marketing

I get it…you’ve been working hard to grow your business…but for some reason you aren’t seeing the results you were expecting. But don’t worry, it happens to the best of us, it’s all part of the learning and growth process. After talking to numerous business owners over the last few years I realized most of them were facing a handful of very similar issues. Below is a quick outline of exactly what I tell clients. How to grow your business without adding hours of additional work to your already busy schedule! Review all the products or services that have brought in profits and will grow your business. Make a list of everything your offer or would like to offer. (If you’re brand new, then this will be something you can revisit when you have more numbers to work with.) Find the one or two core services (If you are in e-comm then you can get away with 5-10 products). Separate the ones that produced the best profits and focus all of your effort on selling more of those. SAY NO to anything that does not fall under those core products and services. This allows you to control your time and scale your business with more predictability and profitability. STOP following fake idols and countless guru’s. Find a real mentor, join a mastermind group, and pay the money to get into a REAL course. Outsource the time-consuming work so that you can focus on income-producing activities and being the best at what you do. If you think you’re getting all you need from YouTube videos and other free trainings, you are sadly mistaken. People come to you for your expertise or for the products you sell. It’s NOT because you were the person doing the marketing. Find someone that can help with your marketing and enlist them for training or services. Stop listening to all the noise. Stop chasing shiny objects. Focus your ad dollars on things that actually provide a return. If you’re unable to track a client’s engagement with your business from click to customer, then that’s your first priority. You should think twice before making any additional investments until that’s managed. Start with Google Ads then follow up with a social media campaign. According to the National Sales Executive Association, Very few people (≅ 2%) will actually purchase a product the first time they see an offer. The vast majority of them, ≅ 80%, will purchase between the 5th and 11th touch. This makes follow up and retargeting crucial aspects of your marketing campaign. Visitors that come from Google PPC campaigns are typically more responsive to social retargeting campaigns. They are more likely to become customers after viewing additional relevant ads/content on another platform. Data and Tracking are THE most important parts to grow your business effectively. If you do not understand what you are looking at and how to read the reports that are given to you, it’s a sure way to lose money. Make sure you understand which numbers are important to pay attention to, and how to find them. If you are using an omnichannel marketing strategy, then you will need to know exactly who came from where. This was you’ll understand which campaigns are successful and which you can do without. This may mean creating a custom tracking URL for each platform or campaign. Each type of business will have different performance indicators (KPI). Understanding what is essential to your business will help dictate how and where you choose to grow your business. Treat your social platforms like a job. Unless your business requires you to be on social media, 24/7 (it almost always doesn’t) use it only when you need to and then get off. Don’t worry about all the NOISE happening on social because it is just that…NOISE. You don’t need to field every reaction or comment as it comes in. If you want to use social media for your business, come up with a plan and stick to it. In general, I tell companies to start posting three times a week and gradually work their way up to everyday. Make sure the content is of high quality and features your core products or services. Most small businesses see success by posting original, authentic content and using up to 30 relevant hashtags (where applicable). YOU DON’T NEED A MILLION FOLLOWERS to be successful, do not buy into the cheap follower programs or software. Social platforms are getting smarter, and they WILL suspend your account for utilizing shady tactics. Plus, it’s much better to have fewer, more engaging followers than a bunch of empty numbers. Do you believe that YOU are why you can’t grow your business? Throughout the day the average person thinks over 50,000 thoughts, including good and bad, empowering and limiting. It is natural to doubt yourself, especially if you own or operate your own business. Sometimes you don’t see the progress because you are in the thick of it, or you lose track of your goals because life happens, and that’s normal! Creating confidence and finding your ability to overcome self-doubt happens gradually over time; there is no magic pill. What does help is controlling your mindset, managing your mental state, working with a coach, having a proven process, and keeping track of your goals. Having a proven process will keep you on task regardless of how you feel about yourself and your abilities. Writing down your goals and creating check-in’s is how you begin that accountability process. As you see yourself accomplishing and checking off goals, the fear of not being good enough goes away and the motivation to continue increases. So now I guess you are thinking, “Drew, this is great… but, what are my next steps?” First, as I mentioned above, you need to focus your efforts, so start by finding the most profitable products or services you offer. Having more offers will not grow your business. Second, choose no more than 2 subject matter