Jim Connolly Marketing

Seth Godin Vs Bob the Blogger!

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As a marketing coach, I am always studying the power of influence and influential people.  For example, we all know the power a celebrity can have, when they give their personal endorsement to a politician or their paid endorsement to a product.  This is because a large chunk of the general populous, uses what a well known or well-respected person says, as a short-cut to their decision making process.

A while ago, one of my favourite writers, Seth Godin, made a couple of statements that were widely accepted as fact – Despite them simply being his opinions.  Fans of Seth heard what he said and then looked for things that would support it.  It’s actually a very good piece and as always, delivered with passion and power.

Here’s what Seth said:

“Blogging is free, it doesn’t matter if anyone reads it.  What matters is the humility that comes from writing it.  What matters is the meta cognition of thinking about what you are going to say.  How do you explain yourself to the few employees you have or your cat or whoever is going to look at it?  How do you force yourself to describe in 3 paragraphs, why you did something?  How do you respond out loud?  If you are good at it, some people will read it.  If you stick at it, you will get good at it. But this has become much bigger than are you boingboing, are you the huffington post.  This has become such a micro publishing platform, that basically you are doing it for yourself, to force yourself to become part of the conversation, even if it’s (Seth gestures with his index finger and thumb, to denote a tiny amount) just that big and that posture change, changes a huge amount.”

Here’s the clip of Seth saying this on YouTube – It’s powerful stuff.

If Bob the blogger (I just made that name up) told you that it didn’t matter if anyone reads your business blog, most of you would disagree.

You might remind Bob that a blog with 5000 unique visitors a day will out perform an identical blog, with just you and your cat reading it.  This is why every blog development program and every leading blog development site, focus so much on developing a targeted readership and increasing your blog’s visibility.

If Bob the blogger told you that as a busy small business owner, you should be writing a blog for humility, you just may question that too.  Here’s why:

  • Bob is not Seth, so we question what Bob says.  With Bob, we are a student.  We study what Bob says and ecology check it, to see if it actually makes sense.  Then, and only then, we accept it.
  • Seth is not Bob, so the temptation is to accept what Seth says, without question.  At this point, we cease being a student and miss much of the learning that people like Seth offer.

The challenge here, is that when we fail to study, we fail to learn.

Blindly accepting something, turns the student into a sheep.  Even when the person is as intelligent and honest as Seth Godin, we owe it to ourselves to study what they say.

This is NOT a post about whether or not Seth is right or wrong with what he said in this one instance.

It’s about whether more people would have questioned what Seth said, if he was “just” a normal guy, like my fictitious friend, Bob the blogger.

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

Don’t push your marketing on people!

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One of the reasons that you get targeted with so much unprofessional marketing, is that small business owners never view what THEY do as spammy or unprofessional.  They know that their intentions are good, so as far as they are concerned:

  • It’s OK for them to add you to their mailing list without your consent, because THEY KNOW it’s not spam and that their company is legitimate.
  • It’s OK for them to ask you to recommend them on Linkedin, even though you don’t know them, because THEY KNOW they are decent, honest people.
  • It’s OK for them to send you sales pitches on Facebook, because THEY KNOW that their products really are extra special.
  • It’s OK for them to use Twitter as a broadcast medium, because THEY KNOW that their stuff REALLY IS worth broadcasting.

The key to marketing success, is to understand that your marketing results are based on your actions, rather than your intentions.  People will respond positively, negatively or not at all, based on what you do.  Consequently, when you irritate people by pushing marketing at them, they will typically respond negatively.

The most successfully marketed small businesses, abide by the following 8 words:  Have something worth saying and say it well.

They offer a product or service that provides unique value (so they have something worth saying.)  Then, they use professional marketing, to get their message out correctly and motivate people to buy from them (so they say it well.)

The least successful businesses do the exact opposite.

They offer a similar-ish product or service to their competitors, (so they don’t really have something worth saying.)  Then, they use push marketing techniques like; cold calling, social media broadcasting, unsolicited email marketing etc, which just irritates people (so they don’t say it well.)

Before you send out any piece of marketing, always ask yourself the following question:  “If  someone sent this to me, how would it make me feel about that company and their services?”

We should always hold ourselves up to at least the same level of scrutiny, as we use when evaluating other providers.  Preferably, far, far higher!

How do you feel about pushy marketing or those that broadcast to you, rather than engage you?

