Most clients that we deal with have no clue how online marketing works. Believe it or not, we still get clients that think that once their website has gone live they will start making money immediately.

After 10 plus years of working with small business owners helping them grow their business with online marketing, we have found that their are three methods that have been proven over and over again.

When you spend the time to work on these three methods below on a consistent bases, you will begin to see the fruits of your labor over time. Again, it may take three months, or six months to see results. However, these three methods below are proving to be gold in helping small businesses grow with online marketing.

1. Create A Sales Funnel

I always tell that every business needs to have a website, and every website needs to have a sales funnel. Your sales funnel is your online sales person. It is a marketing tactic designed to take a prospect on a journey and funnel them through to either a purchase of a free offer. You can then track the level of behavior and engagement at each stage to see where the prospect is in the sales funnel and determine how well it is working.

Understanding the concept of a sales funnel is important because it’s a useful model for visualizing the customer’s journey which starts when they first see your ad all the way through to a sale. The sales funnel provides a useful framework to help you determine which products and services are performing well with your target audience and which are not. A sales funnel will provide you with the hard data you can use to make the necessary adjustments such as changing the hook, story, or offer, or scrapping that product or service and replacing it with something else.

A sales funnel can help you understand if a customer is resonating with your hook, story, and offer. These insights allow you to invest money in the right types of marketing activities and channels, create the most relevant messaging during each stage and turn more prospects into paying customers.

Here’s an example of a sales funnel in action.

Natalie Hodson is a fitness blogger who led her audience on a journey starting with the iconic image of when she peed her pants. That image became a hook. It caused people to stop scrolling when they saw it, and to click on the ad to learn more. From there she shared her incredible story that helped her make a million dollars in just four months selling a $37 ebook. That story resonated with so many mothers that they had to have that ebook.

Every business needs a website, and every website needs a sales funnel. Your website is your online storefront, and your sales funnel is your online salesperson.

Nick J. Roy, MBA

2. Create and Regularly Update Your Google My Business Profile

It is still amazing to me that there are so many businesses out there that do not have a Google My Business profile set up for their business. This is a huge missed opportunity. A complete and optimized Google My Business profile can lead to you getting more leads for your business, and it starts with keeping it updated every single day with new posts.

Just like you post to social media, you do the same thing to your Google My Business profile. At a minimum, you should be posting on Google My Business once a day. Posting regularly like this can lead to some good results for many businesses as well as improved rankings. Google tends to look favorably on businesses that use Google products frequently. So start posting on Google My Business. (If you don’t have a Google My Business profile set up, and need help, contact us today and we will be glad to assist you.)

3. Publish Videos Weekly On Social Media

Videos are a great way to help you establish and become an authority in your niche. It also helps to provide your audience a more personal feel to your message. When someone sees your hook and clicks through to watch your video, you have a short amount of time to connect with your audience on a more deeper level. Videos are far more likely to help you connect with your audience on an emotional level, and when that happens, sales will result.

Many social media platforms are now pushing video as more of their uses watch and engage with video content over static images. If you have never done video before, just start with doing one video a week. Don’t know what to say in your video, follow Jim Gale of Food Forest Abundance on Facebook. He posts short videos at least three times a week about the importance of growing your own food and it’s health benefits. It’s working! He’s been publishing videos consistently for the past six months and is starting to get notoriety by being interviewed and now being approached for a TV series. His business Food Forest Abundance is even taking off with the number of co-ops growing.

Now, if you are not comfortable being in front of the camera, then don’t do video. Do a podcast instead! A podcast is audio only and acts as your own radio show. Podcasting can still enable you to communicate with your target audience. Podcast platforms such as Spotify are just another distribution channel to get your message through to your audience. In 2021, everyone’s lifestyle is constantly on-the-go. So, podcasting allows you to bring your message to your audience anywhere at anytime, which just like video helps to establish yourself as an authority in your industry and create brand advocates along the way.

Both podcasts and videos are effective tools for marketing in the 21st century because they help your small business reach your niche audience at a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising. To get started doing your own podcast, all you technically need is a cheap USB microphone to hook up to your laptop and Audacity to edit your podcasts. There are also great tutorials on Youtube to learn how to edit your own podcast.

Bottom line is to make sure you publish often. At least once a week on a schedule. The more you publish, the more you become relevant, and the less you will have to worry about money because the leads will be coming in. It may take three months, six months, but if you stick to a publishing schedule, you will reap the fruits of your labor.

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