More Clients Memorandum

The very best words to use in your marketing

Posted byIan Brodie on August 26th, 2018.

I spend an age agonising over the right words to use whenever I'm updating my website or creating some new kind of marketing.

And I always, always seem to forget the very best words you can use in marketing:

The words of your clients.

Not just in testimonials (though that's a great use of their words, obviously).

But in headlines and subheads. In bullet points.

Whenever you describe what you do and the value it brings, the words your clients use are golden.

They ring true. They're in a language that clicks with other potential clients.

They're much better than even the costliest copywriter could create.

But you've got to gather them – and that's where most of us fall down

I can't tell you the number of wonderful things clients have emailed me where I've thought “I'll use that” – then I lose track of the email and can't remember who said it so I can't get permission to use it.

Do you systematically file away nice things your clients say or email? Have you got a system in place to automatically ask for feedback?

And it's not just the nice things clients say about you that you should be gathering. When clients describe their problems or goals to you, try to use those same words when describing how you can help and the kinds of problems you can solve.

Again, that means remembering to write down or save those vital morsels. Or perhaps running a quick survey for new subscribers or new customers to narrow down their main priorities.

Not only does it help you know which areas you can best help in, it also gives you great language you can use verbatim to show other potential clients and subscribers you understand the kind of issues they're facing.

The more you use your clients' language the more you feel like “one of them” and the more they feel you understand them.

All from systematically listening and writing things down :)

More Clients Memorandum

The simple rule that will save you a ton of time

Posted byIan Brodie on August 20th, 2018.

Years ago I learned a simple (but sadly, easily forgotten) rule about what you should prioritise in your marketing.

Strangely enough, I heard it again from three different sources in the last week. So I'm going to take that as a hint that I should explain it.

It's the 40:40:20 rule. It was coined by Ed Meyer, CEO of the Grey Group (later acquired by WPP) and apparently the richest man in advertising in his day (he retired a decade ago).

The rule says that in marketing, 40% of your success is due to reaching the right audience. 40% is due to your offer. And 20% is due to all the other factors: your messaging, the marketing tactics you use, the presentation, etc.

Over the years I've found this formula to be pretty darned accurate.

We tend to obsess over the details: should I use Facebook or Linkedin? What images should I use in my ad? What should my email headline be? 

All of these are important. But they're exponentially less important than finding the right audience for your product or service, figuring out exactly what they want, and then creating an offer they find irresistible.

Put the right offer in front of the right people and you'll get decent sales even with so-so marketing. But even the greatest marketing genius won't be able to save a mediocre offer pitched at the wrong audience.

In practice, where do we spend most of our time?

In the 20% of course.

Now truthfully, we're always going to spend more time in the day-to-day tactics than in refining our audience and offer which we probably should only do every few years.

But even so, my experience has been that we don't spend anywhere near enough time on our audience and offer (me included).

We think we know them, but we don't really. I witnessed a correspondence recently where someone who was struggling to structure an offer kept insisting he knew exactly what his audience wanted – but he hadn't asked them and he couldn't put his finger on which structure they'd prefer.

We resist interacting with them to find out more about what they really want because we think that we'll look silly asking. Surely we should know by now? So we end up focusing on their surface needs on not on their deeper frustrations and desires.

And we think we know the best product or service to meet their needs because, well, we're offering the same as everyone else. It's hard work figuring out a completely new offer. Much easier just to look at what everyone else in the market is offering. 

So instead, we spend most of our time trying to learn how to do immensely complex marketing like Facebook Ads or multi-step funnels. Or we try and grind out results through endless networking events and “coffee meetings”.

And whenever we get rejected we resolve to work harder. To do more calls and meetings. To do even better ads. To write more blog posts and do more on social media.

But most of the time the problem isn't the tactics. It's that the people we're targeting simply don't want what we're offering them. No amount of brilliant marketing is going to change that. You need to change your audience or your offer.

Every minute you spend figuring out who the right clients for you are and building a deeper understanding of what they need will be paid back 100x or 1000x downstream. Every minute crafting an offer that really touches on their true wants and needs will save you hours and hours later.

Are you sure you have the right offer for the right people?

If you're not getting great results with your marketing and you're having to spend a ton of time working on it then that's the place I'd turn to first rather than trying to work harder, longer or learn more tactics.

