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Does Strategy Matter in Social Media or Content Marketing?

5/21/2018

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Is Social Media Strategy or Content Marketing That Important?

Do you have a plan for your social media content and posting or do you just go with the flow and post as things happen or when you find information relevant to your business?
If you’re a planner, do you say that because you have a schedule of when things post or because you have a very clear picture of who your ideal client, what their needs and wants are and exactly how you can meet those needs?  
If your strategy only includes a posting plan then you may be missing the most important aspect of successful strategic marketing.

Successful Marketing Strategies should consist of these 6 components:
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  1. Branding: Have you created an image, a brand, a look and feel that is easily recognized when you put out content or ads?
  2. Market Research: Do you know, beyond demographics, who your ideal customer/client is, what they want/need, where they look for and spend money to get that want/need met?
  3. Attractive Character: Do your clients/customers have a “character” they connect with that represents your company/business (if it’s not you directly)?
  4. Your Offer:  Beyond the actual product or service, what do YOU have to OFFER that is different/better than anyone else with the same or similar product/service?
  5. Custom Content: Is the content you post connecting your ideal clients to your offer and do they easily recognize it as yours?
  6. Roadmap: Is what you’re using to guide your steps leading you forward and is it lined with all the resources and tools you need on the journey?
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Branding

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Have you created an image, a brand, a look and feel that is easily recognized when you put out content or ads?
When you look at these logos you can get a feel for the person or company behind the brand.  Whether you’re a large or small, online or brick & mortar, solopreneur or growing entrepreneur, branding is one of the most important aspect of your business.
Does branding really matter?  Absolutely. Branding is the face they see and think of when they think of your product or service.  Imagine looking into a crowd to find a friend but everyone looks like those faceless icons we use in marketing. (insert faceless icons)  How hard would it be to find your friend? That’s what happens to your product or service when it’s “faceless”. It gets lost in the crowd.  Don’t get lost. Stand out. When people scan the overcrowded market, be that familiar face waving at them, inviting them to your business.
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Market Research

Do you know, beyond demographics, who your ideal customer/client is, what they want/need, where they look for and spend money to get that want/need met?
Anyone launching a business is told early on to be sure to have a “target market”: the group of consumers at which a product or service is aimed.  However, moving beyond the demographic portion of your market is vital. The next step is to narrow down your market into an “ideal customer”. I first heard about this concept from Russell Brunson when studying the DotCom Secrets and Expert Secrets books.  He encourages us to create an actual visual representation, an Avatar, of the perfect client. Know their age, interests, income, where they hang out online because when you know that you can target that. It’s too expensive to target general audiences.  You have to do the research to narrow the options and decrease wasteful ad spending. When you know more about your ideal customers you will know how to find and target them more effectively, more efficiently and even for free as well.

Attractive Character

Do your clients/customers have a “character” they connect with that represents your company/business (if it’s not you directly)?
People recognize a logo and brand, they connect with the Attractive Character.  I’m not talking about the 5’7 model you hire off of Craigslist either. We’ve all see a Gecko succeed quite well at this so your attractive character isn’t about looks. Larger companies often hire or create a “face” of the company but for smaller businesses it’s usually the founder or owner that is the “character” people resonate with.  You are the passion, the drive, the story behind your business and that’s what makes people choose to buy from you over ordering on Amazon.
In the Dotcom and Expert Secret books, Russell talks about the Attractive Character and how important it is to know which character you portray because it will influence the way you continue to market your business, product or service.  Are you ‘The Leader’, ‘The Adventurer/Crusader’, ‘The Reporter/Evangelist’ or ‘The Reluctant Hero’? Just like in the movies, your businesses Attractive Character continues to develop as the script is played out in your business journey.  You want your customers to return to you for more products and services the same way they return to the theaters and pay $15 for a $1 tub of popcorn just because they’re character fans and MUST watch the sequels. Sometimes people don’t make sense but they don’t have to if they’re happy and willing to spend the money to stay that way.

Your Offer

Beyond the actual product or service, what do YOU have to OFFER that is different/better than anyone else with the same or similar product/service?
I loved marketing even back in high school.  As an active member, and President of DECA, I was role playing marketing scenarios and figuring out marketing strategies long before social media, Google and SEO.  For 10 years after graduating high school I focused on my teaching and sign language interpreting careers and then for the next 10 years I did those jobs but studied and dreamed about being an entrepreneur.  I learned a lot, tried multiple MLMs, sold random stuff here and there but never took off. It was always crazy to me how 2 people could have the same product and one person could sell a million and the other only sell 100.  I couldn’t figure out why that was, but NOW I KNOW!
Wanna know who told me?  Russell Brunson! Basically what you have to sell isn’t as important as what you have to offer, especially if you’re selling a product or service that hundreds of others have for sale too.  Use your Attractive Character to connect to your Ideal Customers and don’t just sell them a product but give them value and then give them a value ladder they can climb as they continue to do business with you.  If you’re unsure what that is or what this means then order DotCom Secrets and Expert Secrets. They're free and it will change all the traditional thoughts you’ve had about marketing and give you an entirely new perspective on how to finally have success or be able to move from the success point you’ve been stuck at.

