Do you know your target market?

Okay, I’ve held back but I just have to say this…

If I hear this one more time, I’m likely to scream. Very loudly!

I’ve been in business for many years now, helping small business owners to generate leads and follow-up to get sales and on-going referrals. As you may know, my specialty is in AUTOMATING these processes as much as possible.

In order to best help clients one of the first things we do is to make sure they’re crystal clear on who their audience is. Who exactly are they marketing to?

You MUST specifically know your target market.

Sadly, one of the most common responses I get when I ask this question is…

“Everybody.”

Or almost as bad… “All adults.” “Women.” “All men.”

I’m sorry, but no. You are never marketing to “everybody”.

In fact, there’s a common saying that “When you try to be everything to everyone, you end up being nothing to nobody.”

And that is so true when it comes to marketing your product(s) or service(s). Or yourself.

Here’s the thing… when you are telling or showing your audience all about your product/service and its benefit, it’s essential that you speak their language. Not just in the words you use, but in the images you use, the colours, the scenarios… everything.

This helps you to connect with your potential customers and show them how this product/service is going to benefit them. You need to show them how it fits in with their life. Or, moreso, the life they wish they had.

Ford, for example, sell cars. They could market to everyone who might want a car. But they don’t. Their specific target market is millennials (any gender).

Whereas middle-income families are the target market for Netflix. Not ‘everyone’. Not even ‘movie lovers’. But specifically ‘middle-income families’.

Could you imagine if a luxury, designer brand such as Louis Vuitton or Versace tried to create ads to attract ‘everyone’? Apart from the fact that not ‘everyone’ can afford or see the value in their high-end products, they would lose a lot of their current customers who value their exclusivity.

Understanding Your Market:

Recent research shows that 56% of consumers remain loyal to companies that “get them”. And 89% of customers stay loyal to brands who share their values. 

How do you show that you understand them?

Simple… first, you make sure you do understand them.

• What language do they speak?
• What are their values?
• What’s important to them?
• What’s their lifestyle like?
• What are their common challenges?
• What are their goals?

Then how can you show that you understand these factors?

You make sure this shows across your marketing – that includes words, images, colours, packaging, people, locations and lifestyles depicted. As well as your direct marketing, it’s important to relate to your specific market across all areas of your business, including:

• customer service
• website
• emails
• store front
• vehicles
• social media
• …everywhere!

If you are too general, you’re going to struggle to connect with your potential customers. Which means, they’re less likely to see how it can benefit them and therefore less likely to buy it.

To Sum It Up:

Next time you see an ad pay very close attention and see if you can tell who that product’s company is marketing to.

More importantly, make sure you are clear on who YOUR market is. Be specific. The better you can show that you understand your market, the more likely they are to buy from you.

Then, next time someone asks you if you know your target market you can smile as you confidently state your specific market… which is NOT everybody.

We'd love to have a chat with you about how we can help you in YOUR business.

Interested?

Great! Book a free call with us today.

“How to increase email open rates” is a question we often see being asked.

There are a number of very effective strategies to help you with this, one in particular is often overlooked by most business owners.

Email marketing is an essential part of your marketing, either on its own or, even better, when used along with other effective marketing strategies. Either way, it should be one of your first priorities when your start your marketing.

When used correctly, email marketing can help you to sell more of your own products as well as other people’s products that you sell direct from your business or for a commission or referral fee.

It can also help you get more traffic to your website, webinar or other places you share what you have to offer and therefore improve your advertising return.

In other words, email marketing is an important cornerstone of any business.

Why your open rate matters:

Now, whenever you send an email to your list, the first important goal is to get your subscribers to open that email. This metric is known as your Open Rate and is calculated simply by the number of people who open your email, expressed as a percentage.

For example, if you send your email to 5,000 people and 1,000 people open that email, your open rate is 20%.

To increase email open rates you need to get more people wanting to read your emails.

So… how can you encourage people to open your emails?

The first area to look at is your email deliverability. We’ve previously talked about email deliverability in this post, so make sure you check that out and follow it if you haven’t already done so.

Next, make sure you write awesome subject lines. You want to make your email stand out from all the other emails your subscribers no doubt receive every day. Write subject lines that compel your readers to open your email and read it. (Be bold, but be truthful, of course.)

Keap has a great free tool that you can use to help you come up with enticing email subject lines. You can access this email subject line generator here:

https://keap.com/tools/email-subject-line-generator

Some business owners put in the extra effort to focus on their email deliverability and killer subject line. But this is where they stop. Today, I’m going to suggest you go that little but further and include another strategy to improve your mail open rates. This strategy is known as foreshadowing.           

