Tag: strategic internet marketing

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Sales & Marketing

3 Tips to Creating a Free Gift Your Ideal Clients Actually Want

If you’re like many entrepreneurs, concern (or even distress) about the size of your email list is a major issue. And for good reason. 

Your email list — which is a list of folks that have given you permission to email or otherwise contact them — is the foundation of business success. Those are the people who are interested in building a relationship with you and eventually may turn into a customer of yours. The more people on that list, the easier it is to build a profitable, sustainable business. 

So how DO you grow that list? Well, one tried-and-true strategy is to come up with a free gift or “taste” of your offer in exchange for getting your ideal client’s contact information. (An example of this is a special report or a video or audio recording and you set up an opt-in page to collect the name and email address in exchange for giving them access to that content.) 

The problem is, how do you figure out what the best gift should be? Below are 3 tips to help you do exactly that: 

1. Create your gift around what’s keeping your ideal client’s up at night. No matter what it is you sell, there’s one major problem keeping your ideal client’s up at night that your products or services would solve. That’s what you want to focus on — what I call the “gateway” problem. 

This is important to remember — while I know some of you reading this offer very complicated and thorough coaching or healing programs that end solving lots of issues your ideal clients have, they didn’t actually buy the your program because of ALL those results. They bought it because of ONE major issue they were having, and now that your program solved other problems, they’re really excited about it but that’s not what caused them to buy your program in the first place. 

If you try and get too cute or complicated in your initial gift, your ideal clients aren’t going to be that interested in giving you their name and email for the gift (much less actually going through what you put together). 

2. Spend some time crafting a hooky title for your gift. The title is what is going to catch their eye and encourage them to read more about what you’re offering for free. 

So how do you create a hooky title? Go back to what’s keeping your ideal clients up at night. For instance, you’re a weight-loss coach, you could focus on 5 foods that make you fat. Or if you’re a business coach you could focus on 5 mindset traps keeping you from building a successful business. 

Now, what’s keeping your ideal clients up at night is only the first step. As you can see by my examples there are a couple of other tips to help you craft a hooky title: 

* Putting a number in there. It helps to have X tips or steps or secrets or strategies. Adding that detail makes it more specific for your ideal clients plus it implies you’ve laid out the information in a way that makes sense for them to consume. 

* The smaller the slice, the better. Notice I focus on 5 foods that make you fat or 5 mindset traps. Not EVERYTHING that is making you fat or EVERYTHING that is keeping you from growing a business. One piece of the puzzle. Again, that specificity makes it very clear exactly what your ideal clients are getting, and the more clear they are, the more likely it is they’ll want it (if it appeals to them). 

3. Don’t be afraid to make it content-rich — but don’t give away the store. Okay, so how on earth can you do that? 

The best way to do this is to completely answer whatever you promised them you would answer, but your answer should open up another question. So, for the mindset traps, you tell them exactly what the mindset traps are, but if they want more personalized help to avoid them, they’ll need your product. Or you share what the 5 foods are, but then you may need something to replace those foods (or maybe eliminating those foods isn’t enough and they’ll need more help) and that’s where your program comes in. 

The problem I’ve seen with content sharing is either people clearly hold back information so it’s obviously incomplete (which irritates your ideal clients) or they share too much information and their ideal clients end up feeling satisfied and have no need to take the next step (EVEN if it’s a false sense of satisfaction). 

Again, this can be helped if you narrow down what your gift is covering to a very small piece of the puzzle. If you do that, you (hopefully) won’t share so much your ideal clients feel complete, and if you answer that small piece completely, they’ll feel like you gave them a great deal of content.

Categories
Sales & Marketing

3 Marketing Habits You MUST Cultivate for Biz Success

If you’re like many entrepreneurs, marketing is not one of your fave activities. (In fact, I would bet the only thing you detest more than marketing is sales.)

The problem is if you aren’t regularly marketing your business, your cash flow is also not that regular (and there’s nothing worse than a feast-or-famine business model).

So what can you do? Well, the easiest fix is to start marketing regularly. And the easiest way to start doing THAT is to make marketing a habit. To help you get started I’ve given you 3 marketing habits that are essential to business success:

1.  Do 1 lead-generating activity a week. Maybe it’s posting an article to your blog. Maybe you record a video. Maybe someone interviews you to their list. Maybe it’s spending a half-hour on Facebook. Maybe you mix it up and do something different each week. Whatever you decide doesn’t matter as much as doing something.

2. Do 1 nurturing activity to your list each week. This could be anything from sending an ezine or hosting a free call or even just sending your list a few tips or a content-rich video. The idea behind this is to provide content to your list (and by your list, I mean the list of emails you’ve hopefully been collecting at your website).

No one wants to be on an email list and just get constantly sold to. You want to be giving them value and giving them a reason to not just stay on your list but also pay attention to you.

