Working as a screenwriter in Hollywood, I can tell you there are a lot of opinions on story structure and development. Some people save the cat, other’s delve deep into formula and break everything out into minute by minute guidelines, and some swear by Aristotle’s Poetics.

But the most consistent and persistent story structure that all of them follow, to some extent, regardless of their stated approach, is one discovered a little over 70 years ago. I say discovered because the prevailing belief is that it was there all along, it just wasn’t fully examined until this century. It starts with psychoanalyst Carl Jung. Jung was originally a protégé of Sigmund Freud, the father of psychology, but after a long collaboration, the two split off. In fact, Jung eventually redefined his system of psychology separate from Freud’s approach.

One of Jung’s prevailing beliefs was the concept of a shared subconscious or collective unconscious mind. Jung believed that the consistency found in various mythologies and folk tales across cultures and generations came from the fact that our minds all drew from a universal well of thought and idea.

Later, mythologist Joseph Campbell proposed that Jung’s theories were proven by a concept called monomyth – all stories follow a specific pattern of development. Campbell wrote the definitive text on the subject, The Hero With a Thousand Faces.

May The Force Be With You

When George Lucas was studying film at the University of Southern California (USC) he became enamored with the study of mythology and Campbell in particular. So much so that when he was working on drafts of the script that would eventually become the original Star Wars film (now subtitled Episode IV: A New Hope”), he modeled the entire story on Campbell’s monomyth structure.

Other movies and books follow the pattern – after all, it wouldn’t be a universal pattern if they didn’t.  But some stories go about it differently and sometimes you have to wrangle a bit to make the pattern work “perfectly.” George Lucas, along with his editor and ex-wife Marcia Lucas, followed Campbell’s pattern to a “T.”

And the beauty of that is, I can simplify Campbell’s overly complicated 400+ page book by just pointing to Star Wars. And what I want to do today is walk you through the monomyth approach to telling your stories – by making your customers the heroes.

The Ordinary World

This is where we meet Luke Skywalker. Space battles on the horizon aside, Luke’s life is pretty consistently standard. He works on his Uncle Owen’s moisture farm. He negotiates and buys droids. He’d rather hang out with his friends and/or join the Rebellion, than stay one more season on the farm. But Uncle Owen needs him, so he stays.

Your potential clients live here. They think everything is fine; it’s the way it’s always been. They don’t consider that there might be a better option. They might be in pain, but be so used to it, they can’t imagine there’s a solution that could fix the problem. They’re numb to the pain and to change – or even the possibility of change.

The Call to Adventure

In Star Wars, Luke’s call to adventure is literally that – a call. It’s not directed at him. Princess Leia has encoded a message for Obi Wan Kenobi. Luke wonders if she means Old Ben Kenobi, but doesn’t pursue it until R2-D2 disappears into the night. And once Luke connects with Old Ben after finding R2, the Jedi master tells Skywalker, “You must come with me to Alderaan.”

Your customer’s call to adventure isn’t quite so obvious most of the time. Although it could be, if your company does a lot of cold calling. But anything that gets your customer’s attention and connects you with them is a call to adventure. It might be a billboard or radio ad. It might be a useful blog post. More likely than not, in our world, it’s a Google search that leads the burgeoning hero towards his journey. Or the referral of a trusted fellow business owner.

Meeting the Mentor

Luke has met Obi-Wan Kenobi, the man who would teach him the ways of the Force, so he can become a Jedi, “like my father before me.” But he just sees him as an old man. Sure the light saber and the man’s ability to make the Tusken Raiders scatter are both amazing, but… In Star Wars, the call to adventure is intertwined with meeting the mentor – just as it is with Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit, and often the hero realizes it when she is granted a new perspective.

In a business sense this is often the case as well. The introduction of your potential customer to your small business may seem incidental. It is often connected to that call to adventure, because the call also conveys how your company can relieve their pain. But they don’t see it, or don’t trust it quite yet, which leads them into…

Refusing the Call

Luke immediately responds to Ben Kenobi’s promptings, saying he can’t possibly go to Alderaan. He needs to stay on for one more season. He doesn’t even realize he’s using the source of his earlier frustration to justify his resistance. Even when Ben points out, “That’s your uncle talking.”

By and large, humans are resistant to change. Even if we suspect it may make our lives or businesses better, we sit on our hands and make excuses, and dwell in the pain. As I mentioned before, we have become numb. And sometimes even pleasure can seem painful when you’re not used to it. Routine has its own rewards. Simply knowing there is a problem doesn’t mean they’ll embrace the potential solution.

Crossing the Threshold

It doesn’t have to be, but this often can be one of those all or nothing moments. Luke doesn’t just return to the moisture farm. Because he sees the inherent danger – even though he wants to ignore it – he races back. To find the homestead gutted, and the burning corpses of his aunt and uncle left by the Stormtroopers.

Your potential customer crosses the threshold when they schedule the first exploratory meeting, or 30-minute free consultation. This may seem like a poor comparison to what happens to Luke Skywalker, but think about it. In order to accept help, to even consider that help, a part of the customer’s ego must die. They must admit that what they are doing now won’t fix the pain they feel and/or it’s not something they can accomplish on their own. They must die to the concept of doing everything themselves.

Tests, Allies & Enemies

This is exactly what it sounds like. The hero has met the mentor, now he meets the other players. Luke & Ben fend off goons in the cantina, after Ben uses the Force to manipulate the simple minded Stormtroopers. The droids have already encountered Darth Vader, to some extent, but Luke hasn’t, so the Stormtroopers represent the Empire.

After the initial altercation in the cantina, Ben hires Han & Chewie. The Stormtroopers appear again, chasing the heroes off Tatooine. And the Empire somehow beats them to their destination – arriving to see an asteroid field and a moon that isn’t one.

They get trapped on the Death Star, find Princess Leia, almost killed in the trash compactor and Luke faces the loss of his mentor.

In the storytelling world, this is often a longer section, and may be referred to as the “fun and games” portion of the story.

For your clients, it can be any number of things. Their investors or advisors may not see the value of what you are offering, or at least enough value to justify the cost. Your client may not see results right away – if you’re providing a service, it may be something that takes time to grow or to show results on – like Google rankings or social media.

Fellow business people or the board of directors may be just as numb to the pain of change as your new customer was. They didn’t have an answer before, or a sufficient one, but they also haven’t gone through the same change as the client did. Often times they can derail efforts.

At the same time, they may be allies who are helpful and excited about the new possibilities. Tests, allies, and enemies. It all leads up to…

The Ordeal

This is the final battle. The elixir or treasure has been brought back and now we have the final test of the hero. Will she win the battle, or die trying? Luke has the plans to the Death Star – had them all along, but didn’t understand what they were until they encountered the battle station for themselves. He must use the knowledge of the engineering design flaw to save the Rebellion and their home planet.

In many instances, you may not be around to see this moment for your new client. Or you may learn about it much later, after they have successfully navigated the ordeal, and blown up their small business ‘planet killer.’ Hopefully, they’ll share the story with you. Maybe they’ll post it on Yelp or in a Google Review. Or maybe, hopefully, you’ll learn how much the treasure you brought them has become valuable because they referred a new client to you.

Resurrection/Master of Two Worlds

In Star Wars, Obi-Wan Kenobi is the one resurrected, from a certain point of view. He returns as the voice of faith in Luke’s ear, telling him to trust what he has learned about letting go. Luke remembers his trial with the test probe in the Millennium Falcon and shuts off the targeting computer. He’s relying on faith.

