James McAllister Online

Blog

  • You Are Vulnerable – Decrease Your Company’s Reliance On Social Media

    It’s finally happened.

    For years, I have been preaching here how dangerous it is to become reliant on one company.

    Why it’s dangerous to rely on one platform to send you traffic, or one website to sell your products and services.

    This mistake can be so costly, it can shut entire companies down overnight – leaving you with nothing to build back from. It’s incredibly scary.

    Two weeks before writing this post, I logged into Twitter to discover that my account had been suspended. I received no email regarding the suspension, and was not told what rule I supposedly broke that led to my suspension.

    In fact, I only found out when I went to tweet (as usual) to my 21,000 followers, only to be greeted with the wonderful message that my account had been suspended.

    Ouch. (more…)

  • 7 Creative Ideas For Instagram Story Content – Instagram Stories Strategy

    Although Instagram Stories have been around for a while now, the vast majority of marketers are not utilizing them to their full potential.

    Even those posting story updates regularly have no real strategy for their Instagram stories, and they’re paying the price because of it.

    Stories have the power to build connection with your following that your main feed never could, and if you learn to tap into their power, it’s possible to do very well – even without a large following!

    In this article, I want to share 7 Instagram story content ideas to consider trying out. If you can implement even one of these into your business going forward, you’ll find that creating engaging content regularly becomes much easier! (more…)

  • 10 Scams Shady Marketers Use To Trick You Into Spending Money

    In all fields, there are good and bad people.

    People that want what’s best for their customers, and those who can only look out for their own selfish interests.

    Some say that the internet is like the wild west, where people can pop up, cause harm, and disappear without a trace. In many ways, this is unfortunately still true.

    As the internet has evolved and consumers have become more aware, the scams and tricks shady marketers use to steal money from people have as well. Some of these aren’t as obvious as the methods used in years past, and you may not even recognize them even though they’re wildly used.

    I recently put together a mini course on identifying these scam tactics, and I’d love to share it with you here.

    Let’s take a look at each one of the 10 tactics scammers use, and see how many you can recognize. You’re sure to spot these out there if you pay attention to them! (more…)

  • 7 Tactics To Foster More Engagement On Social Media

    Yesterday, you were exposed to between 4,000 and 10,000 marketing messages – but how many of those do you actually remember?

    Out of those that you remember, how many actually sparked a powerful enough reaction in you to affect your opinion of that company?

    Chances are, not very many. In fact, you unconsciously filtered out the vast majority of advertisements without even realizing that they were there – despite the fact that your eyes likely did pass over them.

    As entrepreneurs, we often make the mistake of believing that more eyeballs on our offer is a good thing, without taking into account an important fact – if no results are actually being delivered, we are wasting our time and money for no good reason.

    As social media marketers, we make the mistake of prioritizing reach – acquiring new followers, going viral, chasing social shares and retweets, even if it means that our messages fall onto deaf ears.

    That’s a problem.

    Social media marketers do best when they prioritize engagement first, building a framework that actually connects with the audience. Once this framework is in place, only then can it be effectively scaled by amplifying reach.

    In this article, I want to help you develop that framework. Let’s look over 7 methods we can utilize to improve engagement on social media, and build a more meaningful connection with our audience. (more…)

  • 7 Exciting Ways Blogging Can Benefit Your Small Business

    Blogging may be the single most effective way to market a small business, yet a surprisingly large number of people fail to take it seriously.

    It’s cheap to start, and cheap to scale. It works in almost every industry. It generates sales in the short-term, and is an incredible brand-building tool in the long-term.

    When it’s pulled off correctly, it can not only completely transform entire companies, but it can make it incredibly difficult for anyone else to even compete.

    The potential here can not be overstated. My first ever hire was a content writer. There’s a reason blogging is at the core of all my companies, (including my eCommerce brands which have gone on to do millions in sales.)