More Clients Memorandum

Meet them where they are

Posted byIan Brodie on August 19th, 2018.

If you want to meet someone in person, the easiest way to do it is to go to where they are.

So simple it almost goes without saying.

The same rule applies psychologically too. If you want to engage someone psychologically then you need to meet them where they are (psychologically).

For example, when people visit your website what kind of thing is going to be on their mind?

Are they likely to be thinking about a problem they have? Or are they likely to be exploring options for solving that problem? Or have they progressed as far as having decided on a solution and they're now trying to evaluate providers?

There's no single right answer for everyone.

I know from my website analytics and the searches that hit my site that most of my visitors are still thinking about problems or are trying to see what they can do to solve those problems.

That means I try to focus my site on having articles that explore my clients' main problems and give ideas on how they can solve those problems.

They're not interested (yet) in why my programs might be a better fit for them than their other options. We get to that later.

Your experience may be different though. If most of the people coming to your site have already decided what they want to do and are looking to evaluate suppliers then having lots of blog posts and how-to articles isn't going to interest them.

The same goes for almost any communication with clients. Meet them where they are. Start the conversation about topics that are on their mind and not about what you want to tell them or sell them.

A final hint: although I said there's no single right answer, 90% of the time your potential clients are focused on their problems or goals and are a long way off your solutions and products. 

More Clients Memorandum

Two options, which will you choose?

Posted byIan Brodie on August 12th, 2018.

If you want to get your message in front of your ideal clients there are really only two options.

You can either build an audience of your ideal clients yourself, or you can “borrow” an audience someone else has built.

Most advertising is about borrowing audiences. With TV adverts, the audience comes for the show, and you borrow them by putting your ads in the breaks. With Facebook ads, the audience comes for the interaction with their friends, you borrow them by putting your ads in their newsfeed. Same goes for Youtube ads, Linkedin ads etc.

It also goes for partnering. With guest blog posts, the audience comes for the blog as a whole, you get your message in front of them with your post and hopefully divert them back to your site. With a guest appearance on a podcast or a webinar, you're similarly tapping into someone else's audience.

Building your own audience takes a lot more time. And crucially, you have to earn it. You have to have something people will willingly come to see. Something that's either hugely entertaining (like a TV show) or hugely useful (like a regular podcast) or ideally both.

Most businesses choose one method rather than trying both. Although Red Bull famously switched from borrowing an audience through TV ads to building its own audience through online and live events and its motor racing team. It used to pay TV channels to advertise to promote its brand, now TV channels pay Red Bull to show its events while it gets to promote its brand for free (thanks to Richard Stacy for sharing that example).

There's nothing inherently better about either method. But generally speaking, the direction of travel today favours those who build their own audiences.

It used to be difficult and expensive to build an audience so only those with huge resources could afford it. Today, huge audiences are being built by individuals on shoestring budgets but who have something interesting and different to say. Meanwhile, advertising is getting ever more expensive as more people pile into online ads despite no more slots being available (and increasingly, customers are tuning out ads).

It's little wonder that “influencers” who have built their own audiences can now be paid small (or even large) fortunes by big brands to get access to those audiences.

Right at the start, I asked you which option you would choose. Build an audience or borrow one? 

It's a trick question really.

I'm going to recommend that long-term, you focus on building your own audience. But that you kick-start your audience building by borrowing someone else's.

For example, run adverts not to sell things, but to get subscribers for your email list or podcast or youtube show. Use guest posts and appearances on webinars and podcasts or summits to build your own audience.

He (or she) who commands the attention of an audience has the all power. 

More Clients Memorandum

What to do when you get stuck

Posted byIan Brodie on August 5th, 2018.

Do you ever get stuck?

After well over 10 years of doing my own marketing and constantly trying to create new content that you'll find useful, I have to admit I often get stuck.

Sometimes it feels like I'm never going to have another good idea.

Or that I've already told you everything I know. At least the useful bits :)

But, of course, neither of those things are ever true.

There are always more ideas. And always new insights to share. Or new ways of presenting old insights that makes them fresh again.

Here are two things I do when I've got that stuck feeling when it comes to marketing:

1) Going back to basics always helps.