But he’s also relying on R2 and the X-Wing fighter he’s flying. Much like the droids and the moisture vaporators when we first met him on Tatooine, Luke is still utilizing technology. He has become a hero by embracing both of his worlds/identities. The mystic and the mechanic. Sometimes we call this ‘entering the new normal.’

We know a little too much about ‘new normal’s’ these days, I think. In an example from our own business, we’ve learned to embrace the usual model along with the virtual, work from home model, and attempted to fuse the two. Like a phoenix rising from the COVID ashes.

But for your client’s, this is the moment that your product or service really comes into its own. The client is so happy with it, and/or understands it so well that they use it all the time. It becomes part of their new normal.

This is also when they freely give referrals, just by using the product or service. In court, testimony is presenting evidence. For Christians, it’s always being ready to give an answer for the hope they have. When your client is that happy with your product or service, they can’t stop talking about it. Or it’s so much a part of her life, that others see it and ask. The circle is now complete.

Now It’s Your Turn

You can see The Hero’s Journey as the one you are on. And that’s fine; I encourage that. In fact, I recommend utilizing this story structure as you build and tell your small business’ story. But if you can also use it to tell your potential customers a story that resonates with them – that’s where the gold lies. It’s great to be the hero of your story. But if you can make your prospective clients into the hero of your story, you’ll truly see your business change. You can be the entrepreneurial Han Solo or Obi-Wan Kenobi encouraging and guiding hero customers to win the day. That’s what we like to call a win-win situation.

I challenge you to reverse the perspective of how you see your clients and how they see you.

If you’d like help identifying those prospective clients – the perfect customers that you can serve best and bring the most value to – or help connecting to them, please reach out. We’ve built our small business helping other businesses succeed, and we can help you too. Let’s Grow The Dream together!

Just can’t help myself. I crave knowledge and can become obsessive at times, filling my brain with facts and miscellaneous information.

One lesson that was consistent across all my sources was something that seems counterintuitive on its face. A $100 investment made in your 20’s, and never added to or touched again, can, over time, grow to dwarf the results of making weekly $1000 investments in your 50’s or 60’s. The power of compound interest causes the tortoise to beat the hare every time – assuming the tortoise starts early enough.

Sadly, this is a lesson we fail to teach our children in high school or college. (Along with balancing a checkbook and doing their taxes. But that’s a discussion for another time.) Too often they struggle to get ahead early in life, thinking they can always invest later.

Now take it one step further and imagine they don’t stop at the initial $100 deposit. Instead, they add $100 every month, and when they make more money, they progressively increase that monthly, weekly, annual amount.

The Content Connection

When you’re looking at content creation – especially doing a periodic content blog targeted at your ideal customer – it’s easy to think that it’s some sort of magic bullet. A one-size fits all solution that will guarantee the growth of your business.

And, in all honesty, it can easily and quickly cause a spike in your customers, sales and reach. One that easily justifies taking the time to plan and build strategically. It thrusts digital marketing head and shoulders above many traditional marketing efforts. When properly executed, it can vault your results high enough to create an illusion of instant gratification.

But, sadly, while it does work quickly, it doesn’t sustain that growth over time – not unless you take some additional actions. Content creation is not one of those “set it and forget it” tasks.

But just like the early investment I talked about earlier, content can compound. In fact, in many ways, content creation can be sustained and create continuous growth over time. Some small businesses would be content with that spike at the beginning and then slow, gradual increases year over year.

But I know the readers of our blog tend to aim higher. Their businesses were established, in some form or fashion to enact true change in our world. The goal is to make this world or life better. So why would you be content with minor changes, when a little more effort and strategy can lead to more global results?

To truly get the most out of your content creation investment – and it IS an investment in time and effort – you need to think like Warren Buffet or Peter Lynch. You need to create content like an investor.

Customer Experience Rules

At first this may appear to be pretty boilerplate advice. Of course you want to focus on delivering a good customer experience rather than making quick cash. But in this case, we’re not talking about customer service or CX or similar.

Specifically, we’re making sure the customer – and potential customer – get the best experience within the context of your blog posts. You need to make sure every post has value to your ideal customer. You can vary a little on subjects and angles, but you need to consistently create content that they find useful.

The stock market has its ups and downs; you win some, you lose some. But if Warren Buffet consistently made poor picks and his hedge fund dropped over and over, he would get booted. By the same token, your customers have limited patience for rabbit trails and content of little or no use. Fool them once, shame on you – you won’t likely get to fool them twice, cause they’ll go looking elsewhere for information.

And guess what? Google doesn’t send searchers to you if the content isn’t of value and authority either. And the algorithm is more ruthless than people are. It has to be.

So make sure what you’re posting is valuable to your ideal customer.

Long-Term Outlook

This is the most obvious parallel between investing and content creation. Again, one post won’t launch your business, no matter how clever your title or how valuable the information. Here at Grow The Dream, we recommend at the very least posting once a month. Realistically, though, if you want to see growth, you’re accelerating your posting to every two weeks minimum. The biggest bang for your content buck? Once a week – every week.

Depending on your product or service, the long term approach can also connect to repeat business.

You build relationships over time, and the same is true of content. The more content, going further back, builds solid credibility on Google search results and in your professional life. A track record builds on itself – that’s the content version of compound interest.

Follow the Numbers

The best investors will tell you that data rules. Despite the fact that our customers make decisions based on emotion, we must limit how they influence us. Yes, you’ll still make emotional decisions, but you need to let numbers and logic dictate whenever you can.

Of course, this is part of your strategic work as well. In profiling and targeting your ideal customer, you’re using whatever data you can to hone the final picture. The more detailed and specific you can aim for, the better your initial results will be. And the more likely you’ll still gather in the outskirts of that target customer.

Peter Lynch might deal in mutual funds, but that doesn’t mean he just rides whatever wave or crest is happening in the market. You don’t get 30-75% returns by indexing to the average. He follows the trends, tracks the data and makes picks based on past performance and strategically reaching for companies to invest in that haven’t hit yet.

Again, yes, he makes some mistakes. But he’s secure in the knowledge that he’s following a plan, based on the data and his interpretation of it, based on his skill-set.  

Always Diversify

No, this does not fly in the face of my customer experience section. All of these points build on each other. You do the strategic work. Make a plan for the long term. You follow the numbers. And, yes, you take a few “chances.” But they are always calculated risks.

We all know not to put all your eggs in one basket. And while you are always focused on your ideal client, there is room for different approaches to gain their attention. And to gain a stronger Google ranking.

So some posts are short, to the point – but valuable. 300 words or less.

Some posts are longer, more impactful, maybe even more evergreen – 500-1000 words.

And some are pillar posts – the ones that rank higher on the Google SERP scale – reaching for the Zero Position of search engine results. They become the paragraph that the searcher can read without clicking to your website – but that’s often what it leads to.

This is also where social media and email blasts fall. Both can be used as solo advertisements of your product or service. But they can also point back to your site, to significant articles. Diversifying means you can draw more eyes onto all of your posts, which, again, compounds your credibility and authority, which raises your Google ranking, and on and on. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Accept the Call

When you make the effort to approach your content creation with an eye of an investor, you will compound your efforts and outreach. But again, only when you’re creating consistent, regular content. If you don’t have the time and the resources to do that, you’re not going to grow – not very quickly anyways.

