Copywriter | Marketing & Optimization Consultant | Customer Advocate
This blog post was originally written in 2019. It has been updated to include new information about email templates and artificial intelligence, as well as a few other things.
I have a love-hate relationship with email templates.
Any kind of template, really.
They bug the crap out of me as a professional copywriter.
Is it because I’m snobbish and think everyone should write their own copy?
No.
Far from it.
[Read more…]This post has recently been updated with new information. It is the fifth and last post in a series on how to make your email marketing strategy more effective. Last week’s post showed you how split testing can help you improve your emails. This week I demonstrate why you should use email marketing automation to make your own life easier and give your subscribers and customers a better experience.
Have you ever visited a product page on the website of a company whose email list you subscribe to, then received an email with a coupon for that particular product, or for 20% off your entire order?
If so, you’ve seen email marketing automation in action.
It’s a very powerful and useful tool to capture more attention and get more subscribers to convert into customers, as well as to get current customers to buy again.
[Read more…]
You’ve put together social media and PPC campaigns to promote your product or service. You’ve sent out emails. You’ve built landing pages and sales pages.
You’ve got an email capture form on every page of your website. You’re offering a lead magnet/downloadable freebie or a coupon to get people to opt-in.
You’re doing everything right. Everything all of the marketing gurus and the blogs say you should be doing.
But no one’s buying.
No one is coming into your store, coupon in hand. No one is clicking your “Buy Now” buttons. No one is calling for an estimate.
“Why?” You scream. “Why aren’t you people buying? I’m doing everything right! You’re supposed to respond like Pavlovian dogs, according to everything I’ve read, and seen, and paid obscene amounts of money to learn the secrets I have to offer…”
Really?
Why should they buy? Is your customer poised and ready to buy anything and everything they see, hear about or try? Or is your customer overwhelmed, even jaded by the amount of advertising they see every day?
See, everyone, regardless of what problem they need to solve, has a point at which that problem is foremost in their minds. I like to refer to it as being that thing that is on their desk and ***ON FIRE!!!*** (Yes, the emphasis is deliberate. Because that’s how your customers feel.)
That’s the point when they finally come into your store or click your buttons, or email you to ask questions. Truth is, your customer may be genuinely interested. They may just not be ready to buy.
“But why?” I hear you pout. “Why aren’t they ready to buy? I do all the right things. Dammit! They should just buy!”
Yes, they should. But they have to be at the right place on their buyer’s journey.
The what?
There’s something called the buying cycle, or the buyer’s journey. Everyone goes through this cycle (including you) every time they make a purchase.
It has 4 basic phases:
Until your potential customer reaches the consideration and purchase phases, nothing you do will affect their desire to click that buy button or hand over their credit card.
Another way to think of the buyer’s journey is to look at it in terms of how “aware” your potential customer may be.
Gene Schwartz, legendary ad man and copywriter chronicled the 5 stages of awareness of the average potential customer:
The last two to three phases fall into the research, consideration, and purchase phases in the image above. Ultimately, that’s where you need to catch your potential customers in their buyer’s journey.
So what’s a savvy business owner to do? How do you lead your potential customers along this buyer’s journey and to your checkout page?
Funnily enough, you probably have all of that set up and ready to go. You may just need to tweak it a bit.
It doesn’t matter how hard you try. If people aren’t ready to buy, they’re not going to respond to all of your advertising, follow-up and selected promotions. Your customer has to have a problem. They have to need something. And until they need something, you’re not the solution to their problem.
So how do you fan the flames of your buyer’s journey? How do you make things so hot that they just need to make that purchase or sign the contract to engage your services?
You guide your potential customers along every step of the buyer’s journey.
I’m going to get a bit geeky on you for a moment.
Joseph Campbell, the famous anthropologist, documented something called the “hero’s journey.” If you’ve seen Star Wars (preferably the original trilogy) you’ve seen this journey in action. This is what the buyer’s journey is based off of.
