Marketing

Marketing Mindset Traps: Internet Marketing for Coaches Pt. 2

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Don’t miss Part 1>>

Coaches have a moral obligation to market their services and products.

That’s a strong statement to make, but it is 100% true.

If a doctor discovered the cure for cancer, wouldn’t she be morally obligated to share her discovery with as many people as possible? Not doing so would be irresponsible and harmful. No matter what trepidation she may feel, she shouldn’t hold back.

As a coach, you have special gifts that are meant to be shared with people in need. Marketing yourself is the way you get the word out so you can help as many people as you possibly can.

Here’s an excerpt from a comment I recently made in a group discussion on LinkedIn:

“Coaches are by nature focused on others, so self-promotion sometimes feels out of place. Also, when developing coaching skills, marketing is rarely among the top priorities.

“…You can be the most amazing coach, but no one will ever benefit from what you have to offer without good marketing.

“In that way, you OWE it to the people you can help to learn how to market your services.”

Marketing is essential for the business aspect of your coaching. If you’re reluctant to do it, you’ll need to get over it.

The fact that coaches are others-focused is what makes you uniquely suited to be a good marketer. In a day when everyone is a vendor, it can feel like the only reason anyone exists online is to sell something.

You’re different.

Sure, you’re selling your services and/or products, but your sole purpose is not to separate people from their money. You are providing value. You use your skills, experience, etc., to improve the lives of those you come in contact with. (For that, you deserve to be compensated.)

What seems to be working in internet marketing is not as effective as you might think. “Squeeze pages” with miracle cures and pie-in-the-sky promises are so common because most marketers are just copying what they’ve seen others done. But hype-filled hardselling is not what’s working these days. Education is.

Like anything else in life, successful online marketing is largely dependent on your mindset. That being said, let’s briefly examine 5 myths that can sabotage your efforts if you buy into them.

1) Marketing = Manipulation

You may have heard the saying that “all marketers are liars.” That is not the case. Many individuals and businesses have abused their platforms to deceive customers and rip them off. But that is not what marketing is about.

Marketing is giving people reasons to buy or do something that will give them something they want but don’t have or get rid of a problem they have but don’t want. There may be a thousand solutions available. Marketing is demonstrating why yours is the best option.

2) “Build it and they will come”

There’s a reason the title of the movie was Field of Dreams. It would never happen in real life.

If you’ve spent any time at all online, you’ve noticed that it can be incredibly difficult to get noticed. There are literally billions of websites, services and products. Setting up shop on the internet is no guarantee that anyone will ever see you – no matter how awesome your website is.

You may build it and visitors never come. You need to drive traffic to that site by marketing. There are many methods to do this.

3) Quantity vs. Quality

Many teachers of internet marketing will tell you that it’s important to get as much material on the web to increase your visibility. More content on your site makes it more attractive to search engines. More articles on directories put your name in front of more potential clients.

While those statements are true, you should spend more time and energy producing high-quality content rather than focusing on sheer quantity. You want every article, blog post, podcast, whatever, to be so compelling that the reader/listener wants to know more about you. Being “everywhere” will not help if you are unremarkable.

Quality trumps quantity every day of the week.

4) Under-promise and Over-deliver

Never promise more than you can deliver, but why promise less?

Don’t be scared to make big claims, as long as you can back them up.

The idea of under-promising seems to make sense, but it will hurt you. People are searching for the best answers to their questions, the best solutions to their problems. If you promise less than what you can deliver, you’re not telling potential clients all the benefits they’ll receive from working with you. Again, being unremarkable is not helpful.

Over-delivery is great. Under-promising can be suicidal, especially these days, with so many sales messages begging for our attention. What can you say that will stand out?

Be all that you can be, and don’t downplay your greatness in your messaging.

5) Selling Without Selling

Most coaches don’t like “selling.” Believe me, I get it. If you fit that description, you may be interested in the increasingly common idea of “selling without selling.”

Here’s the fact: selling can’t be done without selling. But selling doesn’t have to come out of the used car salesman guidebook. In fact, you should never sell or market in that stereotypical way.

When I’m talking about selling, I’m speaking of the ability to make your offering attractive. That doesn’t require high-pressure tactics, deception, or any kind of sneakiness.

If you tell a prospect all the ways past clients came enjoy their lives better after hiring you, you’re selling, even though it doesn’t feel like it.

When you tell stories that engage, instruct and entertain, you’re selling!

The issue is not how to sell without selling. It’s getting beyond sales tricks and becoming a master attractor. You can sell without being obnoxious. That’s the key.

