My husband calls me the Gladys Kravitz of our neighborhood. I’m always looking out the window and down the street. It’s important to be aware of your surroundings. 

One day as I was peering out the window, a car whipped around the corner, made a U-turn and parked right in front of our house. Out popped a chick with a bird’s nest of hair piled on her head, wearing pink bunny slippers and a black pleather jumpsuit. #nojoke

She had a cigarette dangling from her mouth and her iPhone hanging around her neck, playing rap tunes. I was mesmerized.

She grabbed a camera out of the back of her car and walked to the house across the street. She yanked the “for sale” sign out of the yard (and placed it in the neighbor’s yard), set up a tripod, and started snapping away.

As I watched her march around the yard in her fluffy bunny slippers, I thought, “now there’s an independent soul who is quite secure in their state of being.”

She went into the house (I was disappointed the show was over), and I went back to work.

It was a memorable, albeit brief experience.

What’s the point here?

I’m not saying I want you to dress up in pink bunny slippers and a pleather bodysuit (unless the spirit moves you…), but I do want you to put effort into making your content memorable.

As if it had on pink bunny slippers.

Instead of throwing facts, figures, and data at us in your social posts or website articles, give us some juicy details. A story about why you’re sharing what you’re sharing. And yes, you too have juicy details. Those aren’t reserved for strippers named Tanqueray.

Have you used this information to improve something in your life? Has it helped someone else? Is there an anecdote you can relate it to?

David Sedaris has said that it’s usually the worst thing you can admit about yourself that most people will be able to relate to. Which means I’m really relatable.  #plentytoshare

Don’t be afraid to get personal. It creates a connection that facts and figures can’t.

Facts tell, stories sell. Use your stories to make memorable experiences for your customers. The kind they will be disappointed to miss.

Always behind you 1,000%-
Julia

PS – She never put the sign back in the yard. For a week, it looked like the neighbor’s house was for sale. 😳

PPS – The next Noteworthy has some good info in it on content generation that is effective (read connects) and tips for writing stuff worth reading. Click here to get the next issue: https://www.juliapizzolato.com/get-noteworthy/

PPPS – Gladys Kravitz was the nosey neighbor on Bewitched. 😂

Way back when (not quite the stone ages) at the beginning of my corporate career when I was new to the “marketing department” (this consisted of one other person and me, and both of us had other job responsibilities as well at the time), I worked with a top ad agency in town to put together a new campaign for some high-end, luxury office space our company needed to lease.

We came up with the coolest concept. 😜👏🏼

It was a full-page newspaper ad that was blank.

At the very bottom, it said, “space available.” Then gave the contact info for our leasing agents. That’s it. Eye-catching, simple, effective—right? Well…

I vividly remember our CEO at the time, an imposing man of about 6’5, who I’m sure slept in a suit, saying, “Yes, it’s very creative, but will it lease space? I don’t care about awards.”

My first thought, at the ripe age of 28 or so, was, “who cares if it leases space—it makes us look cool!” Because believe me, we were so not cool.

We sent it to the paper for printing in the next issue. The ad department called us almost immediately. Something was wrong with the file we sent. It was blank.

“No, no–that’s the right file,” we said. “Just run it.”

We ran it. It was cool. We won an award (I still have it!). But it didn’t lease any space. 😬

Here’s what we should have done.
When you are ready to sell something, you need to write copy that will sell it. You need to talk about the benefits, not the features. What are the reasons someone would use your product or service?

You must appeal to your customer’s self-interest (what’s in it for me?) and do it in an engaging way.

And you must ask them to take action. And tell them how to take action. What’s the next step in the buying process? A phone call? Fill out an order form? Make an appointment?

So many miss this step. But it’s impossible to sell anything without it.

Here’s one way to write copy that sells:

Tell a story that addresses a pain point your product or service solves. Paint the picture of what it’s like when the problem is solved or the desire is satisfied. Offer the solution, validate it (your product or service), and then give them the call to action (buy, call now, book appointment, etc.)

There are many kinds of ads and many ways to write them. 

But—most importantly, before you do all that, you need to create relationships (branding) that encourage trust so that when they read your ad, website, or email, they start from the point of believability.

Remember: The key to being believable is to always tell the truth.

You need to know how to measure your marketing by numbers. Not just the dollars in your bank account or the number of subscribers you have but the numbers that tell you how your marketing efforts are actually working for you.

The highfalutin corporate term would be KPI’s – key performance indicators.

These are the numbers that go a long way toward helping you make more dollars and save more time.

I also want you to know and understand the bare minimum of what to expect from anyone you hire to help you grow your business. Their performance should help you hit these numbers. 👇🏼

KPI’s also include, of course, your sales vs. expenses. But I know you know that number so let’s cover the less obvious, shall we?

