Jim's Marketing Blog

Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business

Quick marketing tip

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Right now, no matter what kind of business you are in, one person or company is leading the way; locally, nationally or internationally.  These elite providers get to work with the most commercially valuable clients and their name is usually on everyone’s lips – but why?

A great marketing question

Most businesses spend their time focusing on their own little ecosystem.  They focus on their own business and their client’s or customers – that’s it.

Why not take some time out and do some research on what the top people in your industry are doing right now, which you could learn from or improve upon? This study of success can be extremely illuminating and a very effective way to make a lot of progress, very quickly!

Trust me – We’re great!

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This post is all about how to increase your sales and profits, by matching your actions to your promises.

Marketing & trust

Trust plays a BIG part in sales and marketing.  That’s because we buy from people we trust.  It’s also why testimonials and referrals are such powerful marketing tools.  They provide a short cut to the trust building process.  Even if you don’t know a service provider, the fact that a friend recommends them to you, immediately makes you massively more likely to do business with them, than with a stranger.

Marketing & consistency

There has been a lot written about the importance of building trust, yet very, very few marketing professionals ever mention one of the most important elements in the trust-building process. Consistency.

Even if a person or company has been recommended to you, you are unlikely to go ahead and use their services if they seem inconsistent, when you speak with them or check them out.  For example, if Bob recommends an accountant to you, but when you call them you are left waiting for ages before an uninterested person answers the phone, you still won’t use them.  That’s because there’s a lack of consistency between what you have been told and what you have experienced. This causes confusion and in marketing we know that a confused mind ALWAYS says NO!

Consistency & image

Many businesses (of all sizes), think that this consistency problem can be overcome by investing in a snazzy new logo and some well designed marketing material.  Banks and phone companies are a great example of this. They will often invest a fortune (millions) on beautifully designed websites, brochures and commercials – only for you to find that when you call them, you are placed in a queue, before your call is transferred to someone who’s clearly not interested and usually reading from a script or check list!

Whilst it’s REALLY important to invest in great design, this is only part of the challenge.  You also need to make sure that a prospective client’s experience of your business is consistent with that polished, professional image.

Marketing & customer service go hand in hand

Why not take a look at the overall experience a prospective client is likely to encounter, when connecting with your business?  Examine every part of the process.  This should include (though not exclusively), things like; how you deal with their initial email enquiry or phone call, how you handle the initial meeting and the follow-up.

How does their experience in these areas match up with your marketing promises of great customer service?  Remembering all the while that GREAT customer service means that you offer significantly better customer service than your competitors! Every business I have ever studied promises great customer service, yet most provide an average service at best.  They seem to do as little as they can ‘get away with’ – when they should be constantly searching for better ways to improve their customer’s experience.

This simple exercise should be expanded to include how well you look after your existing clients too – that’s if you intend keeping them!  Right now, with so many businesses really struggling, your competitors are working harder than ever to persuade your clients / customers to switch to THEM.

When you decide to offer truly great customer service you; add value to your service, generate more referrals, win more new business and just as importantly, retain more of your existing clients / customers too.

Do this right now

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Question: What happens whenever the economy gets tough?

Answer: People become massively more value focused!

Right now, there are businesses in the same industry, in the same town, selling to the same people; with very different results. Some will be struggling, whilst others will be seeing their market share increase – even in a recession.

We know that people are searching for great value right now, so ‘right now’, could be the perfect time for you to look for new ways to pump more value into your product or service.  No matter what you do or how well you do it, there will be something you can add or refine, which will increase the market value of your offering.

Most ReTweeted

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I received a very interesting email on Tuesday, which will be of interest to ANYONE who is using Twitter as a way to market their business, but not getting the kind of results they need.

First off, for those of you who do not already know, I used to be the 3rd most followed person on Twitter in England and one of the world’s top 50 most followed people. As a marketing professional, I quickly saw the total lack of value in having such a massive, yet untargeted network and got my Twitter account reset to zero! After this, I started achieving amazing marketing results from Twitter – In total, I have now generated around £50,000 in new business, via contacts I made on Twitter – using the service for an hour or two a week.

