The Coronavirus caught us off guard, and it threw the global economy into chaos. You don’t need me to tell you this. No matter what industry you’re in, you experienced the effects first hand. We’re all still experiencing the effects.
But here’s what you do need me to tell you: things aren’t going back to normal. And unfortunately, there are still some tough times ahead. I know you hate hearing that. Trust me, I don’t like saying it. But I’m not writing this article to freak you out. I’m not trying to spread fear. I’m trying to spread preparation. And I’m trying to spread opportunity.
In the following paragraphs, I’m going to share the massive change we’re likely going to see in the next 6-12 months. And I’m going to share how you can not only thrive during this period but how you can be a lifeline to your business.
There are two responses to uncomfortable change: either you can ignore it, or you can meet it head-on. One approach leads to destruction, the other to growth and success.
So although it’s uncomfortable, I challenge you to join me on this journey. And I promise it won’t be uncomfortable for long… by the end of this article, you’re going to be fired up to join our ragtag band of freedom fighters in saving the world.
The Approaching “Killer Wave”
Everyone in the world is debating: are we going to go back to the way things were, or are we going to find a new normal?
Either option suggests some kind of stabilization. Things are going to calm down and settle back into the old routine or settle into a new routine. But either way, it’ll settle down. People ask me to weigh in on this all the time, and I tell them that neither is true. The reality is we have tough times in front of us. More change is on the horizon.
Because here’s the thing: the main issue facing businesses right now isn’t quarantine. It’s not social distancing. It’s not curbside pickup. It’s not mask orders. Those are all a huge pain, but we can adapt to those.
The real issue is a massive transfer of customers.
The reality is that even before the Coronavirus, consumers were already changing their shopping habits. The fact is, brick and mortar businesses were already on the decline. And now with one massive knockout blow, digital completely took over.
People are finding new online businesses to shop with. And companies are being forced to come up with creative solutions to make it easier for people to do business with them. So after months of free delivery, curbside pickup, Zoom consultations, and online experiences… do you think all of those customers are going to go back to standing in line and getting stuck in traffic?
The writing is on the wall.
Businesses that adapt are going to gobble up a massive share of the market. And businesses that ignore the new digital marketplace and wait for things to go “back to normal” are going to die. You can either surf the wave or get buried beneath it.
This might sound apocalyptic, but I want you to focus on two things:
- YOU can save your business if you are willing to adapt.
- We can turn around any business in 60 days, even if you don’t have solid ground to stand on.
Keep reading and I’ll show you how…
How to Generate 5-10k worth of sales for a business in the next 60 days
Hopefully, it’s obvious to you what a huge opportunity this is.
Like most transitional periods in history, it’s not all good or all bad. We’re going to see a huge transfer in wealth. While some people lose, others will create the biggest wins of their lives. But you’re probably thinking, “How can I capitalize on this? What value can I provide to customers to help my local businesses thrive?
Really what it comes down to is helping you overcome the three massive hurdles that prevent local businesses from being successful today. If you don’t first tackle these three things, it doesn’t matter what else you do. And conversely, if you can understand these three things, there’s no limit to the amount of success you can help them achieve.
Here’s how we succeed…
- We stop local businesses from relying on their location.
The vast majority of brick-and-mortar businesses still rely on foot traffic. Most of their marketing budget is things like putting up a bigger sign, painting the windows, or making their storefront look more inviting. But what happens when there is no foot traffic? What happens when the traffic to your business is literal traffic driving by… and people stop leaving their homes? Suddenly the lifeblood of your business is completely shut off.
- We stop local businesses from relying on word of mouth.
Word of mouth is one of the best forms of marketing. If you can build buzz around your business, suddenly you have an army of marketers working for free. But if there’s no foot traffic, there’s no word of mouth…
- We stop local businesses from ignoring a monster source of traffic that is cheap and right in front of them.