When your honest intentions are to lead others into success in life and business, and you have the know-how and tools to help them do it, you’ve got the perfect foundation to build a great internet marketing base for your coaching practice.

Read Part 3 of this series>>

Get a free copy of the special report “4 Trends that Will Challenge Ability of Coaches to Sustain and Grow Their Practices in 2012.”

Is the Internet Working For You or Against You? Internet Marketing for Coaches Pt. 1

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There’s an old proverb that says “Don’t speak unless you can improve upon the silence.” There is wisdom in that sentiment, but the fact is that silence is one of the rarest commodities on the planet.

Today, if you want to succeed, you have to be able to improve upon the noise. You also have to be distinct from all of the other voices screaming for attention online.

How will you be heard over all the chatter?

Over the next few days,  well be looking at ways to ensure that the internet is working for you, not against you.

Rather than assume anything, lets cover the bottom-line basics first.

Your Website

There are people who say you can earn a great living online without a website. Naturally, most of them are trying to sell you some underground secret training product to teach you how to do it. In some cases they’re right.

But as a professional business, executive or life coach interested in using the internet to grow your practice, you must at least have a simple website. Believe me most of your peers do. And nearly all of your potential clients will use the internet to search for, research and select coaches they intend to hire. You need your own website to form the foundation for your online presence. Without it, you’re fish food for the competition.

Purchase your own professional domain and email address. Gmail and Hotmail may be convenient for personal use, but what does using them say about a professional coach? Would you hire a lawyer who uses a Yahoo email account? Exactly.

There are places to get free basic websites, but you face the same problem of appearing amateur-ish. Using subdomains such as mycoachingsite.wordpress.com broadcast to your audience that you are using a free service. You’re actually forcing prospective clients to wonder if

  1. you’re not successful enough to afford to buy a $10 domain,
  2. you’re not very serious about your business, or
  3. you’re stingy rather than generous (not a good characteristic for a coach).

Perception is everything. Strong positioning and posture are invaluable.  The expense is minimal; its a tiny investment in your business.

You don’t want to depend on other websites people/organizations websites, either. Doing guest articles or writing a column for someone else’s site can be terrific for promoting yourself and establishing yourself as an expert, but you don’t have autonomy in those situation. You cannot fully control how or when, or even if your content is displayed. You cant guarantee that the relationship will last forever.

What Should Be on Your Site

Even though it is your property, creating a truly compelling website requires that you focus on your desired visitors, not yourself. Even when you’re speaking about your own experience, skills, etc., make it relevant to your audience. Why does your education have to do with the reader? How does it help her?

That being said, your website should have the following components:

  • About You: Whats your signature story? What makes you different from other coaches? More suited to assist your visitors reach their goals than anyone else? Remember, you’re speaking about yourself, but your readers are thinking whats in it for me?
  • Articles: Provide valuable content to help your audience right away and demonstrate your knowledge at the same time. Teaching is a powerful tool to attract followers and keep them coming back for more.
  • Testimonials: Let your current or former clients toot your horn so you don’t have to. This gives proof that your services make a difference in peoples lives and businesses.
  • Contact information: Let people know how they can hire you. Or at least connect with you on any social networks you use. The more points of contact, the better.
  • Products: Have you written a book? Do you sell CDs or DVDs with your messages on them? Make it easy for interested parties to purchase them.
  • Subscription/Sign up for Updates: Getting traffic is great. Getting people to give you permission to stay in touch with them is even better. There are plenty of services that provide sign up forms and email marketing services to deliver high-quality content directly to those who opt in.

In the next installment of this series, well get into more advanced internet marketing concepts you can use to grow your business online.

The truth is that what has worked in the past is not nearly as effective today. And much of it wont work at all in the near future. Set yourself up for success by digging in and getting to know how this game will be played in the coming months.

Read Part 2 of this series>>

Get a free copy of the special report 4 Trends that Will Challenge Ability of Coaches to Sustain and Grow Their Practices in 2012.

How LinkedIn Passed Google As My Top Traffic Source

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During the month of July, LinkedIn sent more traffic to my site than any other referral source.

I probably spend about 30 minutes a month worrying about SEO. I don’t worry about bots or spiders too much. But someone recently pointed out to me that there are some distinct disadvantages to being so negligent.

With so many other copywriters with online presence, there’s a good chance that potential clients will never stumble across my website while browsing for the type of services that I offer.

Time for a Change
I use is Google Analytics to keep track of my stats. Direct traffic is always my biggest traffic source, making up close to half of my total visits. Google comes in second, right around 30%, with the balance made up by all my other referrers.

