Ian Brodie is the best-selling author of Email Persuasion and the creator of Unsnooze Your Inbox - *the* guide to crafting engaging emails and newsletters that captivate your audience, build authority and generate more sales.
Ian Brodie on June 14th, 2016.
I have a quick question for you this week:
What's the #1 (realistic) thing you want your website visitors to do?
Have a think about it, then watch this week's 5 minute marketing tip to see why it's so important to get your priorities right on your website.
Ian Brodie on June 13th, 2016.
A couple of weeks ago I woke up to a nightmare scenario for any email marketer.
As I do most days, I tapped away to write an email I thought would be useful, interesting and fun for my subscribers. Job done, I shot off a test email to myself to make sure the links were all working.
5 minutes later, it hadn't arrived in my inbox. Another 10 minutes and it still wasn’t there. I sent another one.
Still nothing.
Then I spotted a notification that there were new emails in my Gmail promotions tab.
Surely not? Surely my own emails that I read on a regular basis aren't going into my promotions tab?
But yes, they were.
According to Email Deliverability expert Chris Lang, you get an 8-10% increase in opens and clicks simply by being in the primary tab rather than the promotions tab on Gmail.
That's a huge difference. And it's a direct hit on your revenue if email is a key part of your marketing.
Lang estimates that Gmail runs about 40% of the world's email behind the scenes. In my case, since my clients tend to be smaller businesses it's probably higher.
So ending up in the promotions tab is bad, bad news.
So why was I in there and more importantly: what could I do to get out? I started looking around for answers.
Ian Brodie on June 12th, 2016.
If you've hung around on forums or at events for any length of time you'll no doubt hear people asking “what's the best…?”
What's the best email system? What's the best landing page design?
What's the best way to introduce yourself? What are the best questions to ask?
And it's good to be on the lookout for good ideas and to try to understand what “best practice” looks like.
But you have to remember that best practice for someone else might not be best practice for you. Or it might be only marginally better and not worth the costs of switching.
Even if something would work better for you, you just might not want to do it.
Every now and then I do webinars to promote a product and I usually have a deadline for whatever I'm offering. I'll send follow up emails after the webinar and try to make each one useful, with a reminder of the deadline.
Now I absolutely know for a fact that I would get more sales if I sent more emails and was more aggressive in each one. Pretty much every test I've seen has shown that sending 2, 3 or even 4 or more emails on the last day of a deadline gets you more sales.
But it's just not something I want to do to my audience.
It's not even about long term vs short term. In my mind, it's about being a decent person and not trying to bludgeon out every possible sale.
(Yeah, I know the line about how if you believe your product helps people it's your duty to get them to buy it. I think that's just a convenient rationalisation for over-aggressive salespeople).
Being successful in business isn't about maximising sales or profits. it's about maximising how good you feel. As long as you're doing well, I don't think those extra few sales are worth it.
So don't assume that you need to do the absolute “best” thing in everything you do. Make the choices that work for you.
Ian Brodie on June 7th, 2016.
It pains me to say this, but email marketing is not the only answer :)
OK, all joking aside, what is vital for any business is to build a platform: a way of regularly communicating and keeping top of mind with your ideal clients.
Email marketing is a particularly powerful way of doing that. But it's not the only way.
In this podcast Stefan Drew explains how he built a successful platform for his consultancy in the education sector without using email marketing.
You'll see that the same principles that normally apply to email marketing can also be applied to other media to build that personal connection with potential clients that leads to a steady stream of work.
Stefan and I also discuss how he's managed to get so much good PR for his business and clients including regular slots on radio and in the press (including a time when he temporarily became a reporter on the collapse of the Berlin wall!).
More importantly he gives his tips for how you can break in to getting media appearances on a regular basis.
Ian Brodie on June 6th, 2016.
In last week's video I talked about the psychology of reconnecting with some of your best old contacts that you've slipped out of touch with, and I gave you a simple strategy for reconnecting based on using LinkedIn and getting in touch by sharing valuable content.
In this weeks video I share 2 powerful techniques that can work just as well, or even better, for reconnecting and adding value at the same time.
Watch this week's 5 minute marketing tip to find out what they are and how to use them.
Ian Brodie on June 5th, 2016.
Do you remember when life used to be simpler?