Bob’s Twitter problem

Bob, not his real name, wrote to ask me for some advice. He said that he spends around 3 hours each day on Twitter and that he has over 50,000 ‘followers’ – BUT that he has nothing to show for it; other than regularly appearing on various lists as one of the most ‘retweeted’ people that day. Bob wanted to know how to transform what he referred to as “all this popularity” into income for his small design business!

Twitter is NOT the end game – It’s just a tool

Many people, who start off using Twitter as a way to market their business and make new contacts, end up quickly forgetting this and instead, become obsessed with attracting as many followers as possible.  Building a large following on Twitter then becomes their end game – instead of building their business with the help of Twitter.

I took a look at Bob’s Tweets and they are mainly just him sharing other people’s favourite links.  As a result, his ‘following’ is untargeted.  He explained in his email that his ideal follower is the owner of a small business.  As far as he knows, very few of his followers are in that position.  Those who are, are usually following lots of other designers.  He went on to explain that the additional traffic his website gets because of his Twitter use, has been of zero value to him. No sales, no new clients and no referrals.

100 followers and 2 new clients in a month

Yesterday afternoon, I was speaking with a client of mine, who’s an Accountant.  He has only been using Twitter for a month, (around an hour or two in total spent Twittering) – YET he has already attracted 2 new clients directly via Twitter, using the same approach as me!

In February, I made over £7,500 from a project I undertook, for a contact I met on Twitter.  In total, I have made in excess of £50,000 via contacts I have made via Twitter.  I achieved this, even though I only invest around 20 minutes using Twitter, 3 or 4 days a week.

How come?

Professionally marketed businesses achieve great marketing results because they use an effective marketing strategy to develop their business.  The other 99% of small businesses ‘play it by ear.’  Most marketing carried out by small businesses is undertaken simply because it’s free / low cost – like email marketing, blogging or using Twitter, FaceBook or LinkedIn etc.

These businesses will send out emails, purely because they have a ‘list’ of names and it’s free to send these messages.  They will write a blog, without a clear idea of exactly what they are seeking to achieve. I had a comment on this blog from a reader, who has been blogging for 5 years, and has yet to acquire a single client through his blog!

Understand Twitter’s limitations

I have mentioned a few times already, that I have generated tens of thousands of pounds in business from people I MET on Twitter. The key word here is MET – I met them on Twitter – but I did not get to know them or try and market to them via Twitter. Twitter was exclusively used as a method to meet interesting people.

Twitter is a very poor tool, if you want to develop a relationship with someone.  Because of this, I make it super-easy for people to email or call me.  I advise my clients to do the same.  The contact page of this blog, for example, has my full contact details; postal address, phone number and email.  THAT’S where I ‘connect’ with the people I ‘meet’ via Twitter – NOT via Direct Messages!

Twitter is a great place to meet, but once you have met, if there’s any synergy between you and your new contact – GET THE HECK OUT OF TWITTER AND START TALKING!

For marketing, Twitter is NOT about numbers

Bob spends 3 hours a day on Twitter, ReTweeting other people’s links and communicating with a few dozen ‘regulars.’  That’s why his business is seeing no return for all his efforts.

From a business perspective, it’s far more profitable to have a smaller Twitter following, made up of people with a genuine interest in your core business.  These can either be prospective clients or prospective ‘introducer’s’ – People, who will recommend you to their contacts.

When I had tens of thousands of followers and followed over 20,000 people back, I was wasting a stack of time dealing with messages and direct messages from people, who had zero interest in me or my business.  They just wanted me to ReTweet links to their website, ask people to follow them or whatever, but they were really just sucking hours of my time each week, with no return on my part.  I occasionally got 600 direct messages in a single day!

Quality is key – not quantity.  Today, I have 2000 followers and I follow around 80 people.  However, I have spoken to or met way over 100 of the people who follow me. Add those I have sent / received mail from and that figure is closer to 1000.  NONE of these relationships have been built on Twitter.

