20 Marketing Tips Guaranteed to Grow Your New Business (PROVEN & PROFITABLE)
– Started your first business? Trying to figure out what to do next or how to actually get
customers and make sales? Here are 20 marketing tips
to help you get attention and get your business growing, starting with tip number
one, pick your people. (upbeat music)
(padlock pops) Before you even think
about starting to promote whatever product, or service, or offer you're planning on launching, you first need to ask yourself one of the most important questions in all of business, who cares? And why? I guess that's two questions.
You need to be able to answer the question of who are the people that need whatever it is that you're
selling in their life? And what's it gonna do for them? Understanding your audience and the customers you're trying to attract isn't just about knowing
their age, or gender, or geographic location. The real secret to success
here is deep diving into their wants, their
needs, their pains, their habits, their behaviors. It's about making them think, "Wow, did they make this just for me?" See, one of the biggest
secrets in business is that you're often able to
10X your business' profits just by changing to focus
on a different segment of the market, or in other words, changing the people that
you're choosing to serve and sell to.
(padlock pops)
(gentle music) Here's the deal, whether
we like it or not, people do judge a book by its cover. And your business' brand is
that cover that customers see and makes them form an
impression about you, good, bad, or fugly. So it's important to
control the narrative. Take control and decide what kind of image you wanna put forward
right from the start. So ask yourself, is your
business more James Bond or Mr. Bean? Bert or Ernie? Batman or Robin? Catwoman or woman with too many cats? Figure that out because
consistency is key. Each email, tweet, and social media post should sound unmistakably you. (padlock pops)
(gentle music) I love me a good meme. Classic. But social media these
days is so much more than just funny cat videos, or trying to hard sell
someone into buying something. (exciting fanfare) This is why probably the best piece of social media marketing
advice that I can give you when you're just getting
started is to figure out where your ideal customers are
spending their time online, and then dive in there.
Engage, ask questions, answer
questions, start discussions. Social media success today is not about being
everywhere all the time, doing all the things at all
kinds of random locations, and more about being targeted and focused, and spending your time only
where your ideal customers are present and active. (gentle music)
(padlock pops) If there are people out there
actively searching on Google for solutions to a problem
that your business solves then SEO, search engine
optimization, is a powerful tactic. It's the digital equivalent
of placing your store on the busiest street in the city, rather than say in the
middle of the Sahara Desert. Is there a store that
sells water around here? (wind howling) SEO, however, isn't a
one-size-fits-all strategy and there are some markets and industries that are usually too competitive
to justify going after like insurance, and credit
cards, mortgages, real estate.
But if you're in a less
competitive industry, have a local business, or
a niche product or service, then a little bit of SEO
could be your golden ticket. (gentle music)
(padlock pops) Imagine for a second, spending
five years of your life writing the best book that
the world has ever seen, and then taking that
book, putting it in a box, hiding it away in your basement,
never to be seen again. It sounds crazy, right? But that's exactly what happens
when you create content, but then don't do any work to promote it, to share it on social media,
to send it out in an email, or to do anything you can to make sure that people actually see it. There's a saying in marketing
that content is king, but promotion is queen and they rule the kingdom hand in hand. That sounds very poetic. (gentle music)
(padlock pops) Remember when everyone said email is dead? Well, the joke's on
them because even today, in fact, especially today, as more and more people get burned out and jaded on social media, a well-crafted email
can create connections, drive sales, and keep you
top in your customer's mind.
Email is still one of the
highest return on investment producing marketing tools available, but the real power of email is the control that it gives you to reach
your customers directly without hoping, wishing, and praying that the social media algorithms will smile favorably on your content. (gentle music)
(padlock pops) There's a saying in business that goes your net worth is your network, meaning it's about who you know.
