[social_warfare]

SHOW NOTES

I’ve said this a million times before (and for good reason), but: marketing always works, it’s just a matter of when.

Too often entrepreneurs give up when they aren’t able to find immediate, easy success. When the reality is that marketing takes time, it takes hard work. Instant success does not exist.

There are two components that WILL create the ultimate marketing success you’ve been chasing after if you incorporate them into your strategy:

• Be intentional and continuously test, refine, and repeat.
• Release your fear and be willing to fail.

I’m diving deeper into the importance of each of these components, and sharing an example of how a friend of mine was able to start a brand new business and funnel from scratch and achieve a 4% webinar conversion within a year by incorporating them into her strategy!

I promise that if you can commit to that, you will create marketing success.

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Emily Hirsh:

What is up my friends? Hello everybody, hope you’re having a fabulous day. Whenever you’re tuning into this podcast episode, I am excited for this episode, as I always am. I was texting with a friend the other day, and that is what’s going to inspire this episode. So this friend of mine, she has been a friend of mine for a few years, and when COVID started about a year ago, whatever, she basically stopped her existing business and started a new one, a digital product, a course business based on something she was previously doing anyway. She started a brand new business. So with that, she started the process that I preach all the time of testing, and refining, and repeating that process with her marketing. We’ve checked in, we probably talk like maybe every six weeks, not a lot, but we just check in. 

So I’ve seen the progress of what she’s been doing and I talked to her the other day and she’s like, “our webinar is converting at 4% of all the leads, and we’re finally very profitable and in the scaling phase.” And I was so excited because she followed the exact process and created that success, and it took her a year. It actually took her a year to get there from the very beginning to now. I want to talk about this because it is so critical, and I feel like I talk about it all the time and then people still don’t believe me sometimes, I think whether it’s subconsciously or consciously. 

So anyways, she has a webinar funnel and she went through the process of, of basically consistently refining that webinar funnel. She did a bunch of live webinars. She was really highly focused on her messaging, as I talked about a lot, that is one of the most important components of that strategy and especially within the webinar. I asked her when she told me that they got these conversions to this place, I was like, “what do you think made the biggest difference in getting into that place?” And she said for sure the messaging in her webinar and refining that, and the way she pitched the offer, and positioned the offer, and then her sales emails, uh, increased their conversion. So she said that and just like overall messaging. Then she said doing a lot of live webinars to get it to convert and following that process.

Now her experience is probably going to be different than yours, so don’t take that and be like, okay, I have to do a bunch of live webinars. That’s not the way, that’s not what I’m saying, but one thing that she said was she said multiple people throughout this process, because she was definitely frustrated at points, especially, you know, six, seven months ago when they weren’t profitable. She said, multiple people asked me, when am I going to give up? When am I going to stop and just kind of switch and, and just say like, this doesn’t work, this course doesn’t work? And I’m actually getting like a little bit of chills talking about this because it’s so… I told her like, freaking good for you is what I said. I was like, you should be so proud of yourself because you stuck through this. You got your webinar to a place where it’s converting and now you get to scale. 

She sent me a voice message and she’s like, honestly, it’s about, it was like so much about patience cause we would look back and we would see, you know, in the last seven days we haven’t gotten a sale, but in the last 14 days we did get a sale. And so then we would look at it and be like, okay, what did we do there? Why did we get a sale there? And she said, her words were basically that she was like, “it sucked so much because we were spending ad money and we only had limited ad budget, but we had to keep doing that to keep getting the data, to see the improvement. So I just trusted the process and kept spending that ad money and kept refining until it started working.” And she said, “and not once did I consider quitting, even though people kept asking me when are you going to quit? When are you going to switch to something else?” I almost think people kind of expect that that’s what you’re going to do after, let’s say three months, of it not converting, of it not getting to that place. 

