How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business

HOW TO

Create and Grow

Your Dream

ONLINE

BUSINESS

Everyone has a story the world wants to hear

Tell Yours!

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business Everyone has a story the world wants to hear. Tell Yours

By Henok Mikiele

To book a free phone consultation DM on Instagram @M.P.W.R

Copyright © 2017 by Jack Barron. www.mpwr.one All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

Interior layout design by Mariana Vidakovics De Victor Imaginary Press 1233 Pennsylvania Avenue San Francisco, CA 94909 MPWR Publishing 201 Wigman Road NG84AD Nottingham United Kingdom

2 | www.mpwr.one ©

Contents Preface................................................................4 Define What Success Means To You.....................4 Part I - Set Your Goals........................................ 10 Determine Your Goals for Success...................13 Bring Out Your Toolbox....................................17 Define Your Product & Target Audience..........30 Part II - Content Is King......................................40 Choose your marketing channels....................44 Give before you receive.................................. 53 Nurture Your Leads......................................... 57 Part III - Crafting a Company Your Customers Love.........................................64 Build your brand............................................. 67 Build your website...........................................71 Turn customers into promoters....................... 76 Congratulations................................................. 82

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 3

Preface

Define What Success Means To You

Success.

A very important word and rightly so.

The fact that we only have a limited amount of time in this frail body of ours means it’s imperative to make sure that we make the most out of it. Make our lives “successful”.

But who determines what that success actually is?

Like many others, I’ve spent the majority of my life letting external things determine what my definition of success is.

First my parents, being first-generation immigrants, they really pushed me down the educational path. And since I was quite smart in school, regularly getting A’s and A+s, it made so much sense to me to really pursue the academic path. Even though, I had no fundamental interest in any of my subjects!

Does that sound familiar to you?

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 5

Finish school, go to college, go to the best possible university, stretch for the masters degree, possibly a PHD and then join the workforce at a high salary rate until retirement.

Next, I became a teenager and started to discover the outside world for myself and school quickly took a backseat.

It just wasn’t cool enough.

Growing up in a tough small-city council estate where drug dealers and gang members had the most respect and money, I gradually changed my definition of success and thought that all I had to do was make money by any means – even if it is illegal - and I’ll become successful.

I looked at the flashy, chain-wearing rappers on TV, the guys in the movies and since I’m black (and most of them were black) I put two and two together and joined the stereotype with open arms.

By the age of 15, my parents had enough and kicked me out.

Luckily, I had my wits about me and left that dark world behind me but I was still far away from becoming an individual.

I carried on listening to outside voices instead of my own inner voice.

I ended up getting dragged into a pyramid scheme and working 12 hours day - commission only - because the Mercedes-driving bosses told me that in order to be successful you have to work harder than everyone else.

6 | www.mpwr.one ©

I kick-started an eBay businesses that I hated because a fancy book told me that someone else became successful on eBay and I can do it too by following their example.

I threw a lot of my money away on organising huge nightclub events because social media told me that successful people should be popular and well-liked by everyone. I wanted to be successful.

I began investing all my time, money and energy into acquiring unnecessary assets because capitalism told me that what you own is what defines you as a person. Apparently, unsuccessful people don’t have many assets. I wanted to be successful.

My point is that we spend so much of our time running towards this “success” but never question the people and institutions that are giving us the along the way. Completely ignoring our own, inner sat nav that has been alerting us about our wrong turns all along.

I have heard many people say that success is not a destination, it’s a journey.

I don’t agree with that.

Even the wisest sages of ancient times had a mission, something they needed to accomplish before they left the earth.

So being stagnant and content with boredom isn’t the answer.

This book doesn’t have the answer for you, either.

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 7

I’m not here to tell what you should be.

Just because I’m happy where I am, doesn’t mean you will be as well.

I can’t tell you where you should go but I can show you how to make use of your own inner sat nav so you can figure it out yourself.

I can give you the tools you need to survive the night and conquer the day.

I can show you how to spot the dangers on the road and avoid it.

So if you’re ready to dig deep and create your own route in life than it’s my honour to help you.

Stop letting others tell you who you should be and what you should aspire to.

And let’s make your dream online business a reality.

To book a free phone consultation DM on Instagram @M.P.W.R

8 | www.mpwr.one ©

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 9

Part I

Set Your Goals (And Get Your First Customer)

It can easily seem like launching a business is overwhelming. There is a lot to do, much of which we’ll be covering in this book: setting up your sales funnel, choosing your marketing channels, building your website, crafting a strategy for making your customers as happy as possible and keeping them coming back, to say nothing of actually developing and honing your product!

Thankfully, you don’t have to do it all at once. If you try to, it’s a sure recipe for burning out and overwhelming yourself. Think of this guide as a series of logical steps towards developing all the complex facets of your business. For example, I only discuss building your website towards the end of this book because frankly it is more important to go to where your customers already are- social media, for example- and work on developing leads from there rather than expecting your customers to come to you. Remember to go at your own pace with this book. Read through it once, to get an idea of everything that’s coming, then go through it again more slowly, working on the action steps I provide in each section.

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 11

In this section, we’ll be laying the groundwork for your success.

It’s not enough to simply chase money as a businessperson. You must be very clear about what you want, what your goals are, and what you enjoy and are good at. Only this way can you provide an excellent product or service to your future customers. This is the only shortcut to success in business: making your customers exceedingly happy, and making sure there are enough potential customers out there that you can reach your business goals and, in the long-run, fulfill your dreams. The only way you can do this is if you are passionate about what you are doing. This book will guide you through coming up with your goals, taking inventory of your talents and abilities, and ideating potential products you could deliver. After that, your only real challenge in this first part of the book will be finding your first paying customer. A paying customer is the only feedback that matters that your business is on the right track to be successful.

After that, we’ll discuss in Part II how to scale up and find more paying customers so that you can reach the goals you’ll set for yourself in this section. This includes choosing the best way to reach your customers by going to where they naturally congregate, building credibility by creating content valuable to your customers, and ultimately guiding your potential customers through what is called a sales funnel with the goal of delivering your product to them.

Part III will cover how to consolidate your business by consciously crafting your brand, creating a website as your business’ home-base, and working to turn customers into promoters.

12 | www.mpwr.one ©

Determine Your Goals for Success Imagine being a surfer and deciding to pack a suitcase and move to Australia to chase your surfing dreams. You bought a single ticket to Sydney, and have a couple thousand in the savings account. You just got to the land of opportunities and possibilities. But you don’t know anyone and haven’t got a job. What would you do?

Well, first you would figure out where to stay. Are you going to stick around in an expensive city like Sydney or maybe go more to Bondi Beach where the surf is strong? You find out Bondi Beach is even more expensive than Sydney, so you start searching for the nearest village in hopes that it’s cheaper. Then you’d have to find a job. What are you good at? Could you work at a bar? Would you be better off in an office environment? Do you even have the proper local certifications to legally work in Australia?

You’d also have to find a way to socialise. Do you go online? Or go to a bar and try your luck?

The whole process would be hard and tiring, and your money is actively evaporating thanks to Australia’s cost of living. After one too many $18 breakfasts, $25 lunches and still outrageously expensive homemade sandwiches for dinner, you’d probably decide to head back home within a month. Unless you’re super social, adaptable, and have endless funds being deposited into your account monthly, your chances of succeeding are quite slim.

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 13

Now imagine, if you took a month or two to plan your trip in advance. You’ve asked around and found out that Golden Beach has cheap rent and is less than 1 hour from great waves. You’ve had time to get local certifications, apply to several businesses and end up getting a job at a fine tea shop as that’s the most English thing for you to do.

Through working at the shop, you meet other surfers, build a network of people that like what you do and within a year you end up becoming a professional surfer.

Can you see how proper planning helps enable your future success?

Going into internet marketing and trying to launch your own business can seem very intimidating at the beginning.

It’s like going directly to a foreign country with no plan, no language skills, and no cultural experience. As a result, it’s easy to end up hopping around cyberspace like a headless chicken. There are so many routes and shortcuts that you can take to get what you want.

With simple tools that you already have - a laptop, a steady internet connection, and a whole lot of patience, desire and drive (and perhaps lots of coffee!)- the possibilities are practically endless.

The only thing you will have to invest is time and maybe a bit of money.

Of course, you can get more complex with your planning than what I’ll cover here. My goal is to get you started as quickly as I can. If you’re the type that likes to go into detail with everything you do then go ahead but make sure you set a strict deadline and don’t get carried

14 | www.mpwr.one ©

away too much. Too much planning can quickly become a way to procrastinate and put off ever acting.

You can always adjust your plan as you go. Remember that a bias for action- the right kind of action- is generally what separates the successful, fulfilled person from the one who spends their life asking, “what if?”

As people we gain inspiration from what’s right in front of us. How many times have you come across some blonde, blue-eyed Instagram travel blogger posting perfect pictures from every corner of the world, and thought, “Wow! I’d love to be that person. How do I become that person?” without even considering your unique circumstances, passions and abilities.

