5 Steps to Building An Awesome Marketing Strategy

It’s been a while since I’ve written a post… too long in fact! Time to fix that…

One of the challenges most businesses find themselves in, whether they’re an established business or just starting out, is how to generate leads on a regular and consistent basis?

This is often something that is not thought through properly, and often because it takes a lot of work to figure out how to do this properly.

(Online) marketing has become incredibly sophisticated over the past few years, and now with the amount of data available there’s no excuse not to create a marketing strategy to grow your business.

If you leave things to chance, then you’re not planning, and if you’re not planning then I’d argue you don’t really have a business.

But I’m going to assume that’s not you, so here’s my 5 absolute must-have’s to create your own a-mazing marketing strategy…

#1  Research Your Real Audience

Or your “following”, or your “people”!

Ultimately these people are human beings, so I personally like to call them humans. Understanding who your ideal human is, beyond just the demographics is crucial to know how to attract them towards you with your marketing efforts.

Spend some time researching beyond “job titles”.  Look at their behaviour, look at who they follow, look at what they’re doing right now to solve the problem that you can help them fix.  And look at where they “hang out”. The more you understand their behaviour, the more you can understand the language they speak and therefore how to attract them.

I would also go another step further and write down a list of your Dream 100 prospects. This takes much thought and is hard work, which is why not many people do it.  

My tipPlan time to really think hard about who you want as clients. And who would be your dream client.  Because dreams can come true!

#2  Plan How To Attract These Humans Towards You

It’s too easy now to be drawn in my other people’s marketing tactics!  I see it all the time on Facebook especially.

And it’s the one part of online marketing that I’d say is unauthentic, giving the real people who do care a bad name.

What do I mean by this?  

People posting “Who would like a copy of my PDF, how I made $xmillions from one tiny offer…” you know what I mean…

And when you follow the link, not only are you opting in, you find they’re charging you for the privilege. 

This is where people get caught up in the tactics, often known as too many shiny objects.

So how do you attract the right humans towards you?  Quite simply you create content that adds value, and post in the same place your ideal human hangs out.

Content can be… Video, podcast, blog post, free training, interview etc. And with your content create a hook to capture their data – the minimum you need is their email address.

Do this by creating a simple lead magnet. Build a landing page, maybe behind your website? Think about the biggest problem your ideal human has, then how can you help them solve that problem?  What’s the first thing you would do to help them?

My Tip:  Keep your lead magnet simple but you must make it relevant to your human. Consider the steps your human takes before they would make a decision to purchase your services and have your lead magnet cover at least the first 2 or 3 steps.

#3 Focus on Building Your Email List

Ever heard the say “the money’s in the list?”  

This is true and false at the same time.  Let me explain…

True, because when you have a list of contacts full of your ideal humans, you literally have a ready-made audience who will likely buy whatever you are selling to them, provided you’ve nurtured them and they are an “engaged” list.

Which brings me to say that it’s false if the list is not an engaged list, ie: you have an email list you’ve not been in touch with for more than 3-6 months, or you’ve bought the list (which I don’t recommend by the way).

When you focus on list building… that’s one of the biggest assets you can control and you can create.

My TipThis is the most underestimated and under thought about asset in marketing. When you build an engaged list of followers, it can at least double the value of your business.

#4  Create Value and Make Offers

As you start to grow and build your email list, the whole idea of doing this is:

  1. Position you as the expert
  2. Give away as much information and knowledge as you care to.
  3. Use the 80/20 rule with your email marketing.  80% value and 20% sell.

Note, don’t overthink giving away knowledge. Just because you’re giving it away it doesn’t mean you’re going to lose the sale.  The truth is the more value you give the more likely people will come back to you for the sale.

Going back to my first point here about understanding your human… when you really understand them, their behaviour and their problem, then you can create amazing offers that they’ll grab at any opportunity.

Remember, you’re in business because you have a solution to your prospect’s problem, and you just need to present the solution in a way that resonates with them, makes it hard for them to say no, and very easy for them to make that purchase.

My TipCreate a ladder of offers.  Start with something FREE, then create a high value, lost cost offer, then have your core offer.  Then you can create a top level offer for your die-hard fans.

#5 Never Stop Marketing and Making Offers

By following the steps 1 through to 4, you should by now have a true understanding of your ideal human, where they hang out and how to attract them.  Therefore avoiding any unnecessary tactical marketing, also known as the guessing game.

Only when you truly know your human will you then be able to regularly put offers of value in front of them.  The more you do this, the more you can refine your offers with the goal being:

  • Make them better, improve them.
  • Make better profit margins on them
  • Sell more and increase your profits.
  • Rinse and repeat.

Never stop after putting just one offer out there… start with one and continue by validating more offers you can easily increase sales, but now you’ll find it easier because you have an existing list to sell to.

And should you decide to do paid ads, it will be much cheaper and easier to attract because you’ll be able to create look-a-like audiences based on your email list.

My TipKeep validating new offers, but first focus on your core offer, doing what you do best. Then you can start with new offers.