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How courage can win you more clients

Posted by

Ian Brodie on January 5th, 2014.

Last Sunday I sent you an email entitled “My terrible confession”. It had a bit of a strange effect.

Firstly it got a great open rate. Over 10% more people opened that email than the other emails I've sent recently.

Secondly, it got a wonderful response from people. Some people laughing at the story in the email. Others saying how it made a great point that resonated with them. I even got sent a video “reply”.

But it also got one response saying “REMOVE ME FROM THIS SENSATIONALIST MAILING LIST IMMEDIATELY”.

Yep. Someone took huge exception to my use of the word “terrible”.

I exchanged emails with the lady who sent the email. I'm not going to demonize her as some over-excitable loony. She seemed perfectly nice, but said she'd had “experience of terrible things” and so was sensitised to the word.

So what do you do in this case? The temptation given this very strong feedback is to tone down your headlines and message to avoid upsetting anyone.

It would have been an even stronger temptation had I not received all the positive messages.

I've heard other email marketing experts deride the people who complain about their emails. Or say they'd never have become a client anyway.

I'm not so sure that's true. There's nothing wrong with this lady. She's not foolish for taking a dislike to my email. She might even have been a good fit to become a client. I just happen to have hit the wrong hot button with her.

But she's not typical. In the grand scheme of things I got one complaint compared to over a dozen positive emails (and probably even more unvoiced positive responses).

If you let fear of upsetting someone water down what you have to say then you'll also have less of a positive impact on the people attuned to your message.

I'm not saying be disagreeable just for the sake of it. But have the courage to make the points you think are important, and to use the language you think will best get across those points.

You may upset a few people along the way. But you'll hit the spot with an awful lot more. And it's those strong positive responses that build a client base – not mild appreciation.

Be yourself. Be the best, most powerful, most helpful version of yourself you can be. Say what you think will have the greatest positive effect on the most people. Say it in a way that rings true for you.

And you'll change the world in your own small (or big) way.

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Here’s (One Reason) Why I Don’t Recommend Fancy Images For Emails

Posted by

Ian Brodie on December 17th, 2013.

grinchemail Got this email from Copyblogger today.

I like Copyblogger. I think they create some good material. In fact I've paid for a couple of their programs.

And I think they've done a good job with their new branding.

However, this recent email from them (and most of the emails they send with images in) is unreadable on my iPhone as the picture shows.

Like very many emails sent with images in, if the image is bigger than the 300 or so pixels of the mobile devices screen, it will shrink the whole email to fit the screen. The result is that the text becomes far to small to read without zooming and panning (ie no one in their right mind will do it).

And since emails you've opened on your mobile device usually then appear as read on your desktop, you tend not to open them again.

Result = high open rates, but low genuine read rates. And no action taken on the email.

I understand why Copyblogger have gone a bit upscale and started making their emails look more branded. In Email Persuasion I make the case that for most of us, very plain formatting that makes our emails look like normal emails from friends and colleagues works best.

In Copyblogger's case since these days they're clearly a business rather than a person the professonalisation of their branding is understandable.

But it just shows you how tricky it is to get images to work well in emails. And since the latest stats say that more email is opened on mobile devices than desktops, it's something you need to think about carefully before going down that route.

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21 Sources of Inspiration for Blog Posts and Emails

Posted by

Ian Brodie on November 24th, 2013.

If you do any sort of online marketing you'll know that one of the keys to success is a regular flow of engaging, entertaining, impactful material.

That might be in blog posts, emails, videos or podcasts. You might focus just on adding value with your content to build credibility and trust with potential clients. Or you might use your stories and examples to make your sales letters or promotions more interesting and effective.

Whatever you do, you need “stuff”. You need to be able to put pen to paper, keyboard to blog, webcam to youtube and to create material that your potential clients are going to find useful, entertaining, thought-provoking, challenging, insightful, funny, valuable, maybe even life-changing.

Doing that regularly is a big ask. If you're anything like me you'll have days where you sit there thinking “what on earth am I going to write about today?”.

So here are some sources of inspiration I've used to come up with ideas and themes for blog posts, emails and other content. At least one of these will work for you every time you're drawing blanks.

Click here to discover the 21 Sources of Inspiration

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How Consultants Can Use Guest Blog Posting to Fill Their Calendar with Client Work

Posted by

Ian Brodie on September 27th, 2013.

Today’s blog post is by Peter Sandeen, Value Proposition and Conversion expert. In this article Peter walks you through how to use guest blogging as a strategy to get more visitors to your website and convert more into clients

guestbloging It’s a cliché: a calendar so full of client work that you can’t take on any more work for months.

Yet, that’s what most of us want: a cliché.

There are many ways to get there. Networking, online advertising, referrals, direct mail ads, cold calling, and guest posting.

All of them can work.

And you can use more than one at a time.

But here’s how you can use guest posting to reach that cliché that some people believe to be nothing but an ancient myth.

Click here to read Peter's practical tips on guest blogging >>

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Wide Boys in Coffee Shops (and Why You Should Get Yourself a Decent Marketing Education)

Posted by

Ian Brodie on September 12th, 2013.

I was doing one of my favourite things in the world yesterday: grabbing a coffee and reading on my iPad (in this case, Guy Kawasaki's book on book publishing: APE). This time my rather pleasant afternoon was interrupted by a conversation at a nearby table that I just couldn't help listening into.

“Don't worry, leave all that stuff to us. Barry'll build you two or three backlinks every day and that'll get you up to the top of Google sharpish. And we'll knock out a blog post or two for you every week. No hassle. You don't have to worry about any of that”.

To someone with a basic understanding of how Google works and how these days it's got pretty darned good at ignoring (and penalising) artificial link building that sounds like a recipe for disaster.

