093. Marketing ROI and Creating Your Marketing System for Q4

Welcome. I am marketing expert and business coach Melissa Kellogg Lueck. And this is the Doing Business Like a Woman podcast where we are exploring and teaching you how women are reinventing the way business is done and money is made to help you create greater impact and financial freedom one business at a time. Hello. Hello. How are you ladies? So good to be here with you. Happy Friday. I hope you're having a fabulous Friday so far. I am, but usually Fridays are kind of. I get tired and sorry, I'm getting over a cold. So I'm going to try really hard not to cough. And if I need to cough, I'm going to try really hard to mute myself. But sometimes it sneaks up on me. Anyhow, what are you celebrating today? Hope you've had a great week. I'm celebrating. We had an amazing networking luncheon, women's networking luncheon yesterday for E Women Network. I'm the managing director for our chapter here in Northern Colorado and we just had a really great meeting. It was amazing. So I'm just celebrating that. And we have two new members and that's very exciting as well. So, okay. Oh, let me introduce myself real quick. My name is Melissa Kellogg Lueck in case we don't know each other. And I am a business coach for women. And I am the CEO and founder of the Avanti Business Academy for Women. And I offer one on one coaching to help women that are ready to grow their businesses from 5 to 6 figures. A few years ago I heard that 88% of women owned businesses never make it to that 100k mark. And I thought that's not okay with me because I want to make it to that 100k mark and I have since. And I also think there's a lot of women out there that would like to as well. So I have dedicated my business and my work. I've been an entrepreneur for 18 years. I've dedicated my work to helping women create that financial freedom through entrepreneurship. And so that's why we're here today, because it's Q4, you guys. I mean, I know we're into it a few days now, it's the 6th of October, but that's okay. It's never too late to talk about it. I did a live on Monday. Talking about the Q4 is such an October is such a great opportunity, right, for us to sprint to the finish line. It is not too late for us to reach our goal for the year. And so that's why I wanted to come on and talk to you today because whatever your goal is I want you to see how it's possible for you to get there by the end of the year. And that's what I'm going to help you out with today, is to create that plan. I also want to talk about marketing ROI that I think one of the things that's going to help you get to to your goal this year is understanding what in your marketing is actually working and what isn't and how to adjust and how to keep tabs on that. Right? Because we so often are doing marketing activities because we think we should do them or because they're the latest and greatest thing or the new and shiny object. But my friends, the truth is if they are not bringing in business, the whole goal of marketing is to support sales. And if the activities that you're doing are not supporting sales, then you need to change them, just as simple as that. So what I want to help you with today is to understand, first of all what's working in your marketing and what's not, and then a plan to really optimize and simple or, well, simplify first and then optimize the things that you're doing at work and create a plan that will help you get to your goal for the end of the year. So the first thing is, how do we know what's working and what's not working? The easiest way to do that, and it really doesn't take a lot of analysis. I mean, I'm sure we could analyze things till the cows come home. But what I like to do is obviously I have a service business. Most of my clients I work with have service businesses. So the easiest way to do this is to go back through your client list and look and make a note, or note it in your fancy software or do it in a spreadsheet, however you want to do it. But notate how people came to you. Did you meet them at a networking function on social media? Did they come to a workshop? Or maybe you have a podcast and they came to you through your podcast. Whatever it is, go through each client, make a note of how they came to you, and you can get precise if you want to. And that's going to give you a good idea of what marketing is working for you and what isn't. So what I find interesting when I do this exercise with my clients is we often think that, you know, one thing is working. Maybe it's so we think social media. We've got to be doing social media. So we are, you know, 100% committed to doing social media. Come hell or high water. But then when we go through and we tally and we look at where all of our clients have come from, they've come from over here, from networking, right. Or from another marketing activity that we're involved in. And so if that's the case, then yes, I, you know, you're welcome to be on social media and be active there, but I think you have to be strategic about what is the role of social media in my business. And if all my business is coming from over here, I want to lean into that. For example, networking. Networking is oftentimes a real one to one type of interaction. Right. I go to a networking function, I meet one person, we shake hands, we exchange contact information, and