(Photo by Andrew Fysh)

How do you build trust when marketing to your target audience? Showcasing your past accomplishments can build logical trust. But that’s will only take you so far. What you ultimately need is to build emotional trust. Here’s how to start:

• Mirror their language. Copy the words and phrases that your prospective clients use. People trust others that sound like them.
• Mirror their looks. In your marketing, use images that reflect who your audience is. If you’re targeting older women (for example), then show older women using your product or services.
• Mirror their handshake. When meeting people, attempt to match your handshake to theirs’. That means you need to let them “lead” the handshake, and match it stylistically.
• Mirror their voice. When talking to prospects face-to-face, match their volume, speed, and intonation. Your goal isn’t to parrot them – but to build respect through your interaction.

We often try to show we’re experts by elevating ourselves from our target audience. If you’re not yet well-recognized, doing this may convey that you’re unsympathetic to their problems. Instead, begin your connections by mirroring them subtly. It’ll force you to pay more attention to others, which is the first step in developing a deeper relationship.

(Photo by Intel Free Press)

In 2014, for the first time, more people worldwide visited websites with mobile browsers than desktop browsers. So it makes sense to make your website mobile-friendly – a site that adapts to the size screen of your visitor (“responsive web design”), making it easier for people to navigate online – no matter what type of browser they’re using. So, is your website mobile-friendly?

The simple way to determine your mobile-friendliness is to take this online test. If it’s not mobile-friendly, you’ll find out what specifically made it fail the test.

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And even more importantly than making your site nicer for your website visitors, is that starting on April 21, 2015, Google’s search results reflect mobile-friendliness. Sites that aren’t “friendly” will likely experience a big drop in their search ranking.

Your friendliness will be rewarded.

(Photo by The All-Nite Images)

Having trouble getting your marketing emails read by prospective customers (whose in-boxes are likely full)? People first read emails from people that they know.  Then, they read emails that has a subject line that’s of interest. So, if your prospects don’t know you (yet), then how can you craft a subject line to gain their attention?

Be Relevant. The best subject lines promise a benefit that the reader cares about. If you have a way to save money on their phone bill, say it. You might consider testing your subject line’s effectiveness using an automated tool.

Be Catchy. Have you ever received an email with a small image in its subject line along with the text, and wondered how did the sender do it? They undoubtedly used Unicode, an international character computer encoding system (which contains all the writing systems in the world and some pictographs as well). Here are three ways to use Unicode to make your text stand out:

• Use Miscellaneous Characters: These are the common symbols that you might see in your “Dingbats” font on your computer. Here’s one table of these characters.
• Use emojis: small, cute, colorful picture icons ([emoji open mailbox with raised flag]) that were initially made popular in Japan, but have since spread around the world. Here’s a good list of emojis that you can copy/paste into your subject line.
• Use upside-down text – Using a flip-text generator, you can type in text and have it flip the text upside down, suitable for pasting into your next email.

Be Concise. Since you don’t know how much of your subject line your reader will see, try to limit your subject to 40 characters – or at least put the most important message in the first 40 characters.

Be Careful. Some of these techniques won’t necessarily work in all email readers (especially with Unicode characters). If you don’t have the ability to test your emails across a wide variety of devices and applications, consider using an email testing service.

(Photo by Chris Beckett)

One of a magician’s key skills is misdirection. They carefully develop the techniques to ensure that their audience focuses on what they want them to focus on and when they want them to focus. Here’s how you can add a little magic to your marketing!

1. Determine your unique strength. While this sounds easy, understanding what’s truly unique and important to your audience can be a challenge. If you’re not sure why people buy from you, ask them.

2. Understand your weaknesses. You want to ensure that you minimize the importance of things you’re not good at. No doubt some of your competition is strong in ways you are weak. Highlighting your weaknesses can only strengthen your competition.

3. Be appealing. Your target audience knows that you’re trying to get them to part with their money. People would rather buy from someone who’s trying to communicate to them clearly (and honestly).

4. Tell a story. Your marketing story explains how your strength matters to your audience. The right story doesn’t include any of your weaknesses, and shows how your offering is clearly the right choice.

Don’t use misdirection to make your audience feel foolish. Use it to make your audience feel more confident in their choice to buy from you.

(Photo by Frank Towery)

Your customer acquisition cost (the amount of money it takes to recruit a new customer) is a key performance index (KPI) for your business. The less it costs to get a new customer, the more profit you ultimately make. Is there a simple way to boost your profit without increasing your acquisition cost?

Yes. Instead of thinking of selling one product or service to a customer, sell more than one. Subscription services depend on this model (automatic sales on a regular basis). Upselling  (selling a companion product or service) is another way to turn one sale into two (or more). When crafting your marketing offer, be sure to include a “multiple option” offer. Depending on your audience, you may opt to make the multiple offer the default choice.

Stop selling things one-at-a-time and think of ways to sell things by the truckload. The right offer, described the right way (for your convenience), can boost your sales.

