Marketing Minutes with Miss Kemya

Most businesses start out with a dream and an inspiration, but that is where it ends. Even the most innovative businesses can wind up closing their doors because a good action plan and a focused timeline were not in place at conception.

There are many benefits to creating your action plan and online business timeline. When you have an action plan put into place and follow it regularly and continue to focus on your business timeline, things will run much more smoothly for your new business, your employees, and your customers.

Note: An action plan and timeline are useful even if your business has been around for a little while. It is never too late for proper planning! 

What holds most would-be authors back from publishing? It’s not a lack of writing talent. It’s definitely not a lack of knowledge. And for sure it’s not a lack of desire. If you asked most people why they have not finished their book, the answer is simple: time. When would you have time to write an entire book?

Social media is more about engaging with your followers to generate lifelong customers. It is also a way to gather market research that is necessary for keeping your products and services new and fresh. Here are a few ways that you can use your social media accounts to gain more followers and boost your engagement on each site.

Big brands spend an enormous amount of money on advertising and marketing, but as a solo entrepreneur or small business owner you don’t have to do the same. You can market your business just as effectively on a shoestring budget by utilizing some basic free or low-cost marketing tactics. If you engage with your audience effectively and provide high-value content, you can achieve all your business goals, just like the big companies do.

When you are first starting out with your brand development, it can be challenging to know whether or not you are doing everything you should be doing to make it as complete and rounded as possible. The truth is that there are a range of important qualities which you need to look out for if you are going to develop the strongest possible brand.

You don’t need a big budget to launch a successful marketing campaign. With a repertoire of online marketing tactics and some time and effort, you can do exactly what the big brands do but without the budget. One great way to make the most of your marketing efforts is to get customer recommendations.

Why Do Recommendations Work?

Recommendations are a type of social proof. This is a psychological phenomenon where people see others get results and naturally conclude that if they perform the same actions, they will get the same results. For example, when your customer tells people how your product or service helped them, those people will want to try it themselves.

It’s tempting to try to run your business without a plan. It may seem like you can just get up each day and do what you want to do and the business will be successful. While that sometimes does happen, it’s not likely. Don’t let these seemingly viral overnight sensations fool you!

The main reason most businesses fail is due to lack of a plan and lack of follow through. It doesn’t matter how large or small your business is; you really do need a plan.

If you really want to have a successful business, then you will need to go through the effort to create a marketing plan.  

Of course, wingin it can get you results. But do you really want to wing it with your business? Do you want to leave your revenue to chance? Of course not! Leaving your revenue to chance is not a safe or wise plan. Whether you are a solopreneur or you’re managing a team, you need to be able to see progress, forecast projections, and build your income. Why? Because this will give you the motivation to keep going.

Your marketing plan is a living breathing document. It is not meant to be created and ignored. It can be updated as the business changes and your needs evolve. It should be used as a blueprint, so that you never have to ask, what am I supposed to be doing? when it comes to your marketing activities.

If you are still not convinced, here are a few benefits of using a marketing plan.

Owning a business and building it from scratch can be a worthy achievement for anyone who manages to be successful from it. However, there does come the point in your business where it’s beneficial to release the reigns slightly and to give control over to others so that they can continue to build and you can continue to grow. However, as a business owner, this can be tough, so here are some tips on learning to let go in business.

There are several ways in which you can attract new clients to your service-based business. One of the most effective is via community involvement. Don’t get worried that you don’t have time to go to your local community meetings.

Community involvement can happen both online and offline. There are communities that exist only online and there are communities that exist only offline. You can do both for best impact, but if there is a reason you can only participate online, that is fine too.

There are two types of communities you can get involved in. You can involve yourself in a community of your peers, or a community of your audience.

In terms of peer groups, there are peers with whom you are in direct competition, and those who offer complementary services to yours. Both can help you get clients. However, the complementary group will be more beneficial to you because they are not direct competition. Consider that when you get involved in any particular group. 

Business focused groups, mastermind groups, industry focused groups and so forth all exist to help you educate yourself further and provide connections. You can get clients through word of mouth when a peer group member feels you would be right for a position because they have come to know you. Peer groups also offer opportunities for joint venture partnerships, which can widen and expand your audience.

Taking the leap into starting a business can be a scary thing for anybody. It comes with risks, stresses, and responsibility of taking on the world while being responsible for a company and workforce.

Imagine taking on this responsibility, but alone. This is the life of a solopreneur. The difference between a solopreneur and an entrepreneur is when you are a solopreneur, you do it all yourself. This means doing the operational side of the business, such a contracts to managing marketing campaigns, such as advertising and literally everything in between.

While the business of being a solopreneur can seem overwhelming, there are different tactics you can employ in order to run a most efficient level. On today's episode, we are going to look at some ways we can succeed and thrive on our solopreneur's journey.