3. Do 1 selling activity each month. Yes I know I just said not to sell constantly to your list, but if you never do any selling than you end up with a list that doesn’t buy from you. You need to balance selling and giving, that’s how you end up with a warm responsive list.

Selling activities include selling your own products, programs or services (for instance launching a new program to your list or maybe doing a quick email-only sale) or offering an affiliate or joint venture product or program to your list.  (Affiliate means you offer something to your list and get a commission for each sale you make.)

My suggestion is to balance your own launches with affiliate or joint venture launches.  Even though you make more money with your own launches, they’re quite exhausting to do not to mention taxing your list. By mixing it up you can give both yourself and your list a break while still being able to sell.

Now, you may be thinking to yourself “with everything else on my to-do list, how am I possibly going to develop these marketing habits?”

Well, there’s no reason it has to be you personally. You can certainly have your team help. In fact, I would encourage delegating as much as possible. And if you do, then it becomes less a personal habit for you and instead it turns into a habit for your business. (Doesn’t that sound better? Your business has 3 marketing habits that are regularly done regardless of how involved you end up being.)

Now you’re on your way to building a successful, thriving business.

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Entrepreneurs Sales & Marketing

3 Ways to Put Fresh Spins on Old Marketing Concepts

Are you struggling to find a new twist for your advertising or marketing campaigns? Tired of sounding like everyone else and want something new and fresh? Never fear. Here are 3 ways to get those creative juices (and new ideas) flowing.

 

But before I get to those, there are a few things you should do to prime the pump, so to speak. What this does is clear your “conscious” mind so your muse will have an easier time sending messages to it.

 

First, review all the information about your product or service. Then, write down all the benefits (why customers would buy those products or services).

 

Now write down all the concepts you have used before or you’ve seen other people use before. This is an important step. You need to move the old stuff out of the way to make room for the new. Writing those concepts down helps do this.

 

Okay, now you’re ready to start generating some fresh ideas.

 

1. Take another look at testimonials. Testimonials are always great selling tools, but that’s not why I want you to do this. Customers may come up with a key benefit you never thought about before, and that may become the foundation for a new campaign. Scour every testimonial you can get your hands on and see if you can find something new. You might want to even try calling a few customers for quick interviews. (Don’t have testimonials? Now might be a good time to solicit some.)

 

2. Study other ads. Flip through a magazine or turn on the television — except this time focus on the ads and not the content. (I know, I know, this is counter to what you usually do.) Which ads do you like? Why do you like them? Are those ads doing something you can modify for your own campaign?

 

The key word is modify, not copy. I don’t want anyone committing copyright infringement. What I’m talking about is using an existing ad to jump-start your own ideas. Maybe you really like the use of an evocative photo with a single caption. Or the use of repetition in Mastercard’s “Priceless” campaign. Or the idea of turning the “money can’t buy everything” on its head (which is essence of that campaign). Can you use that concept in your campaign?

 

Another resource for great ads is Communication Arts Magazine. Each issue showcases some of the most creative and beautiful ads found anywhere.

 

3. Check out what a completely different industry is doing. For instance, let’s say you sell software products to computer professionals. Techy market, right? So, pick up a yoga magazine. See how that industry communicates with its audience. Now try selling your product using the same language and concepts. Take it a step further and brainstorm ways your software product is similar to doing yoga.

 

Why this works: One definition of creativity is taking two everyday ideas and combing them so they become something original.

 

This is a very powerful way to jolt your own thinking and start your muse down a completely different path, one you might never have discovered before.

 

A variation on this idea is to force a connection with a random object rather than an entire industry. You ask yourself, how is your software program similar to a stuffed dog? Write down everything you can think of, no matter how silly or foolish. Sometimes the foolish ideas are the ones that lead to the great ones.

 

A final note: If at all possible, don’t rush this process. Give your muse some time to ponder and play with these techniques. I know it often seems like ideas pop out into your head out of thin air, but usually that only happens because you’ve given your muse the necessary tools and “incubation time” to make it happen.

 

 

Categories
Sales & Marketing

Are You Creative?

Quiz: Are you Creative?

Worried you may not be creative, or you may not be creative enough? Take this quiz and find out just how creative you are.

Get a piece of paper and number it one to seven. For each question, write down the corresponding letter of your answer.