Let us help you. We can get you on the right track with a strategic approach – something no small business should be without. We can also help you implement the strategy, from the smallest efforts and planning all the way up to creating and posting the content for you. Our writers are qualified and experienced, ready to engage with your ideal customers.

There are no guarantees in life. But I can promise you – if you’re not taking a strategic approach, your business isn’t likely to grow to its full potential. If you’d like help with any or all of the above, please reach out. We’ve built our business helping other small businesses expand. Let’s Grow The Dream together!

And yet… how many companies still try to make it without it?

Let’s get the basics out of the way first. Our favorite and always recommended platform is WordPress. This is true whether you hire a third party to design and build your site or take it on as a DIY project. It’s just as free as SquareSpace and Wix, but far more powerful, manageable and high indexing on Google and other search engines right out of the gate. In fact, after I finish this article, I’ll be popping over to work on a site that I’m launching, all built on WordPress. And I’ve been working on websites and online design since I trained at Microsoft to help launch the local side of MSNBC in 1995/6.

So whatever you do, start with WordPress – even if it’s just the content blog component of your website plugged into a larger third party design.

Now that we’ve established that, let’s look at the larger picture – if you hire a third party to help create your website, is it better to hire an architect, a construction tradesman or a building company?

What Does It Look Like

A web designer or design firm is like an architect. These are your Frank Lloyd Wrights, Frank Gehrys and Mies Van der Rohes. They design the look and feel of your website -how cool it is, what fancy styles it exhibits, and, ostensibly, the functionality of the site. There are multiple components to functionality, but the designer is mostly concerned with just that – designing how it will function, but not always why.

Designers as a whole rarely get “their fingers dirty,” as it were. As an example, Antoni Gaudí designed the world-famous La Sagrada Familia Cathedral in Spain. But he didn’t get in there and start laying the mortar or nailing the beams up. And nearly 100 years after his death, that cathedral is still under construction. It’s even a plot point in the latest Dan Brown Robert Langdon novel.

And that’s the difference between the how of website functionality and the why. The why is much more hands-on, or rather code-dependent. And most designers don’t look at or worry about code too much – they rely on developers to handle that work.

 Where Do All the Ones and Zeros Go

Web developers on the other hand are like geeky mathematicians – they definitely gets hands-on. They are fluent in several computer languages, from HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. And they have a handle on lesser used “lingos” like Python, SQL, PHP, Swift, Unity, Scala, Go and Rust. Maybe even “dead” website languages like Pascal, C, C++, F# and COBOL.

And yes, I know much of that seems like gobbledygook if you’re not one of those programming linguists. As someone in nearly every episode of CSI or NCIS says, “English please.” The most, ahem, binary explanation is that the developers speak in the ones and zeros of code and can make the designs of the architects actually function in the real online world.

Further, while architects handle every visual aspect of the building, and usually know enough about structuring things to create useable blueprints, developers can be broken out into specific trades. Just like a carpenter doesn’t lay stone or pour a foundation, and a mason doesn’t run electrical conduit, website developers have more specific tasks.

Laying the Foundation

Back-end developers work behind the scenes to make everything work and play together on your website. They’re the ones setting up and formatting the databases and making sure the servers are addressed right and can talk to one another properly. Back end developers are like the stage crew that make sure the play goes off without a hitch – changing lights, curtains, props, furniture, etc. Most of their work is unseen. You only notice their work when it isn’t working.

Back end developers are also the “bones” of the house website. The structure, foundation and electrical work in the walls, under the floors and above the ceilings. Again, their primary purpose is to function unseen, but without them, your site can’t function.

Lipstick on the Pig

Front-end developers are the folks who worry about the user interface of your website. They’re painting the walls, prepping the trim, and even landscaping the front yard. Anything that is visible to people visiting your site is their bailiwick. This includes what YOU see when you look at your dashboard. When you’re adding a post or updating numbers or graphics, you’re also utilizing the work of the front-end developer.

The front end developer is responsible for making sure the site works the way the designer planned. Tweaking the look and feel of the site to get the best possible and error free version of your website for your customers.

Front-end developers still know code, just more specific user code, and they work with the back-end developers to make sure everything sings together.

Stacking the Deck

There’s a third “designation” for website developers that’s a bit of a misnomer, but needs to be addressed. A full stack web developer is defined as a person who can develop both client and server software. Now my software engineer friends are gonna call me out on that. As a software developer, you, by definition, are handling both sides of the coin. They don’t like the separation of powers, as it were, and find the term “full stack” to be insulting.

Even developers who tend to focus on one side or the other of website software solutions should still know how to do the other side. In fact, this is where it gets really complicated, because if a front end developer has a problem, they need to at least know enough to be able to troubleshoot why the back end isn’t responding properly. And the same goes for the back end developer. They need to be able to speak the language of the client interface to understand where the problem lies.

So while you may hear the term full-stack web developer, just know that these are full-fledged software developers who can handle the ins and outs of the code that runs your site.

Soup to Nuts

Your third option for constructing your website is to hire a building company. Instead of finding a web designer to make your site look awesome, then a software developer or two to try and make the cool design work, you can get a package deal. Essentially, you hire a construction foreman who starts at the design phase and truly builds a form follows function website.

A full-service website provider not only provides design and functionality – if they’re truly serving their clients, like Grow the Dream does – they’re providing strategy, marketing, and true search engine optimization.

True SEO isn’t stacking keywords and embedding sales phrases into the pages. It’s creating content that routinely brings potential clients to your site. Google prefers this type of SEO because it is useful and valuable to the people that use their search. Long tail, educational, interesting and worthwhile content targeted at a specific type of customer means that Google’s algorithm is “confident” sending people to your site…and bumping it to the top of the search results page.

Your business succeeds because everything is strategized and synchronized. The message, voice, brand of your product or service is consistent across the board, not pieced together like a marketing Frankenstein monster.

Developing the Dark Side

Unfortunately, thanks to an overabundance of minor knowledge, lack of budgets and unearned confidence, the foreman for many businesses is themselves. The multitude of do it yourself, plug in the standard, cookie cutter pieces is overwhelming in its apparent simplicity, yet boringly ubiquitous. And if there’s a problem, or you try to do something new and it breaks, you’re S.O.L. Tech support for those free sites is often more sales-oriented than user-friendly. And because they’re wired to say yes without knowing what is truly possible, will often make promises they can’t keep.

A personal example – one of the non-profit clients I worked for years ago had a leadership change, and the new hierarchy opted to cancel my 5 year running contract to “hire” a free provider. Their first mistake was not understanding that free meant third party advertisements baked into their non-profit site. The salesman promised they would be removed. 7 years later, they’re still there.

The salesman happily promised that all the functionality of their current site, that I had built from the ground up, to the non-profit’s specifications, would be transferable. I’d say he lied, except he just didn’t have a clue what he was promising. Carefully constructed and coded interactive pages didn’t mesh with the new provider’s template system. And even though I took the time to give them the full code – so they could paste it into an empty page’s HTML structure – they didn’t have access to the page code or servers.

Months of work I had done that they had paid for was now worthless to them. They weren’t upset at me. I bent over backwards to help the new provider get on track, despite taking my business. But the non-profit ultimately lost their “free” bet. You get what you pay for.

No Missed Opportunities

One of the other big issues with spreading out your website creation is ongoing maintenance. Working with a full-service website provider, it’s easier to make updates and changes, even full redesigns, without losing momentum or suffering website downtime.

