The Backwards Approach to the 5 Stages of Marketing
If you're like most people with a conscience, marketing and sales do not rank high on your list of favorite activities. We've all been on the receiving end of sales pitches and felt totally slimed in the process. Sales does not need to be that way in a business that has integrity. I invite you to look at marketing and sales not as a high pressure system of manipulation, but as service combined with empathy. It can be an opportunity to contribute to others. By the way, anything I say about sales can apply to evangelism as well.
Earlier in the niches work week, we established that you're not out for absolutely everybody, and that you're only going after those who will really benefit from what you offer. Your sales process now looks more like helping the potential customer to determine what it is they need and then hook them up. Of course it's more complicated than that and we're going into marketing funnels, mind maps and the whole nine yards, but for this moment, please release any anxiety or negativity you have towards selling. You CAN make it fun, meaningful and aligned with your values.
Before we go any further, let's look at the practicals. I assume you did your vision homework and have some things that need funding. (If your business vision from the challenge was based on a larger venture than what you're focusing on right now, please go back and fill out the sheet again for your here and now business. Got it? Good.)
What is your monthly income goal? How much revenue does a client or an average sale bring in? Now how many of those per day or month do you need? Is that doable for you?
I don't mean does it feel possible, I mean if you absolutely could achieve that kind of marketing success, could you handle the volume? If yes, then great! If no, what can you do to fix that? Can you raise prices? Can you add more value to what you do so you can charge more? Can you design a more efficient system? Can you add something related on the side such as teaching to bump the income up? If you work one on one, can you do some group work? If there's a huge discrepancy between the money you need and what you can earn, you might be in the wrong business, or it might not be your only income source.
Of course, if it's not about the money, carry on then. But my objective is to see you get financially secure enough to do what you need to do. Money is far from the only thing that makes effective in our calling, but lack of it is definitely a hindrance.
Okay okay, let's get into some marketing. No matter what business you're in, people have to know, like and trust you. If you can always be looking for ways to establish those things with your audience, you'll go far.
The 5 Stages of Marketing are as follows:
â—¦ Attract prospects
â—¦ Build relationship
â—¦ Present the opportunity
â—¦ Convert/sell
â—¦ Retention and repeat business
This is more or less the journey people take with you, and more and more tend to drop off with each level. It is important to nurture your people through this process to get them to take the next step with you. If you can effectively manage the leads you have, you'll have a better business with less money and effort invested.
If you spend all your efforts chasing down new customers without having a system in place, that is not effective marketing. However, that is exactly what most people do, they focus intensely on stage one and four.
We are going to optimize each stage of the process, starting at the back end this week.
Customer Retention and Repeat Business
I don't know about you, but repeat customers are my favorite customers. We've already been through the education process, they already love me, I already love them, they're rounding up new people for me, so they're easy.
Let's deal with a possible objection to customer retention right now. I manage to keep selling to the same people over and over again. I have a product that is designed to heal in a permanent way that you don't need to use for life unlike many drugs. People will judge one of two ways by my retention rate. They will either say "Wow! That must be awesome stuff if they keep coming back." Or they'll say "She's not getting anything done if they're working with her for years." The people in the latter camp are going to be the ones resistant to working for customer retention, thinking that they need to do a quick fix to be doing right by the customer. It's different for every business, but I bet you can find a way to continue to provide value to them in a way that they would be thrilled to stick with you.
In my own business, once they get relief from whatever drove them to me in the first place, they continue to set the bar higher. We discuss secondary issues, or we discuss how they can fine tune things to get what they want out of life. I can help with PTSD or I can help with procrastination. It makes no difference to me. In the words of an Essence of the Month clubber, "I've grown so much, it's boggling. It's just that I'm ready for more freedom, ready to make sure that I have plenty of whatever I might need, and ready to expand."
There always has to be a next step people can take with you.
At the risk of making you really depressed, every solution comes with it's own new problems. What this means for you as the solution provider is that you can stay in business selling to the same people if you do this right. If you provide something, what is the logical thing they will need next? If you have tried to get through checkout at godaddy you've seen this in action. You buy a domain, "Oh, you need hosting! Here you go. You need security. We got that! You need a professional email that matches your domain..."
Here is a mind map I did years on this. I'll try to explain it in a linear form below. Not all of this will apply to every business, obviously, but you can see my process and hopefully get some ideas for yours.
Alice talked me out of rewriting the following. I felt it was disingenous because I don't do a lot of this stuff anymore. Mostly because the keeping track and following through gets crazy after a certain point. But when you're little, you can do it.
Freedom Flowers is sort of a hybrid between product sales and service. For those who have done a consultation with me, I have a reminder set up on an app to remind me to follow up with them. It's a simple "how's it going" email. I will either get a glowing testimonial, some questions, or I get to sell them something else. Later I switched to an automated email through Mailchimps "specific product followup" series. Now I simply rely on Yotpo.
If they've simply bought a product with little to no interaction from me, a software program called Yotpo, sends them an email asking them to rate/review the product and when they do, they get a coupon for the next order. (2021 I still use Yotpo, but no longer recommend simply because it would cost you hundreds of dollars per month. Currently Stamped.iolooks good.) Loyalty programs are another idea. Again Stamped.io has one, or you can check out Smile.io as well.
Occasionally I'll send snail mail cards, or a small gift if they're really awesome. It's not hard to do a little surprise such as a fun size candy bar in the pack. (Not in the summer.)
I also count my newsletter as a retention tool.
Programs, as I've previously talked about are excellent for retention.
Essential Homework: Ask Holy Spirit how you can craft a better retention strategy for your business. Sit down and either make some notes or do a mind map as above. Don't censor at this point, just free flow some ideas. You can decide afterwards which ones you really need to work on.
The other thing I want you to come up with is a way to track where your customers come from. You can make all kinds of charts, I have notes in my crm programs and I did a tally mark sheet tracking how many from Facebook, referrals, google, ads, etc. This will show you what is working and what is not. Some email service provider lists have a place where you can see the origin of the sign up such as a free opt in, or from a booth at a fair, Facebook or website. You can decide how far you want to take this, but what you track, you'll prioritize and improve upon. Getting Google Analytics installed on your site is another important step. I look at not only who sends me the most traffic, but how long that traffic stays on my site. Some sources send me quality over quantity.
Optional Homework: How to Use Google Analytics
Questions for Papa/God: How can I better serve the customers I already have? What are some easy things I can implement that would make them happy to stay with me?
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