Back to basics means reviewing the big problems, issues, goals and aspirations of my ideal clients. And then thinking to myself “what could I say that would help them with one of those?”

Something pretty much always comes up from there. If it doesn't step 2 should help.

2) Thinking of my own experiences with similar problems or goals.

That's where this email came from.

If I have a shortlist of problems, issues, goals and aspirations but I can't immediately see a great idea for an email or blog post or other type of content then thinking about my own experiences with those issues almost always does.

What do I do when I have that problem? Can I think of a time when that happened to me? And what did I do?

I know I'm onto something when I feel just a little bit reluctant to tell the story. That means it's a relatively painful memory, or it highlights a mistake I made. And those stories are all the more interesting and insightful.

Could you follow those two simple steps when you get stuck with your marketing? 

More Clients Memorandum

Use this trick to block out distractions

Posted byIan Brodie on July 29th, 2018.

Remember the exercise from last week where I asked you to mentally list the people in business you pay attention to?

You can use that exercise to help block out timewasting distractions too.

Not just the little ones. This works for the really big ones that can waste hours upon hours.

I've found that some of the really big timewasters for me are when I get sucked into the marketing for yet another amazing new tool or technique that someone is promoting. Or I read an article about some fantastic results someone has had so I spend an age investigating and trying out that method.

And 9 times out of 10, of course, it doesn't work for me.

A simple trick you can use to avoid all that is just to ask yourself whether this is a technique or tool the people you pay attention to use?

If they're being successful and building a following of people like you without using this fancy new technique, do you really need it?

Or perhaps they've built that following and built respect because of their message and their ideas, not the tools and techniques they use.

More Clients Memorandum

This is what draws people to you

Posted byIan Brodie on July 22nd, 2018.

Here's a quick (but useful) mental exercise for you. Should just take a minute or so.

Make a mental list of the people you pay attention to in business. People whose emails you read regularly or whose social media posts you follow or whose books you buy or perhaps someone you would go to see present.

Now try to find some common attributes between them.

I'm going to assume that one common attribute is that you find what they have to say useful and interesting. That's a given.

But there are thousands of people who say useful and interesting things that you don't pay attention to. So what's different about the people you do follow?

I'm going to hazard a guess and say that most of them will be a bit like you in some way. 

They'll have a similar personality or beliefs or values.

Or they'll reflect attributes you'd like to have.

We like people who are like us or who are like the people we want to be.

Not always, of course. We like variety too. But 80:20.

I tend to follow people who are a bit modest and don't show off about their success. People who value new ideas rather than “hustle”. People who think there's more to life than money. People who are kind of relaxed about things.

As I get older I value being low key more and more.

There are some brilliant experts out there who I know have great ideas and material, but I just can't click with them. Their life and their emails are full of drama. Huge highs and lows. Quitting everything and starting again. Crying themselves to sleep.

All great drama, but I just think “for heaven's sake, grow up”.

That's just me of course. But that's the point. These folks, brilliant though they are, are too different from me for us to click. We're attracted to people like us and we find it easier to work with people like us.

Now when it comes to your marketing there's a hugely important point here.

Your clients will be attracted to people who are like them. 

How do they know if you are like them?

A crucial part of your marketing is to get “you” across to your audience.

They can't “click” with you if you never show enough of your personality, beliefs and values for them to know what they are. 

If you hide behind a “business only” façade, you'll click with “business only” people and not the ones who really are a good match (unless, of course, you really are a “business only” person!).

If you want to build a relationship with someone you have to open up enough for them to sense that you're the sort of person they'd want to build a relationship with.

It doesn't mean you have to “bare all” and spend all your time talking about you and your life. Your first priority is to do things that are useful to your ideal clients.

But it's always possible to be valuable and personable. To get across your ideas while getting across your personality.

What are you doing in your marketing to make that happen?

More Clients Memorandum

Overlooked – but so powerful

Posted byIan Brodie on July 8th, 2018.

This came up in an online conversation with Chris Laub recently (Chris did a podcast for me on market Research a while back).

Chris was making a point that recently so much emphasis in marketing has been on “funnels” and an obsession with getting a quick sale (usually via some combination of Facebook Advertising and a webinar) that everyone is overlooking the power of nurturing relationships for a longer-term win.

It reminded me of what, for me, is perhaps the most powerful aspect of focusing on long-term nurture rather than just short-term sales.

