| What most people do when they try to build their business, in addition to whatever else they got going on in their life, can be compared to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic after it has already crashed into the iceberg.
Perhaps it could have been a useful activity at some point in the future if the Titanic didn’t sink. I have no way of knowing whether the deck chair layout was perfect.
But, darn it…
It doesn’t matter one bit when the water is pouring in through a massive hole in the ship.
It’s the same when you’re building your business online.
Don’t let your time pour out through holes of your creation… don’t be an iceberg to your business’s Titanic.
For example, the color of your logo doesn’t matter that much. If you have to deliberate on that at all, please, set a timer for 59 seconds and go with what you have after that. The background of your squeeze page? Doesn’t matter either… not until you have money coming in and you’re sure you’ve done everything else to improve conversions.
So let’s go through a list of 3 major elements that need to be fixed in most of the marketing I see.
Scarcity
Like it or not, scarcity works. It seems counterintuitive today… because these days everything is about ease, convenience, and availability, and if people can’t get what they want from one business, another option is just a few clicks away. So scarcity marketing should be a thing of the past, right?
Not so fast. Turns out that having so much surplus does not make people much more competitive over limited resources.
Look no further than information products. There’s so much information available for free online - high quality, too - that it’s not even funny. Yet, the e-learning industry is on a path to reach $325 billion per year by 2025… where you pay for information. And information marketers use scarcity all the time.
Every other company worth its salt does, too. “Lock in this great price”, “Booked 26 times today”, “5 people are looking right now”, “Only 2 left in stock” and so on… tell me you haven’t seen at least one major company pulling this today.
If your marketing lacks scarcity, it lacks teeth, period.
The most important thing to get right about scarcity is to make sure it’s real and believable. Because people’s BS meters are at an all-time high, and if you just say you only have “5 copies left of this unique digital PDF”... well, that ain’t gonna work.
Testimonials (Social Proof)
Another thing that’s absolutely critical to any type of business online is testimonials. (Except for the handful where you can’t use testimonials - so make sure you check with an attorney!)
A good testimonial works because it isn’t a sales pitch per se, rather it comes across as an unbiased voice and establishes trust and credibility.
It’s also the emotional appeal - and I’d argue it’s the most important part.
If you’re successful at what you’re doing, people might not relate to you as much. For example, if you’re a billionaire, people will have a hard time relating to you when you tell them that your approach can make them their first $1,000.
On the other hand, if you have a testimonial from someone who has just made their first $1,000 and is on their way to making the first $5,000, that’s an instant credibility boost… and if their story is something your audience relates to, that’s pretty much gold.
It goes the other way, too. If you haven’t been all that successful, having a few powerful testimonials from people who have succeeded with your products or services can mean the difference between making a sale… or not making a sale.
Keep Improving Your Product
Now, this is completely misunderstood 99% of the time.
Most entrepreneurs will spend weeks, months, or sometimes years tinkering with their product before releasing it to the market. And of the most time, the product comes out too late, and makes very little impact and very little money, precisely because the creator wasted all this time.
What you do instead is release it to the market and listen to what the market says. Be careful here, though, because sometimes the market will be very cryptic.
For example, if the market says nothing in answer to your product… it might not even be a problem with the product, but with your marketing. So always make sure you consider the market’s feedback from all possible angles.
So there you have it. Fix these 3 things before you start “rearranging the deck chairs” like most people will do.
A side benefit to all of that will be that you’ll be much more productive while doing way less. Pretty awesome, right?
To Your Success, Paul Hanson
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