Like 2 or 3 weeks ago :)
Seriously though, marketing definitely used to be easier a few years ago.
Back then if you wanted potential clients to look up to you as an expert you just had to be the best at what you did amongst the people they were likely to meet.
And the people they were likely to meet were largely the folks who rocked up to the same networking meetings as them.
That's where all the advice to focus on a niche came in. If you were niche focused you'd automatically be seen as more of an expert than the generalists.
These days it's not quite so easy. Not only can people find experts on pretty much anything they want via Google, the experts are reaching out to them proactively via Facebook and Linkedin ads.
So you don't even need to go searching to find an expert in pretty much any topic.
It means the local experts are no longer the only game in town.
Sure, some people only buy from people they've met face to face. But they're a diminishing crowd.
If you want to be seen as an expert these days, then just focusing on a niche isn't enough. People who focus on the exact same niche are everywhere.
The ruthless economics of the web mean that where you once were a premium provider locally, you're now a commodity.
Nowadays, as well as a tight niche, you also need to be saying something different to that niche. Something your competitors aren't saying. You need better and more interesting ideas. You need a reason why people should listen to you rather than all the other people they can find in your field with a quick stab at their keyboard.
What's your reason?
Ian Brodie on May 31st, 2016.
I've got a fantastic podcast episode for you today.
In the podcast I interview Mike Kerrison about how he built his hugely successful consulting business
After launching 3 multi-million dollar technology firms, Mike left the corporate world to join the ranks of solo consultants. In the last 15 years of running his consulting business he's facilitated over 200 strategic planning sessions for Fortune 500 companies to small entrepreneurial growth firms. His programs have reached over 400,000 people and he has graduated over 10,000 sales and management professionals from his Breakaway Schools
Ian Brodie on May 30th, 2016.
In our last few videos we've looked at generating new leads – new initial contacts with people you don't know.
But what about all those contacts, Linkedin connection and business cards of people you met, but didn't properly follow up with? How to you reconnect with your old contacts in a way that's painless for you and them, and generates real leads for your business?
Watch this week's 5 minute marketing tip to find out.
Click here to watch the video »
Ian Brodie on May 29th, 2016.
One of the best things I ever did with my marketing was to simplify it.
I used to try to do waaay too many different things. I suspect my natural arrogance told me I could be great at everything.
But I can't.
I'm pretty good at writing these emails. That's because I've written over a thousand of them. The ones I write today as so much better than the ones I started writing nearly 10 years ago.
The same goes with blog posts, webinars, presentation, networking, etc.
I only do a handful of marketing activities today. But because I do them often I do them pretty darned well.
Do you try to do too much?
If so, it's probably because you're hoping to hit on the “one thing” that will get amazing results for you.
But the truth is there isn't one thing that will knock the ball out of the park every time. And it certainly won't the very first time you do it.
You need to pick a small number of marketing tactics that seem a good fit for you and keep at them. The more you do them the better you'll get and the better your results will be.
Simplify, simplify, simplify.
Ian Brodie on May 27th, 2016.
“Keep It Simple Stupid” is a phrase apparently coined by Kelly Johnson, the lead engineer at the Lockheed Skunk Works, responsible for the Blackbird spy plane amongst others.
Sometimes we use the phrase to mean we should keep things simple so (stupid) people don't make mistakes.
But its original meaning is better I think: that the very best designs are simple ones.
I was on Skype a couple of nights ago chatting with Steve Gordon of “Unstoppable Referrals” fame. We were bouncing ideas and swapping stories of what has worked well for us in our marketing.
One common theme we found: our simplest marketing got the best results.
It's oh-so tempting to add complexity and sophistication to your marketing. To create complex “funnels” with multiple paths for different situations.
But at the end of the day, the marketing that works best is the marketing that really hits on an urgent need your ideal clients have and offers a clear solution to that need.
In the past few weeks we've talked a lot about lead generation. We've covered lead magnets, getting the attention of your audience, engaging them.
Through all this, make sure you're keeping it simple.
Focus your efforts on getting one great lead magnet that solves one problem for your ideal client. Find one reliable source of traffic and connections, and use one method of engaging and following up.
Get that running smoothly before you add anything else. And when you do add something, do it step by step. One new thing at a time. Get that running smoothly before adding anything else.
Keep it simple.
It's not just easier, it works better.