So… it’s another foray into the Watertight Marketing book by Bryony Thomas. This time to talk about the subject of information overload. The idea that the messages that we put out might not be exactly what your clients / customers / audience are wanting to hear, or are just too frequent.
I should say that this is one in a series of podcast episodes. They work as single episodes well enough, but if you were wanting to hear the previous podcasts then these are the links to them…
149 – Marketing funnels don’t exist!
151 – Are we leaking clients?
153 – Losing clients before you even get them
155 – Are we boring?
157 – Honey traps for website clients
159 – My nephew makes websites too
161 – Why don’t you believe in us?
How much information is just the right amount? What kind of information is it desirable to receive?
You know how this goes… You have an inbox and it’s overflowing. You have almost no time in the day to deal with nonsense, but you do read your emails… some of your emails. But which ones? Which emails make the cut and get opened and which ones fall by the wayside, their only purpose in life was just to add a tiny amount to the carbon footprint?
Building WordPress websites, you need to advise your clients about ways that they can interact with their customers or audience. They need to have a little understanding in terms of how they can market to the world. Perhaps you’re not the person to teach them all of this, and yes, there might be people out there who are heaps better at marketing than you are (this is certainly true for myself and David), but that should not stop you thinking about this subject and offer your clients some thoughts as to what might work, and certainly what does not work anymore.
We talk about how our tolerances for constant marketing are perhaps a function of the life that we lead and even where we live. Moving into the subject of what kinds of marketing really don’t work for us as recipients.
In my case, and just thinking about emails, I find that if you’re going to get opened if:
you are from a real world friend
you are from a company that I have a actual interest in… perhaps a company that I recent bought something from
I can see that there is some self interest in opening the email… perhaps I can get 30% off a product that I’m engaging with
Emails will be hitting the bin if:
you are sending me too many emails… even if I did at some point sign up to get emails from you
I have no idea who you are
you are representing a company that I no longer have an active interest in hearing from
The list could certainly be longer than that, but you get the idea.
This podcast is not just about emailing people though. We also talk a lot about other ways that you can send out your marketing message. The primary one that fits in the WordPress space is of course the good ‘ol blog. Writing posts that will in some way resonate with your audience and allow them to have faith in you.
I think, honestly, this is easier to say than it is to do. You also don’t really have control over who reads it (SEO aside). So I can see why this often comes as secondary to nurturing an email list. But, if you can write content that really does help, and you can do it on a regular basis, then I think that you’re on to a winner.
The problem is one of time. Writing good content can take ages. You have to do the research, write the post, edit the post, source some images and all the other myriad of things that you need to do such as keyword research. But, I can tell you for a fact that this can work. I have a few clients who have dome this and who have been able to make great inroads in their market as a result. Carefully written, helpful content. Targeted at the things that people are already searching online for.
There’s heaps more that I could say, but then, that’s what the audio podcast is for right. So go and have a listen and then posts a comment, or react in the WP Builds Facebook Group.
Mentioned in this episode:
‘Watertight Marketing’ by Bryony Thomas
