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Lesson Info

Test Your Response

Earlier, we talked about all the different ways you can start engaging the conversation through social media just kind of putting out a little bit it's in pieces and say, I hear this is what you're saying, does that sound about right? Or I hear what you're saying, can you tell me a little bit more about that? But next we need to really figure out is what we have to say about that problem, that question, this frustration that people have, is it on the right track? That's another question that I hear very often is how do I know I'm on the right track? What does it look like to be going down the right path with my product development? And I find that this is where content marketing really can come into play, and so that's, what we're going to tackle in this lesson, we're gonna look at how you respond with something different it step four of our thirteen step process of developing a product that resonates so you want to respond with something different, you don't want to just say the exact...

same thing that everyone else is saying that's, how you end up sounding like a marketing robot, you want to use what you know you want to use your unfair advantage, you want to use your unique perspective to answer the same old question with something different because what you'll find right is that as you're going through your customer journey is you're thinking about what your customers are saying, doing thinking and feeling about the problems that they have or the goals that they have, that these are the same things that everyone in your industry is talking about, and it could be really attempting to going to go off the reservation and, you know, look, look for something different that you can address, but the reason that everyone's talking about those things are because those are the things that really matter to the people that you want to serve, so you're your goal isn't to find something different to talk about. Your goal is to talk about the same thing in a different way makes sense. The goal isn't to find something new to talk about it's, to talk about the same thing in a different way. Let me show you one of the ways that I've done that, and I mentioned content marketing to me, that means my block and my email marketing for other people, it might look a little bit different. It might look like a free pds. You can also take this offline as well, when I say content marketing, you might want to thank in person seminars, a free workshop, a free meat up something like that. So here's, a block post that I wrote over the summer, it was called the key mindset shift I made to create exponential growth in my business, you know, one of the just, you know, single biggest goals and frustrations that I hear from people on my customer journey is that they get stuck at a certain point with growing their business, and specifically, they get stuck at a point where they're talking about, you know, they're they're thinking about how to move from delivering a one to one service into delivering something more leveraged, or they're wondering how they can get more flexibility in their schedule, or they're wondering how they could possibly make more money. At this point, all of those things kind of come back to this question of growth, and so I I thought, you know, let's, not talk about growth, as in actually the one, two, three step process of growing your business, because I identified a different road block what I was seeing with my clients, and even with myself. Hence the title of this post was the question that we answer very early on in this class, which is, do you own your job, or do you own your business? And I had mentioned that as well that I saw a mismatch between the goals that people have the business growth goals that they have and the mind set that they had, they had a self employment. I own my job mindset whether they knew it or not, but they had goals that come with really understanding that you own a business and what all that that entails. So that's what this block post was all about this was a super successful blogged post. It was something different. It was the same old question, but was a very different answer. It was something people hadn't thought about before, or it was something. Maybe they were starting to think about, and it really resonated with them like, yes, I am on the right track with what I'm doing with what I'm thinking about, and so was very validating to a lot of people, a swell well, this block post has accounted for almost ten percent of my web site traffic since it was published in july. I know I was shocked, teo, I could not believe it. I did advertise the post some, but the vast majority of the traffic was organic, not driven from from paid clicks because my stuff just doesn't do that well with alex s o this was organic. This was from people sharing it on twitter, sharing it on facebook, sending her around in emails, linking up to it and writing their responses to it if you have a block post its accounting for ten percent of the traffic on your website it's, probably something you should pay attention. Teo, bridget has an experience that's completely counter to this. Maybe if we have time, well, letters, all that story, but for me, since this was something that I wanted to talk about since this was a question I was already addressing in a number of different ways, seeing that this particular idea was able to drive ten percent of my web site traffic over a six month or not quite six months, four month period of time, that was hugely validating, and it was kind of in the lead up to a launch that I was doing, and so