As human beings we come loaded with beliefs that tend to define and limit our view on life. That’s ok, the fact that we have learned and experienced life is a good thing, but it does sometimes get in the way of how we personally develop and how successful we are at growing our businesses.

When you start a business, you have an idea of who you are targeting, what that market wants and the messaging required to get that market to take an interest and buy what you are offering.

The smallest error in either your assumptions around market, their desires or their “hot buttons” can mean a massive difference in your sales, profits and future in your business.

So why are we so confident that WE know the market, what they want and how they want to hear about it?

TOUGH LESSONS LEARNED

When I first started my own information product business I wrote an ebook that bundled a ton of knowledge into a guidebook that helped others put together their own products highly focused on the creative process…but after several reviews and being hit over the head enough times I was told “You have one really GREAT chapter in your ebook which talks about packaging that information into info products so people can leverage their time & energy by packaging their knowledge for profit – why not just go with that?”

You have to understand, the entire book was my baby, I didn’t WANT to give up the other chapters, but as time went on it became more obvious that I had to fit my knowledge to the market instead of the other way around.

SO…AFTER ALL, IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT YOU THINK

Just this morning I was speaking to another marketer who had yet to learn the same lesson…

He mentioned how much he hated a certain subject line that marketers often use in broadcast emails out to their list, the subject line was “If you are reading this, chances are…”

The fact is there are many email subject lines that may personally dirve me nuts but one thing I’ve learned to do in marketing is to trust the results…

So, I would not dismiss using any email subject line unless a) It were obviously offensive or would hurt someone or b) Test results showed it was abismal in its response.

There are two aspects to email marketing that are important…

1. Getting people to open the email

2. Getting people to read and take action on your post

It may be that the subject line you mention will do neither OR it could be that it accomplishes both, do we really know?

If not, then I would be willing to test it with some solid content relevant to the post.

Look – if you have a list of 5000 people and what you are writing about is highly relevant to those people, AND the subject line “If you are reading this, chances are… gets them to open and read your email at a rate 1.5 times higher than other subject lines, would you still think it is stupid?

When it comes right down to it, there are two extremely important factors that will improve our business results:

1. Getting to know our market at a deeper and much more comprehensive level…who they are, what is causing them pain, what they badly want and why. The more we know about our market, the more we will be able to speak their language in terms of product offerings and marketing

2. Suspend disbelief long enough to test.  One thing I have learned in my decades creating information products and marketing is that more than half the time my gut is wrong…so it is much better for me to dig in and know more about my market and then suspend disbelief until I have tested. 

Could you have missed something in your product planning or marketing because of how YOU feel or beliefs YOU have instead of taking guidance from your market?  Leave us a comment, it may help others to expand their thinking and breakthrough current limitations.