At the start of their journey, the hero must receive the call to adventure, refuse the call and then meet their mentor, the person who guides them along their journey to their final victory or accomplishment. In Star Wars (the original trilogy), the hero is Luke Skywalker. The guide is first Obi-Wan (Ben)Kenobi, then Yoda.
In the buyer’s journey, your potential customer is the hero. You are the guide.
Really.
A lot of companies make this mistake. They assume they are the hero in the buyer’s journey. They position themselves as the hero in all of their marketing, which turns off the buyer completely.
If you want to get the customer, you are the mentor. Your job is to help the buyer to find their destiny. Which is ultimately your product or service. So channel your inner Yoda and learn to guide your potential customer to their ultimate destiny; becoming your customer.
I always joke with my clients that until their marketing needs are on fire on their desk, they don’t think of me. So I keep tossing matches at their desk until they pay attention. This isn’t far from the truth in terms of the buyer’s journey.
This is true for any potential customer of any type. Whether you’re a brick-and-mortar shop, an online retailer or provide a service (like I do) you have to consider where your potential customer is with their buyer’s journey and fan that flame.
Your potential customer isn’t going to come into your shop and buy a shirt until they need a shirt. That has nothing to do with you. You can’t casually spill wine all over their best dress shirt to increase their need. That would be rude and unconscionable, not to mention impossible in most situations.
But you can gently remind them of your existence (toss matches) until they realize that they need a new shirt. And as I mentioned before, you already have most of this in place.
Here’s how:
Here’s a really important tip;
This advice was given to me years ago by Nick Usborne, a well-known web copywriter and marketer. He promotes the idea that to get customers, you have to give them something in return.
You don’t want to overwhelm your potential customers with opportunities to buy. This is a very common mistake and one that has caused me to unsubscribe from many email lists.
You must give to receive. Give your customers useful information. Give them a reason to trust you, your product and your brand. That way, once they’ve reached that point of comparison and purchase, you’ll be the one they turn to for that solution they’re seeking.
You have to build a relationship where your subscribers know, like, and trust you before most of them are willing to shell out their hard-earned cash on whatever it is you’re selling.
Help your potential customers do their research by directing them to appropriate blog posts that will convince them you’ve got the right solution to their problems.
Commiserate with them and show them how you’ve already solved the problem they’re having.
Become that trusted expert that demonstrates your knowledge about their problem and shows them the clear steps they need to take to solve it. (Including using your product or service as one or more of those steps.)
Giving your subscribers valuable information that they can use, even if it is part of your sales pitch, builds that relationship and helps fuel that fire.
Sooner or later, your diligence will pay off. But you need to be patient. Someone may have downloaded your case study or coupon, but they may take a while to purchase.
The most important thing to remember in marketing is that people are incredibly distracted. They have a lot going on in their lives. Until you’re top-of-mind, they’re not going to pay attention to you or your marketing.
Meanwhile, you just keep flicking helpful matches at their desk until it does catch fire. Then you’ll get the results you’re looking for.
Of course, the best and easiest way to deliver all of that valuable information I mentioned above is through regular nurture emails.
And while I’m certain if you were face to face with your potential customers, you’d be able to give that information easily, you may freeze up if you have to actually sit down and write something (gasp)!
Fear not!
The truth is, everyone has a nurture email type they’ll open, read, and buy from.
You just need to know which one is best to fan the flames of your subscribers’ need and desire. Then writing those weekly nurture emails will be easy as flicking those matches.
You can find out which nurture email type will ignite that fire in your subscribers’ hearts by clicking on the button below to take my 60-second quiz.
I promise, once you start that fire, it will burn until they absolutely have to buy to quench the flames.
This post was originally written in July of 2016 and recently updated with new, more relevant information.
This post was originally written in 2017. It has been updated to include new information and to focus more on helping you with your email marketing, as that is my primary focus now. However, using your customer’s viewpoint to improve your marketing message works in all aspects of your marketing and I highly recommend following past me’s advice below.
There’s a reason the phrase “The customer is always right” is so often repeated. Our customer base knows what they need and why they need it. They rely on us to deliver it.
