Check out our June newsletter!
June 2024
Building a Community in B2B, B2C, and
Local Businesses: THE KEY TO SOLVING YOUR SALES AND MARKETING PROBLEMS
Read Time: 4 minutes and 15 seconds
W elcome to the new marketing era where building a community is not just an option but a necessity. As consumer behaviors shift and traditional marketing tactics lose their edge, creating a robust and engaged community around your brand becomes crucial. Let’s explore why building a community can solve your sales and marketing challenges and how you can implement this strategy effectively. Understanding the Importance of Community 🌟 Communities offer many benefits, from enhancing
building a community improves customer loyalty. Harvard Business Review also reports that customers who are part of a community spend 19% more than those who aren’t. I don’t know any entrepreneur who wouldn’t want to see those types of improvements in their business, but that’s not where communities shine. ✨ A strong community is about getting and keeping the attention of prospects and customers. It is a way to create unique experiences, build relationships, generate referrals, and educate prospects and customers in a non-threatening way that lowers marketing expenses and increases conversions and profits. Sounds pretty great, right? 👍
customer loyalty to reducing support costs. According to a study by Marketing General Incorporated, 63% of marketers found that
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Strategies for Community Building 🛠️ The key to community-building success starts with content. Content is needed to draw people in and keep them engaged, and it is also a significant reason most people don’t build a community. One of the most essential rules of quality content marketing is that your content must focus on your ideal reader’s/viewer’s wants and needs.
DON’T TRY TO SELL DIRECTLY IN THE COMMUNITY. FOCUS ON HELPING YOUR COMMUNITY, AND THE REFERRALS AND SALES WILL COME.
Brands that create content that is just thinly veiled sales pieces will fail at building a community. The content can’t be boring. I don’t care how good the content is; you will lose most people if your content is boring. This is one of the most common mistakes people make. They create boring content about their industry or business and assume people who do business with them want to be knowledgeable about the industry. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I’ve used plumbing services many times, but I don’t want to know about the latest plumbing updates or some massive clogged drain the plumber successfully unclogged last month. The same is true in any industry. You don’t want to know about the inner workings of newsletters. Don’t make this common mistake when creating content.
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When planning your content marketing strategy, you must use as much of the content as possible across as many different types of media. For example, written content can become audio and video content. You can expand on pieces of content to create blogs, emails, social media posts, podcasts, newsletters, etc. Content marketing is easy, but consistently creating content that people engage with, want to return for, and consume more of takes work and skills. 💡 Picking the Topic for Your Community 🎯 Before you can create content, you need to know whom you’re creating content for and what type of content they want to consume.
on or coming soon to your area. Target your content to the demographics and psychographics of those who are most likely to consume it. You should have some personal content where you are the community leader. Your business should sponsor the content or community. Don’t try to sell directly in the community. Focus on helping your community, and the referrals and sales will come. It is also significantly less expensive
This doesn’t have to be complicated. For example, we’ve been creating email newsletters for B2B, B2C, and local businesses to help engage or grow a community. Let me provide you with some examples of what’s working. LOCAL BUSINESSES — Create a community around your local area. Talk about everything that is going
to market for someone to join a community than to market for someone who is in the market to make a purchase right now. B2C — The B2C version is similar to a local business community; the difference is that you’ll focus on the broader interests of your ideal buyer. If you’re targeting women 35-50, your content will focus on health, fitness, raising a family, fashion, beauty, money/budgeting, career growth, etc.
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B2B — For those who sell to the B2B world, you’ll focus on major issues in your industry: marketing, sales, maximizing the value of your business, new technology, best practices, etc. By setting up a community, you have a lead magnet that people are happy to join and refer others to. Growing the community with paid ads is also inexpensive. Typically, you can add new subscribers to a local or B2C community for between $1 and $2.50 per subscriber. For a B2B community, your ad spend per subscriber is typically between $2 and $5 per subscriber. Where to Start? 🚀 The easiest ways to get started are through an email newsletter and/or a Facebook/LinkedIn group. In the long term, you’ll need both the newsletter and the group. You can seed the group/newsletter with your current customer and prospect lists, get feedback, and work to grow from that point. In the short run, this won’t be a mass flood of new business, but over the next few months, you’ll see a steady and increasing number of leads and new sales from the group. You’ll discover prospects from the group are easier to sell to, spend more money with you, stay active customers longer, and refer more.
