Do It! Marketing Blog: Marketing for Smart People™

Guest column by Nick Usborne

The Rule of One falls into two areas...what you write about, and who you write to.

Here’s the first part of the rule...

Confine each communication to a single topic

This is a battle that has been raging between copywriters and their clients for a very long time.

Twenty years ago I remember trying to discourage clients from wanting to say too much in a single ad or direct mail letter.

I think they felt that if they were going to pay the media costs, they would get “more for their money” if they used every opportunity to say as much as possible about their products, services and company.

My counter-argument was that they would communicate much more clearly, and with better results, if they stuck to a single topic and a single message. The same problem persists today on the web.

Too many web pages try to cover too much ground.

Think of it this way. Very few people arrive at your site wanting to hear about all of your different products or services. Most will have used a search engine to find information on a single, clearly defined topic.

Whether you bring them to a specific landing page or some other interior page, build your pages so that they focus on just one topic at a time.

Do that and you will stay focused and please your visitors.

As a side benefit, you will also please the major search engines, which consistently reward pages that are confined to a single topic. The more clearly defined the page topic, the higher the listing.

And now for the second part of the Rule of One.

Write to one person at a time

You have probably heard this advice before. But as I read web pages across a variety of industries, I see little evidence of writers following this simple rule.

Basically, you will write more clearly, more personally and with better results if you picture an individual prospect or reader as you write.

Don’t write to some amorphous demographic group. Write to one person within that group.

Don’t create a mental picture of “that kind of person”. Picture a real person with a real life. Think about that person’s life. Think about what they want out of life.

Now think about how your product or service fits that person.

If you do this well, if you can truly see an individual prospect in your mind, it will have a profound impact on what and how you write.

Your text will read and feel as if it is being written to a real person. The corporate-speak jargon and biz-speak nonsense will disappear, and you will suddenly begin writing more clearly, with a true empathy for the person who will be reading your text.

Keep one thing in mind. This is not a “copywriting trick”. This is writing pages in a way that corresponds to how they will be read. It may sound obvious, but so many people lose touch with the fact that every page you write WILL be read by individuals with unique lives and needs.

No “group” will ever read your page. No “industry” will ever read your page.

The web pages you write will always be read by individuals, one at a time.

Concluding thoughts

Stick to one topic and write to one person.

It sounds easy, but very few people do it. Sometimes copywriters fail to write in this way because they haven’t thought about it. Sometimes it happens due to unrelenting pressure from above.

Either way, sticking to the Rule of One will always help you. Discipline yourself and fight your clients and managers if you need to.

In the end, the results will speak for themselves.

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Note: Nick Usborne is the leading advocate of good writing on the Web. He is an 
author, copywriter, consultant, speaker, and the publisher of the Excess Voice 
newsletter for online writers. Read his articles at http://www.excessvoice.com  

A colleague recently said to me, “No one has found the top secret formula for successful online marketing yet.”

I disagree. A number of companies know exactly what works and are making small fortunes with it.

The primary concept is that online marketing works best when you e‐mail to people who ALREADY know you. Therefore, successful online marketers build their “house file” or “e‐list” (lists of prospects and their e‐mail addresses) using the process outlined below, and then sell to those people via e‐mail marketing:

1. Build a Website that positions you or your organization as an expert, guru, or leader in your field or industry. This is the “base of operations” for your online marketing campaign.

2. Your Website should include a home page, an “About the Company” page and a page with brief descriptions of your products and services (each product or service description can link to a longer document on the individual item).

3. You should also have an “Articles Page” where you post articles your company has published on your industry or area of specialty, and where visitors can read and download these articles for free (e.g., a home improvement contractor would have tips for small do‐it‐yourself home improvement projects).

4. Write a short special report or white paper relating to the problem your product or service addresses, and make this available to people who visit your site. They can download it for free, but in exchange, they have to register and give you their e‐mail address (and any other information you want to capture).

