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Make your marketing timeless

Posted byIan Brodie on 8th November 2015.

Some things are just timeless, aren't they?

I'm just a little bit too young to remember the Beatles or the Stones in their prime, but if one of their hits comes on the radio it still sounds fresh to me.

Same goes with great art, great drama. Timeless.

At least some of your marketing should be like that too.

Of course, there's value in keeping up with the latest trends. I've been very successful with social media for lead generation for the last few years for example. But it's really been email that's been the timeless mainstay of my business.

Some marketing has a “best before” date. Works well for a few years until everyone starts doing it, then becomes less and less effective.

Other marketing has been working for decades and likely will for many to come: email marketing, direct mail, referrals.

Make sure you have some timeless marketing like this in your armoury.

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The real secret to finding the time for marketing

Posted byIan Brodie on 21st June 2015.

I recently spoke to a couple of people who told me they were struggling to find the time to work on their marketing.

To be honest, over the years I've ended up with a bit of a bee in my bonnet about “finding the time” for marketing.

You see, I don't believe time is the issue. There is always time for things we prioritise.

Most people who log their time over a week are staggered at how much of it they spend watching TV, or doing pseudo-work like chatting in Linkedin or Facebook groups, surfing the web or going to low-value networking events.

You can never remove those low-value activities entirely of course. And life would be very dull if you never had any leisure time or had to work flat out all the time.

But if we're honest, all of us can find an extra few hours a week.

So rather than saying “I couldn't find the time to work on my marketing” I think it's much more positive to be truthful and say “it wasn't a big enough priority for me”.

Saying you couldn't find the time makes it seem like it was out of your hands and there was nothing you could do about it. That events conspired against you.

Saying it wasn't a big enough priority for you puts the solution in your own hands: make it a bigger priority and do something about it.

I'd advise taking the route that puts the solution in your hands. Take responsibility and take action.

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Do you struggle to keep up sometimes?

Posted byIan Brodie on 1st March 2015.

Do you struggle to keep up sometimes?

I know I do.

There's not a week passes by without some new shiny object being proclaimed as the future of marketing or winning clients.

And since I teach marketing (and I'm a pretty extreme Resource Investigator) I just can't resist checking them out.

But when you have clients to support and products to build, you really don't have the time to try every new technique or tool. Let alone actually implement them properly.

And I know from speaking to many people that the constant pace of new things they're forever being told they need to know about can be pretty overwhelming.

I certainly don't have all the answers, but I do a couple of things that help.

Firstly, although I look at a lot of new things, I'm quite slow to change what I use “in anger” in my business. The thing I think you have to bear in mind is that changing some of the core things you do has a huge overhead.

You have to learn the new strategies and tactics. Then there's a bunch of time to put them in place. Then a whole lot of trial and error to get them to work. Then even more time to actually get them to perform at a level better than you were at before.

The end result is that unless the increase in performance is very big, all the gains you get are written off by the transition costs.

So I change my core marketing quite slowly.

Secondly, I've learned how to measure, analyse and test the effectiveness of my marketing.

That means that when something new comes along I start off with a pretty good sense of whether it will work for me, and I can test to see what the reality is.

That means I'm not just blindly implementing every new thing that comes out.

Finally, I've carved out time to test promising new ideas.

That may sound like more work, but it saves me in the long run.

For the last few years, for example, my main source of traffic and subscribers has been through blogging on my own site and other peoples. But after doing some experiments I switched over to focusing on Facebook advertising last year and it's saved me a ton of time.

Controlled experimentation, rather than just dabbling, lets you continuously improve to get better results for less investment of time.

Over the years my own tests have allowed me to get more subscribers and more clients with less investment of my own time to do so.

You can do the same.

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You DO have the time

Posted byIan Brodie on 8th June 2014.

A bit of tough love this weekend, for you and me.

I bang on a lot in these emails and my blog about creating content. Articles, blog posts, emails, free reports, videos, podcasts. Stuff than gets your message out there, builds your credibility, and has a call to action for people to get more from you.

And pretty much everyone I speak to about it “gets it”. No one says “no, that'll never work Ian”.

But what many people struggle with, perhaps you too, is actually producing that content. Finding the time in their busy schedule to get their head clear and write or record.

I get it too. There are dozens of pieces of content I have on my to-do list that I just haven't found the time to create. It's tricky. There's always another priority. It's so difficult for a busy person to get that extra time to make content.

And you know what? That's a lie.

It's not so difficult. Not if you prioritise it. Not if you knuckle down and do it.

We tell ourselves it's difficult and make it OK to have those important tasks rolling over on our to-do lists for weeks and months.

But we can get this stuff done.

If we skip a bit of TV watching, social media time or something else we enjoy we can easily find the time. It's just that we subconsciously prioritise those other things more highly and tell ourselves the lie that we just can't find the time.

I was reflecting earlier today on how I made the audiobook version of Email Persuasion.

I did it all on a Sunday afternoon. It took me four hours.

I'd planned to do the first couple of chapters but I just kept going.

I skipped the usual trip I make out for a coffee on a Sunday. I skipped listening to the Sunday game and watching a bit of TV.

And I created an audiobook which I've been able to offer to people as a thank you for reviewing the book.

I've shared a number of tips on making extra time for marketing over the years in these emails and on my blog.

