] Kevin: Today, we’re joined by guest Jeff Pulvino. We’re going to talk about an important topic for all entrepreneurs and that has to do with marketing and digital media and how those tie together[00:51] Jeff’s been an entrepreneur for over 15 years and he’s the co-founder and CEO of Boost Media Group, which is a full service digital marketing agency[01:04] Why don’t you tell our listeners a little bit about where you came from and what inspired you to get to where you are today?[01:34] Jeff: I ended up getting hired on at a BC funded company and had hundreds and thousands of stock options, but it never really amounted to anything (the company never went public), but I learned a lot[01:49] That venture gave me the entrepreneurial taste because we were truly building a business from scratch[02:43] We decided to start a marketing company and that’s how we got started with Boost Media Group[03:19] Kevin: There’s a lot of people out there starting new businesses. The facts are about 20% of them fail in the first year. Then you have about 50% of those who fail in the first 5 years[03:46] Jeff: Being an entrepreneur is being embraced by the US and the world and it’s a growing trend[04:04] In America, we have something like 28 million small businesses and 22 million are solo entrepreneurs who are running the business all on their own[04:18] There’s this huge learning curve and stress to be successful and I think that’s where a lot of new small business owners run into pitfalls[04:54] In marketing today, there’s so much to know, learn, absorb, and execute on and it literally changes daily[05:02] As an agency owner, it’s a struggle for me to keep up on my own expertise much less than a business owner trying to do everything (nearly impossible)[05:21] Kevin: Marketing plays a major role in pretty much every entrepreneur’s business, but you were saying earlier that most of the businesses out there don’t have a solid marketing plan in writing[06:07] Jeff: A lot of people have something in their head that they thought about (an idea)[06:14] It’s so different when you put it in writing and you commit to it[06:19] Putting your plan in writing so that it makes financial sense for your business[06:25] Almost 10 out of 10 of the businesses that I talk to don’t have any type of marketing plan in writing[06:33] Kevin: But, as we stated, a lot of those entrepreneurs are trying to wear a lot of hats and they might not be marketers per say (dabbling in it)[06:54] Jeff: With the learning curve and staying on top of everything, you have to constantly be studying and reading. What I find is that most business owners at some point have tried some sort of digital marketing (whether it be on their own or with another agency) and have had a less than desirable experience[07:19] We’re trying to change that by the way in which we do things by introducing the idea that before you work on anything having to do with marketing, we sit down and work on your marketing plan and we include your digital marketing strategy[07:43] In order for any marketing company to execute properly on a marketing plan with a digital marketing strategy, we need to understand a lot about the business and what’s considered a financial win for the business[08:21] Other digital marketing companies will spend 10 minutes to 2 hours talking to the client and then they’ll propose this package of services that has no correlation to tie in what the company’s financial goals are, and they wonder why it doesn’t work most of the time[11:57] You have to really think of it as a lifestyle change for the business and working with someone who’s committed to helping you succeed over the next 2 years, not just the next 2 months[12:33] It’s about doing a lot of little things every day in terms of the marketing that build up to the momentum success that a business owner is working for[12:41] Kevin: In your experience, there must be a few things you come across that the entrepreneur can start looking at to analyze their business and put together a plan, correct?Jeff:[13:02] Having you write down your objectives, goals, vision and purpose[13:09] Purpose: how you’re servicing your customers today[13:11] Vision: where you see yourself going and what type of customer service you will provide in the future[13:26] It’s important that you understand how you’re different from your competition[13:32] We recommend that the business owner really understands their products and services, understanding what their costs are (in order to engineer some sort of engineering budget)[13:12] Competitive analysis[14:16] There are so many tools out there (many of which are free) to start[14:23] With marketing, there shouldn’t be a lot of guess work because you can always find the scientific data looking at your competitors[14:44] Tools will tell me whether they’re getting it from paid advertising, social media, etc.