Do It! Marketing Blog: Marketing for Smart People™

What follows is not directly related to marketing, copywriting, professional speaking and the other topics I typically cover here — and it is easy to dismiss advice like this as simplistic or trivial.

But when copywriter Kim Stacey e‐mailed this list to me, I read it carefully—and found it to be deceptively profound and effective.

Here are 10 tips for living less stressfully, from “Loving and Leaving the Good Life” by Helen Nearing: 

1. Do the best you can, whatever arises.

2. Be at peace with yourself.

3. Find a job you enjoy.

4. Live in simple conditions; get rid of clutter.

5. Contact nature every day; find the earth under your feet.

6. Take physical exercise. 

7. Donʹt worry; live one day at a time.

8. Share something every day with someone else; help someone else somehow. 

9. Take time to wonder at the world and at life; see some humor in life where you can.

10. Be kind.

If you have some thoughts to add, please do so in the COMMENTS section below:

Dozens of my readers (mostly professional speakers, consultants, and professional services firms) are complaining of declining response rates, a downturn in business, and the weak economy.

“Our direct mail isn’t pulling like it used to,” they complain.

“What can our firm do to generate more leads, better prospects, and bigger sales?”

Here’s what I have found works to turn ON your marketing efforts:

1. Take massive action. Figure out what you think you need to do to generate the level of leads and orders you need. Then do twice that amount.

2. Don’t rely on only one promotional vehicle, like direct mail or - heaven forbid - social media marketing. Do three, four, even five things: send out mailings; advertise in very narrow, well-targeted media; regularly e-mail your list; write an article; give a speech.

3. Make every communication a direct marketing communication. Offer a premium with a high perceived value. Feature your free offer in your promotion.

4. Test different offers, ideas, copy, formats, and media to see which work best. Roll out with those promotions that work. Scratch the others. If they don’t do well in a small test, doing more won’t help.

p.s. I don't subscribe to the "recession mindset." And I don't care much for the goofballs who now say we're "coming out of it." I DO very much believe what my pal, professional speaker Jim Mathis, CSP says -- the economy is not DOWN, it's DIFFERENT. And furthermore, it's NEVER coming back (not the way it was, anyway).

Welcome to the new world - and NOW is a great time for you to prepare your firm to market successfully in it!

Just got a question from one of my NSA speaker friends, Kevin Lerner of PresentationTeam. His question is as common as it is tricky:

"Is it better to promote your personal brand or your company brand?"

He continued, "Do I put more focus into the personal or professional? I'm seeing more and more people who have mostly professional information in their social media profiles and activities (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter). Do I maintain a presence for both? Which one is primary - me or the company?"

Good observation, Kevin, and even better question. As a marketing speaker and marketing coach who works with professional speakers, consultants, and professional services firms, this question comes up a lot.

The answer lies in building your brand sandwich. It's made up of several layers and each one needs to be hot, tasty, and fresh on it's own. (And avoid using ciabatta bread.)

Seriously - here are the layers for your brand sandwich:

• Your personal name/brand (in my case, David Newman)
• Your company name (for me, Do It! Marketing)
• Your book titles (ex: 21 Secrets of Simple Marketing Success)
• Your speech/seminar titles (ideally, there's a book or product with the SAME name in your arsenal)  
• Your sound bites and building your "marketing language bank" (which is itself one of MY sound bites!!)
• Your favorite sayings or expressions (ex: "Fabulous!!!" or "BAM!")

When it comes to social media, the best plan is to market your PERSONAL brand first and foremost. After all, remember it's called SOCIAL media -- not BUSINESS media!

My three rules for social media (and these apply equally well to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and your blog):

1. It's SOCIAL (be a PERSON first) - 3-dimensional, quirky, approachable, authentic, fun

2. It's OUTWARD-focused - Just like making friends, you'll make a lot more of them if you make your social interactions about THEM and not about YOU

3. It's a RELATIONSHIP and not a transaction - treat your followers, fans, and friends like real people. They have egos, they have feelings, they like being thanked, recognized, promoted, and praised. So DO THOSE things and you'll do great.

So Kevin - YOU ROCK, BABY! Thanks for asking the killer question!!

A corporate presence in social media is great -- if you're a corporation.

If you're a 1-5 person business (like 90% of businesses in America are), then you're NOT trading on your company's name - you're trading on your own. Make your social media strategy fit that reality and all the pieces will come together nicely for you.

Testimonials are among the most powerful marketing ammunition in your marketing arsenal. As a small business marketing speaker, I'm often asked if testimonials are important - and if so, why?

Testimonials have the power to achieve a variety of things for your marketing and customer retention programs.

Each time you use a testimonial you need to decide what you are trying to accomplish or what message you are trying to support. For example, they can:

* Overcome buyer skepticism. Use a testimonial to shine light on your credibility, or on the quality of your product or service. This type of testimonial builds trust and overcomes natural barriers. In the example above, the testimonial could have read: "Best product I've tried in this price bracket - and I've tried many. Great value for money, and no shortcuts on quality."

 * Overcome objections. Your readers are going to be naturally skeptical of any claims, promises or bold statements. As much as you can back yourself up with facts, a third party experience or opinion will work wonders to overcome unspoken objections in the customer's mind. "It all sounded too good to be true, but when I used the hair straightener, there was more shine and less breakage."

