In life there are certain people who you absolutely need to avoid. The same is true in business.

Some are easy to spot

• The web designer whose own website is a mess or outdated.
• The marketing expert, who embarrassingly needs to attend networking groups because their own marketing doesn’t work.
• The business guru who claims to be in high demand, yet offers free consultations.
• The copywriter whose content is poorly-written and lacks impact.
• The leadership expert who’s just like all the other leadership experts. (Think about that for a moment).

Others are harder to spot

• The social media guru, who used tricks to attract half a million followers.
• The accountant, who understands numbers, but can’t clearly explain what they mean to your business.
• The strategist, whose own strategy is failing.
• The business development coach who’s never built a successful business of their own.

Protecting your business from bad advice

The personal recommendation of a trusted friend is usually the least risky way to find an expert provider. Just make sure the friend has recent, first-hand experience of the quality of the provider’s work.

Another option is to find someone, whose work you’re already familiar with. If, for example, you subscribe to a provider’s Podcast or YouTube channel and they regularly share useful information, they’re showing you 2 things.

1. The fact they have turned up consistently, demonstrates a degree of reliability. This is especially if they have many years worth of material available.
2. You get to see, first hand, just how knowledgeable they are, from the quality of information they share.

With an attractive looking website and some testimonials, anyone can claim to be an expert in anything. And that’s why we, as business owners, need to look deeper. Because the cost of hiring a bad business provider is far, far higher than their fee.

Let's work together: I can help you build a more successful business, increase your sales and boost your profits. To find out how, read this.

Here are some ideas, which you can use to dramatically improve the results of all your written marketing.

It’s all about the marketing power of headlines.

Your headline has to capture the reader’s attention

Headlines are important. Really important.

You see, it doesn’t matter how great your message is, if too few people read it. That’s where your headline (or title or subject line) comes in. The headline’s primary job is to attract attention, gain interest and then motivate the reader to carry on reading.

Think about it:

• The headline is what inspires prospective clients to open your marketing email.
• It’s what motivates them to read your blog post or article, when someone shares it on a social network.
• It’s what compels them to listen to your podcast or watch your video.
• It’s also what grabs their attention and interest when they see one of your advertisements.

Advertising legend David Ogilvy was in no doubt regarding the importance of headlines. He famously said:

“When you have written your headline, you have spent 80 cents out of your dollar.”

Treat your headlines with the importance they deserve. Give yourself plenty of time to craft the best headline possible. The following tips and examples will help you get the balance right.

Your headline should accurately reflect your content

Because headlines play such a huge role in getting your content noticed, it’s tempting to over exaggerate them. (Yes, the headline of this post is a tongue-in-cheek example of what I mean).

Sometimes called clickbait, these attention-grabbing headlines are proven to generate traffic. The reason I strongly recommend most people reading this not to adopt that headline strategy, is this:

Your headlines make a promise, which your content MUST deliver on.

Make your headlines as compelling as you can. Use words that will compel people to read what you have to say. But make darn sure that your content backs up the promise of the headline. You may be able to fool someone once or twice with clickbait. But unless your content delivers on the promise of the headline, people will quickly learn to ignore you.

Your headline needs to be written for your target market

Your marketing message is intended to connect with a very specific group of people: Your prospective clients or customers. The headlines you use should do the same. This means speaking their language and addressing their concerns and opportunities.

Here’s why this matters:

• By focusing your headlines around the interests of your target market, you help your marketing message to attract the attention of the right people.
• Conversely, by using headlines that attract the attention of a wider group of people, you cease to be directly relevant to your target market.

In other words, use headlines that are directly relevant to your prospective clients.

Your headlines should match your medium

If you’re writing a headline that’s intended for a print magazine, newspaper or flyer, you have certain freedoms, which you don’t have when writing for the internet.

For example, if you want your internet article’s headline to be fully displayed in search results, you need to use around 60 / 65 characters or fewer. Going beyond that will see your headline cut short.

If your headline is intended for email marketing, you need to take other things into consideration. For example, if you include exclamation marks!! in your subject line, along with a number and maybe a word that’s in ALL CAPS, it’s highly likely to end up in a lot of spam or junk filters. Email software looks for certain common factors used by spammers and if it sees them in the email headlines you use, it could wrongly treat your marketing as spam.

In short, you need to adapt depending on the medium you’re using.

The only 2 types of headline that matter

There is a lot of debate among marketing professionals, regarding the correct way to use headlines.

They take entrenched stances, each insisting that their approach is the only strategy that’s professional or effective. In almost every case I have seen, they totally miss the point!

When it comes to the headlines you use in your marketing, there are just 2 broad categories worthy of your attention.

1. Headlines that work for you and your business goals.
2. Headlines that are failing you and your business goals.

You need to find the correct balance for what you want to achieve. And it will differ depending on your brand, your industry and your business model.

For example, BuzzFeed has grown into a very successful media business, initially relying heavily on a controversial, yet powerful headline formula. Many labelled their approach as being linkbait or clickbait. And they were wrong. That’s because the quality of the BuzzFeed’s content was consistently compelling, so their readers returned. In fact, they returned and re-shared, which helped the readership grow even faster.

In summary

Experiment until you find what works best for you. Test and measure your headlines, titles and email subject lines. Just make sure that your content delivers on the promise they make.

Get this balance right and you can dramatically and measurably improve your marketing results.

Let's work together: I can help you build a more successful business, increase your sales and boost your profits. To find out how, read this.