    The importance of blogging cannot be understated. In this article, I am going to make the case why it’s time for you to start a blog, and showcase all of the incredible benefits that blogging can offer your small business. Some of these will not be obvious, and I urge you to continue reading with an open mind – taking examples and imagining how they will fit in with your own business, and your existing marketing strategy. (more…)

  • Don’t Put It Off – Why You Should Begin Utilizing Influencer Marketing Today

    Every so often, marketers are given access to an advertising platform that offers an incredibly good return.

    Typically, these platforms are new, unproven, and businesses are weary about jumping on board. Because of this, they tend to offer an unusually high return for marketers that able to figure out how to utilize them, capitalizing on the inbalance of supply and demand.

    Influencer marketing right now is one of these powerful, undervalued advertising channels that even now in 2019, is still underutilized and underappreciated.

    Although it is not considered anything new (celebrity endorsements have been utilized in advertising for ages),  we’ve never been at a point where influencer marketing was so accessible to even the smallest of brands – it doesn’t have to cost a single dollar for you to start.

    In this article, I intend to highlight some of the most compelling reasons you should begin your first influencer marketing campaign right now, or scale it up further if you’re already utilizing influencer marketing to grow your business. It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling a tangible or intangible product – influencer marketing can benefit your company and help you grow in the coming months.

    Let’s look at some of these reasons in detail. (more…)

  • Cold Email Outreach: A Detailed Strategy To Following Up Effectively

    It takes an average of 7 contacts before a person will make a deal with you.

    90% of salespeople, marketers, and entrepreneurs will not follow up with a person more than 3 times.

    Yet, 80% of deals are made on the 5th to the 12th contact.

    Can you imagine all of the money that you’re leaving on the table?

    This isn’t just applicable to making a sale. It could be arranging a meeting with an important person, pitching somebody to link to an article, or trying to get somebody to appear on your podcast.

    Email outreach is more important than ever, yet a whopping 90 PERCENT of people will not even put the effort in to do it right.

    It’s time to get relentless with your follow up. To form a strategy that will help you to achieve the results that you’re looking for.

    Because clearly, the vast majority of us are leaving a LOT of money on the table.

    The above statements should showcase just how important following up with people actually is. Therefore, this article will serve as a quick guide to getting started, showcase some examples, and help you to form a systematized strategy to make following up quick, easy, and effective.

    1. Step One: Build A System

    Following up is easy when you know exactly what to do, and when to do it. When things do not change a lot, and it’s just a matter of taking the appropriate action at the appropriate time.

    This is why CRM systems are so popular among salespeople. CRMs allow you to track all of the contacts you’ve had with someone, and schedule tasks in the future to help keep the relationship strong, and move the person towards some action.

    Still, you don’t need to be a salesperson, and you don’t need a CRM to systematize your follow up. Even a simple Excel spreadsheet can be more than enough.

    What’s important is that you find something that works for you, and integrates with your overall objective for your contacts.

    For example, my team and I use a piece of software called Ninja Outreach when performing email outreach campaigns to bloggers. It allows us to track what bloggers have opened our emails, tag them with where we are in the funneling process, and schedule follow up if they haven’t responded in a certain amount of time.

    Typically, our goal is to try and get links, or initiate some sort of sponsored post / giveaway on their site.

    We often get the same type of objections, and have different follow up sequences based on what issue we’re facing with each person.

    For example, we will obviously send different messages to somebody if they had never opened our emails, than if they told us they only want to work with companies in their home country, for example (a surprisingly common thing we’re told!)

    Because we have a system, we know how to address each point, and when to send each message.

    We even have a reminder to follow up with people months later if they completely reject our offer, asking if they’ve reconsidered, or there’s any other way to work together.

    This makes it easy to send hundreds of emails per day if need be!

    2. The 2nd Email Is Important – But It Does Not Have To Be Complicated

    It’s assumed that your first email contains your pitch – but what about the 2nd email?

    I’ve always found this best to keep this short and simple. Remind the person who you are, what you’re asking from them, and what value you’re trying to provide in return. There is no need to go back over all of your previous sales points, or why they should work with you. You’ve already done that.