When major changes need to be made, especially through a WordPress-based site, a full-service provider can set up a staging site. First they duplicate your entire existing infrastructure and content. Then they begin the alterations, checking each page and post for consistency and unbroken links, connections and emails. All behind the scenes while your existing site remains up and active.

Then once everything is transformed, checked and double checked, a full-service provider simply shifts the network designations. Your old site becomes inactive and the new redesigned site goes live – within seconds. No loss of service or risk of customer FOMO.

And because you’ve got a full-service provider on board, your emails stay connected. Your links stay relevant, and there’s little risk of 301 redirects, sending customers away. All of those errors can cause loss of search engine ranking and visibility. What’s more, when done right, launching a complete redesign retains visibility and momentum on Google and Bing.

And if that’s not enough incentive, there’s no overlap between servers, hosting and IP providers. That’s saving your business money by not paying for the same service multiple times, or missing a recurring charge for services no longer being used falling through the cracks.

Survey Says…

So as you can probably gather, I’m much more inclined to recommend a full-service website provider – like what Grow the Dream does. Not just because I work for the company. Our services are not right for everyone. We are too small for some companies, too costly for others. Outside of finances, we have specific client profiles that we target our services and information for. We’re not going to try to help you if we can’t, or make promises we know we can’t keep.

But GTD aside, a really good full-service website provider is worth the extra investment to make sure everything runs smoothly. Just like your small business employees need to be on the same page, your website works better when you have a single point of contact to work with.

That’s not to say I don’t reach out and communicate with some of our clients one-on-one. But the message is always aligned. And we’re always striving to make everything – website, emails, offline marketing and more – speak with a consistent voice to a specific group of people – the target customer profiles of our client’s best customers.

Ultimately, it’s your business, and you need to do what’s best for it. Which is why I recommend WordPress. I know some people reading this need a fast, affordable DIY solution. WordPress is the best bang for that buck, period. It’s an elegant solution that looks great inside and out, and rarely has issues. I can’t say the same for all those website builders that advertise on podcasts and YouTube channels.

If you’d like help making your decision, please reach out. Even if you don’t hire us, we’ll give you 25 minutes of our time without charge to get you started. We’ve built our business helping small businesses succeed. Let’s Grow the Dream together!

It seems like a silly example, I know, but imagine if you discovered that your ideal customer was someone who loved only those movies? And had a million dollars to buy exactly what you’re selling? Suppose out of the thousands of potential customers in the world, you find 100 that fit this movie criteria and are eager to spend $1-million dollars with you. Would it be worth it to you to figure out the best way to market to those 100 people to get $100-million dollars into your business? I bet it would.

I’ve discussed before how the riches are in the niches, but very few people really understand the truth of that clever statement. One of the biggest problems we here at Grow the Dream see in small business marketing is brands that want to go too far. They want to appeal to any and everybody. But that is a terrible approach.

Gold Rush

Think back for a second to your time in college or high school. There were times when you highlighted portions of your class notes or text book. You did that because those particular bits were important or at worst, you knew they were going to be on the test. But what if you pulled out your notes to study for the exam – and EVERYTHING was highlighted? Where do you focus? Which parts are important? How can you tell? If everything is highlighted… you might as well have nothing highlighted.

To put it another way, trying to point in every direction is essentially the same as having no direction. The same thing is true for business strategy and marketing.

Stephen King has sold some 400-million books. Which means at the most only 5% of the population of the world owns just one of his books. And I throw off the curve because I own a dozen of his novels – and I’m not even an avid reader of King’s work. Yet he’s a best-selling novelist – one of the biggest in the world.

The numbers are similar for John Grisham, Dean Koontz, and Nicholas Sparks. Each holds a small percentage of the novel reading world. And while there’s some overlap – they write radically different books. Imagine if Stephen King penned a tear-jerker romance, or Dean Koontz tried typing up an in-depth legal thriller. Some folks would pick it up just for the novelty, I’m sure. But their core readers would likely be somewhat disappointed. And they wouldn’t somehow convert rabid Nicholas Sparks fans into King readers either.

Diversify and Dominate

In business, many experts will tell you the key to a good niche is finding an underserved market. A niche is a specialized or focused area of a broader market. One that you serve specifically. As author and branding consultant Charlene Walters preaches, a niche is what differentiates your business from the competition and allows you to excel in your sector.

And that’s all true.

But how, you may ask, would, say two pool installation companies set themselves apart? Both do essentially the same work, require the same expertise, the same tools, and, let’s just say they do equal quality work. They’re even in the same section of the yellow pages or a generic Google search. But company A is a smaller business, focused on single home installation sales. And company B caters to large developments – they employ a lot more people and may work on fewer, but much larger jobs.

They’re not really in competition, are they? In fact, they can exist in a near symbiotic state, if they choose. If company A is approached by a new golf course community that wants pools for all or most of their homes, he can recommend company B. And company B can return the favor for company A. Because they don’t have the same customers. And while a search in Google for “pool installation in Sarasota” will yield both of them, those aren’t the keywords either of them is targeting. If they’re smart, they’re aiming for long-tail searches with content posts that are valuable to their potential customers.

What’s more, if company A is contacted by someone they can’t serve and turns them on to a high quality company B that can, the customer is likely to remember company A positively when someone they know is looking for what they offer.

Perspective Punch

My friend Miles Allen found himself out of work back in March of 2020, when the pandemic hit. He’s an actor who was earning the majority of his income from catering gigs. In fact, he was ready to walk away from acting. But now, he had a LOT of free time and an entertaining skill. So he got on Tik Tok. He does impressions and little skits that are funny and fun to watch.

But suddenly, things exploded. He got the idea to post impressions of characters from Disney movies singing the song Savage Love. Suddenly, everyone was watching him – he’s not quite a year in and has 1.5-million followers. He doesn’t even post as much as he used to. But his top videos are all very specific – impressions of characters singing popular songs. And if you dig deeper, the various iterations of Savage Love top all of those videos. Just one song. And before you say, yeah, that’s just kids on Tik Tok, his acting career has relaunched. He’s building on success after success – all because of those silly videos.

One of the reasons we here at Grow the Dream create specific demographic and psychographic profiles of ideal customers for our clients is because everyone has a niche they can serve and serve well.

And it’s valuable for your business as well as for the customer. Being first or best in a niche allows you to charge higher rates. You’re seen as an expert, the thought leader in your field. Just ask a little company called Apple.

Marketing to and serving a specific niche builds brand loyalty and leads to a steady stream of income. Since you’ve built trust and value in your customer’s minds, they’re less likely to look elsewhere, even if they see a better one time deal.

Building Bigger Niches

We’d be rather hypocritical if we didn’t follow our own advice. And true to form, we’ve built our small business helping other small businesses grow theirs. But some of you might have come to know us through Michael Pink or Zig Ziglar or even John Maxwell or Dennis Peacocke’s organizations – some of the biggest business mentors out there.

And the blessing of being able to partner with and reach out to their much larger customer bases came, actually because we focused on our niche. In the midst of helping small businesses grow and expand, we were exposed to these organizations, and they saw the value of what we were able to offer. So they brought us in – because they saw the value of what we could do for their small business customers. We could provide value and serve a niche they couldn’t always focus on.

But not everyone who heard or read our message took our advice, signed up for our training or contracted for services. And that’s okay – the people who needed to hear it, who could use it, signed up. And some of them have grown beyond our ability to serve them with efficiency. We wished them well – and many of them sent us others who needed us. Symbiotic relationship.

