In my years of entrepreneurial experience, I’ve come to realize that all effective marketing strategies come down to these three components, destination, content and traffic. Today, I’m going to break each of these down and show you how to set your client up for success.
Destination
Think about where you want prospects to go. What’s the end goal of your strategy? You need to make this a high priority, as the rest of your marketing strategy depends on the destination.
For example, let’s say you have a client who owns a family counseling practice. This client wants to host a monthly webinar on different topics related to counseling, such as marriage counseling, couples therapy or any other relevant topic. That’s great, but what’s the purpose of the webinar? Why do you want people to join the webinar? The ultimate result is to get this client to sign up for counseling services after attending the webinar.
That’s the destination. Getting the prospect to a “sign up” or “contact” your page to schedule a counseling session with your client after the webinar. In this scenario, many would be inclined to focus on the webinar as the destination. But what does that do for the client? Yes, it gives more exposure and some revenue, but it is overall ineffective.
Why? Because the webinar alone doesn’t create long-lasting, qualified leads for the client. Even if attendance is high, how many of those people will actually sign up for a counseling session if you don’t give them a place to go? That is where content comes into play.
Content
The word “content” has become somewhat of a buzzword in the marketing world. But, what does it really mean? To me, content is anything we create for clients to build relationships with their prospects. It could be blogs, emails, social media posts, webinars, podcasts, etc.
However, not all content is created equally. Depending on the client’s vision and destination, it’s our job as marketers to find the best content solutions. A webinar might be effective for one client, while another may prefer radio and television ads. Whatever the case is, it’s essential to find the best ways to solve their prospects’ problems.
Going back to our counselor example, the webinar is a piece of content geared toward getting prospects to sign up for a session. While this can be effective, it shouldn’t be the only piece of content produced.
How will people know about the upcoming webinar? What makes your client a credible speaker? These can be solved in a variety of ways. For example, you could create a series of testimonials from satisfied clients and post them on social media. You could run an ad with a special offer for webinar attendees. You could even write a blog post on the speaker’s experience in counseling.
Whatever you decide to do, you must remember the destination to stay on track. Now, how do we get people to see the amazing content you’ve created?
Traffic
Let’s say you’ve created a series of blog posts for your client, with the CTA highlighting the upcoming webinar. How will you drive traffic to the blog posts and ultimately, the webinar?
With so much information and content on the internet, you can’t just post something and expect everyone to see it. You have to drive traffic to your content to get them to your destination. There are several ways to drive traffic effectively. The first step is to find out where your client’s prospects are hanging out.
Just like catching a fish, it’s easier to find prospects in a busy stream rather than an empty one. For our counseling clients, our job is to find out where their prospects are and market in those locations. That can be done through market research, SEO and community outreach, among other things.
For example, let’s say that you find most of the client’s existing appointment requests come from Facebook referrals. That means it’s time to run a Facebook ad. Since prospects are hanging out on Facebook anyway, you’re more likely to get those prospects to click on the ad.
With the ad, you drive people to the webinar. After the webinar, prospects are encouraged to sign up for an appointment — Destination, Content and Traffic. Now, there are many other facets that play into an effective marketing strategy, but these are the three key elements.
Remember these key elements when planning your next marketing strategy and see just how effective it can be. Let me know what you think in the comments below and contact me with all your entrepreneurial questions. Here’s to your success!