I have had several conversations with several experts recently who have hired marketing assistants but not had the results that they were quite expecting. They thought they were going to solve all of their marketing challenges, but they haven’t, so now what should they do?
On each occasion, there was a very good reason for this which I will share with you shortly.
What has happened is that they have hired the marketing assistants thinking that as soon as they do they can stop thinking about marketing and focus on other more pressing matters.
This is flawed thinking for two reasons:
- Marketing and sales is THE most important aspect of any business. You can be the best expert in the world at the service which you provide, but if no one ever finds you or hears about what you do you will not have a business; and
- You have to completely own your sales and marketing processes first before letting your marketing assistant loose on them.
The biggest problem is that unless your marketing assistant knows exactly what is expected of them, right down to weekly tasks that must be completed every single week without fail, and the weekly and monthly reports that they must provide to you consistently, they will go off and do the things that they find interesting. Nine times out of ten, these are not the things that you need to do to grow your business.
This is precisely what has happened with my expert friends and clients that have recently hired marketing assistants. They thought their problems were solved by the hiring of the marketing assistant without spelling out what is required of them.
Let’s look at an example so I can put some meat on the bones for you if you have recently hired a marketing assistant or are thinking of doing so.
Which marketing plan you adopt will depend on which type of expert you are. I classify experts into two categories:
- The Band Aid Expert; or
- The Surgery Expert
It is really important that you understand which type of expert you are.
The Band Aid Expert sells ‘instant need’ services, where a client actively goes looking for their expertise at the precise moment in time that they need your services. Experts fitting into this category will be most estate agents, solicitors and insurance brokers where your clients want your service immediately because they have an immediate need for them. For example, I need an estate agent to sell my house or an insurance broker to sort out my latest car insurance.
The Surgery Expert, however, sells a service which his or her users need to do quite a bit of research before deciding who they want to help them, as you would if you were choosing a specialist surgeon for serious head or heart surgery.
People fitting into this category will be consultants, coaches, financial advisers where their potential clients are not really sure if they even need the service, or if they do they are not sure how the service will work.
Think about your own service. Do clients decide they need you, head to your website and get straight in touch on the telephone? If yes, you are a Band Aid Expert.
If, however, a lot of your clients are connected with you for a long time before getting in touch, for example on your email list or on LinkedIn, you are a Surgery Expert.
Experts Selling ‘Surgery Expertise’ Services
Let’s say that you are an expert who realises that until you have a substantial email list you are going to find it very hard to sell your group coaching or mastermind services or your online membership site.
You know the universal figures that you will only sell a membership service to 3% of your email list so an email list of only 500 people will only provide you with 15 clients. You want at least 100 clients on your membership site, so you need an email list of 3,333 people, give or take.
That is 2,800 more than you have already, so your primary task must relate to growing your email list for your marketing assistant.
Here is what you should get your marketing assistant to do:
- Write a weekly blog of between 500 to 2,000 words answering questions being asked by your perfect clients (I have a trick for doing this using Google Analytics – ask me for more information if you would like to know what this is);
- Ensure that each added blog offers an additional resource or more information if they provide their name and email address to receive it (the growing of your email list part);
- Add this blog to your website;
- Post links back to the blog across the main social media platforms (not because it will bring you a flood of work because it never will, but to show Google that you have a growing website);
- Email this blog to your current email subscribers to provide them with value and grow the relationship so that once you do launch your membership website they are primed and ready to buy.
This would be my starting point. If time permits, I might increase this to two articles a week or five or ten.
I would then demand that my marketing assistant provides a weekly dashboard of key performance indicators then a monthly one also, detailing these figures:
- a. Number of blogs written;
- b. Number of website sessions and total page views;
- c. Number of new email subscribers;
- d. Number of email subscribers unsubscribed this week (so you can see when your emails hit or miss the mark so that you can improve them).
These figures would be my starting point. The good news is that this helps to give your marketing assistant some structure and ensures that they understand exactly what is expected of them. They know that your primary target is to increase email subscribers. If they do not focus on this, they are going to be pulled up on it. This will prevent them from wasting their time doing anything that is not related to growing your email list.
It provides them structure and makes their life easier.
It provides you with results and makes your investment in a marketing consultant better.
Experts Selling ‘Band Aid’ Services
Experts in this category rather than looking to grow their email list should primarily be looking to get their telephone ringing more or their enquiry form on their website being completed more frequently and by more people or their live chat being clicked.
Therefore, your plan, although similar to Marketing Plan 1 above will have some different Key Performance Indicators although quite similar, but the major difference will be the call to action at the end of each article written.
Here it is:
- Write a weekly blog of between 500 to 2,000 words answering questions being asked by your perfect clients (I have a trick for doing this using Google Analytics – ask me for more information if you would like to know what this is);
- Ensure that each added blog tells your prospect exactly what they have to do to take the next step and removes their fear of any action costing them money or committing to the process. I have a template for this. If you download the resources below you will receive it;
- Add this blog to your website;
- Post links back to the blog across the main social media platforms (not because it will bring you a flood of work because it never will, but to show Google that you have a growing website);
- Email this blog to your current email subscribers to provide them with value and cross sell your services to them (and their friends and family) to generate more instructions. I share my preferred email marketing software in the resources.
I would then demand that my marketing assistant provides a weekly dashboard of key performance indicators then a monthly one also, detailing these figures:
- a. Number of blogs written;
- b. Number of website sessions and total page views;
- c. Number of new enquiries for services received;
- d. Number of email subscribers unsubscribed this week (so you can see when your emails hit or miss the mark so that you can improve them).
Summary
If you hire a marketing assistant you absolutely must be in charge of what they spend their time working on. Don’t let them decide, you dicate, then ensure that they do this every week by having a brief weekly call or meeting and running through your Key Performance Indicators.
