Ever heard of the Chet Holmes Pyramid? This divides buyers into five categories, ranging from the hottest buyers to the coldest. The top two categories, covering 10% of people, are filled with buyers who are either actively looking to buy RIGHT NOW or who are open to doing so. The next two categories, covering 60% of [...]
There are two really powerful words you should use in your marketing, whether you’re sending out campaigns by email or having face-to-face conversations with your customers. Those words are ‘you’ and the customer’s name. The more you use those two magic words, the more your customers will feel that you’re focusing on their interests. Conversely, the [...]
“What can we do to educate customers with this marketing?” That might be a better question to ask than: “What can we do to get customers to buy as a result of this marketing?” Obviously, the reason your small business does marketing is to make sales. But focusing on education rather than sales might be a [...]
“So, Nick, how long does this marketing thing take to work?” This is a question I get asked by most prospective clients. And their heart tends to sink when I tell them: “A long time.” The reality is, it takes a long time to build trust, credibility and brand recognition – kind of like filling a [...]
During my years as an editor, during which I sent out hundreds of briefs to other writers, I learned a really valuable lesson about communications. The lesson was this: anything that can be misinterpreted will be misinterpreted, because what’s in your head is never in anyone else’s head. So if you want someone to understand your [...]
As they say, the fortune is in the follow-up. This isn’t just a sales principle; it’s also a marketing principle. If you want a message to sink in – whether you’re in sales or marketing – you need to repeat it again and again and again. You need to follow-up, in other words. People lead such [...]
People regard me as an expert in marketing and communications. Why? Because I pump out content every day about marketing and communications. Do you want to be regarded as an expert in your field? Well, now you know what to do. Here’s the key thing: there might be a million people in the world who know [...]
When you write emails to customers, there’s one word you want to try to avoid and another word you want to try to use. The naughty word is ‘we’; the good word is ‘you’. So don’t say “We offer this, we offer that”; say “You can get this, you can get that”. The most effective emails [...]
“A year from now you may wish you had started today.” Well said, Karen Lamb. Imagine if, 12 months ago, your small business had committed to doing daily marketing. Would it be making more sales today than it currently is? So if you’re not already doing daily marketing, why not make a commitment, right now, to [...]
Here’s a really curious fact you might have noticed. When adults speak to toddlers, they’re really good at explaining things in plain, clear, simple English. But when you take those same adults and put them in a business setting, strangely they lose the ability to speak clearly. Who knows why, but they suddenly start littering their [...]