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

Just because Bob can, does not mean he should!

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One of the great things about being in business today, is that we can get an idea, write it down, click a mouse button and get it in front of thousands of people in seconds.  Better still, we can reach all these people for little more than the cost of our time.  However, instant communications also present us with a challenge.

The marketing challenge of free, instant communications

Not that long ago, it would cost a small business owner a lot of money, to send a traditional mail shot via the postal service to a few thousand people.  It would take ages to print out all those letters and even the ink was expensive.  Then you had to fold them, stuff them into envelopes and either stick a stamp on each envelope or frank each one.  Because the cost in both time and money was so significant, people thought long and hard about what they wrote and who they sent those letters to.  Every letter needed to count, when you were paying hundreds or maybe thousands for each mail shot!

Today, Bob can write an email during his coffee break and send it to his list, with the click of a mouse button.  It will cost him nothing and take seconds.

As a result of this shift, you and I now find our email inboxes and social media streams, regularly littered with a lot of low value crap, from people like Bob.

Of course, the smartest business owners and marketers out there, are even more focused on the quality of their messages today than they were a decade ago.  They know that in order to stand out in a world full of “Bobs”, their messages have to be professionally crafted.  They also ensure that they only send their messages to people who are interested and who have given them permission to get in touch.

While people like Bob are filling the marketplace with low quality, badly targeted messages and getting added to an ever increasing number of blacklists, the savvy business owners and entrepreneurs are taking a different, less common route.  They are focusing on value first, volume second.  For them, quality comes before quantity.  They send the right message, to the right people. It’s such a simple concept, yet it’s becoming increasingly rare.

Just because there’s little financial cost attached to sending emails or using social media sites, doesn’t mean we won’t end up paying a hefty price for using them ineffectively.  If we get it wrong, we risk simultaneously damaging our reputation and missing out on an avalanche of new business and opportunities.

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

Social media marketing – A more social approach

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Some people have asked me, why I place so much emphasis on building a community rather than a following.  Yesterday, within a 30 minute period, I received 2 emails from people enquiring about my services.  I believe the way these emails begin, (see excerpt below), demonstrates the marketing value of community.

Email 1:
“Dear Jim,
You don’t know me, but I feel I know you very well through reading your blog for some time now.”

Email 2:
“Hey Jim,
I read your marketing blog and although we have never met I feel like I’ve known you for years.”

Clearly, in both cases the person enquiring felt comfortable writing to me.  There was no barrier in the way – I was approachable.  Equally, in both cases, the writer said that they felt like they knew me.

This is REALLY important!

Why?

Because one of the reasons so many business owners and marketers fail to transfer their online networks and social media activity into bankable results, is that they place too much distance between themselves and the people they network with.  Even if they do try and build a community, it’s a community that has them positioned as the leader, rather than a host.

I’ve written about the host approach to social media before.  Here’s a brief overview.

Social media hosts

For the past few years, business owners and marketers have been told to build a following or tribe and then market to them.  I’ve always been uncomfortable with that.  So, I use a very different approach, which is based on the idea of a level playing field, where everyone is equal – No tribal leaders.

Think of the host at a really enjoyable party.  He or she greets guests when they arrive and spends the evening mixing with everyone and making sure that a great time is had by all.  The host of the party is not the leader, but rather an attendee; with a responsibility to ensure that everyone has the best experience possible.  They are eating, drinking and dancing alongside you.  They are talking with you and laughing with you.  When you leave the party, you leave with a great, positive feeling.  My approach to social media marketing, is based on that same host model.

The pay off?

The pay off for the kind of approach I advocate, was demonstrated in those 2 emails from yesterday.  By developing a network of people around your work, who feel that they know you and that you are approachable, you also build a deep and wide prospective client pool.

I would really like to hear your thoughts on the whole idea of social media rock stars.  Is it time for a more social approach to relationship building?

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!

Dealing with unwanted attention!

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One of the things seldom mentioned about developing a successful online profile or brand, is that as your visibility increases, you’re likely to start attracting some unwelcome attention.  This usually ranges from mild abuse on social networks, to full blown blog posts slamming you.

In my experience, there are 2 key reasons why someone would want to target a stranger in this way:

  1. They are jealous of what they believe that person has achieved or their popularity, and see the Internet as a way to anonymously vent their jealousy.
  2. They want to piggyback on that person’s influence, by getting the person to talk about them – even negatively.

