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Maximising Your Marketing In 2021

Digital marketing expert Amanda Webb gives us plenty of marketing gold dust to implement in her talk "How To Maximise Your Marketing in 2021."

We’re all hoping that 2021 will bring health and happiness in abundance compared to this year and that applies to our businesses as much as it does to our personal lives.

In this month’s LinkingOut Club talk, Amanda Webb of Spiderworking gave us plenty of marketing gold dust to implement in her talk ‘How to Maximise Your Marketing in 2021’

So, let’s check out all of Amanda’s helpful tips.

  1. Define the problem

Many business owners struggle with their marketing content because they aren’t resonating at a deep enough level with their potential customers. Let’s use the example of an accountant. What problem does the accountant solve? On the face of it, they might do your bookkeeping, prepare your accounts and file your tax return. Those are the features of the service you buy. But so what? Unless your marketing drills down to the emotional state of your customer, it’s going to be difficult to resonate with then. After all, everyone already knows what services accountants provide. Your marketing needs to point out the pain points, explore the situation the client is in and then show them how to move to a happier place. Using an accountant can therefore save you time, a huge headache, frustration and most importantly, for the health of your business, help you avoid paying too much tax unnecessarily.

  1. Know your buyer

It’s vital to know who you are talking to. If you try to talk to everyone, you end up talking to no-one, so get clear on your ideal client. Don’t forget that if you provide a product or service where the end user is not the person who makes the buying decision, you will need to ensure your marketing also resonates with the buyer as well as with the end consumer.

  1. Make it easy to buy from you

Are you making it harder for your clients to buy from you than it needs to be? Is your website easy to navigate and does it show off your business in the best light? If not, this is an area to look at.

Perhaps try asking a friend to visit your website and ask them:

  1. Can you tell immediately what services/products I provide from my home/landing page?
  2. Do you know what I want you to do next after reading my home page – is there a clear way to buy, book or make an enquiry?

Getting a fresh pair of eyes on your website can be so useful in uncovering marketing that’s less than optimal.

  1. Which networks?

Business owners are often overwhelmed trying to be on all the different platforms at once. This is generally not an effective strategy unless you have a marketing budget the size of Nike’s. Instead think strategically and position yourself as the go-to person in your industry by focusing on producing quality content on one or two platforms that can easily be re-purposed. It really is not necessary to produce original content for each platform

Having said that, it’s not always the most obvious platforms where you get the best engagement. There are accountants on TikTok, lawyers on Instagram and Influencers on LinkedIn – which just goes to prove that it you can find your clients on whichever platform you like if you produce high-quality content and resonate with their pain points.

  1. Have the right content

Amanda’s motto is “Do less, get better results” so stop trying to be relentless everywhere. It’s more important to create one piece of really good content, whether that’s a podcast, a blog, a livestream or a webinar than have several pieces of mediocre content. Where your focus goes, success will flow.

  1. ‘Done is better than perfect’

This means it’s better to get something completed and out the door on time than trying to make it perfect and never actually share it or get it out too late for it to be impactful. However, Amanda suggests that if you create your content over a longer period of time, you are likely to be able to create something that’s higher quality and therefore more valuable, so she prefers ‘Best you can do is better than done’.

  1. Make your customer the hero of the story

When you write your content, always put your customer front and centre. As you write a piece, when you want to write ‘I’ or ‘we’, try to flip the sentence around so you use ‘you’ – making your customer the subject of the sentence It takes a bit of practice but it can make a huge difference to how well the content will resonate with your audience.

  1. Get the balance right

It can be hard to get a good balance between relationship building content and sales driven content. To be successful, you need to find a balance between the two. Too much ‘soft’ content won’t bring in the sales and too much sales content can turn potential customers off.

A great approach is what Amanda calls the ‘Circle of Trust’ which has five stages that you can cycle through (although you don’t have to stick to this order).

Tune In – this is about extending your reach to new audiences and includes finding opportunities to make connections such as speaking on someone else’s webinar or podcast.

Relate – engage with your potential customers using social media commenting, direct messaging and direct conversations. Consider using more video if you don’t already as it can be easier to grow trust when clients can see who they are talking to.

Uptake – use helpful pieces of content such as e-books, checklists, hints & tips or even small ticket items for sale to encourage people to sign up to your email list.

Sales – your sales content needs to focus heavily on the problem you solve, the pain points your customer is experiencing and the journey you will take them on to a place where their issues is solved. Don’t just shout ‘Buy my stuff, buy my stuff’ – take time to explain how and why you are best placed to guide them to their desired destination.

Tell Others – use testimonials and case studies to highlight the great job you have done for other clients – there’s no better marketing than social proof, so makes sure you use it frequently.

So, overall, how can you maximise your marketing in 2021?

By creating a coherent, well-thought out marketing plan which leverages less content in a more powerful and compelling way.

If you’d like to get more insights and help on this, do get in contact with Amanda at spiderworking.com.

Our thanks go to the LinkingOut Club’s sponsors:

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Ditch the dull keynote speeches in favour of fun-filled, laughter-inducing groups and seminars that get the audience involved from the get-go.

I’m bubbly and vivacious by nature, which you’ll find out in my presentations. 

I strive to appeal to those across sectors and disciplines, whether it be to those in more traditional professional roles, such as senior executive management, or those who are solopreneurs, freelancers or working in creative industries.

I ended up leaving my day job behind and achieved a diploma in Social Media Marketing. I set up Sarah Clay Social to help businesses promote themselves on social media. While using various platforms to promote my business, one stood out – LinkedIn. I seemed to attract new clients without really trying. All without a cheesy sales pitch and just by being myself. 

I was astonished by the success I had with LinkedIn and couldn’t get over how handy my childhood techniques had been. I realised that all the tools I’d learnt as a child were immensely useful! Soon after, I realised that other business owners weren’t using LinkedIn to its fullest potential. 

That’s why I’ve made it my mission to help business owners, just like you, harness the power of LinkedIn and be more successful in business.

Are you ready to leverage LinkedIn’s potential?