then we get together and decide to work together. It's very one to one, right? So in order to optimize your marketing, maybe think about how you can network with people on a broader scale, like a more of a one to many model. So what might that look like? That could look like doing speaking engagements, right? Where you go to a networking group and you're the speaker and you get to talk to the whole room, all the people there, all at once. Or maybe you host a workshop where you walk into a room and you get to talk to the entire room of people all at once. Or maybe it's an online situation like this. Right. So instead of messaging with every single one of you individually, I am here once and I'm getting to talk to all of you and connect with all of you. There are a lot of opportunities to optimize what's working, right? So think about that. So I want you to go through your client list, see maybe what are the top one, two or three, depending on how large your client list is. Three things that are actually working, three marketing activities that are actually working. And let's think about how we can optimize those. Right? Lean into those to help you to get to your goal. On that note, so that's really the marketing ROI portion. I really wanted to bring that out because I find that a lot of women that I talk to when I ask them, you know, how do you feel about your marketing? What's working for you? What have you tried? They obviously know what they've tried, but they don't know, don't have a really good understanding of what is working and what's not working in a data format. Right. For example, they may feel like social media is working or they may think that networking is working, but until you have real data, it's not really that useful because oftentimes what happens is we think something's working, but then when we actually look at the numbers, the data behind it, we find that no, it's not true. That's not the thing that's working. It's actually this other thing. So just take the time, tally it up, make sure you know where your clients are coming from. Your business always has wisdom that it wants to share with you. So and the wisdom is usually in the data. So look at the data, see where the clients are coming from, and that will help you to understand where you need to focus. And then. Okay, so our plan then for Q4 is I wanted to share with you how I did my plan. So first of all, because really your success is in your system, right? And so I love having helping my clients create a marketing system because what that does is it makes your marketing very consistent, very predictable, and it builds trust with your audience. It builds that, well, the whole know, like trust factor, but especially the trust part because they see you consistently showing up, they know you are reliable and they continue to hear from you. And so that just increases the chances that they're going to want to work with you at some point. So I like having a system and setting up a system that works for you based on what kind of team you have, how much time you have to devote to your business, to your marketing, what type of activities you like that actually work to bring in business and marketing that supports your sales goal. Right? So that's always number one, is to set the goal. So you can set a monetary goal, you can set a number of clients goal. I always like to talk about monetary goals. And the reason is because every single one of those dollars that comes in to my business and to your business represents a human, another person that was served, that was offered value, that was helped out, that may have experienced a transformation by interacting with you and your business. So that's why I feel like money is a great measurement for our goals. Right? So say, for example, in the fourth quarter of this year, you want to make. I'm just going to pull numbers out of the air. You, you want to make $20,000, right? Or $25,000. Let's say 25,000. So I'll get us if, you know, I guess if all the four quarters are similar, it would get us to 100k. As we all know, the four quarters are usually not similar in our businesses. They are different based on cyclical nature. But for the purpose of this exercise, let's just say you want to make 25k in Q4. So if you want to make 25k in Q4, let's think about what you need to create that. Right? Like how many clients? How many what goes into creating that? That 25k. Is it a number of clients? Is it a number of folks that are paying you? Reoccurring, like reoccurring revenue? So lay out exactly how that could happen. For example, say you have a $2,500 package, your top priced package. So you would need 10 clients, right. For 25,000. I don't know why math is yes, 10 clients. So say you're looking for 10 clients over Q4 and 10 clients that'll pay you $2,500 for your signature service offer. And so then that's your sales goal, Right? So then what is the marketing, what are all the marketing activities that could help you create those 10 clients? What I like to do is I have three aspects to my marketing system and which I teach all of my clients. Number one is to have. What are all the ways that you're going to be bringing in new people into your universe? Right. For me, it's like in person networking, online networking. I hold events. So bringing people into my events. I have a goal of how many people I want