Introducing the Elisha Consulting Ultimate Guide to Use Digital Marketing to Make More Money
I get it. You are doing a lot of work yet you are not seeing the results you want.
You are starting to get frustrated because you’ve read a bunch of blog posts about “How to add 200 Facebook followers a day” or “How to grow your Instagram to 10,000 followers in less than 5 months”, and still you are not seeing growth.
Maybe you’ve also attended some networking events, you’ve written a couple of blog posts and still, you have no new clients.
At this point, you might have already talked about your business with everyone that you know. You might have even created an Instagram account, a Facebook page for your business, and you might even have 100 or 200 followers.
So why is your business not growing?
Today I want to share with you the biggest secret about how to use digital marketing to grow your business. One that most people are afraid to talk about because it might drive possible clients away or even scare some people.
The goal of this post is to share with you some of the activities you can start doing to use digital marketing in an efficient and effective way.
You are passionate, you have energy, you want to conquer the world and share with everyone how good your product or service is. But after a while, you might get tired if you don’t see results.
In fact, you can even get frustrated and start thinking that everyone is lying to you about how digital marketing really works or that there is a conspiracy to not let you succeed.
Everyone tells you that your business is great, that they like what you are doing… and still, no one is buying!
I get it.
For more than a year I have been writing blog posts. At some point, I was writing on multiple platforms such as Medium, LinkedIn, and more. Now my blogs have been read by thousands of people.
I have also been able to grow an Instagram account to 26,500 followers in less than 10 months and write newsletters than beat the industry benchmarks by more than 100% in open rate and engagement.
By trade, I am an economist and have worked in finance most of my life. This means you don’t necessarily need decades of experience in marketing to get results for your business.
If I did it, you can do it too. In this article, I will share some of the things that have worked for me so that you can replicate these results.
Leveraging LinkedIn
This is probably the most efficient and effective way to start building an online presence.
LinkedIn makes it simple for you to share blogs.
But first, be sure to have a great LinkedIn profile. You wouldn’t want people to read the blogs that you post and then come visit your profile and not have a clear idea of the value you can create for them.
At any time you share something online you should be doing two things: Giving Value and Selling!
Most of the time this is what people get wrong. They either sell without giving value or they give value without selling.
Both of those situations are a waste of your time and resources.
If you just give value without selling then you will not be able to maintain the activity that gives value to others for a long period of time (we all need to pay the bills). If you just sell without giving value then you will not develop a relationship with your audience.
You have to think about selling as a way to help people make a decision that will allow them to solve their problems. At BizLatte, we have this LinkedIn e-guide because we know that everyone will benefit from having an All-Star profile (a ranking given by LinkedIn).
Also, we are completely sure that the e-guide over deliver on its promise.
You should feel the same way about the things you sell. Your products or services should be helping people solve problems by over delivering on its promises.
Website Traffic and Email List
Your most valuable digital assets are website traffic and your email list.
Have you ever been to a trade show? There are hundreds if not thousands of other people offering other products/services and sometimes most of these are competitors. Also, you do not own the stand, you have rented t.
Sure, you’ve signed a contract with the organizer but when the trade show is over you have no more direct access to that audience.
When you go to trade shows or conferences, your goal is to make connections to then have a phone conversation or a meeting with the people you met. Hopefully, you can invite them to your office or store.
Because once you are in the meeting with them you have their full attention. There are no other stands or competitors around. Most likely, this is the process that will lead to helping your clients and growing your business.
It is exactly the same in the digital world. LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and all of the other social platforms are like trade shows.
There are millions or billions of other people competing for the attention. Your goal is to take the people you connect with on social media to your store (your website).
Once they are on your website it’s on you to keep them there and have a design that guides them through the journey from prospect to raving fan.
Every word, every picture, and every button on your website has to be aligned with the goal of guiding people through that journey.
A sale is not the only way to get value from the people that visit your website. Maybe they are not ready to buy because they need more information to make a decision. Maybe they don’t have a need yet, they are just curious.
If you at minimum get an email you can maintain the relationship. The way to get those emails is to offer something valuable in return (enter the lead magnets). This is when you have lead magnets so that you can ask for emails and give something in return.