We often see someone else having fun and want to do what they did to have as much fun as we think they had. What if you don’t want to spend 2 hours a day finding the perfect location to pose for a picture in front of a monument, then finding the right outfit to go along with it, then editing the picture, then researching the top 30 relevant but not oversaturated niche hashtags to get your picture noticed? Even if you didn’t mind doing all that, you’d still have to sit down to write the perfect caption, and post the picture at the right time so that your followers in all time zones have the chance to see and like the picture.

Could you imagine doing this 3 times a day? It all comes with the territory.

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 15

Traveling the world is a great end goal. But becoming a travel blogger may not be the right way for YOU to do it.

Use the internet to achieve your specific goals, in a way that’s right for you- don’t think you have to copy someone else’s goals or their methods for achieving them.

So are you looking to pursue your passion? Or do you want to earn great money in any industry and explore your passion after you’ve made enough to comfortably live?

Are you looking to educate people about an ethical cause? Or expand your current business?

Would you like to free up more time so you can spend it with family? Or, none of the above? Whatever it is, take the time to search for it, as this will determine what you do and what methods you use.

Write your goals down and store it somewhere safe as we’ll come back to this at a later stage.

First, we need to look at what we have to offer.

16 | www.mpwr.one ©

Bring Out Your Toolbox You’re probably not aware of it, but from my experience, most people already have 80% of what they need to be successful. Unfortunately, what we normally do is look outwards instead of inwards.

Ultimately, looking outward will only hold you back. It’s much easier in the long-run to focus on what you already have than it is to look for what you don’t have. So what if you only have 200 followers on Instagram? It may not seem like a lot in comparison to other accounts with massive followings, but those 200 followers on Instagram are a lot more useful to you than the 600 million users who don’t follow you.

It just takes a little shift in mindset to realise that.

The remaining 20% of what you don’t have to be successful would have to be acquired by spending a bit of money or time dedicated to acquiring a new skill or otherwise getting to where you need to be.

Nonetheless, you can still make a strong start whilst you work on the 20%. And certainly, you must realise that you are much closer to your goals than you think.

Before we go through what you need let’s do an inventory check and see what you already have.

You might find that writing an actual checklist really helps for this exercise. This will require a bit of introspection but in order to help you I have come up with 10 things (a few that you may already have) that will help you be successful in your online business.

Even just having 2 or 3 of the below will be a huge step up!

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 17

A laptop and internet connection A half-decent laptop is essential. Reliability is the key here as you don’t want to end up losing clients because of unnecessary downtimes.

You should be able to browse effortlessly and have the ability to run general purpose software like Microsoft Word or Photoshop without lagging. Having reliable internet is a must as well.

A good habit that I recommend picking up is working away from home. Capitalize on the time you naturally spend at cafes, libraries or waiting for the train. This is where mobile WiFi comes in handy. Using your phone’s hotspot or buying a dongle can make you very productive and increase creativity as you switch between different environments. Just a simple change of scenery can help change your whole perspective. There have been many times where I was banging my head against the wall - stuck with writer’s block while trying to finish a script. I changed locations from a desk at the library to a lively neighborhood Starbucks. That was just the energy shift I needed to

18 | www.mpwr.one ©

draw inspiration, overcome my writer’s block, and put the finishing touches on my best-selling product.

Network Your network is your net worth. If you can convince any of your family and friends to go on your site and buy your product or service then you’re much more likely to convince someone outside your social circle. Your immediate social circle could also be great for feedback as they’ll be brutally honest and won’t be scared to hurt your feelings - something we all need at times. Likewise they’ll also motivate and inspire you to keep moving to the beat of your own drum. Not only can they be your first customers, they can also be your most loyal brand ambassadors. How many times have you watched a YouTube video or read an article because your friend recommended it? Now imagine all your friends recommending your website to their friends. This works even better if you’re looking to offer something that people around you have been asking for. This brings us to.

Location Don’t automatically discount your location, or think that you have to migrate to a bigger city to start your business. I grew up in a small Midlands city with only 300,000 people. You would think that a city with less than a million people is too small to market to, right? Wrong.

I discovered the massive untouched and untapped local opportunities when I got into online marketing.

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 19

If your website targets people in your surrounding area, it’s so much easier to generate traffic to it through your social media and word of mouth. The smaller the community, the easier it gets as you know what people are looking for and how to accommodate them.

When it comes to discussing more advanced topics like SEO, Google Ads and Facebook advertising, you’ll find that it’s much easier to target smaller pockets of people, such as just the residents of your local town. This in turn will help you create effective marketing campaigns that convert interested prospects into long term buyers.

Social media clout This is probably the most obvious one on this list. Leveraging social media to gain exposure is something a lot of startups do. Right now you might only have a couple thousand followers on Twitter or friends on Facebook. Maybe you only have a few hundred.

I’m here to tell you the truth. Numbers don’t matter. It’s about how many of them engage with you because they genuinely like you as a person. I’ve worked with popular glamour models that boasted hundreds of thousands of followers and tens of thousands of likes on their pictures but when they tried to sell their new underwear brand only 0.1% of their followers would even visit their site. To put that in numbers, if they had 100,000 followers on Instagram only 100 people actually 20 | www.mpwr.one ©

visited their site from a particular post. That’s because the followers only cared about their racy pictures and not so much about them or what they stood for.

I’ve also seen normal, 9-5 workers with 300 friends on Facebook - colleagues, friends and associates - start small businesses and convert up to one third of their Facebook friends into actual buyers. A few of the buyers didn’t necessarily need the product or service but just wanted to support their cause. That’s the same 100 buyers the popular model had, but a much better conversion rate! It all comes straight from using social media for what it is: a tool for furthering genuine human relationships.

If you put a strategy into social media, it can work for you. More on this in Part II.

Experience Did you know that you can sell your experiences to people? It sounds weird but loads of entrepreneurs do it already. Think about great writers, musicians, motivational speakers, personal trainers, teachers.. Even me! Learning from someone else’s bad experience is always better than going through it yourself. And reading about someone’s good experiences inspires us and shows us ways we can achieve similar success.

Experience leads to credibility and credibility leads to long term customers.

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 21

Your experience is valuable whether it’s in a sport, hobby, industry, academic field or health field. You could take unique experience from one field into another one- think about how many sports team coaches wind up lecturing and speaking on teamwork and leadership to corporate organizations!

Just to give you an example closer to home, if you wanted to find a permanent fix for your acne problems, you could go to the library and get a 350-page dermatology book with facts and studies or you could choose from the hundreds of Youtubers that have already cured their acne and learn exactly what they did. The latter option is not only more fun but also less time consuming. You’re also more likely to buy a product from them which encourages the authors to release more content.

I’m going to finish this by saying that any experience is better than no experience. You don’t have to be a published author to teach people how to write a CV, for example, yet a quick look on Freelancing websites shows that there are many more people looking for help writing their CV than there are people looking for help finishing a book.

Commercial awareness This could be an extension of experience but it’s such an important asset that I had to give this its own section. Commercial awareness can be simply defined as staying up to date on what’s happening in your chosen industry. Staying abreast of changes and trends establishes you as an industry leader, which will draw traffic to your website.

More traffic means more sales. You quickly become the go-to person as people know that you’ll have the best solution. Think about a night22 | www.mpwr.one ©

club promoter who knows all the after-parties. If you haven’t yet, start reading up and staying current on the trends in your industry. This will give you a leg up on your competition.

Creativity & Lack of money One complaint that I usually hear from people is that they don’t have enough money to kick off their online business. This can actually be a blessing in disguise. When you’re just starting out the question often is: “How can I do what I need to do without money?” This question is like rocket fuel to the innovation engine. Whenever you are short on money, creativity flows to make up for the deficit. A good example of creativity flourishing in the absence of money is when up and coming music artists choose to release their music through free platforms like YouTube and Soundcloud. These artists build an organic social following through free music, have exhilarating small-venue performances, and authentically interact with their fans through social media. Until, at least, they get that big record label check and everything becomes “mainstream.” They no longer rely on their unique internet presence to organically promote their music. Eventually the music becomes robotic, the performances are lackluster and they hire a social media manager to interact with fans. The money makes them lazy and unoriginal.

Lack of money can fuel your innovative side. If you can’t stretch a pound, you can’t stretch your creativity.

Take me for example. I’d be the first to tell you that my best ideas came from my early days in internet marketing when nothing seemed to be working out. Instead of throwing in the towel, I figured out exHow To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 23

traordinary ways to beat my competition, gain new customers and, most importantly, retain customers on a tiny budget. It wasn’t an easy task but it gave me the acceleration I needed to take my business to where it is today. Also, the protocols that I developed in our early stages are what make our company unique to this day.

Too many people get stuck thinking “I can’t achieve this goal unless I have more money.” You can’t just purchase innovation out of a vending machine for a set price. A lack of money should be looked at as an opportunity to creatively solve problems. It is NOT an excuse for giving up.

Confidence You don’t HAVE to be confident to be successful online, especially since working online eliminates a huge chunk of face-to-face interactions. Nonetheless, confidence does give you access to more marketing channels. Creative content outlets like podcasts, videos and social media require a bit of confidence if you want to present yourself and your business in a positive light. These mediums work really well if carried out strategically.