Conclusion

You would not dream of meeting someone at a networking event, who was interested in your services, and then refuse to follow that up with a call or a meeting would you?  Just because you meet that same person via Twitter, the rules stay the same!

In my experience, the most profitable way for a small business to use Twitter as a marketing tool, is to use it as a way to connect with targeted people.  Once you have connected, if there seems to be a synergy, treat them like ANY other business contact and talk to them.  Show them that they are worth more than 140 characters to you.

Also, focus on quality and not quantity.  If you want to attract people with a potential need for your products or services, keep your Tweets on topic as often as you can.  I have people who I study on Twitter, like Bob the designer, who make it impossible to easily find out what they do for a living, based on their Tweets.

Your profile might say what you do and link to your website or blog, but remember; if your Tweets do not get people interested enough, they won’t check your profile out!

A pain in the neck

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In case you were wondering how come I have not posted anything to the blog for the past couple of weeks, here’s an update!

Over the past eight weeks, I have been suffering with an increasingly painful trapped nerve at the top of my neck. The end result was that for the past two weeks, I have been totally unable to type with my left hand (hence no posts to the blog.)

After realising that the medication I was on was not going to work, I decided it was time to call in a Chiropractor – and there’s a valuable lesson here, for anyone in sales!

I actually met with three qualified Chiropractors, before picking the one I trusted the most to get me out of pain and mobile again. Interestingly, the one I picked was NOT the least expensive. He was actually the most expensive by some margin!  However, he WAS the only one of the three to actually ask me about how the pain was making me feel; how the sleepless nights were impacting my quality of life etc.  He engaged me on the most basic level, by connecting with me as a human being. He fully understood my exact position and all the problems the pain was causing me.

Twenty minutes later, he had a new client.  Within 24 hours of my first treatment, he had reduced my pain by around 50%, I was able to throw the pain killers away and most important of all, I started being able to sleep again, after weeks of sleepless nights.

Sales lesson?

There’s an old saying in sales, which tells us that; “you buy the person, not the product / service.” By identifying the impact the pain was having on my life as a whole and showing me genuine empathy, my Chiropractor had set himself apart from the other two people I met. Their talk was all about them, how great they were and how affordable their services were.  They came across like salespeople, which is always a mistake, because there’s so much resistance out there to sales / marketing messages!

As Seth Godin, a friend of this blog said recently, “Selfish short-sighted marketers ruined it for all of us. The only way out, I think, is for a few marketers to so overwhelm the market with long-term, generous marketing that we have no choice but to start paying attention again.”

By the way, you REALLY should subscribe to Seth Godin’s blog – it’s excellent!

I have made many, many millions of pounds and dollars worth of sales over the years for my clients and myself and can honestly say, I have NEVER sold anyone, anything! However, LOTS of people have bought things from me!

Enough with the pitches – it’s 2009 for heaven’s sake!

Look for ways to contribute for free to your marketplace.  Engage people and show them you understand their ‘pain.’ There’s a recession on right now and many of those in your marketplace are hurting – get out there and find a way to help as many of them as possible.  For example, I offer free advice to people via this blog and my marketing newsletter. 95% of the people who read my material never even say thank you or comment here or email me – but that’s not important!

You see, there’s a MASSIVE 5% of people; who say great things about me, who recommend me to their clients and friends, who invite me to speak on their TV shows and radio programs and who pay me to handle their marketing for them.  These people forward my newsletter on to other people, they recommend my blog to everyone and they link to me. That’s why this blog as almost 13,000 links, even though it’s just 6 months old.

This is also the reason why I have no advertising on this blog.  I don’t want to sell you anything. I want you to come here, knowing that there’s no sales pitch.  I want you to know that when I say Seth’s blog is great or that FriendFeed‘s a great service, I am saying it for free, because I genuinely believe it.  If you like my work, use my ideas and see great results and THEN decide you want me to work with you, you will have to dig around the blog and find the one page, which tells you about my services.