1. When you come across a rose, you immediately:

A. Smell it.

B. Quote every rose poem you can remember.

C. Write your own poem.

D. Sketch the rose.

E. Step on the rose.

2. One of your dreams in life is to:

A. Write a novel.

B. Become a painter.

C. Travel the world.

D. Climb all the famous mountains.

E. Just once, get everything done on your to-do list

3. Your desk:

A. You have trouble finding as it’s buried under everything including the kitchen sink.

B. Resembles a natural disaster.

C. Is a bit of a mess, but you know where everything is.

D. Is basically neat — you use the stacking method

E. Is in perfect order — everything in its place.

4. The person you admire most is:

A. Einstein.

B. Walt Disney.

C. Your mother.

D. Jane Austin.

E. Anyone who can get everything crossed off their to-do list.

5. You consider yourself:

A. Extremely creative.

B. Creative.

C. Somewhat creative.

D. A little creative.

E. About as creative as a turnip (actually, come to think about it, turnips may be more creative then you are).

6. You get new ideas:

A. All the time.

B. Several times a week.

C. Several times a month.

D. Once or twice a month.

E. You dimly recall getting a new idea when Clinton was in office. Or maybe it was the first Bush.

7. You dream in:

A. Color.

B. Black and white.

C. Both black and white and color.

D. You can’t remember now.

E. Nothing. You don’t dream.

Scoring:

Throw out all your answers except the one for number five — “You consider yourself:”. If you answered:

A. Extremely creative — Then you’re extremely creative.

B. Creative — Then you’re creative.

C. Somewhat creative — then you’re somewhat creative.

D. A little creative — Then you’re a little creative.

E. About as creative as a turnip — then you’re about as creative as a turnip.

Okay, this was a bit of a trick. But it’s true. How creative you think you are corresponds with how creative you are.

There was a famous study done that illustrates this. A big company wanted to increase creativity in its employees. So it hired a group of consultants to come in. The consultants started by thoroughly testing all of the employees. They discovered the only difference between the employees who were creative and who weren’t creative was how creative they perceived themselves.

Even more telling was what happened to the group that wasn’t creative. The consultants focused on helping them nurture their creativity, and at the end those employees were actually more creative than the ones who had initially considered themselves more creative.

And that means you too can become more creative. In fact, how creative you become is entirely in your own hands.

Creativity Exercise — Assumptions

Ready to become more creative? Here’s an exercise.

Write down all the reasons why you’re not creative. Go on. Write them all down. Every negative reason you can think of. Things like:

I’ve never been creative in my life.

I haven’t had a new idea in over a year.

I don’t have time to be creative.

Now reverse those negative assumptions and make them positive. Like so:

I am a creative person.

I have lots of new ideas all of time.

I don’t need time to be creative because I already am creative.

Do this every day and see what happens. This is a great way to start getting rid of those inner demons that keep all of us from realizing our true potential.

Categories
Sales & Marketing

3 Reasons Why EVERY Entrepreneur Should Learn a Few Coaching Skills

As an entrepreneur who specializes in a done-for-you service (it doesn’t get any more done-for-you then handing clients a piece of copy plus the exact strategy for how to use it to get the best results in their business) you would think I would be the last person who would need to coach someone around mindset shifts or through their blocks.

Alas that is not the case.

You would be surprised at how many times I’ve been hired (and fully paid) for copy the clients have loved but never used.

Why? Well, there are as many reasons as entrepreneurs out there but a good chunk of the time it has to do with some sort of block.

So how do I respond? As much as I can, I try and step in and work them through whatever has got them stuck (although I really am not a coach). Which means having a few coaching skills in my back pocket has proven to be amazingly helpful.

This is why I firmly believe all entrepreneurs could use a little training in the coaching skills department, even if they never call themselves a coach or sell coaching services or packages.

Here are 3 reasons why every entrepreneur could benefit from some coaching skills:

1. You’re more likely to have your clients actually use (and get results from) your products, programs or services. Even if you offer a pure done-for-you service, if your clients aren’t ready to embrace the next level of their business, they won’t get the results you know you can deliver.

Have you ever watched those reality television shows like “Restaurant Impossible” or “Hotel Impossible?” The host walks into a failing restaurant or hotel and along with giving them some practical, basic business advice, they also end up doing a heck of a lot of coaching around whatever it is that got the business owner to this place of near bankruptcy. And because the hosts do that coaching (along with it making good television because who doesn’t like to watch people crying and hugging on camera) the business owners are much more likely to follow through with their changes when they aren’t there.

That’s why coaching skills can be invaluable.

2. You reduce your refunds/unhappiness rate. Again, because your clients actually implement your suggestions/consulting/done-for-you services, they’re more likely to see results, which makes them happier and better clients.

You’re also more likely to end up with some killer testimonials from them not to mention lots of good word of mouth advertising.

3. You’re more likely to actually make a difference in the world. Look, if part of why you’re passionate about your business is because you want to get your message out there and see some change, that’s only going to happen if your clients actually implement what you’re teaching or offering. There’s no better to way to increase the odds of that happening then to be able to coach them when things come up.

Remember, your clients hired you or invested in your products because they had a problem they wanted solved. And the best thing you can do for them is to help make sure they actually get their money’s worth. And that’s where coaching skills can be worth their weight in gold.