It’s common to develop your self-esteem over time as you receive more feedback from your fanbase. Many powerhouse brands have developed their virtual confidence over time. So if you’re not naturally confident, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Start small, rack up the victories. Write them down and celebrate your wins. Confidence is a muscle like anything else, and you’ll have it down in no time.

24 | www.mpwr.one ©

And remember that the limelight isn’t on you at the start so there is no reason to be shy. You can scream and shout from the highest rooftops, make mistakes with no shame as no one is judging you too harshly as a startup. Have fun making mistakes now, because once you have a name it will be much harder to get away with! In fact, what you might find is that people give you more leeway and support knowing that you are trying to start something new.

So if you have confidence, great! If not, it will come as you rack up your victories and have successes under your belt.

Soft skills In dictionary terms, soft skills are personal attributes that enable someone to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people.

Communication skills, decision making, time management skills, accountability, emotional awareness, empathy and teamwork come in handy when interacting with your followers, handling queries and managing complaints. They’re easily neglected in the professional realms because they are not easily captured on a CV. Nevertheless, soft skills should never be neglected.

Why would this be helpful in business? Just think about it. Do you know someone that you just hate talking to? They cut you off, talk over you, belittle what you say, seem disinterested or just plain are disinterested in what you’re saying.

This person has very poor soft skills. Eventually you’ll get frustrated and stop speaking to this person, despite any other redeemHow To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 25

ing qualities they might have. Could you imagine doing business with someone like this? You probably couldn’t! No one wants to be around someone like this.

Business is all about relationships. Relationships live, thrive, and die on communication. People with strong communication skills can easily build and nurture relationships, and ultimately keep long term relationships going. Long term relationships with your clients and partners are what you want as a business owner. It’s much easier to keep a good customer around than it is to constantly seek out new ones!

They’re also useful when it comes to affiliates. There will be times when collaborating with people in your industry could be essential for your growth. Competition is great, and being the underdog is inspirational but building lasting relationships with like-minded people in your industry is rewarding. A shout-out or co-sign from the right authority could give you the credibility you need to start capturing your own audience.

Dealing with people online can be harder in certain ways compared to face-to-face communication. It takes time and effort to build trust through emails, social media and other non-face-to-face communications. Sometimes there are inconsistencies in the perceived connotations and denotations of the words we’re using. Meaning can get lost through text and someone can cast the wrong judgement on you based on a lazy Monday morning Facebook post.

Which makes soft skills such a great asset to have.

26 | www.mpwr.one ©

Having soft skills will speed up the growth of your startup by building better connections with your consumers. Studies show that a satisfied customer will tell 2-3 people about his experience with your company. A dissatisfied consumer will share their lament with 8-10 people and some will push that number to twenty. Which one would you rather have?

Perseverance and motivation Last but not least, perseverance is the most important asset of all.

This is the only asset that is non-optional. You might not possess all the other ones I’ve listed so far, and that is fine. The others can be worked on and improved. This, however, might be tough to hear for some but if you’re not self-motivated you simply won’t succeed.

You can have a great network, be commercially aware, have lots of creativity, be experienced in your field, engage with all your social media followers, have the best soft skills and be highly confident but if you don’t have that push in you to keep going when things get tough you’re pretty much doomed. Why? Because like any business, things will be tough one day and you’ll want to quit. But when the going gets tough, the tough get going.

Unfortunately, this isn’t something anyone can teach you.

But this is something you can work on. For now, here are some strategies to get you started on training your perseverance and your grit.

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 27

Remember, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. A bit of action every day for a month is sustainable and ultimately more effective than a weekend of frenzied activity that doesn’t lead anywhere because you burn out.

Investing effort up front in learning how to manage your time may seem frustrating and time consuming at first, but it will pay dividends later. It will keep you from missing deadlines, frustrating clients with low-quality, rushed products, and ultimately, it will help you live a stress-free life. Because if you haven’t got your health, you haven’t got anything.

Get an accountability partner that will call you out when you’re falling behind. Think about how hard it is to go to the gym some mornings.

Have you ever worked out with a buddy? Just knowing that you would be letting them down if you didn’t show up made you more accountable, and almost certainly made it much more likely that you made it to the gym. Even better, put something on the line with your accountability partner. If you don’t make a certain deadline, you’ll have to pay up!

Studies have repeatedly shown that we’re much more motivated to not lose what we already have than to get something we don’t have yet. Use your own psychology to help propel you towards your dreams.

Use a vision board to keep track of your goals. This includes your business goals, of course, but more importantly includes your personal goals: the reasons why you are building this business in the first place. If you’re getting your business off the ground to go learn surfing in Australia, put up motivational pictures to remind you of this goal on a corkboard or other surface near your workspace where you can constantly see it and be reminded of it. It may not seem like much, but each moment you are in front of your vision board- even if you’re 28 | www.mpwr.one ©

not actively paying attention to it- you are priming your brain to move toward that vision!

This is why having your unique goals for your success figured out is so important. When you know exactly why you’re starting your online business, you can remind yourself over and over again when things seem to get tough why you started this in the first place.

Nothing easy is worth keeping. That applies in dating and in business.

Now that you’ve set your goals for launching this business and taken stock of what you’re bringing to the table, it’s time to dive into what exactly your business is: what you sell, and to whom.

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 29

Define Your Product & Target Audience By now, you should have a unique goal and know which tools you possess that will help you develop your online business effectively.

Now it’s time to combine the two and define your product and target audience.

I’m not going to make you write a full business plan, but if that’s something you want to do there are plenty of templates to download online. This is enough of what’s needed to start pushing in the right direction, however.

Define your product It’s time to combine the goals you’ve written from the first chapter with the assets you’ve identified from the second chapter.

This is so important as you don’t want to put all your focus on something that doesn’t contribute to why you came online in the first place. Also, you want to be able to fully use the assets you have to give you that much needed leg-up and increase your chances of success.

Let me give you an example: Aaron is 25 and has been unemployed for 2 years. He finished university 3 years ago with a 2:1 Chemistry & Pharmaceutical degree but hasn’t been able to find a suitable job. He stumbles across MPWR on

30 | www.mpwr.one ©

YouTube and feels inspired by our movement so he decides to make the jump and start an online business.

His goal is to create a decent side income whilst he awaits the right job opportunity in the scientific field. His assets are his network, as he lives in a really tight-knit community out in the Shires where everyone knows everyone. He has his experience in chemistry, through university and the various internships he had at multinational pharmaceutical firms. He has commercial awareness as he is always staying up to date with the latest trends in the field of medicine through magazines and blogs.

So how does he combine his goal with his assets?

First off, he uses his commercial awareness to notice a new demand for organic, non-toxic ingredients in food, health and beauty products as people are becoming more aware of what they’re putting in and on their body. His after-uni work experience at Glaxon Klein gave him the opportunity to see first-hand all the junk they put into cosmetics.

Aaron strongly believes he can easily market an alternative solution to his community by explaining the risks of using mass-produced goods in their daily routines.

So what does he decide on as his product? Organic soap with lavender and rosemary sourced from local farms in Berkshire.

A perfect combination of what he already has and what his goals are.

Whether it becomes a success is another story, but at least he can give it

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 31

his all knowing he is working towards his goals with everything he has.

By now, you may already have an idea of what you want to do. If you don’t, I advise you not to rush this process and let it be more of a eureka moment than a forced brainstorm. You can always carry on with this book and accompanying video series to actively learn more about the technical side of online marketing while your product idea formulates in the back of your head.

Create your vision statement Before determining what your vision statement is, you need to understand what it is not. It should not be confused with a mission statement. Mission statements are present-based and designed to convey a sense of why your business exists. Vision statements are more powerful, they’re future-based and are meant to inspire and give direction to yourself and anyone who chooses to connect with your business.

A mission statement answers the question “Why does my business exist” while a vision statement answers the question, “Where do I see my business going?” Think aspirationally, and be specific about what you want to be doing. Use this template to get you started. “My business is going to (change people’s experience for the better in some way) for (a certain group of people) by (what your product or service actually does).

For example, the vision statement for this book and accompanying video program might easily be, “We are going to empower and equip a whole new generation of entrepreneurs and business people with the 32 | www.mpwr.one ©

marketing skills they need to take control of their lives and live their dreams through a free, easy to apply multi-media guide to internet marketing.”

Describe your target audience A target audience is a particular group at which a product such as a film or advertisement is aimed.

Ever noticed a specific fad, that was completely silly, boring, uninspiring and downright stupid? Yet somehow, they are selling out of the product? It’s because the product is for a specific target market that you are not a part of. Take, for example, fidget spinners. The overnight hottest toy of 2017. Chances are you don’t have one, but you know of a few teens around the train stations spinning them. All a fidget spinner is, is a piece of plastic with some stainless steel. How could anyone be interested in them?

They fit a different target audience than you. A company would lose millions advertising fidget spinners to working adults age 32-45.

A company would benefit from only marketing to a select few who would actually buy the product or enjoy the service. This is the sheer importance of having a target audience. It improves conversion- remember this keyword as it will pop up again later on.

Target audience is a very broad subject and is crucial for any marketing effort whether it’s offline (e.g networking, flyering, cold calling) or online (Facebook Ads, Google Adwords or PPC).