    A short but sweet 2nd email accomplishes three things:

    1. If your previous email ended up in the spam bin for whatever reason, this one is not likely to.
    2. A short email is likely to be read in full. Your 1st email may have been opened, but not read.
    3. An email like this shows that you’re a real person with real interest, not computer software sending pitches to thousands of people at once.

    Note that despite this, you still may not get a response.

    Although we tend to think that people are not interested after two emails without a response – especially if we can see that they were opened, this does not necessarily mean that the person was not interested. We must push on!

    As far as timing goes, 1-3 days is a good waiting period between the 1st and 2nd email if you can see that they’ve opened your first email. If you can’t track that, 3-5 days is a good recommendation.

    3. Start Handling Objections

    If a person is opening your emails but not responding to them, it’s likely they aren’t completely convinced about how your offer can benefit them.

    After all, even if you’re not asking them to buy something, the time required to even do something as simple as telling you ‘no’ is an expense.

    If you’ve done a lot of cold outreach, you’ll likely know what the most common objections you’ll face are. After a while, it’s good to address these, as the person you’re emailing may be thinking them – even if they haven’t said them to you.

    For example, I’ll use my baby product brand Kinacle, and an outreach campaign with the goal of getting sponsored posts on their site (without paying anything for them.)

    Some people may be thinking, “I’m from Australia, but I see on their site that they ship from the United States. I really don’t want to run a giveaway if it means I’m going to have to pay $20 for shipping. And I certainly wouldn’t want to upset my readers by restricting the giveaway only to the U.S!”

    In which case, I note that we’re happy to cover all of the shipping costs, regardless of where the winners are located.

    Others may think, “Why waste my time if I’m not getting paid? Even though my readers could use these products, I no longer have a baby, and have no real use for them.”

    Therefore, I may mention other successful posts or giveaways in the past, and how they helped the blogger increase their reader base. I’ll also mention that we’d be happy to share the published post on all of our social networks, as well as mention it in our email newsletter.

    If you’re not getting responses, you do not know what that particular person is thinking. Therefore, you have to be proactive about handling these objections people build up in their minds.

    Obviously, if you do get a response, focus on that and begin the process of moving forward.

    4. Ensure You’re On The Right Deal – Offer An Alternative

    Just because somebody isn’t responding well to a particular offer, doesn’t mean that you can’t still make a deal.

    If somebody still doesn’t seem to be interested in whatever you’re pitching them, consider approaching them with an alternative option instead.

    I cannot count the number of times that Kinacle has asked for a link only to be rejected, but ultimately end up with a link anyway through the form of a giveaway or sponsored post.

    People who aren’t interested in your offer but are too shy to turn you down may jump on the opportunity to take something that seems slightly more appealing, but ultimately benefits you both anyway.

    Remember, any deal is better than nothing. People may open up to you at this point and explain why your original offer was not appealing to them, and you can use this data to craft your pitch in the future.

    When it comes to forming contacts, you can’t be greedy and force your offers on people. It’s far better to build any sort of connection, with room to blossom in the future.

    Important: Don’t offer an alternative too early on in your follow up sequence. It’s important that you’re sure they’re not going to accept your initial offer before proceeding with this. Otherwise, people will take your ‘easy out’ and you’ll achieve your main objective far less.

    For example, if you asked people to share your article if they weren’t willing to link to it, you can be certain that you’ll only get shares – even if a person may have actually given you a link otherwise.

    5. Final Email: Close Or Move On

    There is a fine line between relentlessly following up, and becoming an annoying spammer.

    In other words, you may need to take the hint that the person simply doesn’t want to talk to you, and move on.

    Even at this point, there may be a legitimate reason why a person hasn’t responded yet however, and even after many emails, you can’t be sure that they’re not interested.

    Depending on your industry and your objective with email outreach, you’ll need to handle the final email carefully. You don’t want to sever ties, or completely close off any deals in the future.

    Some people use ultimatums to great success, explicitly stating that they won’t be contacting the person again if they do not respond. Typically, my team approaches it from a data collection standpoint – again, any response is better than no response.

