Marketing for 2019 - What's the plan.. Stan

So.... it's business time. 1 month to go.

Everyone is working hard to bring in dough before the Christmas break. 

Business time makes me think of Flight of the Concords...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGOohBytKTU

What I'm doing now it focusing on 2019. I want to have a full plate come January 1st.

What I don't want to do is start January mid month, fluff around for a week and next you know it's February. What a waste... but I know that's gonna happen to some people.

2019 for me... starts today.. November 29th

What activities should you try for 2019...

First and foremost, continue to develop your relationships, grow your network, and meet interesting people.

When I think marketing activities, I think Traffic.  How can I increase traffic to my business. Traffic could be web traffic, phonecalls, or inbound email requests. 

LinkedIn Direct Outreach

It works, but it takes time. And perseverance. Sign up to Linkedin premium for a few months. Direct message people, look to set up a consultation call.     

     

Perfect for finding and targeting your ideal audience. Best for B2B and targeting potential partnership clients

Facebook Ads

Stage 1 – re-target your website visitors. This is a great one to do. You're only hitting people who are warm to your business.

Stage 2 – target brand new prospects. This one takes more effort to dig into the detail and target your prospects correctly. 

Perfect for bringing website visitors back to your site.

Build your Ultimate Lead Magnet, (which I call “the free water resource”

Refer to this post for an explanation.

Push you Free Water resource to your network, through social channels, through ads, through FB groups you are in, add it to the bottom of your email, offer it up to prospects. 

Question to ask yourself: 

What is the best most valuable piece of content that I can create that is going to make my prospect life easier, or solve their #1 problem. 

Perfect for everyone - everyone needs to have a resource (or bait) to attract their target market

Automate some marketing functions

Offer up your lead magnet on your website through a lead capture mechanism 

Either offer your Ultimate Lead Magnet or break it down into more consumable chunks. It can come in the form of a ebook, How-To guide, Checklist, Cheatsheet, 101 series etc. The goal is to entice your target customer to trade their information (email, tel no), in exchange for your content.

Then we create an automated 4 part email series, which aims to bring your prospect along the journey towards an becoming a client. Once the user has opted in, sit back and watch it runs on auto-pilot. 

This way you are turning your website from static into a lead generation machine 

Perfect for.. anyone with a website! 

Video Marketing

Video yourself solving a problem for one of your customers.
Use this as a marketing tool on social channels, or use it as a lead tool for prospecting new customers.
The try and use the video as a Facebook Ad as well

Outsourcing

Not so much of a marketing strategy, but I am continually finding that those who are able to delegate non-primary tasks to others, be that other staff, contractors, partners, or VA, are the ones who are making the most waves. 

The majority of people spread themselves too thin, trying to cover the whole gamut of business, operations, sales, and marketing. 

Outsourcing enables you to retain focus on your key business drivers. 

Identify the remedial tasks in your day that are preventing you from working on driving your business forward. Outsource these tasks. 


There you have it... some ideas for 2019...


If you need help putting it all together, I would be happy to speak with you and guide you with some custom strategies for your business. 

Good Luck and Get It Done

G$

Where do I start with Digital Marketing?

"There is so much confusion out there... I really don't know what to focus on"

Marketing overwhelm.. a common struggle shared amongst all business owners.  

Where do I start? 

What can I do that is
1; Sustainable
2: Will deliver the best ROI
3: Doesn’t taken up all my time, and 
4. Simple to execute and manage

Step 1: Reverse Engineer

First, “explore what the others are doing”. Check out what the top guys in your industry are doing… locally and internationally.

Re-engineering for success. (some refer to this as Reverse Funnel Hacking)

Tony Robbins says, “Listen, learn and model those who have come before you until YOU become the master”

Warrens Buffets 10 Rules For Success, the #9 rule is “model success”

“Model Success”. See what others are doing, and do a better job at it.

Marketing Bloggers typically don’t have any new ideas; they just find a high performing post that ranks well, then they make a better post. (with more links, images, content etc)

.. so do some market research

Step 2: Fine tune your offer

Craft an amazing offer. Maybe what’s holding you back is the way you’re presenting your offer. Does it hit customers pain points, does it handle objections?

An offer should be an attractive, no-brainer for your target audience.

..so jot down some, then run it by a friend. Ask them was that powerful enough

Step 3: Automate some marketing functions

See what elements of the marketing mix you can automate. 

One way is to turn your website into a lead gen machine, buy offering up lead magnet like resources and how-to guides for your target audience to download and consume. 

Another way is to build automate nurture sequences for 

Example: we have one client who helps Healthcare Institutions manage GPDR Compliance. So we worked with them to build an ebook entitled; "Ultimate Guide to GDPR compliance for Healthcare Industry". Once download it kicked off a 4-part automated email series to educate the user on the companies GDPR expertise then finally invite them to a book a consultation call. 