[15:12] Ex: ESM Rush (probably one of the best tool services that can help you with all of that)[15:51] You need to understand your target audience or buyer persona (“avatars”)[16:23] We should identify 5-10 different buyer personas for that customer[16:34] Able to message them differently via social media[16:41] For instance, we recently did a marketing strategy for a massage therapist (different buyer persona examples)Someone who got injured in a car accidentSomeone who is into sports and fitness and got injuredSomeone who is pregnant for the first timeSomeone who is going through cancer treatment[17:25] If you’re going to create content and then advertise, you need to make sure the content is speaking to each of the different buyer personas[17:47] Today, so many people are trying to play catch up and know that they should be doing some level of content marketing, and they’re just trying to put out this blanket content, but it’s not specific enough to attract each of their buyer personas[18:11] Kevin: What I hear a lot is if you want to have successful marketing, you need to niche down as much as possible. But what you’re saying is you need to have 4-5 different buying personas. Do those fit all in one niche or are those different niches?[18:31] Jeff: They all can fit under one niche, the importance level is the content that you put out speaks to each buyer persona[18:42] For example, if I have killer content (e-book or longer blog article) that talks about all of the benefits of massage therapy, that’s going to be the umbrella content that covers my entire audience (all of those different segments) (covers entire audience)[19:02] They might want to niche down for some smaller micro content (maybe it’s a smaller blog article or social media post) that’s geared toward each one of those buyer personas[19:21] In terms of covering an entire audience, engages them based on where they’re at, but brings them up to the overarching strategy[20:44] Most business owners don’t have a defined marketing budget because they don’t have a defined marketing plan[20:51] Part of that workshop that we take people through is not trying to extract the most out of them, it’s trying to define a healthy marketing budget (whether they spend it with us or not)[21:12] 81% of businesses who invested 5-10% of annual revenue said they experienced continual revenue growth based on those marketing expenditures[21:25] Less than 50% who invested less than 5% of annual revenue barely had any growth[21:33] There’s a large portion of business owners who really don’t spend money on marketing (don’t know how to get started on it)[21:57] Then, you understand where you can spend money on advertising that should yield more immediate revenue[22:23] Understanding the difference between advertising in brand and taking a percentage of your revenue and devoting it toward advertising if you need immediate results (so you’re getting your revenues up which could increase your marketing budget) and having a smaller amount devoted to branding so that if your budget increases, you can devote more to branding which overtime allows you to spend less on ads[23:57] Kevin: How can our listeners work on the digital marketing to fit in the plan they’ve now worked up?[24:10] Jeff: Now that they have it in writing and have something that they can execute on[24:16] To make sure you’re re-visiting it on a quarterly basis[25:01] Making sure it’s in line with what they’re trying to accomplish[25:08] Your best resource for information is to ask you customers or perspective customers[25:17] For perspective customers: what could I have done better? Was there something that didn’t appeal to you in my marketing strategy? Were you not impressed with something we didn’t do in the sales process?[25:35] If you’re sincere, you might turn it into a customer (but don’t have that be your goal)[26:24] Customer surveys and sales surveys[26:47] Constantly keeping your eye out on the competitive groups[26:58] Can see what they’re doing and how they gained so much traffic (we can reverse engineer their strategy and try to implement something similar)[28:17] Taking whatever ideas you have and constantly improving them (whether it was someone else’s idea or your original idea)[28:22] There’s always room for improvement[28:45] Kevin: Before we close today, in your experience, what’s something our WTR listeners could look to avoid doing and something they can do about that?[29:06] Jeff: Don’t throw good money after bad[29:16] If something’s not working, then I would pull back and analyze (make those corrections quickly)[29:30] You don’t want to stop and give up on something based on your bad experience[30:42] Reduce your spending until you see better results[30:47] Kevin: Anything else you’d like to say to our WTR listeners before we close today’s episode?[30:51] Jeff: Don’t go it alone. You can reach out to me on my personal website and I give anyone a free 30 minute session to discuss where they are at with their marketing strategy and give them free advice The post WTR Discussion With Jeff Pulvino; So You Think You Have a Marketing Plan? appeared first on WTR Podcast Website.