MBA861 A Marketing Strategy That Works & How To Do It

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Hey O. Welcome. Welcome to the $100 MBA show, the business podcast that helps you build your business with real world business lessons to the point, practical and actionable. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the Hundred Dollar MBA and Webinar Ninja. And in today's lesson we're going to be talking about marketing. Not just any old marketing, but marketing that works. And I'll show you how to do it. We get emails from listeners all the time and most of the emails we get deal with marketing challenges. You create your product, you launch your business and you hope for the best. But unfortunately the customers don't come rolling in, you're at a loss and you feel like, I don't know how to market this thing, I don't know how to get eyeballs on my product. If you're in that situation, the good news is you're not alone. It's very common. The bad news is if you don't do something about this quickly, your business will be over soon. And I say this in all seriousness, if you don't sell, if you don't actually sell your products, you're going to be out of business. I know that's some real hard truth at the top of the episode, but you didn't come to this podcast and mess around. But don't worry, you can make it happen if you have the right marketing strategy. And that's what we're going to be talking about today, creating a marketing strategy that works. Now, if you're listening to this and you don't have a product yet and you haven't created your business in any shape or form, you're in luck. It's good to start. Now. This strategy should be implemented even before you even have a product. You see, marketing is basically your way to communicate with your audience, talking to the right people. And that communication should happen even before you have a product so you know which product you should create or how to create your product. Ideally, you want to create a product that fits your audience perfectly. It's a lot easier to sell a product that's a no brainer. After all, the business mastermind Peter Drucker once said that the sole purpose of a business is is two things, marketing and innovation. And they go hand in hand. Creating an innovative product requires you to talk to your audience so you can create something that they need. He says marketing and innovation produces actual results. Everything else is just costs. And I love this quote because it's so true. If you've been in business at any time, you know that if you create a great product and you market it properly, you cannot lose. Now, if you already have a product, you already created your product, it's okay. You can improve upon your product through communication with your audience and through what you learn through this marketing strategy. So if you're at a loss, if you're frustrated, if you're saying to yourself, man, I don't know how to market this thing, I need more business, I need more sales, I need more customers, then pump up the volume because you're really going to benefit from today's episode. All about a marketing strategy I want to give to you that really works, that has worked for us and how to do it. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. The marketing strategy I will be sharing with you today is tried and true, not only in my business, but in many successful businesses that I've worked with I know personally and big brands you use every day. Now you might be asking, if this marketing strategy works so well, why doesn't everybody just use it? That's a good question. And the answer is simple. It takes work. And that's why I want to start with that. The marketing strategy I'm going to be sharing with you today is going to Take work, it's going to take some time, it's going to take some elbow grease, but it works. And, and not only in the short term, but in the long term. So you're investing in the marketing of your business. There's nothing better to invest in. Now, the center point of this strategy is content. And when I say content, this comes in different forms. It depends on what you feel comfortable with. You can write blog posts, you can create videos, you can have a podcast, you can create infographics, you can do all of them. But the key word of this marketing strategy is strategy. You can't just create content after content and just fill the Internet with information if there's no strategy behind it. It's not really the amount of content you put out there, but really how it intertwines, how it actually works with your business, how it carries your audience member, your potential customer by the hand through a journey so they can understand what you're all about, the benefits of your products and services and how they really, really can benefit from it, and that's how they become a customer. But many people, when they hear about content marketing and think, okay, great, I'll just write blog posts every day, or I'll start a daily podcast, or I'm going to be on YouTube constantly, or I'm going to be doing a webinar every week, all that stuff is great. But you're really shooting yourself in the foot if there's no strategy behind it. Because what happens there is that people consume the content and they don't do anything after that. There is no next step, and therefore you lose them. Now, they may convert as a customer, I'm saying that having content is, you know, not helpful at all. Because they might be so enthused by what you give and the content's so great that they'll check you out and become a customer. But that's an edge case. That's not really typically how people get converted into customers. You gotta build a relationship. You gotta build trust. You gotta buy yourself some time so you can convince them what you have to offer them is