to be meeting in a month. So I would suggest that you do that. How many new people do you want to be bringing into your universe each month? So then you set a goal for that and then you have to plan out your activity. So for example, if networking is one of the ways that you meet people, how many networking events do you need to go to? And when you're at those networking events, how many people do you need to connect with? Not that you're going to be selling anything to anybody. I don't suggest going and shoving business cards in people's faces or trying to sell to them when you first meet them. But the purpose of bringing new people into your universe is to build relationships and begin nurturing them. Right? So I have a goal for that. And then number two, I want you to set a goal for your nurture activities. So if you have a balanced marketing plan, you have activities that are going to bring new people into your universe, and then you have activities that are going to nurture those relationships and build those relationships. So I have goals for both of these aspects of my marketing plan. For example, I am obviously on social media like we are right now. Like, you know, so how much do I want to be posting on social media? I have a weekly podcast. And so, you know, what's My goal for putting that out, I do this live broadcast on Friday. So that's part of my nurture activities. I send out email emails during the week. So how many of those? What's my goal for that? And so you're going to have your own nurturing activities and assign goals to those, right? And then the third aspect is making offers. And so you always want to be making offers, but there's some different kinds of offers because we have our one signature. Maybe not. Maybe we have more than one, but we have our services, right? We have our services that people pay us for. So there's a sales process that goes along with that, whether it's, you know, they start out. In my business, you start with a consultation call, right? So that I can offer a consultation call. So that's one kind of offer that I can make. But I also like to suggest that you consider making tiny offers. I like to think of tiny offers that help people along their client journey or their journey to becoming a client of yours. And so there's a lot of little steps they can take along the way to get to know you better. And I see that this is more and more important in our modern or in. In our economy. And the way people are buying consumer behavior this year is really a lot more about creating relationships. And buyers are very savvy and they want to know that what they're getting into is the best thing for them. And so it takes time for people a lot of times to build trust. And so we want to offer them lots of little tiny offers along the way to help them to learn to know, like, and trust you and decide, help them make their own decision if you are the best fit for what they need, right? So tiny offers can include, you know, connecting with me on social, inviting people to connect with you on social, or inviting people to come to a free event that you're having, or, you know, download my freebie, or offering people, here's a free thing that I created for you, or inviting people to a free workshop. Just like I invited many of you to this free workshop, right? Or check out my podcast or, you know what, what are all the tiny little things that you can offer to them? Or maybe you come up with some fun little tool or worksheet or something that you can offer people and just give to them. And those are tiny offers. So I think that it's important to have some tiny offers that you can always be offering based on the audience and who you're talking to. And then obviously you have your main offer and the sales process that's involved with that. So as part of your marketing system, because our success is in the system, right. I want you to set goals for how many offers you're going to be making, also how many tiny offers, how many offers for your main signature service and what's your goal outcome for that. So for me, my goal outcome is creating consults, right. So that I can help people in with their business and talk to them about working with me as a coach, one on one. So set those goals as well. And then what you're going to be doing is evaluating the system. So after you've got the system set up, right? Right. With your new activity, new marketing activities, your nurturing marketing activities, your plans to make offers, then the next step is to evaluate everything. Right? So what I like to do is once a week, usually on Fridays, like today, this afternoon, I will evaluate. So I had a plan, I created a plan for this week, I followed my plan and now I'm going to evaluate how it went, how did it go, what worked, what didn't work, what do I want to change for next week. And so that helps us to continually be learning and growing and improving. And that is how we achieve fast growth and that is also how we achieve our goals. Right. So then what I did also, which I thought was really fun, I haven't really done this. I'm kind of a. Regarding content, I'm kind of a fly by the seat of my pants type person. Like I love to just create content. I it's always coming to me, so I'm just always creating it. But I took a couple days last weekend and went up to the mountains and as I was sitting there thinking