Lead magnets can be FREE e-guides, case studies, or white papers.
You are not trying to trick people into giving you their emails. You are simply offering a transaction of value that makes sense for both parties.
IMPORTANT: All social media interactions should be with the goal of driving traffic to your website. Once you have people on your website you should offer enough value so that they feel compelled to give you their email.
Traffic + Emails = Priority!
Social Media Followings
Follower growth and engagement with those followers should be your goal!
I’ve seen two situations where there clearly is value left on the table.
There are people who are putting in the work, who are sharing great content in a consistent manner… and they’ve only attained 200-300 followers for a year.
Yes, you have to work hard on first having something valuable to share. Yes, as Gary V says “1 is greater than 0”. So don’t be discouraged if at the beginning you only have 200-300 followers.
But if you stay there for a year… you are leaving value on the table.
Another situation is when people have been able to grow a notable following, at least between 5,000 and 10,000, and yet they are not engaging with their audience or sharing content that will lead them to their website.
Remember: Traffic + Emails = Priority!
How can we solve these two situations? It is very simple, but it will take work (maybe this is why most people don’t do it because most people are lazy).
The first situation is solved by engaging with people who might be interested in what you offer. If you have a website that offers advice to entrepreneurs then go and engage with the followers of Gary V, Forbes, Entrepreneur, Foundr, etc.
Most likely, the majority of their followers will find value in your content.
Also, you could target followers by location.
The followers of the sports franchises of your city might be interested in following you too (be sure to add somewhere in your social media profile/website that you are from that city too, that way they will feel compelled to connect with you).
How do you engage with them?
Like what they post, make comments on the same content they are doing so, or you can even reply to their comments with valuable information.
The goal is not to spam people. The goal is to engage with them in a meaningful way so that they can see that you have valuable content for them.
The second situation (large following but no traffic or emails) is solved by creating unique content and sharing it on your website. Also, be sure that you are sharing it in a consistent manner and that you always have a clear and concise call to action (CTA) so that you can start growing your email list.
It is very important that you first focus on maybe one or two social media platforms. Think “Less but better”.
You don’t want to have an account on all the different social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.) if you don’t have the resources to be engaged with all of them. Doing so will create a negative brand experience for the user that goes to the channels where you are not so active.
Once you get the hang of one or two, and you have consistent growth and engagement, then you can think about expanding.
You Can Do Anything But Not Everything
How much would it help you if you had more than 10,000 people going to your website every month?
What if you were able to grow social media following of 20,000+ people?
How much more revenue would you be able to generate?
These are some of the questions that we want to help you answer.
What I have shared with you in this article will help you make more money by using digital marketing the right way. Remember: Traffic + Emails = Priority!
SUMMARY
In order of priority, you should focus on:
Drive traffic to your website (to grow your email list)
Using LinkedIn to blog and build an online presence (to drive traffic to your website)
Grow engaged social media followings (to drive traffic to your website)
Yet, I understand that there are so many other things that you have to do. Thus, you might not have time to engage with your followers or to constantly create new and valuable content that attracts people to your website.
Also, one of the worst things you can do is to “try it for a few days or weeks”. Most algorithms (search engines and social media) take at least 6 months to pick up any kind of activity.
This is why any digital marketing efforts should ideally be maintained in parallel with any other activities that you do. The minimum commitment should be of at least 3-6 months so that you can then have enough data to evaluate.
At that point you will be able to understand what is working (and do more of that) and what is not working (and do less of that).
It sounds simple, and it is, but it requires strategic and disciplined action. Enter Elisha Consulting.
You will hardly find another company with as much strategic thinking and disciplined execution as what you will find within the Elisha Consulting team.
We have a track record of helping our clients achieve the results they need to get to the next level.
Let us know when you are ready to grow your business by doing marketing at the intersection of creativity and analytics.
We are here today and we will also be here a year from now after you’ve “tried it for a few days or weeks” and don't have any results. Or after you have paid for a website that is not converting traffic into happy clients.
Meanwhile, you can use what we’ve shared with you in this article so that you can start taking steps in the right direction.
Oh... and remember: Traffic + Emails = Priority!