    One of my more common cold email outreach templates for my last contact is as follows:

    Hello again {FIRSTNAME},

    I hope my previous emails have reached you well.

    I was really hoping our two businesses could find some way to work together, but if you’re not interested in any of the ideas I’ve suggested and you don’t have any of your own, I completely understand.

    Before I go, I’ve just got to ask – was it something I did? Was it something I didn’t do?

    Apologies if I caused any sort of trouble,

    – James McAllister

    You would be shocked how many people finally respond… saying things like,

    “Oh no James, it wasn’t anything you did. I just…”

    And then FINALLY, after many emails, tell me exactly what was holding them up. Of course, from there I can go into full-on sales mode, handling the objection, and quite often, closing a deal.

    Conclusion

    If you’re not following up with people, you’re making a huge mistake.

    It doesn’t matter whether you’re chasing deals, trying to build links, or forming collaborations with other bloggers or businesses. Your first email will rarely deliver the results you’re hoping for, and all of your success will come up in your follow up strategy.

    I hope that this article has shown you how to build a follow up strategy that works, and give you some ideas to build your own follow up email sequence.

    Cold email outreach is never fun, but it becomes a lot more enjoyable when you start winning with it.

    I’d love to hear your own email outreach tips, as this is something I’m constantly looking to improve at myself.

    Finally, I’d love to hear how you intend to use email outreach to help you land more deals going forward.

    To your success,

    – James McAllister

  • 5 Strategies To Succeed In Competitive Niches Online

    It should go without saying, but some markets are more difficult to compete in than others.

    While low-competition markets are easy to break into and even a beginner can establish an audience without any serious marketing efforts, others are difficult to even establish an initial audience. It could take months and hundreds of hours of work before entrepreneurs in these markets experience any return at all.

    Fortunately however, expensive markets tend to offer great rewards in return. After all, a market becomes competitive due to the fact that there’s so much money to be made, and competitive markets offer incredible opportunities to scale.

    In this article, my goal is to shorten the time it takes you to succeed in these markets – sharing with you tactics and strategies myself and others have utilized to build our brands in competitive industries.

    Over the years, I’ve competed in both small, refined niches, as well as major markets like business and parenting.

    These are markets that have insane amounts of brand loyalty, and getting a consumer to make regular visits and purchases is very tough, and often quite expensive.

    There is a healthy degree of skepticism to newcomers, and establishing any sort of name for yourself, let alone growing an engaged audience, can be difficult.

    While my baby product brand is far from being a household name, we’ve managed to carve out our own niche market, and our blog audience and customer base is growing every day. I only mention this to show that what I’m about to share with you actually works, and can be applied to your business regardless of the market. I’ve used these strategies to build my personal brand here as well.

    So, without any further ado, let’s begin. (more…)

  • Build Your Brand’s First 10,000 Fans With These Free Strategies

    One of the biggest misconceptions in marketing is that you need a large audience to make a large amount amount of money.

    For most businesses, this simply isn’t true. It doesn’t take tens of thousands of followers on social media, readers on your blog, or subscribers to your email newsletter to make some serious money online.

    It does however, take two things:

    1. The right people paying attention to your brand.
    2. A good system in place to maximize the lifetime value of each customer.

    In this article we’re going to cover the first one. Let’s discuss a few proven, time-tested , and free methods to attracting hyper-engaged fans, that will flow your brand the sales, attention, and fan base it needs to flourish for years to come. (more…)

  • A Strong Personal Brand Is The Ultimate Safety Net – Here’s Why You Need One

    In business, true safety is hard to come by.

    Regardless of how hard you work, or how we’ll you’re doing now, things change.

    Your product becomes obsolete, or a new, larger competitor enters your market. You’re hit with a baseless lawsuit, but still have to shell out  huge amounts of money for legal fees. You end up having a medical emergency, and have to take on serious debt just to get by.

    These are all things we don’t like to think about, but become a reality for so many entrepreneurs. It’s not fair, but its a reality for far too many people.

    And sadly, their companies often die in the process, and their lifestyle changes almost immediately. (more…)