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 33

Here are some attributes to get you started thinking about your target audience: • Age range (Are you targeting young teens, working professionals, or seniors?)

• Gender • Marital/parental status (Are they single? Married?

In a relationship? Have children?)

• Geographic location (Are you going to be selling regionally, nationally or worldwide?)

• Income level (who can afford the product that you’re offering, or more importantly, who would go out of their way to pay for it?)

• Buyer trigger (What motivates your audience to buy?

Do they look for specific features? A low price or good offer? Do they need look for expert approval?)

• Values (Do they value stability or spontaneity? Safety or adventure? And so on) • Consumption habits (What other products, brands, and media do they consume? What does this tell you about them? Does your product align with their existing habits?)

34 | www.mpwr.one ©

Try not to rely only on “guesstimates” and instead conduct surveys and interviews via social media or, even better, in person. All decisions you make should be based on data rather than intuition. Go out and meet your prospects, attend industry events and analyse your competitors. This way, you will be able to know who your customers really are before you start building your website or selling your product. Building a website and then finding your audience is usually a recipe for failure.

Before we end this chapter, I want to clear up a misconception. It’s seductive to think that the bigger your target audience, the better. After all, doesn’t that mean you have more potential customers?

Well, not exactly. The problem with having a very big target customer base is that, in defining them, you necessarily have to be vague.

Since you don’t have a clear idea of what your customers want (they all want something different), your product becomes watered down.

In trying to please everyone, you please no one. It’s the difference between being mayor of a small town where you grew up versus being the head of state of a large country. You can probably make most people happy as mayor. But no matter what you do as head of state, most people won’t like you!

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 35

The smaller and more specific your target audience is, the better.

Get your first customer So far, you’ve defined your goals for starting your own business, you’ve come up with an idea for what kind of product you’d like to sell, and you’ve identified who exactly you want to sell it to.

Congratulations are in order! You’ve done something few people have: you’ve begun to not only chart your own course but also take concrete steps towards making that vision a reality.

The next logical step is to try and get your first customer to pay you money for your product. This is such a hugely important step that it cannot be overemphasized. Without a paying customer, your business is an untested idea. It may be a good idea, but the only way to know for sure if it is a good idea is if a customer pays you to deliver that product to them.

Your time is precious, and the sooner you figure out if a customer will pay for your product, the better. If you spend too long getting every detail of your business perfect up front (building the website, ordering business cards, plotting out every financial detail, developing a fully-functioning product or product line), then launch after six months or a year, chances are good that much of the planning you did will be for naught. Perhaps the customer wanted a different product, or you were targeting the wrong set of consumers.

36 | www.mpwr.one ©

Yes, being specific cuts out lots of potential customers. But remember that this is a good thing.

If you are very specific about who you are targeting, then you know that if you can make one of them happy, you can make all of them happy. Music is a great example. If you discover a new artist that compares favourably to one of your all-time favorite bands, chances are other fans of this band will enjoy the new artist as well.

2The sooner you can move on from a business that won’t work to one that can, the better.

The mindset to adopt is one of experimentation. Think of yourself as a discoverer or an adventurer trying to figure out whether your business will work in a short amount of time. For example, rather than code an entire software application up front, try and see if you can sell what the application would have been doing as a service instead. As a simple example, imagine testing out an alarm clock app as a service, before you code it. That would mean that the customer texts you each night what time they want to get up and you call them the next morning to wake them up. This might seem like a silly example, but imagine that someone pays you for a wakeup call. This means that if you did take the time to build an alarm clock app, you know that at least some would be willing to buy it.

You don’t need to have all the answers at the beginning. Pitch your product or service for what it is: a test. If you are up-front about working out the kinks in your product, your customers will understand, as long as you are solving a real problem they face in their lives.

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 37

Start with a price on the higher end of the spectrum. You can always lower your price. It’s much harder to raise your price. If they balk, ask them what price they’d be willing to buy it at. If they aren’t willing to buy it at all, be sure to ask them why.

If many of the target customers you pitch your product to refuse to buy it, and cite similar reasons, then you will have a pretty good idea of what you need to change about it for it to be successful.

If the potential customers you are talking to are simply not interested at all, then that is good feedback as well. It means you may be targeting the wrong type of customer! It’s time to try a new group.

Another excellent question to ask your target customers is, “are there any other problems you face that I could help with?” The more specific your target customer group is, the more likely you are to get good answers to this question. Even if your target customer persona is rather general, it never hurts to ask and you will occasionally get some great ideas for new problems you could solve that are related to your original idea.

It is normal for a business idea to evolve and change as our untested ideas come up against the realities of the marketplace. Stay persistent and be open to feedback, and be thankful that you have a strategy for learning these lessons early on so that you can more quickly get to a business that works.

The good news is that once a customer is paying you, you can be sure to get honest feedback- your new customer will want to get their money’s worth!

38 | www.mpwr.one ©

To recap, once you have an idea of your product and who you will sell it to, focus on getting your first paying customer. Getting one paying customer is always the hardest part of any business. Once you have that, it is a question of finding all the other customers out there that are similar- and convincing enough of them to buy your product that you make the money you need to with your business!

To book a free phone consultation DM on Instagram @M.P.W.R

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 39

Part II

Content Is King

In Part I we discussed creating the foundation of a successful business. This included being very clear on why you’re starting the business and how you’re uniquely equipped to deliver value to your potential customers. I put a lot of emphasis on getting your first paying customer, because this is typically the hardest milestone for any business.

Getting your first customer proves that at least someone is willing to pay you money to solve their problem for them.

If that was the foundation, now we want to think about putting a roof over the whole edifice. That is the focus of Part II, which is scaling up your business from one paying customer to multiple paying customers.

If you can get 1 paying customer, the next question you should ask is, how many passionate customers do I need to achieve my goals in this business? 10? 100? 10,000?

Ultimately, to achieve whatever goal you set, you’ll need to move a lead through your sales funnel.

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 41

We’ll need to explore these concepts so you can understand the process by which you gain customers.

A lead is a person who has indicated interest in your company’s product or service by sharing their information. This could be by giving you their number in person at a friend’s house or by signing up for your weekly email newsletter on your website.

Now, a marketing or sales funnel can get really long and complex but the concept is quite simple.

First, you turn complete strangers that fit your target audience into visitors of your website (for example, through offline promotions or social media). Then you convert those visitors into strong leads who hopefully become customers, and eventually repeat customers.

If you give them enough incentives they might even become promoters who actively advocate for your business. Think about your favorite companies and how likely you are to “sell” their products to your friends and acquaintances, even though you’re not getting paid for it. It’s a pleasure to introduce valuable new products and services to our friends because it increases our status. We’ll discuss the subject of creating promoters in Part III. The entire sales funnel looks like this: Strangers => Visitors => Leads => Customer => Promoter When visualizing an actual sales funnel, it’s important to note that there will be attrition, which is why we call it a funnel and not a tube.

42 | www.mpwr.one ©

Realistically, very few customers will become promoters. It’s also unrealistic to expect every stranger to visit your site and likewise not every lead will become a customer. In the end, not all leads will be interested in your product or service, but you can increase your conversion rate by focusing on creating an awesome sales funnel that maximizes the number of customers and promoters.

First, though, you can’t expect your customers to come to you at this stage, simply because they don’t know you. You need to figure out where your target customers are already congregating, and go there, and ultimately build credibility with them.

Because your focus is on going to where your customers are, don’t worry about building a website for now. While building a website is easy nowadays (which we’ll cover in Part III), you don’t want to sit back once you have a website and expect your customers to come to you. That is an easy way to get complacent and stagnate! A smarter strategy is to build a website once you need one later on because your marketing is creating customer traction.

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 43

Choose your marketing channels (Yes, Snapchat too) Picking the right communication channel for your message will contribute significantly to the success of your message reaching your market. It is therefore important to understand the various communication channels available.

If you assume you need a Facebook Business Page because you’ve “heard” that you should have one to market your business, you need to step back and understand some marketing fundamentals so that you make the right choices for your business.

Traditional channels include: • Publications – newspapers, magazines, journals • Radio and television • Billboards • Cold calling • Postal (Direct Mail) • Face to face (street promotion, door to door, leafleting, event marketing etc.)

New marketing channels that are more internet-based include: • Blogs (Digg, Wordpress, Blogspot, Tumblr, Squarespace) • Social media – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest,) • Vlogs (Youtube, Vimeo, Snapchat) 44 | www.mpwr.one ©

• Mobile (Whatsapp/SMS messaging, 2D Barcodes, Inapp marketing) • Search Engine Optimization (Mainly being seen on Google) • E-commerce platforms (Ebay, Amazon, Depop, Shopify, Paypal store) Your marketing channels are at the top end of your marketing funnel. They are the methods you will use to attract strangers from your target audience. The goal is to get them to visit your website and convert them into leads or even better bypass your website and turn them into leads or customers right away.

For example, if you were in the market for a personal trainer, chances are that you would search on social media rather than directly going to a website. A series of before/after testimonial pictures on their Facebook page will do more convincing than an About Me page on their website.

Instead of redirecting people to a website, most personal trainers would encourage potential clients to give them a call, completely bypassing the visitor stage of the sales funnel. You don’t need to see their website.

