into a consumer or customer. And there is a difference between the two! A consumer may take in your information or even sample your product, but he or she may not always buy. That’s okay! Over time, that consumer may become a customer. The more expensive a purchase is, the longer it may take. This means that you constantly have to work to convert people into consumers and customers.
T is for Transform. You transform when you turn past and present successes into magnetic forces of attraction.
Let’s use Sue as an example. Sue sells quilts on the internet. So do hundreds of other people. How can Sue bring people to her website? If she has a Facebook page, she could create an album of her quilts. Jane, a Facebook friend of Sue’s, looks at the pictures and instantly thinks of getting one for her granddaughter. She sees that Sue has placed a link to her website right below the pictures, so she clicks over to her site. Sue has successfully ATTRACTED Jane to her website.
With social media, you are the publisher! The sooner you realize you are a publisher, the more successful your business will be. Wouldn’t it be great if people relied on you and your business to help them in their careers and personal lives? It’s possible, but you have to start thinking differently about the way you market. Publishing valuable, relevant, and compelling information targeted to your customers and prospects is the answer. What’s your expertise? How does that expertise relate to your customers’ pain points? Then create the story and reach people where they are—through email, ebooks, blogs, social media, and more. Then watch the magic happen: you become the authority for that niche. You are the expert, and you may never have to actively sell again!
Joe Pulizzi,
coauthor of Get Content. Get Customers
Once Jane visits Sue’s website, she takes a closer look at the quilts. She finds one that she thinks her granddaughter would just love as a holiday gift. She makes a note to herself that she will make sure to come back closer to Christmas. Now, what are the chances that Jane will actually be back? Very slim. Luckily, Sue has a newsletter sign-up box on her home page. She offers Jane some tips on quilt making in exchange for her email address. Jane gladly gives it; she is CONVERTED from a stranger to a consumer. Now, Sue can email Jane whenever she has something exciting to share—a new shipment, some more tips, or even news of a sale. Come Christmas, Jane receives an email from Sue reminding her to get her Christmas shopping done—and Jane buys. She is CONVERTED from a consumer into a customer.
Jane loves the quilt she receives from Sue! It even has a nice note. Jane’s granddaughter loves the quilt just as much. In fact, she drags it around the house. It has become her favorite blankie. Jane just has to take a picture and send it to Sue. Sue takes this picture and shares it on her company blog. She TRANSFORMS the success with a customer into an attraction tool. She explains how each quilt leads to long-lasting memories and how happy it makes her to see her customers happy. Enter Don. Don has been thinking about purchasing a quilt for his own daughter but wasn’t sure if she would really enjoy it. He just stumbled across Sue’s blog after his wife forwarded him an article in which Sue was featured. Seeing Jane’s granddaughter’s smiling image with the quilt makes Don smile. He thinks, “If that little girl loves it so much, perhaps mine will, too.” He also notes how much Sue seems to care about her customers. He buys a quilt instantly.
AHA! Zen Moment
In this book I’ll be using the words “customer” and “client” interchangeably to refer to both, because there isn’t much difference between them when it comes to using social media marketing techniques: you can ATTRACT, CONVERT, and TRANSFORM both with the same methods!
Through the ACT process, Sue ensures that she will never be short of customers. It is a simple yet effective process.
Start thinking about all your online marketing tactics as falling into at least one of these categories. Whenever you think about marketing, ask yourself this question: Am I using this technique to Attract, Convert, or Transform? Keep in mind that there are plenty of instances in which an online marketing tactic can perform multiple functions. We will cover these instances later.
Attract
Nowhere is social media marketing more successful and useful than in the “attracting” phase of online marketing. During the attraction phase, you are trying to drive traffic to your site and stand out from the masses.
We will look at the how of driving traffic later in the book. For now, let’s focus briefly on what you need in order to make your product or service attractive online.
This may seem like a detour from social media marketing, but it is in fact the framework you absolutely must have to attract people to your product or service.
What do you need to attract prospects online? A great BOD!
• Brand: If your brand could be summed up in one word, what would it be? I will use my company, The Marketing Zen Group, as an example. Our clients use many words to describe us, but at the end of the day, the best phrase is “full service.” We constantly aim to provide anything our clients may need relating to digital marketing and PR.
• Outcome: What’s the outcome you help clients achieve? Not the process you use but the final result. Sum it up in one line: Our company helps businesses grow by leveraging the internet. Simple. We may create websites and conduct social media trainings and so on, but those are all part of the process. We do those things to accomplish a goal. That goal is to help our clients make more money. That goal is our outcome.
• Differentiator: What makes you inherently different from your competitors? The online marketing field is a competitive one. However, most marketing companies only offer one piece of the puzzle. They may offer graphic design, or optimize websites, or focus on simply consulting. There isn’t anything wrong with this approach, but this is where our company, The Marketing Zen Group, decided to stand out. We recognized that many clients out there didn’t have the time or in-house resources to handle their web marketing. Moreover, they didn’t want to hire and manage multiple companies and consultants. So, we offered to literally take over web marketing for our clients. In essence, we offered to become their online marketing department and drive inbound leads. It has been an amazing differentiator for us! So, your differentiator, in other words, is simply what makes you stand out.
I can’t stress enough how important these principles—these basic building blocks—are to online marketing and social media marketing in particular. There is no lack of information and noise out there. As consumers, we are constantly inundated with data. It is a continual grand bazaar. If you don’t have the right elements, you can’t stand out from the noise. If you don’t stand out, you can’t attract people to do business.
The branding principle “everything communicates” has only been magnified by the rise of social media.
To be effective in this space, you have to be clear about what you want to be known for—what your brand stands for. And then, you have to be vigilant about building an integrated marketing presence that supports your identity consistently. Due in part to the blurring of personal and professional identities online, you can “leak” messages that are incongruent with your brand. Frustrated offenders might say, “I didn’t want that to communicate!” But it’s not our choice; the experience of the target audience determines our identity, and they decide what to include as an element of our brand.
From its essence to its look and feel, business model, affiliations, and