When it comes to creating successful marketing messages, the word ‘new’ is overrated. Moreover, it can critically damage the effectiveness of your marketing — losing you new customers or clients in the process.

There are 2 main reasons for this:

1. A new product or service is always seen as a risky bet. At best, it’s a bigger gamble than the existing solution. At worst, the customer feels like a paying guinea pig.
2. A new product or service is seldom, if ever, the best. It lacks the improvements that come from years of customer feedback. It lacks the robustness that comes from being stress-tested.

Yes, when you have an announcement to make, (like moving to new premises), people expect to see ‘new’ and they understand the context.

The challenge comes, when a key part of your marketing message is that you offer a new way to do something. Even some big brands struggle to sell ‘new’ to people, despite multi-million dollar marketing campaigns.

Thankfully, you can totally avoid this challenge.

Use better alternatives

Instead of relying on ‘new’, offer your marketplace something more compelling. More secure. More attractive. More motivating.

For example, rather than offering them a ‘new’ way, look at the core benefit of your product or service. Then, market that benefit to them instead. So, instead of a ‘new’ way, you could offer them one or more of the following 12 alternatives.

1. A faster way.
2. A secure way.
3. An enjoyable way.
4. A greener way.
5. A stylish way.
6. A stress-free way.
7. An original way.
8. A premium quality way.
9. A proven way.
10. An ethical way.
11. A guaranteed way (this example works extremely well).
12. A cost effective way.

In short, if a potential customer sees your ‘new’ whatever, as a risky or unproven option, it’s very unlikely that they’ll buy from you. So use better alternatives. Alternatives that build trust and inspire them to buy from you or hire you.

Here's a suggestion: Let's work together. I can help you build a more successful business, increase your sales and boost your profits. To find out how, read this.

Here are 5 tips, to help you build a valuable newsletter readership or list. I used each of these ideas when growing my first newsletter, which had over 45,000 subscribers when I published the final edition in 2008.

Let’s go.

Newsletter Tip 1: Go easy on the pitches

Make sure it’s a newsletter and not a badly disguised advertisement. Here’s the thing: People avoid advertising. We skip the commercials on TV. We pay developers to remove the ads from the free version of their apps. We see advertisements as unwelcome interruptions.

If your newsletter reads a little too much like a sales pitch, it will be largely ignored. This leads nicely into the next point.

Newsletter Tip 2: Be useful

The more useful your newsletter is, the more your readers will value it and share it. Your ultimate goal is to build a large, targeted reader community, who become either clients, customers or advocates. None of that can be achieved with predictable, pedestrian content.

Useful content is what gives your newsletter wings. It’s what inspires people to subscribe, stay subscribed, share and make purchasing decisions. So, before you hit send on a newsletter, make sure it’s packed with valuable, useful information. Offer answers to your reader’s problems. Share useful tips. Point your readers to useful resources.

The more value you pack into each newsletter, the more your readers will value it… and the more they will value you. Think about that for a moment.

Newsletter Tip 3: Get the design right

Even if your content is wonderful, people won’t take it seriously if the design looks poor. The first bite is with the eye.

If your newsletter provides valuable information, but the design looks amateurish or outdated, it’s like serving them a delicious meal on a dirty plate.

So invest in the best design or newsletter template you can. Because whether your newsletter looks cheap or is presented professionally, it all reflects back on you.

Newsletter Tip 4: Ask readers to share

Even if readers think your newsletter is great, it may not occur to them to share it. People are busy. Really busy. By reminding them, you plant the idea of sharing the newsletter in their mind. Moreover, you do this at the exact point, where they have just read it and enjoyed it. I used to have a section at the bottom of my newsletter, which said:

“If you have found this newsletter interesting, please share it with your friends”.

When I added that short message to my newsletter, the results were immediate and measurable. It’s amazing what a simple reminder can do.

Newsletter Tip 5: Help it spread

Convert people who had your newsletter forwarded to them, into subscribers.

Imagine your friend had just forwarded a great newsletter to you. You’d want to get a regular copy, right? You don’t want to have to rely on your friend, remembering to forward each edition to you. So, I added the following sentence to the above message:

“If you have had this newsletter forwarded to you and would like a regular copy, click here.”

Never underestimate the power of a subtle, non-pushy reminder.

Make no mistake — newsletters can be an extremely powerful marketing asset. It’s why I make my blog available in newsletter format. And it’s why I ask you to take your newsletter seriously and invest in it accordingly. Give it the time and effort it needs. Because the rewards for getting it right are huge. No. Bigger than that.

Don’t miss this: How to build a subscriber list that builds your business.

Here's an idea: Let's grow your business! I can help you build a more successful business, increase your sales and boost your profits. To find out how, read this.

Business is changing. Moreover, business is changing fast. This is great news for agile thinking business owners, who embrace the opportunities. However, it’s not such great news for business owners who are working in 2018’s rapidly changing environment, with an outdated approach to business.

Today, I’m going to share some ideas on how you can benefit from the exciting opportunities that are all around you.

First, I’d like to demonstrate how things have improved and why we need to apply a new mindset, to the new landscape.

A new mindset for a new landscape

Many of the world’s most influential businesses were unknown 20 years ago. Some, such as Facebook and Twitter, weren’t founded until the mid 2000’s.

That kind of global growth was previously unthinkable.

What’s more, billion dollar companies that lead their industries have been started by relative unknowns, in very untraditional ways.