Attraction marketing

Some call this approach ‘attraction marketing.’  That’s a fairly accurate description, because it’s an approach to business development and sales, which ‘attracts’ leads, enquiries, sales, orders and new clients / customers – rather than the traditional ‘pursuit marketing’ model.  There’s another post all about attraction marketing here.

Have a great day and please feel free to be one of that rare 5%, who forward this post, tweet about it, get in touch or leave a comment!

Seth Godin, Robert Scoble & Chris Brogan

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In this post, I am going to share one of the success factors behind; Seth Godin, Robert Scoble and Chris Brogan with you.  It’s all about one word; contribution.

A few weeks ago, I had a problem with this blog.  So, I got in touch with two experts, who I knew would be able to help; Robert Scoble and Chris Brogan.  In no time, both were kind enough to get back to me with some excellent advice and the problem was solved.

For those of you who don’t already know; Robert is the former ‘technology evangelist’ for Microsoft and is now one of the best known figures in technology.  Chris is, in my opinion, one of the world’s leading authorities on ‘social media.’  Between them, they have a dedicated following of hundreds of thousands of people.  These are two very busy people!

Of course, these guys gave their help without a second thought.  They also did so privately, OUT of the public gaze; so no one knew how helpful they had been to me, except me. That’s because they gave without expecting something in return. Neither of them know I have written this post or that it will be read by thousands of people today.

Seth Godin and contribution

As marketing expert and best selling author Seth Godin once told me;

“If you have an ulterior motive, your generosity is suspect.”

Wise words – especially as Seth shared them with me freely and in private! That’s right, these were not comments Seth made on a blog or in a Twitter message observed by thousands, to show how smart he is.  No, it was just Seth taking time-out from a very busy schedule, to share an idea with me. (Thanks Seth!!)

I genuinely believe that it is not a coincidence, that each of the three people I have mentioned in this post, are at the very top of their chosen professions.  For example, I was first made aware of Seth’s work, not by an advertisement or by his marketing blog – but after a good friend recommended him to me.  I was first made aware of Robert’s work, after Leo Laporte recommended him to me.  Again with Chris, he was recommended to me by a client of mine, who’s a fan of his work.

I would LOVE to think that after reading this post, some of you check out Seth Godin, Robert Scoble or Chris Brogan for the first time.

Seth, Robert, Chris – Thanks!

Focus on results – NOT hits!

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One of my favourite sayings is; “start with the end in mind.” In other words, make sure you know what your outcome is, before you decide to take action.

I was thinking about this earlier, when I received an email from a reader, who had just realised that the time and money she had been investing in marketing her website and blog over the past 18 months, had been pretty much a total waste of time!

Yes, she had seen ‘traffic’ into them increase from zero to around two thousand unique visitors a day – but it hadn’t generated anything tangible for her or her business.  In fact, it had actually hurt her business; because her time spent blogging, online networking and doing SEO had limited the amount of chargeable work she could do for her clients.

Marketing goals

This lady’s original marketing goal for her website and blog, was to showcase her skills as a business finance expert to a new audience and then convert some of these readers into paying clients.  However, she became so focused on producing regularly updated content and getting her Search Engine Optimisation ‘just right’ that she was using these numbers to track her success – rather than the actual number of new clients and enquiries she was getting.

This is a common scenario, when someone gets so involved in the mechanics of a marketing activity, that the activity itself becomes their goal – rather than a tool to help them reach their goal.

Taking stock

marketing results outcomesIf you have a commercial website or blog, how focused are you on the tangible or bankable results you get from it?

I am not talking about hits, metrics, comments or subscriber numbers – I’m talking about actual, business results, what your accountant would call your ROI (return on investment).

Here are some examples of questions we all need to ask ourselves, if we invest our time and/or money on a website or blog:

  • If your site/blog is there to generate enquiries for your business – how many is it generating each day and what quality are they?
  • If your site/blog is supposed to be generating advertising revenue, how much money is it making for you each week?
  • If your site/blog is supposed to be positioning you as an authority in your area of expertise, how many more calls are you getting from newspapers, trade publications and the media – wanting your opinions?

