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Emily Hirsh:

I think when you look at it like this, and you separate yourself from the overwhelm of marketing, from all the jargon, from all the confusion, from all the overwhelm that you feel from everybody telling you, you should do this, or you should do this strategy and you really just ask yourself, like, how can I create the best, most simple, most impactful experience possible for my audience and for my leads and potential customers, then your strategy is going to come to you.

You are listening to the Not For Lazy Marketers podcast, episode number 436.

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I’m so excited because  we are kicking off a new podcast series. If you’ve been a podcast listener for a while, then you know, I’ve done this almost every month this year where basically I just release some extra episodes outside of our normal Tuesday, Thursday episodes. And they’re all around a specific theme. So I’ve done several series this year. You guys love them, because I normally keep my episodes pretty short. So this allows me to give you more content, but in very digestible pieces. So I decided for this series that I wanted to kind of dissect everything I do to create success in a client account, everything I do to bring marketing success to a business. And this is kind of inspired because just like a little behind the scenes, just over 60 days ago, actually I think it’s like exactly to this day, we launched our Elite agency offer. Which is a super affordable, super accessible done for you, not just ads, but entire marketing strategy. 

So we are driving the entire strategy, the funnel strategy, you know how we’re gonna get sales, we’re doing the ads, we’re doing the copy and creative, but we’re also auditing many components of the funnel. So it includes like webinar audits. I have one of our Elite clients, I’ve audited their webinar three times to get it to where we want it to be. It includes landing page audits, email audits. It doesn’t include the done for you funnel work. So anyways, I built this package based off of me really sitting down and going, you know, what are my core kind of tenants in creating marketing success and how do I put that all in one package and massively over deliver. And it’s an incredible offer. We’ve signed 22 clients in the last 60 days, so it’s been really successful and we have space for more right now.

So part of the reason I wanted to do this is dissect it and kind of share more about the Elite offer, because I really haven’t done that a ton on here, but I also wanna share from the perspective of like, these are kind of the ingredients you need to a successful marketing strategy. And I’ve had my agency for seven years and I think coming back into our delivery at the level I have in the last you know, three to four months, it has really re-shown me my unique selling proposition, essentially. Like I started to feel like I was the same as other agencies and done for you marketing companies out there. And then coming back in and having clients come over who were like working with a previous agency or trying to do it on their own or have had certain experiences in the past and realizing, oh yes, like this is why we are different.

It’s these components all combined together, not one on its own, all combined together in this like really holistic way of handling your marketing. And so regardless if you work with us or you work with another agency or you do your own marketing, you need all of these things in your marketing. So I’m calling it the Behind the Scenes series. And there’s actually six episodes because there’s six key things that you need in your marketing. And you need them either done for you or you have to incorporate them. And I’m gonna talk about each one individually and all of the kind of components that go into each of the six things. And throughout this time we’re also going to be running a promo for Elite and I decided on Thursday this week, so this episode’s coming out Tuesday, but on Thursday this week at 4:00 PM Eastern time, I’m gonna do an Elite Open House and I’m actually going to show you some of the strategy presentations I have created because every client that’s been onboarded, I do this strategy, which we’re going to talk about strategy in this episode, but I create this really in depth presentation and the in depth part like sounds brag worthy, but that doesn’t really matter as much. It’s what goes into that drives the success for these businesses. It’s that foundational piece. So I’m gonna actually show you behind the scenes of that. There’s no opt-in, so if you want to go to hirshmarketing.com/openhouse, then you can just add it to your calendar. It’s going to be on zoom. It’s at 4:00 PM Eastern time. I’m also going to open up if you’re on live that I’m gonna pick some random people that are on live and I’ll just do like a 10 minute ‘create your marketing strategy’ for you. That’s one of my gifts is if you tell me like, here’s my offer, here’s my business, here’s my audience and I can just kind of like spit out a marketing strategy for you that’s custom. 

So, all right with that said, we’re going to have the next six episodes basically be this series. And if you want come to the open house/see behind the scenes of my 22 strategy presentations, I’ve done in the last six 60 days, how I do it, how I piece it together, what I look at all the behind the scenes go to hirshmarketing.com/openhouse or mark your calendar for 4:00 PM Eastern time on Thursday. Okay. So today I’m talking about creating a guaranteed to convert marketing strategy. So this is the very first thing that someone does when they sign up with any of our done four you packages. So whether it’s Elite or it’s our higher level Profit package, which in that package we basically do the funnel work, there’s more hands on work and we’re actually expanding platforms to now TikTok, Google and YouTube, which I haven’t actually fully announced yet but that’s happening for those clients. 

