Hey Everyone! I hope you enjoy this guest post from Lenny Richardson! Lenny Richardson is the Co-Founder of the Digital Marketing Company Affinity Agency and is also a Real Estate Advisor licensed and living in Northern Virginia within the Leesburg area.

For Lenny, the ultimate goal is to reach a point in life when you can consistently grow yourself while growing those around you and optimizing for a “let’s all win together” mentality. Beyond Real Estate and marketing, Lenny is an avid philosophy enthusiast, fitness lover, music aficionado, and book reader with an endless level of curiosity that’s impossible to satiate.

Enjoy his helpful tips on how to best pandemic proof your biz!

2020 has been quite the disruptive year for many businesses and industries. While many businesses did poorly and were hurt, some held out through the most intense moments of the pandemic. Other businesses actually defied all odd and flourished.

But how?

What separated the businesses that succeeded from the others that failed?

The core attribute that separated most of the dying businesses from the thriving businesses: A Digital Marketing Strategy.

That’s it.

The businesses that kept producing and was able to stay afloat or do better than ever likely had a significant strategy when it came to their online platforms and had a specific way to monetize.

Things have been rapidly shifting and the traditional brick and mortar store might not exist the way it used to. The same applies for businesses that focused exclusively or predominantly on in-house purchases.

However, no matter what happens, we can guarantee that the internet will be a heavy component of virtually every business. This means that understanding how to effectively get your business online and creating a strategy that works well for you is more important than ever.

Now, one of the main focuses of most businesses comes down to creating revenue (and hopefully profit) by attracting clients or customers and selling your products or services.

The difficult part—How do you get clients or customers?

In this article, I’m going to share a simple 3-step method that will help you attract more clients and customers to your business.

The following methods were not invented by me.

In fact, these steps are very traditional techniques used by all marketers. However, many businesses don’t adequately use the process I’m about to share or they don’t use the process effectively.

The 3 step process is as follows:

Create a Lead Magnet Store all collected leads to a list  Follow up consistently with the list

Now, it probably sounds super simple and super straightforward but allow me to get into some of the nuances and specifics with regards to what you can do in your own business, brand, or side hustle.

CREATE A LEAD MAGNET

First, if you’re reading this and you’re not sure what a lead magnet is, it’s essentially what it sounds like. It’s a tool used to attract leads.

A lead magnet can be literally anything from a coupon, an eBook, an infographic, or anything else you can possibly come up with.

The item itself isn’t what’s ultimately important.

What is important is that the lead magnet needs to be viewed as valuable to the potential consumer.

This is an important distinction.

Your lead magnet needs to be appealing and almost force your potential client or customer to want it.

For example, if you run a hair salon, a potential lead magnet could be a short PDF entitled: Top Hair Styles of 2020. The pdf could give the name, description, and pictures of celebrities wearing the hair style.

The lead magnet would be appealing to someone that is considering a new hairstyle or someone that frequently tries new hairstyles.

Once the person sees an interesting hairstyle that they think suits them, they’ll likely come into your hair salon to look like the celebrity in the photo.

Another example, if you are a personal trainer, a lead magnet could be a Summer Shredding eBook that shows a 14-week workout routine along with a nutrition guide for someone that’s interested in losing weight in the summer.

Again, the lead magnet doesn’t need to be an eBook (although eBooks are extremely popular due to their cost-effective nature, ease of creation, ease of delivery, and ease of consumption but it can literally be anything that you can come up with.

Remember, the main step is to get into the mind of your potential client or customer and give them exactly what they likely want.

Once you deliver this lead magnet, usually in exchange for an email or some form of contact information, it’s absolutely necessary to store this in a list or database.

STORE ALL LEADS TO A LIST

In my opinion, the list of a business is the most powerful tool at their disposal.

I’ve found that many businesses and brands either disregard their list or they don’t put in too much effort to effectively tap into it as a resource.

First, let’s dive into what a list is on a general level and what you should be specifically doing with your list.

Your list, or database as it’s sometimes called, is a collection of everyone that opted into your lead magnet or provided their information in some way.

How you specifically store the contact information varies but it can range from the extremely basic such as an excel spreadsheet to a very complicated system such as a CRM that contains different behavioral campaigns based on individual open rates.