It sounds too good to be true, but this isn’t a new strategy. This strategy has been time-tested for decades. The media and content delivery method may have changed, but the strategy is over 100 years old. 📈 That begs the question, though: Why doesn’t everyone do this? • Knowledge of what kind of content to create and how to create it • The time to correctly create the content • Lack of patience If you can overcome the above three issues, you can create a marketing machine that will allow your business to grow and thrive like you’ve never seen before. If my team or I can answer questions or help, give us a call or schedule a call at NewsletterPro.com/schedule or call 208-297-5700. –Shaun
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Read Time: 4 minutes HERE ARE 45 LESSONS THAT I’VE LEARNED OVER THE LAST 45 YEARS OF LIFE I turned 45 a few days ago. I don’t feel 45. Which is strange to say because I have no idea what being 45 feels like. What I do know is that as a kid, I remember thinking that 45 was ancient. Ouch! On my birthday, my son Tyler graduated high school. Where has the time gone? Want to Know the Secret to My Success? I’ve been reflecting on the past to guide me as I plan for the future. Here are the top 45 lessons that have served me personally and professionally. I hope you can learn from my journey and enhance your journey.
There is no such thing as the perfect plan, so stop wasting time and get started ASAP.
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Even though your plan won’t be perfect, you still need a plan. Follow it, update it, and adjust it as you learn. You need a plan for all significant areas of life, not just work. I have a plan for my company, my family, and myself. They all should work together to move you toward your life goals.
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People will come and go in your life, and that’s okay.
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Don’t get mad over stuff that isn’t in your control.
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HAVE A LAUGH
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If you are stuck personally or professionally, start with the end in mind and work backward. If the end goal is massive, start with the next major milestone, work backward, then rinse and repeat.
When something or someone of high value enters your life without much effort, be careful because it will most likely be gone as quickly as it came.
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Greed will make you poor, but no one ever went poor taking profits.
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Time heals all wounds.
If you’re not moving toward your goals, the most common reasons are a lack of a plan, lack of action, too much action on things that don’t matter, or the vehicle you’ve chosen to achieve your goals isn’t capable of getting you to your destination.
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Everyone is busy; stop making excuses.
You’ll only get 17 summers with your kids; plan accordingly.
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When times are good, remember this too shall pass. When times are bad, remember this too shall pass.
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Take risks; just do your best to ensure the risk you are taking is a calculated risk.
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Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.
Every year, you should make a list of the things you don’t want to do and do your
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best to get those tasks off your plate as soon as possible.
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When you lose, and you will lose, take a moment, a day or two, but after that, get up, brush yourself off, update your plan, and get back to work.
The worst number in business is one.
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If you’re struggling with marketing, you are doing something wrong.
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Never sell anything you can’t 100% stand behind and believe in. When someone shows you who they are (good or bad), believe them. If someone wants to leave your life, it is okay to fight your corner, but let them go once a final decision has been made.
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Being introspective is a superpower.
You don’t need to be right; you only need to get to the right answer.
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When you lose in life, don’t focus on what everyone else could have or should have done; instead, ask what you could have done differently.
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Life is a team sport.
Success isn’t about how much you can personally do but instead how much gets done.
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Don’t lie; it will always catch up to you in the long run.
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Chasing shiny objects won’t make you rich.
Never lie to yourself.
Lasting success and wealth comes by repeatedly becoming very good at doing a few activities.
Anyone who says money can’t buy happiness has never been rich.
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When you buy happiness with money, don’t fool yourself into thinking it will last.
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Only fools and poor people cancel marketing that is working to try something new.
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Success is more about who you know than what you know. I know that’s not fair.
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The grass is rarely greener for very long on the other side.
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Life isn’t fair.
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Someone’s actions will tell you everything you need to know.
Take care of yourself first; otherwise, you won’t be able to help anyone else for long.
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Take pictures, make videos, and enjoy the journey because the exact destination isn’t guaranteed. Tell those you love how you feel. Send that message of encouragement to a friend. Hug and kiss your kids. Outsource that project so you can attend that event and support those you love. Be generous, value experience and memories over things, have fun, take risks, but be wise, and do at least a little something every day to bless someone else.
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Don’t overcomplicate things.
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It’s taken me 45 years to learn these lessons. Many of them I learned the
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hard way, and I have the scars to prove it. I hope you’ll learn from my experiences, avoid some of my mistakes, and ultimately enhance your journey.
Listen to the experts you respect and/or pay.
Stop trying to solve problems that don’t exist.
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–Shaun
It is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved before.
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“Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed.” Proverbs 15:22
THE WORD
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