Is Your Business Ready for Social Media

Someone came to me last week needing help with their social media. They didn’t really have a plan and had a couple questions for me;

What social media channels should we focus on?

Is Facebook advertising worth it?

Both valid questions and ones I hear a lot. I answered the questions, but made a mistake as I didn’t do more in-depth research beforehand (I was offering advice as this was for a friend, not a sales opportunity). Last week I gave her some ideas on how to grow her business via the World Wide Web. These ideas will help generate revenue, but not as efficiently as they could (you’ll see why I like that word below).

I received an email this afternoon and she needed some clarification on a few things. I took a deeper look into things and noticed she didn’t need social media help, she had a bigger issue. She needed to fix her current marketing, before anything else.

Unfortunately, most business owners are not optimizing their current assets to their full potential. And it’s costing them a lot of money.

How Much Money Is Hiding In Your Business?

Before we talk about marketing your business online, let’s talk about marketing fundamentals. There is no sense in doing any type of marketing, online or offline, if the fundamentals are not in place. Without a solid foundation, your marketing, and possibly your business, will crumble.

Every business has hidden marketing assets, overlooked opportunities, underperforming activities, undervalued partnerships and untapped resources.

Let’s explore these opportunities before spending anymore money on any type of marketing.

A solid business foundation, for maximum expansion

Building a solid foundation with marketing fundamentals will increase the effectiveness of your online efforts, exponentially.

By implementing the strategies I am about to share, you can expect to…

  • Increase revenue by 25 -100% in 6 months
  • Slash your current advertising budget by at least 15% in 6 months
  • Reduce costs and increase profitability with systems in place

Six Pillars of Exponential Business Growth

  1. Define your USP – This pillar is the foundation of your business. Your U.S.P. must answer this question: Why do people buy from you? If they aren’t buying from you, why should they? If you can’t answer this question, your customers and staff certainly won’t! Here is an exercise you can do to drill down your USP.
  1. Leverage Current Marketing – Integrate the USP into all marketing efforts. Consistently work at increasing the conversion rate of prospects to customers through sales training & follow-up systems. Increase the value of the customer by increasing the average transaction value and the number of transactions. The result is improved performance that brings immediate results to the bottom line.
  1. Database Marketing – Optimize the Customer Database – It is surprising how many businesses do not have a database of their current customers. When was the last time that a server at a restaurant asked for your name or email? Since they don’t know or ask, they are doomed to spending ever-increasing amounts of scarce capital on chasing new customers.
  1. Strategic Marketing Alliances – A frequently neglected hidden asset is the client base and professional networks of the business or a professional. Strategic alliances allow a business to benefit from the relationships they have developed with customers, prospects and personal networks. This is a very powerful tool that results in huge sales increases for the companies involved in your alliance. I wrote a post last week how Will Ferrell formed strategic alliances with Dodge, ESPN, MTV among others. You can read it here.
  1. Community Outreach – Community relations is image and results marketing. It also involves effective publicity so that your message is promoted to the community. Your community involvement as a sales building opportunity that takes your community involvement to its logical conclusion… Your bottom line!
  1. Online Marketing – The final pillar of our system involves marketing your business online. Once the above pillars are in place, it is time to bring the power of the system to the World Wide Web.

Is Your Business Ready For Social Media?

That is a question you’ll have to answer yourself. These are the steps we walk every client and/or partner through BEFORE discussing any type of online marketing.

I think you should do the same with your business. Now, I am not claiming you cannot do social media without these strategies, but…

My favorite word in marketing is: efficiency.

I like my marketing to be efficient & effective and lean & mean!

Implement these 6 pillars, then follow the steps in this blog post. Once that is completed, you will be running a lean, mean marketing machine.

Remember your marketing should always be tested, tracked, analyzed and tweaked.

There was a reason for this blog post as the new year is just a few weeks away. Implement these steps for 2014 and you will have a record year.

I promise.