Automating Sales and Creating a Marketing Machine is like building any other system. It is how you build the core that determines if the thing will make it. If you build a house on a poor foundation that can’t take the weight, over time the house falls apart. If you build a car on a frame made of 2×4 pine, it is going to fall apart before it leaves the garage.
Know Your Customer and Their Problem
The first step in any sales automation funnel is understanding your market. I have to admit that I once spent nearly a million dollars building a business that I wanted, but not many other people did. I want to save you that headache and expense.
If you want to build a pizza restaurant, location will be a major player in your success. Location alone won’t make the business though. If you draw a circle around your house of about 5 miles, how many pizza places are there? Which one do you go to? Why? What would it take to get you to change?
Knowing your customers, their problems and your solutions is the absolute core of your business automation system. Get that wrong and you are sunk. For instance, I know from experience there are three types of pizza places. Ultra cheap, take out only is at the bottom of the list. These are great money makers. The problem solved is feeding a family with something everyone will eat, make very little mess and can be bought with the spare change in the couch.
If you buy an old drive through burger restaurant, and try to build a sit down high dollar pizza place, your location won’t match the problem. Parking and seating problems will kill the business. More than once, the math of the parking lot being too small has been enough of a reason for me to turn down a client. Unless you are in a high rise apartment building with thousands of people in walking distance, you need enough parking to fill your place.
The Core Of Your Marketing Automation Engine
But even before we get that far, people need to know about your business. Believe it or not, a simple blog, well written for search engines can be the absolute core of any business. Social media can build on that very small and effective core. Why your take-out pizza is better than any one else’s can change the reach of your market.
The big light beer company spends millions telling the world it doesn’t use high fructose corn syrup in it’s light beer. For a small company, a well written blog post and a few dollars spent on social media marketing can have the same impact. The trick to online marketing for a small business is knowing where to reach your customers.
In the Easy Guide To Online Marketing you learn that the trick to blogging is to be somewhat consistent. Also being able to write in a way that both your customers and the search engines will like and understand is a big help. If you don’t like to write, you can get a professional blogger to help at a very reasonable price.
Capture The Leads
After you create an article about your business that creates interest in your solution to their problem then what? The answer is to capture the leads. Sales Automation products like Keap or Infusionsoft let you put a sign up box after every blog post.
You can offer a $1 off pizza coupon for people to get on your email list of pizza deals. If you sign up for our list to learn more about building your own sales automation machine, we’ll do a free review of your website. No sales calls, just an email with place you can do better without paying us a dime. How is that for a deal? Click here and sign up now!