Reinvent Your Message, Marketing and Mindset

Back by popular demand, this week we decided to hold a bonus training session in addition to our ongoing “Reinvent Your Message, Marketing and Mindset” webinar series. As always the logic behind this training is to ensure we’re doing the right things, in the right order, at the right time. If you’ve been following us for some time, you should understand the difference between low leverage and high leverage activities (HLAs). What you may not know is what your HLAs actually are. 

The practice of doing the right things at the right time propels your business to success regardless of your circumstances, and it’s our job to help you identify the areas you need to improve. The truth is there’s nothing more precious than time, but for better or worse “We all have the same number of hours in our day as Beyoncé”. This note is pinned on a board in the home office of one of our colleagues.

Your HLAs are like living organisms; they grow, take new forms and develop to something new. Past challenges give way to new ones. What your high leverage activities were 6 months ago doesn’t necessarily apply today. Companies have to be nimble and agile enough to challenge things and make modifications to their basic business tenets on the go. The environment we find ourselves in requires constant scrutiny. The only way to stay on top of your game and hit your KPIs is by careful observation; anything from SOPs and logic, content to people,  all the way to your marketing efforts and your products and services has to be carefully examined in regular intervals.

How To Move From Disrupted To Disruptor

 Own the internet, this is how you use that tool to market your business and gain your freedom. The internet is a tremendous source of information. Statistics don’t lie, people are using Google to search throughout the day. The only question is if you’re an option.

 How your business operated a few months ago, is completely different to what we are experiencing today. You need to constantly revisit how you are leveraging your time, money and technology. You need to implement the right things in the right order and at the right time. 

 Evaluate your marketing and branding and begin to understand what they truly mean in today’s environment. How do you think customers in this “new normal” are going to react to what you have to offer? How are they going to be able to use what you have to offer? What emotions will you invoke?

 Keep doing what is working, start doing what you aren’t doing and stop doing what isn’t working. A lot of what used to work, isn’t going to work now. You have to be open to change, innovation and adjustment. Those who don’t, will suffer. 

12 Steps – Your Path to Success

 The 12 Step Roadmap is in place to help you get back on track to efficiently operate in the “new normal”. Technology, branding and website development, content writing, conversion systems, local marketing, reviews and reputation, social marketing, search engine optimization, paid advertising, content marketing, print/scan/email/text, video marketing and mobile applications are the steps you need to follow in order to ensure you start doing the right things in the right order and at the right time. This will help your business move into a new playing field. How you approach the system will depend largely on what you had in place before the pandemic and what you didn’t.

What, How, Who and Where?

 The fundamentals you need to remember are what do you want to sell? Where do you want to sell it? Are you an option on page 1 of Google? If you are not an option on page 1, your phones will not ring. Do you look your best when a prospect knocks on your virtual door? Are you easy to contact? Bearing these factors in mind when creating a marketing strategy will ensure that you are the company to connect with. Make use of tags, perma-links and titles to ensure that Google places you in the correct giant drawer of options. 

 How To Achieve Accelerated Results

 Create a baseline. Be clear and honest about where your business stands in the market. By doing this you can formulate a plan to get where you need to be. This checkpoint needs to be revisited constantly and your plan has to be ever-evolving. Technology infrastructure is a vital point. Take a look at what technology you currently have in place in your business and evaluate how this particular infrastructure is improving your service to the customer. Do you have the right technology to communicate with your customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, regardless of whether you are open, closed or busy?

In the “new normal” customers are online day and night, finding out things that have to be done in their homes and trying to connect with servicemen to assist them. Invest in technology that helps you replicate yourself. If you don’t you are going to hire a lot of people. Not only is this costly but these staff members are not available 24 hours a day. You will be missing opportunity knocking on your door. 

Think about your products and services, what are you offering to the customer and is it what they need right now? Geotargetting refers to where you want to sell your products or services. Ensure that you make use of the names of all your service areas within your content and marketing by optimizing your meta descriptions and tags. Speed and agility is required to stay in the game. The business environment we find ourselves in is changing constantly and so should your marketing and business strategy. A customer is going to use a Google search to find what they require because that is what people do when they want something. Are they able to find your site? If they can’t, you won’t get the call. Encourage reviews on your website and social media platforms, this is your calling card. Maintain your social media pages with current and interesting content. Engage with and reach out to your customers by showing you’ve got their best interests at heart. 