But last month was different. As of the end of the month, LinkedIn holds the top spot, with to 27.64% of my total traffic. Direct traffic trailed slightly at 26.13%. Google dropped to third place with 22.11%.

LinkedIn also had the highest time on site figure at an incredible 8 minutes and 18 seconds. Direct traffic came in at 5:03. The site average was 2:46.

This took place during the busiest month my website has ever seen.

The Turning Point
What made the difference? How did LinkedIn gain such a big share of traffic, especially in a period when nearly twice as many people visited my site than usual? Satanic Sales Pitches. It turns out that the headline was very compelling, arousing enough curiosity to get a ton of clicks. (More proof that strong headlines are incredibly important to getting readership.)

I really don’t spend that much time on LinkedIn. About an hour a week. That didn’t change over the past month. My time was just being used more strategically.

Here’s a few tips:

1) The biggest single biggest traffic-driving factor was one particular blog post –

I pasted the link to this post in my Updates, and shared it in several of the groups I actively participate in. I didn’t post to every group I’m a member of, just where it was relevant. Copywriting, marketing and sales groups.

2) I checked for feedback and engaged commenters in conversation.

3) This is a bit of a cheap trick, but once the discussion died down topic died down, then I “Liked” the discussion. This puts the thread back at the top of Group Updates, to ensure it’s as visible as possible.

Corny, but I wanted to see if it would work. Apparently it does.

4) I optimized my LinkedIn profile for search.

Choose a search term that you’d like to rank at the top of search results for. If you’re a dog groomer for Hollywood movie stars, your keywords might be “dog groomer Hollywood.” In my case, I chose “direct response copywriter Chicago.”

Next, find a way to work those keywords into your Linkedin profile. Your headline, current position and previous experience are areas that have the biggest impact on LI’s search engine results.

The changes I made immediately placed my profile in the #1 position in search inquiries for my keywords, as well as a few related keywords. It also led to two interactions with potential clients and a few new connections.

Not too complicated, right? But the results where profound. How valuable would it be for your profile to be the top result when prospects search for your product or service?

Here’s a test: go to LinkedIn right now and do a search for the keywords you’d like to rank for. Where does your profile show up?

If you’re like me, my name didn’t show up on the first 5 pages for any of the keywords I’d like to be associated with. Optimizing my profile changed that right away.

Believe me, if I can triple the amount of traffic my website got from LinkedIn, you can do it too. If you have specific questions, feel free to contact me.

7 Email Marketing Mistakes You Can’t Afford to Make

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Nowadays, I don’t spend very much time on LinkedIn Answers, but the other day I saw a question that I could help out with.

The question: What should never be included in an email marketing campaign?

My (slightly modified) response: 
1) Don’t make claims without proof. Skepticism is at an all time high. Everyone is scared of getting burned. If you make claims that you don’t back up in the body of the email, you’re setting your campaign up to fail.

2) Never use deception.

3) Generic language is a bad idea. Craft your message so that you’re talking to ONE PERSON. Be as specific & vivid as possible.

4) Don’t use untintelligible language. Overly technical terminology can kill a sales message especially in B2C campaigns. Refrain from using jargon unless you know for sure your audience will understand.

Confused customers don’t buy.

Use the language that your readers use in their own conversations.

5) Avoid links to unrelated sites. If the body of the email is about consumer electronics, don’t insert links to a Viagra vendor.

5.1) Don’t use any links or make any reference whatsoever to Viagra.

6) The copy should not focus on YOU (the sender). It really shouldn’t even be about your product or service. Rather, speak about the recipient and his/her needs/wants and how your offering can satisfy those desires.

7) Each email should try to accomplish ONE objective. You lose readership when you go off in too many directions.

Direct mail legend Dick Benson once said that “you cannot sell two things at once.” Choose one thing.

That’s what autoresponder sequences are for. Multiple emails allow you to focus on or sell more than one product or service
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P.S. If at all possible, the emails should come from a recognizable sender. Even non-spam messages look like spam if they’re sent from strangers.

If you’re emailing cold, attach/associate yourself with someone your list knows and trusts/

U of You: Why Education Matters More Than Ever

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Education has never been more important than it is at this moment. Your parents always told you to get your education. Every year your teachers prepared and encouraged you to continue down the path to higher levels education.

Repeat: education is more important now than it has ever been. But not for the reasons that have been drilled into your mind.

I was watching television the other afternoon during one of my rare couch-potato moments. My brilliant wife pointed out that there was an advertisement for a college or university during every commercial break. Apparently getting a degree is big business these days.

