Every week as SmallBizLady, I conduct interviews with experts on my Twitter talk show #SmallBizChat. The show takes place every Wednesday on Twitter from 8-9 pm ET. This is excerpted from my recent interview with Ryan Deiss @ryandeiss. Ryan Deiss is the founder and CEO of Digital Marketer. Over the last 36 months Ryan and his team have: Invested over $15,000,000 on marketing tests Generated tens of millions of unique visitors Sent well over a BILLION emails, and Run approximately 3,000 split and multi-variant tests Ryan is also a highly sought after speaker and consultant whose work has impacted over 200,000 businesses in 68 different countries. For more information, visit www.digitalmarketer.com
SmallBizLady: What are the three things small businesses need to understand about digital marketing today?
Ryan Deiss: 1) All marketing is digital, 2) All businesses…even dairy farmers can leverage digital media channels and 3) Advertising and marketing can no longer be outsourced and abdicated to agencies. Customers demand transparency and authenticity, so now, more than ever, brands need to fully “own” their digital marketing efforts.
SmallBizLady: Since there is a glut of content online, how can you stand out with your content marketing?
Ryan Deiss: Can’t be a little better…must be 10X better. Look at top posts and aggregate and improve.
SmallBizLady: How to you do move people through a sales funnel?
Ryan Deiss: Think of it like any normal relationship. Start by offering value in advance (tell a funny joke, buy them a drink, etc.), then get their contact info, then ask them for coffee, then take them out to dinner and then…if all goes well…propose marriage. Two keys: 1) most businesses propose marriage on a first date. Don’t do that. Figure out how to ask them to get “coffee,” and 2) marketing doesn’t stop when the sale is made anymore than flowers and date nights should stop after the honeymoon.
SmallBizLady: How can small business owners create better landing pages?
Ryan Deiss: There are lots of great builders out there such as LeadPages. The key is to focus on the offer you’re making…not the page itself. A great offer will save a bad landing page, but a great landing page can never save a bad offer.
SmallBizLady: What’s the secret to getting traffic to your landing pages?
Ryan Deiss: Buy it! Traffic is readily available from channels such as good and facebook. Free traffic is more expensive than paid these days, so optimize your conversion funnel first and then start driving traffic through the paid channels.
SmallBizLady: How does understanding your analytics affect your digital marketing efforts?
Ryan Deiss: It’s pretty simple…analytics tells you what’s working and what isn’t, and successful campaigns are all about cutting waste and diverting those funds to what is working.
SmallBizLady: Should your whole list get the same email every time you send an email?
Ryan Deiss: Absolutely not. At any given time a given subscriber can be engaged or disengaged, and that can have very little to do with you. That’s why we teach our students to send free content to their subscribers, and based on their response to that content they can then follow up with additional, related content or take some time off and send them differently, unrelated content at a later date that will hopefully pique their subscriber’s curiosity and get them in a new conversion funnel.
SmallBizLady: How can conversion funnels help small businesses maximize profit?
Ryan Deiss: A well-designed conversion funnel lowers the barrier to entry to get into the funnel (which maximizes volume) while simultaneously delivering the prospect exactly what they want at exactly the right time (which maximizes conversions) and then makes immediate and relevant follow-on offers (which maximizes average customer value). If you add it all up, you get more leads and more customers, all of whom spend more and convert at a higher rate than your competitors are experiencing, which gives you a truly unfair advantage in the marketplace.
SmallBizLady: You’re a big fan of retargeting, should all small business owners be leveraging this in their marketing efforts?
Ryan Deiss: Yes, there’s absolutely no reason not to leverage retargeting. Not only is it the future of traffic, but it also ‘s quite simply the highest ROI advertising that you can run, so to not do it is to waste a massive chunk of your ad budget.
SmallBizLady: Is SEO dead?
Ryan Deiss: No, SEO is still very much alive, but it can’t be gamed like it could in the past. Today, good SEO is all about good content. If your content is solid and you’re willing to pay a little to amplify it, you will be rewarded by the search engines.
SmallBizLady: Should you hire digital marketing support or do it in house?
Ryan Deiss: Both. Outside agencies will provide you with ideas and expertise you likely won’t get on your own, but if you don’t have an inside team to lead and manage those agencies you’ll 1) spend too much and 2) dilute your brand’s “voice” over time.
SmallBizLady: If you are going to hire out digital marketing support? Where do you find good people?
Ryan Deiss: I would start with our Certified Partner Directory: http://www.digitalmarketer.com/certified-partners/ these people know their stuff.
If you found this interview helpful, join us on Wednesdays 8-9 pm ET; follow @SmallBizChat on Twitter. Here’s how to participate in #SmallBizChat: http://bit.ly/1hZeIlz
For more tips on how to start or grow your small business subscribe to Melinda Emerson’s blog http://www.succeedasyourownboss.com.
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