I was able to actually use this concept toe lead in, then to my launch, if it would have flopped, that would have been like, okay, that's, not the theme that I want to use for my lunch, but because it did so well, I was able to maneuver that I talked about it again in a few different ways, and then maneuvered that into the conversation that I wanted to have around launching quiet power strategy. So what does what does this kind of traction actually look like in the conversation? It looks like people saying they believe their mind twice apparently vital reading for creative, you need to read this this just rocked my world I saw it over and over again people were saying amazing things about this block post like, okay, that's resonance. This is something that I could talk more about, it's one of the reasons I decided to start this class with this idea, that wasn't like that wasn't where I started with the turn your service into a product idea. It was something that, you know, when I realized this was this big of a deal, it was something I wanted to work into this class because it was going to be key to helping you guys get the results that you want. So how do you go about making your response different if you're going to answer the same questions that other people are answering? If you're going to tackle the same problems that other people have tackled, how do you go about making your response different so that you can get this kind of response as well? So first of all, you want to use your unfair advantage. We spent a lesson yesterday talking and thinking about what your unfair advantage is, how you do what you do differently and why that makes you a successful is ur at getting results for your client's, you also could use unusual experience given experience, that's different from everybody else in your industry. Could you tell a story about that and why it gives you a different perspective on the same old question uh you can use your expert perspective a lot of times the conversation that's happening is more of like an amateur conversation and if you come out and you say no no I've got, you know, ten years of experience doing this I've worked with hundreds of people on this I wrote the book on this and then you give your perspective on it that kind of calls you out as someone you know if you haven't thought about it in this way before start paying attention to this now you can also use your unique philosophy I mentioned that a big part of my work is busting misconceptions and assumptions and a lot of that comes from a unique philosophy on building businesses it's not unique in a global sense it's unique in my market that's something to keep in mind too when I say unusual or unique I don't mean that I am the singular person that's says or does these things you know I borrow heavily from other sources and I love talking about them I quoted eric reese of the lean startup earlier I talked aa lot about the concepts that mill for merchant talks about in eleven rules for creating value in the social era I quoted from dave gray and number of times today I borrow heavily from from other sources but no one is borrowing from those sources in the digital marketing community, and so that gives me a unique philosophy and on the usual perspective, something that's unique to me and gives me a on ability to really stand out when I'm answering the same questions everyone else's answering and then just any special insight that you have. Maybe you've had a client experience with this that you can relate you news, a case study, maybe you have a personal experience with getting over this problem. That's what I did in this block post actually is ah used special insight from me about talking about how I made the jump from kind of, you know, revenue that was very solid, but kind of flat to revenue that doubled in less than a year. This mindset shift was was the difference between, you know, the before and the after? And so I was able to use that special, that special insight to be able to shed new light on what is a very old question at a very old problem. So panelists, I'm curious about a piece of content marketing that you might have used to test the waters of a new idea what's a piece of content marketing is to test the waters of a new idea. Generally smiling because you have an idea well I did this earlier this year okay I did a blood post called today I will I'm actually you shared it which was awesome thank you andi was just simply write down proclaim what you're gonna do today today I will and will follow tomorrow with yesterday I did nice yeah so it worked really well I got a lot of traction a lot of eyes on it and a lot of conversation whoever started around that cool did you do anything with it then afterwards no okay I should have yeah but no okay yeah. Bridget yeah well, I've been writing a lot about outreach you know, how do you reach out to the media and doing case cities there? And I'm just starting to test the waters on writing about messaging eso even before you the outreach and I just sort of post about audience segmentation about a question that people ask me all the time which is how do you market when you're the one audience so we feel like your customers are in different segment and so I created some frameworks around that and put it out there and it was really my first kind of messaging post and I got a lot of great feedback on it awesome. So what bridget did was actually used three concrete examples of marketers who were creating messages for multiple audiences people that your audience nose and looks up to or what if they knew about them, but you use three pretty high profile examples. Yeah, and that post I