It is quite sad to me to see so many business owners spending money on marketing (creating, curating, distributing), only to have little to no increase in sales revenue. I mean, how is that even possible right? Your open rate on email marketing has increased, Facebook page likes are up and people are commenting on your posts, they are entering your drawings and answering your polls, and they have even clicked on your website. So why isn’t all that activity converting to sales revenue? Because you aren’t converting it!
Your marketing won’t work without the appropriate tools to convert your audience into quality prospects, and then finally into customers who buy. Let me share with you a few basics that you must address if you intend to market your business.
- Have a place where you input EVERY person that engages. Preferably, this is a CRM (like Zoho or Salesforce) but a spreadsheet will do.
- Have a plan for every person that engages your website, social media, email marketing, etc. This can include a follow up phone call or email, or maybe you input them into a drip campaign. Doing nothing means you wasted the opportunity, thus wasted your money marketing to them in the first place.
- Know what you will do with the segment of your audience that doesn’t engage. For me, it’s a semi-annual list purge. I shoot an email out to everyone who is unengaged on a regular basis from my communication and I give them a clear option to opt-out. The title of this email is typically something along the lines of “It’s Time to Unsubscribe.” They are doing nobody any good by staying on a list they don’t care about.
Marketing is necessary in business. Further, great marketing is necessary to a successful business. But without a plan and a process to convert those leads, you are wasting your time and money.
If you are looking into marketing opportunities, I suggest you connect with a colleague and friend of mine, John Welches of Red Mallard. His firm provides managed marketing services (web, email, social, print, and so much more) for companies of all shapes and sizes. You can email him right now at john@jwelches.com.
If you would like to review your current conversion process or discuss some simple options should you have no process at all, let’s get connected. You can email me at ryan@ryanjamesmiller.com and I will be more than happy to schedule a 30 minute call to offer up some suggestions.