mktpractice

New Year, New Resolutions? There’s a Better Way.

By mktpractice on January 3, 2017

Every year, we set new resolutions. Or maybe we set the same ones year after year. We resolve to do more of the right things and less of the wrong things. Then we try to apply this to our business. We resolve to go to more networking meetings. Get more clients. Finish more articles.

But it’s not going to work just like it doesn’t work with us. After 21 days, something comes up, or we get distracted. Or it feels like work.

Yup. The time when we have to dig in and actually make an effort is when we give up. Then we’ve broken our resolutions and say it didn’t matter anyway.

There is a better way.

Set Intentions For the Year

The problem when we set the resolutions is we’re not really looking at the whole picture.

Look at your goals. Are they achievable in one year? And it’s ok if it’s a stretch. But if you’re only earning $1500/month right now, you’re probably not going to get to $150,000/month by July. (Well, hey, maybe you could. If so, tell me how you did it. I’m always open to learning and encouraging).

Brian Tracy taught that we would often set ourselves up for failure if our goals were too big because our brains wouldn’t really believe we could achieve it. Enter our friend self-sabotage.

So what I do is I look at doubling my monthly income and then work backwards to identify tasks that will take me down that path to achievement.

Break It Into Achievable Chunks

Often our task list is taller than we are. In my case, it used to be twice my height. I always said I was 5’3″ but the truth is I am 5’2 3/4″ Shh. Don’t tell the Department of Motor Vehicles.

T. Harv Eker recommends having tasks take no more than 30 minutes of your time. And don’t set more than three at a time to achieve.

Now, obviously this can’t be for every task, can it? Actually it can. I’ll set a task to spend 30 minutes working on Chapter 4 of my latest ebook. That allows me to feel comfortable that I’m not going to have to work on the whole ebook. I just have one small chapter or section.

Chances are good that once I’m in there, I get into the flow and end up spending a lot more than 30 minutes writing. But I’ve tricked myself to get out of my own fear.

Success Builds Momentum

At the end of the day, make sure you write down your successes. When you see how far you’re moving towards your intended goal, you will get more enthusiastic and get more ideas.

Now is where you need to be careful. Always keep some kind of method to capture ideas. I use Evernote.

Often, you’ll be working hard and feeling great when an idea pops into your head. You need to capture that idea and promise your brain that you will get to it when you’re done with this task. That is the only way to shut your brain up.

For a minute. Sometimes, though, my brain takes that as an opportunity to give me a laundry list. I just thank the brain, write down all the thoughts, and then say “Back to work.”

Nothing feels better than success. Even if it’s a smaller goal. But let’s be honest…would you rather achieve a smaller goal or never achieve a bigger goal?

Leave your thoughts in the comments. I am interested in what you think.

Case Study – Local Specialty Bakery Closed After Less than A Year

By mktpractice on December 28, 2016

Normally I’d be posting a series on goal setting being as this is the last week of the year. And I will get to that tomorrow. Today I felt it was important to pick apart a small business that just failed near me.

I have to say I don’t know exactly why it failed. But I have my suspicions. And it’s a good thought experiment for you as well.

The bottom line is I doubt they did their homework before opening up the shop. It was a small bakery that specialized in allergy free products. So no nuts. No gluten. And no customers. So now it’s stripped bare with an eviction notice on the door.

On an online community forum, there was a heartfelt plea at the end of November for people to go support a local business. Oh yeah…and how yummy the food really was. It was her friend’s store.

I don’t have food allergies. It never spoke to me. Plus, I don’t eat many baked goods. Honestly I’m more of a deer. Waive some pretzels or chips in front of me and I’m a goner.

Don’t Be Negative

Anyway, when this store opened, they highlighted all of the gluten free and nut free and how it helps people with food allergies. They had banners and signs and handing out samples extolling the allergen-free-ness of it all.

When talking with my husband, he pointed out that it’s negative advertising. Who wants to be seen going to such a place….won’t it tell the world you have a medical problem?

It also inherently excludes people who didn’t have allergies. Why would they go there?

The bottom line is they first should have focused on delicious baked goods. Then the fact that it’s healthy. Maybe that it’s allergen free. But first, hook people in with something positive.

I need to step into my own soapbox lecture and say that it is good to have something unique to stand out. And that’s something your business and marketing plan will need to cover.

But if you’re trying to drain traffic from the supermarket bakery next door (with $5 for 24 large chocolate chip cookies) and the Starbucks baked goods at the end of the strip mall, you need people to immediately think “Yum.”

Don’t Ask Your Mom

I suspect that it was someone who learned to bake for their family. And then had a friend or two who said “Oh these are so good. You should open a shop.” Anthony Bourdain mentioned this syndrome in one of his books. And it was in the chapter on why most restaurants fail. Just because you bake good things that your friends like doesn’t mean it will work as a business.