It's about connections. And who you know can often
outweigh what you know, especially if you are a good,
kind, hardworking person, because do you know who wants
more of those kind of people in their lives? Yeah, everybody. In the early days, this might mean joining networking groups, attending conferences, or local events, maybe going to seminars, or just reaching out to other people in order to try to provide as much value as you possibly can. If you do this right,
by again, being a good, kind, hardworking person
that genuinely wants to help other people, the
relationships you form here will pay you back 100
if not 1000 times over. (gentle music)
(padlock pops) Feedback can be tough to take sometimes, especially when you're
first getting started, and you've yet to build
up the tough leather skin of a grizzled veteran entrepreneur. But feedback is also often the mirror that shows your businesses true reflection and can serve like free
consulting from your customers. So embrace it, learn from it. Make changes if they make sense and then get back to
work trying to provide the best products or
best services possible.
(gentle music)
(padlock pops) Another important thing
to learn in business is that you can't be
all things to all people all of the time. You need to find your
business' sweet spot, your zone of genius, that area of specialty or expertise that you're able to dominate in, that one area or one thing that you're able to do better than pretty much everyone else. This is what gives your business a unique competitive advantage, something that you're
truly able to excel at that your competitors just can't touch. The good news though is
that when you're clear on what you do and who you do it for, well, for everything else
that someone comes to you for that you just don't want to offer, you're able to make referrals, recommendations, and join
affiliate marketing programs, so you can be compensated for
the work that you pass along.
(gentle music)
(padlock pops) One of the fastest ways
to increase your revenue is to stop looking outwards for
new leads and new customers, and instead, focus inwards
on the existing customers that you already have, and doing everything in your
power to keep them happy, and sticking around for
as long as possible. Studies have shown that increasing
customer retention rates by just 5% increases profits by 25 to 95%. In other words, customer
loyalty is everything, but you can only get there
by making it a priority and building it right into
your core business model.
(gentle music)
(padlock pops) Ever heard of the Titanic? They said it was unsinkable
and then it sank. Point is even the best can fail. So while you definitely
don't wanna spread yourself way too thin, you do
always wanna make sure to diversify your marketing strategies to safeguard against unpredictable shifts in the market or customer behavior, or literally the million other things that could and probably will change. This is another reason
I like email marketing as it puts you in control, rather than the social media algorithms, but we already talked about that, so let's keep moving
with this next step tip. (gentle music)
(padlock pops) If a picture is worth a thousand words then a video is worth a million words, maybe more. This isn't to say that
text, and audio, and images no longer work, it's just that for most people, most places, most of the time, video works better,
like a whole lot better. Whether you're recording a product demo, a behind-the-scenes look at your business, or a fun introduction, or
educational piece of content, video allows you to deliver
more information faster and in a format that both your audience and the algorithms absolutely love.
(gentle music)
(padlock pops) The key to marketing success
is to be able to put in $1 and get back two, or five, or 10. Like a moneymaking machine, your marketing needs to deliver results. Otherwise, what's the point? But the only way to do this consistently is to know your numbers. This means tracking and monitoring where your customers are coming from, understanding what they
buy, when, and how much, and assigning values to
each marketing activity your business engages in so you can track what's working and what's not.
(gentle music)
(padlock pops) If you're just getting started or struggling to figure out
what your next best move is, then one of the best things you can do is simply take a look around and see what other people are doing. Not to copy them exactly. That's unethical, often illegal, and completely ineffective as the best that you can hope for is coming off as a second
rate copycat version of them. But for ideas, inspiration,
and to help you map out a competitive position in the marketplace. For example, if they're
slow, you could be fast. If they're cheap, you could be expensive. If they're full serve, you
could be completely automated. Do it yourself. Or you could just try to
do whatever they're doing a little bit better by
adding some other element that they may not have thought of before.
Every business has to make trade-offs in their business model, choosing to prioritize
one thing over another. And it's in these trade-offs
and in these sacrifices that there are unique
opportunities for you to excel at, capitalize on, and carve out your own unique
position in the market. (gentle music)
(padlock pops) One of my favorite definitions
of entrepreneurship is that entrepreneurs solve problems for a profit.
(cash register dings) Solve a big problem, make a lot of profit,
(cash register dings) Solve a big problem for a lot of people, make a lot more profit.
(cash register dings) Solve a big problem for a lot of people who need that problem solved right now, well, make a whole lot more profit, and make it a whole lot more quickly. One of the biggest mistakes
most new business owners make is trying to solve a problem that nobody really cares
that much to solve, or trying to overhype
and oversell something in completely the wrong way. And whenever I see that happen, this line from the late
great comedian Mitch Hedberg always pops into my mind.