Listening to your target market helps you figure out what they want, which makes delivering exactly what they want that much easier. And it helps you position your product or service as the exact thing they want.
I learned this firsthand a few years ago when I was at Digital Marketer’s Traffic & Conversion Summit in San Diego, CA.
Prior to the pandemic, the Traffic & Conversion Summit was the “who’s who” of Internet marketing. To be fair, it probably still is. I haven’t been since 2017.
Some of the attendees are hard-core marketers who have made millions selling products to other marketers. Some are small business owners, like me, who want to learn new techniques and tactics, improve lead generation and grow their businesses.
I was there with a marketing technology client that was new to me at the time. This was a 72-hour immersion for me in how to sell (and therefore market) this product.
I spent a lot of time talking to people over the weekend. But I also spent a lot of time listening.
I listened to my colleagues talk about the product, so I knew more about how it operated and how to use it. I listened to the client’s current customers talk about how the product helped them become more successful. And I listened to prospective customers asking questions about how the product works and how it can help them.
This last one was most important to me. And it should be most important to you too. These questions are going to tell you a lot about what your prospective customers think about your product now, and what they really want your product to be able to do.
I was very interested in the questions our prospective customers asked. I was able to answer all of the questions regarding the benefits of our product, as well as some of the technical ones. But I regularly turned to my colleagues for the “serious” tech answers.
As I listened to these answers, I did more than just pay attention to what my colleague was saying. My marketing brain frequently went into overdrive, as I worked to position this answer into a benefit I could use in our future marketing efforts.
I also paid a lot of attention to questions that I had to answer with, “no, it doesn’t do that.” As much as it may hurt to tell a prospective customer your product or service doesn’t do what they want it to, these questions are great future product and development ideas.
My client at the time not only had several of the requested ideas in the works, but they also paid attention to these questions and incorporated some of the ideas into future iterations of their platform.
I realize that I’m a copywriter, and positioning my clients’ products and services is part of my job. However, this is something that you can apply to your business too. And it’s a great way to develop your company’s marketing message.
When someone asks a question about your product or service, they’re looking for a solution to a problem they have.
This is true whether you’re talking to them in person or they respond to an email you sent about the product or service.
This should prompt you to ask yourself two questions:
You may have a firm idea of what your product or service does for consumers. You created it. You know how it works, you know why you created it and you know what you think the end result or benefit is for your customers.
However, that doesn’t mean your customers believe the same thing.
If you’ve ever watched a child play with, well pretty much anything, you’ve seen that the human mind has many ways of approaching any given problem or situation. We tend to be very creative with how we see the world. The object the child is playing with may have a certain use. But that doesn’t mean the child is using it that way.
A classic example is the toddler who pulls a couple of pots out of a cabinet, turns them over, then starts banging on them with the nearest stick-like object. The manufacturer never intended its pots to be used as drums, but they do make a good, loud noise.
Another example is shown below where someone rigged a Slinky to stop squirrels from raiding their bird feeder.
(I don’t think the original creator of the Slinky had this in mind when he created his toy in the 1940s. But it’s a great example of a product being a solution to a problem that the creator never thought of.)
Sometimes, your customer will ask a question that feels like it knocks your product or service out of the running to be the “perfect solution.” However, you know it will actually solve their problem and give them the long-term benefit they’re looking for.
Your job is to figure out how to re-position your product or service so that you can show this customer the benefits you can deliver.
Listen to your customer’s question. Ask them more about what problem they’re trying to solve. If your product is the solution, find a way to respond to their question that meets them where they are.
What’s the difference between your current marketing and your customer’s question?
Sometimes, it’s language. Your potential customer may be phrasing their question in a way that makes it seem like they’re looking for a different answer, but your product or service really is the solution.
Sometimes it’s a lack of knowledge. Your potential customer may not know enough about the problem they’re trying to solve. By asking them a few questions, you can get enough information to show them that yes, your product or service is what they’re looking for.
You may also be coming up against an objection. This is where your potential customer is trying to talk themselves out of buying your product or service.
