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

How to avoid the summer slump

Your busy, and that's great. Some of you are really busy. You've made good progress since the start of the year. 

Now you have stopped doing outreach, stopped doing lead generation, and neglected your marketing. Why? Because you are too busy working on your business, serving your existing customers and making them happy. 

We have all been here. 

Before you know it, the days turn into weeks, a month passes you by, and then 2 months where you have not reached out to any new prospects. You don't have a marketing system in place to bring in new leads. 

You hit the wall 

Common excuse (I hate)

."summer is always a quite period"

Summer is only quiet when you have not put in enough ground work in the 3 months leading up to it to have enough leads and consultations, to give you projects to work on. Most people start dealing with the summer when the summer arrives. Bad idea. Everything you do is always 3 months ahead of time.

What do you do now. 

Action 1: 

(20mins) Make a marketing outreach plan

Don't take too long doing it and it shouldn't be longer than 1 page. 

Before you do this, you know who you ideal customer is. 

If you don't have your ideal customer sorted, then refer to this post about how to build your perfect avatar. 

Plan to give yourself 1-2 hours every week for reaching out to new customers. Lock it into you diary. 

Action 2: Build a target list 

You should have a target list

Go through LinkedIn and search for ideal customer. 

Log their names in to XL. 

Set a goal to reach out to 10 new people every week with a personalised message. 

Action 3: Execute or Outsource 

Start reaching out to your target market. Invite them for a coffee, ask to buy them lunch. Tell them how you can help, and how you have helped other similar companies. 

If you realise that you do not have the capacity to reach out to new prospects. Hire a marketing partner to run this for you. 

ProTip: Prospecting tip

When you are doing outreach and prospecting, here are some basic rules. 

The #1 Rule: don't go for the kill in round 1. 

What Boxer do you know does that? It's normally in the later rounds that you can secure the win. 

So play the long game. 

Introduce yourself. 

Be entertaining. 

Offer some value 

Find out some relatable bit of information from their LinkedIn or other social platforms, and start with that. 

You're trying to build rapport by starting a conversation. 

Once that person knows, likes and, trusts you... now they will consider working with you!  

Now go ahead... kill that summer slump!