(Photo by Dennis Skley)

How long your newsletter should be is based of the perceived value of what you’re saying. If you’re sharing a cure for a perceived painful condition, your reader will spend more time reading. But since most of your newsletters won’t be full of amazing discoveries, my rule is: Short enough to convey the message, and long enough to have some details.

Since everyone is deluged with emails and newsletters, if you make it obvious that a quick read won’t take more than a minute or two – your readers are more likely to read your writing (since it’s not such a large risk of their time). But if you waste their time too often, they’ll stop reading and/or unsubscribe.

Remember: It’s not really about length at all. It’s really about how effectively compelling your writing is.

P.S. This advice applies not only for newsletters, but also: emails, advertising, and speeches.

(Photo by Claudio.Ar)

One of the hardest issues in your marketing is getting your message in front of decision makers. Since decision makers are often deluged by requests for their time and/or attention, they likely have gatekeepers to buffer them from those outside the organization. So, how can you get your message seen by the right person?

Do your homework. In many cases, people approach the head of an organization thinking that this person is the appropriate decision maker. In many cases, it’s not. It may be a product manager, a VP of Finance, or another leader within an organization. Figure out who the right person is first. Be sure to also be aware of what the company’s upcoming plans are – so you can be sure you’re up-to-date with their direction.

Be nice. Once you reach the gatekeeper, respect their time. They are paid to deal with people like you daily. Quickly explain your “offer” and benefit, and then listen to their response clearly – echoing it back to them if necessary. Then follow through on the next steps.

Be persistent. Even if the gatekeeper loves your offering, it’s likely your single communication is likely to be forgotten. Follow up as you promised regularly. If you can’t get their attention and they definitely are interested in your offering, consider a daily communique. Go for “no”.

Be convincing. Ensure you’re not repeating the same message with each conversation. If you’ve done your homework, you’ll likely have a list of benefits that the organization would likely reap and the proven social proof to highlight your capabilities.

Be varied. Email is easily sent, and easily ignored. Pick up the phone and call (at different times of the day and different days). Fax. Mail a letter. Send a package.

Go around. A warm introduction to the person of interest is much better than trying to wrangle your way in from a cold call. If the person will be attending any workshops or conferences, be there and meet them face-to-face. Use LinkedIn’s InMail to reach the decision maker directly.

Recognize these same tactics to go around an organization’s gatekeeper you would also use to convince someone to buy from you (since each of our minds is also a gatekeeper to ourselves).

(Photo by Daikrieg el Jevi)

We all suffer from some form of “bias blindness” – a psychological perception that we better understand a situation more than others do. We see how other people’s thinking is “off” and we “know better”. This is likely true in your own business marketing as well.

First, when looking at your recent marketing materials, what are your unspoken assumptions? Examples may include: the reader’s expertise, the reader’s beliefs, the reader’s interest, the reader’s intelligence, and the reader’s awareness. Is there a way to make your unspoken assumptions explicit without affecting the quality of your message?

Next, repeatedly ask the question “So What?” when reading through all of your key marketing messages. The goal is to understand what key concepts are underlying your points. Often, we assume (incorrectly) that the reader understands these same points and knows the implication of not following your wisdom. The result is that your marketing doesn’t resonate with your audience. Make sure to drill down to get to the root benefit, and make sure that’s what you convey.

Finally, make sure you make it obvious what you want your reader to do next (your “call to action”). All too often in marketing and in speeches, people leave the audience struggling to figure out what do to next. Do you want someone to download a whitepaper? Call for a free consultation? Join your mailing list?

Don’t assume people can read your mind.

(Photo by Trey Ratcliff)

Over time, your company has likely introduced an ever-increasing variety of products or services. As you’ve expanded your offerings, you may have cluttered your message. Instead of selling something to a narrow group of people, you may now be trying to appeal to a wider audience. The end result is that your “umbrella of offerings” is now likely to be confusing.

When you started out marketing your brand, your goal was to clearly convey a message to a specific audience. You spoke their language. You understood the benefits to your offering, and could simply articulate it. But over time, if you weren’t careful, you’ve likely muddied your messaging.

Now, your core audience is likely not to be interested in everything you’re selling. So you’re now speaking more generically, trying to span different audiences with vaguer language to somehow make your eclectic collection seem more coherent. But since each audience likely has its own language, problems, and aspirations – trying to jam everything into one umbrella under your “quality moniker” is likely not to create sales.

So, what can you do? Go narrower to go bigger.

For example, your home page should be considered a “super landing page”. It shouldn’t try to tell your whole story & showcase everything. Instead, it should be a funnel to direct visitors to the part of the website that they would care about. Silo your visitors using different signups (and segment them in your customer database). Analyze your SEO (search engine optimization) to find out what your true organic traffic is looking for. Measure & repeat.

Turn your umbrella into a rainbow of opportunity for your business.