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I’m often asked questions like, “What’s a good response rate for direct mail?” or “What kind of open rate should I expect when doing email marketing?”

The expectation is that I’ll give a numerical answer. Something like, “expect a 2% response rate from direct mail” or “expect a 20% open rate for email.”

Usually, these kinds of questions come from well-meaning business owners who are yet to build their marketing infrastructure.

My answer is always the same – it depends. Sometimes a 50% response rate is a disaster and sometimes a 0.01% response rate is a massive success. Response rates will vary dramatically depending on factors such as how relevant the message is to the target market, how compelling the offer is, and how you came about the list you’re marketing to.

Instead of asking what a good response rate is, which is a nonsense question, they’re really asking, “How do I measure the success of my marketing campaign?”

Do You Want to Grow Your Business Rapidly?

Then you need to market it. But not just any marketing will do. In my Lean Strategy Course, I show you the exact techniques I've used to start, grow, and exit several multi-million dollar businesses, so you can too.

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How to measure marketing success

How do you measure the success of a marketing campaign?

For the impatient here’s the short answer: did the marketing campaign make you more money than it cost you? Another way of putting it is, what was the return on investment (ROI) on the marketing campaign?

If it cost you more than you made (or will ever make) on this campaign then it’s a failure. If it cost you less than the profits you made as result of the campaign then it’s a success.

Of course, some people will argue with me and say that even a campaign that lost money was valuable because it “got your name out there” or was some sort of “branding” exercise.

Unless you’re a megabrand like Nike, Apple, Coca-Cola or similar then it’s likely you can’t afford to burn tens of millions of dollars on fuzzy marketing like “branding” or “getting your name out there.”

If you’re a small or medium-sized business you need to get a return on your marketing spend. Putting your comparatively tiny marketing budget into fuzzy marketing would have the same effect as a kid peeing in the ocean.

The only way to win the game of mass marketing, branding, or 'getting your name out there' type of marketing is with more firepower (i.e., money).

If you’re a small to medium business, that’s not a game you’re equipped to play. You need to be focused on direct response marketing. But I divert. So, we need to look at the numbers carefully.

What is the average direct mail response rate?

According to the DMA (Data and Marketing Association), direct mail is becoming more effective every year. This could very well be down to email fatigue (let's be honest, everyone's doing it).

But if you're looking to launch a direct mail campaign, you need to aim for a 9% response rate.

I like to use direct mail for high-value clients. It's surprising and a great way to open a line of conversation with a prospect.

What is the average response rate for email?

While I'd love to give you a single number to strive for, the truth is that response rates vary according to the industry you're in.

The average response rate across all industries is 2.3%.

I can tell you that since the Mail Privacy Protection act has come into play, click-through rates have dropped.

Why do marketers track email response rates?

Whether you're dealing in direct mail marketing or a digital mail campaign, if you're not tracking responses, you can't know if your marketing is delivering a return on investment. Here's how to measure yours.

Measuring marketing ROI

Let’s run through an example with some numbers to illustrate. I’ll keep the numbers small and round for the sake of clarity.

You do a direct mail campaign and send out one hundred letters.

The cost of printing and mailing the one hundred letters is $300.

Out of one hundred letters, ten people respond (10% response rate).

Out of the ten people who responded, two people end up buying from you (20% closure rate).

From this we can work out one of the most important numbers in marketing – cost of customer acquisition. In this example, you acquired two customers and the campaign cost you a total of $300. So your cost of customer acquisition is $150.

Now if the product or service you sell these customers makes you a profit of only $100 per sale, then this was a losing campaign. You lost $50 for every customer acquired in this campaign (negative ROI).

However, let’s say the product or service you sell makes you a profit of $600 per sale, then this is a winning campaign. You made $450 for every customer acquired (positive ROI).

Now obviously this is a simplistic example but it illustrates how irrelevant statistics like response rates and conversion rates are. Our primary concern is return on investment, which varies based on cost of customer acquisition and how much profit a marketing campaign yields.

What is the Lifetime Value of a Customer?

With the above example, we determined that if we made only $100 of profit per sale then we had a losing campaign. However, in that example we didn’t take into account one of the other very important numbers used in measuring marketing, customer lifetime value.