What is foreshadowing?

Possibly you’ve heard of this term when talking about movies, books or TV series. In general, the idea is that there are hints about what’s to come in future chapters, episodes, sequels, and so on. This creates curiosity. The viewer or reader is so eager to find out what happens next. They get excited with anticipation of the next chapter, book, episode or movie and can’t wait to see or read it as soon as it’s available.

Have you ever done that yourself? Think about the last time you read a really good book, especially just before bed. You tell yourself, “Just one more chapter.” But then, the end of the chapter comes and you’re so eager to find out what happens next that you keep reading. Before you know it, you’ve stayed up way later than you planned.

With email marketing, foreshadowing is just the same.

You can create interest… create curiosity… even tease your subscribers just a little so they’re eagerly awaiting your next email to find out what’s to come next.

Here’s an example of foreshadowing:

Let’s say we’re writing a series of emails about improving email marketing.

In today’s email we worked on mapping out the topics of the emails we’re going to write. Towards the end of that email we let them know that the next step is to start writing those emails, beginning with the subject line. We then also tell our readers that we’ll cover writing highly converting subject lines in the next email and that they should look for it in their inbox in two days.

There are a couple of things going on here that help with the open rate of that coming email. Firstly, by using foreshadowing, we’re creating interest and getting the reader curious about what’s next.

For someone who’s new to email marketing, or trying to get better at it, learning how to write better subject lines is likely something they’re extremely interested in.

Then also, by sharing with readers when to expect the email, we’re setting expectations for them. This makes it easy for our readers to keep an eye out for the email. If they know when to expect it, they’re less likely to miss it.

By simply adding that one tiny paragraph in one email helps to make sure the next email will get opened.

Of course you can then continue to use the idea of foreshadowing with each subsequent email. Keep hinting at what’s coming next.

Not only will it help with open rates, your subscribers are also less likely to unsubscribe.

Foreshadowing may not be something you do in every email, but start to incorporate it every now and then and see what difference it makes.

Start tracking your email open rates and see how much your open rate increases when you include foreshadowing.

We would love to help you to implement these strategies in your business. Book a free call with us today so we can get a better idea of what you need and how we can help.

If you’re like many marketers, you probably put a lot of time, effort and probably money into making a new sale.

Then once your new customer has made their purchase, you may follow up to make sure that your customer receives their product. At best, you may even follow up with them to make sure they’re happy with the product or service they purchased.

That’s where it ends for many business owners. They call it a day… and move on to the next sale.

But let me give you a valuable business tip here.

That’s a big mistake. Huge!

Before you hit the panic button though, let me share the simple process you can use to follow up with customers. This process will help to ensure your customers are happy and keep coming back. Plus, they’ll also sing your praises far and wide, recommending you to others.

The easiest way to follow up with customers post-purchase is to set up a series of automated, personalised email messages. These are designed to help you improve your customer relationships. However may well see a reduction in refund rates, increase in word-of-mouth referrals and an overall increase in profits too.

Step 1: The Basics

First, write a series of email messages that are automatically sent to your customers via your autoresponder software. (We use and recommend Keap, previously Infusionsoft.) These emails can be customised to particular products and, depending on the capabilities of your autoresponder, you can further customise the emails – and SMS messages – that are sent to each customer based on their specific action, or inaction.

Step 2: What To Say

So now you’re probably wondering what to actually SAY in these emails to follow up with customers, right?

Your goal with these emails is two-fold. Firstly, you want to make sure your customer is happy with their purchase. Secondly, you also want to recommend other related products or services that may be helpful to them.

These can be recommendations to more of your own products, other people’s products, or even free products or services.

It’s important here to have a good balance between sharing helpful information and offering other products or services for sale.

Begin by thanking your customer for making their purchase. You want to be sure they have all the information he may need to access and use it properly.  

It’s also a good idea to let them know the best way of contacting you if they have any questions or would like to share feedback with you.

Importantly, make it super-easy for your customers to access and use what they purchased and to contact you, if necessary.

Step 3: Going The Extra Mile

A good follow up from here is to send a helpful email – or multiple emails, if necessary – that will help your customer get the most from their purchase with you.

Or if you have a related product or service that will complement their recent purchase, you can offer this to them. If possible, give them a special deal or bonus to show your appreciation of them.

You need to make sure this email is worded to show that you’re offering this as a way to better help your customer. Otherwise you may come across as being too pushy.