Which specific software or storage system you use will ultimately depend on your goals but what’s most important is having a means of storing the names somewhere for further use.

Also, it’s important to note that any place you store contact information usually will have a method to convert the data into an excel sheet so you can always import contacts elsewhere if the need arises.

Now what to do with the contacts on your list?

Many businesses store a name and never follow up with the contact or they follow up rarely—usually as a means of self-promotion.

Don’t make this mistake.

Consistently keep in touch with your contacts by emailing them to build up a relationship and eventually win them over.

Understand that most sales are not made on the first contact.

Typically, people have very reasonable objections but the fact that they were willing to give you their email in the first place usually indicates at least a general level of interest. That’s completely okay.

Your goal isn’t to force every single person you come in contact with to buy from you.

Your goal is to determine if you can solve their problems…and solve them.

Ideally, you should be sending out daily emails to your contacts with valuable emails.

What counts as a valuable email?

It depends on the industry and the service you provide but it doesn’t need to be complicated and certainly doesn’t need to be you just promoting yourself. In fact, I’d suggest almost never directly selling to your list but instead including small or subtle call to actions in the emails that are relevant to the individual topics.

For example, a recent email I sent out gave a brief story about why storytelling is so important in building a business.

Some of the most effective emails I’ve seen are Relationship-Building. These are emails in which the writer or owner tells a story about the business, the brand, or about individuals within the business.

When it comes down to it, it’s not always the superior service or product that wins the day. Often, we buy from others mostly because we like them and trust them.

Of course, be overwhelmingly valuable by providing top-tier service as well as being the most likeable and trustworthy business your potential customer or client comes in contact with.

This should be your main objective in your emails. Consistently follow up with your list and build a relationship with them over time in a non-pushy and non-salesy way.

As far as frequency is concerned, I’m an advocate of consistency. Many large companies that have great success with email marketing advocate for 2 emails daily—one in the morning and one at night.

The reasoning is that people are so bombarded with emails that they’re likely to miss something sent to them. Also, if you’re thinking that they might be upset about the daily emails, I’d suggest not worrying too much.

The realistic scenario is that they won’t notice the majority of your emails.

 
On the off chance an eagle-eyed recipient gets overwhelmed by all of the emails, they’ll likely message you (which can start a dialogue) or they’ll unsubscribe (which is also a good thing since it doesn’t help you to email someone uninterested in what you’re selling).

No matter what, you sending out these emails is a winning strategy.

This leads to the follow up phase in which consistency is key!

THE FOLLOW UP

Like I mentioned earlier, you likely won’t get a sale from someone the very first time you contact them.

Depending on the industry, it can take anywhere from 4-8 follow ups before a prospect is ready to buy from you.

Be consistent and keep delivering valuable emails.

What’s the best way to do this?

Personally, I love using Mailchimp to store all of the emails and create a mass email blast to everyone in a particular list.

You don’t need to use Mailchimp and there are tons of great email marketing tools out there but I suggest tailoring any email you send so it’s appealing but not overwhelming and feels personal.

If possible, find a tool that allows you to add the recipient’s name into the email so that it doesn’t feel like spam.

At this point, most people that receive mass emails know that the email was likely sent out to a large group of people. However, it’s best to not make the email feel that way.

I know this sounds relatively simple—and it is a fairly simple concept—but don’t undervalue it. Stay consistent and keep following up.

I hope these tips helped overall! This process is very straightforward but very effective and it’s used by many large companies to generate new business and continuously generate repeat business while building a loyal following.

If you have any specific questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at len@affinityagency.co or DM me on Instagram at @Leviticusrich.

Also, if you’d like more information about this 3-step process, feel free to download my company’s eBook: 3 Ways to Keep Your Business from Dying.

Be Sure To..

Keep in touch with Lenny!
You can find him here:

Instagram: @leviticusrich
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/lennyrich
Facebook: @leviticusrich
Business Website: www.affinityagency.co

If you’ve been wanting to start an e-mail list, like Lenny suggests, and you don’t know where to start, I have a FREE 5 day Launch your List Challenge! Check it out HERE! I also have an episode allllll about creating a freebie or “lead magnet” as Lenny says! Don’t miss it!

XOXO,