.. so what sort of lead magnet can you build

Step 4: Build a strategy that is one 1 page

If you can't explain it on one page then it's too complicated. Streamline everything onto a one-page strategy overview document. 

..so if you want the template.. just email me - gavin@nononsensemarketing.ca

G$

Blog: Email Marketing - lets automate this baby

And specifically we are talking about Drip Emailing Marketing,

aka, nurturing, pruning, priming, email sequences. Drip-feeding emails to your prospects in order to bring them through your funnel

There is a whole lot of what terminology to use, but it means the same thing

Essentially, an automated email marketing series.

Watch this video on email marketing for an overview of how it can be used and what systems are good to use.

Now…….

So, let’s pick an event planning company. What lead magnet could you offer? And what email sequence could you set up?

Lead magnet:

Offer a free resource to visitors - “5 essentials to planning your first corporate event”,

or “office xmas parties – top 10 vancouver locations for 2019”

Now we have captured their email address and we can start a “Nurture sequence” automated email marketing series

Email Sequence:

Email 1: Hi there, Here is your free resource – add in a little about how you help companys with events

Email 2: Hi There, another free resource – 4 tips for organising your first office xmas parties” ; or “5 dos and don’t for organising corporate events”.

Email 3: HI there, still thinking about running your corporate event for your company? Here are some events we recently did, here are some happy customers. – Call us to avail of your free consultation

Email 4: (the offer) Hi there, limited time only, 15% off events, valid for 3 months. Book your free consultation today.

Sit back and watch the nurturing take place.

What you need to know

The bulk of the work and effort behind this is… creating the content. Content that your audience wants to consume. It has to be valuable to them and make their lives easier, and show you as the thought leader expert in your space.

Then the rest of the effort is in the setup and config of the sequences, making sure it all flows together.

What is it going to take

Estimated time to set up – 5 - 8 hours of effort. Spread over 1 week.

Estimated Amt of effort – focussed, creative effort required

Estimated cost – Mailchimp=free, Active Campaign=$25/mth

Need help guidance on this?

Schedule an appointment with us.

Pro Tips: Let’s get sophisticated now

1. A nurture sequence can also be set up with online ads. For example, if you are running a Facebook Ads, you can have a 4 part nurture sequence ready to push to prospects. Once they view Ad #1, then the next Ad they will see will be Ad #2 in the sequence, then Ad3#, and so on. With the same aim of bringing them along the funnel

2. Segmenting – if you provide a range of services. It’s always good to segment the prospects based on their interest. Best to do this at the top of the funnel.

You may have seen this before on a website, where they ask “what size is your company, and also, what your role with the company”

They are trying to segment small companies from enterprise, and directors from sales staff.

Your marketing will then be relevant to that segment.

Learn how your website ranks from different locations.

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Are you curious to see how you rank when someone searches from their mobile device from a different city/town?

You might be top of the tops for your location, but you might be down the page from another

Google Local SEO has a massive impact on search results today.

Ahrefs probably has the most comprehensive Local SEO guide if you want to read in more detail.

Local SEO

The thing is that if you want to optimize for Relevance, Distance, and Prominence.

We all know that Google is trying to do is provide the more accurate search results to the searcher if the fastest time possible. This is especially true for serviced based companies. Google wants to be able to give the best and closest option to you in your search results

You might rank well as a website for the keyword, but if Google is providing location dependent results then you might only appear in search results where your office is

The Tool

Test search from different location using the tool isearchfrom.

  

Using the Tool

Using this tool you can imitate a location. Say you want to compare, Vancouver with North Vancouver. Or Burnaby with Abbotsford.

http://isearchfrom.com/

1. pick your country
2. choose your device
3. type your keyword
4. enter your city

Eh Voila. I have now searched from Abbotsford for my keyword

Why this is important?

Companies with multi location operations, they need to have exposure in all areas where they conduct business. Especially if the service spans a 20Km radius.  

Franchise operators will need this tuned in for the same reasons.

For instance, a service area that you are not located in physically, your main tool for optimization is content. You should simply write a lot about that area. We found that often, this leads to forced pages that have little to do with the business at hand. It’s clear that these pages are only added for SEO reasons.

Examples

WestSide Pest control have their HQ in downtown Vancouver, but they have built multiple landing pages that are area-specific with locations built into the URL

Advice for businesses with multiple locations

If your business operates more than one physical location, it’s essential to create a unique page for each one. Including a unique page for each location helps your customers (and Google) avoid conflating contact information between them. It’s also the best way to expand your local ranking potential to multiple cities.

If you operate a handful of locations, link to the contact page for each one from the footer of each page of your website.  If you operate more than a handful, link to a store locator page from your primary navigation or other utility menu.

 

If you want to target a specific area, what can do you combat this?

