3 Modern-Day Marketing Mistakes That Will Cost You A Small Fortune
If you own a business, this article will reveal 3 modern-day marketing mistakes that will cost you a small fortune in terms of lost revenue and profits, but first, let me ask you a few questions to see if this is right for you.
Do you want more customers?
Do you want them to spend more money with you?
Do you want them to buy more frequently?
If you do, this article is right for you because you’ll learn the 3 major marketing mistakes that will limit your ability to achieve:
- Rapid customer growth
- Higher average transaction values ($ spent per sale)
- Higher purchase frequency
Why is this important? Well…
Just imagine the positive impact more revenue and profits could have on your business…
What impact would it have on you personally?
What would you be able to do with the additional profits?
By the time you finish reading this, you’ll have a very clear picture of how you can increase your revenue and profits by improving each of the above metrics.
Let’s Look at The Underlying Fundamentals
Whether you’re using it or not, email marketing can be a highly effective marketing tool to increase your bottom line.
But, what needs to happen for your customers to buy from you via email marketing?
They need to open your emails, right?
And, they need to click through to your offer…
If that doesn’t happen, you’re not going to make a sale…
That makes perfect sense, right?
And since we are all drowning in irrelevant emails, getting your prospects and customers to open your emails is an obvious problem we need to solve, right?
And, there’s an even bigger problem that you may not have considered…
You may be creating negative goodwill if they’re not opening your emails.
Sound like a stretch?
Imagine Checking Your Own Email Inbox
Unless you have someone filtering your emails for you, when you open your inbox, you see a lot of emails, right?
Now, how many of those emails are you going to open and read?
Not many of them, right?
How do all of those irrelevant emails make you feel?
Overloaded? Frustrated? Like they are wasting your time?
I’m guessing, whether you feel it consciously or unconsciously, it’s a negative experience…
And, how do you feel about the people or companies that are sending you those emails?
Not very good, right?
I like to call this…
Death By 1,000 Cuts Irrelevant Emails
We attribute some of our email inbox frustration to the people sending us those irrelevant emails…
In fact, wouldn’t you agree that you feel less motivated to buy from them every time you get one of those emails?
They are wasting your valuable time.
Now, am I saying you delete every single email you receive as a result of being on someone’s email list?
Of course not…
Occasionally, you see a subject line that catches your eye and you open the email…
But, if it doesn’t happen soon enough, what happens?
You kind of become conditioned to just delete their emails, right?
Or maybe you just unsubscribe…
And if your customers are doing that with your emails…
You have a big problem, because you paid for your email subscribers either through effort or advertising…
What if the people or companies sending all of those emails were actually paying attention to what you like and don’t like?
Wouldn’t it make sense for the sender to make a note of which emails you are opening…
Or to notice which web pages you are visiting on their site…
And then just send you emails about that specific topic or product in which you’ve already expressed an interest by your behavior?
Of course it would!
That’s what really smart marketers do…
Sadly, most of the companies I talk to don’t even have the ability to do this.
Even if they wanted to, they can’t segment their prospects and customers into different groups based on behavior.
Or, if they do have the ability to do it, it’s a manual process (which I think we can both agree is about as much fun as being waterboarded)…
And in many cases, they don’t know or haven’t taken the time to set it up because it seems complicated.
So, if they aren’t paying attention and they aren’t segmenting their customers and prospects so they can send relevant emails, what happens as a result?
You got it – they send irrelevant emails to the majority of their prospects and customers.
Let’s Look At An Example Of How Irrelevant Emails Are Hurting Your Profits
“Susan” is one of your prospective customers.
She will buy from you if you play your cards right.
Susan visits a few pages on your website.
She signs up for your free report or video.
You start sending her emails.
Now, let’s make a few assumptions:
- You sell products A, B, C and D
- You send the same emails out to all of your prospects
Susan is interested in two of your products (A and D)
What happens when Susan gets an email about product B?