It’s also worthwhile to include an email asking for feedback or a testimonial after your customer has had a chance to use the product or service. Other emails you can include are VIP offers or offers specifically for your customer’s referrals.

Step 4: How Often To Email

This step isn’t something that is a one-size-fits-all solution. You want to email your customers regularly, however remember that they may already be getting other emails from you.

It’s important that your email campaigns take the different scenarios into consideration. For example, if a prospect buys from you it may be a good idea to automatically remove them from your ‘prospects’ email series, as now they’re a customer.

Do you send a regular newsletter to all of your subscribers and/or customers? If so, this also needs to be taken into consideration when deciding how often to email your customers.

This is where having a good autoresponder program comes in. Using a tool such as Keap, you can easily set up automations to move subscribers to a new list – or email campaign – based on their previous actions.

Once you have set up your customer follow up campaign for each product, the process is automated and running smoothly in the background.

Your customers are being looked after while you’re focusing on other areas of your business that need your input.

If you'd like to know more about this topic and how we can help you set this up, book a free call with us today.

Have you ever wondered about what to include in your follow up email content?

Should it be more offers for things you can sell?

Or free content where you don't sell anything?

If ever you’ve subscribed to someone’s email list, be that because you’ve purchased a product from them, you want the Lead Magnet they’re offering or you’re just interested in receiving their updates, but then you constantly receive email after email asking you to buy something else?

Buy this…

Then buy this…

Now buy that.

I see it so often and it really frustrates me.

It’s such a turn off and can leave customers and prospective customers thinking that you’re only after their hard-earned money.

What happens next? Yep, they unsubscribe. Or maybe report you for spam and then unsubscribe.

But then I see so many business owners who go too far the other way. In fact, this is the biggest mistake I see business owners making.

They’re so scared of falling into the constant-request-to-buy-emails trap and so rarely, if ever, send an email about a paid product or service. Or sometimes they don’t send any follow up emails at all!

So which is better?

The simple answer is that ideally you want to share a good mix of quality content that costs your subscribers nothing and shows them that you care. This should be relevant content that helps your subscribers in some way. In doing this, you’re building trust with your subscribers. You’re genuinely helping them.

This sort of content could include:

• tips on how to get the most from your products or services that they’ve already invested in
• industry updates
• behind the scenes look at your business and your team
• and so much more!                      

This content is mixed with some content that helps you make a profit – which is necessary if you’re to stay in business. This profit-making content, or conversion content, might include information about:

• other relevant products/services you offer that are likely to be beneficial for your subscribers
• other people’s products/services for which you earn a commission or referral fee.

So, how do you get the balance right so you create a successful email marketing strategy?

First, we need to consider that there are many different types of email campaigns and your strategy may vary depending on each campaign’s aim.

Another variable to consider is whether you’re sending a campaign – that is, a series of automated emails. Or if you’re sending a broadcast, which is a one-off of email that you send, such as a weekly email.

Let’s look at campaigns first:

In general, you want to follow my 3-step formula for an effective follow up campaign. Those 3 steps being:

• Action
• Trust
• Conversion

The ACTION phase is when your subscriber takes an action. For example, they opted-in to your list in order to receive a free gift you promised. The first email in this campaign then would be to send them whatever you promised them.

This is followed by the TRUST phase where you send a series of trust-building emails.

The CONVERSION phase, where you offer a paid product, is 5-7 emails into this campaign.

Keep in mind that conversion emails may not be to directly purchase a product. It may be to attend a webinar. Then you make an offer for them to invest in your product, service or training on the webinar.

This 3-step ACTION > TRUST > CONVERSION system is explained in more detail in The Biggest Mistake Small Businesses Make When Paying For Leads.

What about sending a broadcast?

When sending a broadcast email, although this might not be as structured as a follow up campaign it’s still important to follow the same sort of ACTION > TRUST > CONVERSION formula.

The ratio here is the same as it is for a follow up campaign. So you send approximately 5 TRUST emails for every 1 CONVERSION email.

For example, you might send 5 x emails each with some relevant helpful information that will benefit your subscribers. Then the 6^th email you send them offers a paid product or service. This should still be relevant and beneficial, even though you may make a financial profit.

Then you send another 5 x emails with more helpful content, followed by another email where you offer something for sale. 

This number of 5 trust-building emails isn’t set in stone. If you happen to send 6 trust emails and then 1 conversion email, that’s quite okay. The main thing is you’re not sending too many nor too few conversion emails compared with the number of trust emails.

The sooner you get into this habit, the better. So if you’re not already following this sort of formula in your email marketing, start doing so this week. You’re sure to start seeing an increase in sales.