No matter where you are in your entrepreneurial or small business journey, we’re here to help. If you’d like help figuring out who your ideal customer is or how to target them, please reach out. We’d love to do what we can – even if it’s sending you to someone who can better serve your needs. Because that benefits both of us.

Let’s Grow The Dream together!

Alan Turing was the mathematician famous for breaking the Nazi’s original Enigma code during World War II. But years after the war ended, he theorized that at some point artificial intelligence would develop the ability to think on its own. He proposed something he called “the imitation game” (yes, also the movie title), where an artificial intelligence could be interviewed blindly and appear to be human. The film Ex Machina also borrowed from this theory.

Despite Turing’s efforts – illustrating nine different significant objections to artificial intelligence – since his death in 1954, scientists and engineers have worked to develop true machine or artificial intelligences. The most recent work has been with neural networks. And they’ve come a long way, at least in theory.

Bert, Engage With Ernie

Back in November of 2018, Google released a new open source algorithm on GitHub. They named it “Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers,” or BERT for short. BERT was a neural network that utilized Natural Language Processing (NLP) to, for all intents and purposes, “learn” users languages.

Essentially, the algorithm, instead of just sending out a search for a string of terms, started looking “both ways.” By examining the search string and trying to determine the relationship between words, it learns what users are ‘really’ searching for, and how they speak.

The BERT neural network algorithm radically improved search results. And the underlying algorithms and updates Google made continued to help BERT learn and improve. Every day, BERT’s ability to understand what it thinks you’re looking for does provide better search results for most people. And it made other aspects of our lives easier too.

Hey, Siri, Call Alexa, Okay, Google?

While SIRI dates back to 2010, a funny thing happened on Christmas morning, 2017. A LOT of people found smart speakers under the tree. Amazon Echo’s, Google Home’s, Google Assistants, and more. And as I talked about in detail last year, these voice-activated personal digital assistants have revolutionized search. Additionally, they “speak” in more normal human language. BERT uses NLP to better comprehend what you’re asking for, calculates the best response, based on its programming and what it knows about you, and spits out a response formatted to sound more human-like.

And while the system is still based on data and number crunching, the algorithm comprehends you, uses its knowledge of you, and answers you. And it’s not giving you a menu of possible answers – it gives one response – or asks for more information. That seems much more like thinking than a lot of people on social media are prone to.

While no one will mistake Alexa or Cortana for being human, they are closer than you may think. In fact, the mechanical sounding voice may be there on purpose to disguise how well they DO understand our queries.

By the time we hit 2020, an estimated 3.25 Billion smart speakers were in use across the globe.

Revolutionizing Marketing Mock-Up

Despite literally hundreds of changes to the Google search algorithms and operations ranking each year, some marketers are still under the impression that keyword farming is the best approach. Keyword farming or blasting is focusing on words and small phrases that identify your business – or at least you think they do. But search engine optimization in the 21^st century is so much more than that. And I hate to keep harping on this, but I still see it happening so much, I want to make things clear.

In the old days of search, search engines, including Google, were limited to offering results that exactly matched the keywords plugged into them. But that changed twenty years ago! The reason Google survived and the majority of other search engines disappeared or were absorbed by companies like Microsoft, is because they actively looked for ways to deliver better search results to the end user.

One of the things that really advanced them ahead in a race they had already jumped several laps ahead in was machine learning. They analyzed what people searched for and why. They realized, as we pointed out nearly 20 years ago, that average people weren’t stringing together keywords. Nor were they always searching for businesses. They were looking for solutions.

A few people search for “obedience schools in my area.” But there are FAR more people searching for “how to stop my dog from barking.” I should also point out that in the past, “in my area” actually meant “in Austin, Texas,” or “in Sarasota, Florida.” But now thanks to BERT, Google understands “in my area” to be literally within a certain area around where you physically are when you ask. You don’t have to specify.

But Wait, There’s More

Before BERT came RankBrain, which analyzed past searches and identifies which words and phrases best match that search, even if they don’t match exactly or have never been searched. It couldn’t understand the context of the search phrase, but could estimate the efficacy of the results. Using that, it “knows” the likelihood of its response being what you were looking for.

And guess what? RankBrain is still in effect. It works both in conjunction with and separately from BERT. By uniting the two algorithms, Google can judge your website – does it answer the question being searched for? Or does it just have a few of the random terms? Guess which one gets top billing on the search results page…

Now, Google is leveraging all of that for its most ambitious new code ever. RankBrain cranked the knob to 9. BERT took it to 11. But this summer, the knob is getting ripped off. Subtle changes are already being rolled out as I type this. But come May 2021, Page Experience takes center stage. Google wants to make sure the search results you get are the best – especially if you leave their page.

So Google will now factor in load speed, size of graphics, responsive design (for mobile access), and most of all – usefulness in your website. A landing page is not good enough. Your design can be simple, but it must be robust and beneficial to the searcher. So the address and phone number of your obedience school and some puppy pictures are not enough.

Now more than ever, YOU NEED CONTENT.

You need to be posting on a periodic basis, value adding content that answers questions your ideal customers are asking. You can start by asking them! You’ll need to develop a profile of that ideal customer – demographics, psychographics, as much specific data as you can muster. You need to speak in a language they understand. And you need to do it again and again and again.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, you’re in luck. We’ve built our business helping small businesses find and target those ideal customers. We can help you build a profile or teach you how to begin the process. We also have expert writers on staff who can take your ideal customer, and start answering the questions they’re asking.

So when Google’s bots crawl over your site, they mark it as useful, valuable, essential. We’ve literally had clients who, in just a couple of months, moved to the top of Google search results for their ideal customers. And that was in the old days – now our methods work faster and harder for you.

Let us help you prepare for the new Google rollout, and excel in all of your digital marketing. Please reach out for more details. Let’s Grow The Dream together!

Back in 2016, Mark Zuckerberg predicted that Facebook would be mostly video by 2021. This was four years after purchasing Instagram for $1-billion and then seeing the platform dip as Snapchat took the lead. And of course, all of this was long before Tik Tok launched in the US, rapidly becoming the most downloaded app for nearly 2 years.

The common denominator is video. Snapchat, within a year of launching, created video “Stories,” prompting Insta to try and follow suit and catch up. That eventually slid over to the mother app. Now Tik Tok has forced another seismic shift at Facebook, bringing “Reels” to life on Instagram.

In the midst of millions of businesses shuttering, or at least shifting to work from home, there have been three sectors of the economy that have consistently grown:

• Video Conferencing (Zoom, Discord, Google misc.)
• Streaming Services (Netflix, Amazon, HULU, all the +’s)
• Social Media (Tik Tok, Facebook, Twitter)

Once again, the common denominator – video.

If you’re asking – and you should be – how does this affect business accounts and ads on Facebook, you’re in the right mindset.

The Good News

1. Video Ads are More Cost Effective

Video costs average around 10% of the cost of carousel or single image ads. While the holy grail of Facebook ads might be out of reach these days, you can run ten times as many video ads as image ads. That alone seems like a really good deal – but it gets even better…

2. Video is More Engaging

Users spend FIVE times more time on a Facebook post or Ad that contains a video than a static post. Twitter estimates about the same. And TL:DR is real – images on all platforms are still 2-3 times more engaging than text.