5. Consider also offering a monthly online newsletter, or “e‐zine.” People who visit your site can subscribe free if they register and give you their e‐mail address. You may want to give the visitor the option of checking a box that reads: “I give you and other companies you select permission to send me e‐mail about products, services, news, and offers that may be of interest to me.”

6. The more “content” (useful information) on your site, the better. More people will be attracted to your site, and they will spend more time on it. They will also tell others about your site.

7. The model is to drive traffic to your site where you get them to sign up for either your free report or free e‐zine. Once they register, you have their e‐ mail address and can now market to them via e‐mail as often as you like at no extra cost.

8. The bulk of your online leads, sales, and profits will come from repeat e‐ mail marketing to this “house” e‐list of prospects. Therefore, your goal is to build a large e‐list of qualified prospects as quickly and inexpensively as you can.

9. There are a number of online marketing options, which can drive traffic to your site, that I can help you with. These include free publicity; e‐mail marketing; social media advertising; search engine optimization; direct mail; and e‐zine advertising.

10. The key to success is to try many different tactics in small and inexpensive tests, throw out the ones that do not work, and do more of the ones that are effective.

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Need a great marketing speaker for your next association conference, company meeting, or franchisee/dealer event? Marketing speaker David Newman delivers the goods - over 600 presentations since 1992. David's clients include 44 of the Fortune 500 and countless small and mid-size organizations, associations, and non-profits.
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Simon Sinek wrote a great book called Start with Why. One of the key lines in it is...

"People buy WHY you do something before they buy your WHAT or HOW."

Meaning - People first buy your purpose, your intent, your WHY.

I'll make that even more specific - they buy WHAT YOU BELIEVE. And, perhaps most important of all, they buy what you BELIEVE IN.

Face it, beliefs are easy to spot. You either believe or you don't - you either believe IN or you don't. The proof of your beliefs is in your actions.

Which of these things do YOU and YOUR TEAM and your COMPANY believe IN?

• Being nice (Zappo's)
• Overdelivering (Nordstrom's)
• Helping others (Tom's Shoes)
• Joy (BMW)
• Design (Apple)
• Simplicity (In 'n' Out Burger)
• Gifts (Seth Godin keeps sending me books!!)

Want to make this abundantly clear to your prospects, customers, clients, partners, and the world?

Great! Post it - share it - let the world see your beliefs not only in what you SAY (like my marketing pal, Steve Miller has done so brilliantly here) but in your ACTIONS.

When it comes to small business marketing, only action creates results and only action proves your beliefs.

Just finished presenting for Steelcase to a group of really smart, entrepreneurial architecture and design firm principals and executives in Philadelphia.

When I asked them the overall purpose of marketing their firms, someone volunteered the notion that they want to become the "go-to guys" and "go-to gals" for their prospects and clients and the community of folks whom they serve.

As a marketing speaker and marketing coach to professional services firms, I pointed out exactly how important that was - especially in light of the fact that a survey of over 700 clients showed that between 52-72% of them would be willing to change professional services providers across a wide variety of industries. (Architecture and design was in the middle of the pack at around 60%)

For YOU, I'd like to raise the bar even further. Once you've successfully established yourself and your organization as the go-to resource... the key question becomes:

What do people GET when they GO TO you?

Do they get help, information, tips, actionable advice and a genuine thank-you for getting in touch?

OR... Do they get a sales pitch, a come-on, an invoice, a brush-off or worst of all - silence?

There's nothing worse than doing all the hard work to establish yourself, your team and your organization as the "go-to" resource only to blow it when prospects and clients ACT on your invitation to help them.

• For free...
• Because you care...
• And because you put their needs ahead of yours.  

When it comes to becoming the "go-to" resource, be careful what you wish for... Do it right and they WILL go to you.

Question is, what will they GET?

And will they come back for more or leave disappointed?

What do you think? Share your "go-to" guy stories, tips, and strategies in the COMMENTS section below...