– I saw a commercial that said
forget everything you know about slip covers, so I did. (audience laughing) – It's not that you can't
sell something boring like slip covers, or plumbing services, or industrial insurance, it's just that you need
to position it in a way so that your marketing
talks about how your offer is designed to solve a very real problem that people actually have
and actually care about. (gentle music)
(padlock pops) In the beginning do your best
to connect with other brands, businesses, and influencers. This isn't quite like networking where the goal is to forge relationships, but rather to form collaborations, business partnerships where
you're both working together towards some kind of common goal, a shared webinar, a guest blog
post, or a mutual shout out, or collaboration can go a long
way into helping each other by tapping into each other's audiences.
The key here though, especially when you're
first getting started is to be realistic and aim to find people at about the same level as you, so that you're able to offer mutually beneficial
relationships and collaborations. (gentle music)
(padlock pops) One of the most valuable things you can do in your business journey
is spend time learning the proven marketing
principles, fundamentals, and strategies that were
just as relevant, 10, 20, even 100 years ago as they are today, and that are going to be just as important 100 years from now. Side note here, but this
is what Marketing Insiders is all about. So I'll make sure to put a
link up here on the screen, as well as down in the
descriptions below this video, so you can check it out
after if you're interested.
And these principles are so
important and so profitable because they're based on
psychology and human behavior. And we as humans really
haven't changed all that much in the past tens of thousands of years. We still avoid pain, seek pleasure, and do whatever we can to make sure that we feel safe and
accepted by those around us. That said, the platforms, channels, and technologies we use
to communicate all of this is dramatically different today than ever before in history. And it doesn't look like things are ever gonna be slowing down. So to stay on top of changes and trends, make sure to subscribe
to marketing newsletters, attend webinars, and always,
always keep learning. (gentle music)
(padlock pops) Every business has something
called a marketing funnel. Sometimes it's called a sales funnel. Sometimes it's called a customer journey. But they're all pretty
much the same thing, which is the process of taking someone who has no idea who you are and has never heard of you before, and guiding them through
the entire process of becoming a lifelong loyal
customer that loves you, loves what you do, and wants
to tell everyone they know about just how great you are.
And you are pretty great. So if you want your marketing
to work better, faster, and be more profitable
than you've ever imagined then you need to grease that funnel good. Every click, every page, every step should be completely seamless, removing as much friction
as you possibly can. The goal here is to make
it as easy as possible for your customer to take the next step and to be able to actually
buy something from you without running into
roadblock after roadblock that causes them to get frustrated, give up, and go to your
competitors instead.
(gentle music)
(padlock pops) Today's customers have
heard it all, seen it all, and have been burned by maybe
not it all, but lots of it, certainly enough times to
be more jaded, skeptical, and cynical than ever before. This is why big over-hyped promises and unbelievable claims
and spammy, scammy, icky feeling marketing
isn't good for anybody. The alternative then is
to be genuine, be real, be authentic in your
marketing, on social media, and in your conversations with customers. People have kind of a sixth sense for detecting sketchy stuff, so never be afraid to be
your true, awesome self. (gentle music)
(padlock pops) Even the best and most
compelling marketing messages in the entire world are rarely
a one and done type of thing. One of the biggest reasons that so many businesses'
marketing completely fails is that they're simply
not doing enough of it or not doing it for long enough. You don't just send one single email, or write one single social media post and be completely done, make billions of dollars
and retire to the beach.
On average, and depending
on what business, market, or industry you're in, you typically need around seven
to 14 different touch points or interactions with a customer in order to get them to make a purchase. Of course, there is a right
way and a wrong way to do this. The wrong way means wasting
your time, and money, and energy, and making all
of your customers angry in the process. (trumpets blowing)
Yay, business. But the right way, that means more leads, more customers, and more sales.
So to show you how to
do things the right way, I've linked up a video right
here that's gonna give you some of my best and most
profitable marketing strategies. So make sure to tap or click that now and I'll see you in
there in just a second..