If for example we make $100 directly as a result of the campaign but then the customer continues to buy from us down the track, that completely changes the economics of the campaign. A campaign that looked like a loser can, in fact, become a winner when we take into account their lifetime value as a customer.

We now need to take into account how much we’ll likely make on a customer over their entire tenure with us. For example, you might sell printers that require refills or a car that requires servicing or some other service that a customer buys repeatedly e.g. haircuts, massage, insurance, internet access, etc.

The money we make upfront on a campaign is known as “the front end.” The money we make on subsequent purchases is known as “the back end.” Together these figures make up the lifetime value of a customer.

Lifetime value and cost of acquisition are the two numbers you need to know to measure marketing effectiveness. The other statistics like response rates and conversion rates in themselves are useless. We just use them to determine these two figures, which give us a true picture of how our marketing is performing.

If you don’t know what these numbers are in your business, then now’s the time to start measuring and making your marketing accountable. Constantly testing, measuring and improving these numbers is how you build a high growth business.

If you enjoyed this article, you may also enjoy our article on How to Create a Lead Magnet that Converts in 6 Steps. As a small business owner, it's the smarter way to acquire leads for your business and build your authority.

Einstein’s famous definition of insanity, “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” is well known but rarely acted upon.

At the start of every new year, people talk about “resolutions” with the hope that as the last digit of the date increments that things will magically become better.

When they hit week two or week three of the new year, their “resolutions” become a distant memory as they return to routine and the daily grind.

Resolutions are a close cousin of wishes – basically nothing more than goals which have no plan or action behind them.

Chances are if nothing changes in your regular routine, nothing will change in your business or personal life.

I elaborate more on this concept here.

Do You Want to Grow Your Business Rapidly?

Then you need to market it. But not just any marketing will do. In my Lean Strategy Course, I show you the exact techniques I've used to start, grow, and exit several multi-million dollar businesses, so you can too.

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Become A Prolific Marketer

One of the commonalities amongst high growth businesses I’ve observed and personally experienced is that they focus heavily on marketing and make a lot of offers.

Some of these offers end up being misses and some end up being hits. The exciting part is that you don’t need many hits to offset your misses, especially if you place “small bets” by first testing with a small sample of your list.

By making many offers, you start to get a very good sense of what works and what doesn’t. When you become a prolific marketer it’s much easier to spot trends and scientifically measure response by split testing.

They’re also not timid with their offers. They take risks, use compelling copy and make outrageous guarantees. The short answer is yes. The fundamentals never change. Sure there are now more channels through which you can make offers, new  to help you track return on investment and split test, but the fundamentals never change.

Could it really be that simple? Making more offers, more often?

The short answer is yes. The fundamentals never change. Sure there are now more channels through which you can make offers, new marketing technology to help you track return on investment and split test, but the fundamentals never change.

More offers, more often = rapid business growth.

Being more prolific with your marketing will create a buzz in your business. Your clients and prospects will start to notice you more and you’ll start to cut through the clutter and fill up your sales funnel.

If You Change, Everything Will Change For You

Any change that becomes part of your routine, whether positive or negative, will have a profound impact over time.

If you make the crafting and sending offers to your list of clients and prospects part of your weekly routine, within a year’s time you’ll have a dramatically different business.

You’ll have made the exciting shift from business owner to marketer who owns a business.

Making regular offers will make you a better marketer. Getting good at the science of marketing is the key to rapid business growth.

And when you get better, everything will get better for you.

If you enjoyed this article, you may also enjoy our article on What is Direct Response Marketing and Why It Works? As a small business owner, it’s the smarter way to market your business.

With all the hype that surrounds “social media marketing,” you’d imagine it was a marketing cure-all. But is social media an asset you should be building?

Many self-proclaimed social media “gurus” would have you believe that social media is the future of all marketing. If you’re not dedicating all or most of your marketing resources to social media, you’re made to feel like a luddite who’ll soon be out of business.

Of course, like most hype, there’s a need to keep a level head in order to separate fact from fiction.

Before I’m labeled as being against social media, let me set the record straight. I’ve used social media in multiple businesses and continue to use it on a regular basis.

However, because there’s so much hype that surrounds social media, I want to put it in perspective for you and help you see where it fits into an overall marketing strategy.