And yes, animated GIF’s count! While they aren’t as engaging as a video, anything more than a static image is generating more engagement. And that includes EMOJI’s. Whether you like or understand them or not, they are becoming increasingly more popular in posts and ads, regardless of a target customer’s age. And if you’re aiming for millennials or younger, you kinda need them.

3. Much Higher ROI & Conversions

In a study done last year, businesses who experimented with video ads saw nearly 70% more conversions than for static images or text.

People like viewing products and services from the point of view of the customer. Videos that feel like POV of the user; whether the buying process, the experience of using the product – or best of all, the emotion gained by using the product – outperform anything else.

Nothing provides social proof more than actual social proof. BUT, staged videos shot as representative of the customer experience rank almost as highly in ROI and conversions.

4. Don’t Require High Production Value

Facebook allows you to post videos that are studio-shot or mobile-shot. Studio is obvious – these are the commercials we’re used to, with high production values. Mobile-shot can still be well done and tell a good story, but… they resemble organic Stories content, similar to the effect of using a mobile phone camera, or ‘selfie-mode.’

According to Facebook, mobile-shot is:

• 84% better at getting users to view content
• 80% better at driving intent
• 78% better at driving ad recall, and
• 63% better at driving purchases, app installs and checkouts

Some companies are even shooting professionally, but simulating mobile-shot, just to get the benefits. But all you need is your camera and decent light.

In the past, I would have said great audio is a must too, but 85% of people watch videos with the sound off. Facebook even added an option to turn off sound automatically on EVERY video. Meanwhile, a recent study showed that 41% of videos on social media are meaningless without sound.

Instead of spending money on the camera and sound gear, spend time on the best visual story you can tell. It’s said that Hitchcock was such a great director because he started in silent films, as a story card artist. He strove, with every film he made, to make fewer and fewer cards. He passionately sought to make stories that worked, even if no one ever said a word, and often complained that dialogue repeated information already present on the screen.

Like Hitchcock, you want to try and create a video that captures attention and conveys purpose, even with the sound off. Add subtitles if you need to. And be liberal with your use of logos, products, and words splashed across the screen.

5. They Don’t Need to be Too Long

Embrace the minute or less. In keeping with the theme of user-generated content, don’t blast out a video that last 20-30 minutes, just because you can. Hey, if you can make something you can cross post on Insta, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Tik Tok, why wouldn’t you?

Sure the audiences are somewhat different, but you have to start somewhere. Having a short video will play better, be watched more, and can be cross-purposed. You can then tailor it more to the specific platform you want it to be on. Plus, shorter videos are cheaper to make and as a result allow considerable experimentation. You’re not spending a million dollars making a single ad for the Super Bowl that may or may not connect with people. You’re making dozens, maybe hundreds of short ads. It’s not a huge deal if a few of them underperform.

And several social media experts have pointed to Reel-type ads in Instagram as the next big trend in paid social media marketing for 2021.

6. More Formats Available

At the time I’m writing this, Facebook has 16 ad types:

• image ads
• video ads
• page likes ads
• branded content ads
• lead generation ads
• carousel ads
• post engagement ads
• slideshow ads
• dynamic ads
• messenger ads
• stories ads
• collection ads
• playable ads
• augmented reality ads
• instant experience ads (previously called Canvas)
• app installs
• search ads

You can also add polls to video ads and use ads to launch conversations in Messenger.

The Bad News

7. COVID-19 Restrictions are Still in Place

This may not affect you or a majority of small businesses, but everyone should review the latest Facebook guidelines to make sure you’re not offering a product or service that is prohibited in these trying times.

8. Costs are Liable to Fluctuate – a Lot

In all areas, of Facebook at least, cost of pay-per-click ads is down, and has been down since March of 2020. That means all of the ad formats are currently cheaper, not just video. But as it takes longer to reach some sense of normality with the global pandemic, the prices will almost surely rise.

Amazon has done stellar business because they were already in place to take advantage of the online buying experience and delivery, well, trend. Trend isn’t quite the right word, but hopefully you get what I mean. As we sit longer and shift to more delivery and pick up, as well as more digital versus traditional advertising, the rates are bound to go up.

9. Reduced Targeting Options

As our society becomes more stratified, Facebook has had to adapt. Not just in political scenarios, but rejiggering how we think and speak, and how things are addressed. They have also dealt with numerous privacy concerns, both in house and forced to be addressed by government and lawsuits.

As a result, the extreme narrowness of Facebook ad targeting has lessened considerably. There’s little chance these days of one roommate punking another with ads, as happened back in 2014. And that’s probably a good thing. Free speech is fine, but Facebook has a responsibility, both to users and their shareholders.

So several categories of targeting have been eliminated from the Facebook ad options for all the reasons mentioned above, as well as eliminating duplicate and redundant targeting options. All added up, Facebook has eliminated between 7-10,000 different targeting options. Which sounds like a lot – most people probably aren’t even aware there were that many options, let alone that many have been eliminated.

Which makes their assertion that there are more than enough targeting options to reach nearly every type of audience seem reasonable.

10.Tighter User Experience Parameters

Blame this one on the scammers. Far too many Facebook ads played fast and loose with the truth in previous years, and it reached epic proportions during the pandemic. You may remember, it got so bad, their AI was preventing posts and ads from struggling businesses because they tried to yank the reins too hard.

So Facebook implemented a Customer Feedback Score system for advertisers.

And while it feels like they’re spanking everyone for some criminals actions, there are a few easy tips to keep your score above the 1-2 that will get you booted.

1. Be transparent. Make it extremely clear what users can expect from your products. Yes, that includes images, colors, materials, and sizes. Don’t use stock images or descriptions pulled from other sites unless your item is exactly the same, including the brand name.
2. Make shipping expectations clear. Highlight expected shipping times at several points of checkout on your website. And always provide a tracking number.
3. Make your return policy extremely clear. Spell out every detail, including potential return shipping costs, possibility of refund or replacement, and timeframes permitted.

11. Strategy is as Important as Ever

If you’re a frequent reader of this blog, you might think I harp on this too much. But, truly, the one thing that sets successful small business marketing apart from being unsuccessful is the approach. The major companies all use strategies – sometimes even apparently conflicting ones.

Did you know that Coke and Diet Coke are marketed completely differently? They even employ different strategists and different advertising agencies because they have two different audiences, two different types of targeted ideal consumers.

Don’t shoot yourself in the foot by not having a strategic business plan in place – for your business and for your marketing. If you need help developing one – I know a guy… Please reach out and we’ll be happy to sit down with you over Zoom and work out a way to get started. We won’t even charge you for the first 20 minutes.

We’ve built our business by teaching and helping entrepreneurs build their business. We’d love to help you too. Let’s Grow The Dream together!

• What worked before?
• What small thing can we change to try and hopefully make it better?
  • That worked! Keep doing it!
  • That didn’t work – go back to the start!
• We’re only showing the boss what worked.

Essentially, the “proven” method is — throw everything at the wall, see what sticks and hope we get lucky. And if you’re really lucky, you’re considered an expert at predicting things. Luck is not a successful business strategy in any other industry, so why is it acceptable for sales and marketing?

And why are we still doing it this way when there are powerful analytical tools that are free to use? A tool that gives you insight into hundreds of business data points. How many people visited your website? Who are they, with detailed demographics? Where did they come from? How long did they stay? Did they visit from a laptop, tablet, or cell phone?

Which pages got the most traffic – and why? How engaged were the visitors? Did they finish reading the blog? For how long did they watch your video ? Did they download anything? Was there an action that led them to your sales funnel? Did they find you on Google, from a direct mailer, a commercial, a billboard?

