How to Market your Business without Social Media

 Melanie 0:00
Welcome back profit lovers, today we are talking about social media marketing Do you really need it? More and more often I have clients asking me if they can market their businesses without using social media, because they're sick of it right? And I get it. I don't love it, yet, I don't mind consuming it. Interestingly, I have learned actually quite a few useful tips of tick tock recently, including finding a really awesome tool for recording your business processes, something that my team does tend to find quite challenging. However, I do not want to be shaking my ass, and miming to a recording or forcing a smile. When I point to random spots in the air on Tik Tok or reals. It's just not for me. And if it's not for you either, then stay with me. Social media platforms are huge now for marketing. And one of the biggest benefits is the two way conversation that you can have with potential buyers. This is actually one of the major reasons that I do stay on social media, and that I do enjoy it. I like sharing little messages with current and future profit lovers. And I do think that that's one of the advantages of being, you know, a micro or small business as opposed to a really big business is that you're able to do that you're able to connect more one on one, because people buy from people they know like and trust right? Now, I do find that many business owners don't engage too much on social media, because some expert on the internet has told them that they need to be leveraging the bejesus out of their businesses, and they need to outsource everything and protect their energy. And now their social media is just a dead zone, right? Gosh forbid you actually take the time to have a personal interaction with a human. I did a masterclass this week in member's club on brand building where I was sharing the profit lovers ethos. So it's the list of key points that I use to make really good decisions about what the profit lovers stands for, and how it exists and how it behaves. Right. And one of those points was that we never post or email, what I call fast food for the brain. That is content that serves no real purpose for the consumer. And that includes social media posts that exist only for the purpose of posting something right. I do post a lot of piggy content, you might know him as Ziggy the rescue, Pucci, or office assistant. But that's because he's a little legend and seeing him in my stories, and on my feed is guaranteed to bring you joy. What I don't do is pay someone to create content just for contents sake, that doesn't mean that you have to do the same. I'm certainly not preaching here, you do whatever gets you results, and results will that's the magic word. A lot of social media content is really nothing more than space, junk, random images and videos floating around the interwebs with no real purpose, and it does nothing for you. But at least it kind of feels like your marketing, right? You may be scheduled a heap of stuff to your social profiles, even though you've never checked the click through rates to your website. And you only have a few 1000 followers, but at least you can take marketing off your list for the week. sound a little familiar? Oh, no, no, no. Let's go back to the initial question. Can you effectively market your business without social media? The short answer is yes, of course. Social media didn't always exist. Shocking. I know. It was November 2007 When Daddy Zack debuted Facebook pages for brands and Facebook ads. Prior to that social media marketing did exist. But Facebook really took it to the micro and small business masses, right making this like a quite a new way to promote your business. And it felt so easy and not to mention cheap, because it was free to promote until it wasn't of course before then you still had to market your business. And of course, you could still market it online using float Florens. Forums, blogging, search engine optimization and all of that kind of stuff. I was working in sales and marketing management as far back as the late 90s When Mark Zuckerberg was barely hitting puberty, I imagine now how do we market back then? Well, we

Melanie 4:45
sent snail mail we picked up the phone we talked to people we used to trade fairs and the good old golden doorstop the Yellow Pages. We even used fax machines. Now well, I don't suggest you You call your local Yellow Pages representatives and sign up for a double page spread, you can still use a lot of those old school marketing techniques to get in front of your target audience. How you're marketing your business, as in what channels you use is really irrelevant. Doesn't really matter channels or platforms you use doesn't matter. What matters is one, can you get in front of your ideal buyer? Two, how much is it going to cost you? And three? Does it lead to a sale, if you can get in front of the right people for a reasonable spend of time or money, possibly both. And you can track and measure your results, then go on with your fine self. Think about the different offers you've purchased over the past few months. How many were a direct result of social media alone. I know a few of my purchases absolutely work. There are these gorgeous earrings that I'm desperate to come back into stock, found them on Instagram. But many of my purchases have come from a quick Google search, I actually bought a client gift. Because someone had sent me that same gift box. I didn't even check their Instagram, I just remembered what the gift box was called, went straight to their website and placed an order. I bought a mini course on a recommendation from one of my mastermind buddies didn't check their social media went straight there and bought it. I have been on a solid search for an investment property for months now. And I don't follow any other real estate agents I've met on Instagram or tick tock or Facebook, I check real estate.com.au For listings. And if they're smart agents, which PS many of them are not, they will write down what I'm looking for. And they'll contact me directly when they have something that fits. The point here is to invest your time and money marketing where the people are that you want to sell to. And yes, maybe they're on social media, but they're likely hanging out in other places, too. I've seen businesses spend hundreds and even 1000s each month on social media consultants, or VA ins when it really makes no sense for their business model or their target audience. Do I really want to see your plumbing jobs and social media? Not really, if my toilet backs up and human waste starts gushing onto my hardwood floors. I'm just going to grab my phone and Google 24 hour plumber fast right? I'm not gonna be digging around through my social media. For that plumber I once saw a while excrement soaks into my carpets. There is also this feeling that if you're not at least posting on social media, even when you know that that isn't where people are really finding you that the masses or potential customers will go hunting on your social feeds for signs of life, signs you exist, if you don't at least have the presence on social media, people won't want to buy from you. And I do agree to some extent that social media can add some legitimacy to a business. But once again, it's all about the results. So if you're not using social media, or you're over it, you're sick of it. I tell you, the flood of clients and profit lovers that I've had come to me over the past probably a year who who are like Melanie, I don't want to use social media to market my business anymore. So if you're one of them, what do you do instead? Well, that's a matter of what you sell and where your audience are. Back to my previous point that good marketing is marketing that gets results and you can track the results. And there are tons of ways to connect with your ideal buyer that have nothing to do with the latest tick tock trends or minding to random audio on reels. Now I know I sound a little judgey here, and I honestly don't mean to. And if you enjoy that kind of marketing and it gets you results, then absolutely keep doing it. Not only keep doing it, I'm consuming it. I enjoy it. I'll be cheering you on. Quick sidenote here. I had lunch with my lovely friend Emily. You remember her from a previous episode, where we were talking about building like real customer love client love, like really building those