Do You Want to Grow Your Business Rapidly?

Then you need to market it. But not just any marketing will do. In my Lean Strategy Course, I show you the exact techniques I've used to start, grow, and exit several multi-million dollar businesses, so you can too.

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It’s A Media

A successful marketing campaign has to get three vital elements right:

• Message – The marketing message or offer you send
• Market – The target market you send your message to
• Media – The media you use to send your message to your target market e.g. radio, direct mail, telemarketing, TV, etc.

You need to hit all three of these to have a successful campaign. You need to send the right message to the right target market, through the right media channel.

Failing at any one of these three elements will likely cause your marketing campaign to fail.

Understanding this framework helps put things in context. Social media, by definition is a media – it’s not a strategy.

The time-tested fundamentals of marketing don’t suddenly change just because a new media comes along.

Is It The Right Media For Your Business?

Remember, of the three things we need to get right for a successful campaign, media is one of them.

Every type of media has its idiosyncrasies and social media is no exception. Here are some of the things you need to be aware of when it comes to social media.

1. Social Media Isn't the ideal selling environment.

I like to think of social media as a social gathering or party.

We’ve all been to gatherings where someone, perhaps a family member or friend has been bitten by the multi-level marketing bug. You know where they start spruiking the health benefits of the latest pills or potions and try to sell or recruit others to sell.

It makes everyone uncomfortable because it feels pushy. It's an inappropriate time to be making or receiving a sales pitch.

Social media is exactly the same. Overt selling and constant pitching of offers is generally considered poor behavior on social networks. You'll only repel people from your business rather than attracting them.

2. Social Media Is A Great Place To Build Relationships.

Just like a real-life social gathering, social media's a great place to create and extend relationships which can later turn into something commercial if there’s a good fit.

One of the most valuable things I see in social media is being able to gauge customer emotions toward your business. You can also engage with vocal customers who offer either praise or complaints in a public forum.

3. A side benefit of Social Media Is Social Proof.

Being accessible, responding to criticism or praise and engaging with your customers builds social proof.

It makes prospects and customers feel like they are dealing with humans rather than a faceless corporation. Remember people buy from people.

But let's take social proof a step further. If you wanted to add PR to your media strategy, social proof is crucial in getting journalists to give you the time of day. So you can use it to your benefit when pitching your new story to the press.

Two Social Media Traps To Beware Of

There are two potential traps with social media.

Firstly, it can be a time suck.

Feeling like you have to respond to every inane comment can be draining and it can suck time away from marketing tasks that can give you a far better return on time and money invested.

It’s important to be disciplined with your use of social media. Just like you wouldn’t let your employees stand around and chit chat all day, you can’t let yourself or them get carried away with the online equivalent.

Secondly, there’s the question of ownership.

Your social media page and profile is actually the property of the social network. So spending huge amounts of time and money building up a profile and audience on these networks ends up building up their assets rather than your own.

My preference as much as possible is to build and own my own marketing assets such as websites, blogs, email lists, etc. I then use social media simply as a way to drive traffic to these marketing assets.

This way, my time and effort go into renovating my own “house” rather than that of a landlord who can kick me out at any time.

You might want to check out my article on How To Build A Marketing Infrastructure.

Example Of Why You Don't Want To Rely On Social Media

A classic example of why you want to do this is Facebook’s change of policy on business pages.

Previously if people “Liked” your business’s Facebook page you could freely reach this entire audience for free. So businesses spent a lot of time, money, and effort getting people to “Like” them on their Facebook page.

Now Facebook requires you to pay them each time you want to send a message to your entire audience. If you don't, it only allows you to reach a small percentage.

For those who spent huge resources on building up a Facebook audience only to have the rug pulled out from under them, this came as a huge blow.

This is one of the reasons why personally I’d prefer to have 1,000 people on my own email list than 10,000 people who “Like” my Facebook page.

Do Your Homework First

As always with any marketing strategy, it’s vitally important to find out where your prospects “hangout.” Then use the appropriate media to get your message through to them.

Social media may or may not be one of those places they hang out.

Make sure you've got your marketing plan in place before implementing.

How are you using or how do you plan to use social media in your marketing?

