There’s a consistent theme in the lives of many— if not most—entrepreneurs; you get to the point where you’ve successfully started your business and enjoyed some success, and even though your focus is still on growth, it may feel more like an uphill battle. For many it’s lacking the tech savvy necessary to implement or upgrade strong digital marketing strategies that prevents them from getting to the next level.
Sometimes a fresh perspective is what’s needed, to see the growth potential hiding in plain sight; a product line that needs fine tuning, positioning and marketing strategies that need to change, places where additional team members could maximize opportunities…making the right small tweaks can make a big impact.
The ability to hit “cruise control” is not an option for most business owners and for the true entrepreneur, scaling up is always the goal.
I’ve been advising and mentoring entrepreneurs and small business owners on growing their companies for the last ten years (in addition to building two multi-million dollar businesses in the service industry myself) and a common challenge I see is that they’re often missing the marketing strategy awareness and support they need in order to achieve tangible income growth. Often, they don’t know where to start and sometimes feel like they need to make heavy investments to get it right. My work includes providing strategies that are designed specifically to help small business owners and entrepreneurs overcome any hurdles about communicating value to clients and strengthening their message, using digital marketing tools and strategies that even a novice can master.
There are a few simple suggestions I’ve given to clients wrestling with digital marketing principles that I’d like to share with anyone wondering what steps to take next, to scale up to the next level with their business…
DON’T stop at awareness.
Awareness is just the beginning of a customer journey. If you don’t know what a customer journey truly means— from awareness to fan— you can’t create it.
You may have a lot of traffic, but if you aren’t converting at a high rate, you need to look at your strategy, and how you address the points in between first contact and closing the deal.
Get to know your ideal clients and understand what value you add to their lives. Plug that information into your messaging, pinpoint what sets your service apart and turn brand awareness into a loyal customer base with targeted messaging in your next campaign. It’s about building a relationship with the reader by telling stories that evoke emotion in order to create interest in desire for your services. Even if you’re already doing a great job at promotion, honing your storytelling is the next level of success.
DO learn to automate marketing…and understand the data it yields.
Manually guiding digital marketing leads to inconsistencies and a lack of control in driving numbers and prospects. If you don’t learn to automate your marketing strategy, you won’t have the data you need to predict when and where you’ll find new clients. You’re waiting instead of making things happen. Not to mention the tedious long hours of work you are investing when your online marketing could all be running on autopilot for you!
Online marketing tools that aid in automation don’t have to be expensive. Cost depends on your business needs and scale, but you can easily find tools costing as little as $20-90 a month. There’s a viable entry point for everyone.
Analyzing the data you get through the analytics available to you through automated online marketing is one of the single biggest advantages that digital marketing offers. Where are you hitting goals? Where are you falling short?
I had a client who is an executive mindset coach based in NYC, who had a lot of challenges with marketing and cultivating quality leads— she was mostly depending on referrals and old-school networking. I helped automate her marketing and achieved results that increased her monthly revenue significantly. We created an automated customer journey that sends targeted leads from Facebook Ads to an automated and pre-recorded online workshop. This 50-minute workshop pre-sells her leads and positions her expertise while building trust and relationships with her leads. The call to action on this workshop is a private consultation with my client.
After the workshop, leads are followed up with an email sequence that includes videos, articles, and blog posts, all leading back to a consultation with my client. This automated customer journey books between 10 and 20 highly qualified consultations per week and it all happens on autopilot. Within 6 months, this client tripled her revenue without spending more time manually marketing her business.
This is just an example of one potential customer journey. Our clients use assessments, video series, workshops, and more to create tailored marketing campaigns that match their niche and ideal clients perfectly.
DO embrace scaling up.
There can be an element of concern about increasing business…get comfortable with the idea of growth. Even a very small business can implement a sophisticated marketing strategy by developing a customer journey and investing in automation to assist in the strategy’s execution— you have the potential to increase your production and income, no matter how modest your starting point.
Automating digital marketing frees up your time and creates stability— it’s a recipe for improvement in many areas. Many people are uncomfortable with the idea of enormous success (often women in particular), but your growth and prosperity are good on several fronts. Embrace the notion that scaling up elevates not just you, but your family and the team members you employ.
Carolin Soldo is an award-winning coach who has advised and helped nurture businesses to a higher state of growth for the last decade through marketing strategies and programs designed to foster sustainable expansion. Click here to find out more about her virtual one-day Online Marketing Bootcamp for entrepreneurs and small business owners on October 26, and visit carolinsoldo.com to learn more about her programs for entrepreneurs and companies eager to scale up.