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How To Create Business Success In 2023 Pt.3

business tips digital marketing email marketing sales sms marketing Jan 30, 2023
CEO walking with her employees, explaining the sales strategy she wants to implement

If you’ve been following the blog over the past few weeks, then you know we’ve been talking about how we are creating success in our business and that of our clients, specifically when it comes to strategies online.

If you haven’t read parts one and two, I would highly recommend you go back and do so, because they set the foundation for what we talk about today.

To summarize, in the first part, we talked about social media as it pertains to your business.  We talked about how to create a solid social media marketing strategy based on a blueprint for bringing in your target audience.

The second part focused on how you take that continuous flow of new traffic and turn them into leads for your business.  Social media followers are great, but we’re not here for vanity metrics . . . the point is to turn that traffic into leads.

This brings us to part three . . . turning those leads into sales for your business.  The worst thing you can do is all the work we just talked about, only to struggle to create sales because you don’t have a conversion strategy for the audience you worked so hard to build.  Let’s get into it!

Building An Email Marketing Strategy

Congratulations!  You’ve done one of the hardest things which is taking people off social media and bringing them onto your email list . . . but now what are you supposed to do?

I have to admit something here that I’m not proud of.  I used to assume that if we came across business owners/influencers that were making 6 & 7 figures that they had great email marketing and they didn’t need our help.

I mean c’mon, they’re making a ton of money so they must have great systems in place, right?  WRONG!  I can’t tell you over the past two years how much money we’ve left on the table because of my stupid assumptions.

The truth of the matter is this: MOST business owners don’t have a great email marketing strategy.  Usually, business owners fall into one of three camps:

  • They do all the hard work of building a list only to never email them
  • They do email but the emails are so random that they don’t make sense and have no strategy to them
  • They simply sell 90% of the time which turns their audience off and has people unsubscribing as fast as they subscribed

Do you fall into any of these categories?  If so, don’t worry because we’re going to help.

Just like we talked about in the first blog when it comes to social media marketing, you have to have a plan.  You can’t just simply send random emails with content, then try to sell and expect it to work.  I like to call this the “hope and pray” strategy.

You’re “hoping” that by sending value (even though it’s random) that when the time comes to sell, you can “pray” that people see enough value in it and end up buying.  And while yes, some might, I can promise you that you’re losing more sales than you’re gaining.

So right now I’m going to give you a simple strategy that you can follow to create value through your email list and convert at a higher level.  This is simple to implement and has proven to work.

You’re going to send one email each week, with each month revolving around one of your content pillars or a problem area that your ideal audience has.  The first three weeks you’re going to send emails with a combination of value and relationship-building.

Value in that you’re going to help them solve their problems, and relationship building in talking about how you came to find out this was a problem and some stories of you solving it.  These are the two reasons people will stick around: value and because they feel like they know you.

The last email of the month is going to still add value and build relationships, but you’re also going to offer them a product or service that makes sense for them to buy based on the topic you’ve been talking about over the last month.

So if you break it down, here’s what this will look like:

  • Value/Relationship Email #1
  • Value/Relationship Email #2
  • Value/Relationship Email #3
  • Value/Relationship Email W/CTA To Product/Service

See how easy that is?  My recommendation would be that you plan out your email marketing ahead of time (at least 3 months), that way, you know what you’re going to be sending out on a consistent basis.  Nothing is worse than sitting down to write an email that has to go out that day and drawing a blank.

Or, if you have it in your budget, hire an email marketing specialist.  If you’re making more than $60k a year in your business, you really shouldn’t be writing your own emails anyways, and honestly, it’s probably what’s holding you back from hitting 6-figures.

However, if you’re still doing it yourself, this is a good place to start.  It’ll get you into a habit of consistently communicating with your audience, adding value, and building relationships, while still being able to talk about the products and services you offer.

Email marketing has the highest ROI (return on investment) for businesses and there’s a reason it’s been around for so long: it works.  Every $1 you spend on your email marketing nets an ROI of anywhere from $38-43.  Don’t sleep on the power of email!

Building An SMS/Text Strategy

Even though SMS marketing is still in its infant stages, it’s already shown to be a truly powerful tool when it comes to marketing your business.  While email open rates hover around 20%, SMS marketing boasts a 98% open rate, which makes sense, since every time we receive a text, our natural inclination is to open it.

SMS marketing really shines when it’s used by product-based businesses.  For example, we have a client that owns a luxury line of stationery products.  When she came to us, her SMS list was sitting at about 2,000 people and she was making about $500/month from that list.

Fast-forward to today, her SMS list is now over 14,000 people and she’s making $10K on average from it a month.  So how were we able to do it?  Just like with email marketing, I’ll give you a simple formula that you can follow if you want to implement this and see the kind of results in your business that she saw.

The first thing to do is come up with something sexy that will make people give up their phone numbers.  While it’s easy for someone to give you their email simply because they can ignore the emails if they want to, giving you their phone number is a lot more personal and harder to get.

The usual “10% off” coupon isn’t going to cut it here.  You’re going to have to offer them something really enticing.  When we started, we offered 30% off plus a free gift with your first purchase.  As you can imagine, it wasn’t hard getting people to opt-in.  30% is a great deal and who doesn’t love free stuff?  

This, however, is where email marketing differs drastically from SMS marketing.  Whereas you want to stay in constant contact with your email list, doing the same will most like annoy your SMS list.  Every business will be different, but here is what we did.

We sent texts twice a month, one text checking in/adding value/building relationships, and the other to a product based on what they had previously bought.  We also sent texts on special events like their birthdays.  The only other time we would send out texts was if a product launched and we would give them first dibs and an insane deal for being a part of the community.