It does us all good from time to time, to take stock of where we are and to ensure that everything we are investing our time, money and energy in is actually taking us toward our business goals.  Otherwise, we run the risk of rowing our boat REALLY hard in the wrong direction and suddenly wondering why we are in the wrong place after all that hard work.

Boost sales with your advertising!

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In this post, I am going to show you how to get massively better results from your advertising – starting right now!

Making advertising work!

If you tried advertising in the past and found that the only winner was the person who sold it to you, you’re not alone.  Over the years, I have helped market the services of thousands of businesses, spanning just about every industry and profession.  During my initial conversations with the people behind these businesses, I would often hear a version of the following statement:

“We tried advertising – it doesn’t work!”

Advertising actually DOES work (really well), but only if you use it correctly.  I have personally sold many millions of pounds (and dollars) worth of products and services for my clients and myself, with the help of advertising.  In this post, I am going to share one of the secrets of my advertising success with you.

If you have a small or medium sized business and are advertising with the intention of making sales, boosting your profits and transforming your income; I suggest the only form of advertising worth investing in is action advertising.

Why is ACTION advertising so effective for smaller businesses?

ACTION advertising is designed to make the reader take action.  Big companies are usually seeking to get someone to switch from one brand of cola, razor blade or sports shoes etc to another.  These adverts can be effective by simply associating good feelings or famous / beautiful people with their ‘brand.’

Small businesses typically advertise in order to generate sales.  Their advertising needs to; get their phone ringing, fill their store with eager buyers or fill their inbox with sales requests and enquiries.  This means their adverts need to inspire some form of direct response or action from the reader / listener.  A good quality action advertisement includes the following:

–  It tells the reader who the advertiser is.
–  It tells the reader what the benefits of their product or service is.
–  It gives them a motivating reason to ACT NOW – to call, visit or e-mail the advertiser.
–  It tells them to contact the advertiser – usually with a time sensitive or limited availability element!

Here’s an example of a simple action advertisement I read (with the company’s details changed):

“ACME Widgets can save you a recession-busting 45% on your annual widget costs, that’s why we are inviting you to attend our wine and widget evening on 26th February at 7pm.  You can reserve your place now by calling Rachael on 012345 123123.  As places are limited, please call now to avoid disappointment!  Acme Widgets, 22 East Street, London.”

In contrast, most small business advertising creates little motivation for the reader to take action.  These ads are often based around the following:
–  They tell the reader the name of the service or business.
–  They show the reader the advertiser’s logo.
–  They tell the reader a little about what the advertiser does or their benefits.
–  They sometimes list a ‘special offer’.
–  They usually give the reader some contact details.

These ineffective adverts provide information about who the advertiser is and what they do, BUT give no reason for the reader to take action and contact them.  Guess what – generally, no one does!  Here’s a real life example, (with the company name/details changed):

“Acme Widgets have over 20 years of experience and our customer service is second to none.  Last year our widgets were voted ‘Best Value Widget’ by What Widget Magazine.  Our best selling Orange Widget is just £250.  Acme Widgets, 22 East Street, London”.

The majority of small business advertising I see in the press or in trade journals, is far less effective than it could or should be.  There is nothing compelling about what they say – nothing to inspire the reader to do anything.  When I started out in marketing, back in the 1980’s, we used to call these ineffective advertisements ‘flick-through ads’ – because people would literally see them and just carry on flicking through whichever publication they were in, without doing anything.

Remember, all motivation comes from motive

If you want your advertisement to generate masses of new business, you can!  But you need to advertise where your ideal future clients/customers are and give them a BIG enough reason to inspire them to take the action you require.  People are not stupid and will only contact you if there’s a compelling / motivating enough reason for them to do so.  Just having your message “out there” is simply not enough!