The lessons you learn when you understand what’s really going on here can transform your business.

Let’s get right to the point, shall we? Here are 4 crucial insights:

1.  People value education. But why? Do they want to know more for the sake of knowing more? Of course not! People want to learn so they can get what they want. More. Faster. More easily.

Why does anyone go to college? If this were Family Feud, the number one answer would be “To get a good job.” Simply put, people seek educations to get what they want in life.

2.  Schools are rarely short on students. Good schools have people fighting to get in.

3.  Some of the most trusted individuals in any community are its teachers. Professors are acknowledged experts in their fields.

4.  Educators shape the way their students understand the world.

Now, I’m not telling you to go back to school. In fact, I believe the way the modern school system is structured is radically flawed.

Can you see how the 4 lessons above can apply to your business?

I’ll say it one more time: education is more important than ever. Your potential customers are constantly looking for information. Why? So they can get what they want. More. Faster. More easily.

How do you differentiate yourself from the competition? Better yet, how do you rise above the rest of the pack to become, not the best, but the only person your prospects want to deal with?

The most powerful way to accomplish this feat is to become the educator in your niche. Establish the University of You!

By setting yourself or your company up as the source of quality information and/or training, you have gained all the advantages that Harvard or Yale have. You are the expert. Trust is easier to gain, even from skeptics, because of the credibility you’ve built. Your “marketshare” of people seeking knowledge in your field will increase naturally and dramatically.

And you will have the opportunity to really influence the people you communicate with. Think about it— who has had a greater impact on your life, a teacher/mentor or a salesperson? (Not to diminish the importance of selling!)

There are more benefits to educating your prospects than can be covered here. If you’re ready to start reaping those benefits, consider the “Ivy League” approach to doing business. No degree is required. Just start taking action today.

Not All Marketers Are Liars

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While I’m posting social media conversations on my blog, here’s a few tweets that I exchanged with a guy I follow yesterday:

IJR: The world has become such a easy place to market to; sell them lies and they will buy it… Give them truth and they will shun it…

Sell them lies: Diet pills, shakes, body braces, etc and they will buy… Sell them truth: More vegs + exercise and they will shun it

Me: it’s not necessarily truth they shun. It’s WORK.

The world is so easy to market to, not because people buy lies (although they do), but because they want ease.

That’s why grown men buy clip-on ties, why most of us don’t cook food from scratch. Make life easier & marketing gets easier
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Marketers and salespeople can use deception to get sales, no doubt about it. A lot of people do. It’s a bad idea, but it can work in the short-term…

For that reason, a large percentage of us automatically distrust salespeople and think of advertisements as mostly fantasy (or at least puffery).

But truth sells, too. It’s a little harder to dig out truth than to make up stories, but truth-telling is a much more intelligent, more sustainable business model.

The Oldest Webinar Promotion Advice Yet

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Webinars are becoming increasingly important as communication and marketing tools. How many webinar invitations or notifications are sitting in your inbox right now? I bet there’s more than one…

One of the big challenges webinar promoters have is getting people to register for their webinars.

In my first post on Roger Courville’s blogsite, The Virtual Presenter, I reach back a few centuries to unearth principles of persuasion from a seemingly unlikely source.

If you’re struggling to get your audience to sign up for your webinars, read “Aristotle’s Advice.”

Actually, the concepts apply across all manners of influence. You might want to read the article even if you never intend to host a presentation online.

Is Marketing Getting Too Relevant?

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Is it possible to be too relevant?

Apparently that is something that Staples fears. Take a look at the Unsubscribe Email page:

Too Relevant

It’s small, so you may have difficulty reading the words in the image. Listed are the different reasons people may want to opt-out of receiving emails from Staples. The circled reason says “Staples emails are too relevant (feel watched).”

This inspires a question — is marketing getting to be too targeted?

(By the way, if you’d like to make your email marketing more relevant — without getting creepy — you may want to take a look at Emails That Make Sales.)

The Myth of Selling Without Selling

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It seems like nobody likes sales people (at least when they’re customers), and “sales” seems like a dirty word these days. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Nothing I can think of sells without selling. Not even candy bars in vending machines.

Let’s explore that thought experiment for a moment. Imagine one of those vending machines with the glass front that allows you to see its contents. In this one, all the merchandise is packaged in identical, completely nondescript containers. Perfectly cube-shaped, unmarked cardboard boxes.

You have no clue what’s inside any of them. Could be anything.

When you happen across this vending machine, what are you going to buy? Will you press A1 or E7?

I’m willing to bet you’ll choose to keep the dollar in your pocket.