We’re all constantly ‘switched on’ and distracted these days, aren’t we? Scrolling through our phones, laptop by our side, loud noise everywhere.

And that makes it a real challenge to get any marketing message across effectively.  Unless you understand the way people’s brains work – and form a real emotional connection. But how does an emotional connection help you rise above other distractions  – in a world that’s constantly switched on?

When starting out, the humble nature of your business can sometimes raise eyebrows. You might be selling an interesting product online, but how do people know they can trust you with their card information? You might be the mascot of your firm, but without good marketing around that, how are they to know? What registrations and security processes do you have? What are your plans for the future? And how might you settle those initial fears to prove that you are who you say you are?

If you're a natural introvert, there's no reason at all to shy away from social media. Don't let the word 'social' throw you. Social media sites offer a great platform for introverts to be social on their own terms. You get to interact with other, but keep control at the same time.

Many people are surprised when they find out I’m an introvert. My business is marketing and social media and yes, I’m an introvert! I know, on the surface this doesn’t even seem possible, but it’s true.

If given the chance, I will happily sit in the corner by myself and curl up with a book. I can attend an event and not say a single word to anyone, and enjoy myself immensely just the same. This is me, I am she.

We have come to the end of our seven-day challenge to use business planning to create explosive growth in traffic, customers, and most important, income. Much of what we’ve discussed so far has been actionable steps like writing down your goals as well as mindset pieces like the one about stepping out of your comfort zone.

Today is all about putting everything we’ve discussed so far, and combining it into something that can give you that explosive growth you want.

Lesson 7: How To Engineer Explosive Growth By Stacking Your Efforts

You see, when you use the basic concept of exponential growth to your advantage, it doesn’t take much progress in any one area to see big results. We briefly touched on this idea back on day three when we talked about increasing traffic, subscribers, and customers to add to our bottom line.

Today we expand on this whole idea in a few different ways. Then we tie it all back into setting goals and business planning in general.

The idea is to make progress on your goals and stack them in a way that gives you leverage. One goal builds on the next and they all work together to generate exponential growth. This can work in a myriad of different ways and will of course differ from one business to the next.

Can you think back on a time of real growth, be it in business, in your personal life, or anywhere else? More than likely, you had to step out of your comfort zone for that growth to happen. Yes, we can make progress by doing what we’ve always done. But it will be slow and more importantly, by staying within your comfort zone, you are limiting your potential growth.

It’s when we step out of that zone, try something new, take a bit of a risk, and allow for personal and professional growth that we start to see big changes for the better. 

Let’s say your goal is to grow your reach and get out in front of a larger audience. What you’ve done so far, and what feels comfortable is writing a blog post a week and then sharing it on social media. Yes, some readers will find you. Yes, if you double or triple your efforts, publishing more posts per week and sharing more often across all your social media accounts, you will see some growth and engagement.

But you’re staying in your comfort zone.

What if instead, you used the time you would have spent writing another blog post or two per week and promoting it on Facebook, you took the time to write a guest blog post for someone else’s blog with a bigger reach.

What if you sat down and recorded a fun and informational video that you can then share on YouTube, embed in a blog post, and of course share via your favorite social media outlets.

What if you used the time to set up and tested a Facebook ad that continually sends new leads into your funnel.

If any of these things are new to you, this may seem like a pretty scary proposition. But getting uncomfortable and doing it anyway can have some huge rewards.

Writing and submitting the guest blog post can give you a lot of added exposure by allowing you to get in front of an established audience. It also gives you the change to start a relationship with a fellow blogger that may lead to all sorts of other opportunities and collaborations.

Recording a series of videos gives you the opportunity to reach a completely different subset of your target audience. There are plenty of people who prefer video content to written posts and articles. There are people who spend hours each day watching YouTube videos who would never stumble across you and your blog otherwise.

Spending money on paid ads can sound like a scary proposition, but once you crack it and find something that converts well for you, you will get a steady stream of new leads in front of you without any added work.

There’s something else I want to mention, just in case I don’t have you convinced yet that getting out of your comfort zone is something you should be doing regularly. You won’t stay uncomfortable for very long.

Today I want to share my thinking process for setting smart business goals with you. I like to work backwards from a financial goal all the way down to daily to-do lists. Every smart business goal should be quantifiable, as in have a specific number attached to it. In this way, you can measure your success rate, and see what and if you need to tweak your approach.

We're all in business to make a profit. Making money is not a topic that's talked about ENOUGH with small business owners. After all, the spotlight is often shining on how many followers and likes you can get on social media. Or how many times you go LIVE on Facebook every week.

Are you ready to take your online business to the next level and watch some explosive growth unfold over the coming months? Great! Before you start to plot and plan what you want to do to make that happen, it’s important to stop and look at where you are right now.

Business planning for future success is all about data. You can work most efficiently and spend your time and money most effectively if you know exactly where you are starting from.

