Social Media, the Marketing Trifecta, and a Pyramid Schema (It’s Really a Sales Funnel)

Eatin’ Meetin’

The other day, I was out having an evening meeting with a client/friend. We were supposed to go golfing, but it was a little cold in the morning around this time of year. So anyway, we’re eatin’ and meetin’ at this place called Egg Harbor in Geneva, Illinois, which is not very close to my house. But low and behold, we’re deep in conversation, and the next thing you know, my neighbors walk up and say “Dude! What are you doing here?”

We stopped and got up to take a selfie, which I later posted on social media. During that meeting, we were having a conversation about some of the basics and principles of marketing. Then over the weekend, I was working on some proposals, and the basics and principles popped up again.

So I said, okay, this must be a sign to do a podcast or a blog on this subject. And thus, here is the topic for today (which is actually three topics in one). The first one is Social Media. The second one is the Marketing Trifecta. The third one is the Pyramid Scheme. Today I’m going to explain each one of these.

Social Media

As we were having this conversation and I was rudely (or happily) interrupted by my neighbors, it turned out that that selfie became content now. Social media is first social, then media second. The social part is about building lasting relationships.

A lot of the time, I will originate face-to-face meetings from social media. Then I will post things after I’ve had a face-to-face meeting on social media. Social is about getting together with people, and building relationships. The media aspect is the content that you post to facilitate continuing and growing the relationship. After I posted that selfie, the comments started coming in. People said “Hey, I didn’t know there was an Egg Harbor in Geneva”, and “What you have for breakfast? Did you have some bacon?” and “Look It’s the Serpes (my neighbors)!” People started engaging and interacting with the picture. It was just a moment in time in a day in my life, but it had a different meaning and level of interest to so many people.

So that, my friends, is kind of a broad brush look at how social media is it should be: a relationship building tool first, and a content delivery platform second.

The Marketing Trifecta

How can social media help you to produce sales? It has to be used as part of a system. It is rare that social media unto itself produces sales. I introduced my Marketing Trifecta in a past blog and podcast. The Marketing Trifecta Is something that’s also in my book called the Bacon System. You can find it on Amazon so check it out there. The Bacon System talks about the core of an effective marketing system that allows you to create content assets and use them in multiple marketing activities.

Killer Website

It starts with your Killer Website. Your website is the place where you post client-serving quality content, You’re going to have pages about your service or products, your bio, testimonials, and more. But it’s also a place to house your marketing content. You can put a blog, podcast, pictures, videos, or whatever you want to use to distribute awareness and educational information. It’s where people go to get their questioned answered. The more they visit, the more you have a chance to convince them that you have the right answers for them.

One of the other key principals that came through this weekend was making sure you own it. This means you should own your domain name, the hosting, the platform, the theme — whatever is part of your website ecosystem. You should purchase it, and have it associated with your credit card. That way, when it has to be renewed, it alerts you and not a vendor or somebody else. That way, you know for sure that you’re in control of your own destiny.

Google Analytics

Next, use Google Analytics to measure what’s happening on the website, where people come from, how much time they’re spending, which pages they’re going to and which blog posts or podcasts they’re listening to. Analytics help you to better understand how your system is working. You need to have a clear understanding of how people are utilizing your website. The more you understand this, the better you can help serve people who are consuming your content.

Google Analytics is the tool that allows you to do that, and it’s free. All you have to do is get a plug-in, copy and paste the code from Google Analytics, and start collecting data. After you have it all set it up on your website, give it some time and it will collect data and measure the traffic on your website.

You’ll want to learn how to read the reports properly. Not having this is the equivalent of running a business without having QuickBooks or any kind of financial statements for your business. So think of Google Analytics as a financial statement for your website.

Content

Finally, the last piece of the Marketing Trifecta is the content you have to keep adding to your website to keep it fresh. One of the websites I was working on this weekend was 10 years old and had 10-year-old content on it. Why would somebody come and look at 10-year-old content unless there was something very relevant to them about it?