I’ve had “the naming discussion” with entrepreneurs many times. It usually goes like this – I’ll be asked for my opinion on a new name or several variations thereof for a new product, service or business venture. Then often follows an explanation of the name or names which are being considered.

Title Should Equal Content

Here’s my take on naming – if you need to explain the name, to me that’s an automatic fail. Title should equal content. In other words, if the name doesn’t make it automatically obvious what the product, service or business is, then you’re starting from behind.

When I give people this advice some shake their heads in disbelief. What about great brands with unusual names like Nike, Apple, Skype, Amazon etc? Surely I must be missing something by giving such simplistic advice?

Here’s the thing. All of the big brands spend hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising to educate people who they are and what they do. How much are you willing to spend to do the same?

Here we’re not even talking about advertising that sells or generates leads. We’re talking about advertising that merely tells people what you do. I can’t think of a bigger waste of money.

By using a non-obvious name, you start from behind and then have to make up for by spending a lot of money on advertising to rectify the situation.

All you had to do to avoid this colossal waste of money was call your business “Fast Plumbing Repairs,” which immediately explains what you do and what you stand for, rather than “Aqua Solutions,” where you then have to explain that Aqua is the Latin for water and that you provide “complete plumbing solutions” (whatever that means), hence the name “Aqua Solutions.”

If You Confuse Them, You Lose Them

So many times I’ve seen business or product names whose meaning is unclear. Sometimes it’s a corny play on words, other times it’s an obscure literary reference and still other times it’s some made-up word, the meaning of which is only apparent to the creator.

The reality is no matter how clever your name is, very few people will go to the trouble of trying to decipher its meaning or origin. These things may be important to you because it’s your baby, but rarely does a customer or prospect give it even a split second of thought.

What’s even worse is that being “clever” often creates confusion and works against you. One of the core principals of marketing is that confusion leads to no sales. If you confuse them, you lose them. It’s that simple. Always choose clarity over cleverness.

It’s hard enough to get a message read, understood then acted upon at the best of times. But intentionally adding confusion into the mix when you’re a small business with a modest marketing budget is madness.

Lastly, please don’t ask friends and family for their opinion on your clever new name. They’ll, of course, praise your idea and compliment you, which feels nice, but it’s unlikely to be truly helpful.

By all means test and get opinions but do so from objective people who are part of your target market – not from those who already know what you’re about.

Naming can work for you or against you and is expensive and difficult to change down the track, so give it thought, effort and above all else focus on clarity.

With so many people and so many things competing for our attention, just keeping up with all that’s coming in can feel overwhelming.

We may feel the need to keep up with it all to be properly informed and up-to-date.

Certainly, there’s a satisfaction in feeling like you’re across everything. Yet enormous chunks of time are taken up by consuming content from various sources including books, blogs, videos, email lists, magazines, news outlets, etc.

Information triage has become a vital skill. The late great Jim Rohn said it well:

Don’t spend most of your time on the voices that don’t count. Tune out the shallow voices so that you will have more time to tune in the valuable ones.

Lately, I’ve been doing just that. Reducing the number of “voices” I listen to so that I can spend more time going deeper with the voices that count the most. But more importantly, I’ve been working on BECOMING a voice of value.

What sets Apart Successful Entrepreneurs from The Wannabees?

One of the major distinctions between successful entrepreneurs and “wantrepreneurs” is that successful entrepreneurs are predominantly content creators whereas wantrepreneurs are predominantly content consumers. Even more than just content creators, successful entrepreneurs are often prolific content creators.

Finding Inspiration

To become a voice of value, you need to have valuable ideas and rarely do valuable ideas come from nowhere and interrupt you. By seeking out voices of value – thought leaders in and out of your industry, mentors, coaches and successful peers, you lay the foundation for building your own valuable ideas.

This type of self-education is the most valuable type of education I know of. Yet it’s important not to let too many voices in, however tempting that may be a few voices who speak from experience and first-hand knowledge are infinitely more valuable than a multitude of voices that speak from theory and opinion.

While neither theory or opinion are bad in themselves, rarely do I find voices of value from sources that haven’t been where I want to be.

Do You Want to Grow Your Business Rapidly?

Then you need to market it. But not just any marketing will do. In my Lean Strategy Course, I show you the exact techniques I've used to start, grow, and exit several multi-million dollar businesses, so you can too.

