My Marketing Isn’t Working And I Don’t Know Why!?! – Answers Revealed

written by MO.com Subject Matter Resource Mike Lieberman

The days when you could post a company website, hire an SEO expert, or run a monthly email campaign and consider that marketing is over. If your marketing strategy isn’t integrated it is bound to fail.

Here are six ways your marketing strategy must be tied together. These critical strategy components are required to create the connections between the different elements of a sound Reality Marketing based marketing strategy.

1. Messaging, Differentiation and Planning – This MUST come first. Who do you want to talk to? What do you have to say to get their attention? What stories do they need to hear? What are you telling them is remarkable about your business? This all has to be created, planned, and written down as part of your playbook for the next 6 to 12 months.

This step isn’t easy and that’s why most business owners skip it, but it is, by far, the most important. Without it, you have no plan, no guidelines, no expectations, and nothing to measure against when you start spending money on individual tactics.

If you aren’t comfortable creating this on your own and you don’t have anyone in your company who is capable of creating a plan like this, strongly consider bringing in an expert, firm, or freelance resource to create this plan.

2. Find out Where Your Target Prospects are Hanging Out – This is called Sourcing. What websites do your prospects visit? What email lists are they subscribing to? What blogs do they read? What videos are they watching? What content are they downloading? The answers to these questions help you identify the places you need to promote your content and the places your business must be seen.

This is more important than ever. Research shows that 25% of purchase decisions start with an internet search. Your prospects are online. They are reading blogs, emails, visiting websites, checking out reviews, watching videos and looking for your Facebook page.

The best marketing matches the buyer behavior. To match your buyer behavior with your marketing you must find out where they spend their time online and make sure you are part of that online conversation.

 

3. Create the Content and Offers that get them to Convert – Now that you know who they are and where they are, you can create the Trio of Offers™ (No Risk, Low Risk, and Direct Business Offers) that gets them to raise their hand and identify themselves. Without the Offers you miss certain types of prospects. Without the right kind of content like eBooks, videos, webinars, or white papers you might also miss certain types of prospects.

You need to tailor your content and offers to your targeted prospects on a very personal level. Remember that buyer behavior has changed. People are looking for content to connect them with your company. They want companies who educate and advise, instead of trying to sell. If you give them information and help them make an educated decision, they will turn to your company before your competitors.

4. Use Customized Landing Pages to Help Prospects Feel Connected – Personalizing a visitor’s experience goes a long way to making them feel safe with your company. The faster you can get a prospect to know, like and trust your business, the faster you can get them to be a new customer.

Knowing how to talk to them on your site, while they are downloading a Free Report or watching a video with a customized landing page directly impacts your conversion rate significantly. This has to be thought through in advance and be part of your marketing and sales strategic plan.

5. Website Design Must Be Connected to this Change in Strategy – How you design your website must evolve from a static brochure to an interactive and personalized experience. Your visitors need personalized content all through their website experience. They also need a variety of media including video and interactive pages to help them engage with your company.

This approach to website design must be integrated into your content, sourcing, and conversion strategy. You have to know what content you want to offer on your home page, on your secondary pages. How are you going to ensure that new visitors identify themselves and become “friends” of your company?

Your visitors spend a measly 10 seconds on your home page before they decide whether to look around or hit the back button. Your site has to grab their attention, offer the something of value and emotionally connect with them, all in just 10 seconds. Make sure this is all thought out before you start any website redesign project.

6. Connection to Sales – In case we forget the ultimate goal is to drive leads for the sales team. So the previous five components must tee up the lead for sales to simply continue the process of working prospects through getting to know, like and trust your company. The content you created in Step 3 continues to reinforce why your firm is the only company to do business with.

If you take this approach your social media, website, lead generation, and content strategies become integrated, efficient, and highly connected. The result is an immediate impact on your sales leads and close rate.

To learn how to get the most out of your marketing and really drive leads and sales at your company, click here to download our eBook – A Guide For Entrepreneurs: Strategy Before Tactics. In this eBook you will see firsthand how to think about your marketing before you start working on your website.