Here’s a great example. Writing in Techcrunch, Tom Goodwin summed up the new age of agile business:

“Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate. Something interesting is happening.”

Tom is right. Something interesting is happening. None of those achievements or business models were possible until very recently. The game has changed. And it has changed for ever.

The age of agile business

When I look at small businesses, they tend to fall into one of the following 2 broad categories: They are either dinosaurs or agile operators. That’s to say their approach to the agile business landscape means they are facing extinction or facing unparalleled success.

Armed with a laptop and an idea, there’s very little an agile business cannot achieve.

• The new business landscape allows an agile small business owner to have an idea in the morning, and put that idea into play before the end of business that same day.
• Using social networks, we can listen to what our marketplace wants and provide that want. No more guess work. No more focus-groups. You can get it right every time. And in a fraction of the time.
• Instant access to data, means research that took weeks or months can now be done in days. And at a fraction of the price.
• With a great marketing email and some email software, a struggling business can generate a fortune in sales…  and fast!
• With the correct strategy, anyone can develop their own community. I reach thousands of people every day, many of whom are prospective clients, without spending a penny on advertising. You can too.
• If you have a great business idea, you no longer need a bank loan. Today, you can use crowdfunding to get the investment you need. People are doing this all day, every day.

Make no mistake, this is the golden age of business, which people have dreamed about for decades.

Yet, in spite of all this potential, almost all small business owners operate their businesses with a 2000’s mindset. They lack agility. This places them at a huge disadvantage.

For example:

• They still take just as long to make a decision, even though they can get the feedback they need in a fraction of the time. As a result, their agile competitors have already eaten their lunch.
• They use social networks to follow the crowd, rather than lead their marketplace.
• They have a website that’s almost an online brochure, when it should be and could be, a lead-generating machine for their business. If you didn’t start work today with leads from your website waiting for you, you should have. Fix it. You’re leaving money on the table.
• They waste money advertising, when they should be building their own platform.
• They waste time, money and energy attending networking groups, like people did in the 1970’s, rather than build their own community.

No matter what industry you are in. No matter where you are. Your potential right now is limited only by your willingness, or otherwise, to embrace the mindset required for business success in 2018.

What an opportunity. Grasp it with both hands.

Here's an idea: Let's grow your business! I can help you build a more successful business, increase your sales and boost your profits. To find out how, read this.

I’d like to share a short, easy to understand, yet extremely valuable idea with you today. It’s all about attracting high quality leads on a very regular basis.

I was prompted to write this, after some emails I received this morning. As usual, a number of them contained a version of the following statement: I feel like I already know you. These emails were from people I’ve never met. In each case, they were referring to knowing me via the ideas I share, either on my blog or the email version of the blog.

Why am I telling you this?

What this means for you and your business

Now imagine that instead of me receiving those highly targeted, premium quality leads, it was YOU.

You received them. With more tomorrow, the next day and the next. More leads than you need. And all from people who feel like they know you. People who know your work. People whose attention you have. People who already trust you. (Think about that for a moment).

This opportunity is open to you. Wide open. It requires a couple of things.

1. You’ll need to generously, regularly share valuable information. Information so useful, that people will eagerly want to receive it and share it.
2. You’ll need to accept that no matter how great your information is, very few people will take notice at the beginning. Which is fine. Because all you need are your first 10 people. They’ll share your stuff with 10 like-minded friends. Now you’re at 100, which becomes 1000 or 10000 or 100000. If you stick with it.

That second part is where most people fail.

They invest time and effort for weeks, sometimes months, and see little audience growth. They get demotivated. Then quit. Largely because they have been given incorrect expectations of how growing an audience actually works. Despite what many content marketing gurus say, building a valuable audience takes time. It requires patience and commitment.

Focus on the 10

The key is to focus ONLY on earning the attention and trust of those first 10 people. Turn up regularly and give them your best ideas (not sales pitches or advertisements). As long as the information you share is useful enough and you turn up regularly enough, your audience will grow. And the growth accelerates as more people subscribe. When I started my blog, it took me an age to get my first 100 readers. Today, I can get that many in 24 hours. So, stick with it.

I hope you found this information useful. But more importantly, I hope it inspires you to build an extremely valuable community.

Here's an idea: Let's grow your business! I can help you build a more successful business, increase your sales and boost your profits. To find out how, read this.

In this post, I gave you 4 examples of businesses that stand out from their competitors. Today, I have a strategy you can use, to help your marketing get noticed by your most motivated, prospective clients.

It starts with a question.

What keeps your prospective clients (or customers) awake at night?

There are 2 broad answers to that question.

1. The things they’re worried about. Their fears, apprehensions and concerns.
2. The things they’re excited about. Their goals, dreams and the opportunities ahead of them.

Anything that keeps them awake at night is a super-high priority to them. It’s where their urgent attention is. Make no mistake, these are red-hot, prospective clients. In order to help them and benefit from this opportunity, your task is twofold.

1. You need to determine exactly what they’re worried or excited about.
2. You need to clearly demonstrate how your product or service, will help them in one of both of those key areas.

Most marketing doesn’t do this. Instead, it focuses on how great the provider is. How happy they are to help. How their clients or customers love them.

The most effective marketing speaks directly to the need of the prospect. It addresses that thing, which is keeping the prospect awake at night. Only after that, does it position the provider as the answer. And in doing so, it captures the prospect’s attention.