Actual real-time analysis of your marketing and sales efforts.

Why would you want to keep guessing?

A Learning Curve

Yes, I get it, there’s a bit of a work up front to get everything organized. But you’re entrepreneurs and small business owners, right? If you just wanted to focus solely on sales, you could work for someone else. But you want to change the world – at least most entrepreneurs I talk to do. And the best way to do that is by knowing your efforts are working.

That requires measurement. And the beauty is you don’t have to make educated guesses – or if you start there, it’s quick and easy to see if that guess was right. Remember back in high school, you were taught the scientific method, Hegelian dialectic, to be specific. You start with a hypothesis – find a counter antithesis – compare them and get synthesis – the best answer. And then repeat the process.

With Google Analytics, you can plug those variables in and let them analyze the immense amounts of data to give you the answers you need. It’s the ultimate strategic shortcut. Access to more information than you need – but giving you a true picture of who’s finding your business/website and why. You can even do a lifetime value calculation within the tool – showing which potential customers are worth investing in.

Setting the Goal Posts

I’m not going to take the time to explain how to set up Google Analytics. Alphabet has their own tutorial for that. What we’re going to walk through is something that should probably be done on paper first anyway.

Google Analytics has immense amounts of information you can delve into. But numbers on a page can quickly become overwhelming if you don’t know what they mean. So the learning curve for Google Analytics starts with pen and paper.

You need to break down your sales process to the basest level. The goal for just about everyone is more sales – i.e., more conversions from visits to sales, right? But what is each step of that process? What are the tiers or hierarchy of the funnel? How can you tell when a customer is ready to buy? What does it look like when they need more information? What behavior signifies another increment deeper into the process that leads to conversion?

And the really exciting part is, as I’ve mentioned already, this isn’t guesswork. You start with a premise – this is the behavior that means they’re ready to buy. So you track that goal in Google Analytics. And very quickly you can see if it’s actually true – or is there another step you missed or didn’t even know about before?

You see, Google Analytics can not only track your marketing, sales and site performance. It can also help you hone it down to the most precise measurements possible. Suddenly, you have a clearer picture of the best customer you can serve, and how to catch their attention.

This doesn’t take the place of solid strategy, but rather makes the whole process easier to implement and track.

Added Value

Want to know which topics are of interest to your ideal targeted customer? Look at the Google Analytics. Take an article that’s an overview and take a deeper dive. Much like the sales conversion breakdown, you can strip down popular topics to the bare bones and make 3-4 posts out of one subject.

Expand or combine your most popular posts into a lead magnet that potential customers can download. In one step, you show added value, convenience and credibility. Or do an email blast, highlighting the most pertinent information of your popular posts, with a link back to read more.

Don’t be afraid to repeat topics and material either. Blog posts usually have a limited life, and newer is automatically perceived as better by many. So cycle through your top posts every once in a while. It’s only going to make you look more useful to Google bots and therefore to customers when it rises to the top.

You can also add updated or additional material to a post that is evergreen and keeps getting traffic. It’s a fantastic way to keep older material relevant and, again, build credibility.

These are just a few tips for using Google Analytics to your best advantage. There are likely countless ways you can discover and set goals specific to your business that Google Analytics can track.

If you’d like more information on how to build that initial strategic “guesswork,” help creating buyer personas that match your ideal customers, or need expertly written, curated blog posts specific to your business, please reach out. We’ve built our business helping small businesses find and market to their audience.

Let’s Grow The Dream together!

Of course, the paragraph I just typed, both in my word processing software and in the website server, takes about 140K of memory. You’ve probably seen the vintage pictures of a dozen men and a forklift loading 5-Megabyte IBM drives the size of a freight elevator. Or the Univac computers that helped us get to the moon that literally took up rooms of space – and still could do less than the simplest iPhone.

Somebody Has to Be First

It’s always interesting to be on the front end of a new technology or business approach and then watch to see if and how long it takes for the rest of world to catch up. For every Facebook and Twitter, there’s a MySpace or Yahoo Groups that has to adapt or die. And you’re never guaranteed that newer and better will survive. Just look at the much higher quality Beta vs VHS recording and playback decks.

But sometimes you do get to be ahead of the game, succeed and wait for the rest of your industry or niche to catch up. And while I don’t often do posts that pat ourselves on the back, I get to do that today.

You see, more than 20 years ago, David G. Johnson started this company, as Epiphany Marketing, teaching people about content marketing and beating the ever-changing Google algorithm with strategy, not keywords. Maybe it was the pandemic and people looking for new answers to keep afloat. Maybe it was Google announcing the latest huge algorithm changes. Maybe it was the various new privacy legislations and the death of cookies. Or…

Maybe it was just time.

Whatever it was, some of the top Google searches for marketers and businesses last year were phrases involving “Content Marketing Strategy.” Almost 10,000 a month! With another 34-thousand searches for related phrases like “Content marketing examples,” “B2B content marketing,” and “content marketing plan.” Clearly, there is now a growing interest.

And while job postings and chatter on the Internet still include phrases like “SEO Performance” and “keyword management”, they’re being defined more clearly – and more often – with both content and strategy. In fact the top three job skills looked for are Social Media, SEO, and ability to take a strategic approach.

Digging Deeper

A recent study, commissioned by SEMRush, gives us more insight into what people want when they’re searching online. Clarity, relevance, and detail are all at the top of the list – and in one place.

While many of our clients focus on 300-900 word content blog posts, we know in many instances 1200-3000 word posts do better. But now we’re seeing that 7000+ word posts trump even the previous long length standards, with three times more views and 43% more shares. Clearly people are looking for one place to get all their answers.

Adding headline structures and lists can also increase visibility. And it helps you gain that coveted top spot on Google where they share your list, even if someone doesn’t click your link. You might think that’s a bad thing, but it adds credibility and usefulness, both with the reader and Google.

When you look at Twitter, strategy is, by a large margin, the most discussed marketing topic, especially when you add the additional parameter of content marketing. People want to know how to strategically market, how to measure, how it works best, and what their competitors are doing.

The old adage about a picture being worth a thousand words is true too. Or in this case 240 characters or the 2000 on Insta. Images and video convey so much more information than a simple tweet or Facebook update. And that leaves more room for whatever #hashtags you’re using. Pinterest is also growing past wedding planning and arts and crafts. You can check out my deeper analysis of that platform, if you’d like.

Another top concern for approaching effective online marketing is analytics and measurements. We’ve done several posts about this in the past, but next week, we’ll do a deep dive into how to best leverage Google Analytics.

Past Performance; Future Results

I don’t often advocate looking backwards. The past is the past, and usually it should stay there. But there’s a Lewis B Smedes quote that seems appropriate here. “We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future.” 2020 was rough. 2021 isn’t getting any better – not quickly enough, anyway. But we can use the lessons we’ve learned from the past and use them to chart a better future.

Take the time now to learn how content marketing works best. We have literally years of posts and millions of words that go in depth right here on the website you’re already on. We will be launching our free online training sessions, #StrategyStreams again shortly. And we’re here for you. We built our business teaching and assisting other small businesses succeed at strategic content marketing. We’d love to help you too. Please reach out.

Regardless of how the industry got to where we are, we’re here now. Make the most of it and together we’ll Grow the Dream.