thought was super effective. I shared it on all of my channels on guy I think that is a great example of using your expert perspective because, you know, so few people that are reading your blawg and asking the questions, you know, that they're asking are thinking about it in that away, so they've got this question of, you know, there's, a lot of different people out there that I'd like to message to or that I'd like to connect with, but I don't know how to go about doing that, and you broke it down from, you know, really, from an outside perspective and was able to give examples of exactly how people are doing that, doing it very, very effectively, yeah, it was actually the conference, and there was a speaker talking about storytelling, and they got this question, and the person said, well, I'm really afraid that I'm gonna turn off one audience when I'm trying to market to the other and answer they gave was just it was not good, good on, like, I found myself like one thing I haven't just tried have a discipline with is not writing how to, so I started that post is like steps on, then I was like, no, no, no, no, no, because there's, different scenarios. And so exactly expert came into play where it's, like everybody else might give you hear the five step is to doing it. And I said, no here three ways to think about it and structure it, and then, you know, the steps can flow easily from there. Nice. I love it. Yeah, that's really good. Jennifer had a post recently called I was a planner flunky, and it was you that I wass because growing up I owe every year I bought a planner with good intentions, but you never used it, and I think it was a bound planner with just a calendar. It didn't have places for all of my other ideas. And so over the years, I found that if I used a ring planner where I could take things in and out and customize it to my own needs and all the things that were coming out of my brain, it would work for me. And so I talked about that transition because I wasn't sure how many other people in my audience were in that same camp, and if the idea of being a planner funky was an objection that they were gonna have to my planet product. I know a lot of good feedback on oh, yes, this is so me and I'm you know, I can never use a planner, and so I was able to turns like that into them, my sales page nice, that is a beautiful example. Thank you. I don't have anything more to say about that. I had a strange experience for that one bd, um, article I wrote kind of went viral, and it was like more comments and more traffic, but it it wasn't really related to my product and sort of so it was more about making space for awesome things toe happen, which kind of, you know, I was talking about how long it took me to make the space in my business to be able to launch my product. So it's sort of it's sort of tied, but it's not directly tied to what I'm teaching in the program, so I was curious if there's a way to kind of leverage that when it I've got known for that and I have a talk coming up for that and it's not necessarily do I want to be known for that? How I tie that more into what I want to be known for? Yeah, that's it has such a good question, yeah, and this it's kind of related to bridget story as well, so I'll just be really quick about bridget story, bridget wrote a post about how people are hating on extroverts on the internet because the internet is full of introverted people like myself, way like to be proud of our introversion because we're actually successful online on bridget wrote a response to that, and it went viral for all the wrong reasons. Some of the right reasons talkto out on reddit forums like crazy, yeah, so no super productive were I think your example is probably more productive, although I think bridget could probably do something with this in the same way. So in the bonus lessons that we recorded for turn your service into a product, I talked about four different ways that you can message to get to the same result. One of them is being completely aware one of them is acknowledging there's, a segment of your audience that's completely aware of who you are and what you d'oh, another segment that's solution aware there, they're completely aware that the suit solutions exist, and they're just trying to figure out which of those solution providers they're going to buy from then there's people that are problem aware, they're aware of the problems, and then there are people that are completely unaware, okay, I have a feeling that not everyone, obviously, that you were that red your medium post is a web designer that is going teo you know, come back and buy digital strategy school but there's a segment of them that are and those people all follow probably into that unaware segment they don't actually understand what the problem is in their business and so if what they want or what they think they want is a more flexible schedule or time to devote to other things that they love and not just always sitting behind the computer trying to make more money you can use that as a starting point and then walk them back step by step by step by step tow what they need to know to know that digital strategy school is for them so essentially you can go from unaware two problem aware solution aware to then making a direct offer of this is what I made for you because of all of these things say okay, wow clearly there's something happening over here should I be building a product for that? Well, that's absolutely another option as well if you're looking for what is that next thing to build thin that that could be a stepping off point for that as well? For sure, sasha, I have that experience with some blogger post