Monthly Archives: November 2011

Your Unique Selling Point

by photosteve101 under CC BY with wpseopix.com

You will often here from marketers (especially in retail) that a product needs 3 unique selling points (USP). And that they should be blasted over and over again and everywhere in your marketing campaigns.

Like many things in marketing (and life for that matter), once one guru has spoken, everyone else tends to follow. I can find no evidence of where this came from, other than that the best speeches in history tend to contain sentences delivered in phrases of 3 words (Veni, vidi, vici etc.).

And as is true of most marketers, once you can think of something slightly different to say, or use an idea from one context and place it in another to make it distinctive, well, let’s go for it and try to make it sound authoritative. This, after all, is what will make you stand out from the crowd.

It’s a little like the pricing of goods or services. Once we discovered that 29.99 sold more than the same goods priced at 30.00, everyone followed suit. Every now and again, someone tries to break the ‘rules’ and sometimes it succeeds. John Lewis in the UK were the first to try this successfully I believe. It worked especially well at Christmas (perhaps because when you are buying a present you don’t want to be seen to be cheapskate, so 30 is better than 29.99).

In the internet marketing sector of informational products, the magic number is 7. And that goes from $7 right up to $4997 and even higher. If you are into that market and use any number other than 7 at the end of your price, you are unlikely to be taken seriously. We are talking about the biggest names here too including the likes of Tony Robins and Frank Kern.

So, what is my point?

At my company, Accountz.com, we have just added a new feature that is so powerful, it only needs a single USP. We call it The Eazy Button. It works like this: if you are unsure of how to do something with our software, you just press our magic Eazy Button. It not only takes you through each step, it also creates exactly what you want automatically when you finish the steps.

Now, we could add all the other great points that have evolved over the years, but that would just dilute this one great single USP. So instead we have decided to target a single segment and hit them as hard and fast as we can. When you market like this you get a much higher response, even if it is to a smaller audience.

That audiences’ expectations are met big time. That means they also become ambassadors for you.

And now you can move on to your next segment, again with just another single USP. And once that is achieved, you move on again.

This incremental marketing plan (or IMP) is just one way you can tackle the whole world, but in stages. You will always meet expectations, you will grow your audience, and you are far more likely to achieve success.

Think USP not USPs and conquer the world.

Great, thanks for that, but I don’t sell products only services, what about me?

Glad you asked.

The title of this piece is ‘Your Unique Selling Point’. And that is where YOU fit in. Every person is different, right? So you need to think about what makes you stand out from the crowd. What do you do better, cheaper, faster (there’s that series of 3 again!). Pick one of them and make it your USP. If you now throw in the fact that NOBODY can be you however hard they try, you should get to a very unique position. Just concentrate on that combination (or even just YOU yourself).

When it comes to the service industry, it is almost all about people. Investors always look at the people they are about to invest in. It rarely matters how good the idea or product, if the people behind it are not right, they wont invest. It is the exact same when it comes to you and your potential customers. Think about their expectations first. That is what you have to fulfill. If you do it right, they will hire you. If you show them the value you can bring to the table, the cost becomes considerably less important.

In summary then. If YOU are your USP, think hard about your target audience. Think hard about their expectations. Push your unique selling point, live up to them and succeed.

How Do I Get More People To Open My Email Blasts?

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How much spam do you get? Do you recognise it immediately? Which emails do you open on sight? Which do you delete instantly? And the most important question of all… why?

And here’s a few more. Why do some emails get through the spam bots? Why are some marked as spam instantly? What is blacklisting? Am I on a blacklist? How do I get off that list? And the $64m question, what should I use to send email so I never gat blacklisted again?

OK, so let’s take a look. The first thing you need to do (so you ‘get’ it and it sticks) is to analyse what you do when you view your email.

What’s the first thing you look at? Is it the subject line or the sender name? Maybe it’s the snippet from the email if your email client shows that (eg. Gmail).

I can tell you that for the majority of people it is the sender name. Now of course this may not be your personal habit here, but research shows the vast majority of people always check who it’s from before they look anywhere else, and it’s those people that matter when it comes to internet marketing (ie. the ‘vast majority’). Everything starts with targeting, and this one little point is often overlooked.

So make sure you put your name as the sender. Anything else will look either spammy or just as bad, commercial. If you see an email from Virgin, for example, you know immediately it will be something to do with some product. Suppose, however, it came from ‘Richard Branson’. Would you open it?

Next up is the Subject line. These have been tested to death by internet marketers and the following points are the important ones to take on board:

Must be original. ‘Get 10% off today’ will only work if you trust AND BUY from the seller (otherwise it’s straight in the trash – or worse marked as Spam).