Jealousy is one of the prices of success

In the age of the Internet, it’s relatively simple to spot people or brands that are popular.  You can see how many followers or fans someone has and it’s easy to see if their blog or website is popular too.  This makes popularity or success a lot more visible today than ever before.

Now, when you build something that’s popular or successful, most people will see your success as an inspiration; proof that if they do as you have done, they too can achieve the same or better.  However, there will also be a tiny percentage of people, who will see what you have achieved as a reminder of their own short comings.  Rather then improve their situation, they elect to negatively impact yours as a way to address the imbalance.

Dealing with this kind of thing, has become part of the price some people have to pay, for the visibility that comes with a prominent online profile.  The trick, by the way, is to see it for what it is and then move on.

Piggybacking on your success

Another reason why some people choose to take a swipe at those with a large online following, is a lot more calculated.  This, in my experience, is also a lot more common too.  Here’s the general idea behind it:

  • Bob has 100,000 followers on Twitter or a blog with 5,000 unique visitors a day.
  • Mary hasn’t.
  • Mary then decides that if she can get under Bob’s skin with an abusive tweet or blog post, Bob might respond and then his network of followers or readers will suddenly know that Mary exists.
  • Mary then hopes to increase the number of people who follow her, or read her blog as a result of this additional exposure.

In January 2009, I had one of the top 50 most followed accounts on Twitter and the 3rd largest following in England.  Back then, I used to get this kind of thing regularly.  I just ignored it, because I understood why people were doing it and what they wanted to achieve.  I simply saw it like a game and part of the price I had to pay, for deliberately making myself so visible.

A great example of this happened recently, on a much larger scale.  It was during an email exchange between Ryan Tate from Gawker and Apple CEO Steve Jobs.  After grilling Jobs via email, Tate immediately published the email exchange on his website and it went around the Internet like a virus.

It worked!

Well, kind of.

That’s because although it increased awareness of Ryan Tate, it didn’t paint him in a very positive light, as he tried to get under Jobs’ skin just to get a response.  The most heavily quoted part of the exchange, which Tate assumed would show Jobs to be an ass, actually seems to have done the opposite; according to much of the media coverage.  It clearly shows that although Jobs answered lots of Tates’ questions, he believed he knew what was behind it. This is also the final email in their exchange.

Here’s what Jobs said:

“By the way, what have you done that’s so great?  Do you create anything or just criticize other’s work and belittle their motivations?”

The email exchange made the mainstream news, but seems to have worked a lot better for Jobs, than for Tate.  Tate got the traffic, but Jobs got the PR.

The traffic for Tate will have long gone by now; however, the PR for Jobs, who has had people questioning his ability to run Apple with his health challenges, has been pure gold dust!

Conclusion

Thanks to the opportunities we have via the Internet, if we get our marketing right, we can reach thousands of people every day with our messages.  More prospective clients or customers can see us and we can attract leads and business enquiries all day long, 7 days a week.

In the grand scheme of things, these kind of tactics when directed at you are doing little more than signal your increased visibility – which is probably what you want.  The occasional irritating message or blog post is a relatively small price to pay and when seen in context, is almost something to look forward to.

It’s all about them!

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Why do so many marketers focus on what THEY want in their marketing messages, rather than the needs of their marketplace?

I was looking through my inbox earlier, and found several emails from people, who have been hounding me for business.  Not only have they been emailing me too frequently, but the tone of their emails is all about them, them, them.  Here’s what I keep seeing, from various people marketing AT me, right now:

  • THEY WANT the opportunity to show me their wonder product.
  • THEY WANT just 10 minutes of my time.
  • THEY WANT to add me to their mailing lists.
  • THEY WANT me to call them before Friday, when THEIR sale ends.

Guess what?  The marketplace does not care what THEY WANT!

It’s all about the customer

One of the golden rules of effective sales and marketing, is that it needs to be customer focused.  We need to look for ways to help our prospective clients or customers, using our products or services as part of that solution.  As a wise man once told me;

“To a guy with severe toothache, who is in constant pain and has not slept in 2 days, the pain of that toothache is more relevant than the news that scores of people perished in a disaster on the other side of the world.”

The more relevant something feels to us, the more inclined we are to give it our attention.  This is just as true with marketing.  A well targeted marketing message, which focuses on helping the reader improve their situation, is far more powerful, than a self-focused sales pitch.

Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!