In this case, your best option is to remind them of the pain points that caused them to look for a solution to their problem in the first place. Then you can show them how your product or service addresses those pain points and how they’ll not only end their pain but reach the goal they’ve been trying to achieve.
You can also show the differences between you and your competitors, to help overcome objections and demonstrate how your product or service is the better option.
In all of these situations, use the response you give your potential customer to improve your marketing message.
Once you’ve figured out what you said to convince someone that your product or service was the best solution to their problem, think about how you can add that to your marketing.
If your product isn’t a “perfect fit,” it’s a good idea to say, “No, it doesn’t do that. However, that’s a great idea. Let me take your contact information. That way I can let you know when I’ve added that feature to my product or service so it does meet your needs.”
Obviously, you shouldn’t do this unless you’re genuinely interested in changing your product or service, but this idea is great for customer service and product development. It will also help you grow your email list.
Once you’ve added the new feature to your product or service, use your prospective customer’s original question and need to adjust or add to your current marketing message using the methods above.
If your new feature was an idea from a specific potential customer, contact them and let them know you’ve added the feature that will help them. Ask them if it’s okay to acknowledge them in your marketing message, and thank them for the idea.
If it was something several potential (and current) customers asked for, acknowledge that in your marketing message. Make it clear that you listen to your customers and want to help them solve their problems. Thank them for helping you make a better product that serves their needs.
Now that you’ve got these awesome new ways to convey how fantastic your product or service is, you should be sharing them with your intended audience, your email subscribers.
These people have all raised their hands and said “Yes, I’m interested in what you have to offer.” They’re literally your target audience. Which means they’re the perfect group to introduce your new marketing strategy to.
One of the best ways to do this is in your weekly nurture emails. For example, you could:
Of course, you have to write these emails on a regular basis, so you can build an emotional connection with your subscribers and grow the relationship. Regular communication with your subscribers will increase your “know, like, and trust” factor, so yours is the company they turn to when they’re ready to make their purchase.
Which means you need to know the secret to writing great nurture emails, so you can include this new messaging.
That secret is… (drum roll)… Knowing your subscribers’ nurture email type.
Everyone has a type of nurture email they’re most likely to open, read and click on, including your subscribers.
You just need to know which one appeals to your subscribers, and you can start including these spiffy new marketing messages in this email type on a regular basis.
Find your subscribers’ nurture email type by clicking on the button below to take my free 60-second quiz.
Then you too will know your subscribers are always getting a good marketing message that appeals to them and will convince them to click on your call to action and buy.
This post was originally written in 2017. However, most of the information dealing with a 1099 from your clients or for other freelancers and small business owners is still the same. If you have questions about a 1099 you’ve received, or whether you need to issue a 1099 to someone you’ve paid for freelance or contract work, please consult a Certified Public Accountant (which I am decidedly not.)
Okay, it’s the beginning of April which means tax season is in full swing. For those who are way ahead of the curve and have already filed taxes for this year, yay you. Nicely done, now go enjoy a well-deserved break.
For the rest of us small business owners who habitually put this task off until the last minute, here is a useful, easy-to-understand, humorous post about 1099s. These tend to be the forms that affect us the most. And they can be confusing.
Running your own small business is a lot of work. I’ve done it for most of my working life. Taxes tend to baffle me personally, but there are a few things I know that are very important when it comes to filing mine.
I figured I can’t be the only person who wonders about the great mysteries of filing taxes, so I decided to write this post. I hope it helps you, as you try to figure out this part of being a small business owner.
First, let me state upfront that I am not an accountant. I don’t answer tax questions. In fact, I ask my accountant tax questions regularly, including for this blog post. If you have questions after you read this post, I recommend you talk to an accountant or call the IRS.
That being said…
A 1099 is a tax form that you receive for certain types of income. These range from cancellation of debt and interest income to social security benefits. Each type of 1099 has its own designation. The one that concerns most small business owners is the 1099-MISC, which is used to report non-employee income.
