If you are a professional services marketer you have got to love Ian Brodie. A long suffering soccer (aka football) fan from the UK, Ian is an expert on marketing professional services. I blogged about him in the past on the topic of how he has been able to generate 70% of his new business from online marketing. That is an impressive record and worth studying.
But what I find even more engaging is how openly Ian shares what he does in a way that is both humorous (in a pleasant, self deprecating way) and very instructive. He is a great model for how to build trust online. As you read his material and watch his videos you get to know him as a person as well as a world class expert.
So I took special note when I came across an email invitation from Ian to “Watch my website get ripped apart…”. What a great subject line. How can you not click through?
In this video we see website guru Derek Halpern do a live critique of Ian's already powerful website. Derek has several creative suggestions that are worth considering if you want to increase conversion of visitors to email subscribers using your existing web content.
Derek talks about the concept of channeling intent by aggregating links to content that you already have on a specific topic into a single resource page. This page should have minimal navigation and clear opportunities to sign up for an offer such as a newsletter. It's not that different from a landing page you might have for a pay per click campaign.
When visitors sign up for the newsletter from this page they can be tagged in your CRM system with their specific interest. Very nice concept for those of us who are using a content marketing strategy. There are other juicy tidbits that you may find useful as well. Check it out.
There's another point that I want to make. Notice that Ian is very transparent in his feelings and reactions to the critique. He makes it very easy to identify with him and this increases his credibility. This is a great lesson for those who feel that you must be stiff and professional to build client trust. Even though he exposes his vulnerable and human side, he has not diminished his expertise or a viewer's inclination to trust him. That's an important lesson for social media and online marketing in general.
If you are interested in exploring this topic further, here are a couple of links to articles on traditional vs. digital marketing that you may find helpful.
https://hingemarketing.com/blog/story/traditional_vs._digital_marketing_a_new_model_emerges/
https://hingemarketing.com/blog/story/traditional_vs._digital_marketing_2_finding_the_right_balance/
And if you haven't already downloaded it you may find some answers to your professional services marketing questions in our new book on high growth, high value professional services firms. It's free and packed with research based facts and strategies that the fastest growing firms use.