It's the simple fact that for most of us, it's much, much easier to do.

If you're focusing on a short-term sale you have a limited window of opportunity. That means your webinar or your sales page or video has just one shot of making the sale. So it has to be really good.

It takes an immense amount of skill to get a high number of sales when you've just got one shot. It's like trying to hit the bullseye with just one arrow. Only the very best can do it consistently. 

If you don't have that super-high level of marketing skill then going for a sale quickly will fall flat and come across as pushy.

On the other hand, any of us can hit a bullseye given enough shots, no matter how bad we are at archery.

And that's why a long-term nurture approach is much easier for most of us. 

We don't need to write the perfect sales letter or run the perfect webinar or be brilliant at Facebook Ads.

We just need to keep in touch regularly and do a decent job of it.

We need to be interesting and valuable enough that our audience doesn't tune out. But we don't need to hit the bullseye every time.

Eventually, one of our follow-up messages will click for some of our audience. The accumulation of value will hit the bullseye for them.

Keep going consistently and we'll end up hitting a bullseye for enough audience members to outperform the guy trying to do it with one shot no matter how skilled he is.

For me, that's the true power of long-term nurture. That even those of us who aren't brilliant salespeople, writers or presenters can have great success with it.

As long as we stick with it. 

More Clients Memorandum

Stop the insanity

Posted byIan Brodie on July 6th, 2018.

Something's been bothering me about marketing for a while now.

I've not been able to put my finger on it until recently but you may have noticed I've been emailing a bit less.

Here's the thing that's worrying me…

I think we're in an era where there's never been so much marketing information available as there is today. It's like marketing's the new rock ‘n roll.

But at the same time, most small businesses and solo professionals aren't any better off at all than they were 10 or 15 years ago. In fact, many are worse off.

It's like all this marketing “stuff” isn't doing anybody any good.

And sometimes I worry that I'm just adding to it.

I realised recently that I think the problem is a huge gap between the lives of all the experts who advise on marketing and produce all the training courses and the lives of the people who are supposed to learn from the courses and put it into action into their businesses.

The problem is that all the people who dish out marketing advice love marketing. It's only natural. They wouldn't be marketing experts if they didn't love it.

And they spend most of their time learning new marketing stuff and playing around with it. They're fascinated by the cleverest, most sophisticated marketing. And often they have big teams working for them to implement their ideas.

But the people who buy their courses are very different.

Usually, there's just the one of them.

They don't love marketing. In fact, they often find it uncomfortable.

Most importantly, they don't have tons of time to learn all this stuff let alone put it in place in their business to get results.

The end result is that most marketing courses teach stuff that's too complex for real people to understand, takes too long for them to learn, and is too time-consuming for them to realistically implement in their business week-in, week-out.

And then, of course, when their students don't get results, the experts berate them for not implementing properly and not being dedicated enough.

I'm sure I've made the same mistakes myself too.

But I do think there's another way.

If we “experts” can lift our heads up just for a minute and realise that what our folks need isn't more “incredibly clever but incredibly time-consuming” marketing. It's simple marketing that people can actually do and get results with.

It won't be so exciting for us. And it won't be so easy to sell as yet another silver bullet that works for marketing experts but turns out to be impossible for the guy in the street to get results from.

But it will be what our clients actually need.

I think we…strike that… I…have a duty to you to give you information and training you can actually use to get results.

Not necessarily the most interesting new stuff. Not necessarily the stuff that's the easiest to sell. But the stuff that's the most likely to help you.

I've made a start.

Over the last few weeks I've been working on something I call the “30 Minute Marketing Plan”.

It shows you what you need to do to set up a marketing system that allows you to spend just 30 minutes a day (or half a day a week) on marketing – yet still build a steady flow of leads and clients.

In other words, it cuts out all the nonsense. All the fancy stuff we marketing ‘experts” get turned on by but is just way too complex for real people to make work in their businesses.

In all honesty, it's a project, not a product.

I don’t have a course yet you can do on this (though I will be focusing on it with my Momentum Club members if you’d like to join us).

I don't have all the answers either.

But I can promise you that very clear in my mind is the need to teach material that can be practically implemented in the small amount of time we all have for marketing each week. And that doesn't take months to learn.