Tell Me More

Becoming a Voice Of Value in Your Market

The days of high-pressure selling tactics are fast coming to an end, if they haven’t already. In an age where everyone is connected and everyone has access to almost all the available information, the most valuable commodity is reputation.

The reputation economy requires that you transform your marketing from just information and high-pressure sales tactics to education-based marketing. The point of education marketing is twofold.

Firstly, it’s about positioning yourself as an authority in your target market. Everyone wants to hear from an authoritative source. By being a content creator, you position yourself as an authority and expert in your niche.

Secondly, it’s about building relationships – becoming the trusted advisor to your target market rather than just a salesperson. By regularly releasing valuable, educational content to your target market, you lay the foundation for a relationship – and after all who would you prefer to buy from, a trusted source who has been giving you a lot of value or a stranger who wants to make a quick sale?

It's Time To Develop Your Voice Of Value

Becoming a voice of value is hard work and it takes time, but the time invested will pay dividends. In the reputation economy you can’t afford to be a commodity or another “me too” type of business.

What can you do to start being a voice of value in your market? Could you start a blog? A mailing list? A monthly newsletter? Regular YouTube videos?

Any one of these things could be the start of you becoming a voice of value to your marketplace. Certainly doing so will set you far apart from your competitors who are still stuck on the selling tactics that are no longer working.

I spend a lot of time each week looking through various local and national newspapers – not for articles but for advertisements.

Having done this for several years, with very few exceptions, I’m absolutely amazed at how boring, similar, and useless most advertising is.

The waste going on is staggering. Wasted money and wasted opportunity.‍

Do You Want to Grow Your Business Rapidly?

Then you need to market it. But not just any marketing will do. In my Lean Strategy Course, I show you the exact techniques I've used to start, grow, and exit several multi-million dollar businesses, so you can too.

Tell Me More

Marketing By Accident

You could summarize the structure of most ads from small businesses as follows:

• Company name
• Company logo
• A laundry list of services offered
• Claims of best quality, best service or best prices
• Offer of a “free quote”
• Contact details

Then they hope and pray that on the very day they run their ad, a prospect in immediate need of their product or service stumbles across it and takes action.

This is what I call marketing by accident.

A qualified prospect happening upon the right ad at the right time sometimes results in the happy accident of a sale taking place.

If these “accidents” never happened then no one would ever advertise. But as it happens the occasional random sale or lead will come from this type of advertising. It tortures business owners to death because while the ad generally loses them money, they fear not running it because some dribs and drabs of new business have come out of it – and who knows next week it may bring in that big sale they’ve been hoping for.

It’s like these businesses are visiting a slot machine in a casino. They put their money in, pull the handle and hope for a jackpot – but most of the time the house just takes their money. Occasionally they’ll get a few cents in the dollar back which raises their hopes and emboldens them to continue.

It’s time to start marketing on purpose – treating advertising like a vending machine where the results and value generated are predictable, rather than like a slot machine where the results are random and the odds are stacked against you.

To start marketing on purpose we need to look at two vital elements.

What Is The Purpose Of Your Ad?

When I ask business owners what the purpose of their ad is, I usually get a list like:

• Branding
• Getting my name out there
• Letting people know about my products and services
• Making sales
• Getting people to call in for a quote

These are all very different and you cannot possibly do all of these with one ad. In typical small business style they’re trying to get maximum bang for their buck.

But by trying to do too much, they end up achieving none of their objectives.

My rule of thumb is one ad, one objective. If something in the ad isn’t helping you achieve that objective then it’s detracting from it and you should get rid of it.

That includes sacred cows like your company name and company logo. Advertising space is valuable and these things taking up prime real estate in your ad space often detract from your message rather than enhance it.

Rather than trying to sell directly from an ad, my preferred objective by far is simply to have prospects put their hand up to indicate interest. This lowers resistance and helps you  – one of the most valuable assets a business could have build a marketing database – one of the most valuable assets a business could have.

Here are 10 other business assets you need.

Once your objective is clear, you need to communicate it to your reader. What exactly do you want them to do next? Do they call your toll free number to order? Do they call you or visit your website to request a free sample? Do they request a free report?

