In today’s episode, I’m going to share with you how to advertise without annoying people.
If you’ve ever worried that your emails, social media posts and other forms of advertising are all up in people’s faces and getting a bit annoying, this is going to be a really helpful episode for you.
Let’s dive on in!
This episode is born from some conversations I’ve been having with people in the last few months about marketing their products and services.
In particular, people who are launching online courses, group programs and memberships.
The overriding theme that I’m picking up from these conversations is that there is a worry.
There’s a worry that you’re too promote-y in your social media channels. You’re sending too many promotional emails, you’re doing too much promotion, and it’s starting to annoy your audience or your followers.
Really, that worry stems from you not wanting to be one of those markerters (I think you know which marketers I’m talking about).
We don’t want to be too aggressive, spammy or annoy people with the talk about whatever we’re promoting.
We can be so worried about over-promoting our products and services that we go all the way to the other end… we don’t even tell people that we have a free workshop coming up.
We’re so worried that we don’t tell people that the doors to something are closing. We share one or two posts here and there, but we don’t actually give people a full enough opportunity to even know what’s happening, when the deadline is, or what the opportunity is to work with us.
That’s why I’m sharing five tips on how to advertise without being annoying.
This episode will also help uncover some of the mindset stuff, which may indicate that you don’t have a problem in the first place to solve, you just need to realise that:
a. You are worthy of taking up space
b. Your audience actually wants to hear from you
c. You are doing your job in making sure everyone in your audience has the information and understanding that they need to make an informed decision about whether to jump in and buy your product/service or not
Let’s dive into my five tips on how to advertise without annoying people…
Tip 1: Bon Jovi rule
This tip comes from the amazing Meredith Canaan. You can find out more about Meredith here: meredithcanaan.com
Meredith and I were having a conversation in my Leverage and Launch program about how many emails to send and how much promotion to do of her membership.
In the call with Meredith, I asked her who her favourite performer was, and she said Bon Jovi.
So I asked her: If Bon Jovi came to your town to do a beautiful intimate concert, and you found out afterwards that there were empty seats because he didn’t bother to advertise, would you be glad that you weren’t advertised to and didn’t get spammed? Or would you be upset that Bon Jovi didn’t tell you he was coming to your town?
That’s the exact feeling and thought I want you to have about your audience.
Your audience isn’t seeing your promos and posts on social media and rolling their eyes that you’re advertising again.
Your audience isn’t seeing your emails come into their inbox and automatically deciding that you’re intruding on their day.
They signed up to your mailing list because they were interested in achieving a goal that they think you can help them with.
They followed you on Facebook or Instagram because they think that your content is going to help them to achieve a goal.
You need to think of yourself not as the annoying guy who’s standing at the sales kiosk in the middle of the shopping mall, harassing everyone as they walk past. That’s not who you are on social media. That’s not who you are when you send emails.
You need to think of yourself as Bon Jovi.
You need to think of yourself as having something that people want (ie. the transformation that you facilitate), and showing up and letting them know that there’s an opportunity for them to be part of that right now.
That’s my first tip on how to advertise without annoying people.
Think of yourself not as the annoying salesperson, but as the amazing superstar that you are.
Remember: Your audience have chosen to see your promotions.
Your audience have chosen to receive your content.
Your audience have asked to be told about the things that you’re doing, because they have a goal they want to achieve, and you can help them get there.
You are not the annoying sales kiosk guy. You’re the Bon Jovi.
Tip 2: Your audience doesn’t see everything
We need to remember that on average, people see 1 out of 30 of your posts on social media.
The only person who has seen every post you’ve written, who has read every email that you have sent… is you!
Your audience don’t read every single one of your emails.
Email inbox open on computer – advertise without annoying in business start-up
You might have a dedicated few followers who read every single email of yours, but they’re the ones who are the most likely to stay subscribed and the least likely to be upset about you sending them emails. They love you, they want your emails, and they open every single one of them.
The people who don’t open all of your emails haven’t opened all of your emails, so they don’t think that you’re spamming them.
Instead of looking at the content that you share, the emails that you send, or the promotions that you do through the lens of your eyes (ie. the person who’s seen every single one of them), we need to remember that most of our audience see a very small portion of what it is that we share.
Your job is not to decide that six promotional emails over the course of three weeks is too many.
Your job is to remember that most people will only read two or three of those emails.