Marketing by the Numbers: Email

Email is ruled by open rates. But you can’t have good open rates if you don’t have good (great) delivery rates. Your delivery rate is determined, in part, by your bounce rate. That’s a backward way of doing it, but the number that bounced is the number that didn’t get delivered.

Then you also want to know how many people unsubscribed to your emails and which emails had the highest unsubscribe rates. Look at the subject line and the content of those emails. What could have turned your subscriber off? Use that info going forward.

You can find numbers for each of these categories—open rates, bounce rates, and unsubscribe rates—for lots of different industries. The ones I have listed here are the industries that most of my clients fall under.

I compiled these percentages by taking the average for each category of what some of the biggest email service providers—MailChimp, GetResponse, and Constant Contact—were reporting. The reason I did this is because each provider has servers with varying delivery rates and each provider has clients with different email lists and skills. So much goes into the making of an excellent open, bounce, and unsubscribe rate. I felt like these would be much more valid and fair numbers on a general basis.

Note: Bounces come in two flavors—hard or soft. I didn’t report soft bounce percentages because they are so variable. Inbox is too full, vacation auto-responders, etc. all change weekly. The most dangerous bounce is the hard one. That’s the one I want you focused on to start. If your numbers are higher than what listed above, it’s a must to address this. Quickly. Same for open rates and unsubscribes. 

Marketing by the Numbers: Bounce rates on your website

The behind-the-scenes world of website analytics (all the factors that determine where you show up in the search results and how effective your website is) might as well be coming from another planet. Here’s my effort at translating that alien lingo into understandable English.

To find your Bounce Rate by page: In Google Analytics (from your home page) go to Behavior >> Site Content >> All Pages. The top ten most visited pages on your site will be there. The Bounce Rate is usually about the 5^th column over.

A bounce rate is simply the percentage of visitors that entered or landed on your website and left on that same page.

They did not click to read your about page, read another blog post, or sign up for your email. They read what they wanted to read or completely lost interest when they got there and left. Bummer.

Google reads the quality of your website by how engaging it is and how much time people spend on it. The longer, the better. The more pages they click through, the better.

If the content on your website is not what they were looking for, they scram. Or maybe it was, they read what they wanted, and they were done.

Here are the user (website visitor) actions that determine bounce rate:

Hitting the back button

Going to a new URL

Leaving the page open for more than 30 mins (for those of us with multiple windows/tabs open…🙋🏼‍♀️)

Closing the browser tab or window while on your page

In general, a bounce rate of 20-40% is great. 41-55% is about average, and 56-70% is higher than average.

But wait. Higher isn’t always bad.

Blogs tend to have really high bounce rates. But here’s why: People land on your page, read what they want, and exit. They got what they wanted, you created a warm and fuzzy by giving them what they wanted, you got retargeting info while they were there (because you have the pixel code for retargeting installed, RIGHT?), and they will likely recognize your name/brand when they see your ad come at them in the newsfeed. And be more likely to engage with said ad.

There’s an article on my website I wrote about two years ago that drives a tremendous amount of traffic. It has a really high bounce rate. But it’s topic-specific. They got what they were looking for and left. I got their info because I have the retargeting pixel installed on my website. They stay for a decent amount of time (average is 9 mins), so I can assume they read the article. All good.

So why am I telling you this? Because a high bounce rate can be an indicator of something that needs to be addressed. But I think it’s more valid if you have a high bounce rate on your homepage or services page than on a blog post. If nothing on your homepage grabbed them, you probably need to re-evaluate the content and/or design of that page.

Most marketers will tell you that the main reason to drive traffic to a website is to get them to convert to, at the very least, an email subscriber. It is getting harder and harder to get people to convert to a subscriber from a mere website visit. If you have a lead magnet that offers them something they are interested in, it is slightly easier, but I have found that it takes much more strategic effort to get an email address these days. This is another reason I love that pixel.

Moving on.

Marketing by the Numbers: Facebook’s Organic Reach vs. Paid Reach

Oh, the big controversy. Facebook took our organic reach away!

Listen, Facebook was always going to monetize. Yes, they reeled us in with free reach and increased sales. That’s how it works in marketing. You let people sample before they buy. And no, they shouldn’t pay you for your data, but that’s a whole other soapbox.

But alas, all is not lost. Reach has tanked for the average page. But you and I don’t run average pages, do we? 😉

Overall, reach on Facebook averages 6.4% of total page likes/follows. I have clients that easily get 4 times that. It’s not how often you post or what time of day. It’s simply what you post.

(We talk about this and more in my upcoming 6-week “The Real Marketing” online workshop starting November 4th.)