perfect for them and that they can really use it. So throughout today's lesson, I'm gonna go through how to build a great content marketing strategy. So you could take somebody from not knowing anything about you or your business or your products to knowing a lot about your products and services, knowing how it's a good fit for them, how they can use it, and really just kind of fall in love with what you offer, they become a customer and that kind of customer that has gone through that process is more likely to stay with you for a lot longer than somebody who just stumbled upon you, gave you a shot and then just completely forgot about you. Look at the products that you have, the subscriptions you have, you've built a relationship throughout the years with them. I look at something like Spotify. I learned about them on a blog and then I checked them out. I was on their free plan, I consumed their product, I got to know them, I read their newsletter, and then I upgraded to the premium. And I feel like, yes, I made the right choice because I got to know how to use the product, the benefits of it over, you know, another competitor or buying music. And right now I can't think of a reason to cancel Spotify anytime in the near future. It's a no brainer purchase for me. Now I am convinced that this is something that I want and something that I can use. That's the kind of customer you want every single time. And this is what this content marketing strategy is going to do for you. Now I'm going to sprinkle in some examples throughout the lesson on how we implement this strategy in our own business. Now, most people would think that this strategy would start with content, like first create some content so you can start that relationship. Well, actually, it doesn't start with content. It starts with the audience. You have to understand your audience at least a little bit before you write your first piece of content. You got to know who you're talking to, what their pains are, what their problems are, what they're struggling with, what they're seeking, what they're looking for. If you can address these things, if you can know these things and address them, you're going to have a better chance of, you know, keeping their attention and getting them to take action on the next step after they consume that piece of content. We'll talk about that in a second. So step one is get to know your audience, whatever market you're in. And there's so many ways you can do this. You can join Facebook groups or forums. You could go on Amazon and read the reviews of books about your topic. So for example, if you're a golf instructor, that's your business, you give golf lessons. So for example, if you're a golf instructor and you give golf lessons online, go on to Amazon, take a look at the how to books on golf. Look at the three star reviews. That's a really good gauge because five star is kind of the other extreme of, you know, I'm super Happy with this book. I have no complaints. I have no feedback. And one star is usually a hater. Three stars. Somebody's going to find value in the book. But also have some critical feedback that you can learn from. What are people hungry for? What are they seeking out in that book that they didn't get? You could provide that in your content. Same thing with those forums and groups I talked about. What are people talking about? What are their questions they're asking? Spend a week on research and make as many notes as possible. Now, you can initiate this process by running a live webinar, asking your crowd, hey, crowd, I'm opening up a live Q and A webinar to answer any of your questions or any of your struggles in golf and take note of all the questions that get asked. Or are people struggling with their putting? Are they struggling with the mental part of the game? Do they need more coaching or more drills? What do they need? What are they looking for? For us at Webinar Ninja, a few years ago, we started a Facebook group on webinars to learn more about people, ask them questions, see what they're struggling with. We did a lot of Q and A webinars as well. To get a feel of the audience, what they're struggling with. We also run surveys. Now, if you have an existing audience, this is great to kind of give them that survey, but you can also give that survey to those people on social media in those groups. Ask everybody who attends your webinar to take the survey. We use a tool called Survey Gizmo. We really highly recommend it. But the point is that you want to spend some time learning about your audience before you start creating content. Now, don't spend too much time. Put a time limit. Like I said, a week. Spend a week on doing research. Now, once you've got a feel of your audience, and hopefully you're a member of that audience so you have some idea of the struggles that are involved in your marketplace. You're gonna wanna create regular content. The key word here is regular. You gotta put yourself on a schedule. Now, I wanna pause for a second. And you might be asking yourself, what does writing blog posts or creating podcast episodes do for my business? Why am I creating content every single week? Cause you're gonna ask yourself that question when things get tough. Well, there's several reasons for this. Let me start with a very practical reason, one that maybe will drive home immediately. People are searching for things. People are searching for questions. People are searching for, how do I improve my golf game? How do I run Better webinars. How do I plan a trip to Europe under $2,000? Where are they putting these questions? They're putting them in Google, of course. Right. Search engines. And if you have a piece of content that addresses that, if it's a valuable piece of content, Google will rank you for it because you serve that