Plus, friends won’t be truly honest. I had a client who was working on a liquid vitamin business. All of his family swore they’d buy if he made it. Well, he invested $10,000 in product and filing for a copyright and setting up a website, etc. etc. etc. Being a good marketing consultant, I recommended talking with stores where it would be sold. He didn’t.

And sure enough, his family reneged and no one bought any of it.

Invest In A Marketing Study

You need to find out if your target market really will buy from you.

One program I’m a part of is Internet Business Mastery Academy. You can listen to their podcast on iTunes. I’ve been listening to them since 2005 and have learned so much. But I digress.

Jeremy Frasden talked about a friend of his who spend thousands of dollars making yoga mats. And then was astonished when no one bought them. He designed what he thought would be the ideal mat. But he never asked the people if they would buy it.

Asking people also helps you identify your price point. Maybe a yoga mat is worth $100 but no one would ever think of spending more than $40 at the local studio or gym. So you shouldn’t invest in a yoga mat that costs you $50 per piece and be surprised when no one is buying at twice the expected cost.

You also need to find your partners as well. Who will refer customers to you. In the case of the specialty bakery, I would think about partnering up with nutritionists and doctors. (I mean, if they can pass out free samples of medicine, why not pass out coupons for food which is nature’s medicine).

Know Before You Need to Know

I’m a huge follower of Michael E. Gerber and the EMyth. He just released a new book which I’m about 1/3 of the way finished. But start with the basics with the EMyth Revisited. I enjoy my Audible version for when I’m walking. You can find it for free in your library, I have no doubt. It’s a well known book.

Then there’s the Emyth Mastery which goes into a ton of detail about what facts and figures you need to put together. But by the end you’ll have a solid plan. You’ll know what people are willing to buy and for how much.

Also if you want to open a brick and mortar store, learn from the big companies. You can’t buy into a franchise unless corporate is certain it is in a good market.

Conclusion

Really get to know your customer before you open your business
Get partners to help you build your base
Don’t rely upon negative advertising
Focus on your business as a business

I suspect the former owner of the bakery wouldn’t have opened it up. Or perhaps she would have known better ways of finding customers. I won’t know personally. And I doubt I’d ask. When I was actively looking for marketing clients, I found that most people wanted to do everything themselves and really didn’t like someone coming in and asking them questions about how things were going. Despite what a lot of sales training tells you.

I hope she keeps on baking. She could publish a cookbook. And have a website with an email autoresponder to generate revenue. She could publish baking classes on Udemy or Skillshare.

We’d all be stuck in the dark if Thomas Edison hadn’t been afraid to keep failing. Just because the initial idea doesn’t work out doesn’t mean you should give up the dream.

3 Things to Improve Your Facebook Campaign

By mktpractice on November 30, 2016

Social media is constantly evolving. And what would work on Pinterest or Twitter may or may not work on Facebook. And we won’t even talk about the continual learning curve and tools that promise to help.

But these three tips will help you improve your Facebook ad campaign and get the best return on your investment of time and money.

Always Be Advertising

Facebook ads have been lauded for their ability to microtarget an audience. Today more then ever, these ads provide exceptional value as Facebook continues to evolve and they’re relying on their ad system to get posts in front of people. It is pay to play.

So if you want to reach your target audience…even if they already like your page….you need to advertise.

Find the Happy Medium

What’s your magic number? Posting six times a day or four times a week? Whether you’re posting blogs, text, images, videos, or Facebook Live, there is a golden ratio for your audience.
You should always be testing the engagement of your fans. Famous people like Mike Rowe could probably post five times a day and get huge engagement. Still he only posts about four times a week. This ensures that he has a hungry audience waiting for it.
So find the right mix of media and the right schedule to keep your audience engaged and sharing.

Find Your Peak Times

Review your Facebook analytics to identify when your peak activity occurs. You should remember that the organic reach only applies to a small percentage. You should also not completely eliminate off peak times as it may bring in new audiences. This is also impacted by your ideal audience and where they’re located.

If your ideal audience works in an office, your peak times will be when they have coffee breaks and lunches. If they’re stay-at-home moms, it will be during nap time. This goes back to always be testing and expanding your audience.

Treat Your Online Advertising Like a Business

By mktpractice on November 14, 2016

Treat Your Business Like a Business Especially When Advertising Online

You’ll often see people talking about ads for pennies. The first question that should hit your mind is “Is that even possible?” The answer is maybe. You need to have it well targeted and optimized. However, if it’s a competitive keyword, you will pay more due to the nature of the beast.

The penny ads are more targeted for the most part. That means usually audiences of less than 2000. The good news is that there’s a better chance those people will want what you’re selling, and you can test ads until you find one that’s responsive.

Remember, you need the right ad to the right people at the right time.

So what if your niche is very competitive and you need to spend dollars rather than pennies? That’s not a problem either depending upon your profit. It’s important to really understand your whole sales funnel to know how much money you could spend on client acquisition.

