The world as we know it has changed right before our eyes this year. Businesses have closed the doors to their business forever and that is a tragic reality. With all the noise in the world and so much uncertainty, you’re probably finding it hard as a business owner to stand out among the crowd. You may be even asking yourself if you should be selling right now, my answer is yes!
Your people still need someone to help them. And don’t forget that you still have bills, business expenses, and a family to provide for. Yes, you should be selling, right now.
Right now, is the best time for online business owners to show up. The world needs more leaders to show up and lead.
BUT…
If you’re like most of us, your ideal audience most likely has changed their buying habits making it hard for the average business owner to survive right now. Our goal at The Empress Magazine is to not only help you survive during this time but show you how to thrive long after this pandemic.
How can you pivot to ensure you stay relevant to your audience and on top of their mind?
An important element is to make sure your social media strategy is indeed working for you and not against you. Without an intentional & strategic strategy, you will not thrive online.
Here are 3 steps to take right now to craft a strategy that will get you the engagement, leads, sales, and brand awareness that you need without wasting time on marketing efforts that don’t work for your brand.
- Create a strategy for social media
Ask yourself if you truly have a solid strategy or are you just winging it? Waking up the day of, and deciding on what to post is not a legit strategy. For your social media strategy to work you will need to make sure that all of your posts, interactions, and marketing efforts can be linked back to the complete solution that you solve for your ideal audience.
For instance: If your ideal client is on Facebook, you will need to create a strategy that aligns with Facebook and targets your ideal avatar. Not all businesses will have the same social media strategy, this depends on a bunch of factors. You will need to figure out your “secret sauce” and do that.
Having a hard time crafting a strategy?
Ask yourself the following questions: [assuming you are clear on your ideal audience.]
- What is your objective on your social media platform of choice? (Are you on social to get more likes? To increase your revenue? To get opt-ins for your freebie? To book more discovery calls? To increase your brand awareness?)
- What are your goals? (How many opt-ins do you want? How many people do you want to join your group?)
- How can you get the results that you want? ( What marketing activities will you implement to bring awareness to your brand: Facebook lives, Podcast, Blog, Guest blogging, challenges, Ads, Freebies, etc)
- How will you what’s working and not working? (You need to track your metrics)
- What will you do if somethings not working?
- Are you being consistent?
- Create a Content Marketing Strategy
A content marketing strategy is different than your overall social media strategy. This is content that you will be creating to speak directly to your ideal audience. Most online business owners struggle at this aspect In their business, they have a hard time figuring out what to post. Most of the experts and gurus have told us time and time again, that “content is king” I like to say “content is queen” but it’s a different type of content that drives your audience into action, story-based content. If you can master this type of content you will see that content is for profit. You must be very clear in your content so that you’re speaking directly to your ideal customer.
Here’s an example: If you’re a business coach and you have a business course to help business owners rank up to 2k months, you’re going to want to speak specifically to that person who’s stuck at 2k and under months. Therefore, you posting content to promote your course like “hey, I have a course for business owners, sign up here” will not convert because your content is too generic and broad. It’s not targeting anyone, so no one knows its for them.
As business owners building an online empire, we typically will have more than one aviator who follows our social platforms. That means that there are people in your audience who are making well over $2k months and they don’t need your course. Make sense? When you create content you want it to stop your ideal avatar in their tracks and you want them to feel as if you’re in their head. That’s why content is queen, it has the power to make your audience transform into a paying customer if done properly.
- Build The Connection
If you’re not building the connection of why your ideal audience needs your service or product, what are you doing? We have to remember that the internet is a crowded place for online business owners, there are billions of people who are doing similar things as you. Which means that you have to be able to cut through all the noise.
Ask yourself these questions to help build that connection that will drive your audience to buy:
- How are you standing out?
- What are your competitors doing? And what can you do better?
- Are you pulling on the heartstrings of your audience within your copy?
- Are you hitting your ideal audience’s pain points, objections, and limiting beliefs through your copy?
- Are you sharing your own relatable stories in your content?
- Are you highlighting the benefits and transformations that your avatar will get from buying your products or service?
- What makes your product or service different then everyone else doing something similar?
You must remember that people don’t care about how you teach or how you will deliver your offer, they care about the transformations they will get from your offer and why they should trust you.
All three of these elements need to connect smoothly for your entire strategy to work, think of it like this:
If you want to bake a cake you will need the main ingredient, floor or it won’t rise. You will need the eggs to bind it together, and you will need icing to make it taste yummy. To bake a perfect cake you need all three strategies. It’s the same for your marketing strategy as a business owner.