Marketing Strategy: Does It Make Sense for You?

Today I am joined by my guest and friend, Ed McDonough. Join us for an enlightening discussion about marketing strategies and tools that will help you to increase your visibility and sales effectiveness.

Ed is the founder and Chief Marketing Officer of ECE Marketing Services which is located in New Bern, NC. Since 2001 Ed has been a successful entrepreneur and multi-business owner who has a unique talent for developing and implementing winning email marketing campaigns, automated client acquisition systems, and proven lead generation and sales funnels for companies of all sizes.

He is the author of 4 marketing strategy books including Amazon Best Sellers, Build And Monetize Your Email List, and Client Acquisition Marketing.

Ed is a Marketing Strategy Advisor who has taught marketing seminars and workshops to thousands of B2B consultants and company owners throughout the United States.

Learn more about Ed's latest book here, Client Acquisition Marketing. Learn more about Ed and ECE Marketing Services here.  

Transcript

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Welcome to The Water Trough, where we can't make you drink, but we will make you think. My name is Ed Drawster, the Small Business Doctor, and I'm really excited you chose to join me here as we discuss topics that are important for small business folks just like you. If you're looking for ideas, inspiration, and possibility, you've come to the right place. Join us as we take steps to help you create the healthy business that you've always wanted. Good afternoon. This is Ed Drozdo. Welcome back to the water trough. I'm joined by my guest today, Ed McDonough. Ed is the founder and chief marketing officer of ECE marketing services located in New Bern, North Carolina. Since 2001, Ed has been a successful entrepreneur and a multi business owner who has unique talent for developing and implementing winning email marketing campaigns. Automated client acquisition systems and proven lead generation and sales funnels for companies of all sizes. He's the author of four marketing strategy books, including the Amazon bestsellers, build and monetize your email list and client acquisition marketing. Ed is a marketing strategy advisor who has taught marketing seminars and workshops to thousands of B2B consultants and company owners throughout the U S. And I might also add Ed is a longstanding friend of mine who I am truly honored to be with today. So Ed, welcome. Great to be here, Ed, and thank you so much for having me on. It's an honor for me to be here. Well, I guess that's because we're both Eds. We honor each other, right? Two Eds are better than one. Two Eds are better than one, but don't ask our wives, right? Exactly. Well, Ed, I'm really pleased to have you here today. And I know firsthand of your expertise and your breadth of knowledge in the field of marketing. I'm going to start out with this question because I think it really is important to set the stage for what we're doing here. And that question is, why is a marketing strategy important? Awesome question. The reason why a marketing strategy is important is because when you're talking about generating leads and converting them into clients. A lot of people think that there's different techniques and tools and things that you should use. And what a marketing strategy does is it actually gives you direction and focus. So it allows you to determine what activities will get you the greatest engagement and the greatest return on your investment. And then also. What are the resources that are needed to accomplish each one of those things? So instead of thinking about running campaigns, you actually think about what are the campaigns that I'm going to use to get the results that I want at the end of the day? and instead of. Talking about platforms and messages or whatever, just develop a strategy that leads you in the direction that you want your company or your business to go in. An important part of that is knowing, what do we want to run? And when do we want to run it? When do we want to run these campaigns? For some companies, seasonal things that need to be done for other companies. There isn't, some companies have a slow period. During the year. Other companies don't. So when you can put together, in a document, the strategy that you want to use, how you want to require those clients and the means that you're going to use to implement that strategy, it really allows you to focus on generating more leads, more and more revenue for your company. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. What I'm hearing you say is that Marketing is more than the tools that we use to get the message out there. It's the thought that goes into the process that counts. Exactly. The worst thing that I see companies do and it's also the least effective marketing thing that they do is they just go out and they say, Hey, you know what? We're not using email. We should use email marketing and then they decide to use email marketing and they come up with a plan to do that. But is email marketing really the right thing for them to do? Does it make sense? Does it fit into their strategy? Can they reach their target audience with that by doing email marketing? Now, the answer is probably yes to all those. But the thing is, unless you take a deeper dive, unless you look at it from a broader perspective, you don't really know if it's going to fit into what you're doing. So again, it's not about the tools that you're using. It's how are you going to use those tools? Okay. So when clients come to you, would you say that most are prepared, to have these conversations? Do you find that they are clueless and thinking only of tools? Do you find that they've actually given thought before they come to see you? What's the general consensus of the clients that you've worked with? 99. 