Must be enticing or plain simple. And that does not mean ‘Did you hear this amazing news!!!’ (it’s not just the overuse of exclamation marks that give this obviously spammy title away – the only way you are going to open this is if you REALLY trust the sender). Plain simple is exactly that. Tell it like it is. ‘Just to say thank you for ordering xxx’. They can see who it is from, the title is non-threatening, so there is a chance they will open it. So, what is ‘enticing’ then? I’m glad you asked that. ’Thanks for signing up to my newsletter. I have something special for you’.

Don’t use the word FREE. Don’t even use it in the body text of your email either. It is a red flag to spam bots. Many internet marketers will break the word up (eg. f ree or fr ee etc.) but these will be spotted sooner or later and once they are, they look even spammier. So what do I use then? Use ‘Gratis’ or ‘no cost’ or ‘zero cost’ or even ’100% off’.

Make sure the first line of the body text of the email also grabs attention or interest. This is because it is shown in many email clients. The people receiving your email will most likely look at who it’s from first, then the subject, and if that isn’t enough for them to make the decision to open, they look at a snippet of the content.

And what happens if none of the above is interesting enough? They file it ‘for later’ (which means never) or mark it as spam.

Worse though, their email client may mark it as spam automatically. This can be for far too many reasons to list here, but one of those reasons is that it has come from a sender who has been blacklisted. You can use this online tool if you are worried email from your domain is being blacklisted. Just enter your domain name into the tool: http://www.mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx

The only real way to avoid your email blasts being blacklisted is to use a bona-fide email service like Aweber. There are lots of services like this, but I have found them to be about the best all things considered. They also have incredible help. For example, we have used them over at Accountz.com in order to split people into two separate lists from a single optin form.

To conclude, getting your domain or email address banned by spam bots is the last thing you need to do. So if you want to communicate via email to more than one customer at a time, you must use a dedicated email service.

The Secrets of Guest Blogging (and how to get noticed for free)

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Guest blogging is the way to get noticed and very targeted visitors. But how on earth do you go about getting some great blogger to let you post on his/her blog?

The usual way is write a very polite email saying you love what they are saying and you yourself are an expert in their field and would love to help contribute great content, for which the only thing you want back is a simple acknowledgement by way of an Author Resource Box including a link back to your site.

They will of course want to see proof of your expertise and writing style so make sure you give them the opportunity (i.e. pro-actively say if they are interested let me know and I will send a brand new article). They will also ask to see your site so they can prove to themselves you are legitimate.

Or…..

How about this. Open a spreadsheet and enter into it every blog you come across in your niche or related niche (it has to be a blog for this to work as you will see later). To find these blogs search for your niche or related niches in Google and click on the ‘Blog’ option in the column on the left of the results page. Yes it’s that simple.

Now click on each found blog and see if they allow comments on posts. Check using a plug in like SEO Quake to see if it is ‘follow’ or ‘no-follow’. It doesn’t matter which it is, but you need to know the difference when posting if you want to maximise the effect.

‘Follow’ blogs. These are great because you will not only pick up direct traffic from visitors to the blog, you will also get link juice to your site.

‘No Follow’ blogs. As mentioned, these are also fine, but *mostly* you will only get direct traffic (however not all search engines use the ‘no follow’ flag so you may pick up a little link juice here and there).

OK. Enter these blog addresses into your spreadsheet so you can track your progress as you go along.

The next step is to add comments to the posts these bloggers are putting up. You need to do this to recent articles rather than older ones (though older ones are fine too if they are ‘follow’ types).

Great Quentin, but what do we put in the comment?

Something VERY relevant to the article you are commenting on and likely to be of great value to the reader AND author of the blog.

The length of the comment doesn’t matter too much, but obviously the more info you supply, the greater the value. And that means the greater the likelihood someone will read it and click your link to see what else you are saying.

The blog’s author will also start to take notice of you. In time you will be able to contact them with a good probability that they will accept guest posts from you.

But that is not the immediate point here! No. The best part about this is that you are going to get links on top blogs AND direct traffic from that blog’s audience. It’s laser targeted too. And best of all it wont cost you a penny. Enjoy.

Leaked Google Doc

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Few people (except everyone into IM) realise that you can read the Google search patent publicly. Yes, Google it! Of course the patent (and there is more than one BTW) merely describes the mechanism, NOT how the elements of the algorithm are subtly changed multiple times during an unknown period.

So, apart from that being pretty interesting to those that have not heard of it before, why should it be interesting to you?

Well, most people understand that Google took over Yahoo’s dominance for one reason. Automation. Yahoo = people power. Google = server power. But surprise surprise, the only way to check the ‘algorithm’ is to use people to see if the search results make sense.

So, these people need some training then, right? Oh yes. And every now and again someone leaks the training manual, which has just happened again in October [2011 in case you are reading this from an Apple TimePod tm].

So how does it work. Simple. Human readers get fed a bunch of sites to see if they match up to the search criteria that led to them being served up to the user. The BIG problem of course is one of subjectivity (how can a mere mortal ever replace a computer). Porn is the easy one (for fetishes of this decade at least), but what about relevancy?