If you’ve ever been an independent contractor or freelancer (like me) you’ve probably gotten these before. It’s a form with your information and the information of the company you worked for at the top. Then it shows a whole bunch of empty boxes, and one box filled out with how much that company paid you.
Thanks to the IRS for this example of a 1099-MISC.
I know, it seems like a lot of work for one little box. But it makes the IRS happy, which is always in your best interests.
Your 1099 tells the IRS that you were paid a certain amount, usually “non-employee compensation.” There are a bunch of other possible reasons you could receive a 1099-MISC. For instance, maybe you earned rental income or royalties. Or you received a “golden parachute” payout, or punitive damages award from a court case.
If you want more information on everything a 1099-MISC can be used for, I recommend checking out the IRS instructions for filling one out.
If you worked as an independent contractor or freelancer for a company and that company paid you $600 or more, you should receive a 1099-MISC from that business. Yes, this is true, even if that company is another solopreneur or one-person small business, like you.
By the way, that means if you worked with a freelancer or fellow small business person and you paid them $600 or more, you may need to fill out and send them a 1099-MISC.
Why do I mention this? Because we’re small business owners. We have a heck of a lot of other stuff on our plates and sometimes it doesn’t occur to us that we need to deal with these forms. We do. It’s good practice for our own businesses, and it’s helpful to everyone we work with, to make sure we’re all on the up-and-up when it comes to reporting income to the IRS.
I’ve filled out and sent 1099s for various companies I’ve owned. It’s not that complicated.
You can order the forms from the IRS here.
The above link also has information about filing those forms electronically, which is a new, free service as of January 2023.
Once you have the forms, you fill in your business information at the top, along with your social security number or employee identification number (EIN). You do the same for the person you paid. Then you enter how much you paid that person in box 7, titled “non-employee compensation.”
You submit Copy A of your 1099-MISC, along with form 1096, to the IRS. Form 1096 is a summary of all the 1099s you sent to your contractors.
You mail copy B to your contractor.
You keep copy C for your own records.
If you use programs like Quickbooks and TurboTax, Intuit offers an online service where you can fill out and print, or email, your 1099s to your contractors and freelancers, then submit them to the IRS, along with your 1096.
Are there other factors involved? Probably. This has been my experience in the past. The IRS updates forms and the rules to use them every year. Again, if you have questions, I recommend contacting an accountant. Not only will they be able to answer your questions, they can fill out and submit the 1099s for you.
An excellent question, and the very one I asked my accountant today. Here is his response:
“It’s the responsibility of the client paying you to obtain the information necessary (via Form W-9) to prepare and file a Form 1099 for certain payments made to you. You have no responsibility for making sure that a Form 1099 is issued to you and there is no potential penalty to you for not receiving one.
That said, the mere fact that you didn’t receive a Form 1099 for any income received does not relieve you of the responsibility of properly reporting and paying tax on that income. The same holds true for both domestic and foreign clients.”
To translate what Jim said into non-accountant:
If you’re supposed to send someone a 1099, you have to ask them to fill out a W-9 form. The W-9 gives you all the information you need to issue a 1099-MISC to them. You can find the W-9 form here.
If you’re supposed to get a 1099-MISC from someone, and they don’t send it, you’re not in trouble if you file your taxes without their 1099 form.
However, you do have to report, and pay taxes on, your income, whether you received a 1099 or not.
I know I’m not an expert on taxes. That’s part of the reason I wrote this post. I wanted to put an important part of being a small business owner into as simple a form as possible.
Another thing that should be as simple as possible is writing emails to your subscribers. Yet, like taxes, it’s one of those things many of us put off because it feels complicated and overwhelming.
I’m going to share a secret with you here. Your subscribers have a “Nurture Email Type” they’re most likely to open, read, and buy from.
Once you know your subscribers’ Nurture Email Type, it makes writing that weekly email a breeze. Much easier than doing your taxes! Plus, you’ll be creating a steady stream of new and returning customers, and making more sales.
Discover your subscribers’ Nurture Email Type by clicking on the button below to take my quiz.