Melanie 9:23
touch points that make customers and clients feel really special. I'll link her episode in the show notes. Well, I told her in no uncertain terms, that if she saw me dancing on Tik Tok or reals, that she should most definitely call the police. I've been kidnapped and I'm being held against my will. And this is my SOS call. Now if you want to use reels and stories effectively to share your brand messaging, then Emily Osmond mod marketing collective. That's the kind of marketing expert that you want to follow. She made a really interesting point about businesses needing to be careful about Following a lot of these trends, because it may actually turn people off doing business with you. And I agree with that. So back to my point, if it works for you, then don't change a thing. Now, let me do a 180. And ask you to consider if you are somebody who doesn't want to use social media is over sick of it. If your disdain for social media is actually a lack of results, because your strategy is off, or you don't have a strategy, here's the thing, you're clearly not getting results. Because if you were, you wouldn't want to quit social media right? Now I'm going to make these assumptions about your social media efforts. If you are someone who does have an audience that is on social media, that it could be an effective tool for you, but you're sick of it, you're over it, you don't want to do it anymore. I'm going to assume you don't have a good understanding of your brand messaging. So the content that you post is maybe fun, but it doesn't spark the Oh wait, I need that solution from your followers, if you're not outsourcing and automating social media effectively, so you either are paying somebody and it just feels like money down the drain to post anything, or you're creating great content, you're not squeezing the last drop out of every piece of content you create. So you're just randomly posting bits and pieces everywhere use it once it never gets recycled, you maybe have paid someone in the past to create and post content. But maybe they didn't have access to your brand messaging guide, because you didn't have one, or even your brand image guide, because you didn't have one. And so they're just winging it, which means they're not getting any results for you. Maybe you've been posting for years, and you're not getting any results, or you feel like you're not getting any results. But you've never tracked results. So now it's just a burden. And you're making an assumption that it doesn't work for you. But you really don't know if that's true or not. Your sales funnels suck. And even when people do click through to your website, you lose them because there is no logical next step laid out in front of them to follow. Maybe you're just not being visible enough and attracting new eyeballs to your socials. And therefore it's just the same group of people commenting or liking posts. But they're not ever taking it one step further than ever taking that next action. So start to feel like what is the point? Or maybe you're not actually using your socials to talk about your offers and the outcomes. So you never ask for the sale. Instead, you're filling the fields with info, but never any action calls.