Facebook is the cheapest way to get in front of potential customers, period. For years it’s been a marketer’s dream: all of your potential customers in one location, and you can target them by incredibly specific and powerful criteria. Yet people still weren’t leveraging it. Now with the Coronavirus the best marketing platform in the world just got better. Your customers are spending even more time there than before, and their buying habits are changing even more in your favor.
For people that live and breathe internet marketing, it’s important to realize this: we’re only the tip of the iceberg. The vast majority of businesses are still relying on physical location and word of mouth.
Most business owners have still never run a Facebook ad. And the ones that have had no idea what they were doing. So they spent a few Euro to boost a post with no strategy behind it, and when customers didn’t magically walk through the door they assumed that “Facebook just doesn’t work for my industry.”
The truth is, now is the time to build a real multidimensional digital marketing funnel. You need to create a machine that eases a potential customer through the decision-making process and closes the sale.
If you can do this, getting clients’ attention will be easy, and you’ll be able to write your own ticket.
The 4-step funnel set up
Now that we understand the high-level obstacles that need to be overcome, what are the actual ground-level tactics? How are we going to help a local business adapt and thrive?
That’s exactly what I’ve been doing with my clients for the last ten years. And I’ve broken it down into a 4-step process that works in any industry and in any niche.
1) The Offer
This is incredibly important: a product and an offer are not the same thing.
Most business owners miss this. They run an ad that says, “Hey, come buy my thing!” And they hear crickets. That’s because this is not an offer.
You need to present your product in a way that is going to grab your customer’s attention and increase their desire. In all of my offers, I do this by checking four boxes:
- Specific audience. Let’s say I’m a dentist. If I said, “Hey, do you have teeth? We can help!” How effective do you think I’ll be at grabbing someone’s attention? But what if I created an offer for women between the ages of 25-35? Suddenly I can cut through all of the noise and speak directly to them.
- Specific situation. At any given point, only 3% of your market is going to be actively shopping for your product. You have to find a way of filtering down to the motivated buyers. Using our dental example, what if I created an offer for women who are about to get married? Once again, this allows me to cut through the noise and capture their attention.
- High value to the buyer. What would happen if I created an offer called “Braces For Brides?” It would be a massive flop, right? The time it takes for braces to work is longer than planning for a wedding. But what if I offered teeth whitening? The bride is going to take countless pictures on her wedding day. This is the perfect fit.
- A reason to claim it now. Scarcity is one of your most powerful tools as a marketer. So what if I said, “I’m going to give away a 50% coupon to the first 10 people who reply…” Now there’s a reason to hurry.
By using these four things, you can turn a product into an offer. Suddenly you go from something that collects dust on a shelf, to something that customers can’t buy fast enough.
2) Lead Capture
Once you have an offer, you have to have a way to get it in front of potential customers. The best message in the world is meaningless if there are no ears to hear it.
There are four critical components:
- The landing page. You have to have a page where you can send traffic and they can claim your offer. This is the actual mechanism by which someone can click a button and start doing business with you.
- The thank you page. Most people use the thank you page as confirmation. “Thanks for claiming your free download, check your inbox now.” This is a huge missed opportunity. We use it as a way to sweeten the deal. We say, “If you thought you were excited before, here’s something even better…” It’s one of the easiest ways to increase profits.
- The facebook ad. It doesn’t matter how great your landing page is if you can’t send traffic to it. Creating a winning ad looks deceptively easy. The simplest ad usually has massive amounts of psychology and testing behind it. For the last many years my agency has invested thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of euro into perfecting the science.
- Dynamic targeting. If you kept telling the same message to the same people, how long would it take for them to tune you out? Then what would you do? Just scream louder? That’s what most marketers do. Instead we use dynamic targeting to find the perfect prospects every day. I want to know who is most likely to buy right now. It sends your chances of success through the roof.
If you can accomplish these four things online, it’s the equivalent of a brick-and-mortar business that has a line that goes out the door, and around the corner.
3) Follow Up
How often have you called or emailed a prospect and heard nothing back? Then you call again, and again, and again… and finally they responded and said, “I’m so sorry, I want to sign up but I’ve just been so busy!”