And what would they ask you for on the phone? Your name, email, age, maybe where you currently train; this is how personal trainers turn strangers into leads right away. All of this sales funnel talk might seem complicated but you’ll soon notice that businesses are trying to get you into their funnels every day. It just takes a bit of knowledge to understand what’s actually going on behind closed doors.

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 45

Let’s take it a step further and use this example to illustrate the entire sales funnel. A decent personal trainer would offer you a free introductory session where they assess your fitness level and needs.

They might even give you some free nutritional tips and help you with your squat technique for FREE. At this point you’re only a lead. You only become a customer when you make that first payment. Fast forward 3 months, you put up your own before/after testimonial on your Facebook page and now you’re their promoter.

It’s that simple.

Now, this doesn’t mean that the personal trainer should neglect his website. He might employ other marketing channels that would require people to visit his site. But this is to show you that choosing the right marketing channel can expedite things quite a lot, and save you time in pursuing channels that won’t benefit your business. For example, I know one personal trainer who conducts his business entirely over Instagram. It works for him and fulfills his goals, so I say mission accomplished.

Back to the original point: how do you choose your marketing channels? You can’t focus on all of them at the same time.

Moreover, it seems like startups these days completely ignore the more traditional channels as newer ones become increasingly important. All of a sudden leafleting is perceived as less effective than advertising on Instagram. That’s a big mistake to make!

Each channel has its pros and cons and can be used to reach different segments of your target audience and achieve different goals.

46 | www.mpwr.one ©

To be really effective, you should mix the “old” ways of marketing with the “new” - so don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

In order to keep it simple at the start, I’d recommend starting off with 3 marketing channels. Here are the factors you should consider when choosing them:

Peer research To use the correct marketing channels, you have to know how to communicate with your audience. For instance, if your customers are 40-60 years old, you probably don’t want to use SnapChat as your main marketing channel - you won’t reach them there. However, you might want to look at collecting addresses for your email list, or using Facebook, since older people prefer to use those spaces. If your customers are young professionals you might find more success leafleting around the city centre right after work hours or during lunch breaks.

If your customers are young mothers, you could hold after school talks at your local nurseries.

In other words, get to know your customers. Spend some time talking to your existing customers, and ask them which channels they spend the most time on. Don’t assume anything about them: ask, or better yet, observe them in action. How do they research their purchasing decisions? Are peer recommendations a factor? Do they prefer LinkedIn or networking events? Do they mostly search for information or let it come to them via email?

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 47

Interviews and surveys are an extremely effective way to learn more about your audience and where they would like to be approached. But, what should you ask? Think of asking open-ended questions designed to tease out the target customer’s habit at each stage of the sales funnel. It is important to make the questions open-ended as opposed to yes/no because you want your interviewee to give you as much detail as they feel comfortable giving. Open-ended questions are much more likely to elicit detailed responses.

Think about how you would respond to these two seemingly similar questions: Do you use Facebook to learn about new products? (yes/no) versus What kinds of products do you learn about and explore on Facebook? (open ended)

Time As a marketer, it is really important to manage your time- doubly so if you’re studying, working or have family responsibilities.

Rather than spending time each day managing your marketing channels, it would be easier to use channels that allow you to do work in focused bursts, and schedule content ahead of time. Now some real-time attendance is important to respond to customer queries, but planned content can be written and scheduled easily.

In this respect social channels, blog posts and newsletters are great as there are many tools you can use to pre-schedule posts, such as 48 | www.mpwr.one ©

Hootsuite and Buffer for Instagram & Facebook.

TV & radio ads, billboards and magazine publications are even less time-consuming and could be highly effective if done right. Do your research and don’t be afraid to experiment off-line. If you are sure of your message reaching your target customers, a well-placed magazine ad can be less hassle and just as impactful as anything you do on Facebook or Google. You only spend time designing and creating your ads and release it to the world. Done.

Lastly, remember that it’s always quality over quantity. It is better to market through fewer channels in a more effective way than to “shotgun” a lot of them haphazardly. You can spend a couple hours each How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 49

day working towards a major marketing campaign, and your work will add up. Be patient and do it right.

For example, an effective launch event to kick off your new business can make a whole lot of noise but takes a fair bit of planning and financial backing to get right. But then again, you only need to do it ONCE. So don’t be afraid to take a couple steps back for a bigger jump.

Your primary goals Your initial goals also determine which channels you choose. Some channels will be better suited for certain tasks than others. Twitter, for example, is great for time sensitive updates and information that won’t be relevant tomorrow, since any tweets will quickly be buried in someone’s feed. Facebook is great for longer-lasting content and having more of a conversation with customers. Instagram is geared towards photo-friendly businesses like personal trainers, travel bloggers, and the like.

Here are a couple goals you might consider important in your startup phases and the marketing channels that can get you there quicker.

Brand Awareness – This includes familiarity with your business, brand, products and services. If this is your goal, you should make use of marketing channels that provide strong brand awareness and development like the following:

50 | www.mpwr.one ©

• Social media channels particular Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.

• Channels that promote video materials like YouTube and Vimeo.

• Cross promoting other online businesses in the same sector • Participating in online and offline events (e.g. partnering with nightclubs).

Online/Mobile Sales Generation – If your goal is to have an online store or e-commerce site, the following channels can be used to generate sales from complete strangers around the world. More and more consumers are getting comfortable with the concept of e-commerce and are now open to the idea of purchasing products through online means.

• Facebook Storefront • Google Shopping Feeds • Ebay/Amazon Marketplace • Commerce platforms like Shopify, Etsy • Mobile marketplaces like Depop, Schpock and OLX • Alternative affiliate platforms like Clickbank and Warriorplus Lead Generation – If your goal is to connect with potential customers and engage with them these marketing channels are good for lead generation: • Search Engine Optimization (Getting your page highly ranked on Google) How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 51

• Pay-Per-Click Advertising (Paying for the right visitors) • Blogging and other content marketing channels • Display advertising (Paying to have your adverts on other people’s websites)

Be aware of when you may need to educate your potential customers. Some businesses involve relatively new products and services that are very promising in their potential but their targeted customer base isn’t aware of the product or how it will benefit them just yet.

What I’m offering is a good example of this. Most people selling online would benefit from having a sales funnel. I could easily go around and offer customised sales funnels, but if the online business owners I speak with aren’t familiar with the idea of one, I may as well be selling empty water bottles.

Online marketers in this segment should go for educating their target audience first, particularly in making them realize the importance and potential impact of the products/services they offer and the problems that they can resolve by using the product/service.

Blogging, press releases and releasing a lot of free educational content will be ideal to educate potential customers.

The task for you now is to use the criteria above to choose the 3 marketing channels you will use to bring people into your sales funnel.

I recommend you use a combination of both online and offline channels as they can both complement each other.

52 | www.mpwr.one ©

If this is something you’d like more hands-on assistance with, check out my contact information at the end and we can discuss how I can work with you on developing, using, and combining channels successfully.

Give before you receive Once you have your channels established, you need to figure out a way to get strangers on these channels to begin moving through your sales funnel, visiting your site and/or ultimately becoming a lead.

The question to ask is, what could you give away to your potential customers that will add value, establish trust, and get them to visit your business?

The answer is in what is called Inbound Marketing.

Most modern internet marketers use inbound marketing strategies to fuel their business. And there is a good reason why you should know what that means: the alternative, called outbound marketing, is outdated and its effectiveness is often questionable.

(Traditional) Outbound marketing vs (Modern) Inbound marketing Back in the 20th century, major businesses started capitalising on outbound marketing. This was when billboards, newspaper ads, radio advertisements, cold calls and face-to-face marketing became popular.

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 53

Think Mad Men, the popular TV show. Outbound is a one-way communication channel where you push your product onto someone else.

There is no value being offered. At best, you may be entertained if the ad is a good one. Think about how a Lynx TV ad doesn’t teach you anything about its ingredients or general hygiene.

At the start of the 21st century things started to shift and outbound marketing suffered a massive decline. Most British households registered their house phones on “Do Not Call” lists to avoid pesky telemarketers. With the advent of Youtube and Netflix, people are more in control of what TV ads they watch. Door-to-door stainless steel kitchen knives and their accompanying salesmen are more of a nuisance than ever before.

With inbound marketing, you get your customers to come to you.

Unlike outbound marketing, inbound marketing does not fight for the customer’s attention. Instead, the business creates lots of valuable free content (Youtube videos, social media posts, ebooks, podcasts, physical giveaways, educational webinars- you get the idea) designed to address the problems and needs of their ideal customer.

With outbound marketing, you’re hoping that your customers take action. With inbound, they’re already coming to you because you’re giving them want they want. And in the process, you’re building trust before any purchase is ever made. Inbound marketers “earn” their way into your wallet by giving away valuable, fun and educational content whilst outbound marketers “buy, beg or bug” their way into your wallet by using outdated marketing tactics.

Who would you rather be?

54 | www.mpwr.one ©

How to apply inbound marketing to your online business For the past 10 years, inbound marketing has been the most cost effective and ethical way to promote an online business. Instead of forcing products down people’s throats, and hoping that someone is convinced, the tactics of inbound marketing are different.