that have become the top thing when people are searching about, for example, dating guru that they don't like and then I've had those people come to born aside aces with me so it's really amazing like it doesn't really matter that much if they just land there and there's something in common of the sensibility but I just found it to be incredible how the path happens on the internet yeah, yeah, another thought for you, marie on that too is that, you know, maybe your next product does actually want to reach a much bigger market and the way you khun tie that into your the rest of your business is through your unfair advantage, so you're unfair advantage actually becomes a thing, a team that remind us what you're in for advantages I've set you have intimacy, uh, an approachability yeah, yeah, so thinking about your schedule in a more intimate, approachable way, right? So no matter what your profession is, no matter what your business is, how do you create a schedule that works for you and your goals in away that you're actually going to use it and actually going to get results from it, right? Yeah, so and that's just a way to tie it all in together. Well, I want to help one of our students kind of start putting this to work, so we're going to switch over to a hot seat, which means I need my flip chart now I need a volunteer who wants to volunteer michelle, come on up we're going to plan some content marketing for you off all right so again tell us who you are, what you d'oh where we can find you online and then I've got more questions after that alright I'm dr michelle maser and you can find me at dr michelle maser dot com and all of my relevant details are there and I work with speakers, entrepreneurs and consultants to craft there what I consider a masterpiece message that positions them is a go to experts in their field so what I'm taking away from you is so that people come to you for speaking gigs instead of you having hustle all the time that just needs me goose bumps yeah good so that's how you know you're on the right track so you get the teacher goose bumps that's really, really good I love that and that totally I mean to me that totally changes the effectiveness of your message yes, it totally changes the effectiveness of your message now you've actually had a lot of success recently with content marketing, right? Yeah ideo I have a partnership with slide share so I pretty much send them articles and they publish them and that gives me a lot of traffic so that's been an amazing a place for me I've been in fast company I'm going to be an entrepreneur soon so I'm doing a lot of content marketing podcast is launching is doing very well. So I love content marketing it's like the best place in the world for me. Yeah, and there's always room for improvement, right? Yes. Because I think largely this this question that we were just talking about with marie and different, different segments of your audience. The cool thing about understanding the difference segments of awareness in your audience is that you start to realize that you've only been marketing to an eighty bt teenie meenie segment of your market, the people that are either completely aware of you and what you d'oh or a segment of people who are also solution where, you know, people who might actually go looking for a speech. Coach, right? That's a very, very small group of people for that full audience of who could use what you have to offer. And so your biggest opportunity, I think with content marketing is breaking into an entirely new sir. Segments of your audience. That's going a okay. So I want to mention again that I do explain all of this in the how to think like a marketer bonus videos that you get when you purchase this course. Really, it's a kind of the first time I've broken it all down in that way with a lot of examples, but so I want to really I want to hear from you what some of the frustrations where, because we're going to focus on the really problem aware people, people who wouldn't naturally go looking for a speech coach, but how the same kind of frustrations and problems as the people who dio yeah, so I think we talked about the speaking gig, like, how do I land the speaking gig? How do I get my first speaking dig? Who do I know? Like, how can I connect with people who look speakers, but then there's also, how do I find my audience? Like, who are my people that I actually want to be speaking? Tio, how can I define my expert message like, what is? You know, like, I have all this great experience and knowledge, I'm going to stop you there, okay? Is anyone actually saying I wanted to find my expert men share saying, I need to figure out what I want to talk about? What actually I think they're probably saying, what should I talk about? What should I talk about? Or they've been doing a lot of training on other people's materials, so, like let's say there. Fascinate and they go and they speak on fascinate all over the place but that's not their message okay and they want to find something that is you uniquely their own that they can speak on okay um I think this is still a really solution aware marquet and I want to push you a little bit is that ok? Um let's talk about someone who has to speak there doing presentations and meetings or maybe they're being asked to relate their expert perspective to maybe like a small conference or they're doing workshops at a conference they're getting a taste of this but it's not maybe something that they've claimed yet for themselves and so they're still dealing with more of the frustration the problem side of things how do I prepare for a workshop? Yeah, yes and that's something how do I they were it