Take a look at the various marketing assets you use. Do they focus primarily and directly on the needs of your prospective client or customer? If not, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity.

They have to choose you

Here’s something to consider, my friend. You’re a professional. You care deeply about the absolute satisfaction of your clients or customers. The only way you can guarantee that they will be well looked-after, and get outstanding value, is if YOU look after their need. If they end up with one of your competitors, anything could happen to them. In short, if your marketing fails you, it fails them too.

Tip: Get the marketing help you and your business need. To find out how, read this.

One area of marketing I often get asked about, is how to improve email open rates. So, I thought I’d share ten of the most common reasons for unopened email marketing with you.

In no particular order.

1. The email subject line didn’t motivate the recipient to open it. Getting this right is trickier than it sounds. That’s because many of the words used to inspire people to open an email, are also spam filter triggers.
2. You sent the email at the wrong time of day or on the wrong day. This can have a huge impact. Despite what some people say, there’s no universally ‘best day or time’ to optimize email open rates. For example, different timing is required when you target consumers, than when you target businesses. Different times also work better for different industries; hotels work completely different hours than accountants. They also have totally different peak times, when they’re unavailable to check email and are least likely to see your message. One time doesn’t work for all. Test and measure until you find your email open rate sweet-spot.
3. The recipient’s email address is on a list you bought, so they have no idea who you are. And the people on these lists get bombarded with tons of marketing emails. This means they’re far more likely to have aggressive mail filters.
4. Your list is out of date, with lots of addresses that no longer exist or are no longer monitored. Non existent email addresses will register as ‘bounces’, and are easily cleaned with email marketing software. Unmonitored addresses will still be able to receive emails, so they don’t bounce. Depending on the software you use, you can either set things up so addresses are deleted after ‘X’ number go unopened, or remove unresponsive addresses manually.
5. The content of a previous email didn’t engage the reader, so they were less inclined to open subsequent emails.
6. You send marketing emails direct from your desktop software, rather than use a trusted email marketing provider (mailchimp, aweber, constant contact, etc). If you send large numbers of the same email from your own IP address, your address can become blacklisted. When that happens, your emails won’t even reach the recipient’s spam folder.
   Tip: You can check if your IP address is blocked, using Spamhaus.
7. The email content (or body) contained certain words, which trigger email filters, so the email is wrongly identified as spam.
8. The email contained too many links or images. These are also common spam filter triggers.
9. You included an email attachment. Attachments are major sources of malware, so are often blocked.
10. The recipient uses Gmail. Gmail has started to dump valid emails into the recieptient’s promotions folder. They get no notification when these emails arrive. As such, open rates plummet. I know from personal experience that my Gmail subscribers can miss up to 50% of my emails.

Email can be a spectacularly powerful marketing tool. And sometimes just a few improvements can lead to massively better results.

Let's grow your business! I can help you build a more successful business, increase your sales and boost your profits. Here's how it works.

Photo: Shutterstock

You’re reading about a product or service.

It sounds amazing.

Then you spot it!

You spot the dreaded *asterisk. And your heart sinks.

You know you’re about to be disappointed. You’re about to discover the caveats, exclusions and conditions, which means that offer isn’t as good as they said it was.

They could have told you the truth without hiding it behind the asterisk. However, they deliberately chose not to. They intentionally concealed it from you. And in a split second, they’ve totally changed how you feel about them.

You wonder what else they’re hiding from you.

And if you only discover afterwards that you’ve been duped, you won’t be happy!

Eliminate the asterisk risk

If a business owner feels they need to hide something behind an asterisk, there are better alternatives.

The easiest is to make the product or service as good as you said. Thus removing the need for an asterisk. This will simultaneously pump more value into your offering, making it more attractive.

Another powerful alternative is this: State, in honest and clear language, exactly what you’re offering. And include whatever would have been behind the asterisk, explaining why it’s there.

For example, imagine it’s an introductory deal, offering your service at a reduced price for the first 3 months. Rather than quote the introductory price (and hide the fact it increases after 3 months, behind an asterisk), tell them. Let them know that you’re so confident they’ll love your service, you’re offering it at a super-low discount, so they can discover for themselves, why it’s outstanding value for money, at the regular price.

Social networks give the marketplace a powerful voice. That voice can either be used to tell everyone how great a vendor is, or how bad a vendor is. Thankfully, business owners get to choose the kind of experience that’s being shared.

That’s why the smartest brands aim for honesty and transparency at every opportunity. And why they refuse to hide the truth behind an asterisk.

If you have any questions, you can ask me right here.

Photo: Shutterstock.

The most successful marketing is built on strong foundations. This brief post will help you get it right.

Before you market anything to anyone, there are 3 important questions your prospective customers need you to answer.

1. I’m really busy. And I get pestered with sales messages all day. Why should I give you my attention?
2. Everyone promises an outstanding service. Most fail to deliver on that promise. What meaningful reasons are there for me to risk buying from you (or risk switching to you from my current provider)?
3. I’ve never heard of you. I’ve never done business with you. Why on earth should I trust you? (I answer this here, in yesterday’s post).

The best marketers answer those questions fully, before they sell anything to anyone. And I strongly recommend you do the same, my friend. Because if you do, you’ll capture attention, create a compelling message and build the trust required for your marketing to succeed.

If you have any questions, you can ask me right here.

Photo: Shutterstock.

I received a marketing email this morning, which started with the following 4 words: “Sorry to disturb you”.

There’s a lot of subtext in those 4 words.

