The best consultative salespeople I know tell me that sales calls are not about us. The time is all about meeting the needs and expectations of the buyer.
I launched my digital marketing company because there simply isn’t a better way to reach so many, so quickly, for so little. When we develop sales campaigns for our clients, it is quite exciting to have the flexibility to make continuous changes and strategic adjustments that turn a so-so campaign into a game-changer.
The potential is staggering!
- Google receives over 63,000 searches per second or 5,4 billion searches every day.
- Over 3.2 billion people spend an average of 2 ½ hours each day on social media.
- Each day over 5 billion videos will be watched on YouTube.
For any serious business owner, consultant, psychologist, social entrepreneur, budding celebrity, or change-the-world voice, your success, will be based on how many people you reach in an eye-blink. In that moment what will they see and feel that touches their needs and that give them curiosity that you, my friends, are the one?
Before we Begin – Meet Margaret Meed
Meet Margaret Mead. If you have difficulty remembering what happened in October you might need to ask your grandparents about Margaret. She was the world’s most famous anthropologist. She showed the world how to study and find stuff. She opened up tombs, burial sites, ancient cities and she even told TV viewers in the 50s & 60s how people had sex thousands of years before. Trust me, it was not for the faint of heart.
Most of all, she taught people how to think, not what to think.
I love helping people learn how to think about digital marketing and selectively using everything that’s right to turn a business from the one where people don’t know how to find you to the platform that finds them. We really blow their minds when we speak to their needs and expectations. You know, like we know them!
So if we could bring Margaret to life and she dug up your website, what would she think?
“Many of the natives were given websites from businesses with confusing names like GoDaddy. Oh yes, they were cheap, but they also got cheap results. We found their remains sitting next to their computers waiting for results. Further studies indicate many believed that if they looked like everybody else, if they sounded like everybody else, that people would like them. But, most of them stood in the forest hidden by the camouflage of sameness.”
Margaret always had an answer for such challenges:
Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.
It Begins with Serving the World
We begin a winning digital marketing strategy like many would begin a safari. Margaret was very clear with her support system that one wrong move in selecting the right site or carelessly selecting local natives to serve as guides could lead to everyone ending up as someone’s next meal.
When the beautiful message shows up to a potential consumer’s eyes, we raise the probability of success by speaking to them. We can seal the deal by showing up in the right place and time.
Do you want a wildly profitable new business? Show up at the right place and time. Remember the best day traders? They have a lot in common with today’s great digital marketers.
Putting the Puzzle Together
A content strategy isn’t haphazardly placing information all over the Internet on various platforms with the hope something will resonate. Once again, by understanding what the viewers want in each channel is vital to getting the most out of a digital investment. What am I talking about? Here are the vitals:
Website
Your website ought to reflect what makes your business or you unique and wonderful and interesting and special. Even the colors ought to reflect your personality or the personality of your brand. Every time someone sees what you have to offer a number will move on. But, here’s the good news. Your consumer will see you instantly. There will be no barriers for them to get the capabilities and values of your business. There will be consistency throughout because the more they take everything in, the more they develop faith. This rarely happens when someone views a website as an online brochure. We become successful by understanding what they want and giving it to them so clearly, there isn’t another choice.
Video
Use video to bring the profound to the buying experience. Use video to give people the visual you. Use video to give the viewer faith.
One of our colleagues was working with a Marine General. He was launching a new business that would bring leadership development to the private sector. Why did we have to do a video? When you think of a Marine General in charge of training for 22 years, what kinds of images come into your head? This client was brilliant, thoughtful, kind, soft-spoken, humble, and very effective. The video was designed to show a person that dispelled our own bias of military leaders who are overbearing and even threatening. The video instantly shows a man you would want in your organization!
Videos build relationships. When appropriate they entertain the viewer so deeply that the consumer doesn’t forget how widely we made them smile. Or, we deliver the kind of profound visual outcome that it becomes indelible in the buyer’s mind.
Basic research indicates that adding video improves conversion by 80%. Brilliant video does far more.
The purpose of social media was always to build relationships. It was not to make pitches and sell stuff. For the uneducated client, tons of money can be thrown at ineffective pitches simply because we don’t understand the purpose of the medium. We love helping our clients build relationships with their buyers, with the market, and with talent and colleagues by centering the attention on building a relationship rather than trying to make a quick cheap sale and running on.
SEO
Remember the glory days? You bought a website. You paid a search engine specialist to send visitors to your website. You got rich.
That was in 1995. OK, I’m not the reader and my head is about to implode!!!
So, Before We Go On, Let’s Stop!
Just what is my point?
- Work with someone who educates and removes the guesswork of developing a meaningful digital platform.
- If someone suggests that you retain them with minimal involvement or transparency, run.
- Make educated and informed decisions on how to best build a digital platform under your business.
- Work with a partner, not a vendor.
The greatest partners tell the truth, have the courage to tell us when we are wrong and are humble enough to admit their mistakes. If you feel you are behind today, hurry up. The necessity of a strongly designed and informed digital strategy grows every single day.
Where do we begin? Find someone you believe in and someone who believes in you.
Why am I here? I believe the greatest problems in our world are being solved right now by social entrepreneurs. We change the world not by just providing an incredible solution. We change it by building integrity into our business and marketing plans. Then, we go out and have as much fun as humanly possible.
This is why world-class marketing is more important than any of us.
Great suggestions.
Certainly it is not considering your idea as special, unique, without competition that you can start working. For every good idea one has, there is probably already someone else who has already thought of it! We must not make a drama of it. Indeed, if those who have already thought about our idea are having success, it means that there is a market niche interested in buying what we want to offer. Just ask how you can offer the same service or product in a different, original and unique way and commit to it.