As an online business owner, do you feel like marketing is overwhelming, frustrating and is just NOT in your wheelhouse? If you said yes then you are like so many people out there.

I graduated from college with a marketing degree back in 1996, and while things have changed DRASTICALLY since then, one thing has stayed the same. We are still marketing our products, programs, and services to humans. How the human brain makes decisions hasn’t really changed.  

The difference is that these days you can choose from a billion different ways to get in front of your audience. Having options is great, but it’s also sometimes completely overwhelming.

You start asking yourself a million questions, wondering where you should be. Where is your audience? How can you manage to stay on top of ALL that stuff and still do your actual work?

In this episode, I’m diving into the first of four episodes all about simplifying your marketing. Let’s dive right in.

Biggest Show Takeaways:

• • In the past month, I’ve seen more than 30 different people in various Facebook communities I’m a part of who’ve asked some form of this question:
    • Should I start a Facebook group?
    • Should I close my Facebook group?
    • Should I do Facebook ads?
    • Should I be doing YouTube videos?
    • Should I start a podcast?
    • Should I be doing Instagram?
  • My answer will always come down to a few key things:

• #1: How do you feel like YOU show up best?
  • • It may seem counter intuitive to start with you, but the hard truth is if you try to force yourself to be someone you are not marketing WILL feel hard, overwhelming and like you are terrible at it.
    • Marketing doesn’t need to look a certain way or follow some script or formula.
    • What marketing DOES need to be is in line with your natural skills, talents, and abilities.
    • Start with your natural abilities before you dive into specific tactics.
    • My favorite resource to use is Sally Hogshead’s How To Fascinate quiz. The quiz will tell you how you show up best and what attracts your audience based on your own natural skills and abilities. I love this quiz and use it myself, with my clients, and with my students.

• #2: What is your growth goal?
  • • If you’re selling something that is $49, and you want to make $10,000/month, you’re going to have to sell 205 $49 products a month to reach your goal. You need to be in front of a LOT of people, and your marketing, message, and approach will be VASTLY different than someone selling a $5,000 program that they only need to sell two of a month.
    • Ask yourself: what is your goal? How many of your offer do you need to sell a month to reach your goal?
    • Once you’ve identified your goal, then you can back into it. If you need to sell two programs and you probably only need to talk with 7-10 people to sell those programs, spend the time cultivating the right 7-10 people to talk with. If you need to sell 205 $49 offers a month, get your behind in front of as many people as you can.  
    • It’s incredibly empowering to know your numbers and exactly what you need in order to hit for your income goals to give yourself the ability to focus your effort and energy on the right areas.

• #3: Where is your audience hanging out?
  • • And more importantly, how can you take your skills, talents, and abilities to get in front of that audience?
• #4: What is the problem you’re solving for your audience?
• • • Marketing will be super overwhelming, confusing, and frustrating when you are generic.
    • For a long time, I was worried about being too specific and missing out on opportunities, so I kept my marketing really broad and general and generic.
    • Turned out that very few people wanted to work with me because it was not clear how I would help them.
    • It was very difficult to write blog posts, do podcasts and pitch myself as a guest because I was a jack-of-all-marketing-trades, and no one was interested. It was too hard for non-clients to understand what value I could bring to them.
    • When I got SPECIFIC on what area to focus on and my abilities to help clients, everything changed.
    • It’s REALLY important to know what the problem is that you’re solving for your people. This is backed by a ton of studies out there. Propeller CRM recently had a study that found 70% of online customers bought a product, program, or service to solve a specific problem, and 82% of online buyers consumed 5 or more pieces of content before buying.
    • This where a marketing funnel comes in because when you know the problem your audience is struggling with, you can create content that is specific to that issue. You can take your audience on a journey from problem to no problem.

• Want to know which marketing funnel is right for you and your business? Take this free and easy quiz, and in less than 5 minutes you’ll know EXACTLY which funnel is right for you.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Marketing Funnel Quiz: https://www.michellelevans.com/marketing-funnel-quiz/
• Make YOUR voice heard in the Marketing funnel Community Survey — just a few quick questions, and you may inspire a future episode: www.michellelevans.com/survey
• Find out how YOU show up best in marketing your business with this quiz from Sally Hogshead www.howtofascinate.com