How do your posts do? Do you know which ones bombed or got negative feedback (hide post or hide ALL posts)? Do you know which ones did really well?
 When you know the stats on that content, you can avoid more of the stuff people didn’t like and create more of the stuff they loved. This is how you get more organic reach. And yes, getting more organic reach is possible.

This page has 3,069 followers. Here are the percentages of organic reach for each of these posts in the last two weeks or so (found under the Insights tab>>Posts on your business page):

We post regularly to this page. It’s fun, engaging, meaningful, and educational content. We sell to them less than 20% of the time. And this hasn’t been built overnight—it’s taken a few years (do NOT let that deter you—the time is going to pass anyway. Get on it.). We have a good reputation with Facebook, we never break the rules, and our ads follow all the guidelines. All important to the organic reach gods.

More stats to know:

The average CPC (cost per click) for a Facebook ad is $1.72.

But OMG so much goes into this number. The content of the ad, the imagery, the type of ad (have you tried video?), the targeting for the ad, the length of time the ad has been running…So. Much. Stuff. It varies by industry (real estate is less expensive than fitness, believe it or not), and even by country. But $1.72 is a good benchmark to measure from. If your CPC is much higher than that and you’ve done your industry research, it’s time to re-evaluate your ad campaign.

But maybe the most important marketing number to know…

Your net promoter score.

It’s obtained by having your customers answer just one question that’s based on a scale of 1-10:

“How likely is it that you would recommend [insert your business] to a friend or colleague?”

Some people will tell you that a net promoter score above zero is good. Omg, that is hogwash. That may be true for cable companies, health insurance providers, and internet service providers, but fortunately, none of us are in those businesses.

I want you to be somewhere above 60. Most of my clients hover around 80. One regularly gets a score of 95. Something most experts classify as “world-class.” And that’s because the net promoter score is mostly about customer service. Just be kind and caring. That’s really all you have to do. Well, funny doesn’t hurt either.

That’s a start on the stats.

Those are some of my favorite metrics. The ones I look at first to determine what we need to do to improve your business. The numbers always tell a true story.

And it’s a proven fact that regular analyzation of your marketing strategy data will help you run right past your competitors, leaving them in the dust. It also makes you more efficient and more effective.

PS – I have done deep dives on data for clients. It’s always eye-opening. If you’d like me to “deep dive” into your data, let’s do it. Here’s what that looks like and what it costs.

This day (really the whole dang week) could have gone to hell in a handbasket. Fast.

It’s been one challenge after another (super sick pup, bank screwups, delayed flights, and more). None of it, of course, was on my schedule, so it was a lot, as in hours, of wasted time. (Would that we could schedule in time to deal with these kinds of ugly surprises – crystal ball, perhaps? Tea leaves might be helpful? They work on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel…😜)

As I was walking back into my office today, I thought, “it’s really tempting to sit down and wallow in aggravation and self-pity for a bit. To let myself get whiney and yell at the air.”

Instead of giving in to self-pity and despair and a bag of Ruffles, I sat down and got back to work. With a song in my heart and a smile on my face. 😘

It would also have been really easy to let my frustration come through on the phone with the representatives at the bank who were trying to help me. But instead, I had all three of them laughing.

I’m not a spiritual guru. I am not so enlightened that nothing bothers me. I don’t have an extra stash of willpower.

I’ll give yoga some of the credit but not all. What’s helped me more than anything has been books.

In the past, I would have let this week’s challenges control my thoughts. I would have used them as an excuse to call all my girlfriends and complain, snap at everyone I ran across, and eat my weight in Ruffles. But now it’s a mere blip on the radar screen.

I’m sharing with you the three books that have helped me the most. I read parts of them over and over. I cling to them like Elbie with a beef bone.

These books don’t teach you how to treat other people or control your temper. They teach you how to treat yourself. Once you have that down, treating others with the same respect, love, and compassion you have for yourself is easy.

These books are about habits, thoughts, and your brain. Read and use the information in all three and you will literally be unstoppable.

1. Atomic Habits by James Clear

The bad habits you continue to repeat will compound and wreck your life. The same is true for good habits.  Practice them over and over, and it will create so much good in your life, you will hardly be able to stand yourself. Creating good habits is not about willpower or energy or finding more motivation.

Chapter three of this book tells you what creating good habits IS about. I’ve read that chapter about 28 times. The rest of the book lays out the exact process so that the good habits stick and the bad ones fall right off you.

You don’t have to get it right 100% of the time. He says the 80/20 rule applies to forming good habits the same as anywhere else in life (nutrition, exercise, marketing…).

The quality of our lives depends on the quality of our habits.

No truer statement has ever been written.

2. You are a Badass by Jen Sincero.

It’s tough for me to describe how good this book is.