You need a very clear call to action – not something wimpy and vague like “don’t hesitate to call us.”

You need to be clear on what they should do next and what they will get in return.

Also, give them multiple ways to take that action. For example, if the call to action is to order your product, give them the ability to do it online, over the phone or even via a mail-in coupon.

Different people have different preferences when it comes to modality of communication. Give them multiple means of response so they can choose the one they are most comfortable with.

What Does Your Ad Focus On?

Have you ever been to a party or gathering and been seated next to someone who just spends the whole night talking about themselves? It gets old pretty fast. You keep giving half-hearted smiles and polite nods but your mind is elsewhere and that exit sign is calling your name.

Similarly, most advertising by small businesses is inwardly focused. Instead of speaking to the needs and problems of the prospect, it is focused on self-aggrandizement.

The prominent logo and company name, the laundry list of services, the claims of being the leading provider of that product or service— all of these things are shouting, “Look at me!”

Unfortunately, you’re in a crowded market, and with everyone shouting “Look at me!” at the same time, it just becomes background noise.

By contrast, direct response marketing focuses heavily on the needs, thoughts, and emotions of the target market.

By doing this, you enter the conversation already going on in the mind of your ideal prospect.

You will resonate at a deeper level with your prospect and your ad will stand out from 99% of other ads that are just shouting and talking about themselves.

Don’t be the advertising equivalent of that guy at the party obliviously talking about himself the whole night while his uninterested audience looks for the exit.

Also don’t leave anything to chance. Know exactly what you want your ad to achieve and the exact action you want your prospect to take.

Have you tried using humor in your marketing?

They’ve been many occasions I’ve sat starting at my computer screen. I've agonized over whether to use a witty headline or go for clarity and say exactly what I mean.

Sometimes it’s a genuinely funny one-liner. But more often than not it’s a lame play on words. The type that you roll your eyes at when you see them with nauseating predictability in newspaper headlines.

“Telecom Giant Rings In Record Profits”

“Mining Company Digs Itself Out Of Trouble”

Ugh!

Sometimes we just can’t help ourselves even when we know how bad it is. Yet it’s not limited to bad puns, it can also be visual humor in the form of pictures or videos.

Using Humor in Your Marketing To Make Your Ad Go Viral

We embed humor into our advertising because we hope the ad will go “viral.”  So people start spreading it for its comedic value.

While this can and does happen, the chance of achieving this is very low. Even if it does happen, the commercial benefit of this is dubious. Yes, funny gets attention but the question is attention on what?

I’m always surprised by companies who tolerate ads from their high priced agencies where clearly the entire objective is to win some creative award. It's all about bringing attention to the agency rather than the product or service they're advertising.

Whether or not the ad generated any sales seems secondary. Sometimes you even struggle to figure out what product they’re actually advertising.

But great headlines are only the start. You need  to create a winning campaign. And you need an unmissable offer and great copy to create a winning campaign.

6 Questions To Consider Before Using Humor In Your Marketing

The question I like to ask myself when writing ad copy is: Do I want to be funny and famous? Or do I want to be a business success? Does it add to or detract from the message?

These are one and the same if you are John Cleese or Ricky Gervais. But for most other business owners these are generally going to be mutually exclusive.

Here are some important questions when considering adding humor to your marketing:

1. Does it add to or detract from the message?
2. Will it send the reader/listener/viewer on a tangent trying to figure it out?
3. Could it frustrate and alienate readers/listeners/viewers who don’t understand the humor or reference?
4. Is it offensive to anyone in my target market?
5. Does it distract from the flow of the ad?
6. Will some people reading it not bother trying to figure it out?

The answer to one or more of the above questions is usually yes, which is why I often recommend steering clear of humor in marketing.

Humor varies wildly between people of different race, age, demographic, education, and cultural background. And this is why it can be extremely difficult to pull off.

My advice is usually: choose clarity over cleverness.

It’s hard enough to get a message read, understood then acted upon without adding potential confusion into the mix.

Is There Ever A Time To Use Humor In Marketing?

As with most rules, there are exceptions. There are certain situations where using humor can strengthen your marketing message.

Take Nando's. This brand has nailed humorous marketing. It's what their customers expect.

You can build rapport by using “insider” humor.