If you do follow-up, there’s a 100% chance this exact thing has happened to you.
It’s because life happens. Your prospect was about to respond but their kid barged into the room and interrupted them. They were about to click your link but the phone rang and then they forgot. They like your service, but you just had to be persistent to close the deal.
And the same thing happens to you too. Many of my clients don’t do follow-up at all! They send an email, they have no way of tracking who they contacted and when, so unless they get a reply the trail instantly goes cold. They’re not organized enough to stay on top of follow-up because life just gets in the way.
Organization is one of my strengths and I’ve created a 4-part system to make sure follow up never falls through the cracks.
- As soon as someone opts in for one of my lead magnets or requests more information, I use software to send an email instantly.
- I also set it up for an email to get sent 24 hours afterwards, just in case they weren’t able to start consuming the thing I sent them right away. And in fact usually I email them once a week afterwards as well.
- I also use Twilio to send a text message. It might sound like overkill, but trust me: if you’re not using SMS, you’re absolutely leaving money on the table.
- I use a phone call. Maybe my team calls them. Or often I’ll find a creative way to get them to call me. If they have a receptionist or front desk person, that is a huge asset. I want to mobilize them and give them a reason to reach out to me.
It’s all about hitting people with multiple touch points to close the sale.
If you leave the ball in their court, they’re likely to forget. But if you politely yet firmly stay top-of-mind, you drastically increase your chances for success.
4) The Internal Upsell
It doesn’t matter how good your offer, leads, or followup is if you don’t have an internal upsell.
Before I explain what that is, let me ask you… is someone who buys from you once your customer?
You might be thinking, “Of course, that’s the definition of a customer… someone who buys from you.”
I disagree. A one-time-buyer is a visitor. A tire kicker. But in order for someone to become YOUR customer, they need to walk through your door twice.
Here’s exactly how I do that…
- The Clincher Offer. Using a chiropractor as an example, you could offer free massages, discounts, or other incentives to get people to walk through the door. But obviously you’re not going to grow the practice by giving services away for free.
- The Parting Gift. As the customer is leaving after claiming their Clincher Offer, you could hand them a red envelope that had a thank you letter inside. It said, “Book a massage in the next 7 days and we’ll give you 50% off.” This has a 65% conversion rate on that gift.
- The Viral Spread Offer. We would also give our clients referral cards and tell them, “Give this to three friends. If they book a free chair massage, your next massage will be 50% off.” Now we had a viral salesforce.
- The Testimonial. We never crossed our fingers and hoped people would leave us reviews or give us testimonials. We were always thinking of fun and interesting ways to ask for it. Usually people love bragging about your business (it makes them look good too as your customer!) they just don’t think to do it. A little nudge goes a long way.
Think about Groupon. Have you heard businesses complain that they got tons of customers but lost money on the deal? Have you heard people complain that Groupon customers are cheapskates?
But have you also heard of massive success stories on Groupon? Of course.
If you do it right, you can use incentives to get tons of people to walk through your door, and then turn them into repeat and raving customers.
What if you could do all of this fast and easy?
Let’s do a quick recap:
- There’s a massive wave about to crash. You can either sink or surf.
- If you can convince businesses to let go of location, word of mouth, and their aversion to Facebook ads, you can help them survive and thrive.
- By using the 4-step funnel, you can generate massive amounts of clients and revenues for these businesses.
Over the last 8-10 years, this has essentially been the roadmap for my own agency. I meet brick-and-mortar business owners, I educate them about huge opportunities, then we work with them to implement these systems. It’s been massively profitable, and so much fun.
Here are BlueStorm Digital we setup and manage done-for-you customer campaigns that are based on campaigns that are actually driving results, right now. That means that with a single click you can start generating leads and revenue for your business.
I want to help small and medium businesses all across Ireland thrive during the wave that’s about to crash. If you want to embrace the digital wave- then I invite you to join us and let’s do it together!