1.     Adwords is one method, by targeting those areas.

2.     Creating a landing page with geo located information – example above. They created a URLs with their specific service areas etc

3.     You could open up a virtual office in the location you want to do business.

And finally another great resource from Search Engine Land on how to dominate local SEO

Hope you enjoyed it

Keep on movin'

Are you a Human Octopus? Learn how to be one

What the hell do you mean Human Octopus?

To become the Human Octopus is the wish of every small business owner. Imagine completing all your daily tasks with ease. Now that would be heaven.  

Finance
Marketing
Operating
Management
Strategy
Networking
Customer Service
Sales
Relationship building

So, how would one become a Human Octopus?

I'll introduce the concept of "buying time". The only way we can get to where we want to go faster is with HELP, and Guidance. If you can acquire free help, great. If not, you need to buy help. This way you can get tasks completed faster. 

"Outsource" should be the word of 2018. Outsource all the tasks that you consider remedial, time sapping, and we can call these "minimum wage" tasks. Get back to doing big picture stuff and serving you clients with an amazing service

Start slow by outsourcing 1 task. Get used to the process. I used to design Ads, Flyers, and PDFs. It would take anywhere from 20mins to 3hours. Now I can hire someone for $5/hr and free up some time.

Identify the tasks that you, 
      a) do not like doing, 
      and b) are not good at. 

Keep on movin'

Future of Marketing - the 3 big shifts

The Head of Digital Marketer Ryan Deiss gave the opening keynote at the Traffic and Conversions summit at the beginning of the year. 

He boiled the future of marketing down to three big shifts within the industry:

• Conversation is the new lead
• Community is the new brand
• The customer is the new power broker

1# Invest in conversations. 

It might mean profiling your leads before you call them leads. Segmenting them into various categories. And using Bot to automate this side of the lead development process. 

Use bots to gather information so when a member of your team joins the conversation, 

"Bots will not replace human conversations. They’ll simply handle the front end of the conversation, and humans will jump in when they are wanted and when they are needed."

#2 Community is the new brand. 

"Building a better brand than the next person." 

Creating a membership site with a sense of community. Russell Brunsen of Clickfunnels has been a master of this. He has built a loyal following of "growth hackers" who would go to the end of the world for him. 

#3 The customer is the new power broker.

In a world of digital information overload the customer has so much choice. They can buy want they want in some many ways. 

The solution... be "customer-centric"

Serve your customers as they want to be served, build your 'Why' around helping them achieve, and continue to beat their expectations. 

You can read the article here

An analytical view of Trump tweets

The Trump Twitter Archive is a fantastic resource on the full history of Trump's tweets. If you have 15 minutes for some self-entertainment, I recommend you check it out. It’s a time capsule of all the Presidents tweets since the beginning of his twitter accounts .

http://trumptwitterarchive.com/archive

So, I've complied the numbers for a analytical look at how much time Trump has wasted using twitter, from the date he became President, until the date of this post Oct 4th, (1yr and 9Mths) 

5371 total tweets

4701 tweets

670 retweets

According to Twitter Statistics, most tweets take me 15–30 seconds each

Let’s take the high end of the spectrum, because Trump would want to show the extremes

4701 *.5 = 2350 minutes. 40 hours

For trump, or somewhere who struggle with English, his average could be 1minute per tweet.

Which would mean 80 hours.

Add in the retweets - 670 *0.1 = 1hour

81 hours

Then we can add a buffer for pictures and memes which you would have to get from a browser or camera roll. 

Images/meme buffer – 10%

Compiling an argument for a retweet – 5%

Then we can explore the activity of browsing. Average twitter browser  times rates vary quite a lot but we are safe to say that Trump is up there with the Power Users for sure. 

General Browsing - 10%

81hour + (10%)8 + 4(50%) + 8(10%)

So in total it is possible that he has spent (wasted) 101 hours on Twitter. 

It is also possible that this is fake news. #trump

No.1 Digital Marketing article... a must read!

The is one of the most magnificent, insightful, easy to understand articles on Digital Marketing I can attest to

If you do anything Big Think Marketing related this week… have a read of this

https://www.digitalmarketer.com/blog/customer-value-optimization

Give yourself 15minutes today to read it over and study it, and think about the application of it for your business. I feel you will be one step ahead of your competition

I've made a very short summary of the article, but I empower you to read it! 

Customer Value Optimization 

1. Traffic

At the top of the Funnel we have traffic. Traffic is how we get users to see your company, brand, service

• Old school traffic might be; call centres, advertising billboards, publicity, advertorials, TV Commercials
• New age traffic for the digital age is blogging, youtube vlogs, or paid traffic like Adwords / Facebook Ads.

Essentially the elements (paid or otherwise) that drives people to your business website or to call

You need to have some sort of traffic source to your business other than relying on referrals. 