So this is the very first thing that happens and I’m going to talk quickly about the process, but then I’m gonna dig into what goes into this marketing strategy that is so key to consider. So if you’re, you know, looking at your marketing strategy or you’re looking at creating a new one, or you need to create a new one, these are the things and there’s four of them that you have to consider. So first of all, what the client does is fill out an intake form. And I have had probably half the people so far and so many people in the past, say to me, like I learned a ton about my business just from literally your intake form, because I ask the right questions. I know what I need to pull out of somebody in order to create their strategy.

And that’s actually one of the key things. I think that a lot of people and agencies, they ask you, like, what do you want? And that’s not your job. Like you are here. If you’re hiring a marketing team, if you’re hiring marketing support, it should be flipped around. They should be telling you what to do. They should be telling you what the best option is. And so I see this a lot, a very like passive relationship where the marketing agencies are like, well, what do you want your strategy to be? Or like, what do you want your webinar to be? Or how much do you wanna sell of your offer? How much ad spend do you wanna spend? And so for us, like my goal is to always be driving it. And so first that starts with asking the right questions. So I dig through and I ask questions about numbers.

I ask questions about strategies, what hasn’t worked about their goals. And I get really clear on that. Then I take that intake form. And I also take if they have run previous ads and I do kind of like an audit, I go through the intake form. I look at their business and their content and like their branding. And I also go into their ad account and audit if that’s relevant. And then from there I come into the strategy call with a loose idea of what I want the strategy to be. But a lot of times I also find myself digging in deeper in certain areas. And so recently I went in and I was like, look, I think that, you know, you think that we should focus on this, but I think your actual problem is there’s not a clear enough hook for your offer.

So we need to talk about that first and work backwards. And so there’s different things for every business. And so we go into that strategy call and then following that strategy call, I create an entire presentation, which I’ll share what’s in that presentation in a second, but here’s the most important things that go into a strategy. And I try to really think about like, what do I do? That’s different than other people, because you know, I’ll say this proudly and I’m not just saying it, like I’ve been told this many times I have a gift for someone to say, here’s my business information. And I can just put together a strategy. And the reason I thought about it, I’m like, why can I do this? And I’ve been on, I was on a call yesterday. And she was like, you were the first marketing person who didn’t try to put me in a box and make me like all their other clients.

And you did that in 15 minutes in our call, like within the first 15 minutes you were asking me questions and you were nailing things about my business that nobody had before. And I thought about that after I was like, what am I doing different? Here’s what I’m doing. It’s so simple. But yet, so many people miss this, the first thing I do when thinking about a marketing strategy is I put myself in the shoes of the ideal customer. It’s so simple. You guys, you’re gonna be like, well, duh, but do you actually do that? And so for this business, I put myself in the shoes of the ideal customer and I was like, wait a second. Like before we carry on with this strategy, we have to address this piece. We have to address this objection. How are we gonna get past that? And sometimes I’ll ask clients difficult questions.

I’ll say, you know, Hey, if I’m your ideal customer and I’m like, I don’t really need that because of X, Y, Z, what would you say to me about that? And I try to pull it out of them. So the very first component to a successful strategy is customization and this customization does not equal complication. Okay. So don’t get those two things confused. I think sometimes people think a customized marketing strategy needs to be like 25 steps long with like seven email sequences and abandoned car and retargeting ads. And like all these crazy complication funnel maps. It really doesn’t mean that sometimes customization can be so small that it just comes through in the messaging of something. It can, it can be the strategy itself, but it can be using a webinar funnel and then just catering it just a little differently. So that it’s for your ideal customer, making it a 30 minute webinar instead of 60 making it a video that’s available right away versus a video that you have to sign up for a time making it.

So there’s no replay or there’s a replay. It all depends on your ideal customer. And so the very first thing you need to do is have a strategy that’s customized, and it should be customized on these factors who your ideal customer is and everything about them. How much time do they have? What do they want to experience? What’s gonna get their attention. What’s gonna get their engagement. It should also be customized based on your offer. A funnel for a $3,000 product is gonna be completely different than a funnel for a $300 product or a membership site or eCommerce. And so I see this all the time that people try and put marketing strategies in boxes for all different types of offers, they go buy a course. They go listen to a guru. That person is teaching a strategy that worked for them for their $3,000 high ticket funnel.