search. And that's how you get found, whether that's a blog post, a podcast episode, a video, whatever. Now, don't worry about all the SEO stuff you have to do in that whole world. Just write a great piece of content and Google will do the rest. For now, that's a different topic, SEO. But if you write a great piece of content that people really enjoy that find value in it, they're gonna share it. And the SEO is pretty much done for you. If you just do that, that's 80% of the value right there of your SEO. But that's the power of content. Now, if you do it regularly, you're just investing in your marketing constantly. Now, the reason why you have to do it regularly also is because this takes time, not only indexing and ranking well on Google, also for people to recognize who you are and find out who you are. So this is not gonna happen overnight. You know, you're not gonna write one blog post and your business is gonna go gangbusters. I have to mention there are blog posts that I wrote about four years ago that now get a lot of traction. Now, I'm not saying your blog posts are gonna take four years to get traction. What I'm saying is that it's not an exact science. Your job is to produce the content regularly so you can make sure the content's out there. But in practical terms, by creating regular content, you increase the chances of being heard. Now, Google also favors people that publish regularly. So for example, if you publish a blog post on your blog every week, Google recognizes that this website is publishing regularly. And it's going to value your ranking, and it's going to value that and going to consider that in your ranking when people search for the terms of your blog posts. Now that's the practical reason why you should do it. Here are some other reasons. You need time to get good at content marketing. You need more at bats. You need more chances, more reps for you to really improve, whether that's your writing or your on camera presence or being on the mic like a podcast like this. I mean, if I listen to episode one of the Hunter Olympier show, I probably can't get through the first minute. I'm cringing the whole way. But that's okay. That means I've improved. That means that the show's improved and you gotta allow yourself time to improve. I mean, this is episode 861. You better believe that after 860 times, I'll be better at this. So by doing it regularly, it allows you to improve your craft. It also helps you know your audience better and know your subject matter better. The more you write about it, the more you talk about it, the more content you create about it, the more of an expert you become. This is so important. You got to feel confident. You got to know your subject matter like the back of your hand. Not only that, when you become known for the content you create, you become a subject matter expert, which makes you somebody that others want to know or have on their podcast or have on their video show or have on their blog. So creating content regularly is important. Now you have to set what regularly means. Now, if you're just getting started, you have no content on your website. You're going to have to make up some ground. So you may want to go for a sprint your first month, whether that's creating three pieces of content a week or a piece of content every day, depending on your time schedule, depending on how much time you have, you want to go for a sprint your first month so you can get as many pieces of great pieces of content out the door. After the sprint, you're going to have to have a regular schedule, whether that's weekly or twice a week, whatever it is, you have to set that up. Now, I use Google Calendar to set my scheduling, my publishing schedule. I use a different color and it's easy to do. When it's in the calendar, it usually gets done, or at least you're aware when it's not done, to move it to the next day, you gotta have a publishing schedule, whatever it is. Now you're creating regular pieces of content, whether that's a blog, video, you get it. Now, every piece of content you create, these regular pieces of content, you have to. You have to have a call to action at the end. Every time you communicate with your audience, you have to take them by the hand and tell them what's next, what to do next. And in this call to action, what you want to do here is take them to the next step. Now, the next step is not buy because they just read one article. What it really should be is what's called a content upgrade. So let me give you a real example of how to implement this content upgrade to A piece of content. This week we're going to be shooting a whole new video for our whole new website and blog for Webinar Ninja. And this video is all about how to choose the right mic for your webinars. It's not a long video, it's about two to three minutes. And it's going to be posted on our website with a small blog post explaining the video. For those who prefer to read, then watch the video. But at the bottom of the post or at the end of the post, we're gonna have a content upgrade. We're gonna ask them for their name and email address or just their email. It's up to you. And in exchange, we're gonna give them a piece of content that's related to that post that's really gonna help them take it to the next level. Now, this content upgrade could be a shopping list, you know, a list of the choices of mice you can use. It could be an installation guide, how to install a mic to use for your webinar. It can also be a guide on how to use the mic, how close you should be to the mic, where is it in the frame of the picture, all that kind of stuff. The point is, is that we're taking them to the next level. And in order for them to go to the next level, all they gotta do is give their name and email address, or just their email address. In