Let’s take a hypothetical case of a relevant site over another equally relevant site. And let’s look at the search term ‘cloud’. The guidelines start with the term ‘Vital’ for grading results. So what is vital about ‘cloud’. Well of course it is the cloud of the internet (what did you expect!) in first place. Followed by a real cloud. Then a couple more virtual clouds, then some cumulo-nimbus, etc.

This is great and it shows Google as its best. But if you dig deeper you will find some well known search terms are a little cloudy. It is of course all about relevance and I an happy with that, but the point here is two fold.

If you add a human into the algorithm, you bring a bunch of trouble. If you then try and cure the trouble with a set of rules, you will only make the trouble worse. Humans are not machines QED.

So, what’s the point of this? If you want to know how Google *might* review your site, you need to know the criteria of the human aspect. So take a look at this excellent article from SearchEngineLand. It is worth your time. This is not so much a leaked Google doc as a completely public one!

Are You Getting Enough?

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I am of course talking about MONEY. I was at a meeting tonight of people thinking about starting up their own business. It was run by a lovely lady called Amanda Carlin. Although it was only a small group, it was really interesting to see and hear their aspirations and plans.

One of the discussions was on pricing. This is always a difficult subject, even for people who are successful. The reason is always the same and it has nothing to do with figuring out how much something is worth. Yeah, shocking, I know!

I want to look at an example from tonight’s talk. The entrepreneur concerned is thinking of starting up a cushion business. People love cushions so you hardly need any research to know this is a market you can sell to. But just in case you have any doubt, do a quick check using Google Trends on the main keywords for the niche.

It appears that ‘cushions’ peak early Summer and dies a death in Winter (so no one buys cushions for Christmas!). However, historically, demand is pretty constant year on year (I was looking at the UK market here by the way). Now take a look at what comes up for the main keyword on Google Search. You will see it is crammed full of ads. This is just more proof that people buy cushions.

The downside (if you use Google Keywords Tool) is that the CPC (Cost Per Click) for advertisers is very low (less than 50p GBP – or less than a $1 US). This means the general market for cushions is so low that unless you can manufacture them for next to nothing you have no hope of starting a business in that niche (but don’t let that put you off – read on).

This is where the most important factor of all comes in. Your target audience. It’s always all about your target audience. If you are making hand made cushions, it takes a lot of work (your time). Let’s say 4 hours if you already have the design in mind.

As a full time self-employed person you will need to value your time at around 25 GBP ($40) an hour if you want a decent living. That means you are going to have to charge 100 GBP ($160) per cushion (and that’s not including materials).

At this point alarm bells should be ringing very loudly. Who is going to pay that much for a cushion! But wait. The reason ‘most’ people would now run a mile is because they have not targeted their audience. What type of person can afford that sort of cost?

The answer: people with money! And that is the lesson. If you have a luxury product, then you absolutely MUST put yourself in the mindset of the sort of person who buys luxury items. The first word that comes to my mind is exclusivity. You are going to target the type of person who is materially minded, but does not want what everyone else has.

But exclusivity is not hard. Exclusive designers are only exclusive because they sell a few very expensive items to the rich. If that is your market, get under their skin. Buy the types of magazine that person reads (look at the ads to see if the market is your market – Rolex don’t pay out all that money for full page ads for no reason).

Take a look at the sort of sites your market may look at. Now check out those sites on Compete.com or Quantcast.com. You can then get the demographics of your likely audience.

As soon as you are really into the way that market thinks, you can come up with an ‘avatar’ for your target person. This is a complete description including age, gender, social status, wealth, geo location etc. etc.

So how do we target this audience? Build a website (unless you live in Beverley Hills or Monte Carlo of course!). The whole site must be geared precisely at your audience. And remember this is really about YOU and your exclusive designs.

When people are looking for Quality (see my article on quality) they are either looking for an investment or a person/thing to believe in. This is not a purchase of some utility. It is a life-style purchase.

This means your site is not simply a gallery of 100 cushions. You need to get their contact details so you can communicate directly with them (don’t worry, email is fine). That means you need your front page to get them to give you their contact details (I will cover exactly how to do this in a later article – see the sidebar in case it is already up).

What you will be doing is creating a list. You are developing your own buyers market. And it is exclusive to you. This method of marketing is without doubt the best form. But you do need to communicate with them on a regular basis. Part of the allure is that they feel they are being treated as VIP’s, and that is precisely what exclusivity is about.

And the best bit is that once they buy, they will continue to buy almost everything you produce. And because you know your market, price in this example is almost meaningless, with one exception. If you start to discount or reduce your prices, you will go from bad to worse. If that happens (eg. because your sales start to decline) it is because you don’t have a marketing plan. So, if you haven’t got one, get one (thanks to Toy Story for the brilliant quote).