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Let’s talk about marketing. Let’s talk about word of mouth marketing. There are many people who have businesses they built from word of mouth.
We’re going to talk about the true way to market and how important marketing is. We’re going to talk about how to get the biggest bang for your buck. Word of mouth can actually cause your business to shut down.
People say things like, people just find me. You know what? It works. It works very well. The problem is there is one big thing wrong with word of mouth marketing. It is slow as fuck.
If you’re starting your business today and you rely solely on word of mouth marketing, the chances of you going out of business or running out of steam are great waiting on word of mouth marketing. That’s one of the reasons the Fortune 100, the Fortune 1000, the Fortune 1500, the Fortune 2000, the Fortune 5000 actually all have marketing budgets, marketing consultants, marketing teams and marketing people. Word of mouth is great and it is part of their marketing strategy, but it is not the only marketing strategy.
I was having this conversation with a client today and last week we got into it because she said she got by on word of mouth marketing. So, I forced my client to do some things that were very unnatural and uncomfortable to promote her business. She had homework and tasks.
This client does about $20K a month from word of mouth marketing. That’s good money. Well last week she put herself out there and followed my recommendations. She’s at $17K and it’s only the 5th of the month. So, she’s getting potentially triple her revenues this month because she is no longer relying solely on word of mouth marketing.
One of the things that really hurts many small business owners is the fear of marketing, because when you market, you’re going to spend some money. It’s not going to work immediately. You have to test your market. You have to test your copy and your picture. You’ve got to test your headlines. All of this takes time, effort and money.
You don’t have to spend a lot of money. You can test very well for $5 a day. If the marketing converts at $5 a day, it will convert at $20. If it doesn’t convert at $5 per day, then it won’t convert at $200 a day. That’s one of the things you have to understand about spending money on marketing. You can scale faster by spending the appropriate amount of money in the appropriate channels in six months than a business that’s been in existence for five or six years if you are willing to put forth some effort and let preconceived notions go.
I’ll give you an example. I’m a consultant. Many people find me. I’ve done no consulting here in Atlanta. I have been everywhere, but Atlanta. I’ve been in Israel and China. I’ve been in the UK and Africa. I don’t consult in a conventional manner. I’m a digital citizen. I’m a YouTube dude. I’m an internet dude. There are many people who are clueless about how the internet works. The people who find me are interested in building something. One of the reasons I can do this is I spent a decade selling locally. This is a lesson for you.
Many people are trying to sell online without learning how to sell period. If you can sell locally and you are willing to dedicate some time and effort, you can grow your business. If you’ll notice, my thumbnail game has improved. A properly placed thumbnail can increase viewership of a video by 30 to 50%. The thumbnail is that fucking important.
The next thing is the headline. That’s real important too. Then after that, there are so many little things you have to do to be successful. Many people are not willing to put in the work.
There are many internet people who are selling programs for $97 to $2000 or $2500. That’s where it really starts to slow down in terms of sales. When you get to the $5K or $10K mark, a lot of different things happen. For certain business models, you have to take credit cards. Taking credit cards will dramatically increase your sales. This has been proven.
Marketing for one business is different than marketing for a different business. Now once you get to the $5K, mark, the $10K mark or $12K, you want to take a check or a bank transfer. When I did the $50K deal, that was a wire transfer. He didn’t have a credit card with that kind of limit.
I’m big on service businesses. You can start a service business in April and be well on your way by that summer if you’re working full time and beating the bushes. You have to have a marketing plan in place. You have to have a referral plan in place.
With an online business, you can have all that going on and scale up to six figures with a physical product. It’s simple; either they like it or they don’t. What becomes critical is what the product costs. If the profit margins are low, you have to sell a high volume.
You should be operating at the technician level with your marketing. I do my own thumbnails and all of my video editing. I’ve handed other things off to other people. I do it all with the videos. If you do your marketing and sales, you will learn so much.
If you are working at the technician level, you are testing and learning constantly. Video is going to be an increasing part of the market. There are not that many people who operate at the technician level who have sales experience. If you go ahead and stop trying to run from work and go ahead and work hard, then four of five years from now, that expertise you’ve built at the technician level could make you a millionaire.
That’s why it is so important to do your own work. You have to jump into the fray. Everyone should have a marketing plan. You must know your market. You must talk the lingo of your industry.
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