9% of the clients that come to me do not have a marketing strategy. Okay, they have an idea that they want to implement and usually the idea is because they're just not getting enough business, they're not getting enough leads. They don't have enough people coming through the door their pipeline isn't full and they think it's because they're missing something. And really what they're missing is having an overall strategy to. Go out and target the audience that you want to target with a message that works really well so that you'll get the ideal customers that you want. Okay, so 99% tried something, and they found that it didn't work at that point. They said, well, if it doesn't work, then I'm missing something. And they reach out to professionals such as yourself to help them get through that. How do you initiate that conversation then about strategy? Do you find people are impatient wanting to just cut to the chase and say, okay, I'll use this tool or that tool or how do people behave around that? usually I start just the way this conversation started. I educate them on what a marketing strategy is and the importance of it. And the way I do that is actually working backwards. So the 1st, question I'll ask is if they come to me and say, I want to do video marketing or email marketing or social media, I'll ask them why they want to do it. what is the outcome that you're looking for? Why do you think it's important that you do that? And usually the reason is they think because they're not doing it, they're missing something. And so what I'd rather have them do is Do the things they do really well and just do those better, do the things that are already bringing in clients, but do them in a better way or a broader way, and it's not platform specific, it's strategy specific. And it's hard for people to grasp that at first, that they shouldn't be running after the platform. Facebook may not be the answer or Tik TOK or email or YouTube or whatever that may not be the answer. Let's talk about what you want to get. And then let's develop a plan that gets you that regardless of what the platform is. Gotcha. I think a lot of people also tend to look over the fence and see what the Joneses are doing. And if the Joneses happen to be successful, they say, well, if it works for them, it will work for me. Right? Yeah. And here's the thing, though, is a lot of times when they're looking over the fence, they see what the Jones is doing. And the bad part is they don't know if it's successful or not. so they're like, well, our competitor is on Facebook all the time. We should be on Facebook. But do we even know that is working for their competitor? that's really where the disconnect is The competitor may be looking at somebody else who's doing Facebook. Honestly, it happens a lot. So the thing is to really understand who your target audience is. Where they hang out, what kind of message they respond to, and then what's the best tool that we can use to get that message in front of them. It may even be snail mail. They have nothing to do with digital marketing. I work with some high level, consultants who target, CEOs of big companies. Well, CEO of a big company is not on Facebook and he's not reading his email, So snail mail works really well to target those types of people. Be selected the strategy that you employ for the individual that you're targeting. Exactly. So it sounds like you're telling us a bit about some of the key components to developing an effective strategy, or maybe more so about different means of delivery. But what are the fundamental? Components of developing an effective strategy, what does 1 have to do here to make this work? I'm going to get kind of basic here, but the 1st thing you have to remember is that your marketing message. Is going out to a human being. There's a human on the other end of this, and we sort of forget that a person is going to read this and that person has to react to the marketing message in a way that gets them to feel comfortable enough to take the next step. The only way a person will engage with you, or your company is when they believe that what you're telling them is going to help them. If they don't have that belief, they're never going to take the next step. So your marketing message has to appeal to them in a way that gets them to say, this makes sense to me. I want to learn more. I want to take the next step. I should have a conversation with this person I think this product can help me. I think this service can help me. When they're saying that to themselves, that's when they're ready to engage. But if you'd never get them to that place, they're never going to engage. So to be effective with your marketing message, you really need to tell a story that demonstrates how you, your company, your product or service. He get the results that they're seeking. I appreciate that. You mentioned the word story. I absolutely believe that stories are essential for getting the word out there about anything. It doesn't mean that I have to have been through that particular scenario, but we can all relate at some level to some element of a story. It reminds us of something we did experience or it's empathy where we go, Oh, yeah, I can imagine being in your shoes. I think stories are incredibly powerful. So that is a key component then, is that correct? Absolutely. If you think about, a favorite movie that you watched over and over again, the reason why you watch that movie over and over then, even though you know how it's going to end is because of the story, that story engages you and encapsulate to you and involves you. You get emotionally connected to it. And so emotions are a huge part of both the marketing and sales process. People have to feel, there has to be that feeling that. Your company product or service is going to be able to help them. and the best way to do that is by telling a story. So stories really do sell and it has to be told in a way that, makes the person feel comfortable enough so that they'll take the next step. How do you encourage people