exchange, we will give them this guide. Now, what this does is that puts this person on our email list and allows us to continue to give them value. At this point, before they opt into this, you know, content upgrade, there's just a visitor on the website. And in order for me to get them to the next level, the next step of my content marketing strategy, I need them to opt into my list so I can give them more value, higher value. I'll tell you about that in the next step. So put a content upgrade, put an opt in at the bottom of every piece of content you produce. So really, when you create a piece of content, you're creating two pieces of content, the content itself and the content upgrade. Now, once you've given them that content upgrade and they're on your email list, your content marketing strategy does not end, it's just beginning. Your next step is to up the ante, to give them even a higher value piece of content than that blog post and that free little guide or, you know, content upgrade. You want to improve your relationship with them. You want to take the relationship to the next level, you want to prove to them that your products, your services and you as a brand, as a business is here in their best interest, you're there to serve them. And the best way to do this is to give them more value. Now you could do this by giving them a course, like a mini course. It could be like a four part video course that really drives home, you know, how to improve in an area or how to address a certain pain point in that market. It could be a template, it could be a checklist, it could be something really something that they're looking for. It could be an open Q and a webinar where they get to ask questions directly to you. Now that you have them on your email list, you can do that and you can automate this whole process by having an automation process through your email marketing service. So as soon as they opt in, you give them the actual, you know, content upgrade and then you trigger your email marketing service to give them that higher value. At some point, whether that's a day after, two days after, and then after that you can invite them to a webinar or you can have a Q and a webinar with them so they can ask you questions directly, build that relationship. Now at this point you might be saying, well, I'm giving away all this stuff, all this information, I'm putting all this work involved. When do I sell to them? Well, that's a good question. And you could do this at different times in the process as well as in different forms. You can do a very soft sell at the bottom of your emails. Not maybe your first email, but maybe your third email where it says, hey, by the way, here's our products and services, here's what we offer. You may want to focus in on one product. You could check it out here and it could just be like a two line PS Just so they know that you have something for sale if they're interested. But in my experience, I find that after a few pieces of content, two or three pieces of content, I can invite them to a webinar. Now, I'm not pushing webinars on you because I have a webinar software. Webinars are proven to convert very well because people can ask questions, they can get their, you know, rebuttals answered, they can get clarifications, you know, things like that. It's a very interactive medium and it's a great way for you to offer something for sale. And you want to make it very clear to people on the email, hey, I'm going to be doing a demo of this product. That we have for sale. This is your chance to ask any questions you have. So if you're interested in buying this product, here is a time to learn about it. So they're going in knowing you're going to talk about the product, that you're going to be selling this product. There's no if, ands or buts about it. I like that transparency. I like the fact that you're getting in front of it. It's better for you to do that rather than say, hey, we're going to do a workshop, and the workshop turns into a sales pitch. Be honest, be transparent. And there's nothing wrong with combining the two by saying, hey, we're going to be doing a workshop. But the end of the workshop, I'm going to be presenting this great product that we have and we're going to do a special offer. You might think, well, maybe that will deter people. Well, it's not about the numbers, it's not about the quantities, but the quality of the people you want. People that want to be there, that want to learn more, that are interested in buying. Now, I've given you, you know, one path of the customer. The customer read your blog post. They took the content upgrade, they went to your Q and A webinar, they took your free course. Now they're on the webinar about your product, and they become a customer. That's one path. Now, remember, you're still creating regular content. You're not stopping the creation. So you'll have a content upgrade for different pieces of content. Now, mind you, I just outlined one path. And what you want to do is you want to cater that path based on how they got into your actual strategy, how they got into your actual quote, unquote, funnel. I don't like this word, but it's commonly used where people actually go through a path. And what you want to do is you want to give them that value based on how they got in, because this is what they're interested in. In my case, it's choosing the right mic for your webinar. I'll be giving them more, you know, the content upgrade is more information about how to install their mic. I might do a demo or do a Q and A on cameras and mics on a webinar. So the topic is about why they opted in. And it's one path, but there are other paths. You want to make sure you tailor your marketing strategy for each person that comes in or the people that come in for different reasons.