Inbound marketing chooses to entertain, educate, and provide valuable information for the desired customer. Research has shown that the modern person is tired of the endless onslaught of ads being shoved down their throats- hundreds of them by the end of a day. They would rather research, read reviews, compare it with competitors, and finally connect with the company when they are ready to make the decision to move forward.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t control the journey. It’s on you to guide visitors on your site through a marketing funnel that creates enthusiastic promoters and brand ambassadors.

As you work down the funnel, you will filter out the weak leads (who have no interest in buying), allowing you to focus your energy on ‘qualified leads’ who have a higher chance of buying.

It’s important not to forget that the bottom of the funnel is about more than simply closing deals. It’s also the jumping off point for analytics. The best marketers are constantly evaluating the effectiveness of their funnel and adjusting their strategies to maximize results.

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 55

For example, if you see that social media is generating a ton of traffic (fancy word for website “visitors”) to your website, you might assume you should put more resources into it. But, if your visitor to lead or lead to customer conversion rates are quite low for social media, but high for Reddit posts, you might get better bang for your buck by focusing solely on Reddit posts.

This is another great example of the need for an integrated sales funnel. Too many marketers rely solely on visitor traffic numbers to guide their marketing strategies without taking the time to truly understand how effective each marketing channel is in turning those visitors into leads and eventually customers.

At this stage in your journey, simply focus on exploiting your chosen marketing channels by creating and publishing fun, educational, and interesting content that appeals to your target customers. Google online for when the best times to post content are, but don’t be afraid to experiment. Pay attention to which content garners the most likes, the most comments and user engagement, and the most website visits. These metrics are valuable feedback that can help you improve your efforts!

This is a great chance to use some of the research you’ve already gathered from customer interviews: what sort of media is your target customer already consuming? And how can you add a unique spin or angle to that, or approach it in a novel and fresh way?

Behind-the-scenes type content is always a big hit with consumers.

I remember the story of a woman, fresh out of architecture school, who decided to build her own house and blogged about the entire pro56 | www.mpwr.one ©

cess. At the end of it, she had so many people following her story that several of them contacted her and asked her to build them houses. Her new business was born simply because she told her story in an honest and engaging way!

For now let’s move on to the fun part.

Nurture Your Leads By now you know that not everyone is ready to buy your product or service the first time they come to your site. Some of them would want to build a bit more trust or need answers to their questions before they go ahead and become customers. With the right amount of time and information they will warm up to your brand, assuming they’re the right fit for your product or service, of course.

It is up to you to guide a lead through your funnel so that they become a customer. That process is called lead nurturing. It is like trying to date the perfect catch. He or she isn’t going to commit based on just a first impression alone. They’re in demand. They want to weigh their options and they’ll need more convincing. They want to know that you’re not going to leave them high and dry after you get what you want.

According to SiriusDecisions 98% of leads never result in closed business. That means for an ordinary business only 1 out of 50 of your leads, people that have engaged with the business and shared their info, will eventually turn into a customer. That would be a pretty bad success rate in dating!

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 57

So, while lead generation is certainly important, investing in generating more leads without having a strong plan to turn them into customers doesn’t make any sense.

Why Is It So Important There are many reasons why you should nurture and look after your leads: 1. Nurtured leads make larger purchases 2. Nurtured leads make MORE purchases 3. Most importantly, nurtured leads are more likely to make a purchase, period An important point to mention is that leads like being nurtured IF it’s targeted.

Those of you who have ever tried to join one of those new, 24/7 budget gyms like Puregym or The Gym would know this. As soon as you make an enquiry and hand them your email, they bombard you with free workouts and diet tips until you crumble and decide to give it a go. For someone that’s new to fitness those free bits of info could make a big difference.

Leads need to know that their best interests are being kept in mind.

They need assurance that you’re reliable and that you can continually add value to their health. Put yourself in their shoes. Ask yourself, if I 58 | www.mpwr.one ©

were a lead, what would make me want to do business here? The relationship needs to be nurtured, exactly as you would a new friendship or romantic interest.

So what do we use to build relationships with these potential clients?

Unsurprisingly, some of these are also used as marketing channels.

Email Marketing - While email has proven to be the most effective way to nurture leads, there is no denying that it’s getting harder and harder especially with the new, advanced spam filters. To be really successful you have to start thinking beyond the inbox. Nonetheless, it’s still an important channel to communicate with leads and should be used to send educational and informational content to further the lead along the buying process. We’ll discuss this more in Part III. Real-time social media - Like, share, comment and inbox. Be human, interact with your leads and become a part of their life. Don’t just post things and expect people to come to you. If you treat social media like you do your real-life interactions you can get so much nurturing done without all the effort.

Mobile - Texting and phone calls are very personal so you have to get to know your lead before you employ this method. You don’t want to seem intrusive. Nonetheless, everyone values human interaction in a sales process and it can really speed things up. Plus, we almost expect to be able to receive notifications via text nowadays. This especially makes sense for a business where client interaction is already very personal and recurring, such as private coaching or training.

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 59

Direct Mail - Also known as postal mail, this means sending physical letters to your leads after they’ve engaged with your company.

Combined with digital channels like email, social media and your website, this can seriously increase conversions! They both have their strengths and weaknesses and are quite complementary. Think about how easy it is to block an email or unfriend a Facebook page. Now think about how long a letter can hang around a kitchen table before it’s thrown away.

Ebooks- Ebooks are digital guides created by marketers to educate their audience on a particular topic. They can be anywhere from 5 to 50 pages long and are meant to showcase your expertise. They build a lot of credibility especially if you’re in a technical industry where people want to know that you know your stuff. Let’s say you work for a German car specialist and you write a whitepaper on the maintenance and inspection of German engines. This would be full of information and a great read for a BMW enthusiast who would probably come to you for expensive parts in return. They’re easy to distribute, eco-friendly and all you need is a Word processor to make one.

Blogs - Blogging is a popular and effective way to generate visitors to your site and convert them into leads. But once they’ve shown interest and given you their details, they’re very likely to keep coming to your website to see if you’ve added any new content to your blog. Looking after your blog and adding quality content on a regular basis will add authority to your brand and is a great way to nurture your leads.

Paid retargeting - Retargeting is a form of online advertising that can help keep your brand in front of your lead on Facebook, other websites, search engines AFTER they leave your site. Have you ever 60 | www.mpwr.one ©

gone on some clothing site, looked at some new trainers and then left the site, just to have that same pair pop up as an ad on a completely different site? That’s retargeting. It’s a fantastic way to convert window shoppers into buyers.

Advanced Tactics - There are more technical methods you can use to nurture your leads like dynamic website content, marketing automations, and lead scoring. These things aren’t as important to worry about at the beginning of your business, but keep them in mind as you grow. You can always work with a professional marketing agency to get these tools set up. Check out what services we offer at the end of this ebook.

What Content Should You Use For Lead Nurturing?

In terms of what content you send your leads, it’s all about putting yourself in your customer’s shoes and being creative. There are no restrictions.

It is a good idea to look at what businesses like yours are doing to nurture their leads. Read articles written by marketing experts to expand your range of possibilities. But at the end of the day no one knows what your leads would want to see and hear as much as yourself.

Striking a nice balance is a good starting point. You want to educate your leads but not overload them and be boring. Be fun, entertain them with memes and jokes but remain professional. Tease them with bits of valuable information but never give away too much, so that they have something to look forward to in the future. Add a personal touch How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 61

to your correspondence whilst maintaining a bit of mystery.

Ultimately, you won’t know what works unless you try it. This is why it’s important to experiment while your business is young and you can afford to make mistakes. Statistics are really key here. Keep an eye on which emails your leads actually open, which blog posts get read the most, which type of pictures get the most likes on your Facebook page.

Replicate what works, get rid of what doesn’t. A bit like your dating life.

To book a free phone consultation DM on Instagram @M.P.W.R

62 | www.mpwr.one ©

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 63

Part III

Crafting a Company Your Customers Love

At this point, you’ve created the foundation for your business by getting your product’s first customer (Part I). Then, you’ve put a roof over your head by creating and honing a marketing strategy to turn one customer into many customers. You’ve set up the beginnings of your sales funnel by going to where your customers are, creating valuable content that establishes you as an expert, and building real relationships with your leads (Part II).

To continue the building metaphor, now we want to build walls under the roof to turn it into a complete structure. This is where you’ll think about how to consciously craft your brand, create a killer website, and build a base of passionate customers.

Ultimately, we don’t just want a one-time customer, we want a customer who sticks around and recommends your company to their friends. Think about when you have had a fantastic experience with a company- didn’t you want to tell your friends all about it?

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 65

As you grow your business, this is hands-down the best form of marketing you can get. At this point, a customer has become a promoter. The more promoters you have dedicated to your business, the more successful you will be. Not only will they be evangelizing your business for you at no cost, they will come back to you when they need you.

Think of the times when you have been frustrated by a product or service. You didn’t want to go back and likely even actively trashtalked the company to your friends. The last thing you want as a business is to have to “tread water”, constantly finding new customers in new circles to stay afloat because old customers come away frustrated or upset with the service they receive!

