3 Steps to a Marketing System That Works
If you run a wellness-based business, chances are you’re hyper-aware of how systems play a role in the health of the human body and mind.
A personal training client who exercises every day but eats garbage may still have health problems because the body, like the mind, is systemic. Everything is connected, and everything is impacted by everything else.
Your business is no different. When it comes to sales and marketing, many health and fitness entrepreneurs look for quick fixes and forget that a marketing system is an integral part of your entire business plan.
Creating a strong, consistent marketing system is like taking a three-dimensional approach to fitness and wellness.
Here’s how to make sure you’ve got all of your sales and marketing bases covered:
- Begin with a strong strategy
The foundation of your sales and marketing system is a strong strategy. Before you decide which marketing tactics you’re going to employ, you must lay the foundation for good business practices.
This means having a crystal clear idea of who your target market is, what they want, and how you can help them solve their problems in a unique way.
Knowing your customer is essential to creating a marketing system that delivers what they want. It helps you present your services and products in a way that will appeal to your customer, and it also helps differentiate you from the competition.
Example: If you are a personal fitness trainer, you may be tempted to begin printing flyers, spending hours on social media, buying online ad space, and doing whatever you can think of to get more clients.
Begin first with your strategy – where do your ideal clients hang out, be it online or offline? What are their goals? How can you help them achieve those goals in a fresh, unique way?
The answers to those questions may lead you to scrap social media altogether and focus on email marketing instead, or help you get laser-focused about where your people live online.
- Rewrite your business plan
When you created your business plan, you were most likely thinking about the lifestyle you wanted to lead as a solopreneur, the amount of money you wanted to make, and the people you wanted to help.
Revisit your business plan by thinking of every aspect of your business in terms of a sales and marketing system.
Customers need to be ushered through a specific sales funnel, as follows:
- They get to know you (exposure)
- They get to like you (connection)
- They get to trust you (engagement)
- They try you out (free sample)
- They make a purchase (sale)
- They purchase again (repeat customer)
- They tell a friend about you (referral)
Do you have all of these elements included in your business plan?
If not, take some time to write down how you could move customers through this funnel as part of your marketing system.
Example:
Here is a recent sales funnel I worked on with my client Jessica, a productivity coach.
- They get to know you: Jessica blogs regularly and has an active Facebook page.
- They get to like you: Jessica responds to all comments on her blog and Facebook page and starts conversations with her followers.
- They get to trust you: Jessica offers a free productivity eBook on her website.
- They try you out: Jessica offers free 20-minute phone consultations with prospective clients.
- They make a purchase: Jessica sells her coaching services to prospective clients during her free calls.
- They purchase again: Jessica goes above and beyond when working with her clients so they continue to hire her.
- They tell a friend about you: Jessica has a referral program where current clients receive a 20% discount when they refer a friend to her.
Your sales and marketing system shouldn’t consist of a quick paragraph in your business plan. Instead, it should be a fully thought-out funnel that lists specific ways you can gain your customers’ trust and increase your sales.
- Embrace Integration
Just as the body and mind must be fully integrated for optimal health, your sales and marketing system must be fully integrated across all of your online and offline platforms.
Your email marketing is not separate from your social media, which is not separate from your offline networking, and so on.
Each part of your marketing system must complement the rest, forming a symbiotic sales engine that continually generates new leads and more revenue.
Example:
Another client of mine, Jim, had a wonderful Twitter following but was having trouble converting followers into paying customers. Just like you can’t get a foot massage to alleviate back pain, you can’t focus on one area of your marketing system and forget the rest!
- Jim began connecting with his Twitter followers on other social platforms, both by following/liking them and by asking them point blank to connect.
- He next integrated his email marketing and social media by asking social followers to subscribe to his email list, and by installing email subscription plug in’s on various social sites like Facebook.
- Jim shared his blog posts and email updates across social media, further integrating his various platforms and building on the power of his Twitter following.
His email list grew quickly and he was able to generate more sales via email marketing than he ever could through Twitter. By integrating his marketing system, he was able to usher prospects through his sales funnel in a much more streamlined way, while still cultivating connections on social media.
Our bodies and our minds our systemic, just like a great marketing system. Once you have a system in place, with a specific sales funnel to follow, you’ll waste less time and spend less money on ‘one-off’ marketing tactics or fads.
You’ll also be able to measure your results more easily, determine what’s working, and quickly eliminate what’s not.
Are you ready to generate more revenue with a proven marketing system? Access your FREE Entrepreneur Jump Start Kit by clicking below.
Leave a Reply