 What Do You Need Right Now?

 Do you need more traffic? To do this you need to launch an improved website. Update your SEO and content on a monthly basis to keep it relevant. Social media is a gateway to a vast client pool.

 Do you need more leads? It is time to expand your marketing plans. Ensure that your SEO and content are current and relevant. Make use of local listings. Reach out to potential clients in your area. Video marketing provides an interesting and attractive way of keeping potential customers on the line. 

 Do you need more bookings? Evaluate your interior pages and make the necessary changes. Make use of technology infrastructure that you don’t already have in place. Chatbots keep you “open” 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Offer online scheduling, virtual sales and online appointments. 

 Are you struggling to close the deal? This is the time to encourage more reviews on your website and social media. Potential customers will look to these for reference. Offer plenty of financing options. This alone will open up the gates for a larger customer base. Improve on promotions you have on offer. Remember discounts are not the same as promotions. Your promotions should provide added value and benefits to the customer without hitting you in the pocket. 

 Are you in need of more staff? Realize that the kind of staff you need right now is not the same as what you needed 6 months ago. Make use of your job board and market the jobs in the correct way rather than using a generic description. If you keep advertising the same way, you will keep getting the same applications. Don’t wait until you desperately need to expand your team to start looking for new hires. You should be constantly looking for staff that will benefit and better your business so that when the time comes, you have options. 

 Feed the Engine

 Increase traffic to your website and acquire new customers. The right way to do this is through amazing, relevant and up to date content and SEO.

Leverage the Engine

 Service your existing client base to the fullest extent. Ensure that you have maintenance agreements in place. Send out regular email newsletters and keep in contact with your customers in your database. Regularly call, message and email with up to date information.

 Expand the Engine

 Grow your service options. Adding new services and benefits will attract a larger customer base.

 Grow the Engine

 Referral business is the way to grow. In order to grow your engine you need to offer the best service, amazing benefits, phenomenal products and efficient delivery. 

 Size Matters

 The number of pages filled with engaging, informative, relevant and interesting content is a reflection of your business as a whole. The more beneficial pages you have on your website, the bigger your company will grow and the more your client base will increase. These pages should all be SEO friendly, regularly updated and informative in order to be ranked on page 1 of Google, that’s where the magic happens. 

 Content is King

 The content on your website pages should serve a purpose and in effect replace a human. As your business gets busier and you are less available, your web pages should still be able to service your customers on autopilot. Offer online content that allows customers to sign up for maintenance plans for instance. Your website, and the content must serve your customer and your business better.

 Make your content interesting by making use of visual aids. A customer is more likely to stay on your site if there are pictures and video content, as opposed to a simple, dry page that’s text only. Create awesome calls to action and place them strategically throughout your site if you really want to make your customer hungry for your services.

 Everything a customer could possibly search for, you have the ability to be an option in that search. Your content should evolve with the times and needs of your customers. Make your website serve you in the best way it can. Get your website live as fast as possible and make improvements over time. Waiting until you have everything perfected before launching will lose you a huge amount of time. This is time you don’t have as it will also take time to get your page ranked higher up once live. Re-evaluate your pages regularly. If you have pages that aren’t performing, don’t add more pages, rather go back and perfect those first.

 Be sure that your content includes every city that you want to sell in. Google can only rank you for a city if your website has included this in the content. If the city or service is not within your content, you won’t be found for that service or in that city. 

 If you want to stand out in a sea of businesses in the same field as you, you have to stop following the pack and do something different. Those who evolve and are creative, unique and daring are the companies that will come out on the winning side.

 Conversion Plan

 Converting your leads to sales directly affects your bottom line. If you want to convert you need to incorporate e-commerce into your website. Customers must be able to shop, buy and pay before they leave your website. Make use of virtual ways of connecting with your customers. The ability to chat, troubleshoot, schedule appointments and connect with your customers online is ideal for the situation in which we are living right now. Add a click to call or click to text box to your pages. Make it easy for customers to connect with you right there and then. Make bookings available online. Booking a call or scheduling a virtual service have both proven successful for all our clients who have already taken the plunge. You will be amazed at what can be achieved without even having to leave your office. Provide forms for your customers. Allow your customers to apply for finance or sign up for a maintenance plan while it is at the forefront of their minds. In a day and age where options abound, you need to strike while the iron is hot.