Even before the iPhone emerged, carriers had started experimenting with texting, charging a small fee. As we crested into 2008, more than 78-million text votes were received – at 20-cents a vote. And the following year, that record was broken with nearly 180-million votes cast.

It’s hard to believe, as ubiquitous as texting is now, that carriers once charged 5-30-cents per text for several years.  Now people under 35 are more likely to text than call for any reason. And for those under 25, many will text each other, even while they’re in the same room.

I talked last week about how the chemicals in our brains are now attuned to give us pleasure or pain when we see or ignore a notification. A study at the end of 2019 showed that most people check their phones 96 times per day – or around every 10 minutes. And text messages – or SMS messages as they’re now called – are opened 98% of the time! Most within THREE MINUTES. Compare that to emails. An email opened by 20-25% of your list is considered a success.

So it should be no surprise that the fastest growing form of digital marketing – and the only one companies are spending heavily on – is SMS Marketing.

A Text in Time

SMS Marketing is mass texting clients, customers and contacts as a way to promote your business’s products and services, as well as to build customer loyalty. Everything we once relied on email to do, can now be done, often more effectively, with text: engage your audience, build relationships, boost sales, build excitement, and collect and nurture leads. You can even install a widget on your website to collect numbers and interact, text-like, with people on the site. It’s no wonder Facebook Messenger wants to be able to coopt your texts.

You can track click through rates, conversions and other Key Performance Indicators with Google Analytics. People who give you their number tend to be more highly engaged. So click-thru rates tend to be considerably higher than emails (up to 35%!).

Often, consumers provide their own sense of urgency because they know if they don’t respond now, they might forget as the text gets buried in other messages throughout the day. And because it’s on their phone, you can reach them just about any time, anywhere.

Adding Text-ure

You can also build relationships and rapport with message-ees by using texts to share your story. Just like you do with certain content blog or social media posts, SMS is another way to show people who you are. Try to keep messages around the size of a tweet, though. More than 140-250 characters can be harder to read and easier to dismiss. You can always encapsulate the essence of a blog post and send it with the link to read more. Images can also be sent in SMS messages. They’re a great way to briefly remind customers of who you are or what you sell.

But don’t forget that it’s a two-way street. Using texts and being responsive to customer questions and complaints has been shown to increase sales by 31%. Anything that increases sales is nothing to look down on these days.

iPhones do now have the option to block or ignore a number. But nobody’s calling AT&T or T-Mobile and reporting spam, hampering your efforts to reach others. And while unsubscribes do happen – texting “STOP” drops the customer’s number – in most industries, this happens less than three percent of the time.

Clarifying the Message

Just like any other form of digital marketing, SMS Marketing works best when you’re targeting your texting. As powerful as SMS’s can be, they aren’t a shortcut to connection without strategy. You still have to do your homework.

Knowing your ideal customers’ demographics and psychographics are essential. Why they’re most likely to buy, what they’re searching for, answer the questions they’re asking. When done well, with a highly targeted strategic approach, texting can almost feel psychic to the receiver.

Unlike retargeting, which potentially shows the buyer things they’ve already got, a solid buyer profile allows you to send answers in the moment they’re likely to be thinking about the questions. And even if you miss it, you can immediately reply to a question text with the answers they need.

If you need help figuring out a strategic approach or building a truly in depth profile of your ideal buyer, please reach out. We’ve built our business by helping and teaching entrepreneurs and small business owners how to build theirs.

Let’s Grow the Dream together!

But with recent law changes from the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR) to the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) there are now significant limits and outright restrictions to using the easiest tracking indicator, a computer cookie. By the way, California just voted to upgrade to the California Online Privacy Protection Act (CalOPPA) earlier this month.

Oh, and those changes may pale in comparison to Google announcing that it is actively seeking to create a stricter set of privacy standards for the Internet. These will be implemented in their own products – and likely span the rest of the online community. The main thrust – eliminating third party tracking cookies. Apple’s Safari and Mozilla Firefox already have some form of this cookie blocking in place. And both continue to develop their efforts to reinforce privacy and trust.

So what’s a small business to do?

Healthy Snack Alternatives

On the plus side, a survey conducted last year by Marketing Charts in Miami shows that seven in ten businesses still ultimately use email to track their customers’ interest and movement through the sales funnel. And like most small businesses, you’re even more likely to use this method.

Some 43% of business websites utilize cookies – some in addition to emails, obviously. But the businesses that do use cookies may want to look closely at shifting to rely on them even less. Especially since California various law changes are precursors to other state, if not federal regulations soon to arrive.

Larger businesses surveyed appear to be confident that the quantity of data they’ve already amassed will help them continue to identify customers and potential clients easily. Nevermind that this data was largely acquired via cookies, and moving forward will be severely limited.

Both Google and Apple are working on ways to accurate track conversions in a cookie-less environment. And as I mentioned two weeks ago, Amazon already has their own similarly aimed proprietary system in place. There is also a slim chance that Facebook will start sharing its data. Or much more likely, it will force more companies to use a Facebook-oriented login in exchange for their digital identity keys.

Homemade Treats

One thing that is becoming clear to me as more and more regulations are put into place… A strategic marketing approach is more important than ever.

There’s a cycle we see over and over across the generations. It’s not always obvious until you look for it, but if you pay attention, it repeats itself again and again. The most important factor to successful, ongoing sales, in ANY industry, is RELATIONSHIPS.

Let me give you a totally unrelated example from my own life. In addition to my work for Grow the Dream, I am an actor and a screenwriter. I moved to Los Angeles in 2012 to pursue my creative endeavors. I had a couple of acquaintances, which led to a small, unpaid job. But more than half of the acting and writing jobs I’ve had since then I can directly track to people I met at that job the first two weeks I was in town.

In the old days, sales were closed by a handshake. As the internet and other messaging systems built up, making it nearly impossible to breathe or think without encountering a marketing message, people turned to relationships. Social media started spanning the globe – and word of mouth became the most important aspect of attracting customers (once again). We call it different names – referrals, recommendations, word of mouth, built trust… but they all describe the Power of Relationships for success.

Guess what? That’s still going to be true. We tried to sidestep it, create tracking algorithms and fancy keyword cheats. But none of that worked as well as Relationships. With the cookies crumbling, it’s time to go back to basics – “This is a football.”

Organic Options

Don’t get me wrong – we still need to be businesses. Businesses need to grow. And to grow, we need to build NEW relationships. Relationships are built on knowledge, value, reliability and trust. You build trust by providing overarching value – especially when it’s free.

Free added value options can be in the form of Lead Magnets, educational blog posts and free teleseminars. Something you give in exchange for an email or phone number. The potential client gets something they can use and benefit from – even if they never do business with you again. You have a way to follow up; a means to remind them that they don’t have to go it alone.

Even if someone comes to your site and never returns or buys anything – they can become a referral source. A friend, neighbor or colleague of a one-time visitor needs something your company can provide. Luckily, that visitor has a lead magnet with your contact info – instant new customer.

Of course, organic search traffic is also hopefully a factor for your business. Whatever Google eventually comes up with to replace the cookie-tracking ad experience, you still need to create consistent content. Content that provides solutions to the questions that your ideal customer is asking. Relationships and trust are slowly built. But gradually potential clients become a customer, advocate, then evangelist for your company.

Yes, cookies may be going away. But the heart of strategic marketing isn’t. It’s as true today as it always was, and ever will be. If you need help building your strategic marketing approach or finding additional content for your website, please reach out. We’re here to help you Grow Your Dream.