Struggling To Reach Your Ideal Audience? This ONE Thing Will Speed Up The Growth Of Your Online Business

Does it feel like you spend all your time trying to get your message out to those who’ll be interested?  Leaving no time for doing all the things that you used to love doing when you first started your online business (i.e. not marketing!)…

Maybe you’ve already found out that only around 10% of your fans on Facebook see each of your posts.

And in order to get 10% of your fans to see each post, you need to post at least a couple times a day.  

Every single day.  

And each of those posts should be entertaining, valuable, useful and unique.  

And that 80% of those posts should be content and only 20% should be promotional…..?

You know it can be hard work to get results on Facebook when you rely solely on organic reach (without paying).

Because when you tweet or post something on Facebook, people may or may not see it, as it’s part of a much larger timeline featuring hundreds of other people.  

You’re easily missed if you don’t hit just the right window.

And then there’s blogging. 

If you could only get onto the top of Google you know you could grow your business.

But, the truth is that it can take around 4-6 months to get to the first page of Google.

If you write an amazing 2,000+ word article.  

That is the best, most useful, unique and insightful in your industry, focused on keywords that you know gazillions of people are searching for (because you’ve done your keyword research)….

And then if you reach out to a hundred industry experts that you already have a relationship with and a handful of them link back to your article….

Then you MIGHT get to the first page of Google.   In six months time.

And then you’ll get some traffic to that article, without paying for Adwords.

But of course you’d need to do that whole thing regularly.

Which is fine if you’re in no rush and simply love to write (and are exceptionally good at it).

Ugh!

But there is a quicker way. 

As long as you are clear exactly who you’re targeting, this ONE thing has the potential to catapult your business forward quicker than any other online marketing activity.

Once you’ve set it up, it can run on autopilot, growing your business whilst you sleep. 

Meaning you can focus on running your business rather than promoting it.

When I was launching new websites, movies or magazines (in my earlier corporate life) this one thing was what gave each new launch its lifeblood.  It was the one thing that determined how fast the product would be a success.  It was the same one thing, whether the new product already had an audience or not….

And this is one thing that I see small businesses, bloggers and solopreneurs NOT doing. 

If you want to see things moving a liiiiitttle bit quicker you need to PAY to get in front of your audience

The internet is a more competitive space now that it’s ever been, and if you want to fast forward to success you need to pay to get in front of your dream audience.

But, lets get one thing clear first.

Before you start shelling out for Facebook ads or Google Adwords, you must be clear on what those dream prospects will do once they reach your site.

And no, we all know they will NOT call you right up and offer you $$$$’s.

But, they might give you their email address.  Ahaaa…

And it’s a fact.  Email gets more attention per customer than anything else (hint: take note if you want to sell more stuff)

Very simply, you’re more likely to get face time with your prospects if you use email.  

Email allows you to make repeated contact, even in the most badly managed inbox, your message is still there, waiting for their attention. It doesn’t go away.

If you say things worth reading, your customers will give you minutes of a time each day. And the more valuable your emails, the more your customers actually start to look forward to your messages. 

Plus, unlike social media, it is perfectly normal to expect at least 20% of your subscribers to open and read each of your messages.  

And you only need to email around once a week.  

In my decade of online experience, one thing has remained the same.

There is just ONE online platform that consistently outperforms all others when it comes to driving sales.

Email marketing.

It is the most effective way to sell (great) stuff online. 

Better than Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest all rolled up, better than direct from a website, better than events, PR, SEO, blogging and linkbuildng.

Which is why, if you’re selling a product or service online, you should grow your email list first.  

So, step 1 to faster online success – pay to grow your email list first. 

Sounds easy right?  But, if it was easy, everyone would have a huge list and you wouldn’t be reading this ;0)

The number one way you can grow your email is by having a most brilliant opt-in ‘freebie’ or ‘hook’.  This is crucial to encourage people to sign up.

No-one signs up for ‘updates’ or ‘newsletters’ these days and so make sure your opt-in incentive:

–      Is specific & relevant to your target market

–      Showcases your CORE skills/knowledge area

–      Solves your visitors’ problem 

–      Gets them a result

–      Is compelling and as brilliant as your paid-for content (not fluff or wishy washy)

Think about the format that works for your audience, what’s going to get them excited?  It can be anything so just pick the one that you visitors will love and run with it:

–      Ebook, ecourse, video course, free program, checklist, worksheet, recipe card, shopping list, cheat-sheet, guide book, step-by-step guide, checklist…the list is endless. 

If you’ve already tried getting sign ups with a few opt-in freebies, but still your list is growing at a SNAILS pace.

Lets look at what might be happening…

Maybe you’ve already added your opt-in freebie to your home page?  And did you try a pop-up box on your about page?…and sign-up boxes and bars all over your blog posts?

OK, let’s say you have some great content on your website, you’ve been blogging and posting regularly for around a year and you might have a couple of thousand visitors to your site every month.

But still no-one signs up.

Did you know that it is normal to get around 2-4% of all website visitors to sign up to your email list?  

It’s exasperating right?  All that hard work and grind, time and effort creating content and still, your email list is small.

2,000 visitors per month might convert into 60 new subscribers.

Which means at this rate it will take you almost 18 months to get 1,000 new subscribers!

Jeez – if you’re anything like me you want to see results like er, YESTERDAY!

Which is why ADVERTISING your opt-in freebie to grow your list will transform your online business.

But before you launch into a ads frenzy, there are a few numbers you should figure out.

If you sell products or services you’re in the business of making money (who isn’t?).  

And so whether your business is big or small, there are some numbers that you really should know.  

There are umpteen complex metrics that big businesses analyse to drive this number, but what matters when you are starting out is that you know what each person on your list is worth potentially. 

If you want to get a return for every $ you spend on advertising, then figure out how much a subscriber is worth to you first.

Then you know how much you can spend to sign up each new subscriber.

Let me show you – find out how much you can spend to get each new email subscriber by downloading the worksheet here:

Lets say you have 1,000 subscribers – and you email them a link to your sales page:

30% of your subscribers open the email (300 people)

20% of those 300 click on your sales page (60 people)

20% of those who see the sales page complete the purchase (12 sales)

Lets say your product/service costs $500

And if you sell 12 of these every month through that sales page, you make $6,000

Therefore each new subscriber is worth = $6 ($6,000/1,000)

(If your product is a much lower value, then you’re likely to get much higher sales.  And if it’s a service with a higher value, then sales might be a little lower – there are some moving parts to this formula).

But the crucial metric here is the starting point – i.e. the number of subscribers you have in the first place (assuming you’ve nurtured them and kept sending useful, relevant and interesting content of course).

When you offer great content (your ‘freebie) to your target audience in exchange for their email address, you build your list with engaged and relevant prospects.

So, if each subscriber is worth $x to you, spend less than $x on advertising (don’t forget to take off any other costs involved). 

As long as you are clear whom you’re targeting, this ONE thing will catapult your business forward quicker than all the other online marketing stuff you’ve been doing.

Once you’ve set it up, it can run on autopilot, growing your business whilst you sleep.  Meaning you can focus on running your business rather than promoting it.

And the crazy thing is that this is one thing that I see small businesses, bloggers and solopreneurs NOT doing. 

‘If you want to play, you gotta pay’ – Stephen King

This is the first step in setting up an automatic marketing funnel that will scale your online business overnight.