2. The Lead Magnet

The lead magnet is a piece of content that you can create to entice your target customer to trade their information (email, tel no), in exchange for your content. It can come in the form of a ebook, How-To guide, Checklist, Cheatsheet, 101 series etc. 

The better the content the more people will opt in to your lead magnet. 

Ask yourself, "what is the best piece of content that I can create that my prospect?". 

The root of this stems from… how well do I know my customer, how well do I understand their problems, hopes, wants, and desires. The lead magnet should be all about solving that core problem for your target market

Read my story on FREE water to better understand how this work

3. Nurturing

In the digital marketing space they use the term “Drip Marketing”… to drip feed content to your audience with this idea of nurturing them through your funnel with the aim to eventually make "your offer". And at this stage the person will be better primed to accept.   

From here, depending on your business you can go two ways. If you are a digital business with digital product you want to get them on the value ladder. Or the buying ladder. Offer something of low value to them, an ebook, physical book, for under $20. 

The idea here is that once someone is a buyer that probability of them buying again is higher. Getting them on the ladder is crucial key. Also, it plays in the psychological principle of “Consistency”, where people generally want to be consistent with the actions they take. If they buy once, they are likely to buy again. 

“let buyers to buyers”

If you're in the physical space (a consultant of services), you would do the same nurturing sequence, but your offer might be to set up a discovery call with your prospect. 

4. Creating advocates

Now it’s up to you to do your job. The better service, you provide, the more raving fans you will create.

Some ideas:

1. Hey, I’m happy to provide you with a X discount if you agree to be a case study for me.
2. Incentives referrals – ask your clients if they know of 3 other people that could benefit from you services, in exchange for a gift card / free service. 
3. Create a blog post documenting how you helped your client solve their problems and what the result was. 

5. And then the Return Path

The goal of the Return Path is to have frequent, strategic communication with your buyers and prospects that cause them to buy again and again. 

How to keep your customer or prospect engaged with your brand. Could be newsletters, social media, more lead magnets and tripwires, new programs etc. 

Good luck.. and happy selling!

Welcome to Business season

With the summer in the rear-view mirror... focus turns towards year end. We count back the months... 4 to go until the Christmas break. It's game time.

Some of you have had the "summer slump"... some have been making waves and busy.

(read about how to avoid the summer slump for next year here)

Regardless, do a quick stock check and they aim forward. Onwards and upwards.

Looking ahead

Some questions to consider when plotting the next 4 months

1. What activities am I doing now that are directly building my pipeline?
2. How many potential new clients am I engaging with on a daily basis?(face-2face online wherever)
3. Is the thing I’m doing right now, getting me closer to my goal?
1. Video Link: (Is it making the boat go faster?) 
4. Do I need to look at outsourcing some tasks to free up some focus time?

Some ideas for September Salestime..

1. Reaching Out

Active RO… is the term I remember reading about a while back. "Active Reaching Out"

This could be reaching out to old friends, ex colleagues, or people within your network that you have lost touch with. Reach out to them, ask how they are doing! Make that network stronger. Maybe they are doing something new you haven’t heard about, maybe you are doing something new they don’t know about

Also, reaching out to brand new people.

Linkedin, Board of trade, your network, any facebook groups you are a member of.

I feel “Reaching Out” evokes a better feeling, compared to “Cold Calling”

“Hey we met once before at X event, wondering if you had a brief moment to talk.”

“Hey, I’m a member of this Board of trade, I noticed you are as well. I saw that you are doing this, would you be interested in working together or actively referring each other? Coffee?”

2.     Offer to speak at a chamber event

 Showcase your offering in front of potential buyers. Make sure you have your offer crystal clear and attractive!

Alternatively find a meetup in your niche. Attend a few times first then offer to speak at one of the upcoming events. 

3.  Collaborations / Leveraging

Think complementary products.... Can you collaborate with a company who has the same target market as you?
Think of what could be a complementary interest for the target market.

Example: Fitness people are interested in exercises, strength and conditioning. But also, they’re likely interested in vitamins, supplements, and even healthy eating.

Found someone? Ask them to run a joint workshop

4. Focussed Customer research

 - Where do your customers hang out? Online and offline
 - List the places that they may congregate
 - When you’re done… then google “how to target X” for more ideas

5. How can I attract my client?

What is the most valuable piece of content I can write / produce / create, that is gonna attract and entice my ideal client.

You want them to say “fuck yeah, I’ll give you my email for that piece of content”

Aka; we call this Bait, or Lead Magnet. I call it the “Value-Trade”. This is a piece of content (ebook, how-to guide, listicle, cheatsheet) that is of great value to your target market. 

..So there's 5 things to consider this September 


If anything doesn’t make sense, just shout. Be happy to clarify.

Happy hunting
GG