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Lofty expectations and modest checkbooks do not a high-value client make.  In fact, most of the clients to whom you currently provide service probably fall into that category. I know the early days of my business housed clients such as these.

I think this next statement is a bit off-putting, but I’m not making fun of it. When I was researching some of the other experts speaking about conversion headaches, the first site to pop up was Harvard Medical School. I learned that there is such an illness known as “conversion headaches (conversion disorder).”

But that’s not at all about what this article is built. Lead conversion is the topic. Removing the roadblocks, constraints, frustration, ambiguity, and headaches that come when your lead to customer conversion isn’t doing well.

There are all sorts of reasons why prospects don’t convert (we’ll discuss that on Thursday).  However, so as not to write a 1000-page book on the subject,  I’ve narrowed things down to these 4 critical elements to why your landing pages might suck.  Mind you, this is my perspective, and I hold no liability for leaving yours off of the list.

A stretch of your time and content resources that is. Curating content in its many forms is definitely a time saver, especially if you are a small staff (of one?) or you have a heavy content schedule.

What does every marketing guru, maven, expert, or wannabe expert always say? The money's in the list. That is true, but with some caveats.  The strength of your email list is determined by several factors, including its cleanliness.

What would the world be like without Facebook? Would word of mouth cease to exist? These are damaging questions as we have become so accustomed to having social media dominate so much of people’s minds.

“Well, if it’s on Facebook it must be true,” is the graduated statement that originated with the internet.  What used to be important about social media is becoming so passé it’s laughable? The privacy issue is hugely negative, yet Billions of people give their information every day. Facebook makes advertising money by selling your information to the highest bidder of the day, and again tomorrow, and tomorrow.

What Makes Authority Marketing Work

Part II

The other day I laid out some answers to What Makes Authority Marketing Work and we discussed the viewpoints of three people that have written books on Selling to the Affluent, and that of Authority.  I chose them because of the titles of their books, and the fact that both Kennedy, Witty and Shelton are figures often in the limelight of our world.

I suppose to enlighten the newbies and skeptics in the readership I should begin with a definition of direct response.  After all, it’s what we love to do, what we advocate, and what we insist upon from our clients.

Direct response is the second of two distinct means of strategy as it refers to marketing.  The first one is Branding – or mass marketing.  Direct is the one that makes the register ring, the number at the bottom of the P & L black and not red.

Who Says Direct Mail is Dead

That’s an easy one.  Those who say direct mail is dead is anyone that has never used it. Or, only used it once and failed.  Or, those who are under 35 years old would be my guess.

Well, direct mail is at a place in time where it is the ONLY way to make sure your message gets to the intended target.  With a 95% plus open rate, direct mail is a solid winner for getting your message to your audience.

The actual value of automation is that it is more capable than humans could ever be to accomplish what today needs. With automation pushing the envelope of productivity in marketing per se, it more than capably provides the ability to scale.

Imagine, a single process that is so well-defined that once implemented can repeatedly produce until Infinitum, or until the desired outcome is reached. That’s the power of automating as many processes as possible.