to tell their stories? Some people tend to hold things close to the vest and aren't so willing to put them out there. We both agree it's a really important component, but how do you encourage people to put it out there? One of the most effective, Marketing strategies that I've seen in particular since COVID has hit actually is by using case studies. So why are case studies powerful? They're powerful because they tell that story. They tell a story of how someone just like the person in your target audience has. Had their problem solved or their goal achieved by you helping them, And so when you can show somebody how you've done that, they're much more likely to say, well, if they can help them, they can probably help me too. The case study telling that story and the way you tell it is talk about the problem that your client had, the solution you provided. And the results that they got from that solution and the most important part of that case study is not the solution. It's the results. you want to tell that story in the right way. I think the solution is a means to an end, but it's really not the point. You're right. What did it do? And a solution won't be the same in every situation It seems what you're saying is that the cases are designed to foster, reflection, to foster, deep diving into what's going on. Yeah, again, it's about making that emotional connection, You have to be emotionally connected to the story in order to want to take the next step. If the story doesn't make sense to you, then you're never going to engage because it just doesn't make sense to you, To use the movie analogy again, we've all watched movies. We don't like you watch a movie and you're like, Yeah, that's not for me. You may not even watch the whole movie, You may turn it off a quarter or halfway through because it just doesn't relate to you. So the thing is with using case studies and to be effective is to pick a target audience, a vertical within your business. That you service and develop case studies based on clients that you've helped in that vertical so that when you show those case studies to prospects in that vertical, they're going to make that emotional connection and relate to it. Absolutely. So your story that you tell in your case study has to be captivating right up front, that benefit has to be delivered right up front so that the person will continue to follow the story. So what is that catchy thing up front? Is it something that could be defined broadly or is it very specific to the instance in which you're working? All the case studies that I write have a headline and that headline is the main benefit that the client received from the solution that you provided. The benefit has to be intriguing enough to get the person to, dive into the story. and quite frankly, it's how all marketing copy works, There has to be a hook and that hook gets you into the story. And then the story has to lead you down a path. Gotcha. I think it's pretty evident that the idea of developing an effective marketing strategy and using some of these tools, such as storytelling, is really, quite a complicated matter. Pardon me, complicated is not the right word, it's a deeply. Involved thing, and it is emotional, probably for the developer as well as you want it to be for the audience. That correct. Yeah, again, it's a strategy. That you have to use to lead a lead through to turn the lead into a prospect and then to turn the prospect into a customer. And so there are stages and depending upon. The market, the product or the service that might be three stages. It might be 12 stages, so that's the thing to understand. And that's why that's part of what the strategy is to is really understanding what is that process that I have to lead somebody through where they're going to feel comfortable enough. To want to engage me and become my client or buy my product or service. That's really what the strategy is about. Leading somebody through that process and marketing. We call it a funnel, We lead people through a marketing funnel. I realized it's one of those buzzwords, but I think it's really more than a buzzword. It's a very simple depiction of what's going on here absolutely. It is a depiction because. In the most simplest terms, you put a bunch of prospects in the top of the funnel and out of that little narrow part at the bottom, come out customers. And I use the term all the time because it's a marketing term. What I'd rather do is, call it a journey. That's the way I refer to it. It's really a journey that you take somebody on so that they can clearly see for themselves and make their own decision without being pressured in any way. That your product or service is the right thing to help them. I think that when you embrace that kind of philosophy, you're going to get people that are really eager to do business with you because you've given him the space. You've shown him the facts. You've let them emotionally connect to it, and you've let them make that decision on their own that you can help them. And when you do that, yeah. Things work much better. You get much higher quality prospects and customers People that are eager to work with you and ego to stick with you for a long time. Gotcha. Strategies in general in business, can apply to various periods of time. Some people like to say strategic planning is, 3 to 5 years, which I think is kind of long myself. But anyway, in marketing, what about marketing strategy? Is it something that has certain must revisit periods? Is it something that can be used for some period of time? How does it shape up like that? It's a process that evolves over time. Mhm. So initially, when I go into a client and we're developing a strategy, what we're looking at is the goal that they want to accomplish. And then the things, the items, the processes, the journeys that we're going to take people on in order to help them reach their goal. Some of the things might be Cost prohibitive. Some of the things you're