The key thing that you want to do is make sure that you’re keeping your content relevant to new viewers and users. A weekly or daily blog or a podcast does just that, but you also want to go back to your website once every three years and kind of give it a content and visual facelift. Make sure that the information on your pages is in alignment with what you’re doing today.

So that is the marketing Trifecta first. You have to have a killer website. Inside of this website, you should have great content. That content should be something that is shareable on social media. Hence why I It’s the most important part of the Marketing Trifecta. If you’re creating blogs, or podcasts, or videos, or pictures, post them to your website first, then share those on social media help drive traffic back to your own website.Finally, Google Analytics lets you see what content is driving traffic back to your website and from where.

All three of those work in concert, as a system that gives you the ability to measure what resonates with visitor, add them to a mailing list, get them to purchase products or services, and grow them into bigger, and more profitable clients.

The Pyramid Schema

This final part is what I call the Pyramid Schema. Now, it’s not a pyramid scheme like a Bernie Madoff scam but more of a Pyramid Schema (system). It is a pyramid of how you can grow your business based on the kind of products or services that you sell. This may not be applicable to everybody, but it is something that most businesses or consultants can use to grow their sphere of influence and guide people from looky-loos or tire kickers, to people who incrementally buy more and higher priced offerings..

Imagine the pyramid sliced into 4 pieces. That’s three slices and four levels. Inside each of these four parts going from bottom to top, write the numbers 10, 100, 1000, and 10,000. Of course, you have the little peak at the top. so the word 10K works good for this exorcise.

Consider your most basic social media. The thing that you do the most should draw people into that $10 product or service. It could be free like an ebook, a blog, or podcast, or something along that line. You will attract the largest audience at the biggest piece where you’re not charging a lot of money. That should be designed to lead people into the next level.

So from my blogs and podcasts, I sell boot camps for on LinkedIn for business. Those are 4-hour live or online bootcamps that sell for $97 ($100). I get people to move up form from the podcast into the bootcamps. Consider this like group coaching. From the bootcamps, I will often convince people to take advantage of my personalized coaching. That coaching may also be $1,000 product or service for your business. Then finally out of all my coaching clients, I might generally end up with one $10,000 corporate client.

Now, keep in mind that all of those numbers are hypothetical and just a guideline or example. This could be per month or could happen in the course of a year. The goal is to get 1000 people to purchase my $10 product or service (let’s say my books), then get 100 people to purchase my $100 product or service (let’s say my bootcamps), then get 10 people to purchase my $1000 product or service (one-on-one coaching), and finally get 1 person or company to purchase my $10,000 product or service (done-for-you content marketing and social posting services). Each level has the same value – $10,000. If you can optimize all four, you come up with $10,000 for each of the four levels making a total of $40,000, and creating multiple streams of income. It’s great, and most of you could do that in one year, but imagine scaling that to every quarter or every month!

Final Thoughts

So, let’s put it all together. Think about how you can use social media to engage people into the most basic thing that you offer. Something that has a low barrier to entry like just listening to a podcast, or reading a blog, or downloading your book. Then, how can you convince that audience to start to develop your perfect avatar (the ideal client that you’re looking) that you can guide through that sales funnel? Turn that graphic upside down and you invert the pyramid into a sales funnel That’s how to effectively use social media and your Marketing Trifecta to build the perfect pyramid scheme (or sales funnel system).

All of this came from having breakfast. That breakfast was initiated on social media (he message me on LinkedIn and said “Hey, you want to golf?”). It was really more about me trying to say “Thank You” to this person. You see… I networked with him over 10 years ago, and through continually using social media and the Marketing Trifecta, he ultimately the introduced me to my favorite an ideal client who works with me at the top of my pyramid!

I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Comment below and share your thoughts, ideas or questions about showing the concepts presented. Have you had to overcome any of the presented concepts? What worked and what did not live up to expectations? Do you have any ideas or advice you could share?

Read more:

• The Pyramid of Influence in Influencer Marketing