• The sender knew what they were doing was wrong, which is why they opened with an apology.
• Clearly, they also knew that their email was a disturbance. I’ve never heard of them.
• Knowing this, they still decided to send it anyway.

Like everyone else who received that email, I stopped reading after the opening sentence. They may have had a great message, an outstanding offer or a wonderful opportunity to share. But their email let them down, so no one will know.

Oblivious to this, the sender will be wondering why they received no positive response. Especially if they genuinely have something valuable to share.

If we consider this to be merely an example of ineffective email marketing, we totally miss the point!

I believe it provides us with a powerful microcosm of ALL ineffective marketing.

If you have any questions, you can ask me right here.

Photo: Shutterstock.

One thing in business is certain. There’s no shortage of buzzwords and phrases. Here are just a few that I’ve seen in use recently.

• Intersection.
• Deep-dive.
• Disrupt.
• Ruckus.
• Knowledge transfer.
• Ideate.
• Pragmatic.
• Wheelhouse. (As used in “that’s in my wheelhouse”)
• Paradigm.
• And all those compound words, ending with ‘hack’ or ‘hacking’

Those buzzwords and countless others, are used by people in an effort to appear informed or fashionable. Interestingly, buzzwords have the total opposite effect.

Here’s how they work against us (and our marketing).

• Buzzwords make informed people cringe. Not only is this embarrassing, it’s a terrible idea if we want our peers to take us seriously or recommend us.
• Buzzwords confuse the uninformed. And that’s the last thing we need, when we want people to understand our message.

In short, buzzwords not only add nothing positive to our marketing, they actively weaken it. And because they’re 100% unnecessary, we can remove them with no negative impact.

Remember: One of the keys to effective marketing is to always aim for clarity.

Why?

Because clarity sells.

If you have any questions, you can ask me right here.

Photo: Shutterstock.

A reader shared an interesting observation with me.

She told me she had “found out the hard way, that email marketing doesn’t work”.

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

Email marketing works

In fact, it works extremely well. It works predictably, too. Just ask any business owner who’s using it correctly. What doesn’t work is ineffective email marketing. That’s because ineffective email marketing can’t work.

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

• 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, whatever. And almost all small business marketing emails are DIY attempts, not professionally written.
• A professionally-written email, sent to the wrong people, won’t work. It will fail to reach those with a demand for your services.
• A great email, sent to the right people, with the wrong subject line, won’t work. No one will open it.

You get the idea. In short, before you reject any form of marketing as being ineffective, make sure you’re using it correctly.

P.S. I’ve helped thousands of business owners make massively more sales and boost their profits. Now, I'm offering you the same opportunity. Here's how it works.

Image: Shutterstock.

Business owners often ask me “do lead magnets work?“, as a way to grow their newsletter lists. If you’re considering using them, or you’re wondering why they’re not working for you, you should find the following useful.

Let’s go.

Lead magnets?

For those who don’t already know, the term lead magnets was made popular by internet marketing gurus / social media gurus (and pretty much every get-rich-quick guru). However, the concept has been around for decades.

It refers to a freebie, which is used to entice people to give you their contact details. The most common freebies include ‘special reports’, white papers, ‘exclusive’ audio / video content or some kind of important information that’s only available via email. In return for the freebie, people are asked to provide their contact details.

Because of the negativity attached to lead magnets, many internet marketing gurus refer to them as ethical bribes. I’m not sure why they think a bribe sounds better!

Lead magnets and lists

Probably the most common use of lead magnets, is list building for newsletters. On the surface, they seem like a no-brainer. You certainly can attract lots of contact details with them.

However, there’s a major downside.

They are notorious for attracting the lowest possible quality contact details. That’s because the use of free stuff as bait, is most attractive to so-called freebie hunters; who are attracted to freebies like moths to a flame.

Why does this result in low quality?

Many / most freebie hunters use dedicated email addresses, just for getting their free offers. They check the email address only when they’re waiting for the freebie to arrive. As such, lists built from lead magnets can be really poor quality. Yes, you’ll probably attract some genuine contacts, too. But the overall quality will be massively lower than a normal list.

That said, there are some instances where lead magnets are worth considering.

Lead magnets can work

One example where lead magnets can work, is if you’re building a newsletter readership, where your business model is advertising. Offering a freebie, to people who pay you with their attention, and never need to pay you financially, can be a pretty good fit. So, if you’re offering a newsletter, and your advertisers pay based on the size of your list or reach (which they shouldn’t, but that’s another post), lead magnets will work.

I’ve also seen lead magnets used successfully for the sale of low-cost, downloadable content.

Interestingly, this is exactly what internet marketing gurus sold for years. Before they all switched to selling online training courses, they used to offer ‘information products’. Remember them? Those ebooks that claimed to blow the lid off your potential, or show you how to make a fortune while you sleep… and all for just 29.99.

Sigh.

Where lead magnets work least well

Without doubt, the area where lead magnets work least well, is with service providers; lawyers, accountants, coaches, consultants, mentors and designers, etc., etc.

I regularly hear from service providers, who have built lists using lead magnets and seen terrible results. In fact, I was prompted to write about this after an email I received from a reader in Sydney, Australia. She’s a copywriter and has built a list of over 45,000 lead magnet contacts, which she’d mailed for 12-months. It didn’t generate one paying client. She showed me some of the emails she’d sent, and as you’d expect from a professional writer, they were superb. But the list itself just wasn’t worth mailing.