only going to do once a year. Some of the things you do every single month. So, part of the strategy is to determine what those things are. And then, as time goes by, you want to be evaluating everything because number one Is your marketing, the process, the journey that you're taking somebody on, is there a return on that investment for all the time and effort and dollars that I've spent putting this, marketing funnel in place? Am I actually getting a return on investment if the answer is yes, then. What can we do to make that even better? And what is the frequency that we're using that? Is it something that we should do more often? Less often, or whatever. So I think it's an evolving process where there is some trial and error. There is some testing that needs to be done. But the good part about it is that if it's set up correctly, you can actually measure the results. With facts and figures and numbers. And so you let the numbers tell you whether it works or not, not somebody's gut feeling So you deliberately build in a feedback loop so that you can establish the effectiveness. Exactly. I call that closed loop marketing where you want to be able to run a campaign, for instance, and measure the results of it and see if it makes sense to rerun it or even, run two campaigns at the same time where now you have one baseline and the other one is a test to see if that one It's all about being able to measure the results. Okay. One of the fundamental management, principles that we teach at university is, having the ability to measure the outcome so as to have useful information to go back and adjust if necessary. I would like to also know if You have any thoughts about the impact of COVID and how that has changed marketing strategies? Has it resulted in, legitimate changes or is it status quo just under a different environment? So when COVID first hit, the thing that really changed was the way people used email marketing In particular, for professional service providers who provide services to other businesses, networking in person virtually went away. It didn't virtually go away. It went away and it became virtual. 1 of the things people came to me for was now that I can't do all this networking, how can I use email? To do lead generation and bring me new leads and prospects. So there was a very big shift in the way email was being used. For the first year and a half, let's say, it's shifted back a little bit. So now that in person. Networking, has opened up again. I'm seeing the email, numbers drop off. In other words, the amount of email that's being sent out drop off. And I'm also seeing that the. Effectiveness of it has dropped off. It's still highly effective. I believe it's still one of the most effective ways to market your business. If you have a list of Prospects and clients that you can market to but it has changed. It hasn't gone completely back to pre covert, but it is making a shift that way. Using case studies is a marketing tool. As I was explaining earlier, that to me has been 1 of the most powerful, repercussions of covid being able to build these stories and put those stories in front of a potential client is huge. Okay. That was a good outcome. Yes. One could be found. Yes. Excellent. Well, we're getting down towards the end of our time here. So I'd like to ask you if you've got a couple of, parting comments you'd like to leave us with. And let me thank you, by the way, I really enjoyed this conversation, but what kind of other things are on the horizon? Thank you. I'd like to give everybody a tip because I think this is a area where. 99. 9% of businesses don't utilize effectively. And it's one of the first things I do with my clients. And that is segmenting your target audience. That could be your email list. It could be your prospect list. It could actually be the verticals that you want to target in person or, through digital. Marketing. When you segment your list and you create a marketing message specifically for that segment, you're going to get a much higher response than if you try to put a broad message out. And I know for a lot of small companies, that's hard to grasp because they're going to bring in a professional, and they're going to pay them to create a marketing message for them. They want to try to create a one size fits all and that's actually the worst thing that you can do. So as a tip, I highly encourage. Any business to take a look at your target audience or target audiences and create marketing messages for each one of those. If your target audience is plumbers and doctors, you can't send them the same marketing message. You have to talk to plumbers, in plumber language and doctors and doctor language and appeal to the different things to each one of those target audiences. Think about segmentation because it's one of the most powerful ways to take what you already have and make it work even better. It's a small investment well worth its time and effort. I'm sure. Absolutely. Because the whole idea of marketing is to deliver a message. And if you're delivering the wrong 1 to the wrong people, I can see where you're going. That's crystal clear. Ed, this has been fantastic. I really appreciate your time. And I want to thank you once again for joining us here today. I look forward to our continuing conversations as I always have. And I just want to say, there will be information in the, PostScript here, folks, that you can contact Ed if you like. I can vouch for his integrity. And I really am very grateful for your time, Ed. I sincerely appreciate it. Oh, thanks Ed for having me here. And I may not be as wise as you, but I am a wise guy. Okay. I won't disagree with that one. I knew you wouldn't. Thank you. It's been an honor to be here and a pleasure. And thank you so much. Thank you as well. This is Ed draws to the small business doctor. I want to thank you for joining me and my guest, Ed McDonough today. And till we meet again, I want to wish you a healthy business.