Interested in how we can help you set this up within your business? That's great! You can book a free call with us here.

“How Does Engaging From The Start Help With Email Deliverability?” is a question we often get asked.

This is generally in response to our recommendations for engaging with subscribers as one way to improve your email deliverability. (You can learn more about email deliverability here.)

Let’s take a step back for a moment.

You probably already know that email marketing can be an excellent way to build your business and to make sales, and repeat sales. How many times have you heard people say, “The money is in the list!”?

Yet so often business owners focus on building their list – that is, they focus on getting as many names and email addresses as possible on that list – but the money doesn’t follow. There can be several reasons for this (each of them easily overcome, by the way), but two common reasons that go hand-in-hand are a lack of engagement and problems with email deliverability.

Before you can start making money from your list it’s essential to build a relationship with them. You need to build rapport and earn your readers’ trust. Most are unlikely to buy from you before they know, like and trust you.

One of the best ways you can do this is to begin engaging with them as soon as possible. Don’t wait until you’ve got a ‘big list’ first.

Don’t wait until you have more time to create perfect content.

Start now.

Start as soon as you have 1 subscriber.

What exactly is engagement?

When we refer to ‘engaging with your subscribers’, the best way to think of it is to have a conversation with them and encourage a reply. Interact with them.

Your emails should be a good combination of the following:

• helpful, relevant information
• new products or services that might be beneficial to them
• special offers, deals or sales
• news and updates
• staff, store or industry updates
• feature products
• feature stores or team members
• celebrations and wins… by you, your business, your team or even other customers (with their permission).

The main thing is to send information that your subscribers will find helpful and relevant, without always sending promotional information. By the same token, you don’t want to always send non-promotional information either.

Mix it up by always keep it relevant.

Then importantly, encourage subscribers to reply with their feedback, ideas, success stories and questions.

After all, your engagement shouldn’t be one sided. Just like a face-to-face conversation, it’s easier to get to know what your subscribers want – and for them to get to know your solutions to their problems – when it’s a two-sided conversation.

Why start the conversation so early?

There are two main reasons why you should begin email engagement from the start.

1. Build the know-like-trust factor early

We’ve already established that this is a good way to help you build the rapport and trust you need quickly. But just imagine if you met someone you were interested in, gave them your name and number (or email address), then… crickets.

They don’t call.

Or message.

Or email.

You don’t hear a word from them.

Then one day, completely out of the blue, you get a message asking if you would like to go to such-and-such event with them tomorrow.

It would seem a bit strange, right?

Heck, you may not even remember who they are, let alone know them well enough – or trust them enough – to want to attend this event they’re recommending.

Yet so many people don’t email their subscribers for days, weeks or even months. Then out of the blue they start emailing them, asking them to buy their new product or come along to such-and-such event.

Then they wonder why they get ignored and don’t get many, if any, sales.

Often times they then decide that this email marketing doesn’t actually work. When the truth is that email marketing is incredibly effective… WHEN IT’S DONE CORRECTLY.

2. It helps your email deliverability

The second reason why you should begin engaging with your subscribers from day one is because it helps with email deliverability.

As you may well be aware, more and more emails are getting caught in spam filters, especially when they’re promotional or marketing emails.

One of the strategies that helps get your emails into your subscriber’s inbox is when they interact with your emails. That is, when they click a link in your email or, better still, when they reply back to your email.

The email providers see this as a conversation (exactly what we talked about earlier, right?). This shows them that you’re most likely a legitimate and trustworthy contact.

Which means… future emails from you are more likely to go directly to that subscriber’s inbox, rather than to their junk, spam or ‘other’ tabs.

So if you can begin this engagement right from the very first email, then keep it going to some degree long-term, you will most likely find that your overall email deliverability is higher.

Over time, you’ll find that subscribers will generally fall into one of three categories:

1. They’ll love hearing from you and engage frequently. These subscribers are most likely to become your customers and repeat customers.

2. They’ll self-select and decide they’re not a good match for what you’re offering and unsubscribe from your emails.  

3. Or they will lose interest over time and will gradually interact with you less, although won’t unsubscribe.

Obviously you want more of those in #1, above.

But what about the rest?

Well, for those in #2, that’s great. Don’t be upset when someone unsubscribes from your email list. If they’re not a good match for you and simply begin to ignore your emails, or worse still mark your email as spam, that’s going to affect your overall email deliverability.

So it’s far better that they unsubscribe. Let them go and wish them well.  