Why? Because nothing is being sold. It’s just there. It’s available for sale, but it’s not being sold.

Now let’s imagine the vending machine is in the middle of a sweltering desert. There’s nothing else in sight but sand and scorpions. And you’re getting really, really thirsty.

What do you do now? Remember, you can’t tell what’s in any of those containers. Might be bottled water, or a bag of cheese curls. But since you have that dollar in your pocket, you might take a chance and pick something at random. You desperately need something to drink, and you have no other options. So you take a chance.

Why? Because your thirst is more important, more urgent than your dollar bill.

A Salesman’s Journey

I’ve sold lots of different stuff over the course of my career. Everything from warranties to watches. I loved it. The rush of closing a deal. The battle of wits and wills when overcoming customer objections. The competition between peers and with myself

At one point, I felt like I could sell anything to anyone.

Then, Harry Browne smacked me across the face with his painfully simple, brutally powerful book, The Secret of Selling Anything.

The question is often asked, do salespeople sell, or do customers buy? I always held to the position that salespeople sell. When transactions take place, the success is 90% due to the ability of the salesperson.

Reading Browne’s book, I found out that I was wrong. I was introduced to what Browne referred to as the “universal fallacy:”

“The universal fallacy is the belief that an individual would willingly accept something unprofitable to himself.

“No individual will give up some of his own resources for something he values less. When you think he will, you’re headed for failure. He may very well make an exchange that you would never make — but he will not willingly make an exchange that will lower his values.” (Author’s emphasis)

No one willingly does what she does not want to do.

Jonathan Edwards, considered by many to be the one of the greatest minds in America’s history, had this to say about making decisions: people “always act according to the strongest inclination they have at the moment of choice.”

Edwards is saying that, from the options available to us, we always choose what has the strongest, most desirable emotional impact on our lives in that moment. Period.

Back to the Vending Machine

Let’s put the shoe on the other foot.

If you were responsible for the sale of just ONE of the items in the vending machine, how would you get the guy in the middle of the desert to spend his dollar on your product?

For starters, you’d make sure that he knows it’s a refreshing liquid.

In our example, where does the selling power come from? It comes from the thirst of the guy in the desert.

On the other hand, could you sell salty potato chips to him? I don’t care how good a salesperson you put on that job, he’s not going to have much success.

We see that people buy what they want. Selling is (or at least it should be recognized and treated as) giving people what they want. Helping them satisfy their desires and needs.

With the vending machine, you’re not selling without selling. You’re selling without being obnoxious. There’s a major difference!

Guess what. Your salesmanship is nothing more than increasing the likelihood that your product in that vending machine is the one that gets picked.

The argument isn’t so much whether salespeople sell or customers buy. It’s both! The desire comes from the customer. It is the job of the salesperson or marketer to help the customer make the best decision.

The One Change that Changes Your Response the Most

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While I was still in school, I always enjoyed math class. I’m feeling a little mathematically inspired right now.

Remember word problems? Let’s work through one together. We’re going to combine two direct marketing axioms to see what we come up with.

#1. “If you want to dramatically increase your response, dramatically improve your offer.” – Axel Andersson

#2. Ed Mayer’s 40-40-20 Rule. Mayer gives us a breakdown of what determines the success or failure of a direct mail package which I’ve found applies to pretty much any marketing message. Simply stated, 40% of the effectiveness of the message depends on the quality of your list. One thing I talk about all the time is understanding your target market so that you can communicate with them in the most compelling way. 40% of the effectiveness comes from the quality of your offer, and 20% from the creative (copy, design) itself.

(Side note: Denny Hatch estimates that the ratio is 70% offer, 10% list, 20% creative for internet direct marketing.)

We see that Andersson and Mayer are really agreed on the point. If you want to get the biggest bang for your buck in response to your marketing efforts, you must improve your offer. Pretend you’re the Godfather and make your customers an offer they can’t refuse. Claude Hopkins said that “The right offer should be so attractive that only a lunatic would say ‘No’.”

Using the same logic and math, you’d get identical or very similar results by improving your list. But taking that approach is less controllable. Once you know your customers really well, there’s not much you can do to improve your list. You can almost always improve your offer. You can nearly always give more.

Don’t tell any of my copywriting colleagues that I’m letting the 40-40-20 Rule out of the bag. According to Mayer, the creative part of your marketing has less effect on response than the other elements. So rather than running out to hire one of us, or trying to rewrite your message yourself, give your offer priority. Then focus on your list of potential buyers. Make sure you’re giving as much as you can profitably offer to an audience whose desires, fears and problems you are increasingly familiar with.