I was just like so excited for her because I’m like, you’re a golden example of what happens when you stick to the process, marketing always works, it’s just a matter of when, and you’re it. She’s such a prime example of that. So I’m super inspired. She’s amazing and I’m so happy for her. Her husband runs her ad, so to be clear, we’re not running her ads, but I help. She would ask me questions throughout this like, “what do you think about this? And should we try this?” And she just did everything so well. She paid attention to her numbers. She committed to the process. She kept refining. She committed to spending a budget she was okay not making it back right away, and look at the reward she created. Now she has a business that’s profitable and she can scale it. It took her about a year to get there. And that is okay, that is normal. So I told her like, you’ve got to share this publicly because people need to hear it. People need to hear the good and the bad, because now you’re going to see this successful business of hers and think that that happened quickly or that’s how it always was. 

So what I’m talking about today is creating a strategy with these two components for ultimate success. I’ve put this together recently in a Not For Lazy Marketers Club training where it was just one slide that I mentioned it, but people really, it really hit home with some people. And so it’s two things. One, combining intentional strategy. So being intentional and paying attention to your numbers, you’ve never should move away from that. And knowing those numbers and being intentional with the foundational pieces of marketing, so knowing your ideal customer, clearly defining the problem that you solve as a company, being able to connect your messaging and stand out from other businesses, and be intentional with the content you’re putting out there, the strategy you’re putting out there. Basically it means not just boosting posts, not just sporadically spending ad money than turning it off and just seeing what happens, throwing spaghetti at the wall. We’re not doing that, being intentional with strategy. 

So there’s that, combined with the willingness and almost effort to fail and not being afraid to fail. I don’t just mean failing on a big level of saying that whole campaign or that webinar didn’t work. But I mean trying ads that just didn’t work, that didn’t make money back, that didn’t bring you that profit right away, that you tried an ad strategy and it just, it didn’t work. Or you tried an audience and it didn’t work, or you tried a messaging angle and it didn’t work. 

One thing I consistently see, I see this in Q and A in my workshops for the club, I see this in our Ignite students. I see this in anybody trying to implement in our program, I see this with clients before they came to work with us, is this fear of I have to have everything perfect to even start running my ads. What if I create a campaign and it’s wrong, or what if I create a campaign and I have the wrong audiences, or I don’t get leads the first couple of days, or I don’t get clicks. or it’s not working? What if that happens? And it paralyzes people from actually taking action. And so creating a strategy that has a balance between being intentional with your strategy, being strategic, doing things intentional, thinking through them, paying attention to numbers, but also not being afraid to fail. The worst thing that’s going to happen even is you’re going to spend your daily budget, or maybe your weekly budget and not make it back. And that is okay. That is actually part of the process. 

So that’s the piece that I want you guys to understand is actually failing is how you’re going to learn ads. It’s how you are going to realize what is working and not working for your audience. Here’s the powerful thing, my friend that I was just referencing, if you would have handed her the webinar that she has now that’s converting, and the emails she has now, and the ad copy she has now, and the package that she has now, if you would have handed that to her a year ago, it may still not have worked because she needed to go through the process of connecting with her ideal audience, of learning how they were responding, of learning how to position her product and all of those components. That can only be done with time. You cannot hire somebody to hand you a perfectly packaged marketing product and positioning because the reality is, I don’t care if it’s our company, if it’s another ad agency, if it’s an internal person, if it’s a business coach, they don’t know until you go out there and try it. It would have been impossible for her to be where she’s at today a year ago, without going through the process of testing, refining, and repeat. 

Marketing is about that, true marketing. So if you are in search of that magic formula, or that one person, or that one strategy, or that solution that’s going to take away that process, and you think that that is out there, it is not and true marketing. When you hire an agency like mine, what I would tell you if you were talking to me one-on-one, cause we get this question, and you asked, “how do I know that this is going to work? How do I know that you’re going to create, you know, be able to have success? Or how do I know that this will be profitable in X amount of days?” My answer is you don’t. You don’t know that, but here’s our intentional strategy, here’s our projections, and here is the way we look at messaging, the way we look at strategy, here’s how we analyze data. All of those components are what you need that creates the end result of success. But success is not a calculated, like here’s your strategy in a package delivered to you and you don’t have to change anything. Success is following that process.

