Diversifying your Marketing Plan

I like to do what works.

Who doesn't?

It's tempting to compare all of our marketing efforts against one another, single out the "best" platform and want to throw all of our efforts there and there alone. If my days on Etsy have taught me anything, it's that diversification is key! 

In order to mitigate our risk by being tied to one 3rd party platform, (wether it be Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, Ebay, Etsy, etc) we must diversify. Then if one platform makes a dramatic shift, your entire sales portfolio is not in jeopardy. 

It's time to take a step back accept that what worked yesterday may not be what works today and it definitely won't be what works tomorrow.

If we're so hung up on trying to make the past the present and the past the future, we're going to be spinning our wheels awful fast and not getting anywhere. That's how the majority of businesses fail. They refuse to pivot when circumstances call for it.

So for both Bailey's Blossoms and Peyton Bre, we have taken a big step back. It's time to reset. We're looking at this similarly to how we looked at ourselves when we went through the whole Etsy debacle.

• What are we missing?
• What can we tap into?
• How can we diversify?

Every basket will wear in time. A hole will appear and it will grow and grow. That's when you need to decide. Do I try and fill the hole by throwing in excess money and excess cash in order to get the same amount of return back? Or do I reallocate a portion of my budget elsewhere?

Consider for a moment your overall marketing budget. If 25% of your sales and traffic are coming from one platform and that platform starts to falter, it's going to hurt, but not nearly as much as if it were to represent 80%, 90% or even 100% of your traffic and sales.

Your target audience is everywhere. Are you everywhere? Is Your Business everywhere? If you're too focused on a single channel, you become incredibly vulnerable to the fluctuations within that channel.

In order to know where you should go first, you need to understand your target audience, their behaviors, interests, and the way they spend their time. To do this well you need to have a clear understanding of the lifecycle of your customer. Know when you want to acquire them and when they are no longer applicable or resonate with you or your product because it is no longer relevant to them.

EXAMPLE: Bailey's Blossoms is an infant and toddler line, so ideally we want to acquire somebody right after they have had a baby. To do that we have to look at where each of the young mothers for each generation are residing. When I was a young mother it was all about blogging. There were bloggers up the Wazoo, and I was constantly looking for collaboration opportunities with bloggers to be able to get in front of their readers, to be in their RSS feeds, to get a highlight in their email feeds, or a ad widget on the sidebar of their site. Then the shift to Facebook took over.

We started to dabble in retargeting ads and prospecting ads. The only constant is change! I am no longer a "young mom" but I need to watch the young moms to know how to reach them.

While my audience may be the same, and the demographic may be the same, the characteristics, behaviors and the trends continue to shift. If I am not keeping a constant temperature on those shifts, I will quickly become irrelevant to my target market.

Now they're on Instagram, they're on snapchat. They use social media in different ways and for different purposes, so I need to constantly assess and watch WHERE my audience is and WHY they are on each of the different platforms to determine HOW I need to show up and WHEN I need to make those vital pivots.

• What are the behaviors?
• What are the tendencies that they go to those platforms with?

Each of the platforms is going to have a different set of behaviors and expectations. Become familiar with what they are in order to understand the most relevant ways to market to the individuals on them.

Different types of people use different types of media sources and platforms for different reasons. An easy example would be for video content. If I'm on Facebook, I'm going to be less likely to watch a video with sound. It's usually more short form video. It's going to be muted, so oftentimes I'm reading captions or I'm just watching the video with no sound at all. Whereas if I'm on YouTube, it's going to be long form video sound on. I'm unplugging. I'm winding down. I have gone specifically toYouTube to watch a video.

Consider the reasons that people go onto each platform, why they're there, and where they're at. If I'm at a doctor's office and on Facebook, I'm most likely not going to be sitting in a waiting room watching something on YouTube. To do that I'm most likely going to be in the comfort of my own home or on an extended break at work, etc. These are all great things that we need to keep in mind as we are looking at our strategy when we approach each of these different platforms.

If social media is currently your primary traffic source, the obvious next step may be paid traffic on the same platform using retargeting ads.  There are many other strategies we can utilize. Like building out a long-term strategy for organic content. When I first started my business, I didn't have two dimes to rub together to pay for ads. If you find yourself there DON'T. PANIC. Get creative!

People don't like to do business with businesses. People like to do business with people. Regardless of how fantastic your content is. If your audience isn't engaging with that content, that content isn't going to do you much good. It's not going to get the results you want.

TIPS FOR HIGH ENGAGEMENT:

• Have a clear call to action. Put the ball in their court with an engaging question, poll, or directive to do something.
• Send a private DM message to those who are "half in". If someone likes but doesn't comment, help bridge the silence gap with a personal note like, "Thank you so much for liking my recent post. How can I serve you better? What can I do for you?" Get to know people on an individual level.
• Share your customer content. Highlight them and show appreciation - they'll likely return the favor again! Allow them to become a part of your success journey. There is incredible value in turning a customer and a follower into a fan by allowing them to be an integral part of what you're creating.
• Get clear on the emotion you want to drive. What emotion are you trying to fuel and how are you wanting people to feel when they see your post, ad, video, photo or words? Whatever it is, get clear on how you want people to feel. What emotion are you trying to evoke and why does it matter? 