Yep. She ignores it (or reads it and starts to realize your emails aren’t relevant).
Next, she gets an email about product C…
The process repeats.
Then, she gets a value-added content email (about something she doesn’t care about).
By the time she gets an email about the products she wanted to buy, she’s already burned out from all the irrelevant emails…
And, she doesn’t open the email.
Think this isn’t a problem?
Make a mental note to go back and check your email open rates.
Check your click-through rates (the % of people who clicked one of the links in your email).
Are the percentages high or low?
If they’re low, then a lot of potential customers are ignoring or deleting your emails.
But don’t beat yourself up…
I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “You can make some of the people happy all the time, but you can’t make all of the people all of the time.”
Well, that’s true, but in a few minutes, I’m going to reveal how you can make a lot more people happy all of the time (including Susan)…
Mistake #1: Treating Your Customer The Same Way
Do you like it when someone treats you like a number?
Of course not, right?
You want to feel significant (it’s even one of the six human needs)…
The truth is, we all want to feel special – like VIPs!
Now, let’s assume you are sending out the same emails to everyone on your list…
How do you think your prospects and customers feel?
Is it possible they feel like they are just another number?
Now, bear in mind, if this is happening in your business, it’s not your fault…
Before I knew better, I was doing the same thing for years, largely as a result of what I learned from various online marketing gurus…
And, while that’s not something we want, it is something that can be fixed.
We want your prospects and customers to feel like you know and understand them…
We want them to feel a sense of connection, which is another one of the six human needs.
In other words, we want to put the building blocks of a relationship in place.
How do you make that happen?
Well, it’s not as hard as it may sound and we’ll get into the details in a minute…
All you have to do is pay attention and then respond accordingly.
Watch what your prospective customers do on your website, which emails they open, which links they click, and which products and services they buy.
Now, I’m not suggesting you do this manually, because in most cases, it’s not practical.
In fact, like most business owners that value their time, I cringe every time I think about doing a repetitive task over and over again…
Unless it’s a very high value task…
Like getting on the phone with a potential client to determine how I can dramatically increase their sales while helping them work less (which is totally worth my time and theirs).
But it wasn’t like it is today. In fact, I vividly remember working like a dog for years until I discovered the following solutions.
Now, in my own business, most of the things that need to happen just happen automatically whether I’m on the phone with a client or flying on an airplane…
Solution #1: Segment Your Prospects Automatically Based on Behavior
The key to treating your customers like individuals is a two step process…
Step 1: Observe
First, you need to have a way to automatically observe what they do…
Which pages are they visiting on your website?
Which emails are they opening?
Which links are they clicking on?
What’s the common topic or thread?
Why is doing this important?
Because their behavior is telling you exactly what they are interested in AND what they want you to talk to them about…
They are telling you what makes them unique.
Step 2: Segment
Second, you need a way to segment them based on their behavior.
For example, if someone downloads my marketing automation comparison guide, then I’ll remove them from my general email list and I’ll apply several “tags” to their record that indicates they are interested in:
- Marketing Automation
- Infusionsoft vs Ontraport
Now, I can avoid making the next mistake because I know that this person is interested in Marketing Automation and they are trying to determine which solution is the best for them.
Sound like a mountain of work? It is if you try to do it manually…
But, thankfully, you can use software to do all of this automatically.
I personally use Ontraport to automate my own marketing, but some of my clients and colleagues use Infusionsoft and other solutions.
And once you have the right marketing automation software in place, you can avoid…
Mistake #2: Drowning Your Customers With Irrelevant Messages & Offers
One of the biggest human desires is to be understood.
But, what happens when your prospect or customer gets a barrage of emails or offers that are irrelevant to their desires or problems?
They feel like you don’t “get them.”
They feel the opposite of understood. They feel like you can’t help them.
And, of course, they don’t buy.