Custom Content

Is the content you post connecting your ideal clients to your offer and do they easily recognize it as yours?
From websites and SEO to Social Media conversation, what you post, when you post and how you post all matters.  Content is useless and worthless if it’s not being seen or recognized and if it doesn’t move people to action. Your content should have a purpose: to inform & educate, inspire & motivate, or engage & connect.
Remember your brand? Your Attractive Character? Your offer?  All of this comes together through Custom Content that is created with your specific business, product or service and your customers in mind.  
The best way to do this is to have a plan for both creating new, as well as re-creating and repurposing odler original content.  If you have blogs, posts, pages of a website with information then all of that can be created or repurposed into more content. You can take a single idea, say a blog, and create:
1.  Tweet(s)

2.  Engaging type of FB post or Ad
3.  Graphic for IG, FB, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn
4.  Infographic
5.  Podcast
6.  Youtube video
7.  Explainer/Teaching cartoon video
8.  Use to answer questions on Quora, Reddit, FB groups, online Forums
9.  Email
10. eBook

You can repurpose, recreate and revive, or simply create and multiply.  Whatever you do, create and put out custom content.

Roadmap

Is what you’re using to guide your steps leading you forward and is it lined with all the resources and tools you need on the journey?
Do you have a plan in place and feel good about the direction you’re going and the results you’re getting?  If not, are you feeling overwhelmed or exhausted just looking at this and wondering where or how to start, or re-start?  
The good news is, if you can’t do this there are people out there (like me) who do know how and it’s our job to help you .  We all need a roadmap but if you’ve ever followed printed out directions from Mapquest and ended up on a dead end road in the middle of Miami, late at night, you’ll understand how important it is to not only have the right directions, but have the right tools, or gps, to go along with those directions.  I sure wish I would have had a GPS system that night!
There are more support tools for content creation and social media marketing support than you could possibly ever use.  Some tools you will never need. Other times there’s a tool or software you can get that will replace several tools you’re already using.  It makes the load lighter, and cheaper.

Having a custom roadmap created for you is the first step.  Following the custom path that is developed exclusively for your business that will lead you to success, is your last.  

You wouldn’t drive a Diesel rig down a long road that doesn’t have diesel gas available, so don’t drive your business into areas where the right tools aren’t right there and available for you to keep you moving.  
You have to have a plan and not a cookie cutter, what everyone else is doing, plan either.  Your business has its own path, its own customers, its own products and services. You are unique.  Your marketing path should be too.

Strategize. Plan. Execute!

Creating content is the vehicle you put your information and ads on.  
Marketing that content is the gas that gets it out there in front of people.  
Custom Content Marketing is the map that leads you down the right roads to be seen by the right people, who are as excited to see you as they are their Uber drivers so they flag you down, jump in for the ride and give you their money before they get out!
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How these 2 FREE books created a NEW LIFE for me.

5/12/2018

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I was doing what all the blogs, YouTube videos, podcasts and gurus of marketing and sales said I should, yet I just wasn't seeing the success I knew I was capable of.  

​For 10 years I studied and learned and implemented and failed, and failed, and failed.
I never lost hope, though, because I KNEW that digital marketing and services was the future of online sales.  I just couldn't seem to be able to grasp the right handle that would open the right door to the success and financial freedom that I desired so badly.  How could it be in reach for so many, but not me? It haunted me. It kept me up at night in a relentless pursuit of online success.
    

I poured money into trainings and online courses.  I read countless books. I learned a TON of great information but it was all worthless since I was obviously not utilizing it the right way. THEN, I found these 2 books. FREE books (well, I did pay for shipping), at that and everything changed.

All that information I'd learned over those 10 years wasn't useless anymore.  I knew how to take the skills I'd learned and use them in a way that worked for me and for what I had to offer.  The strategy was completely different from anything I’d heard or learned before, yet it’s something most of us see or experience every day in real life.

Ideal Customers - Attractive Character - ClickFunnels

Before you can consistently sell anything you have to know who wants what you have, why they want it and how to convince them they want to buy it from you.  Too often we just throw our products, our blogs, our time and energy out to whoever will listen, hoping they will be wooed with our charm and awesome products and just buy from us.  I’m sure we’ve all learned that just doing that doesn’t work.

There’s a better way, discussed in DotCom Secrets.  

Avatars.  And I’m not talking about the big blue people from another planet. Your Avatar is your very specific, detailed perfect, potential client.  Without understanding exactly who that is, you will continue to spend money and energy putting yourself, your products or your services in front of the wrong type or group of people.  

Not knowing who your ideal client is or how to reach them is like standing in the middle of a sold out arena, that you paid for, filled with whoever they (FB, Google, LinkedIn, etc.) could find to show up, and trying to sell what you have to offer.  In a crowd like that you know there are some people there who want what you have so you desperately try to appeal to them but while you’re doing that your bank account and your cup of sanity is draining because you are paying for everyone who is sitting there, even those you know will never need or be interested in what you have to offer. Chances are, the ones you’re trying to reach are being distracted, too, by the non-interested crowds around them who don’t care and aren’t paying attention to what you have to say.