For example, if you're targeting a very narrow market that have a similar demographic profile (e.g., doctors, mechanics, florists) and they're likely to understand your references.

Positioning yourself as an industry “insider” is a powerful way to build credibility and authority in your niche.

Existing customers are another exception. At least with existing customers, the stakes are lower if they fail to understand your message.

Using humor with existing customers can help with retention. It can position you as the “fun” or “irreverent” alternative to your stodgy competition.

In Closing

Using humor in your marketing really depends on your customers. It depends on the product or service you sell and who you sell it to.

Humor can either bring significant goodwill to your brand or break it.

My wife and I were recently dining at one of our favorite restaurants. The food there is great, the staff are courteous and helpful and the location is spectacular – right on the beach. On a cold night they have a log wood fireplace going which really adds to the atmosphere.

We’ve been dining there for about a year or so – ever since we moved to the area. As I went to pay for the meal, I looked over and sure enough it was still there – a tattered hand-written sign near their credit card machine that says, “Sorry our credit card machine doesn’t work with PINs, please sign instead. Apologies for the inconvenience.”

I marveled at how such a high-end restaurant that has got so much right, has got this one fundamental thing wrong. As a business owner, if there’s one part of interacting with my customers that I want to be as smooth and frictionless as possible, it’s the part where I get paid.

Not only was this faulty credit card machine not attended to for at least a year (that I know of) but they clearly had no intention of implementing new, even more frictionless payment technology such as Visa payWave or MasterCard PayPass.

Do You Want to Grow Your Business Rapidly?

Then you need to market it. But not just any marketing will do. In my Lean Strategy Course, I show you the exact techniques I've used to start, grow, and exit several multi-million dollar businesses, so you can too.

Tell Me More

‍‍When Technology Fails Us

The rate of technology innovation over the past few years has been nothing short of astonishing. Prior to August 2004 Google was still a private, relatively unknown company. Prior to September 2006 Facebook was still just an experiment and not yet open to the public. In mid-2007 there was no iPhone and in April 2010 the iPad was still just a rumor in geek circles.

We almost can’t imagine life without some of these technologies – yet a few short years ago they didn’t even exist.

While the pace of technology innovation has increased and continues to increase exponentially, the purpose of new technology has remained constant over thousands of years.

Plain and simple the purpose of any new technology in your business is to eliminate friction. We want the fastest and easiest path to the sale, while increasing customer satisfaction.

We also want to avoid situations where technology hinders rather than facilitates business:

As customers (of usually large institutions) we’ve all had the frustrating experience of trying to talk sense to someone who’s being held back by technology and responds with their version of “Computer says ‘No’...”

As small business owners we must ensure technology is being used in our businesses in ways that remove friction rather than creating it.

Getting technology To work For You And Your Customers

Technology makes our lives easier by doing the “heavy lifting” on our behalf, whether it’s doing a complex calculation, lifting a concrete block into place or searching through thousands of publications to find that obscure literary reference you’re looking for.

Yet sometimes it’s like we implement technology for technology’s sake. When helping business owners with their marketing, I often ask people what the purpose of their website, Twitter or Facebook page is. I rarely get a succinct and direct answer.

Back when the iPod came out, this was the only legal way to load new music onto it:

• Drive down to the local music store and buy a CD with the music you want.
• Insert the CD into the computer and import the contents into your computer hard drive.
• Sync the iPod with the computer so it copies all the music over.

Despite this painful process, the iPod was still a huge success, however when Apple introduced the iTunes Store, the success of the iPod exploded and it also laid the foundation for the iPhone and iPad.

No element of customer effort escaped the attention of Steve Jobs. As Roger Dooley describes in his book Friction, Apple paid Amazon for the right to use one-click ordering. Jobs knew that saving even one click would help his new music store succeed.

The technology Apple introduced greatly reduced the friction between consumer and merchant. The same can be said of Amazon, Google, Visa payWave or MasterCard PayPass and many other successful technologies.

Using Technology To Reduce Friction

By reducing friction, technology helps us do in a fraction of the time what would have taken us hours, days or years to accomplish without it.

So how can you use technology to reduce the friction between you and your customers? What tasks can you streamline and make seamless?

More importantly, how can you ensure technology isn’t hindering your relationship with your customers?