How to Design a Client-Magnet Presentation

As a marketing speaker and marketing coach, I see too many speakers, consultants, and thought-leading executives who commit to a speaking strategy built around their professional passions, interests, or favorite topics within their expertise.

Sounds like common sense, right? Well, that would be a huge mistake. DON’T do it!

For your speaking efforts to pay off in terms of marketing results, you need to design the presentation content NOT around what YOU are passionate about, but what your buyers and prospects are passionate about!

Imagine a pair of X-ray vision goggles that you are now using to zoom in on your target clients. Ask yourself the following:

• What do they want?
• What are they missing in their lives?
• What hurts?
• Where is the pain?
• What are they yearning for?
• What do they worry about most?
• What are their biggest headaches, heartaches, and hassles?
• What are their urgent, pervasive, and expensive problems?

Gather Live Ammo Data

What’s the first step? Research. Preparation. Homework.

Industry, regional, business, and company news is now at everyone’s fingertips on the Internet. Look for verbatim quotes, video clips, blog entries, trade journal profiles, and audio interviews to capture as much as you can from representative members of your buyer persona.

Then go directly to the source – YOUR real live customers and prospects. If you’re not intelligently researching your prospects’ issues, challenges, and pressures, how can you possibly come in with credible high-perceived-value solutions? One of the best ways to approach prospects is with:

• Interviews
• Surveys
• Research
• Data gathering

It positions you and your firm as an expert resource and it gives you valuable data you should be getting anyway!

Bottom line: for thought-leadership marketing to work for YOU, you have to be a dealer, collector, curator, and dispenser of thoughts... and one of the best ways to LEAD is to LISTEN.

As a marketing speaker and marketing coach who works with professional speakers, consultants, and professional services firms, one of THE most frequent questions I get is "How do I find the best places for me to speak so I generate business?"

I always come back with the following key question: What Audiences Are Your Clients In?

What groups do your ideal clients belong to? This will obviously determine which audiences you want to be in front of.

Not sure? Don’t guess – ask!

Here is the script to ask your current clients, prospects, and centers of influence who know your target market well…

“I’m looking to speak more in front of groups of [BUYER PERSONA]. I’d love to get your Advice, Insights, and Recommendations.”

(Thanks to my pal, networking and referral marketing speaker Michael Goldberg for the A-I-R approach!)

Another way to ask might be…

“Of all the industry groups and associations you belong to, which ones provide the most value in terms of the speakers and programs they present?”

With both of these scripts, the natural follow-up discussion would center around your desire to serve this industry/community more and to share information with them that would help them become even more successful.

Likely outcomes from this discussion would include:

• Names of specific groups, associations, and conferences
• Names of specific people serving in board or programming positions
• Names of other executives or decision-makers in the field
• Names of other companies or firms in need of similar information/services
• Specific networking introductions
• Offers of referrals to the individuals they already know
• An opportunity to reciprocate and ask how YOU might be of service to THEM

Resources for Targeting Best-Fit Venues

Finding venues to speak profitably could be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Here are some resources to help you laser-target your speaking to your best-fit audiences:

• The Directory of Associations online (http://www.marketingsource.com) 
• National Trade and Professional Associations of the United States – hardcopy from http://www.columbiabooks.com
• http://www.LeadershipDirectories.com for access to 500,000 corporate and association decision-makers (this comes at a hefty $5,000 annual fee)
• Your Public Library – free access to high-priced proprietary business databases (Hoovers, D&B Million Dollar Database, InfoUSA)

Have fun, speak well, and go generate some business.

Got questions? Comments? A resource or tip of your own? Please use the COMMENTS sections below and let's hear from YOU...

Marketing speakers and marketing consultants are famous for packing in "over 100 strategies you can use immediately" and "97 secrets" or "51 immutable laws" of this and that.

Problem is - those numbers are too high. You don't need 100, you can't implement 97, and you'll never get a handle on 51.

