Are you struggling to get paying clients as a result of your online marketing? If so, learning the steps of the marketing process – and their correct order of importance – will help you to see those financial gains. Aside from boosting business, you will learn the additional benefits that you can expect.
Before we get started, be sure you don’t skip around this list. If you want your marketing to financially pay off, all three steps of the marketing process are essential and must be done in the order they are presented.
Now let’s take a look ….
Steps of the marketing process
Strategy
A lot of entrepreneurs I talk to say they’ve already done a marketing strategy. However, when we take a closer look, we can pinpoint essential steps that have been overlooked. That said, the first pillar of the marketing process is to have a clearly defined – and complete – marketing strategy.
This will take you from being ignored online to standing out and this is how:
- Brand Positioning – What makes you different from others in your industry?
- Customers – Who do you want to serve, what are their specific needs, and how can you craft irresistible paid offers that are uniquely suited to help them?
- Magnetic Messaging – What messaging can you use to stand out as the perfect solution for your ideal customers?
When you understand your difference and have a Magnetic Message about the solutions you provide, your marketing will stand out to those right-fit customers. That’s because – not only do you fully understand their challenges – you’ve also created a specific solution just for them. After completing the Strategy step in the marketing process, you’ll feel increasingly confident in your message so you no longer have to wonder if you’re saying the right thing.
Design
The next step in the marketing process is to revisit your online presence – otherwise known as the Design phase. What I find a lot of times is that my clients who come to me have very word-heavy websites. There’s a lot of information they want to convey and that’s completely understandable. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the details and want to put it all out there. Instead, the goal is to simplify your message so that – within seconds – people understand the value and desirability of your services. This makes it more likely that people will take the next step with your business to learn more.
Marketing
No marketing process would be complete without the actual act of marketing. In this step, you go from being virtually unknown to becoming more visible to the people you are looking to serve. Before you begin, it’s important to note the difference between two categories of marketing:
- Content Marketing – The creation and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts) that does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services.
- Lead Generation – The action or process of identifying and cultivating potential customers for a business’s products or services.
These two specific activities are included in the Marketing phase of our 3 steps marketing process.
First, we want to clarify the types of content that you need to be doing to stand out to your ideal customers and interest them in booking calls with you. Then, we look to free online lead generation strategies to get more of those sales calls booked. This means that you don’t have to pay for ads to get people onto sales calls. And that’s exciting for us small business owners because we often have limited budgets anyway. So this is a great way to boost your business so that you can eventually increase your marketing budget and include a paid ads strategy.
What to do next
You’ve just learned the 3 steps of my marketing process which is designed to help small business service providers to stand out online and win more clients. This is only scratching the surface of what I can teach you. So, to take this further for your business, be sure to download my free guide, “3 Keys to Double Your Clients and Profits”, which goes even deeper into it.
And, if you want help implementing these strategies, schedule a complimentary, no-obligation call to give you the clarity you need for your next best steps in business.
