Our guest today will teach you how simple marketing strategies can make you millions of dollars per year in additional profits creating and selling information products online, and even more money by attracting more clients to your coaching and consulting businesses.
A mentor to people who really want to grow their business, Adam makes complex marketing ideas simple and implementable. But most importantly Adam is here today to teach you how YOU CAN DO IT TOO!
Pay close attention—these excerpts from a sixty minute interview with Adam will show you proven strategies of how to turn your passion and your know how into a never ending stream of passive income!
Debra-Sue: Adam, I’m so excited to have you as my guest today. I’m really looking forward to learning from you over the next hour. Welcome to the call.
Adam: Wherever you’re starting from, there’s a lot you can learn from this discussion. By succeeding with my own businesses I have come to understand the “psychology of business”—what it takes to get people to get things done.
Most people don’t know what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. Failure gives the false belief that marketing doesn’t work.
Implementation is in the hands of the receiver. If you put these ideas on the shelf—nothing happens. Implementation really can be quite challenging. You may discover your understanding of these ideas are very limited. There’s a difference between knowledge from book leaning and wisdom, which comes from experience.
“Knowledge—knowing about something. Wisdom—knowing by doing.”
It becomes obvious who has the book knowledge and who knows from doing.
Most ads are placed by big companies that have huge budgets. They don’t work for smaller companies that most don’t recognize.
People make the mistake of copying wrong approaches at the wrong time. They see the surface of the strategy. They don’t see how it makes money and helps them to grow.
As an analogy, you can’t build a car just by looking at a picture of a car. A replica doest work, it doesn’t go. That’s because they don’t see the engine that makes it work.
When it doesn’t work, they get discouraged. They wait for the phone to ring. It never rings. They did everything they saw out there and it didn’t work. It fails to deliver the results they wanted. They become disenchanted and frustrated, and come to the false conclusion it doesn’t work.
There are a few basic steps every company had to be involved in:
- Understand your market.
- Generate leads.
- Build interest.
- Convert to first time buyers.
- Retain customers.
Every step offers countless tactics that can be deployed. The point is, as humans, we all are driven by caveman/woman brain. We all are motivated by the same psychological triggers. First, know what sort of triggers would work best with your audience? Only then do you choose the tactics.
Debra-Sue: How do we communicate value to our potential customers?
Adam: 99.9% of businesses start building their business from the wrong end— they always focus on what they can provide. All successful businesses start from the perspective of the audience. What is their problem they are trying to solve? How can we address that problem?
If you have a hamburger stand, what you need is a crowd of hungry people.
WIIFM—what‘s in it for me? If a business doesn’t send that message on that frequency, potential customers won’t respond.
What’s most important is not that they understand what you do but that they feel understood. They do business with you because they feel understood. They don’t look for your product or you, they look for solutions to their problems.
What are they looking for? They are looking for solution to their problems.
For instance, if you are a chiropractor, advertise the solution to their back pain, not your chiropractor services. Clients want the result, not how you will do this. They want to know you understand them and can speak to their concerns. Sell your solution, not your product or service.
Communicate you understand their problem and you will solve their problem. People look for solutions of the problems and will buy from you if they feel understood.
Debra-Sue: How do you get this message out in front of your potential buyers?
Adam: There’s a difference between strategy and tactics.
Strategy: your overall plan and the business model. How will you generate leads? What are you selling? How will you convert a prospect into a customer? How will you serve them? How will the money be made?
Tactics: the specific steps to implement the strategy. The tactic you select will depend on your audience—how do they buy now? How are they receiving messages right now? Use that modality.
You always want to look for the easiest and quickest way to reach your market. Many people focus on support tools and crutches—we can have an amazing business without the crutches. You must consider where your audience is and the most effective way to get your message out.
Debra-Sue: Please explain the importance of creating an opt-in page, or squeeze page, for email capture.
Adam: Direct response is not new. You must put something in front of your customers that grabs their attention, builds their interest and causes them to immediately take action. Offer info about the customer’s problem, how it can be solved, how to get FREE information about how to solve it, and how to request that information.
As markets become more decentralized and competitive, businesses are look for ways to get customers’ contact information. A branding site is about your company. It has too many links. You can’t predict where the customer will go and what link they will click on. You’ve lost control.
Instead, give them a clear path to walk on with no other options. One is a choice, two is a dilemma, three is a nightmare. Opt in or leave: A single choice. “If you are serious about solving that problem then give us your contact information.” This method allows people to select themselves as a potential client and deselect themselves if they are not.
“Yes—I want to lean about this solution. I will opt in.”
A fancy website will never be as effective as a single page with an option to opt in. This page takes minutes and only a few dollars to create.
The key is the wording on the page—let them know that you understand them and you have something to offer them.
Debra-Sue: With the economy so uncertain, what is the #1 recommendation you can make to business owners?
Adam: This question always makes me chuckle. The answer is the same as always—focus your efforts on attracting leads, gaining interest, and turning them into clients.
You must optimize, then automate. There are many options, some with immediate results, some take time to develop. Focus on generating leads. 80% lead generation efforts for new companies. Established businesses can work their way down to about 20%
Convert leads: Find out how to maximize potential clients into actual clients, someone who buys. Once that first purchase happens, how can you insure you transform this customer into a lifetime relationship? This is key to established businesses being successful. Focus on keeping the customer. If you want to expand the profitability of a single customer, you can develop alliances with people who offer products and services that are complementary to what you provide.
When money is tighter, be smarter about testing and tracking results to make sure every dollar you put out there works for you and is not wasted.
Debra-Sue: Thank you, Adam. This has been very informative. You can propel a business into a whole new category if they listen to what you say and act on it. How can they find out more about you?
Adam: Go to www.themarketingmentors.com. You’ll see the strategic marketing plan that goes into much greater depth: How to think strategically about your business and what tactics to implement.
It’s so important to learn what the marketing message is and the key psychological triggers to connect with their audience and motivate them to take action.
The only thing that will change the future for the better are the choices we make and the actions we take today. I know this information will be of value to anyone wanting to overcome obstacles and succeed massively in the coming year.