And for those in category #3 – these subscribers may or may not still be interested. But if they remain on your email list without ever engaging, they may be harming your email reputation. So you ideally want to move them to one of the other categories.

You can do this by sending a series of “re-engagement” emails. If they are still interested, they’ll re-engage with you. But if they’re not, then you may want to stop emailing them. We’ll go into more detail on re-engagement in another post.

The main point is, you only want people on your email list IF they are engaged. If they’re not really interested in what you have to offer, it’s better for you – and THEM – if you don’t email them.

So ask yourself if you truly engage with your subscribers.

If yes, great!

If not, now’s the time to start. Actually, the day you got your first subscriber was the time to start. Today is the next best time. J

Oh, and by the way, remember that saying we mentioned earlier, “The money is in the list!”?

Well, that’s not entirely correct. The true statement is “The money is in the ENGAGED list!”

I’ve seen many smaller lists with 1,000 or less ENGAGED subscribers make a lot more money (and with happy customers) than from some lists of 100,000+ unengaged subscribers.

If you're interested in knowing more about how we can help your business why not book a free call with us today?

A few years ago I came across a tool that helps me to automate personal engagement in my business. It’s not 100% automated, but to do so would take out the personalisation factor that’s essential here.

Watch this quick video below where I explain all about what this tool is, how to use it, and what a huge impact it can have when it comes to engaging with your customers (or potential customers) and your bottom line:

I want you to write this down…

It’s called Bonjoro.

This is the most wonderful tool I have seen in the last five years, other than Keap and Infusionsoft, of course.

In recent posts I shared with you the 3 biggest mistakes that many businesses are making when paying for leads and the process you need to set up to get the best return for this expense.

Mistake #1 is having no follow up process in place.

Mistake #2 is not having a Call To Action.

And Mistake #3 is not tracking your leads.

So in correcting those 3 mistakes we've got all this process where we're following up with customers and we're sending some videos and this sort of thing. We're trying to make it as personal as we possibly can.

Bonjoro is this app that sits on your phone or sits on your computer. It connects up to your marketing automation system. When someone opts in to your lead generation, we can trigger across to your phone in the Bonjoro app and you swipe it and say something like:

“Hey so-and-so, it's Jason Buckner here from Automation Made Easy. It was really cool to see that you've downloaded my free report on such-and-such. I just wanted to touch base with you and say hi and one of the really cool things that we're finding to [give away a little bit of helpful, relevant information and start developing the relationship straight away.] Anyway, I hope you like the eBook and look forward to hearing your results. Any questions just hit reply and let me know.” 

Do you reckon you'd feel pretty good about your provider if they sent you a personal message like that?

Do you think it’s a good way to start developing a relationship? One hundred percent it is!

I tested Bonjoro out about three years ago on four quotes. I had four quotes that were dead in the water, so to speak. I'd called them. I'd emailed them. I'd SMS them. I'd left messages. I'd followed up three times, gone through this whole process. And I thought, you know what, I'm going to test this out. I'm going to give it a go.

So I sent each of the four of them a video. One of them got straight back to me after he got the video and he said, “Look terribly sorry. I'm not going to go ahead with this.” But I got a reply, which I hadn't got a reply to anything else.

Then the next one I sent to, she said, “Oh my God, thank you so much for sending me a personal message. You know what, I do need to go ahead with this. How do I book in another call so that we can get it sorted?”

Then the third one booked in and became a customer again.

And then the fourth one didn't reply.

So three out of four people replied and two out of those four people – they were dead quotes, remember – came back to me and ended up becoming customers from that exercise.

I hadn’t even paid for Bonjoro yet. It was the free version of Bonjoro and it made me $10,000 just by following up with four people, spending about 30 seconds for each video and sending it out to them. And about maybe an hour or two hours to set it up and get it operating the right way and I made $10,000.

Who wants to do that in their business? One hundred percent!

So the trigger comes to your phone and you can send a personal message. I don't sit here waiting… “Is someone going to opt in? Is someone going to opt in? Is someone going to opt in?”

I just let it go. And for 15 minutes a day, I get onto my phone and I swipe the Bonjoro app and I talk to whoever has gone through. I've used it for event registrations to get people to come along to events and I've used it for so many other things. And the value is so good. The reply I normally get is, “Oh my God, I can't believe you sent me a personal message. This is really cool. I want to do this in my business!”

And so many replies like that, just from the convenience of your phone.

If you're ready to take action and start getting all the paying customers you can handle from your paid ad leads, book a call with us today. 

We'll help you create a step-by-step plan to implement the necessary steps in your business and fast-track your results.