The reason I'm making this thread is to journal my marketing process with the hopes of a lightbulb going off so I know what to work on while I wait for my developer to finish the project.
Background: Tomorrow I'm launching a user-generated review site for an industry that desperately needs it. Its been 2 1/2 months in the making and we're finally almost done.
I've promoted the project on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and even started a YouTube channel. The majority of my target audience is on Facebook. I've collected 42 reviews with a JotForm on Facebook so I'm not launching with zero content. The reviews are for specific properties in my database of which there will be 3 types of listings: Unclaimed (these can be reviewed or claimed by the owner), Free Claim (the owner provides basic information for free), and Upgraded Claim (the owner can respond to reviews, upload 5x as much information, etc. - for an annual subscription). I have 200 Unclaimed, 55 Claimed, and 1 Upgraded that has been paid for already - and we still haven't launched.
While my web developer is hard at work, I've been crafting my marketing strategies but I feel a bit paralyzed. I'm all for executing - I just prefer to execute in the most effective way.
I'm a huge Grant Cardone fan. His marketing advice would be to post constantly on every social media platform and invest all my energy (since I don't have money) into getting attention. Which is fine. I've been doing that, and I plan to double-down on that once I launch. He would also recommend cold calling - which is the only way that I've been able to generate my 55 Claimed properties. I have about a 95% conversion rate on the first reach. The only reason why I only have 55 Claims is because each conversion results in collecting information for the website. This takes about 10 minutes each time.
I had a landing page that I was promoting on social media that got some traffic, but nobody filled out the Claim form.
I read Sabri Suby's Sell Like Crazy which was awesome. Highly recommended. His High Value Content Offer -> Opt-In -> Landing Page -> Godfather Offer strategy is awesome and was a huge resource for me crafting my offer. The guys over at Traffic and Funnels wrote The Intelligent Advertiser which was really helpful in determining my ideal avatar to craft my messaging. Then there's President Andy Black that schooled me on Google Ads with Skilltack (highly recommended for anyone just starting out). And then there's Alex Becker's Facebook Ads strategies that I have access to, I just haven't consumed that content yet because I'm not ready to spend money on ads yet. The first monies spent on marketing are going to collaborating with someone else's following... for sure. I also drafted some Press Releases but never sent them out because we had a delay with our launch. After things settle down I plan I starting a podcast (which I'm most excited about). And since the business is a website, I plan on studying SEO.
So now here we are.
I have my list of all the above. Paralyzed about what to work on right now while my developer finishes up the site. I had to step away from my computer and fall into ol' reliable: @MJ DeMarco 's Unscripted where he answers my question in one sentence: "... once you focus on what attracts good search engine results - valuable content - the good SEO results follow.
This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to take the rest of the night off. I'm going to meet with my developer to solidify everything. I'm going to follow Sabri Suby's techniques and craft an HVCO funnel. Upon launch, I'm going to email my contributors to let them know. I'm going to restart promoting on social media like a maniac (I've been quiet the last few days because of the launch delay), and then I'm going to disburse press releases. It won't be a big launch event, but I'm not worried about that because it's a review site. Once those ancillary things are dealt with, I'll block a couple days a week to continue cold calling, getting Basic Claims, and then following up with them in March to upsell them on the upgraded listing.
My main focus will be collecting quality content, building a great community, and getting attention.
Background: Tomorrow I'm launching a user-generated review site for an industry that desperately needs it. Its been 2 1/2 months in the making and we're finally almost done.
I've promoted the project on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and even started a YouTube channel. The majority of my target audience is on Facebook. I've collected 42 reviews with a JotForm on Facebook so I'm not launching with zero content. The reviews are for specific properties in my database of which there will be 3 types of listings: Unclaimed (these can be reviewed or claimed by the owner), Free Claim (the owner provides basic information for free), and Upgraded Claim (the owner can respond to reviews, upload 5x as much information, etc. - for an annual subscription). I have 200 Unclaimed, 55 Claimed, and 1 Upgraded that has been paid for already - and we still haven't launched.
While my web developer is hard at work, I've been crafting my marketing strategies but I feel a bit paralyzed. I'm all for executing - I just prefer to execute in the most effective way.
I'm a huge Grant Cardone fan. His marketing advice would be to post constantly on every social media platform and invest all my energy (since I don't have money) into getting attention. Which is fine. I've been doing that, and I plan to double-down on that once I launch. He would also recommend cold calling - which is the only way that I've been able to generate my 55 Claimed properties. I have about a 95% conversion rate on the first reach. The only reason why I only have 55 Claims is because each conversion results in collecting information for the website. This takes about 10 minutes each time.
I had a landing page that I was promoting on social media that got some traffic, but nobody filled out the Claim form.
I read Sabri Suby's Sell Like Crazy which was awesome. Highly recommended. His High Value Content Offer -> Opt-In -> Landing Page -> Godfather Offer strategy is awesome and was a huge resource for me crafting my offer. The guys over at Traffic and Funnels wrote The Intelligent Advertiser which was really helpful in determining my ideal avatar to craft my messaging. Then there's President Andy Black that schooled me on Google Ads with Skilltack (highly recommended for anyone just starting out). And then there's Alex Becker's Facebook Ads strategies that I have access to, I just haven't consumed that content yet because I'm not ready to spend money on ads yet. The first monies spent on marketing are going to collaborating with someone else's following... for sure. I also drafted some Press Releases but never sent them out because we had a delay with our launch. After things settle down I plan I starting a podcast (which I'm most excited about). And since the business is a website, I plan on studying SEO.
So now here we are.
I have my list of all the above. Paralyzed about what to work on right now while my developer finishes up the site. I had to step away from my computer and fall into ol' reliable: @MJ DeMarco 's Unscripted where he answers my question in one sentence: "... once you focus on what attracts good search engine results - valuable content - the good SEO results follow.
This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to take the rest of the night off. I'm going to meet with my developer to solidify everything. I'm going to follow Sabri Suby's techniques and craft an HVCO funnel. Upon launch, I'm going to email my contributors to let them know. I'm going to restart promoting on social media like a maniac (I've been quiet the last few days because of the launch delay), and then I'm going to disburse press releases. It won't be a big launch event, but I'm not worried about that because it's a review site. Once those ancillary things are dealt with, I'll block a couple days a week to continue cold calling, getting Basic Claims, and then following up with them in March to upsell them on the upgraded listing.
My main focus will be collecting quality content, building a great community, and getting attention.
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