I have clients order it when they are stuck in their businesses. I have gotten thank you notes for recommending it and testimonials on how it changed their lives. Even though I didn’t write it. She says everything I would say and saves me the trouble. This is what that looks like:

Stop flip-flopping between freaking out in your head and “breathing into the now.”

No matter how smart you are, you are not aware of what’s available to you.

You get to choose how you perceive your reality.

We invest in what other people believe we should invest in. Stop doing that.

When you think, after the fact, “I should have listened to my gut,” you need to learn to listen to your gut.

The moment you have the audacity to start believing in the not-yet seen, your reality will begin to shift.

Stop talking about how busy you are.

Nothing has any value other than the value we put on it.

Jen Sincero’s background (punk rock band member, lesbian dating coach among others) reads like that of someone who should be living in their mother’s basement instead of coaching people to more success than they ever thought possible while making millions herself.

Jen uses her real-life stories of failure to illustrate how you can achieve success.

I’ve had clients order the paperback, read it, and turn right around and order the hardback. They loved it that much. Because it’s the manual on how to “get over your crap and start living an awesome life.”

It’s stuff you’ve probably heard before but, as my good friend and expert book reviewer Jesse Kornbluth said, “It’s straight-up Eastern wisdom, translated into current lingo.” And as Jen Sincero says, “This shit works.”

3. Back in Charge! A guide to harnessing the magic of your brain to create the life you’ll love by Dr. Adrianne Ahern

Let’s get right to the fact that I think the title of this book not only stinks, but it also doesn’t do it justice.

This book was buried in a Google search I did on a story about a tiger named Mohini.

There was a .pdf download of the intro, and that was so powerful I bought the book.

You see everything you need to see precisely when you need to see it.

Dr. Ahern, a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, teaches you everything you need to understand about your brain to make all the stuff you read in books 1 and 2 above work.

Ever wonder why not everyone who reads “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill or Zig Ziglar’s “Secrets of Closing the Sale” is filthy rich? It’s because all the ideas, motivation, processes, and affirmations in the world will never work until your brain gets on board with it.

And our brains are stuck in subconscious beliefs that don’t serve us.

This is not a book full of warm and fuzzy Eckhart Tolle ideology or Oprah Winfrey quotes.

It’s cold, hard facts about what your brain is up to when you’re not looking, the physiology behind it, and the scientific studies and processes on how to get control back and rewire your brain to accomplish what you want to accomplish.

And it’s old school—the book comes with CD’s (my computer doesn’t even have a disk drive anymore) with all the brain-rewiring exercises she teaches her clients in her private practice (the exercises are in the book too, this is just a bonus).

I have loved every single word. This is the book that will make all the self-help books on your shelf work for you.

She talks about fMRI’s, neuroplasticity, psychoneuromuscular theory (the science of training muscles with visualization), and cultural conditioning (more importantly, how to reverse it).

But the chapter that surprised me the most was Chapter 5—Power of Breath. I was ready to be so bored. Breath? Really? I’m a yogi. Don’t talk to me about breath. Humph.

But as much as I’ve loved every chapter, this one held my attention word for word. Did you know we lose 10-27 percent of our lung capacity every year starting in our late 20’s?

“Think about that statistic: if we lose 10 percent to 27 percent of our lung capacity every year, we are losing 10 percent to 27 percent of our ability to exhale toxins as well. Our breathing is responsible for releasing 70 percent of all toxins and waste entering and produced by the body; elimination and sweating release the remaining 30 percent. The volume of waste and toxins entering and created by our bodies certainly doesn’t decrease as we age. So if our lungs lose capacity over the years and their ability to release toxins is compromised, where do all those unreleased toxins go? Research shows that these unreleased toxins sit in our cells. As scary as this sounds, the good news is that we can reverse this process by learning how to breathe properly.”

Well, thank goodness. Chapter 5 teaches you how to breathe properly. And yes, this is relevant, in fact vital, to rewiring your brain for success (at anything). And it’s a sneaky reason as to why yoga “works.”

If you only order one book ever again in your whole life, order this one. And FYI—Dr. Ahern is still practicing in San Diego, California. If you want to skip the book and go big, look her up.

What does this have to do with marketing, Julia? 🤔

I can teach you strategies all day long. What to say on video, blog topics to cover, how to update the backend of your WordPress website, the keys to social media ad success—all the things. But if your habits, thoughts, and your brain aren’t aligned with the activity, it won’t happen. I see it every, single day. In myself and my clients.

Teaching marketing strategy has become the easy part of my business. I watch clients pick that stuff up faster than Superman can leap a tall building. Once they get going. AKA as soon as the fear of failure, the fear of success, and the comfort zone get out of the way.

And that’s why we talk about how to rewire the brain, build good habits, and control our thoughts. It has everything to do with your success.

Always behind you 1,000%-
Julia