If anyone tells you, “I guarantee this strategy is going to work or create the results for you, and I promise you’re going to make X amount of money,” that is literally impossible for someone to say. Now that’s not to say you are not going to be profitable and make that money. You very well could hit your goals. You very well could hit your projections. But you’re not going to know until you try, which is why you have to try not to be gun shy, to just launch the ads. Launch the ads that in a year from now, you’re probably going to look back and be like those sucked. I mean, if I look at stuff I did four years ago, even two years ago, one year ago even, I’m like, man we have improved. That’s because we’re growing. We’re constantly improving and growing. 

And so for marketing success, creating a strategy that combines being intentional and strategic and committing to the process, with the ability and willingness to fail, step up and fail and ask yourself, what is the worst that’s going to happen, will create marketing success. So if you have those two components, just take the next step forward and just go get those ads launched and continue to be like, what’s the worst it’s going to happen? Not much, because I would argue compared to the best that’s going to happen, which is going to be you’re learning and you’re growing and you’re improving and you’re at least moving forward, even if you’re not profitable right away with your marketing is better than trying to align everything perfectly. A lot of people ask me,” when do I know I can run ads?” Or I just feel a lot of people are looking for the answer to questions where I find myself answering the questions with, “I don’t know. You could try that and it could work, or it could not work.” And that’s, oftentimes, like people just need that confirmation, which is absolutely fine and makes total sense because ads and marketing is very overwhelming. But, oftentimes, the very technical details of marketing and ads that people get stuck on, and it stops them from moving forward. There is no one right answer. Right? 

So my advice to you is to just try it. Try the image, try the video, try that audience, try that audience combination, try that ad campaign, try setting up your ad that way. What does it do for your business? You’re not going to know until you go and try it, and at the end of the day, the most important thing is that you are committed to that process. That you are like my friend, I almost just said her name, you are like my friend who was like, “it’s not possible I’m not going to give up, I’m not going to quit. I am not like that.” She literally was like “that does not compute for me. That is not what I, I’m not even thinking, I’m not even there because I know it’s gonna work if I can, if I commit to this.” I mean her webinar’s converting at 4%, and her product price is above average. It’s amazing. 

I’m just so excited because she followed that process, and because anyone can get there, but I told her, I’m like, “you’re part of the 5%, maybe 3% of entrepreneurs who are willing to stick it out for as long as you did, and commit to the process, and put in the work, and look at the numbers, and get to that place. And so you will have that multimillion dollar company because you did that.” Now that she did this foundational work, everything else will be a little bit easier. That’s the hardest part, getting it to the profitability, getting it to that break even. That’s why I just did, I recently just did a podcast about your first crucial milestone is breaking even. If you can get there, you have done some of the hardest pieces because you’re making sales and that doesn’t happen overnight. You’ve got to nail the messaging, and the positioning, and the strategy, and the targeting, and all of those components. Once you’re making sales, now we can just increase what’s working, and it’s not easy. So I told her, I’m like, “you’re a part of that, that 3-5% of people who are willing to stick it out to get to this place. And so well, freakin deserved. Yes, I’m so excited. 

So I’m excited for her, but I hope this is an inspiration for you guys. It’s a pure, exact example of when you commit to the process of marketing, it will always work for you. So I hope that inspires you. I hope that gives you confidence, and I hope it gives you confidence to be willing to fail, to be willing to even lose money sometime, because that 5% of the time that it works is where the magic is happening. 95% of the time, you might be not seeing the results you want, you might not be hitting your goals right away, and this is right away! Once you start getting to her place, now it’s going to be majority of the time she does well. 

At my point in my business, we have failures, but they’re not where we were losing money. I can’t remember the last time I had a campaign that we lost money, has been very long time. Now we have things that work better than others, and we have things that it was like, well, that we shouldn’t have put effort into that we could have saved a little money there. But in the beginning, you’re going to be failing 95% of the time because you have not figured out that messaging, and that positioning, and that strategy that’s gotten to breakeven, and then profitability, and scaling from there. And so I want to give you the permission to fail. So combine that intentional strategy with failing. Commit to that. Do not give up. Do not listen to people who make this seem easy, because if you are willing to commit to that process, you’ll join that 5% of people who do that, who create that success, who create that million dollar business. Thanks so much guys. We’ll see you next time.

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