There are a couple of key reasons why lead magnets are so ineffective for service providers:

1. The level of trust and commitment required to download a freebie, is close to zero. The trust and commitment required to buy a low-cost information product is moderate. BUT the trust and commitment required to hire the services of an expert is absolutely HUGE.
2. The service provider needs to somehow reposition themselves as a professional, who offers a high quality service. This, after showing they were fine offering ethical bribes / freebies, in an effort to get clients. At best, it looks needy. At worst it looks shoddy. Either way, that’s a heck of a barrier to overcome!

Lead magnets conclusion

Before you think about using lead magnets, consider why you need them.

For example, when a newsletter provides useful information and is valued by its readers, the readers share it with their friends and contacts. It grows organically, because of its value.

And if your website has a sign-up form, which people are not using, you should uncover why it’s being ignored.

The most valuable lists, by far, are those that grow organically. Organic lists grow because people are genuinely interested in knowing more about what you do. These interested people are of enormous value to your business, as an excellent source of prospective clients.

There is definitely a place for lead magnets, as I mentioned earlier. But especially if you’re a service provider, the way forward is to identify why people are not sharing your content or subscribing to it, without the freebie. Fix the core issue, my friend. Then you’re free to build the highly valuable list your business needs.

P.S. I’ve helped thousands of business owners make massively more sales and boost their profits. Now, I'm offering you the same opportunity. Here's how it works.

Image: Shutterstock.

I have a very effective marketing idea to share with you today. I’m going to show you how to create marketing, which people will value and that’s powerful enough to inspire them to hire you or buy from you. It’s based on the work I do with some of my clients and includes a brief case study, which you can learn from.

So, let’s get started.

Receiving or paying attention?

It starts with understanding that there’s a huge difference between someone receiving your message and someone paying attention to it.

For example, TV viewers are sent targeted marketing messages (commercials) during TV shows. What do most of us do? We fast forward through them or if watching the show in real-time, we go and make a coffee. Just because they send their messages, doesn’t mean we are paying attention.

For your marketing to work, you need to get a great message in front of the right people. In order to get this correct, here’s the key question we need to ask ourselves:

If I stopped my email marketing campaign or I stopped publishing my blog posts, newsletter etc, would people really MISS them?

As a quick look at the marketing you receive every day confirms, for most people the honest answer to that question is NO! We get bombarded with dull, uninspiring sales messages all day and see them as an intrusion, rather than something of value.

Of course, for that tiny minority of small businesses who DO produce marketing, which people genuinely value and would miss if it were to stop, the sky is the limit.

I’m going to share the process required to make this work for your business later in this post.

First, we need to understand why there’s so much dull and ineffective marketing out there.

Dull is cheap. Dull is fast. Dull is easy!

It’s cheap, fast and easy to create a dull marketing message and push it to a lot of people. As a result, there’s no barrier to entry today.

Things were very different 15 years ago. Back then, if a small business owner wanted to send a mail shot to 50,000 people, she’d have to spend some serious money.

• She’d have to cover the cost of the mailing list.
• Then she would need to pay for all that paper and the printing.
• Next she would need to pay a company to get the letters folded and inserted into the 50,000 envelopes.
• Then there’s the huge postage costs for those 50,000 pieces of mail.

All in all, it would cost many thousands. She would need to think long and hard about the value of what she put into those envelopes. Get it wrong and she would pay a hefty price.

Today, everything has changed

That same business owner today, can hit 50,000 people using cheap email software and her laptop. It costs just a little of her time. If it fails, maybe tomorrow’s one will work.

In short, it’s never been cheaper or easier to push dull, uninspired, poorly thought out, uncreative marketing out the door.

So, that’s exactly what millions of people are doing. This is why there’s so much junk in your email inbox and on your social networking accounts.

How to get it right

There is an alternative approach I want to share with you, so people welcome your marketing, share it and hire you or buy from you. It requires that you take the exact opposite approach, to 99% of the marketing you see out there. 

It’s about shifting the focus of your marketing, so that it’s primarily of benefit to the people who receive it and secondarily of benefit to you.

It’s about producing content (audio, video, blog posts, newsletters, social networking updates etc), which provide independent value to those who receive it. This means they get genuinely valuable or useful information from it, independent of them needing to spend a penny with you.

An example of how this works, based on one of my clients

Imagine you are a dog owner and after a trip to the vet, you subscribe to their dog owner’s newsletter. It gives you useful tips and ideas, to help you keep your dog healthy, fit and happy. At the bottom of each email are their contact details, so you can call them when you need a vet.

You find this free information so valuable and interesting, that you send it to 10 of your dog-owning friends.

• They subscribe and then do the same.
• Then these new subscribers share it too, and on and on it goes.
• The amazingly valuable, highly-targeted readership just keeps on growing!

Soon, that vet (a former client of mine) was talking to thousands of local dog owners and positioned themselves in their marketplace, as THE place to take your dog for all its veterinary needs.

Their newsletter was eagerly anticipated by it’s readers. Yes, people wanted to hear from them and valued what they had to share.

Compare that vet’s approach to the typical marketing messages we see.

• That vet doesn’t need to run expensive radio ads.
• They have no need to waste time on Facebook. They own the communication channel with their prospective clients (by using email)!
• They have no need to buy mailing lists.
• They don’t need to waste valuable hours at networking events.
• They certainly don’t need to pester people on social networks or ask strangers for recommendations on Linkedin.
• They don’t need to invest in anything, other than the creativity required to produce a genuinely valuable newsletter, with useful content.