And then this other person has a membership site or has something way lower ticket. And they’re trying to make that model fit. It also should be custom to your business and your brand and your skill sets. If you feel like you cannot show up very well on a webinar, maybe you shouldn’t do one. If you absolutely hate sales calls, maybe you shouldn’t do them. However, I have had conversations with clients on this, where I was like, you know, if you hate sales calls, but that’s the way we need to sell your offer. Then don’t rule them out and try to do some crazy strategy where you’re trying to sell a $5,000 offer with no sales call, just hire somebody to help you with sales. Right? And so there are, there are nuances to that. It’s not necessarily just like keeping you in your comfort zone, but it’s also like how can you show up and deliver a connection to your audience, utilizing your strengths, your values and your brand.

So that’s the first thing customization. The next thing is focus in your strategy. This is so important. Also another simple thing that makes a huge difference. And when I say focus, you know, there are some clients that I’ve worked with so far in, in the last 60 days in all of these strategies that we have two funnels and that is what is best for their business. But I think the importance with focus is that there is one main outcome. Like there’s one core offer that even if there’s a couple of other offers, they’re still driving that core offer. Like if there is, you know, a $200 product, but that goal is to capitalize on the other leads that we’re getting, who aren’t a fit for the $2,000 product. That’s still one main outcome. And so I’ve worked with a couple clients on, on cutting back on all that we’re doing, cuz I’m like, how is that gonna help you with this main outcome of selling your core offer?

It’s just noise, right? It’s just extra. And you really have to weigh. If I put my resources time and money, meaning like their teams, their resources, or, or their personal resources or my team and their ad dollars into this, is it going to add and get me closer to that outcome? Or if I took that same level of resources, time and money and put it into this existing strategy or this one strategy, is that gonna potentially get me more outcome or get me closer to my outcome? So I think the first thing is being really clear and I ask this on every single client strategy call, what is your goal like for you? What is your goal? How many sales do you wanna be making a month and the next 90 days? And if there’s two offers, how many sales on each? And what I end up doing is I leave that strategy call.

I take their budget and I show them how we’re gonna get there. And so this is where I’m dictating the budget. And this is where a lot of agencies get it wrong is they ask the client what their budget is. And then they go off that budget. And then they’re like, well, you can’t meet your sales goals like 60 days down the line. And the client’s like, well, why don’t you tell me this? And so there’s been a handful of clients that I’ve actually had to either recommend they raise their budget or we’ve had to lower the sales goals. They’re still profitable projecting profit, but you can’t turn a couple thousand dollars into $30,000. And I think when you explain it to somebody, they get it, but you have to see the numbers on paper first. And so first getting clear on that one main outcome, what is it that, that one main outcome of what you wanna sell, what you wanna grow in your business, how many, what is that equal?

What does success equal? And then does your strategy back that up? Does your strategy add to achieving that one main outcome? So that’s the second component to a successful strategy. The third is creating an experience in your marketing strategy. If you wanna really boil down a funnel, a customer journey, a marketing strategy, all the terminology for it, it’s an experience. You are creating an experience at every level of your marketing strategy. The first experience you create is attracting an audience, right? And that’s usually through content. That’s through some form of value where you’re getting someone who’s never seen you before to consume something of yours. And that’s an experience. They feel something, or they should feel something. When they consume your content. That’s an experience. Then you’re creating an experience to take that person, that audience member who has maybe just seen a post or seen a video or come into contact with your brand, but they haven’t actually done anything yet.

Besides consume content. You’re now creating an experience for them to become a lead and actually join your email list, come into your funnel. However it works for your business and then another experience for them to become a paying customer. And I think when you look at it like this, and you separate yourself from the overwhelm of marketing, from all the jargon, from all the confusion, from all the overwhelm that you feel from everybody telling you, you should do this, or you should do this strategy and you really just ask yourself, like, how can I create the best, most simple, most straightforward, most impactful experience possible for my audience and for my leads and potential customers. Your strategy’s gonna come to you. And so I love adding in little things. And so when someone says to me like, how do I get more people on my webinar?

How do I get more people to show up? Or how do I get more people to buy? I look straight at the experience we’re creating. And sometimes that experience comes through in the messaging, right? An experience can be getting somebody to feel something, getting somebody to feel an emotion, or feel a desire, or feel like, oh, I now see the path, or this is what I’ve been doing wrong, or feel hope or feel inspired, right? That’s an experience. And that can come through in the messaging and you doing the work to simplify the way you communicate with your audience. It can also come through in something that you actually do a live video, or, you know, a bonus training or Q and a, or you give a workbook or you have a bonus, right? Those are all experiences as well. And so how do you create the best experience?