You need 3-4 max. Three strategies. Or four tactics. Used with focus, momentum, and consistency...

Less is truly more. Here's Picasso's take on it:
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You must always work not just within, but below your means. If you can handle three elements, handle only two. If you can handle ten, then handle only five. In that way, the ones you do handle, you handle with more ease, more mastery, and you create a feeling of strength in reserve.

-- Pablo Picasso
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If any one thing characterizes the time in which we live, it is the tendency to strive and to overreach and to want more, more, more, now, now, now.

The problem with multi-tasking and this go-go-go pattern of life and work is that there is no room for mastery, for ease, for “strength in reserve.”

• If you want to get more done, work more slowly.
• If you want it faster, develop a singular focus.
• If you want to get better, do less.

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PERSONAL NOTE: Although I started my marketing speaking and consulting business in 2001, my work has focused almost exclusively on making professional speakers successful since 2003. For the last 7 years, that's what gets me flying out of bed each morning (sometimes at 5am!) and it's what brings me the biggest professional joy on a daily basis. Enough about me - let's talk about YOU...
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If YOU are a professional speaker, coach, consultant, author, or thought-leading solopreneur, your marketing and business development prayers may be only a few days away from being answered...

Whoa... Stop the tape! That paragraph sounded like a lot of hype and malarkey, didn't it?

It did to me, too - except that for YEARS, my secret dream was to find a "Magic Service" that would take marketing, prospecting, and booking tasks (and all the gruntwork too!) OFF my plate and let me refocus 99% of my time and energy on working with my amazing clients and speaking to the groups I love.

• Was it a Virtual Assistant firm? That helped - but no
• Was it my Webmaster? Great for tech - not for this
• Was it my Sales Coach? Love the guy, but he wasn't gonna do my work for me
• Was it my Mastermind Group? Super for accountability - the work was still on me
• Was it my own Marketing Consultant (yup I've hired 'em too) - wonderful insights but zero implementation help
• Was it my Intern? She's awesome for prescriptive tasks, but not the marketing brains + marketing brawn "Magic Service" I was envisioning
• Was it recruiting and training my own Marketing Manager? Over the years, I tried - but it was hit or miss. Faith came from the printing industry and was great at selling printing - not speakers. Pete was a radio guy - and smart, hardworking, and persistent. But this wasn't radio. And Glenda - well, don't ask about Glenda. As she tells it, she couldn't book me because I "wasn't already famous" and "nobody knows my name" (Guess whose job it was for them to GET to know my name!!) 

So where did that leave me? I had three options:

1. I could wait to get rich and famous on my own and then maybe - just maybe - work with one of a few "elite" speaker agencies like Holli Catchpole's SpeakersOffice. (As of now, unless you're willing to change your first name to Nido, Jim, or Desi, Holli's roster is full up.)  
2. I could wait to get rich and famous on my own and then perhaps some wonderful speaker's bureaus would become interested in booking me once I was already booking 30-40 gigs a year under my own steam at fees between $7,500 and $10k per speech
   
3. As a marketing speaker as well as a marketing coach to some of the best and brightest NSA speakers and other experts who speak professionally, I could create the "Magic Service" that I myself wanted to use. 

(Music - Lights - Drums): NEW "Done For You" Marketing Services and NEW Speaker Booking Service debut in May 2010...

Part I: Done for You Marketing Services

This idea has been percolating - and our team has been strategizing together on how to best launch these services for you since January of 2009, so this is definitely not some random collection of subcontractors that other consultants may trot out from time to time.

I've worked individually with each member of our team and they have proven themselves time after time on multiple client projects ranging from a few hundred dollars to design your killer business card to $10,000+ for creating your complete online and offline marketing platform, print materials, video, social media, and a host of monthly ongoing "done-for-you" services.

Part II: Speaker Booking Service

The most exciting part - for which we're almost at capacity even before the launch - is the new Speaker Booking Service...