like I'm gonna overwhelm the audience with holling now okay? Like they already see that that's a problem or they ask it like I have so much to say how can I cram it in like cram in all the information from a recent personal experience just like I have this amazing material but I can't get it to fit into the time frame like that's how I know is wrong but get this amazing material and how do I get it to fit and could only be ninety minutes what ideo I said can you talk about quiet power strategy and fifteen minutes sure across whatever sorry ninety minutes not a problem but it is like I want to present a whole the thing replacing all the things yes ok I love this how do I cram it all in? Okay, I know that's probably yeah I wonder what the google keyword search on them that don't don't don't don't google that was how much of your own story do you bring in yeah uh yeah I still think we're talking about a letter still solution yeah yeah and this I think is good because these are not professional speakers yet probably I mean, there are sure there are probably professional speakers who are you know, who kind of go through that thought, but they probably also have kind of a personal process for getting through it like they've done it enough that they feel comfortable with it like even before I worked with you, I felt comfortable fitting stuff into an hour I didn't like it, but I could do it right now I like it that's the difference? Um so how would you respond to this question what's your unique perspective on how you fit a lot of great material into a small timeframe you don't that's your unique perspective you absolutely do not what do you do instead? Well, you start with what the audience already knows kind of some of the things that we've been talking about hey hey how there's so much overlap but yeah you start with what does the audience already know believe feel or resist about your message like that's the perfect point to start okay and then it's like what is like the bite size achievable goal you can get them tio like if you want because presentations and speaking it is about persuasion you want to have some type of attitudinal change or behavioral change like something's gotta move otherwise you just wasted an hour of somebody's time yeah what's the change you can create yeah and you so you ask yourself what's the change you can create in ninety minutes what's the change that you could grate in fifteen minutes in and you build your content off of that yes. Okay perfect to have a block posts anywhere on your block that addresses how you fit a lot of amazing material into a very short period of time. No, I actually I mean not package that way. Okay? Are you willing to give it a try? Of course. Okay, cool. I think that would be a great piece of content, andi I think you know, basically this this process of coaching through finding that starting place for your message you can absolutely do that yourself just ask yourself well with terrorists a and then you you think in your head well, terror would say that that still sounds like an expert or that still sounds like someone who's really focused on, um, you know what? I what they know I already have to offer, I want to focus this time on somebody who's really focused on a particular problem that they have and you've got all these different opportunities. You absolutely can talk to somebody who knows exactly who you are and exactly what you do. You absolutely can talk to someone who's very solution aware, who knows that they're looking for someone to help them craft really remarkable messages they can deliver from stage, but the majority of your audience is aware of their problems or completely unaware, right? Because there's also there's probably also a version of this post that you could rewrite to an audience that was unaware and you could say something like, you know, if they're unaware, what they are aware of is that, uh, they're they're ideas aren't taken seriously in meetings. Yeah, okay, so I'm kind of going backto one of sasha's being points as well, so, yeah, their ideas aren't taken seriously and meetings and so the then you could walk them through the process of thinking about what your ideas aren't taken seriously and meetings maybe it's the way that you're presenting those ideas that's getting in the way of true understanding it's not that people are dismissing you yeah, it's that people are dismissing your ideas because you're not communicating them effectively here's three ways that you can up the quotient on how people respond to your messages every time you're in a meeting and so you start with people who aren't necessarily speaking from stage but are using communication on presentations to get ahead in their career to get more money, tow land, bigger projects those are all the same goals that your clients have it just looks a little bit different and you khun turn those people who aren't getting their ideas understood or heard in a meeting into the people who are standing on stage and who are then you're like ideal one toe one client does that make sense? Yeah, totally okay, yeah, cool, yeah so that's I mean that's essentially how I would do this the you don't is michelle's unique expert perspective this is not something that you normally hear said right you know, a lot of I don't actually know what the prevailing wisdom on this would be and that might actually be an interesting point what would the prevailing wisdom on this question be well, I think people wouldn't be as blunt is saying you don't but you have to structure it in three main point and so I think it gets into how to very quickly because that's what I've noticed in content marketing and