Business marketing is the secret sauce for starting, building, and growing a profitable online business.
Marketing isn't just an important part of one's business success. It's a deal breaker. If you have ever struggled to identify where you should be focusing your marketing efforts, you aren't alone.
According to HubSpot's 2017 State of Inbound Report, generating traffic and leads and proving ROI are the leading challenges marketers face. The business marketing world is always changing, which is why we need to change with it if we want to stay ahead of the competition.
Are you ready to learn how you can use the power of marketing in order to attract more customers and grow your business?
In the video below I talk about 15 things you need to build an online business:
(Click here to watch on YouTube
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Why are so many people scared of business marketing?
A lot of business owners neglect or ignore business marketing because they think it's a waste of time and money. In short, this is just not true. People can't find you if they don't know that you exist. It doesn't matter how great your product or service is.
In the words of Paul Cookson, “Running a business without marketing will kill it.”
I've been an entrepreneur and online business owner for over 10 years now. In the beginning stages of my entrepreneurial journey, it was a challenge to market my business. I've learned a lot along the way that has helped me achieve the success that I have today.
I want to share these insights with you so that you don't have to make the same mistakes that I did. I didn't learn this knowledge from a business major. These are business skills that I've acquired through experience.
Here are 10 steps that I follow in my online business that has allowed me to market my products and services to hundreds of thousands of people.
1. Establish Your Goals
Before you even start creating a business marketing strategy, you need to understand your “why” behind it. What goals are you trying to achieve? Once you have established your milestones for the year ahead, then you can start figuring out the strategies that you will implement in order to accomplish each goal.
Keep in mind that you want your marketing goals to motivate you, but not be so grandiose that they are unachievable. This is why I am a big believer in setting SMART goals, which are goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. When you do so, you will be hyper clear what you are moving towards.
For example, a poorly defined marketing goal is “I want to generate more sales”, whereas a well-defined marketing goal is “I need to land 10 new customers in the next 6 months in order to achieve my revenue goal of $100,000.” See the difference?
2. Understand Your Market
You cannot connect with your audience until you know who your ideal customers are, where they hang out online, and what makes them tick.
In her book, Nichecraft: Using Your Specialness to Focus Your Business, Corner Your Market & Make Customers Seek You Out,Lynda Falkenstein says that “Many people talk about ‘finding' a niche as if it were something under a rock or at the end of the rainbow, ready-made. That is nonsense.” When it comes to finding a niche, you want to go narrow instead of broad. If you claim to be good at many things then you will never be known to specialize in anything.
3. Study Your Competitors
When searching for ways to improve your marketing, look to your competitors. Find out what they are doing to attract customers. There is a high likelihood that there are online business owners out there who are selling a similar product or service as you. This is why it is so important that you stand out.
Studying your competitors starts with figuring out what their marketing strategy is. Ask yourself questions, like:
- What makes you different from your competitors?
- How are they positioning their product or service?
- How is their social media presence?
- What kind of content do they publish?
The goal isn't to imitate your competitors. Rather, explore the gaps that you identify and then make the changes to your marketing strategy that will ensure that you are constantly improving, innovating, and adding massive value to your audience.
4. Develop Your Brand
Every online business needs a brand. This is your most valuable asset. Consumers buy from brands that have a strong brand value. Think about companies like Apple and Google. According to Nielson’s Global New Product Innovation Survey, 59% of consumers prefer to buy new products from brands familiar to them.
A brand is more than just a name. It needs to emotionally connect with your audience and convey who you are. What do you want your brand to represent and how will it stand out from the competition? As Seth Godin says, “Remarkable marketing is the art of building things worth noticing right into your product or service.”
A lot of people have a desire to build an online business but they approach it with the wrong mindset. You need to take a long-term approach, and that is what brand creation is all about. If you just want to sell a product and make money, you won't succeed. When I built my company, Project Life Mastery, I built up my brand before I even thought about selling any products.
5. Determine Your Budget
This is where a lot of business owners get themselves into trouble. Without a solid budget plan, you will end up overspending. It comes down to doing your research. Determine which platforms are the smartest to invest in.
Despite what people will say, I don't think that you don’t need to spend a lot of money on marketing in order to be successful. I’ve gone down both roads in my online businesses. For example, creating epic content on a consistent basis has been one of the most inexpensive ways that I have been able to effectively market my business and build my brand to where it is today.
6. Create Content
Content marketing is the process of creating valuable content to attract an audience and drive sales. I believe that this is the #1 marketing strategy to grow your online business. It has been the most valuable action that I have implemented in order to engage my audience, generate more leads, and make money.
The reality is that people do business with people that they like and trust. In the words of Marcus Sheridan, “Great content is the best sales tool in the world.”
There are many forms of content that you can create. Determine which best suits your strengths and skill set, whether that's blogging, video, images, or a podcast. When you are creating content it is important that you understand what your audience wants. You aren't creating content for you. It's the buyer that matters.
How do you figure out what is important to them? Ask. Create a short survey and ask them what their challenges are, and then determine if your content is helping to solve their pain points. If not, make sure that you adjust your content marketing strategy.
7. Set Up Your Online Presence
In today's digital world the vast majority of consumers can be found online. This is why social media is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal for attracting new customers and growing your online business. Reading people's comments is a great way to gain insights into their behavior and topics that matter to them.
Each social media channel has a different purpose, but at the end of the day, you want to figure out where your audience hangs out. When it comes to engaging with your audience, you want to create content that is compelling and that has a strong message behind it. This will make you more appealing to existing and prospective customers, ensuring that you get more likes, followers, shares, and comments on your posts.
8. Give Something Away For Free
Everybody loves something for free. It may seem counterintuitive to give away your products or services for free, but it actually makes you more money in the long run. The psychology behind it is that, if someone has the opportunity to experience what you have to offer for free and it provides them with massive value, they will be most likely to buy from you in the future.
Free giveaways are one of the most effective ways to create a connection around your brand. In the beginning stages of growing your online business, this is gold. Why? Because people associate free with trustworthy, and that has a positive impact on your brand's perceived value.
9. Build Your Email List
Despite what people would say, email is not dead. If you haven't started to build an email list, now is the time to jump on board. You always have 100% control over your list. You get to decide how big you want it to get. If anything happens to your business, you've still got it.
One of the most popular proverbs of online business is – “the money is in the list.” Sending emails on a regular basis that add value to your audience will keep you at the forefront of their minds, and it will position you as a person of credibility and authority in your industry.
Matt Goldfarb summed it up when he said, “Having a list of dedicated fans and clients is the single most important asset any business can have. Having a list is the best way to deepen a relationship with your audience. It’s where you share your story, your purpose, and your insight. It’s where you can turn prospects into rabid fans.”
Keep in mind that when you are building an email list, it's important that you are using a service with high deliverability, such as Aweber.
10. Don't Give Up
When it comes to business marketing, don't give up! Too many online business owners fail because they don't see results fast enough. In order to succeed in business, you need to learn how to fall in love with the process. Are you in it for the long-term?
There is no one-size fits all approach to creating a solid business marketing plan.
Anyone can be a good marketer. It's about finding what works best for you and your business. The secret to success is found in developing a solid marketing strategy and sticking with it. It will take time, energy and resources. Just like anything in the online business world, it all comes down to how bad you want to achieve success. In the words of Jay Baer, “Make your marketing so successful that people would pay you for it.”
Are you ready to build a winning marketing strategy that will attract more customers and take your business to the next level? It starts and ends with you.
Are you ready to receive cutting-edge online business and marketing advice every month? CLICK HERE to join my Online Business Mastery Accelerator program!
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