone became unreliable or stopped working.

That’s how powerful the feel good factor is. And why your business needs it.

Creating your feel good factor

Clearly, there are some very good reasons for you to create a feel good factor, around your business or brand. When I work with a client, I give them very specific advice on exactly what to do and how to do it, based on their industry, marketplace etc.

However, this post will be read by business owners from over 100 countries. So, here’s a very general strategy, based on just one element of the feel good factor.

The feel good factor is fuelled by positivity. When we hear good things and see good things coming from a business, it quickly improves how we feel about them. You’d assume every business owner knows this. Yet, when you look at the dialogue coming from them, you see it’s usually neutral or negative.

Look at the typical small business website, blog, newsletter, social networking accounts, etc. The messaging is bland. It’s predictable, low energy, lacking in personality and devoid of passion. As such, it totally fails to fire-up the marketplace with a feel good factor. It’s woefully ineffective. It’s easy to ignore.

Businesses that benefit from the feel good factor are very, very different.

Their overall messaging is based around the positive things happening in their business and their marketplace.
They build a picture of a business that’s productive, happy and helpful.
When you speak with people from these businesses, their energy and passion is infectious.
When they talk about their business and their plans, it leaves you feeling so motivated, you wish you were involved.
People want to work there. And it shows. It really shows.
When you visit their website, blog or read their newsletter, you quickly feel that theirs is a business that’s thriving.

It’s no wonder that these feel good businesses earn the attention of their marketplace, get people talking and attract the best clients.

I’d like to leave you with a couple of important things to ponder. Firstly, is there a powerful internal and external feel good factor around your business? And if there isn’t, what do you plan to do about it?

As my clients have discovered, getting this right doesn’t just increase your revenues and profits. It also makes business massively more exciting and enjoyable, too.

Let’s make your marketing totally irresistible

By Jim Connolly | December 26, 2017

If you want to enjoy massively better marketing results in 2018, you’ll find this really useful. It starts with an important question.

Do you ever wonder why some businesses push dull sales messages at you, over and over again?

The answer is simple: It’s because they are getting a poor response. Then, rather than improve the quality of their message, they increase the volume. Their thinking looks something like this: ‘Maybe if I send another marketing message out, SOMEONE will respond?’ They get another poor response. So they repeat the process.

We need to be smarter than that. You see, more volume isn’t going to help. In fact, it usually does the total opposite. Allow me to explain.

The volume problem

It’s not that people can’t hear what these small businesses are saying. The challenge is that the message isn’t interesting enough. It doesn’t motivate prospective clients to get in touch. It doesn’t grab people’s attention or interest. It doesn’t get people eagerly telling their friends about the product or service. And it’s losing these businesses a fortune.

Increasing the volume of ineffective marketing isn’t just ineffective. It’s also toxic! That’s because it not only fails to generate business, it also damages the reputation of the sender.

Overcoming this challenge

Here are some better places to look, when people are ignoring your marketing messages:

Check that your message is reaching the right people. Know who your ideal client or customer is. Then focus your message exclusively on what matters most to them. Don’t try to be of wider, general interest. That will make your marketing message way too vague. And vague marketing won’t motivate anyone to buy from you or hire you.
Make sure your database is up to date. Always use clean data.
If it’s an advertising message, check that you’re using the correct medium and media.
Then, before you publish your next marketing message, be certain that it’s motivating enough. Ensure it has the power to inspire the reader to take the action you require. Without a powerful message, nothing will happen. This is true, no matter how great your product or service is.

The message here is simple. If you want to massively improve your results, increase the quality, not the volume.

Alternatively, I can do it all for you. And do it really, really well. Here’s how it works.

Would people miss you?

By Jim Connolly | December 21, 2017

So, would people miss your marketing if it stopped?

That’s a tough question. However, it’s an important one. The reason it’s so important, is that the most effective marketing is value driven. Value driven marketing focuses on the needs of the prospective client or customer. It provides them with what they want and it does so, in an engaging, effective way.

In short, it’s something they want to receive, unlike most marketing, which is an annoying intrusion. I’ll give you 2 examples in a moment, of how people are creating valuable marketing for their marketplace. First, let’s look at what people are attracted to.

We know that people value marketing that delivers:

Useful, targeted information.
Solutions to their most pressing problems.
Helpful advice from trusted sources.
Genuinely special offers, which provide real value based on their wants / needs.
Truthful, honest engagement.

We know that people dislike:

Cold calls.
Being pestered on social networks.
Spam emails and junk mail.
Uninspiring sales pitches.
Selfish marketing pitches, poorly disguised as special offers.
Impersonal outreach.

Great marketing doesn’t really feel like marketing

I was thinking about this recently, after reading a blog post from Evernote. The post was all about how to be more productive with their app. As an Evernote customer, the more value I can get from their app, the longer I’ll remain a client. And not only that, by getting more value from their product, I’m massively more likely to recommend it. (Which I do).

But it goes even deeper.

I follow Evernote on Twitter. This means they have access to me whenever I check Twitter, with my permission. Why do I give them my valuable permission and attention? Simple. Their Twitter feed is filled with useful ideas, tips and advice on how to be more organized and productive. In short, I’d miss Evernote’s marketing if it stopped. Their marketing is useful. It’s permission based. It adds value.

Compare Evernote’s approach, to the usual push and pester style of marketing, used by small business owners. There’s no comparison. One is the opposite of the other.

It works for me too

I’ve used the value driven approach to marketing since the 1990’s. Initially via an email newsletter. Today, via my blog and the email version of the blog. And not only is it effective, it’s increasingly effective. That’s to say, it produces greater and greater results every year.

Plus…

I haven’t had to sell my services to anyone in over 20 years! Yes, people hire me all the time. But I never have to sell to them. The difference is huge. One is about attracting clients, the other is about chasing them.