* Simplify or make a point. A customer's personal experience with your product or service will work to persuade your audience like a story does. Complex explanations or abstract applications will make more sense when applied to real life examples. This works well with highly technical products or complex services where the customer doesn't need to understand all the details.

* Break up and maintain interest in long copy. Readers have short attention spans and they will get bored unless you can change up the structure on a regular basis. Quotations and testimonials will break up the tone or voice of the copy, and sound like the customer is reading dialogue, which will keep them engaged. You can also break up paragraphs with a testimonial that supports the point you have just made.

* Target anxieties or doubts. Just like they can overcome skepticism and objections, they can also overcome hidden anxieties or doubts at each stage of the sales process. Anticipate questions like "is this worth my money?", "do I really need this?", "can I trust the guarantee?" and "will they sell my information?", and place testimonials accordingly.

Use testimonials in your marketing efforts and you'll unleash the power of social proof, reduce risk, and induce the "I gotta get me some o' that" factor!

What has been your experience with testimonials? Use the comments area below to share your thoughts...

As a marketing speaker and marketing coach to other professional speakers, CEOs, and business owners - and certainly from my own experience - I can safely say that too often, we get caught up in trying to get everything just perfect.

While you are working on “perfect,” someone else with “just okay” is raking in all the money. 

Face it - Reading the next book, attending the next seminar, or trying the latest software alone will do nothing for you. This is the classic "Ready, Aim, Aim, and Aim" syndrome. Always aiming and never pulling the trigger.

The key lies in taking action. I would like to invite you to try a technique suggested by my colleague Michael Masterson—the Ready, Fire, Aim technique. Do something; even if it is wrong, go ahead take the shot -- screw up.

At the very least, you are moving in the right direction.Fellow speaker and prosperity guru Joe Vitale says, “Money loves speed” those who take the swiftest action make the most amount of money.

Go ahead -- DO IT, and once you're moving, then worry about making it perfect.

Let's take the specific context of internet marketing as an example. And we'll start with your e-zine or blog...

In its simplest form an e‐zine or blog is all about information. Give your reader the information he wants to read about, and he will reward you with his trust and eventually his money.

There are five phases for any Internet marketing entrepreneur. In phase one, you read and study Internet marketing, go to conferences, devour e‐books and courses. At this stage, you are thinking about internet marketing all the time, yet you are not actually in it yet—not actually doing it. You don’t have a list, product, or the infrastructure in place to do business online.

In phase two, you dip your toe in the water—developing a product and making a few sales. The income is not significant. Except now, the idea of making money online is no longer merely a dream, an idea in your head. It’s reality. Making your first few sales will energize you and propel you forward to phase three.

In phase three, you develop more products, build your e‐zine subscriber list, and start making a significant spare‐time income online. Maybe it’s a thousand dollars a month in sales. Maybe it’s a thousand dollars a week. It’s not enough to live on, yet. But the extra money allows you to buy nicer things and become more financially secure.

In phase four, you reach a point where your Internet business makes enough money for you to live on—enough for you to quit your job and leave the rat race behind forever. For some people, this might be $2,000 to $3,000 a week in net online revenues.

In phase five, you double or triple the size of your list, add more products make more deals, and start making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, or even a million dollars or more. You become an Internet millionaire.

The problem is that the large majority of people who explore Internet marketing never get past phase one. They get addicted to reading “make money on the Internet” materials and attending conferences and tele‐seminars on the subject. But they never actually do something.

No matter what the marketing strategy, tactic, or business development effort - get going with baby step... RIGHT NOW.

You want an inbound link back to your blog or website? Great - leave a comment below with your reactions to the "Ready, Fire, Aim" technique - and you'll have DONE something to build your business. Do it!!!

Many people I speak to tell me they do not use e‐zines because they simply do not have the time. As a marketing speaker and marketing coach to very busy CEOs, business owners, other professional speakers, and consultants, I hear you. 

Here's the secret: It only takes me two hours or less per month. And those two hours are some of the highest ROI hours I can spend.

You're getting my simple formula for writing e‐zines that will make your ezine much easier to write - and more profitable to send.

Write five to seven short stories about a topic, one to three paragraphs each. You want the reader to be able to get through each story in under a minute. You do not have an unlimited amount of time with your reader so make sure he can read your entire e‐zine issue in about five minutes.

The next little tip might seem insignificant but I think it is vitally important. Do not put any click links to your stories; you do not want to give the readers mind a chance to wonder, because they are waiting for another page to load.

Many Websites like to give you a brief description of the article and then ask you to click on a link to read the whole article. That is just too many hoops to go through to read the story. Do not have just a story title and first paragraph with a link to the entire article.

Write short articles and include the entire article in the e‐zine itself, not a teaser part.

So here, it is in 4 Simple Steps:

1. 5 – 7 stories

2. 1 – 3 paragraphs each

3. Maximum reading time < 1 minute per story < 5 minutes per issue

4. No click links to stories—the full story is in the e‐zine.

There you have it quick, simple, and effective.

BONUS: Here are 8 more tips for writing an e‐ zine, courtesy of Dan Ranly, www.ranly.com:

1. Write for surfers and scanners

2. Provide information quickly and easily

3. Think both verbally and visually

4. Cut copy in half

5. Use lots of lists and bullets

6. Write in chunks

7. Use hyperlinks

8. Give readers a chance to talk back (feedback)

Feedback from YOU is always welcome in the comments area below...