There is no feedback, no market research that you can do that will give you quite as clear direction as the people who are following you today. Ask them what they want to see from you. Ask them what would be a value to them and then show up and deliver. 

There are so many ways that we can creatively tap into the power of our network to increase our reach and to be able to see how far we could run without having to spend additional money. The whole concept of diversification isn't solely applicable to people who have deep pockets with money to burn. There are things you can do on each platform that drive organic reach at no cost to you. And once you master the platforms on an organic level, then you can better predict which one to put a little fuel behind with a little boost and investment. 

The objective for each platform is also going to vary based on the viewing habits of the platform. Someone on Facebook may be more inclined to click a link that's going to take them off of Facebook, whereas somebody who's on Instagram is quickly scrolling and you get maybe a half a second of their time if you're lucky. The things that you put into place need to be captivating for the viewing habits that you know are present on each of those platforms. For Youtube, if you don't hook them in the first five to 10 seconds, they've moved on.

Get familiar with each of the viewing habits on each individual platform as you build out your content strategy to determine how you want to show up, with what information and how it'll be presented.

It's also important to get familiar with the type of content that each platform favors. So for example, Facebook and Instagram have increasingly begun to favor video. They cater to video. They put video front and center. These are shifting trends and opportunities that we can tap into. It used to be Facebook pages. Now if you pay attention to the Facebook feed, it's predominantly Facebook groups. Pay attention and don't be the last person to the party.

Successful diversification means constantly making sure that you are touching all of the areas that may take precedence tomorrow.

Test, learn and TRACK. The point here is to gain intel and data so you can better plan for the future, show up to the best ability in every platform you choose to explore and track the behaviors, efforts, engagement, traffic, growth, reach, and ultimately conversions that come from each of your efforts.

One of the biggest stop alls to creativity and innovation is fear. Fear of failure stifles our ability and the ability of everybody who's around to be able to be creative and innovate. 

Fear is in direct opposition to creativity.

So how do we clear our minds and get creative when we feel burdened with that negativity and that fear?

• Get moving. Move yourself about the house, run up and down the stairs, dance to your favorite song. It doesn't matter what it is, but get moving to lift your spirits and clear your head!
• Get outside. There's something about fresh air. When I'm in a creative stump it helps me to clear my mind, to refresh and recharge, and to come at it again full force.
• Have a creative brain dump session. Do this alone or do this with a group of people. It all depends on what you're trying to achieve. Sit down, give yourself a time limit and ask yourself single question. Then write. Write everything and anything no matter how small.

EXAMPLE: Who am I trying to reach? Well, I'm trying to reach Susie (Yes, I name my customer avatars.. don't you?). All right, well where does Susie spent her time? Susie loves Costco. She shops at Target and she likes Youtube and Pinterest. She likes Facebook and Instagram... When your time is up, break it down further.

What does Susie do on each of these in each of these places? What does Susie do on each of these platforms? Break it down. Why is Susie on Youtube? What is Susie going there to do, to escape from? What is she wanting to feel? Why is Susie on Instagram? Why is Susie on Pinterest? Why is she going to each of these places?

I promise you as you start to delve into the weeds on her behaviors, you'll start to realize that the message you need to deliver needs to change. And while you may be talking about the same thing, the way you talk about it, the way you deliver it is going to change and adapt based off of the experiences that Susie is trying to have on each of these different platforms.

Once you determine the platforms you want to build on, then you can test the type of content on each. On Facebook you may determine that if you post more than 2-3 times a day people start to unfollow you. It's too much. So you have determined your ceiling for posts, but have you determined the types of posts that have the greatest impact? Single images vs collages. Videos vs live broadcasts, etc.

There are things that are working that may work for you if you would just try. But the only way you'll know is if you get out of your comfort zone, diversify, test and learn in every possible area that you know to do. And if you don't know to do them, then you educate yourself and you get out there and you try anyways.

That whole fear of failure thing we tapped on? You place that on a shelf and you say Not. Today. Today I choose to show up. Today I choose to be brave. Today I choose my untapped potential. I know that I'm going to mess up. I know that it's not going to go off without a hitch. But I choose to value the lesson more than the potential "embarrassment".

I want the learning opportunities. I want the experiences that come from the mistakes more than I want the praise of being perfect. One of the best ways to position yourself to stay on top of this rapidly and ever changing world of digital marketing is to establish yourself and establish a solid foothold in multiple different platforms. Don;t know where to start? Here are a few ideas:

• Email Marketing
• SMS (text message) Marketing
• Facebook
• Instagram
• YouTube
• Pinterest
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Snapchat
• Blogging
• Google Search
• Develop an App
• Influencers
• Brand Collaborations
• Podcasts

There's so many different avenues out there! It is not one opportunity or bust. If it was, we'd all bust.

The one thing that never changes is the fact that everything changes. Everything changes and we need to be constantly thinking ahead of where we are right now so that when things do change, we're not taken by surprise.

When pivots happen we're ready! We brush ourselves off, shake off complacency and trade it for growth. Every time things get hard and there is a big block in the road at least 50% of your competitor’s will drop off because at least 50% of them are going to throw their hands up in the air and say, "This is too hard. I no longer understand it. It's not worth it to me anymore. I'm tired. I'm done." They throw in the towel and you get off to a running start because you're already up on the block. You're already ready to get moving. When that gun goes off you know what to do. 

Test, learn, diversify, repeat!