Julia leaned back in her chair and watched her laptop power-up.
Coffee. It was 5:42 in the morning. And coffee was about the only coherent thought she could muster.
She opened her Google calendar. What time is that appointment again?
She had a 10:30 call with a prospective client and she wanted to be ready. Good. Still got plenty of time.
She opened her Gmail. Damn new tabs system. Now it felt like she had five mailboxes to check.
Click. Click. Click. Delete. I should really just unsubscribe to all these. I never read ’em.
She sighed. Next time. She clicked over to the Promotions tab, and started the process again. Click. Click.
She stopped. The subject line read simply, “Won’t you please join us?” Julia opened the email. It was an invitation to something called “The Blogwarts Academy.” Hmm. Her eyes raced through the copy …get anything you want…learn the secrets…make money…change the world… Delete.
Julia resumed her early morning ritual of inbox cleansing and then opened up Facebook. She had 17 notifications and 2 friend requests. Her newsfeed was littered with snarky comments about the new royal baby.
She made her way down the page, liking and commenting as she went. Sharing the love. Out of the corner of her eye she saw an ad on the right: Is Blogwarts Right for You? It took her all of 1.5 seconds to read the ad. And then she promptly forgot it.
***
Julia hasn’t even finished her first cup of coffee, and yet she’s already seen an offer twice (once in her email and once on Facebook). Before the week is through, she’ll bump into it at least a dozen more times. There’ll be emails from affiliates offering sign-up bonuses if she uses their link. And people chatting about whether or not they’ll enroll (and why) on Facebook. She might even hear about Blogwarts while she’s at a business mixer.
At some point, her curiosity piqued, she’ll click over to the website to see what all the fuss is about.
That is — IF what’s being offered is even something she’s aware she needs (and is willing to buy).
I’ve written about the Marketing Rule of 7 before. I’ve also talked about what happens if you go too far with all the offers.
So how do you find the “Goldilocks Zone” for sharing your thing? How many times should you send a selly-sell message (as Chris Brogan calls them) if you want the most sales with the least amount of attrition?
Like everything else in the world of marketing, my answer is, “that depends.” It depends on several factors, not the least of which are the priorities of your ideal customer. And I’m not the only one to say so.
My colleague, Carol Lynn Rivera over at Web.Search.Social wrote an entire post about the Goldlilocks Zone of online marketing. You should go read it. (It’s okay, I’ll wait.)
Wasn’t that great? Did you get the part about your Goldilocks Zone being unique to you and your business and your customers? Good.
When you send out a message (or a series of messages) for a specific offer — like a workshop or a new book — you’ll want to layer them on top of what you’re already doing.
And that’s where you start: with what you’re already doing. Start where you are and double it. Are you currently sending only one email newsletter per month? Then increase it to two. Are you posting once a day on Facebook? Go ahead and double it. Are you blogging once a week? Again, add one more post to the mix. And after you’ve done that for a month or two, double it again. Until you get to the place that feels best — for you and your customers. On top of that, layer in your specific offering messages.
The trick here is to plan ahead.
If you’re going to market an event or a series of classes, you’ll need at least 6 to 8 weeks ahead of that (maybe more, depending on the size and cost involved) to do your marketing.
And if you’re not already communicating on a regular basis with your tribe, then sending out three emails in the space of one week will probably raise some red flags for them (and end up hurting you). In that case, you’ll want to give yourself an extra few weeks of lead time to slowly work your way up to that kind of frequency.
Let’s look at what the promotion for a free telesummit might be for someone who’s not been doing any email marketing at all (basically starting from scratch):
1. At least three months prior to the event, she’ll want to start blogging about the topic (of the telesummit). Regularly. That means at a minimum, writing and publishing one blog post per week — on her own site or as a guest on other sites.
2. She’ll want to mention the event is in the planning stages (either in the author bio, if it’s a guest post on another site — or in the blog post itself on her own site) and let people know they can sign-up to be notified of the event details when they’re ready. (The list building part!) For this, it’s a good idea to have a landing page on your website that you can link to and change up as you get more details.
3. Each of these blog posts needs to be shared far and wide on social media. Probably 3 or 4 times each (by our event producer). They should also be shared via email to current subscribers.
4. Event-specific social media posts can begin as early as 4 to 6 weeks prior to the event. At first, share teasers or snippets of what’s coming. Ask for feedback and ideas from your fans and followers — it’s a great way to engage them in the planning and get them excited about what’s to come.
5. Event-specific emails would begin about 3 weeks prior (remember, you’ll have included snippets about the event in your newsletter before this — so make sure you send one!). Email your first message 3 weeks ahead of the event. Send another at two weeks. And then send 2 to 3 emails the week of your event.
6. Ensure that the other presenters for the telesummit follow your lead on all of this by providing them with a suggested schedule and sample messages.
And remember: this is just a suggested outline of where to start with scheduling your messages. You can add or subtract as appropriate. Just be sure to monitor the engagement and attrition levels so you can adjust accordingly.
***
So did Julia finally decide to enroll in the Blogwarts Academy of Marketing and Merchantry? I have it on good authority that she did. And here’s why: She’d already been thinking that it might be good to get some help with her marketing — she just didn’t know where to start to find the right person. She’d also seen Blogwarts mentioned fifteen more times that week. From various sources. AND THEN her good friend and colleague Tad had signed-up. So she clicked over to the site and did some checking. Turns out, they had some awesome testimonials and a pretty solid money-back guarantee. Yes, it was an investment. A big one. But she took the time to think it through and the next morning she made her decision and enrolled. But that’s just the beginning of her story…
How about you? Have you found your Goldilocks Zone yet? Share a question or a comment below and let’s explore this topic some more!
I send way too little then wonder why no one signed up!! Noted! Thank you!
What a fun story! I think “Julia” is code for “every person who wakes up and breathes in the morning” :)And thank you for the shout out!!
What a great article, Tea! I so tend to err on sending too little, and then being disappointed at the results. The thing is, I get terrific open and conversion rates — so I “settle for less” when I should be looking to improve the conversion, or to build my list, or. . . all of the things you suggest in your article.I absolutely NEEDED this today! Thank you.
Unfortunately, it’s also true for a lot of other niches — many folks think that sharing something two or three times is enough (mostly because they don’t want annoy people). But the truth is that we’re bombarded with marketing messages every second of every day and we’ve learned how to ignore them. So even IF someone did see your message once, and even IF they thought “Hmm, I should get that,” they’re much more likely to forget about it immediately and move on with their day. This is also why follow-up (during the sales process) is so important. Even people who’ve raised their hands to say “yes, please,” can get distracted by life and forget to purchase. (And yes, a coach/mentor is a FABULOUS person to have on your team for these things.)
Tea, love this example. Often times I find that in my niche (crochet) we wait until one week before a release to start telling people. Seeing it all laid out in an example shows the importance of building up your fans and subscribers. You want them to get just as excited about your new project as you are. Definitely something to learn so would be a great investment to hire a coach to guide you through this process.