public speaking it's all pretty boring because it's all the same and it's very how to so it's like, oh well take all of those ideas and put them into three points and then you'll cram it in that way and that's what people try to dio so this is instead of giving people how teo of actually framing up what they're doing, you're challenging them to create a different presentation strategy. The strategy isn't your goal isn't to cram it all in your goal is to pick out the part that's going to create the change that you that well fit in that amount of time or the achievable goal that will fit in that amount of time cool and so that's another way that you could say it to. You know, I know that what you're thinking about is you've got all this amazing content that you want to fit into a pretty short period of time on what you've tried in the past is to structure it with three main points and an introduction and a conclusion he's still just trying to fit it all in I'm going to challenge you to never do that again and destroy and instead to focus on starting with what the audience already knows and what's one achievable goal you can you can get for them in the amount of time that you have a lot it and used that instead to structure your content yes, yeah yeah this is this is good too because it brings the unfair advantage and to play in that you know it's a reason why other people's solutions haven't worked yes it is I'm all about breaking the rules and wow, that didn't work for you great let's throw it out and try something different so and that's what I love like okay no you don't you go about it this way and see how that works. Yeah and it's not necessarily that structuring you're content in three main points is a problem it's great like that's great rule that's a great rule of thumb but you have to have the right strategy for your message to start right to make that actually after you yeah and so that's what this post can all be about but it starts with a question from somebody who's a little bit more problem aware than solution where okay, all right and then you can see I mean I'm not gonna guarantee this is gonna get tons of shares but if it does, then you know that this is something that people do have on their minds and it's, a response that you know, is intriguing to them. Okay, thanks yourself. Thank you. All right, any questions about creating some content marketing from what you're hearing in terms of questions, frustrations, problems and how you can craft that with your unfair advantage questions no too many questions from online court, jones wanted to know what you talk a little more about reaching the solution aware group, yes, for this business to her business, that would be the preferred target audience. Okay, um, so first, I would challenge you a little bit on that, because the solution where audiences the easiest audience to sell to her, the second easiest audience to sell, too, but there's still a much smaller part of your total audience than, um, you know, then the problem aware audience or the unaware audience, they're just a little bit harder to sell to. It takes a little bit more time, but in terms of selling to a solution where audience they already know what they want, they just need to know why you're your particular version of that solution is the right one for them. The example that I always give with this is email marketing, a solution where audience knows that they need an email marketing solution or an email marketing service provider, and they're trying to decide whether infusion soft or office autopilot or aunt report sorry or a male champ or convert kit is the right one for them, and so any one of those companies could write a block post or put out a pdf or even just put up a facebook post that that highlights the difference they're unfair advantage, their unique perspective that would make them the right solution for a particular audience. So, you know, convert cat might say we're built for bloggers and male chimp might say were designed to make email marketing for fun, and so they're saying you're looking for an e mail service provider here's why we're the right one to choose that's what solution aware marketing is yeah, and that's all later said that's all further explained in the how to think like a marketer bonus lessons that we er that you can get access to when he purchased this class. Great, yeah, all right, so your task for this lesson is to create a piece of content marketing that tests what you think matters to your prospects. For michelle, the question that we came up with that she thinks matters to her prospects is how do you cram a whole lot of amazing content into a really short period of time? I think it's going to be successful, but we don't know until you give it a try. Um, and so that's, your that's, your task as well. What's the question, the frustration, the goal, that's top of mind for a segment of your audience. Yeah, and how can you address that? Was something different, something that's. Based on your unfair advantage, your unique perspective and unusual experience, you have a special insight that you have create that piece of content marketing, put it up and see what happens. I'd love to hear about it on social media. When you do this, you can tweet me actor gentilly it's right on the screen there, or you can post it on my facebook page. I would love to find out how it goes for you that goes for all of you as well. In fact, that's, a definite you have to let me know how it goes, but create that piece of content marketing and see what kind of response you get. It might fall flat. It might account for ten percent of your website traffic over the next four months.