A good exercise is to think of the three best experiences you had as a customer and the three worst ones. What made the good ones good and the bad ones bad? What can you learn from that and apply in your own business? For example, prompt, friendly customer service that goes above and beyond can often make the difference between converting a customer into a promoter. One rude interaction or even a late response can make a customer run the other way and never look back!

With everything you do as a business, you must have a clear goal for what you want a customer or lead to do at every step of their interaction, and how you are going to guide them to that stage. Having a strong sense of your sales funnel is a good step, but you can’t stop there. The clarity of your sales funnel must be reflected in your business. The purpose of this section is to explore how exactly to do that.

You must set up your channels and website purposefully and intentionally, putting yourself in your customer’s shoes, and ultimately create a company your customers love.

66 | www.mpwr.one ©

It starts with the sales channels you’ve already identified, whether online or off. Once you’re successfully engaging with your base of potential customers, which was the focus of Part II, you can think about the next steps: directing them to your website or other point of sale.

This is the point at which you’ll want to build a website. The advantage of waiting until you’ve already built more personal relationships with your customers to build your website is that by now, you’ll have a much better idea of who your customers are. You can build your website to reflect this so that it can do at least some of the “selling” for you.

Once a lead becomes a customer, the final step is to keep them coming back and make it easy for them to refer their friends to your business.

The first step, however, is to take a bigger picture view of what your brand communicates to your target audience.

Build your brand Think about the companies you love. What do they represent to you?

How do they communicate that? What about famous brands like Apple or Coca-Cola? This is the company’s brand- the image they craft of what their company and their products represent, and who is likely to enjoy their products. Apple, for example, has done a fantastic job of associating their products with creative, hip professionals. Who wouldn’t want to be creative and hip? Coca-Cola tries to associate their products with having a good time with friends. This association is not accidental, but rather the result of lots of money and public relations efforts.

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 67

Thankfully, you can be intentional about the brand, or the values, your company represents without spending much money at all. The key is to simply know your customers and spend some effort up front crafting an experience for them that resonates with what they value.

Hopefully, you are familiar enough with your customers to be able to say what they value. If you are at the point where you have one or more paying customers, you likely know enough about them to be able to answer that question. If you are unsure, reach out to your customers! Happy customers love to help out a business they support, especially if you sweeten the deal by offering a gift card or other giveaway.

If you haven’t already, use the customer discovery guide from the first section as a guide for what to ask. Understand what your customer values, but also what they expect from you as a business. For example, they may be creative types who value spontaneity, but probably still expect something like a bank or financial institution to be solid, stable, and have a solid operating procedure. That said, perhaps a bank that injects more fun into their existing brand could have a better chance of appealing to this subset of customers!

Once you understand your customer and their expectations of a business like yours, you can begin crafting that experience for them.

Ideally, this is an organic process in that there is an intersection between your values, your customers’ values, and what they expect from your business. It doesn’t make sense to start a video game design company if you can’t stand to play video games! Ultimately, this is why the best businesses are started by people who are their own customers and scratching their own itch, as it were. You have a leg up on understanding your customers because they are like you!

68 | www.mpwr.one ©

Music is a great example of how strongly people can identify with the “brands” of their favorite music groups. Fans who are dedicated enough to show up at concerts are likely to dress the same, have similar backgrounds, lifestyles and tastes, and would likely get along together outside of the concert. “What kind of music do you like?” is such a common question because identifying with a musician’s brand tells so much else about the person.

On the other hand, I’m sure we’ve all had an experience with a large, corporate company with a long, wordy “mission statement” containing generic drivel about serving their customers, being industry leaders, and so on. And yet, actions speak louder than words- their true brand is rather boring and out of touch with their customer base! This speaks to why, if you are starting your own business, you can actually create a successful brand and customer experience without spending much money. Big companies need large, expensive ad campaigns because they are in reality quite boring and bureaucratic. They don’t walk the walk, nor can they. A company that practices what it preaches speaks louder than expensive words or images ever could. Google is a great counter-example of this- at their core, they are still a company that makes money by selling advertisements on their various platforms.

But we have come to associate them with creativity and innovation not because they run expensive campaigns to tell us so, but because they are constantly doing creative, innovative new endeavors that we inevitably hear about, just like we will undoubtedly hear about the cool new cafe that opened up in our small town.

To summarize- you don’t need an expensive PR firm to build an amazing brand. In fact, having money can make you lazy. All you need to have is a product you believe in and the ability to connect with your How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 69

customers. With that, you can craft and create a unified brand that communicates your values and the values of your customers.

Some examples are in order. Let’s say you want to start a consulting service that focuses on helping local non-profits expand their impact.

Non-profits are usually by definition organizations that are trying to change the world and make it better in some way. The people who work there want to be there, despite the fact that they could be making more money somewhere else. If you’re wanting to help non-profits, you probably feel the same way. Having a cold, business-like approach on the bottom line might work for consulting with larger organizations, but a better brand for smaller, more local non-profits might be an experience that is more fun, more informal, and that celebrates that they are bettering their local communities. Because people from these non-profits probably run in the same circles, word of mouth will be huge. Show you too know how to serve by “giving before you receive”: write short pieces highlighting the efforts and impact of a new non-profit each week and try to get them published in local papers. In money-tight organizations, add value by offering to consult with them for a day, free of charge.

Ultimately, people will remember your product or service for how it makes them feel and for how it improves their life experience. As cliché as it may seem, kindness, respect, loyalty, quality, and fun are brand and customer experience qualities that will never go unappreciated!

70 | www.mpwr.one ©

Build your website A key part of your business will be your website, especially if you don’t have any kind of physical location where you sell your product or service. It is where potential customers will go to learn about what you offer. It is an extension and reflection of your brand. They will often make their purchasing decision based on their experience there.

Your website is your home base, your headquarters, and having a solid website should be one of the first things you do to establish your business after you are confident of your ability to attract leads through your marketing channels and convert them into customers.

An attractive, well-put together website that reflects the company’s culture and values goes a long way towards attracting the right kind of customers and leads.

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 71

A little thought setting one up and thinking through a user-friendly experience will pay dividends, but a poorly designed one can frustrate more than it helps.

Have you ever been to a website that was hard to navigate, and laid out very counter-intuitively? Maybe the page you wanted to find was buried in a maze of links, and you had to go hunting for it. Or maybe the website gave too much information, far more than you ever cared for, and you had difficulty finding what you needed.

Thankfully, with a bit of thought, you can make an attractive and straightforward website. There are many easily customizable “dragand-drop” websites like Squarespace and Weebly that allow you to quickly build an attractive website and link your own website domain name without any knowledge of programming. You can choose from pre-made templates that include blogging and e-commerce platforms.

This way you won’t need to worry about what colors go best with what, or how to write code, and can simply focus on delivering the best possible experience for your customers.

Definitely go through a domain-name hosting service, such as GoDaddy.com, to reserve your own domain name. It costs almost nothing to do so, and you want customers to be able to quickly remember your website by simply typing in your business name as the URL. Website building platforms like Weebly and Squarespace also allow you to reserve a domain name as part of their services.

72 | www.mpwr.one ©

Have a Plan for Your Website It may be tempting to jump right into trying to set up your website as soon as possible, but going in with a plan will keep you from getting stuck with a poorly laid-out website. Start by learning from what websites you admire do well. Go to websites that are similar to how you want yours to look. What do they do well? What can be improved?

Pretend to be a customer, and see how easy it is to find what you want and to go through their sales funnel.

After you get a sense for how a good website is laid out, your next step should be to draw out on paper how your website will look.

It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. Start with the homepage, and think about the very first questions a customer will have about your business.

What do you do?

Who should be interested in what you do?

Why should they be interested in you? What can you offer them?

And if they are interested, where do they go from there?

Whatever you do, keep your website clean and simple. A customer should never be more than a couple clicks away from where they want to go. Make it easy to get in touch with you through links to your social media channels and an email address you set up for your busi-

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 73

ness (again, website building platforms like Weebly and Squarespace make this easy).

At this point, having an attractive logo that customers associate with your business is a must. Websites like 99designs allow you to crowdsource logo designs fairly inexpensively. It may seem like a good idea to try and create your own, but investing a bit of money up front will net you a professional design that will be far better than what you can come up with on your own. Even if you think you have a good idea, you likely won’t want to invest the time it takes to learn enough of Photoshop or a similar program to create the digital files you will need- just as you likely won’t want to learn enough programming to build your website from the ground up.

Another alternative is to work with a marketing and branding company like MPWR, the creators of this ebook and video series.

When you work with a professional agency, you are paying for consistent quality and a complete package, starting with a logo and website with the option for more services if you’re interested. Check out what we offer at the end of this ebook.

Regardless, you can’t build your website in a vacuum. You need to get feedback to know how it can be improved. Once you have your website set up, ask your friends and family to sit down with you and interact with your website. Observe them. Ask them to verbalize what they are thinking as they navigate. Where do they have difficulties?

What do they want to know that they can’t figure out? What would they like to see more of? You don’t have to implement all the feedback you get, but if several people point out the same thing, you may want to make sure you address the issue.

74 | www.mpwr.one ©

Integrate Your Website with Your Marketing Efforts Once your website is up and running, integrate it with your sales channels and marketing efforts! Link your social media to your website. Make it easy to get to your website from your Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. If people like the content you are putting out, they will eventually get curious and take a look.