That example shows how a business can grow a massively valuable marketing asset, by sharing real value, rather than pushing unwanted messages. If you switch to this kind of value-driven marketing in 2019, it will improve your business beyond recognition.

Now what?

I’ve got you covered! I’ve created a massive, free marketing guide (over 4000 words) that’s packed with marketing tips and ideas you can use. Here it is.

P.S. I’ve helped thousands of business owners make massively more sales and boost their profits. Now, I'm offering you the same opportunity. Here's how it works.

The next time you’re on your way to or from work, try this.

I want you to take a look at the people around you; car passengers, bus passengers, train passengers or pedestrians. Notice what they are paying attention to?

No, they’re not looking at billboards.

They’re looking at a phone or a tablet.

So, be where their attention is

There’s a huge opportunity for you here. That is, so long as you’re willing to publish useful information, which your prospective customers will want to consume, to combat the boredom of a dull journey. Newsletters, podcasts, videos and blog posts are perfect for this.

However, there are a couple of things to consider, before you invest your time and effort getting onto their mobile device.

Firstly, make sure you publish something that’s useful to them. If you do, they’ll share it. Your audience will grow. And your name and reputation will spread.

Secondly, make sure that whatever you publish is mobile friendly. Many small business blogs and newsletters are challenging to read on mobile devices, and that’s just not good enough. If you want to engage readers, give them a great reader experience. If you want to engage viewers or listeners, make the audio-visual experience crisp and clear.

The payback?

When you’ve earned the attention and trust of your audience, by turning up regularly with useful, interesting information, and you have a business announcement for them (a new product, offer, service, event, book etc.), they will listen. And because they know your work and trust you, the response rate can be off the charts.

The opportunity is here and it’s huge. Plus, the financial cost of reaching all those prospective customers is tiny.

The question is, what are you going to do with all this potential?

And your answer will depend on this: Knowing and doing.

P.S. I’ve helped thousands of business owners make massively more sales and boost their profits. Now, I'm offering you the same opportunity. Here's how it works.

I want you to think about the following for a moment:

• The last tweet you sent.
• The last newsletter you published.
• The last Linkedin post you shared.
• The last Facebook update you posted.

Each of those actions could easily be a prospective customer’s first exposure to you (and your business). If so, it will help form their first impression of you.

Here’s the thing. First impressions count.

• First impressions count, even if you are having a bad day.
• First impressions count, even if they are inaccurate.
• And first impressions count, because if you screw it up, you often won’t get a second chance!

So, what’s the solution?

Well, here’s something that can certainly help you.

Drum roll please…

Pause…

It pays to pause for a few moments before you publish ANYTHING. That’s because most of what you publish is easy to find via search engines or the social networks you use. And we know that the vast majority of people now check providers out, before deciding to hire them or buy from them.

Think about the wider, longer-term implications of what you are saying. Never underestimate the impact of an angry tweet, a needy Linkedin post or a spammy Facebook update, etc.

Once it’s published, it’s out there. It’s in play. It’s carrying your name. And it’s carving your reputation.

Tip: Read this » How To Build a World Class Reputation.

And finally... Here are my top marketing tips. Yours now, for free!

I was in a coffee shop once, when a guy with a very obvious hairpiece came in. He had natural, thick brown hair around his ears, with a jet black wig on top. Of course, no one mentioned it to him. People just smirked when he wasn’t looking. Whether this guy needed the hairpiece for vanity or medical reasons, it’s entirely possible he has no idea that his wig is so poorly matched to his natural hair.

A very similar kind of silence happens regularly in business. And it can lose you a fortune.

Allow me to explain.

• We go to a website to check out a potential service provider, find the site is amateurish and decide not to consider them. We don’t call them to let them know their site created such a bad impression. We silently move on.
• We start reading a poorly-written piece of marketing and quickly discard it. We don’t email the company and tell them their content is losing them business. We silently move on.

So, faced with all this silence, how do you figure out if what you’re doing is working for you?

Simple. You ‘listen’ to what your results are telling you.

For example.

• Your website should be a 24-hour, business generating machine. If it isn’t, it’s telling you something. It’s telling you that it urgently needs to be improved.
• Your content marketing should regularly attract sales, sales leads or new clients. If it isn’t, it’s telling you something. It’s telling you that you need to quickly improve your strategy.

The lesson here?

Don’t wait for someone to tell you your marketing sucks. Because they won’t. Your friends don’t want to upset you and strangers don’t give a rat’s ass. Instead, listen to what your results are telling you.

Let's grow your business! I can help you build a more successful business, increase your sales and boost your profits. Here's how it works.

People often ask me for tips on how to build a bigger list. They want more subscribers; more readers, more listeners, more viewers, more followers, etc.

The short answer is simple. It’s this.

Do something useful, which is worthy of people’s attention and make it easy for them to subscribe.

If you do that, you’ll attract more people and because your “something” is useful, many of them will subscribe. Think about it. That’s the exact process, which motivated you to subscribe to every list you’re on. Something attracted you, you found it useful, you subscribed.

This begs the question: If the answer is so simple, why is it so darn hard to build a large and valuable list?

Here’s the answer.

The advice is simple. The process is tricky!

There’s some tricky stuff between you and that massively valuable list you want.