If you’re not already doing so, make your marketing so valuable in 2018 that people would miss it if you stopped. Put a strategy in place to attract clients and customers. It’s more effective, more fun and less stressful than chasing them!

Shocking news: Your prospective clients regularly read blogs

By Jim Connolly | December 8, 2017

Image: Danielle MacInnes.

It’s true. Your prospective clients visit blogs. And they visit them regularly, too.

I know, I know. They told you they didn’t visit blogs or you assumed they didn’t, but they do. However, they probably don’t even know it.

Allow me to explain.

Blog = website

A blog is just a website: A framework for delivering information. If a website is interesting, people will read it. Your prospective clients don’t care what framework a website is built on. They care about the content of the site.

As the name suggests, Jim’s Marketing Blog is very clearly a blog. However, many other websites built on the same WordPress blogging software I use, have less obvious names.

These include; BBC America, CNN, Time, The New York Post, Variety, USA Today, The Star Wars website, Sony Music, MTV News, The Walt Disney Company website, The Harvard Gazette, The New Yorker, The Mercedes Benz website and lots of other sites, read by hundreds of millions of people… including your prospective clients!

WordPress sites alone account for just under 30% of all Internet traffic. And there are many other blogging platforms. Think about that number for a moment.

What could this mean for your business?

The marketing potential from blogging is huge. And it’s getting better all the time.

Here’s one of the foundations of successful marketing: Be where their attention is. So, where is the attention of your marketplace?

Here are a few of the most common attention grabbers.

Facebook and other social networks. Blogs are designed to be easily shared on social networks. And that’s exactly what happens. Rather than buying Facebook ads, you can let Facebook users share YOUR site with THEIR friends.
Phones, tablets or computers. Modern blogs are designed to look great, regardless of what device you view them on.
Search engines. Blogs, especially WordPress, are designed to be easy for Google to crawl and index – making them easier to find on Google and other search engines.
Email. Blog posts (like this one) can be delivered via email. In fact, massively more people read my blog via email than on the blog itself.

In other words, blogging places you right where the attention of your marketplace is. And the value of that connection is hard to overstate.

For instance, client enquiries from my blog have increased year-on-year, every year, since I started blogging almost a decade ago. And it’s not just me. I work with people every week, who have seen the same pattern of results from their business blogs.

You can do the same

You too could be where the attention of your marketplace is (without spending a penny on advertising). You could be attracting client enquiries, rather than pursuing them. You could be order taking, rather than selling.

Tip: Here are 25 more reasons to start a business blog.

The tricky part?

Although our prospective clients DO visit blogs, they DON’T bother with the typical, dull, small business blogs. We need to be prepared to invest in our blogs the same way we invest in every other key area of our business. And that means taking time to deliver something, that’s as useful as possible, as often as possible. It means learning how to do it right – rather than following generic “how to blog” guides.

It means having a strong commitment to the community we serve.

Questions worth answering

Now you know your prospective clients regularly visit blogs, isn’t it time you reconsidered starting one?

And if, like many business owners reading this, you have a blog that isn’t working for you, is it time to start taking it seriously?

I can’t answer those questions for you. I can only let you know that a marvellous opportunity is staring you right in the face. It’s an opportunity, which increases in value every day. An opportunity, to benefit from the most powerful form of marketing I have ever known.

Do marketing gimmicks work? Yes. Here’s how!

By Jim Connolly | December 7, 2017

I think you’ll find today’s post really useful. I’m going to share some ideas, to help you understand how marketing gimmicks work and how you can use them, to massively increase the reach of your marketing.

How a marketing gimmick went viral

Some years ago, I discovered a business blog. The thing about this blog, was that the author cussed and swore. She didn’t just drop the occasional f-bomb. No. She took every opportunity to swear. It was a marketing gimmick, done for effect.

And it worked. It worked really, really well!

At the time, she attracted a lot of attention and interest. People were talking about her. Back then, it was rare for a business blogger to cuss in their posts. Many people emailed me links to her latest posts, dazzled by her profanity.

She gained a lot of visibility. Visibility that had the potential to help her attract a huge (and extremely valuable) audience.

And then… she vanished!

No, she didn’t literally disappear. But she did soon vanish from the radar of public attention.

Why?

Well, it turned out that all she had to offer her readership was her cussing. At her core, she was just ‘yet another’ business blogger. So although her marketing gimmick drew people in, once the initial shock value wore off, there was nothing to return for. It was a missed opportunity.

Marketing gimmicks: making them work

Make no mistake, marketing gimmicks work. That’s to say, they can help you to get noticed… and noticed fast, by a huge slice of your marketplace. Plus, if you use a little creativity, it can cost you pennies.

However, there’s a limit to what we can achieve with gimmicks alone. That’s because while a good gimmick can open a door for you, you then need to deliver something useful.

Here’s an example of what I mean.

Imagine you wanted to massively increase the audience for your newsletter, podcast, vlog or blog. You could use a marketing gimmick to get people talking about you, sharing your content and subscribing. But, to benefit from all that valuable attention, you’d then need to offer something of substance… helpful ideas, interesting information, useful insights, etc.

Marketing gimmicks: The bottom line

The bottom line looks like this: Marketing gimmicks will attract people’s attention. Substance will retain their attention.

Before coming up with a marketing gimmick, focus on what you ultimately want to achieve. Then have a process in place, so that the initial gimmick is followed-up with something of value. That’s how to attract people’s attention, retain their attention and earn their trust.

With the ongoing attention and trust of your marketplace, you can achieve great things for your business. Start with a marketing gimmick. But remember that the gimmick is only the start. It opens a door of opportunity. Nothing more.

Tip: If you found this useful, you can get my latest ideas delivered direct to your inbox, for free, right here.