How do you bring out emotion and connection and ultimately building relationships throughout your marketing strategy? Again, it doesn’t have to be, be complicated. It doesn’t equal complication. It’s simple, but very impactful. We’re trying to go deep versus very wide with a bunch of things that really don’t make an impact. All right. And then the final component, this is the fourth component that is critical for a successful marketing strategy. And that for the most part I touch in every client strategy call is the short term and the long term strategy. And so many miss this. And I’ve talked about this on my podcast in so many different ways, but so many people miss this, which is you need to plan your initial marketing strategy, your initial sales funnel how you’re going to consistently generate leads in sales, generate an audience ongoing every single day. You also need to plan your long term strategy.

How are you gonna take the 90 to 95% of the leads or the people who have gone to the top of your funnel to the very first step who didn’t buy and turn them into sales. And this is where almost everybody is leaving money on the table. This is those cash infusion cash injection strategies. This is how we are planning long term, you know, two to four times a year. In some cases more, in some cases it’s less but frequently throughout the year on a cadence, how we are going to capitalize on the traffic and the leads that we’re generating. And so for most clients that I’ve spoken with, this is some form of a live launch of a cash infusion flash sale or future offer. For a couple of the eCommerce clients I’ve worked with in elite, it is a promotion or a launch of a new product or black Friday, that’s coming up.

It’s something where we’re gonna say, okay, we’ve paid the last several months for all of these leads and all of these, this traffic. And if things went well, you know, 95% or in some cases less are gonna actually buy. And so what are we doing to get another two to 3% of those people to buy and then continue that because that’s where your marketing becomes a snowball effect. That’s where leads that you paid for six months ago, 12 months ago, three months ago start to become sales that are profit in that month because you’ve already paid for them. And I’ve talked about this and like hounded this so many times in my podcast, but pretty much all of my sales and my business, they’ve been on my list for six plus months. And so that means like there’s obviously some exception, like I said, there’s a small percentage that are not gonna do that.

We definitely have people who like see my stuff by, but it’s one to 2%, right. Of all the leads. And so that means what I do this month is gonna impact my business in six months and knowing how to combine a short term and a long term strategy in your marketing is absolutely key for overall business profitability and success. And as a business owner, if you can see this big picture, and I think it’s the job of your marketing team to help you. And this is where projections come into play and looking at numbers and just keeping it very logical like that. But if you can really grasp that, what you’re doing this month in your marketing goes beyond the initial sales, you get this month in your marketing and that you’re building something bigger that should be building on top of each other. And this is why marketing is an investment in your business and leads are an asset and your audience is an asset and leveraging that and building that strategy is key.

And so the other thing I do in these strategy calls is I talk about this and we don’t plan it out like necessarily in detail if it’s happening in three months or so, but I have it on the horizon, like we’re gonna get, we’re gonna do this for three months. And then we’re gonna do some sort of live webinar. We’re gonna do some sort of cash infusion. We’re gonna do some sort of black Friday sale. And it’s on the horizon it’s planned so that we know the leads we bring in and the traffic we bring in for the next three months. It’s not just about those initial three months. We wanna get that to profitability. We wanna get that successful, but it’s also building into a bigger thing. And if you have no plan for that, you’re just actually leaving money on the table, honestly.

So those are the four things that go into creating a marketing strategy that is guaranteed to convert. I hope that gave you guys some things to think about. And if you wanna come on Thursday, this coming Thursday at 4:00 PM Eastern time, you can just go to Hersh marketing.com/open house. And I’m basically talking about this with more depth in it. And I’m showing you actual presentations and like removing some of the client information and then showing you presentations, cuz I’ve done 22 of these in the last 60 days, all custom, all different businesses. Some e-commerce some high ticket, like $10,000 products, some thousand dollars without sales calls like so many different unique businesses. So many different offers, different pricing of offers businesses at different stages. I have some people in elite who have like a $10,000 a month budget. And I have a huge percentage in elite who have like a one to $2,000 a month ad budget.

And so the foundations that go in the strategy though is the same. And then you just adjust the numbers and you customize it for a business. So I’m gonna show you guys all of that. And then for about, we’ll see how much time we have, but about 10 people on Thursday, you can come on, you can share with me your offer your business and I’m gonna spit out a marketing strategy and show you guys how I do that. So you have to be there, live for that. If you go to that link, it’ll save it to your Google calendar and I’ll be back tomorrow with episode two of this series.

Thanks for listening to the Not For Lazy Marketers podcast. If you love this episode and want deeper support with your marketing head over to helpmystrategy.com to see how Hirsh marketing can help take your marketing to the next level, no matter where you’re at today. We help our clients scale faster than ever, find hidden leaks in their funnel, experiment with new creative marketing strategies, and help their business explode and be more profitable than they ever dreamed possible. Head over to helpmystrategy.com and see if you qualify for a free strategy audit with Team Hirsh.

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