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Now to wrap up today's lesson, the final ingredient is making sure that you custom tailor the journey for every person that comes into. Now this all can be done in an automated fashion, but you have to write the emails in advance and then automate them. And you can do this with our sponsors day constant contact as this is a standard thing on all email marketing providers. Now what you want to do is use a tagging system. So in the example of me creating a video, a post on how to choose the right mic for your webinar, I have the content upgrade and they opt in, they go into my email list to get that content upgrade. Now I tell my email marketing provider, hey, tag this person when they come onto my email list as the person that signed up for this post for this content upgrade. So I might put a tag called choosing a mic. Now I know that tag is attached to that email. I know that that person has come into my email list via that content upgrade. That's what they're interested in. And therefore anybody with that tag will get a different sequence, a different automation that's tailored to that topic, that's tailored to those needs. So next time I create another post, my next post will be how to field questions on a webinar. I'll have a content upgrade for that and I'll tag that person that comes into my email list through that content upgrade as fielding questions and they'll get a different series of emails. Now what this does is that you're actually treating each of your customers, each of the people that come into your email list as an individual. You're giving them what they need and what they want Instead of just giving them random posts or random videos, now they want other subject matter. If they want other things that you're writing about, they can always go to your blog. They can always check out your other articles. So don't think that you're limiting yourself or limiting your customers to the content. What you're doing is you're creating a tailored journey. This is going to cultivate a better customer, a more interested customer, somebody who feels that they're being taken care of. And best when you do get on that webinar with them, you know the audience you're talking to, the people have come in via a certain way you've tagged them. Remember, you know why they came into your list. So you know the issues that they have or the challenges you're having. And you can address them directly. And they can feel like, hey, this person speaks my language. They know exactly why I'm part of this, why I've opted in. Now, what this requires you to do is to create a sequence of emails for every opt in. Now you might think, wow, that's a lot of work. Well, the thing is that you just have to create a template and modify the template. So once you do your first sequence, you can take those emails and modify them based on the content or the reason why they came into your actual email list. And some of these emails are going to be the same, meaning that there's an email usually that we send out to everybody, no matter how they came in, talking about why we started Webinar Ninja. What Webinar Ninjas all about, what our mission is, the story behind the founders, how we want to make your webinars better, and with no worries. So that's an email that I don't have to write or rewrite over and over. It's something that everybody's going to get. The invite to the webinar, it's going to be pretty same. I'm going to change, you know, the title of the webinar as well as the link. But you get the point. Once you've done your first sequence, it's fine. Now remember, in all of this, you're not stopping content creation. You're continuing to create your regular content on your publishing schedule, and people are coming in in different ways. Remember at the start of this episode, I said this is gonna be a lot of work. It is, but it works because it's a strategy. You're just not creating content after content. You're creating content that leads to a content upgrade, which leads them into your list for a certain reason, you nurture that person for those reasons, give them more value, give them higher value, give them time through a webinar, a Q and a webinar and then you can actually offer them a product or a service that's perfect for them. And you can tailor that webinar where you give that demo to those types of people. So if the people that I'm doing the webinar for are more interested in the tech behind webinars, then I'm going to focus in on that when I'm on the webinar. But if I'm doing a webinar for people that have opted in for articles or content upgrades about the content of webinars, how to deliver a great workshop, your camera presence, how to teach better, that's my focus on the webinar. Then of course on the webinar, if they have questions in other areas, I can answer them. But you could see how this strategy is a lot more targeted and more effective. Now I've said this so many times on other podcasts. It's not about the volume of people that come into your list, it's how effective your actual strategy is and your conversion. If I get a hundred people on my list and I can convert 30% of them into customers, that's better than having a thousand and only be able to convert 20. My conversion rate is lousy in that second example. So increase your conversion rate by tailoring each actual opt in, each subscriber that comes into your list. That's the strategy that works, that I know works and I know that you can put into place in your own business, whether you have a product already or you're creating one right now. So let's just recap real quick. Number one, know your audience. Spend time to research your audience. Get on forms, create forms. Create groups on Facebook, do a webinar, ask questions, create surveys. Get to know who you're talking to, their pain points, their issues, what they'd like. Read Amazon reviews. Remember we talked about the book reviews, the three star reviews. Number two, create regular content. Have a publishing schedule. If you're just getting started, go for a sprint the first month. Increase that you know the regularity of the production of your content. Number three, make sure that every piece of content has a content upgrade, has a way to actually take them to the next level and get them on your email list. Number four, create that automation sequence for each opt in so everybody gets tailor made information and value and then you eventually can invite them to a webinar or you can Make a sales pitch to them via email again saying that, hey, I've been, you know, helping you out through this topic. This product will really help you out in these ways. That wraps up today's lesson. Thank you so much for joining me on today's deep dive lesson on how to create a marketing strategy that works. I want to thank you all personally for your amazing, amazing support leaving us ratings and reviews on itunes. We just hit 800 reviews on the US iTunes store. We surpassed a thousand internationally, which is incredible. Thank you so much, guys. I say guys but I really mean guys and gals. You wonderful men and women out there learning how to build the business. You want your doers, your go getters. You're my kind of people. Thank you so much. But if you haven't left this a itunes rating interview, you could do that right now. Just go to iTunes, search us $100 MBA and leave us a rating interview. It takes two minutes. If you want the full instructions, just go to100nba.net show all right, that's it for me today. But before I go, I want to leave you with this. Marketing is something you're going to have to do always. In your business, you never stop marketing. So it's good to have this routine. It's good to have a strategy that you can just follow so you're not racking your brain how to market every single day. You have a strategy now follow through. Do it and you won't regret it. All right, I'll check you in next week's episode. I'll see you then. Take care. Of.

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