This ensured that we weren’t bombarding the audience with texts, but rather they were strategic and well thought out.  The unsubscribe rate was really low and the open rate overall hovered around 96%.  This allowed us to continue funneling in new numbers, while also nurturing and selling to the already existing subscribers.

Like I said before, this is what worked for us and for her business.  Yours is different and might need an entirely different strategy.  My suggestion to business owners is always to opt-in with your own phone number to some of your competitors that do SMS marketing.

Then really start to pay attention and ask yourself these questions:

  • What did they offer me in exchange for my phone number?
  • Was it enticing enough for me to opt in if I was just a regular customer?
  • How often do they text?
  • What type(s) of texts do they send?
  • What kind of language do they use in their text messages?
  • Do I get any kinds of special deals for being on their list?

By studying what your competitors do (especially the successful ones), you’ll start to see what works and you can take those ideas back into your business and use them for your own SMS marketing.  Don’t copy what they do, simply look at what works, what doesn’t, and put your own spin on it.

Value vs. Selling

We touched on this a little bit when we talked about email marketing strategy, but it’s worth mentioning here again and diving into a little more detail.  I’m a forever student, and as such, I opt into a lot of business owners' email lists (and I mean A LOT).

Thousands of opt-ins later, I can tell you that the number one thing I see business owners do that’s a complete turn-off is they sell too much.  I’ll opt-in for a free resource, and for the next 1-2 weeks I’m bombarded by emails with “value” (I put quotes around this because really it’s just basic information in the hopes that I’ll then buy) only to be sold to at the end.

Buy this product.  This product is on sale.  Only for a limited time.  This is a one-time deal.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen variations of these phrases.  Look, I get it.  You run a business and you have products/services to sell, but the first time someone sees an email of yours might be the first time they’ve heard of you.

Knowing this, you have to think about the type of first impression you want to make.

I would say that my opt-out rate overall is close to 98%, meaning that if I opt into 100 business owners' email lists, I opt out within the first two weeks.  The reason is I get too many emails trying to sell too many things when the fact it, I don’t even really know this person or their business yet.

That’s the mistake you have to avoid.  Tell me about yourself.  Give me some additional value on top of the free resource I just received.  Give me a chance to get to know you and your business in a way that makes me want to stick around.  That’s what the best ones do, and they do it very well, and it makes their business a lot of money.

The Curse Of The Unsubscribe

Truth time: I used to get upset when I’d look at our weekly email numbers and see that someone unsubscribed.  My response would look something like, “Why the hell are people unsubscribing!?  I literally don’t even sell through our emails, it’s just value and relationship building.  What is going on?!”

Until one day I read that every time you send an email or a text to your list, you can expect at least one person to unsubscribe.  There are so many reasons why this could be, and here’s a list of the ones I could think of off the top of my head:

  • They only opted in for the free thing
  • They no longer need your product/service
  • They’re doing spring cleaning on their email/phone
  • They’re not getting the value they thought they would

No matter what the reason, I’m here to tell you: it’s okay.  Now, if you’re losing 5% or more of your subscribers every time you send an email, then yes, you might want to check into why that is.  But if it’s one person, or 1% every time, it happens.

That’s why always making sure you’re filling your pipeline with new people is so important.  If you don’t, your list will fizzle out and you’ll cap your business's revenue and potential growth.

There are two ways to keep the pipeline full: organically and through advertising.  I always suggest an 80/20 or 90/10 split depending on how much money your business has to spend on advertising.  80% of your efforts will be organic, through things like content marketing, blogs, etc.  The other 20% will be through things like Facebook ads.

This ensures that no matter what, your list will always have names coming in (ads) and that you have a long-term strategy for continually creating content and promoting your lists (organic).  

How To Convert Your List

That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?  How do I take this list of people who are interested in what it is I sell and get them to buy my products and services?  The answer is quite simple: do the same thing you did to get them there in the first place.

People overcomplicate sales way too much.  They think they need a magic script or the perfect thing to say in order to get everyone to say “yes” (which, just to let you know, doesn’t exist.  When in actuality, all you have to do is be yourself.

When you try to be someone you’re not, or you try to use jargon and language that’s unnatural to you, people can feel it, and it makes them suspicious.  Sales aren’t about selling, it’s about framing a conversation around finding out if the other person’s problem can be solved by a product/service that you have.

That’s it!  So when you speak (or write) to them, do it in a way that sounds like you.  Use the same language and verbiage that you’ve always used, and explain to them three things:

  • Hey, so this is the problem it looks like you’re having
  • I’ve actually got this product that’s been shown to help people with the same problem
  • Would you like to solve that problem today so you don’t have to worry about it anymore?

It really is that simple when you come from a place of relationship and value.  It’s not selling because you’re solving a problem.  Yes, you’re making money, but that’s the byproduct of you helping the person in front of you.  So keep it simple, relational, and problem-focused.

Conclusion

I truly hope that these past three blogs have given you a solid structure and plan for how to grow and scale your business online.  While some of these things may seem simple and a no-brainer, like I talked about earlier, they’re actually not.  I made the mistake of thinking business owners had all this in place, so don’t just assume your business is good.

Even if you have these systems in place, take a look at them, audit them, and see if you can make them better.  Because the better they are, the more you convert, and the more revenue you’ll end up making.

And if you’d like some help implementing the social media marketing aspect of this plan, as a ‘thank you’ for reading our blog, we’d like to offer you a free call to audit your social media marketing.

We’ll see if there are problem areas, let you know how to fix them, and give you a plan going forward.  We’ll even tell you how we can create a customized plan specifically for you and your business.

Click the link below and grab your free call before they’re gone!

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