Instead of looking at everything through your lens, you need to look at it through your audience’s lens.
If I miss one email, and therefore I miss out on an amazing opportunity to work with you, I would be a bit cranky that I only had one chance.
One chance is the only chance I had and I missed it because I didn’t open every single email that you sent me.
Remember that not everyone opens everything. Not everyone sees everything.
We need to give the majority of your audience appropriate chances to be able to have caught the news of what you’re promoting.
Tip 3: Capture different elements of your value proposition
Don’t copy-paste everything.
If you do send the same email to your mailing list every single day for 30 days, I can understand why people might feel that’s a bit annoying.
It is annoying to receive the same email over and over again!
Similarly, it’s annoying to see the same post over and over again.
On social media, part of the algorithm is that repeat content doesn’t get shown as regularly to people. Its reach is reduced for that very reason.
We don’t want to see the same stuff over and over again.
When you do create your promotion schedule, make sure that each piece of content approaches it from a slightly different angle.
Highlight different parts of your value proposition, NOT the same three things in your value proposition every single time.
I work with a lot of people who’ve been taught they have three bullet points that they HAVE to promote, and every single promo has those same three bullet points.
The sales page, every single email, the thank you page, etc. all have those same three bullet points.
Actually, that is missing out on some amazing opportunities to talk about the same big outcome but from slightly different angles.
For example, some people love my Take Off program because of the high-touch mentoring that they get.
That’s one of the big parts of the value proposition – having my eyes on your business, messaging and copy so you get feedback and you can create really resonant messaging that makes sense to your audience.
But for some people, the big value proposition for them in the Take Off program is having step-by-step instructions on how to grow a following on social media.
Some people really want to learn sales skills and sales strategy. Others want to learn from me because they know all of the marketing and sales strategy I teach is deeply based on consent, and it is aligned with selling with integrity.
I don’t want every single promo to have to talk to all of those value proposition pieces.
Instead, I create a social media plan and an email sequence that touches on different elements and components of the value proposition in different ways.
Of course, there are going to be some key ones that are the most important that would be mentioned most of the time.
But it allows me that creative licence to then create my content, emails and promotions through those different lenses so I’m speaking to different selling points each time.
That means no post or email is saying the exact same stuff over and over again.
Those different angles and elements of your value proposition mean that it doesn’t sound like you’re just throwing out the same.
Tip 4: Use consent-based marketing
When you build your marketing approach, your advertising strategies, and your content on consent-driven practice, it means that you are reducing the likelihood that someone is seeing a promotion for something that they don’t want.
For example, in the launch structure that I teach and help my clients with, we use live lead magnets to get people to lean in first before we present them with the offer.
The reason why we do that is that there are people in your audience for whom the thing that you’re promoting right now is not their priority.
I’m about to roll into a promotion of my Leverage and Launch program. It teaches people who already have baseline income how to scale up that income with leveraged products, such as courses, memberships, masterminds and high-touch group programs.
But there’s a portion of my audience who are still in startup that haven’t got to that stage of their business yet.
Rather than just push this program to every single person in my audience, I will be running some live masterclasses for people who want to now step into leveraging their time and creating group programs.
The people who are at the masterclasses are the ones who are most likely to be interested in the Leverage and Launch program, and that’s where I will pitch them the Leverage and Launch program.
I do it in a really consent-driven way, where I’m not forcing people to jump through hoops, I’m not tricking people to come to the masterclass, and I’m not misleading my audience in any way.
I know that a huge portion of the people who come to those masterclasses are going to be the right fit for Leverage and Launch…
So I invite them to take a step forward.
They take one step forward by coming to the masterclass. On the masterclass, I’ll let them know how to go and find out about the program. They’ll take another step forward and check it out.
Then if they are ready to buy, they can just buy it. If they’re not ready to buy, they can ask me questions. And if they need to jump on a call with me, they can.
Every step of the way, I’m not pushing them down the funnel; I’m inviting them to take the next step forward.
All I’m doing is presenting them with the information they need to make an informed decision.
I’m not guilt-tripping them to buy because they owe me something (using “you owe me” language).
I’m not giving them two-choice theory where either they buy the program and succeed or they don’t buy the program and fail. I am not creating false scarcity. I’m not pretending that there are only 30 spaces available when actually I would take 100 people into the program.