But really, my experience with the Audiobook shows that for me, and probably for you, the biggest thing we can do is decide we want to do it and give it priority.

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Why your words are sometimes unimportant

Posted byIan Brodie on 2nd March 2014.

Being a marketing person I sometimes spend a lot of time agonising over words.

The headline on your website. Subject lines for emails. The lead on a sales letter. What you say is the key to whether people buy your products or services.

Or is it?

In our sort of businesses, I've found it plays out a little bit differently.

When people join Momentum Club, they don't do it because of anything clever I've written on the sales page.

They do it, I believe, because they've got great value from my emails, videos and blog posts and they believe they'll get even more from Momentum Club and from getting more direct support from me.

It's the same for you. Your clients are persuaded more by your actions than by your words.

Your words are still important, don't get me wrong.

But what's more important is that value you deliver to them up front. The way you treat them. The confidence you give them that working with you would be a winning proposition.

Next time you think about your marketing, don't focus on what you can say to convince them you're the right person to hire. Think about what you can do to prove it.

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How to get more marketing done in less time

Posted byIan Brodie on 10th February 2013.

Like most people, I often feel as if there just aren't anywhere near enough hours in the day to get everything I need done.

I used to think the answer was more efficiency. I've tried out pretty much every productivity system and “to do list” app under the sun.

And while these systems are helpful to keep your tasks under control and to make sure you don't drop any balls, I've found that any time I save with a better productivity system soon gets eaten back up with more stuff to do.

Have you found something similar?

I suspect I'm not alone. Many professionals I speak to have this same issue. The most common challenge I hear is “I know I need to do more marketing, but I just don't have the time”.

Well, what I've found that actually does work for me is what I call my “radical productivity system”. You might want to try it to see if it works for you.

Here it is….

….drum roll….

Stop doing stuff that doesn't work.

Yeah, OK, that probably doesn't sound very clever. You might even be thinking “come on Ian, I don't waste my time doing things that don't work”.

But have you ever really checked?

When I tracked back my very best and biggest clients to where they came from, there were actually a very few sources.

Some came from referrals from previous clients. Some were people who'd seen me presenting at an event. A lot came from people finding my website, subscribing to my newsletter and calling me when the time was right to do something together.

And some came from recommendations from people who might normally be considered my competitors but because I've built good relationships with them, recommended me when they thought I'd be able to do a better job for someone.

Networking? Not so much. I was spending hours every week at events, but it turns out that it rarely led to winning clients.

Surprisingly, despite the fact that many people will tell you that a great way to win clients is to establish yourself as an expert by answering questions on Linkedin groups and forums, it didn't really work for me.

(Well, technically, it worked a couple of times years ago – but these days Linkedin groups seem to be more filled with vendors trying to pitch stuff than clients).

By simply cutting down on the activities that weren't making much of an impact for me I saved about half a day per week.

Some of that time's been taken up with more effective marketing. Some of it I've saved for myself and my family.

Of course, the things that really work will be different for you. But the key is to make sure you really know what does – don't just assume – check.

Then grit your teeth and cut back on the stuff that doesn't work.

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Why selling benefits can (sometimes) lose you sales

Posted byIan Brodie on 6th June 2011.

“Focus on the benefits, not the features”

I'm sure you've heard this a million times.

It's standard marketing dogma. Focus on benefits. The problems you solve. The results people get from working with you.

Normally that's absolutely the right thing to do.

But sometimes it's absolutely wrong.

You see, focusing on benefits implies that's why people buy. And that's not always the case.

Imagine yourself in this scenario:

You're the CIO of a multinational. You've been set a target to reduce expenditure by 10% across the board.

You're looking at outsourcing. One firm is quoting you savings of 15%, the other 20%?

Which one do you go with. The 20% is a no-brainer, right?

Not necessarily.

15% and 20% are both significantly better than your budget. Both will keep the board happy.

In theory, you might go for the 20% to get the maximum benefit. But there's another huge factor that's going to be weighing on your mind. One that more often than not will determine your decision.

RISK.

You see, you might get an extra pat on the back for getting those extra savings – if they come off.

But if something goes wrong. If the outsourcer fails to deliver, if your systems start failing or your users start complaining all the time. Then you're in big trouble.

So as a buyer, you're rarely out to simply maximise benefits. You're looking to hit your target benefits at minimum risk.

And you'll see this buying behaviour repeated time and time again. Especially in large corporations and the public sector where maximising benefits will get you a small bonus or a pat on the back, but buying something which fails will get you the sack.

So as a seller (especially to large corporations or the public sector) you've got to focus not just on the benefits you'll bring – but on making sure they see you as the lowest risk option.

If you're like me, and you're a small or solo business, you're automatically at a disadvantage in these circumstances. By default, large businesses will see you as a risk.

So that means that very often, the focus of your “pitch” needs to be on minimising the perceived risk of working with you (and maximising the perceived risk of working with someone else).

Next time you're bidding for a big piece of work with a major customer, spend some time putting yourself in your potential client's shoes and brainstorming what risks they might see in the project and in working with you.

Maybe it's financial stability. Maybe it's continuity if you get hit by illness. Maybe it's that you don't understand their business. Maybe it's whether you can work in a unionised environment.

Whatever the risks you spot, make sure you address those risks.

Because just banging on about the wonderful benefits of working with you is going to get you nowhere if your client is frightened it may all fall apart and they won't see any of them in practice.