Let’s say that you have a $7 item, a $47 item and a $99 item. You drive 1000 people and get 100 people to buy the $7. Then 10 people buying the $47 item, and 1 person buying the $99 item. That’s a grand total of $1269. If you spent $500 on advertising, you’d get a net profit of $769. Plus, these people are now (hopefully) on your email autoresponder list and earning you even more money with your recommendations of affiliate products.

That sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?

So why wouldn’t you spend $5000 and get $3845 profit? Well, maybe you could. Maybe it wouldn’t scale that way. That’s why I’m always telling you to monitor your profits compared to your expenses. Find your “sweet spot.” It’s not a simple formula where you plug in a certain amount and you get out a set amount.

It could be that you spend $5000 and get $5000 profit, or $2000 profit.

Additionally you always need to be changing up your ads. People get ad fatigue if they see the ad too many times. That doesn’t mean you can’t bring that ad back every few months.

And that is why this blog post is titled treating your advertising like a business.

You may just need to drive people to a school fundraiser. You still should evaluate the amount you spend with the amount you are able to bring in. That will help you more then the actual cost per click.

I’m not saying don’t optimize to reduce your ad expense. I’m just counseling that you should know how much that ad will be bringing in to your bottom line so you know when it’s fully optimized.

Create a Profitable Facebook Ad

By mktpractice on October 8, 2016

Facebook makes it really easy to create an ad, but how easy it it to create a profitable one? Guess what? It’s not that difficult if you know what the experts do.

Scale Your Audience Up

Promote your post in a way that gives it a longer life in the feeds of your fans and reaching the friends of your fans. And then there’s your potential customers who aren’t yet your fans Promoting is key to encourage these people to get to know you and your business.

Facebook Search – “pages liked by people who like xyz”
Facebook Audience Insights – Built in goldmine
Similarweb.com – Discover tons of information about your competitors
Follow.net – A free ad spying tool showing what ad creative your competitors are using and what sites they’re advertising on
Adbeat and WhatRunsWhere – both are paid spying tools giving more complete data
Amazon – Research what products and services are doing well in your market. And the reviews are fantastic for finding out what fears, frustrations and passions your target audience has.

Image is Everything

Many people are surfing through Facebook on their smartphones. You want your image to capture their attention so they pause and click on it. You may have the best headline in the world. They won’t click unless something grabs their focus, and that is the image.

It’s a fine line when it comes to choosing an image. You don’t want it to be too polished. If it looks less professional, your ideal client may think it’s a regular posting instead of an ad.

And Facebook has some strict guidelines about images and ad content. It can’t be shocking or upsetting, and it can’t imply something negative.

So test 3 images at a time. And think about the platform. Since Facebook is social, try to find images that people will want to share.

Always Be Testing

Don’t forget to take the time to split test your ads. I’ve gone on about this a bunch; however it’s worth repeating. Split testing is one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal. You can test copy, headlines and images. After 100 clicks, each ad will drop off. Then you can review the highest CTR winners and create some new tests.

Stick to Your Budget

Set a daily budget for your Facebook ad campaign. If you do nothing else, set your maximum for the day so you don’t get a big surprise at the end of the month. (It can happen. Just saying.)

Bid a few cents over the lowest recommended bid and overtime continue to improve your ads, keywords, target audience and then you’ll see a big improvement in your click through rate (CTR)

4 Quick Tips for Successful Facebook Advertising

By mktpractice on October 4, 2016

Make Your Facebook Advertising More Effective

You’ve probably noticed that there’s a lot of different type of Facebook ads. There are those on the right sidebar. There’s some that are videos. And there’s some that look like regular posts in the main feed.

Some are excellent and some are painfully bad.

So it’s important to understand campaigns well before diving in. Facebook makes it relatively easy to just click and load, but the reality is you could waste a lot of money if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Here’s four tips to help guide you to success.

You need to define the main purpose of your Facebook Ad Campaign

What are you trying to do? Have users become familiar with a brand? Generate likes? Create sales? What you are doing defines how you run your ads. For example, if you want to generate sales, the cost per click advertising is probably your best option, but if you want to create brand recognition, then cost per impression is what you should choose.

Use the ad space well

You’re allowed 25 characters in your title, 135 characters for your body and an image where text can take up no more than 20%. That mean you need to write tight ad copy. Take your time and always be testing.

Monitor your performance regularly

Too many people put up their ads and then never look at them again. The problem is that if your ad isn’t performing well, then you’re wasting your marketing gbudget. A better approach is to utilize Facebook Ads Manager and FAcebook Reports. These two tools can tell you how many individuals have looked at your ads, how many have clicked on your ads, your click through rate, demographics and more. This information is invaluable in helping yoiu make smarter decisions about which ads to continue to run, when to run them and who to show them to.

Read the Help Section

Did you know there’s a Facebook Advertising blog? They’re pretty good at letting you know best practices and answering questions. It’s not perfect, but overall it’s pretty good. I was trying to remember how to set up an ad account so I could tell you, and the help area is blank. Hashtag annoying.

Which of these tips resonates the most with you?