Blogging is a great way to engage your customer base, as we already discussed, and it has the extra advantage of bringing visitors directly back to your website. Your home turf, where they may get curious and begin to explore what else you have to offer. Give it a try! Brainstorm ten new article ideas a day. Most will be bad ideas, but a few gems will emerge. The articles can be short and to the point, as long as you are writing about things your customer base cares about. Add your unique spin to what other people have written- don’t slavishly copy what’s already out there. You have enough material to talk about just from your own experience! Don’t worry if you don’t feel like you’re a natural writer. Ultimately, people want to hear your unique voice.

Don’t think you need to use long sentences and fancy words- in fact, most people prefer that you don’t. Write as though you were speaking to you friends.

There is a lot of talk out there about what is called SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. Each search engine uses a unique, secret formula for determining where on a page of results a certain website shows up- in spot number 1, or spot number 1,000. We know, for example, that a big part of Google’s algorithm or formula is how often other websites link to your page. I am always sure to discuss with my clients how to improve their SEO, so feel free to reach out to me about How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 75

what that might look like. For now, however, the surest way to move up in the rankings is to put out content that people like and link to.

The more other websites link to your content, the higher in the search rankings you will move up. Trying to shortcut this system too early can actually be counterproductive because it doesn’t give you enough time to grow organically and find your own voice.

Turn customers into promoters Keeping customers around and happy is typically much easier than constantly bringing in new customers. After all, you’ve already convinced them to use your product once! Hopefully its quality speaks for itself.

The first thing to do is to develop a strategy to keep in touch with them so they don’t forget about you.

In conjunction with this, make it easy for them to recommend you to friends. Word of mouth really is the best marketing you can get, and best of all, it is free. When in business, strive to have your customers speak so well of you that they can’t help but recommend you to their friends and family.

Have a Presence on Review Sites First, you need to be plugged in to any relevant review sites where your customers may be talking about you, like Google Maps, Yelp, Am76 | www.mpwr.one ©

azon, or even your own Facebook page. Think about how much customer reviews on sites such as these influence your own purchasing decisions. Potential customers will often skip product descriptions just to see the average rating and a few sample reviews. If they don’t like what they see, they’ll leave and never think about you ever again.

Make sure you are checking these sites periodically and responding to the reviewers. If you are doing your best to give your customers a good experience, you hopefully won’t see many negative reviews. If one does appear, all you can do is try to make things right. Respond to them publicly, asking them to give you a chance to make amends and change their opinion. Not everyone will want to give you a chance to do so, but it speaks volumes to other potential customers that you are willing to admit your mistakes and work to make things right.

For example, think about when you had a problem with something you bought. You were likely upset. Now imagine the times when you contacted the company, and they immediately sent you a new version free of charge with a sincere apology. If you didn’t want to recommend them to a friend before that, you likely did after they promptly owned up to their mistake and worked to fix the problem.

Keep in Touch with Your Customers with an Email Newsletter You don’t need to wait until your customers come back to you to keep in touch with them, though. In fact, one of your best tools for keeping your customers engaged is through an email marketing list, which I mentioned in the chapter on Lead Nurturing as well.

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 77

This is often one of your most valuable marketing tools because it is a list of people who have self-identified as being interested in what you are providing! The simplest way to grow this list is to add an email signup box in a prominent place on your website. Any website-building service will offer this. To sweeten the deal, add a promotion, like a free ebook or a discount on your product or services, as a gift for signing up. You can use a newsletter service like Mailchimp that allows you to easily aggregate your entire list of emails, build a newsletter template, and track important metrics like how many people open your newsletter and how many people click through.

An important point to make here is to be responsible in how you use your email list! Never add someone to your email newsletter list without their permission, remove someone as soon as they ask (any newsletter software will manage this automatically), and never, ever give away your email list to other companies. Respect that your customers have given you a key to their email inbox, and only send them relevant content that you are sure they will enjoy.

What you send is up to you, but generally you want to include two things: a “gift” and a call to action.

Think of your newsletter as a gift to customers. What can you send that would make them excited to open it up? What makes the difference for you between an email newsletter you delete without reading versus one you get palpably excited about opening?

The gift you give in your newsletter could be interesting articles you wrote or that you found and think they will enjoy. It could be a discount or special offer.

78 | www.mpwr.one ©

Regardless, each newsletter you send should have a “call to action” as well. In other words, what do you want a customer to do after they have read your newsletter?

Perhaps you want them to follow you on social media, or go to your website to check out a new product, or forward the email to a friend.

Whatever it is, make it prominent and easy to find. Any newsletter service you use will have the option to add a clickable button to your email- take advantage of that feature.

An easy way to jumpstart your email list is to do a giveaway. By signing up for your email list, potential customers are entered into a drawing for a prize. The trick here is that the prize they win has to be pretty big to motivate them to sign up! The bigger the prize, the more likely you will get many entries. If you use a software plugin to manage your giveaway (Google “best contest software” to find a few samples), you can even reward customers for sharing the giveaway with their friends on social media- making it easier for you to get more signups.

Think of a giveaway as a big “carrot” to get your potential customers to come forward and identify themselves to you.

Don’t limit your promotion of your giveaway to online methods, either, especially if your business is locally-based or focused. Partner with local businesses that your potential customers are likely to frequent to maximize the amount of entries- it could be as simple as sharing the emails of the customers that sign up at that location with that business. It’s a win for everyone- you get more coverage, the customers learn about a giveaway they wouldn’t have ordinarily learned about, and the partner business gets more customers on their email

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 79

list they might not have otherwise had. Do they not send out an email newsletter? Forward them this ebook!

It goes without saying- follow through on any promotions or giveaways you organize. Cheating the very people you want to build long-lasting relationships with by simply not giving out a prize you’ve promised is unethical and, even if you don’t get caught, is not good karma. Take care of your customers and they’ll take care of you.

Make it Easy for Your Customers to Refer You Referral programs are an easy and underutilized way to get your existing customers to recommend you to a friend! There are many different variations, and it will likely depend on your exact business. If you sell some kind of event or experience, then your audience-expanding promotion could be a two-for-one deal: maybe your customer buys a webinar or seminar ticket, and you sweeten the deal by letting them invite a friend. They get to feel awesome because they can give something cool and interesting to a friend, and you win as well because a new potential customer has just been introduced to your business who might not have known about it before. This two-for-one strategy would work well for anything where the second “product” can’t simply be consumed by the same person, like an entry to an event, whether in-person or on-line. If you’re selling handcrafted chocolate, your customer will likely keep both for themselves, if the chocolate’s any good! If your product is a straight consumable, you’ll have to be a bit more creative. Perhaps you offer a free product or discount when someone new comes in and mentions a referral.

80 | www.mpwr.one ©

Remember that the easier you can make it for someone to refer you to a friend, the more likely they are to do it. Don’t make your customers work to refer you to a friend. For example, if you can integrate your referral system with the social media channels your customers are already on- so that all they have to do is share your page, for example, then do that. Make your referral policy a prominent part of your website, social media, and business location.

Consider some kind of customer loyalty program. Think about how successfully cafes do this- buy ten drinks and you get one free! It’s an easy and effective way to keep customers coming back for more. We all like the feeling of getting something for free.

The more you can add your own personal touch to your loyalty program, the better. Airlines have had huge success with their various tiers of “Elite” frequent flyer programs. It becomes a status symbol for a frequent flyer to be able to say that they are a Gold or Platinum elite.

Keep these customers happy because they are your most loyal core.

Invite them to behind the scenes events, give them regular discounts, and send them free swag occasionally, and they will become tireless promoters of you and your business.

As you can see, keeping customers happy and turning them into promoters of your business is not rocket science. A rock-solid product or service is a must, but if you meet them halfway, connect with them regularly in ways that surprise and delight them, and make it easy for them to bring their friends into the fold, your existing customers will quickly become the most effective arm of your marketing strategy.

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 81

Congratulations

Internet marketing is an ever-evolving industry with new ways of advertising, social media platforms and lead management tools coming out every month.

Hopefully, this book will help you take that first step into the online world. Once you’ve applied some of the principles that resonate with you, there will always be more to play around with and try out.

You can never stop learning.

Don’t stop researching and don’t stop being creative.

I’ll be keeping you up to date with the latest things I discover through the MPWR Academy - as I like to keep my fingers on the pulse of the industrybut I’m also ready to hear some of your new-found techniques online.

On the flipside, remember to stick to your values.

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 83

By being fluid and going along with the flow, it’s easy to start doing things that you never wanted to do in the first place.

Just because it looks like a shortcut doesn’t mean it’s safe.

So be aware of your evolution and the direction that you’re heading into.

Make sure that these adaptions are coming from the right place and are in line with your values.

People can sense when someone is not being authentic to their true self.

I’d like to end this with a quote that I recently found online which pretty much sums this book up:--

Making a big life change is pretty scary.

But, know what’s even scarier?

Regret.

Make that first step towards true freedom today.

Or regret it down the line.

84 | www.mpwr.one ©

How To Create And Grow Your Dream Online Business | 85