Thankfully, if we’ve eliminated problem #1 and implemented solution #1, then we now have a way to identify what are prospects and customers are interested in before we even talk to them.
And, if you aren’t doing phone sales or consultations, then this is even more important if you want to increase your sales and relevancy with your prospects and customers.
Solution #2: Start Using Dynamic, Behavior-Based Marketing
Do you want to send relevant emails that will generate more sales?
Start sending emails based on your prospect’s behavior.
And, just as important, stop sending irrelevant emails based on their non-behavior or lack of action.
Now, to do this well without burning yourself out, you need a way to do it automatically…
It’s a dynamic process:
- Observe behavior
- Respond accordingly
- Repeat
In other words, if someone signs up for your email list and visits product A’s web page twice…
But does not visit products B, C or D…
Then, it would be smart to stop sending them general emails or emails about B, C and D…
And start sending them emails about product A…
Because their behavior has revealed their interests and desires.
That makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?
If you’ve shown an interest in product A and you get an email about it product A, you’ll probably open it, read it and click the link within.
It’s not rocket science, but until recently, you needed a rocket scientist to make it happen…
Luckily, over the last few years, technology has made some major advancements…
And now, you can set all of this up to happen automatically easier than you might think.
Here’s an example from my Private Client Program (the text in blue explains what’s happening):
So, what’s happening in this example?
If someone is on my general interest list, but visits my private client program page…
Then they are automatically removed from the general interest list…
And automatically added to the Private Client Program Interest list.
Now, notice how this happens automatically, 24 hours a day…
With no work on my part!
And from the moment this rule is triggered based on their behavior, they receive more relevant emails…
That’s the key to generating more revenue with less effort – using leverage to do the work for you.
But sending them relevant emails based on this behavior is not enough to maximize profits, you also need to avoid…
Mistake #3: Not Optimizing Your Sales Funnel
Whether your familiar with the term “sales funnel” or not, you know what they are…
Here’s how it works…
When you pull into the drive-through at McDonalds®, you’re pulling into a sales funnel designed by expert marketers.
It costs them $1.92 to get you into the drive through…
And when they sell you a hamburger for $2.09, they make $0.18.
But, they don’t stop there…
They offer you fries and a drink for $1.77 more.
It’s not salesy and it’s not sleazy…
And when you say “yes”, they add $1.32 in profit (that’s 8X the profit!)
Now, unlike McDonalds®, the mistake most businesses make is not optimizing their sales funnel.
They leave money (and profits) on the table…
Because they don’t sell the right products in the right way at the right time…
And if your sales funnel is not optimized, you are leaving profits on the table
And while it’s smart to optimize your funnel, timing and how you do it is really important.
Solution: Optimize Your Sales Funnel to Increase Average Transaction Value
To get this right, you’ll need to do some testing.
List out your different products and services, and think about how and when you’ll offer them to customers who have just purchased an initial product.
In the men’s clothing business, shoes, shirts, belts and ties are the obvious add-on sales…
And it makes sense to sell these items AFTER the buyer decides to purchase a suit…
Because, relative to the price of the suit, everything else seems inexpensive (that’s marketing psychology at work).
Now, if you’re selling online, there are some new tools that make this process easy.
We’re currently using Click Funnels to build many of our sales funnels for Fast Customers and for clients.
But, building the funnel is just the first iteration in the process…
The real gold comes from testing and measuring different approaches.
And the way to increase your purchasing frequency is to combine your sales funnel and your marketing automation to pay attention to what your customers have already purchased, and to then bring them back into your sales funnel at the right place and at the right time…
I hope you enjoyed this article as much as I enjoyed creating it for you and I hope you’ll share it…
Want a Shortcut To Make This Happen Quickly and Easily In Your Company?
Now, how can you avoid making these marketing mistakes? How can you quickly put these solutions in place? Well, if you own a business, then chances are you’re perfect for either my Private Client Program or one of my Marketing Makeover Workshops.