Because of the devastating 2008-2009 downsizings and layoffs in the world of speaker's bureaus, event management companies, trade and professional associations, and meeting planning firms, there's an unprecedented glut of amazing talent out there who...

• Know the meetings industry inside-out
• Can articulate the value proposition of hiring strong professional speakers
• Will hit the ground running already well-practiced with between 70-80% of what they need to know, say, and do to get the interest of decision-makers and open long-lasting relationships (and between you and me, we'll teach them the other 20-30% of what they'll need to book YOU specifically!)
• Don't need to be "shown the ropes" in the speaking industry because they've already been actively working in it - either on the buying side or the selling side or both
• Will get to know you and your thought leadership platform in detail so they can represent you as your dedicated marketing and sales rep with no overhead, no recruiting hassles, and no turnover headaches 
• Will stick around because YOU don't need to feed them 40 hours of work per week - we will!
• Will get better the more you use them because you will get a dedicated agent with whom you book a block of outbound marketing hours. Our booking staff becomes your booking staff
• Will become more affordable the more you use them because as you buy bigger blocks of time, your hourly rate will go down. If you become a high-volume client, it's possible that based on our work together, your hourly fees eventually disappear in exchange for a higher commission rate on booked business. (Totally your call, but the service is designed to maximize the value for you either way)

Finally, the kicker is - with these two new services, you get BOTH the brains AND the brawn. You may not want consulting from me right now and you might just want some "done-for-you" services such as the booking service...

You STILL get my input as your "marketing quarterback." As you work with our team of speaker booking agents, graphic designers, web designers, social media specialists, ghostwriters, and the rest of my team, I'm watching the process, helping guide your decisions, and serving as "creative director" to the team and "marketing advisor" to YOU. 

Frankly, it's amazing to me that nothing like this hybrid marketing strategy plus done-for-you services firm existed to help make professional speakers, consultants, and thought-leading solopreneurs successful. But it's here now!  

I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. If you're equally pumped about this and/or want to learn more, call me at 610-716-5984 or drop me an email at david@doitmarketing.com and we'll talk about which of these services might help YOU become more visible, more marketable, more bookable - and more successful!!!

Keep your eye on the Done For You Marketing Services page over the next few weeks as we roll out the details and initial service offerings so you can see all the "marketing jobs" we'll be able to take off your plate. 

As a marketing speaker and marketing coach, I can tell you that Networking is one of the most misunderstood marketing terms there is.

Professional speakers, consultants, coaches, and independent professionals either love it or hate it - and no matter which camp you find yourself in, there are probably some misconceptions and misunderstanding that are preventing you from making networking as fully effective as it can be and should be to help you grow your business.

Networking: What is it?

• Meeting people at events, mixers etc. (the obvious first step)
• Goal: move it to a different level, namely...

Power networking

• Introducing people to each other (Netweaving)
• Having breakfast, lunch, coffee or dinner 1-on-1 to build new key relationships
• Meeting people in organizations (civic/social; religious; recreational)
• ASKING people to introduce you to someone
• Doing favors for people for no reason (random acts of networking kindness)
• Asking others for help and resources
• Bringing a group of your own together for brainstorming, mastermind group, etc.

Maximize Your Affiliations

• Friends, neighbors, church, hobbies, past bosses and colleagues
• Speakers Bureaus, meeting planners, training companies, event producers
• Your Professional affiliations (trade, professional, civic, etc)
• Other colleagues outside of your peer groups such as NSA (speakers), IMC (consultants), or ICF (coaches) 
• Your Industry affiliations within your target industry groups

Your Keys to Networking Success

• Over deliver make them look like a genius for referring or connecting you
• Lead and get involved (raise your visibility and credibility within each group)
• Serve on committees, projects, and bring “outside” ideas to solve big problems
• Become known as a connector, a hub, and a linchpin
• Give three times as much as you hope to get