The good news is, once you know exactly who you need to reach (there’s a specific way to do that) and how to reach those specific clients or customers, then you can fill that arena up with JUST THOSE people.  Now imagine filling up that arena (that you’re paying for by seat) but the ONLY ones invited where the ones who ARE interested in what you have to offer and ARE in a position to purchase or invest. They aren’t being distracted by those around them either, they’re being encouraged and inspired because the crowd you’ve put yourself in front of gets you.  They like you. They want what you have to offer. And they want to buy from you.

Attractive Character

To stand in front of a crowd of people, who don’t just understand your passions but value them, and be able to sell them anything sounds amazing, doesn’t it? It can happen.

Once you know your Avatar and know how to reach them, then you have figure out who YOU are TO THEM.  You have products or services, but so do a million other business owners or coaches. What you have can’t compete with that.  What you OFFER, can and does.  Who you are, the connection you make, the stories  you tell, the unique OFFER that sets your product or service apart from all the other similar things out there, THAT is what sells.  THAT is what people will pay for.

When I first heard about Russels Brunson and Clickfunnels I did what any good Google Information Detective does, and I searched for reviews.  They were quite impressive. So then I searched for someone who could teach me what to do with this new found information I’d gotten from the books.  

I found several people that were quite active on Facebook, who each claimed to be able to help me dive into the book more and apply what I’d learned. I found some that claimed to have a lot of success but had very few followers, which made me question .  I found others who were traveling the world like I wanted to do, but while they were very successful, I didn’t see very many in their “tribe” who were sharing in that same success. Then I came across Julie Stoian. She claimed to eat, sleep and breath Clickfunnels very successfully AND claimed to be able to help others do that same.
 

I joined her groups and read every.single.day of women who were making money, some leaving their full time jobs to work at home because of the success they were having because of what Julie taught them from what she learned from the DotCom and Expert Secret Books.  That was enough to convince me to follow her, but what really connected me to her and made me committed to her, was her story.

She shares her story of struggling through divorce and as a single mom who didn’t really have a choice but to figure something out so she could take care of her kids, and I got it. I understood that pain. I knew what it's like to having 5 kids in the house and trying to make it on my own on your own.

​I could sign up for courses and Clickfunnel extras through anyone, but she is the “attractive character” that I relate to, so I buy from her. I learn from her. I invest in her because of who she is.
If you don’t become the “Attractive Character” that connects to your “Avatar”, then it will be so easy for them to just buy a similar product or service from anyone.  When you give and serve and provide the answer and help to meet people’s needs through your OFFER then they will commit to you and your “character” and those are the ones that will sustain and propel your business.

Funnels

After your Avatar has connected to your awesome Attractive Character, you need a funnel.  Maybe you’ve heard of funnels and keep telling yourself you’ll try it out one day, but if you’re not using them, you’re turning now money.

Sounds crazy right.  If someone is already buying from you then you win, right. You made a sale! Woo Hoo! Celebrate!!! But what if they left you and then went and bought something from someone else that you could have sold them too? They didn’t know, though, because you either didn’t tell them or didn’t even think about offering that extra little thing they gave someone else money for!

Funnels help us learn not to pass up sales opportunities.  They make us think about what else we have offer and how we can continue to help our clients and customers so they don’t have to buy from anyone else something that we could offer them.  It’s something most of us have seen or experienced before but forgot to apply in our own businesses.

How many times have you gone to a drive through with the intention of just ordering 1 thing, only to be offered something else, so you buy that as well?  Or how many times do you get a coupon for something FREE so you go to the store or restaurant with the intention of only claiming your free item, but once there you’re offered an item to compliment your free item, so you buy it.  
We are used to that.  We expect it. I bet at times you’d even be upset if you weren’t offered “fries with that” or a “Large Sweet Tea” (yes, I am from the south and there is no tea other than Sweet Tea, in case there was some confusion somewhere... like in every state that doesn't serve Sweet Tea!).

We know funnels are a fundamental part of some of the most successful businesses in the world so if you’re not using them, why not?

If you’re not sure you really understand what the big deal is, then just order the FREE books and read them.  If you’re an entrepreneur or business owner then I know you crave information and learning and I can guarantee you will get that from these books.

If you keep reading about all this funnel stuff but it seems too complicated or overwhelming, then get the books and reach out to me and I’ll help you.  If you’re just starting then join the FB DOTCOM and EXPERT SECRETS Book Club Group where we will be going through the books together and I will be there to help support you.

You can have the success you know you are capable of and that you’ve worked so hard for so long, to earn.  

BELIEVE and then DO SOMETHING with it.

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    Shasta

    Compassionate heart, gypsy soul and entrepreneur spirit, helping you develop the creative content you need to have the success you have worked so hard to achieve. 

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