And when you understand that the real value of blog posts isn't about churning out mindless drivel so that you've “got some content” on your site, but instead can be the very best way of establishing your expertise and authority in your marketing; then your heart just sinks when you hear about someone “knocking out a blog post”.

But unfortunately, the man and two women listening seemed to lap it up. I guess it sounded like their prayers had been answered. Winning clients online seems complicated and the rules seem to change all the time. How wonderful for this nice man to say he can do it all for us and get us tons of website visitors and customers.

Of course, a few months later and a few hundreds if not thousands of pounds lighter, they might be thinking something different.

That's why it's so important as a professional or business owner to get yourself a basic grounding in effective marketing. Both online and offline. Outsourcing all that stuff sounds great, but unfortunately the marketing world is full of wide boys who'll promise you the earth and bamboozle you with sensible sounding jargon. But who really don't have a clue what they're doing.

Your only weapon is education. Even if you're not going to be doing any of this stuff yourself, make sure you know how it should be done so you can spot these cowboys and steer clear of them.

———-
Image by Edmond Wells

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Accountants Caught Lying To Clients In Desperate Quest For Authority

Posted by

Ian Brodie on July 9th, 2013.

Lie I've been looking at accountancy websites recently (on the whole a pretty depressing task, more of which in a later post).

As part of the process I found something quite weird, and rather disturbing.

And something which really disappointed me. I'd just thought better of the profession as a whole.

Click here to read the gory details >>

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How NOT to Ask For a Guest Blog Post

Posted by

Ian Brodie on June 27th, 2013.

As you probably know, I often recommend writing guest blog posts and other forms of partnering as the fastest way of getting in front of your target audience, driving traffic to your website and building authority in the search engines.

Successful guest blogging has three key components.

Obviously you need to be able to write decent blog posts efficiently.

You also need to be able to find the right places to guest post. I created a little video to show the steps for that here >>

The final component is critical. You need to be able to get blog owners to agree to you doing a guest blog post for them. There's a real art to this.
Click here to read the right way and the wrong way to ask for a guest blog post >>

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The Debilitating Content Roadblock (and how to beat it)

Posted by

Ian Brodie on June 8th, 2013.

“You've got to have great content”. “It's brilliant content that brings you visitors and clients”. “You need to produce high quality content regularly”.

Yeah, yeah. Yada yada yada. Tell us something new.

Here's the problem. It's not that we don't know we need lots of great content. Of course we do. It's just that it's so damn hard to create it. Particularly if you actually have a real job to do that earns you money ;)

There are countless professionals and experts with a wealth of knowledge to share who just get stuck against this roadblock when it comes to getting content out of their head and onto paper or a website. And I count myself in that group every now and then too.

It's probably the most frustrating feeling you'll get. Knowing you have so much to share, but just not being able to get it out.

Here are some tips that might just help.

Click here to learn how to produce great content systematically >>

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The Number 1 Strategy Social Media Gurus Use To Win Business

Posted by

Ian Brodie on May 24th, 2013.

So which is best? Do you get more business from Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest?

Of course, the gurus are always going to tell you it's the thing they happen to specialise in. So how can you tell what really works?

Look at what they do, not just what they say.

So which social networks do the gurus focus on and prioritise when you go to their websites? What do they give prominence to?

How about Mari Smith, Queen of Facebook? Which social network does she prioritise on her homepage.

Oh. It's not a social media site at all. Mari gives most prominence to the signup boxes and links for email marketing.

Perhaps that's a one-off. Lets try another one. How about another Facebook expert, Amy Porterfield?

Ah. Same again. Even more pronounced. All the focus on the email signup. Maybe it's a Facebook guru thing? How about the new kid on the block, Pinterest? Here's Pinterest expert Melanie Duncan's site.

Hmmm. No social media icons at all. It's all about the email. There's a trend emerging here…

How about Linkedin guru Lewis Howes?

Same thing again. All email. No social media icons. What about social media uber-guru Chris Brogan?

Yep. It's all about the email again.

In fact, as you'd expect, Chris is absolutely up front and open about his priorities and the importance of email marketing. He recently wrote “To me, the hottest and sexiest social network right now is your inbox”.

So here's the thing. I'm not saying that social media is worthless or that somehow these gurus are misleading you by promoting Facebook, Linkedin, Pinterest and their courses on them.

Absolutely not. About 12% of my website traffic comes from social media, it's very important. And the material I've seen from these folks is very valuable. They're smart people. And in many cases they talk about using social media to feed in to email marketing.

And, of course, I haven't shown the website of every social media guru. There may well be some out there who don't do email marketing and who do everything on social.

But looking at the websites of these big name experts, one thing is clear: they all recognise that for them, their most valuable asset by far is an email subscriber, not a social media follower or fan. That's what they prioritise and focus on.

What about you? Are you prioritising building an email list like the social media gurus? Or are you spending all your time on social media instead?

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Converting More of Your Web Visitors to Clients

Posted by

Ian Brodie on April 25th, 2013.

Today's blog post is by Peter Sandeen. Peter's an expert on “website conversion” for small businesses and professionals and one of the featured experts in my 21 Resources for Improving Website Conversions mega-post. Peter's kindly written a follow up article on the key strategies for turning website visitors into clients…

You get visitors to your website, but only a few of them ever turn to clients.

Worst case: none of them are the kind of people you’d want to work with.

You’ve probably tried changing your home page and maybe even hired a web designer to polish the design.

Still your results aren’t nearly as good as they could be.

At the same time, some of your competitors seem to get more than their fair share of clients.

If I said you could get every visitor to turn to a client, I’d be lying (especially if I claimed they’d all be fun to work with).

But there are definitely some things you can do right now to increase your conversion rates and start getting more clients (the good ones)…

Click here to read Peter's top conversion strategies >>

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