about this month and all of the great things that I want to share and teach, I just created an entire month of content. And so as I did, I did that. It's basically just themes that I created, but I did just in my notebook, week one, week two, week three, week four, and then wrote out Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And then I just put in some ideas for each day of the week. And so whether that's an email or post or a live stream like I'm doing now, just all of my ideas for all of those things. So then when the week comes, I have this plan. So all I have to do is, well, and I also have use my calendar. So once I have the plan of all the activities, then I ask myself, how am I going to make the system work? What do I need in order for this to set myself up for success in this system. So for me, I did the content part and then I also have to assign time on my calendar to create the content, right? So then I have the ideas, I have the time laid out on my calendar, then all I have to do is follow the plan. And so I love setting my system up this way because it takes all of the guesswork out of what am I doing. I'm never sitting down at my computer, like, what am I going to do today? Right? It's all planned out and I feel there's a lot of comfort for me in having that plan that my past self set up for me. So then when I sit down in the chair, all I have to do is attend to my thoughts, right? Because the only thing remaining is like the mind drama or the mind melodrama, as a friend of mine says. And so I just have to attend to that. And it helps me to be so much more effective. And when I sit down to work, the time I spend is very, very valuable, right? It's high quality time. I get tons of content created because I'm not spinning in indecision. And what should I do? What should I say? Who am I talking to? It's all planned out. And so that is how the success is in the system, right? That is how the system creates your success. Yes. It's very important to attend to what we're thinking, the energy that we're in. But if we can sit in the knowledge that we have something to offer people and we have something that can help people, and we write down all the ways that we can help people, then we just go out and put that into motion. Right? Let's put that plan into motion. I know that was a lot that I have thrown at you, and I hope this is really helpful and that you are taking notes, have your pen in hand, or however you like to take notes, because this is a system that has really worked for me and has really helped my clients. And I think it really helps to take the drama out of especially marketing. Right? There's so many opportunities for mind drama around marketing, so if we can alleviate some of that for you, I'm all in. I bet you are too. Does anybody have any questions, comments? And if you're watching on the replay, please feel free to put in any questions, comments as well, because all of those come to me even after, obviously after the live is over, I will get notified of any of those. So I am really committed to supporting you and helping you to finish this year strong. And all the content that I am putting out teaching I'm putting out during the month of October is all focused on helping you to get to your goal in Q4. And to that end, if you would like my support and get to speak with me one on one, I have 100% of my brain focused on you and your business and helping you get to your year end goal. And I would love to invite you to a consultation with me. And in that consultation I will help you gain tons of clarity in the marketing aspects of your business, how you're spending your time, your sales process, your client journey, what's going on with your money and how you're feeling about your profitability. Just really help you to dial in your business so you can grow from that 5 figures all the way to 100k and beyond. And I know that I can help you. I have helped dozens of other entrepreneurs and done it myself over and over again and I would love to help you as well. If you want to meet with me one on one, you're always welcome to visit my website, melissamkellog.com or you can just DM me and say let's get together and I will ask you to send me a couple days and times that work for you and we'll get on a call and I would love to learn more about you and your business and help you to grow to whatever level that you want and achieve that financial freedom for yourself and your family. So that's what I have for you today my friends. I hope you have a fabulous rest of your Friday and a great weekend and I will see you back here real soon.

Bye Ladies, I can't believe I'm saying this, but we are nearing our 100th episode. Woohoo. I would love to hear from you. In celebration of our 100th episode, I am wondering if you would share with me a question you would love to ask me or a topic you'd love to hear me cover on the podcast. And I'd love to hear how this podcast has impacted or served you over the last two two years and 100 episodes. So I have a really cool new app that I'm trying, it's called Speak Pipe. And so there's a link to Speak Pipe in the episode description and show notes that you can just click on and it'll take you to Speak Pipe and you can ask a question or suggest a topic that you'd love to hear me cover on the podcast and.

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