Discovery
Lesson 5 from: Market Your Service Business Without Spending Hours on Social MediaTara McMullin
Discovery
Lesson 5 from: Market Your Service Business Without Spending Hours on Social MediaTara McMullin
Lesson Info
5. Discovery
Lessons
Class Introduction
07:27 2How Many Clients Do You Really Need? And What’s The Best Way To Reach Them?
06:45 3Finding Clients (Is Not the Same As Building An Audience)
11:34 43 Key Questions
07:53 5Discovery
09:55 6Evaluation
06:47 7Conversion
16:23 8Sales Funnels vs Marketing Ecosystems
10:51Lesson Info
Discovery
Alright, let's break this marketing strategy down. Starting with Discovery now, what is Discovery? Discovery is what you are doing to connect with new people, This is so important and so often if not overlooked, it falls prey to so many missed conceptions about what marketing really is, so that the Discovery you think you're doing is not actually helping new people discover you and your business. So let's take a look at what Discovery actually looks like what kind of activities, especially for a service based business. Help with Discovery. So, I always want you to be thinking when it comes to Discovery, What's the easiest way for me to connect with new people? What's the easiest way for me to connect with new people for me, because I am a content creator, it's creating content, right? Like that's the easiest way for me to connect with people. But when it comes to a service based business, that's probably not the best way for you to connect with people. Instead, it's things like coffee ...
chats or hosting roundtables or maybe using social media, but using it more for networking than for broadcasting content. It can also be podcast interviews and this is something that at our podcast agency we talk with people all lot about because their podcasts can help them reach new clients through their own show, but they can also reach new clients by going on other podcasts as well and being interviewed. So if you want to reach maybe some really new to you people, maybe you want to reach a few more than you usually would. Getting on other people's podcasts is a phenomenal way to do that. And then finally, okay, creating content. Um if you remember back I talked about creating SEO content marketing as a great way to get people to discover you through search engines. I would recommend any content marketing strategy that you're thinking of in terms of growth and discovery helping new people find you, that you think toward search engine optimization. And this can be a great place to hire a little bit of help and have someone help you with keyword or structure. But really all of the content that you are creating should be exceptional. Content that's designed to be seen in search, that's how new people are going to find you through your content. Now, the key to discovery is part of a marketing strategy, isn't just how you're connecting with people, it's what you're sharing with them. And so when I'm thinking about content or conversations that I'm having as part of the Discovery phase of my marketing strategy, I want to think about sharing something that's immediately relevant to the person that I'm talking to or the person I want to be talking to because a lot of times I, my tendency is to share content or conversations with someone who has a baseline knowledge of who I am and what I'm about or what my business does and why they might are be interested in it, but when we're talking about connecting with new people, they don't have that baseline knowledge, all they know is their experience, their questions where they currently are at with the goal that they want to achieve or the problem that they want to solve and in that case I need to make sure that whatever I'm putting out into the world to meet new people is immediately relevant to them. It's based on their ex experience where they're at the questions that they have right now. So when it comes to thinking about what to share first and foremost, I like to think about the questions that people are asking me. So I know when it comes to podcasting, what those top of mind questions are for someone who's sort of just thinking about getting into podcasting as a marketing channel for their business, I know that they want to know how the heck podcasting actually works. I know that they want to know how to feel more confident in front of the microphone. I know they want to think about how to build a podcast, content, marketing strategy. These are the things that people come to us with over and over and over again as their first questions. So if I'm going to create content or if I'm going to have conversations with people that's the kind of thing that I want to focus on because that's top of mind for them. Second, I can think about what's in the news and I don't just mean, you know, whatever's on CNN what I really mean here is what's going on in the industry, what are people talking about? If there's something that people are talking about that I have a perspective on that I have insider knowledge of maybe that I have a really contrary opinion on that stuff that I can put out into the world that's going to get shared, and that people who, who are completely new to me or new to our company are going to see and find immediately relevant. And then finally, I want to think about shared interests, what is it that my best clients, my best prospects have in common with me or my business or the people that I work with, and if I can create content based on those shared interests, then I'm going to connect with new people that way. So let's take a look at what this actually looks like in a coaching business, and for this example we're going to use an imaginary career coach, so if I'm sitting down with this imaginary career coach to help them build out the discovery part of their marketing strategy, I'm gonna ask them three questions and they all relate back to this core question of what are you going to do to connect with new people? So the first question that I'm going to ask is how do you prefer to connect with new people? The way I prefer to connect with new people is probably pretty different than the way you prefer to connect with new people. So this career coach, let's imagine. They say to me, well, Terra, I love to talk with people one on one because I really want to know what's going on with them. I want to know what they're interested in. I want to know what gets them excited. Alright. We take that piece of information and we tuck it away for just a couple of minutes while we think through the rest of this. This career coach loves talking to people one on one. The next question I'm gonna ask is what do you have to share that's relevant to someone completely new to you. And this career coach sits down with me and says, alright, Tara. I think people really need someone to listen. Not someone to give advice right out of the gate. Not someone who thinks they know better than them, but someone who is listening to their concerns. Someone who doesn't have skin in the game on their career or their choices that they're trying to make. All right, that's interesting. The listening and the talking one on, one on one that seems to go together. All right. We're starting to build, we're starting to build here and then three, what activity will we use? And this is where I might step a little bit more to the fore as a marketing coach, but it's also something you can totally do for yourself. So so far, we know one on one conversations are really good for canoe acting with new people for this particular career coach and we know that the people that they want to talk with really just need someone who's there to listen first and foremost. So this career coach, they get a little creative and they think, okay, I'm going to create an advice column only, I'm gonna do it as a video advice column and I'm going to put those videos out on Youtube. Now, I'm not relying on Youtube algorithms or anything like that to help me find my new clients, I'm gonna take those videos and put them on my website. I'm going to share them out with my network and and ask them to pass them on to any for friends who might be thinking about changing careers, but I'm gonna take all of those questions that I get from people, all those folks who just need someone to listen and I'm going to turn it into a helpful piece of content that can be repurposed and reused over and over again. So I'm not always having to create something new. Another activity that would be great is just making sure that you're setting up coffee chats on a regular basis and another activity that would be helpful here is hosting a monthly roundtable. So this is an idea that I will happily credit sales coach Allison Davis for, She hosts a monthly sales roundtable where it's just totally free to join people come in, they come with their sales questions, She answers those questions and she turns those kind of free conversations into clients over and over and over again very, very high close rate on that. So those are all really good activities that a career coach like this could use to connect with people who are new to her. So what are you going to do? How are you going to connect with new people again? You can get out your workbook, fill out the section on discovery and start thinking about the activities that you'll use to make sure you're connecting with all the right new people.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Matthew Whitenack
Tara is great. I have been looking forward to new content from her. This class is major departure from her earlier classes. In it, she essentially argues that we spend less time on marketing, doing fewer activities....because that nonstop whirlwind of content creation didn't actually help her business (which makes me question what I learned in her earlier classes). I think this new class could greatly benefit from more specific examples of where she suggests we meet our ideal clients since she's suggesting it isn't on social media or in their email inboxes. I don't think I have enough information to actually "do" anything after taking this class.
Onyinye Onyejiaka
Wonderful class. I love that her practical tips are realistic.
Nelson Mueller
Great class! Very helpful information and tips on marketing without relying too much on social media. It's exactly what I needed.