Melanie 12:55
Now I could go on and on. But I feel like many of you will have already had some bells going off in your head thinking yeah, actually, that does sound like me, it kind of makes sense. Now why socials haven't been working. So now let's wrap it up with a list of things you could be doing to market your business. If you absolutely don't want to be on social media, or your target audience isn't on social media. While you know your offers just don't suit that platform. This is Melanie's two minute like quick brain dump. And I'm sure that I could add at least 100 more ideas. But I'm going to leave it up to you to get creative. I'm just going to give you some ideas to start you off. You could be tapping into your existing networks. So friends, family colleagues, you could be building relationships with complementary businesses to form joint ventures. You could be creating a PR strategy. You'd be joining networking groups online or in your local area. They could be industry based groups or just local business groups. You could be attending trade based fairs, functions, trade shows, you could create a list of potential target buyers and you could start calling them on the phone, old school style. You could ask for referrals from your current buyers, you could utilize snail mail, or other direct contact methods. You could become a member of a business organization and then add value where you can. You could be connecting with local councils or chambers of commerce, other government organizations that support local businesses. You could be a guest on a podcast where your ideal buyer hangs out and listens. You could start your own podcast. That's only if you have a buttload of time right because podcasts are they take a lot of time. Anyway. You could guest contribute to blogs or websites in your industry or where your ideal buyer is hanging out. You could be working on your SEO, you could get an expert or do a course in SEO optimization for your website, you could run some Google ads, you could hire someone to run Google ads for you, you could get uncomfortable and start cold calling or door knocking local businesses, you could get super strategic with your email marketing, reengage the customers or clients who've bought from you previously, there's a really, really long list of marketing efforts that have nothing to do with social media. Now what you do, once again, it depends on what you sell, and who you sell it to. I certainly would not suggest hauling a suitcase full of journals, to you know, door to door in your local community, if that's what you sell. But if you're a graphic designer, for instance, or maybe you're a branding expert, then head into an industrial estate and start making connections. Marketing is hard, it's uncomfortable for many reasons, especially if you're not a confident person. Or if like me, I'm a confident person. But I'm also a total introvert and I hate small talk, you're also selling yourself a lot of the time's right I was a great salesperson for other people's businesses. And then it came to having to sell my own services and my own offers, not so confident anymore. So we've got to add that into your marketing as well, right? Now, you may need to do this uncomfortable stuff until you start to get some sales momentum. And then as long as you have a solid understanding of your profitability, and you're not under charging, then you can quickly outsource and automate the marketing processes. So you can move out of that marketing role and into the CEO role in your business. You may even be able to do it right now. Right? Just by realigning some of the things that you're doing in your business today. I spent the first I'm gonna say, was it two to three years maybe, in my business doing awful stuff that I hated. I hold my cookies into BNI meetings at business, networking International, their breakfast meetings, it's worldwide. You go in, you have breakfast, you give referrals. But I hold my cookies into my local BNI meeting every week, for years. And because I either need to be the

Melanie 17:29
center of attention, or not in the room at all. I also stepped into the Vice President and then the President's role. I did not love getting up at Sparrows fluffed ate a kind of sad, cold breakfast and talk business at seven o'clock in the morning. But BNI is the reason that I'm here in business today. My first 100k in revenue came directly from either people who were sitting in that room, or aren't referrals from people who were sitting in that room, I cold, cold, it was awful. It was just awful. I can't tell you how awful cold calling was. But it was less awful than living in a box under a bridge, which is what I would have been doing. If I didn't get my business up and running right. Or going back to a j ob, I kind of feel like I almost would prefer to spend days cold calling than ever having to go back to a j ob Anywho. The thing is I did all of the stuff that was uncomfortable until I didn't have to do it anymore. Let me also mention that was 12 years ago. So it was pre social media marketing. So I didn't have that. I do think social media marketing can kind of be lazy marketing, and that you can tick it off a list without it really being any effort or at all or being particularly effective. So I didn't have that to fall back on, let me tell you, I probably would have hidden in social media marketing marketing if I could have. So you're going to choose your heart when it comes to marketing. It's all kind of hard, right? Unless you're gifted and you absolutely love it. Marketing is kind of hard. And so as long as you once again, make sure you've got some fat built into your pricing margins, and you get those sales starting to happen. Then you can outsource so you can do what it is that you enjoy in your business. You can sit in your queen profit B role, you can really step into that CEO role and not spend your days marketing. Now if you want more of my endless stories and wisdom member's club is opening in September. And this is all the kind of stuff that we cover, right how to get super effective at your marketing, how to absolutely nail that marketing language and how to make sure that you're being seen and being heard and that you've got a customer journey map and that there is enough margin in your pricing to be able To pay for someone to do your marketing for you, let me tell you, the current members are absolutely kicking as I most definitely will share some more of their wins. But I want to give you a really quick example. So the amazing Braun from real world learning, I will make sure I link her details in the blog and in the show notes mapped out her customer journey map. And let me tell you, she nailed it on her first attempt, which is not an easy feat, right? This is something that you know, even I have to go back and tweak mine, she nailed her customer journey map, so a marketing and sales map. And then within doing that, she found that she had a big sales funnel leak. She plugged that gap or that leak and has just posted that she's made two sales out of nowhere. And I know we like to sales probably sounds like a small example. But it's not. Because she's plugging these gaps and picking up this revenue that she didn't even really know was out there. And she's picking up sales left and right. So it's a real light bulb moment for her and now she's gap filling all over the place. And that's very exciting to me when you're picking up sales you didn't even know you're missing out on. All right, I'm off to practice a dance for Tiktok QB I'm gonna get a snack at snack time for sure. And I will see you happy profit lovers. See you talk to you see you over on social media and talk to you in the next episode. Happy profit loving

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