Finding something useful to share, on a regular basis, is tricky. Remember, if you just churn out the same stuff as others in your industry, you won’t attract subscribers or retain them. This means you’ll need to be willing to do some research. You’ll need to become a regular note-taker. A collector of ideas. It’s interesting work, but if you’re not already someone who studies and takes notes, it can be a tricky transition.

Finding the time to create content is also tricky. You’re already busy, right? Developing content around all that interesting material you have, takes time. That time is easy to justify when you have a huge list. It’s harder to justify, when your hard work is being consumed by just a small number of people. You’ll need to push through the tumbleweed and crickets of the early stages. And I know from personal experience, that can be a real challenge. I explain why here.

Summoning the courage to publish your stuff is tricky. Why? Because if you do it right, you’ll attract critics. Someone once told me that we have a choice to make. We can either be criticized or be ignored. If we’re being ignored, we’re invisible. That’s not good for any business.

The alternative is to not only expect criticism, but to welcome it as a positive sign that we’re no longer being ignored. Don’t set out to attract critics. Set out to be useful and worthy of attention. But see criticism as an inevitable part of becoming visible.

Note: Here’s why people criticize you and how to deal with it.

Once you know what’s involved, building a valuable list is pretty easy. And the rewards are huge.

Picture this: Just imagine what a difference it would make to your business, if you were in regular contact with thousands of prospective customers. Not via advertising, which is usually seen as an unwelcome interruption. But via a subscription to your content, which people proactively requested because they WANT to hear from you.

The opportunity is amazing. And it’s right in front of you. Right now.

Let's grow your business! I can help you build a more successful business, increase your sales and boost your profits. Here's how it works.

1. Embrace brevity. Shorter messages are more powerful. Most marketing I see is 75% too long.
2. Stop waiting for the right opportunity to come along. Make it happen. Create it.
3. People buy what they want. Not what they need. It’s why people renew their phones every 12/24 months, even though their ‘old’ phone works fine. They want a new phone. They treat themselves to a new phone. But they don’t need it. Once you understand the difference, you can improve your marketing accordingly.
4. Keeping your promises is a proven way to build a great reputation. (Read more).
5. You don’t have any clients, customers or subscribers. They’re not yours. You simply borrow them. This means there’s no room for complacency. You need to earn and then re-earn their custom, attention and trust.
6. If you want your marketplace to talk enthusiastically about your business, do something worth talking about. If it’s remarkable enough, they’ll remark on it!
7. A confused mind always says no. Keep your marketing as brief and clear as possible. Fewer options. Fewer words. Less fluff.
8. The most successful business owners decide who their ideal clients are, then market exclusively to this super-valuable group. You should do the same. The average business owner relies on DIY marketing and takes whatever comes along.
9. People buy for their reasons. Not yours.
10. If you don’t receive regular referrals from your existing clients or customers, it’s a warning. A warning that, at best, you’re delivering what they expect. When you exceed expectations, they tell their friends. (Read More).
11. The word ‘Webinar’ carries a huge amount of negative baggage. Never use it. Because there’s always a better alternative. Always.
12. When you want to generate high quality cash flow fast, find new products for your existing customers. It’s far quicker and more profitable, than finding new customers for your existing products. I’ve helped hundreds of business owners enjoy windfall profits this way. Yes, windfall profits. It’s that easy.
13. Include deadlines in your marketing messages. They’re an exceptionally powerful way to motivate people to take action. (Read more).
14. Your brand is either working for you or against you. If you haven’t intentionally created a brand for your business, it’s working against you. It’s losing you money.
15. Everything your business does, is marketing. The way you answer the phone, your payment terms, the way you reply to emails, your location, the way you write, the design of your website, your prices, your social network activity… it’s all marketing. This means it needs to be intentional and consistent.
16. Don’t rely on Facebook, Linkedin or any third party for your communication channel. It’s like building a house on rented land. Instead, attract people via third party platforms. And then encourage them to subscribe to your email list.
17. Building an email list is a massively better option, than buying a list. The people on paid-for lists don’t want to hear from you. These so called opt-in lists are mainly just lists of people, who completed a form on a website once, without reading the small print.
18. The most successful business owners decide who their ideal clients are, then market exclusively to this super-valuable group. You should do the same. The average business owner relies on DIY marketing and takes whatever comes along.
19. Businesses with a fixed marketing budget never achieve much. It shows they regard marketing as a cost, rather than an investment. This is then reflected in their results.
20. The most powerful marketing is permission based. When people subscribe to your list, your message is treated very differently, than an unsolicited email from a needy stranger.
21. Learn how to make your marketplace curious. Why do prospective clients call you or email you? It’s because they need to know something and their curiosity motivates them to get in touch. So, you get a sales lead or client enquiry. And a chance to convert them into a new client or customer. As I said a few days ago, don’t explain everything in your marketing, unless you want very few enquiries. (Read more).
22. The more your services or products resemble what your competitors offer, the less visible your business is.
23. Avoid using buzzwords. Those who don’t understand them will be confused. Those who do understand them, will cringe. And buzzwords get old, really quick.
24. Tell the truth. It’s the easiest, least stressful way to build a great business and your marketplace will respect you.
25. If your business isn’t attracting regular sales leads or client enquiries, your marketing is broken. This means the very thing that feeds your business isn’t working. It’s losing you a fortune. Needlessly. Why are you allowing this to happen? Think about that for a moment.

Let's grow your business! I can help you build a more successful business, increase your sales and boost your profits. Here's how it works.