Quick marketing tip

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Here’s a quick marketing tip, which has helped thousands of people to massively improve their sales results.

One of the most common marketing problems businesses have, is reaching the right people at the right time. You need to get YOUR message in front of people, at the exact point where they are extremely interested in buying your kind of product or service.  So, how does it work?

Marketing, word of mouth and a recommendation too!

This quick marketing tip is all about identifying the people, which your prospective clients contact before they are about to purchase your kind of product or service – and getting these people to recommend you.  This means you not only get a supply of sales leads from extremely hot prospective clients, you also get to benefit from the power of a referral too!

Example:  Although this process works for business to business providers and in many different industries, for this example, let us assume that your business supplies and fits wall and floor tiles.  You would start off by asking yourself; “what do people do just BEFORE they get their bathroom or kitchen re-tiled?”  Well, in some cases, the person will have just experienced a flood etc and called in a plumber.  Equally, they may have got a plumber in to fit a new bathroom suite and now require the floor and walls re-tiled.

So, you would contact the plumbers, who work in the areas and the kind of homes you want to work with, and offer them a standard referral fee for every piece of work their referrals generate for you.  Obviously, you would show them some examples of how brilliant the quality of your work is, so they knew they were recommending a high quality service.

What kind of businesses can use this marketing tip?

I have seen this simple idea work wonders for; web designers, accountants, hotels, marketing consultants, recruitment companies, trainers, insurance providers, lawyers, hosting companies, maintenance providers, PR firms and stacks more.

By being selective about who you get to recommend you, you will also be able to attract work from the ideal profile of client or customer for your business too!  This is a great way to attract excellent quality, highly targeted leads – Without wasting a penny on ineffective advertising. You only pay when a lead becomes a piece of business, making it one of the most profitable forms of marketing out there.

A residual income & stacks of kudos

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When I wrote and published my Motivation Master Class audio series, I did so because I knew the product would be a success.  It has generated a very nice residual income for me over the past 3 years and helped thousands of people, spanning 4 continents, to achieve some great results.

Once the audio series was written and produced, I was able to refer to myself in my marketing as Jim Connolly; author and marketing coach.  You might (or might not) be amazed to know what an immediate, powerful impact that had on my marketing results. Response rates improved across the board.  I also found that I was able to easily get guest spots on the radio and to have my articles published.  The Business Editor’s of newspapers were keen to give me write ups in their business pages – and all because I decided to put some of my knowledge onto CD’s.

Two good reasons to get that book of yours on paper

These days, many people with a specialisation decide to write an ebook.  These are usually given away for free, though some are sold.  Whilst this is great, it’s becoming increasingly common.  In other words, telling people you are the author of an ebook has a lot less impact, than being the author of a hardback or paperback book. That’s because anyone with a computer and some free software can publish an ebook.

However, only a tiny percentage of people (and a microscopic number of your competitors), will have been published as the author of a traditional, softback or hardback book.  The good news is that now, you can self-publish a book for very little and benefit, the same as me, from; a new income stream and a stack of kudos!

How?

There are a number of websites, which will allow you to produce high quality hardback or paperback books in extremely small numbers (or huge ones).  Try a google search for “self publishing”.  Lulu.com is probably the best known of these self-publishing websites.  So, if you just want to produce 10 or 50 paper-based copies (just to get you started or test the market)  – Now you can!

A new income stream or career?

There could be a huge public demand for your book – and a great way to find out is to get it ‘out there!’  I sold copies of my audio program all over the world and made a lot of money with very little effort.  I know a large number of my readers are specialists in their area of business, just like I am with marketing.  However, I also know that many of my readers are not professional marketers – but you don’t have to be.  Many of these self-publishing sites will even help you market your book, if you want them to.  They will also deal with things like distribution.

I’m not suggesting this is ideal for everyone.  I would only suggest doing this if you genuinely believe your book will be of interest to people – the idea is to produce something of value, with potential to become a profitable income stream for your business. The kudos of the author title, whilst powerful, should be secondary.