Here’s how I do it.

I like to think of each piece of technology as an employee. What am I hiring this employee to do? What are its KPI’s?

Take the example of a website. It’s pretty common that a business will have a website with no specific goal – just some vague notion or hope that customers will come their way because they have put up an online version of their brochure.

By contrast, every smart entrepreneur I know uses technology with very specific goals in mind that are measurable. For example, a website can be used for selling a product or getting prospects to opt-in to a marketing database.

These things are measurable and can have KPI’s attached to them. We know instantly if they’re working or not and we fire the ones that aren’t working and we continue improving the ones that are.

Now may be a good time to rethink the various ways you use technology in your business. Are they reducing friction? Are they doing what they were hired to do?

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If you want to be successful in business then you need to create a minimum viable product. As an angel investor, I get to see many pitches, product, and prototypes. One of the most difficult things I see is startups who've spent tons of money on product development, only to find out:

• There's no demand for their product.
• Their product misses the mark and major redevelopment is needed.

In medicine “minimum effective dose” is the lowest amount of a drug that produces a therapeutic response in those taking it. It’s used to ensure patients get the treatment they need without being overexposed to unnecessary side effects.

As an entrepreneur, it’s natural to want to create an outstanding product. Often we feel like artists working on a masterpiece. There can be a lot of emotions attached to what we’re producing.

We want to present our best to the world. While being passionate is most definitely part of the success equation, it can also be a major roadblock in the process.

Read on and I’ll share with you two things I’ve learned from expensive experience.

Do You Want to Grow Your Business Rapidly?

Then you need to market it. But not just any marketing will do. In my Lean Strategy Course, I show you the exact techniques I've used to start, grow, and exit several multi-million dollar businesses, so you can too.

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Minimum Viable Product Explained

To Create a Minimum Viable Product You'll Likely Fail Cheap, Fail Often

Nobody wants to be told their baby is ugly. But what's more painful is learning your product's a no go when you’ve sunk huge amounts of time, money and effort into developing it.

When it comes to product development – the probability of creating a smash hit on the first go is astronomically low. I’ve come to expect that I’ll need to course correct or even start over multiple times before I get my winner.

Surveys and marketing research can help you identify a winner quicker. But there’s nothing like actually trying to get someone to part with their money to determine if what you have is of value to the market or not.

This is why I’ve now learned to make small “bets.” This lets you fail cheap and fail often, as opposed to a “bet the farm” strategy. By making small investments, you can cut the losers early and ride the winners.

Real Artists Ship

Steve Jobs famously said, “real artists ship.” I’ve taken that statement to mean two things.

1. It’s easy to have a theoretically “perfect” product sitting endlessly on your drawing board. However, you can only start judging it properly when it’s in the hands of your end customer.
2. Real artists or entrepreneurs are prolific. They create multiple iterations of their product with continual improvement based on customer feedback.

It’s this valuable feedback loop we want to tap into early in the product development process. By creating a “minimum viable product" you build a product that has the core functionality of what you want to offer. And you create it as quickly and cheaply as possible.

So, instead of packing all the features you think your customers want into a product. And this is an expensive and protracted product development cycle.

You'll release a bare bones product and tap into the feedback your customers are giving you. What do they like, what do they dislike? You let them define the features and future of the product. It’s never been easier and cheaper to do product development this way.

What Makes Developing A Minimum viable Produce (MVP) Possible?

Exponential advances in technology and the constant drop in price of these technologies, makes creating MVP possible.

Social media, mobile devices, and web technology can give you almost real-time, continual feedback directly from your customers.

Of course, certain industries lend themselves better to this type of product development than others. If you operate in a highly regulated industry like car manufacturing or pharmaceuticals, this will not be possible.

But this is the exception rather than the rule. Most small businesses can create minimum viable products and experiment with features, price, terms, etc.

I'm talking about ordinary local businesses like cafes and restaurants to services businesses like legal firms, accountants, and many others.

Start Tapping Into Your Ideal Customer

Shipping quickly. Tapping into a customer feedback loop. Constantly improving your products is the best and most reliable way I know of consistently producing winners.

Don't invest all your time into building something you think your customers want. Let them guide you in terms of what they want and make it happen.

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