Seeing as my launch is built deeply based on consent, I can be confident that the majority of the people who see the messaging, who get the promos, and who hear about the program, have leaned in in some way and are likely to be interested in it.
If they’re not interested in it – if it’s not the right fit for them right now – they’re not going to be subjected to seventeen emails in four days.
They can opt-out of hearing about it, and they can scroll past the posts on social media.
Most people who are in those early stages of startup won’t even sign up for the masterclass.
For me, that creates that sense of confidence that the people I’m speaking to about the program are qualified leads.
They are interested in the outcome that I’m helping them to achieve (which is to create and launch a group program or membership).
Using content-based marketing practice, you will consistently feel more and more confident in your ability to show up and advertise without annoying people, because you know that the people who are hearing it are the ones who are most interested.
That’s also a really great way to build your confidence in that process and advertise without annoying people.
This leads me into the final tip I have on how to advertise without annoying people…
Tip 5: Map out your launch plan in advance
Whether you’re promoting a one-to-one service, launching a group program, offering a special discount, or doing a flash sale for your birthday, I would recommend that you map out how you’re going to promote it in advance.
Then you can see from the big picture that it’s not overwhelming, and you have confidence that you can advertise without annoying people.
You can see exactly what the plan is rather than being in the middle of launch and trying to decide when to send your emails and feeling like you’re spamming people.
Instead, you can look at the big picture and see how they all flow together, and then make a decision before you start on the launch process about what feels appropriate for your audience.
I have a launch email sequence that I use as a pretty standard set of emails.
That is based on what I think are enough emails to make sure the majority of people can make an informed decision, but no more than that, because I don’t want to spam my audience about something that they might not be interested in.
For example, in the Leverage and Launch launch – that you as an audience member of mine are likely going to see over the next couple of months – I’m running two masterclasses.
The people who sign up for the masterclasses will get four emails after the first one, and three emails after the second one.
My entire mailing list will hear about the masterclasses and Leverage and Launch once each.
They’ll get one promo email for the first masterclass, and one promo email for Leverage and Launch before the price goes up (because it’s going up from $2,000 to $3,000 in this launch). Then they’ll get one promo email about the second masterclass, and one promo when the doors to Leverage and Launch are closing for this round.
That’s it!
If you’re on my full list, you’ll get four emails. Two of them will be about a free training, and two of them will be about Leverage and Launch.
But if you opt into one of those free trainings, you’ll get an additional two or three emails to give you a bit more information about Leverage and Launch, because clearly it might be the right fit for you right now.
When you’ve got it all planned out in advance, you realise that it’s not overwhelming and you no longer worry about trying to advertise without annoying people, because you have the confidence to know that you’re not annoying anyone.
Using consent-based practice (which includes being reasonable about the number of emails that you send people), and having a plan in advance so you can see the bigger picture of how often and how much you’re going to be promoting this thing, you will be able to confidently advertise without annoying people.
In most cases, if you’re one of the people who was drawn to this podcast episode because you are worried about how to advertise without annoying people, you’re not one of the people who’s annoying your audience.
People who worry about these things generally are the ones who are sending too few emails and doing too few promo posts.
Those are my tips on how to advertise without annoying people.
I want you to:
1. Reassure yourself that you’re not the spammy sales guy, you’re the Bon Jovi.
2. Remember that your audience don’t see everything that you send and post.
3. Give yourself an opportunity to approach it from different angles so that people aren’t seeing the exact same content over and over again.
4. Use consent-based practice. Therefore, the people who see the most content about it are the ones who are leaning in because they actually want to see the most content about it.
5. Map your plan out in advance so that you can look at it from a big picture perspective, rather than being right in the middle of it.
Hopefully you found those five strategies really helpful.
If you have any questions about them, please do get in touch.
I encourage you to slide into my DMs on Instagram because I’m spending a bit more time on Instagram and I’m loving some of the conversations we’re having in the DMs.
Come say hello! I’m @tashcorbin on Instragram.
If you’ve got any follow-up questions, remind me that you’re reading episode 317, and ask away!
If you are looking at how to map out launch plans and email sequences, make sure you keep an eye out in your inbox over the next couple of weeks because I will be running those free masterclasses soon.
In them, I’m going to be talking more about launch planning, leveraging your time, and some of those bigger concepts when it’s time to get into selling one-to-many.
Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of the Heart-Centred Business Podcast.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