Do you set aside time regularly to plan what you want to do in your business? If it’s not something you currently do, I strongly encourage you to embrace it for the remainder of this year!

We’re posting on LinkedIn, tweeting everyday, going live on Facebook and creating stories on Instagram. We’ve got ads running every which way, blogging as often as we can stand, and retargeting to everyone. In other words, in this digital era, we’re doing some of everything everywhere. We’re using multiple channels to market our businesses.

When you experience terrible service, how often do you tell your friends?

When you experience stellar service, how often do you tell your friends?

According to current marketing wisdom, one unhappy customer will tell 7 other people about their bad experience with a product or business. A happy customer will only tell 1 other person about their great experience.

In this day of digital media, bloggers are publishers. I heard this a few years ago and it took me a minute to embrace it. I remember thinking, I am not a publisher! The publishing racket is for magazines. All the while I'm hitting "publish" every time I publish a blog post. The irony still makes me laugh.

What’s the number one reason people seek help and hire a professional? They believe said professional can solve their problem.

We hire people to solve problems. We buy products we believe can solve our problem. With this in mind, what do you want to be known for?

While content types change, the value of content never changes. When you realize the value of the content that you create, you’ll take the time to create it right. This goes for your social media posts too.

After all, remember that humans are reading the content, not robots. Therefore, even though you need to use keywords in the text, it doesn’t mean the content should be boring and generic. Levels of social media engagement largely depend on the value of the content being shared.

I don’t want to read boring, generic content, do you? Take a look at the different kinds of content you’re posting. Are you providing helpful tips, insights, asking questions, making people laugh, or making them look at themselves in the mirror? Pull an emotional response out of your audience and you will get engagement. 

Complacency and the desire to make more money aren’t compatible. If you want more money, you don’t get to be satisfied with the status quo. Since money isn’t going to rush toward you when you’re complacent, you have to do something about it.

You have to be proactive. You have to do something to change your mindset so you develop a hunger for success. What this means is that you have to gain more knowledge.

When you’ve reached a certain skill set, nothing is ever going to change if you don’t level up. You have to learn new things and you need to do it consistently to keep on growing and earning money.

 As a business owner, you typically want to spend the most time on activities that add to your bottom line. This should be true no matter what stage of business you're in.

Are you outsourcing work yet?

One of the best ways to put yourself head and shoulders above the competition, even in a crowded niche, is to partner with influencers and key companies in your industry.

In this way, you can

There is a saying that goes like this: “Failing to plan is planning to fail.” When running a business, many people skip developing a business vision, with intentions on getting back to it later. Whether it’s being distracted by social media, getting a logo just right, or chasing a dollar to pay the bills, the critical business building planning often goes ignored.

Again, you can have every intention of doing strategic planning when the time is right or when you make enough money to go on a retreat, but if you don’t make a point to stop you’ll never get the chance.

Here’s the thing: as an entrepreneur you don’t have a boss to tell you to go to lunch. A boss to make you take a legally mandated day off, vacation, etc. It’s just you. Without someone there telling you to stop working, you might find yourself working all times of the day and night in your business… and not on your business.

If you skip steps because you think they don’t matter (because you just have a “small” business or a sole proprietorship and it’s just you), then you’re going to kick yourself later. Tune in for 10 reasons why you need a business vision. If you don't have a written business vision, now is the time to create one! 

Influencer marketing is all the rage right now. It revolves around prominent social media figures shaping public opinion and steering trends across different niches and industries. Despite what some people think, this is not some passing fad that only corporate behemoths can explore.

In fact, it represents the fastest growing customer acquisition channel of all, overshadowing the likes of paid search and email marketing. This is an incredible opportunity for small businesses to make strides towards their goals. They have a chance to establish lasting customer connections and break the curse of anonymity. And they do not even have to go out of their way to make it happen.

For small businesses operating on a shoestring budget, there are quite a few daunting challenges looming over.

First off, they face a dilemma of how to make a name for themselves and reach potential customers. It takes a long time to get noticed and then a lengthy buyer's journey takes place. Apart from limited resources, another hurdle comes in the form of perceived bias. It is not convincing when the obscure small business is the only one raving about its product’s greatness. Besides, there are no guarantees that people will not drop off at any point of the process and switch their loyalties.

Tune in to today's episode to learn how why you should work with micro influencers who can step in to bridge this gap. Getting them to endorse a brand opens up doors to new audiences and allows companies to win over people’s loyalty fast. These niche-specific influencers are versed in fostering traction, engagement, and trust: they keep the fingers on the pulse of their audience and know how to stir emotions and reactions. 

Gated content is content that is only available to readers who agree to provide some information in exchange for reading the content. This could be an email address, cell phone number or other information. To use gated content for lead generation, it’s important that you understand which content is best for using this way and which content is not.