How to Get Your Message in Front of People

Show Notes

• Conversational marketing is very natural and is set in a natural tone.
• Conversational marketing opens up communication channels. These channels can include social media, emails, text messages, phone calls, direct mail, etc.
• Our goal with marketing is to deliver our message.
• Our intent is to help people to recognize that we are the best solution for their problem.
• We might have a compelling argument or reason why someone should want our products or services, but if we only send our marketing out via email, only 20% of our potential clients will actually open our message in an email.
• We might think because people aren’t interested in our business. In reality, we are probably using the wrong media to deliver our marketing message.
• When thinking about the message we want to deliver we need to consider:
• Who should be seeing this message?
• How do we get our message in front of people?
• The more media you introduce into your marketing the more effective you will be in delivering your message.
• Some people aren’t in their email everyday and those that are, may not be interested in all of the emails they receive.
• How do you get in front of the 80% of the people who are not interacting with your email? This is where conversational marketing comes into play.
• The more natural your conversation is, the more likely it is to be consumed and then lead to an action.
• Where do people have conversations on daily basis? This could be a text chat via FB, post on a social network, or text message on a phone.
• In terms of marketing we need to consider leverage. Plenty of people will be interested but possibly not ready to invest in our product or services.
• Text message leads to opportunities to conversations that can be highly leveraged. One person can handle 30-40 conversations at once.
• We can open up the communication channel of SMS through automated texting conversations. This means someone might text an SMS and when they do, we can ask them for their name and email address. This opens a media channel that wasn’t available before, such as:

1. Texting.
2. Open up the opportunity for a phone conversation.
3. Facebook. With the phone number and email address you can then identify that person in a FB custom audience. You can then put Facebook messages in front of this person.

• A video or a link to an article on Facebook opens the opportunity for people to comment which can lead to a customer relationship.
• Ask yourself, "How do I make the marketing natural?" "How do I put my message into a media that will encourage interaction rather than just distribution?"
• You want people to consume your marketing message in a way that is not only palatable to them so they enjoy the process, but that will also lead to a customer relationship.

Transcription of Episode

[00:00:00] This is Ryan Chapman with Fix Your Funnel and in today's episode we're going to be talking about conversational marketing. If you've never heard that term, it'll become very obvious what it is in just a few moments.

Think about this: when you've had interactions with companies, when has it been most pleasant? When has it felt awkward and weird? As you think about those two scenarios, you'll probably notice that in one, conversational marketing was actually in play because it felt very natural. That's one of the characteristics of conversational marketing, is that it feels natural. It doesn't feel contrived. It doesn't feel weird. And the reason why is because it's set in a natural tone. When we talk about conversational marketing we're talkin about opening up communication channels.

In past episodes, we've talked about a number of different communication channels that are actually active in your life today. Those would include things like maybe Facebook Messenger or just a Facebook post [00:01:00] or comments on Facebook, but also include maybe tweets on Twitter. It can include Snapchats. It can include text messages, phone calls, maybe even emails, and then maybe some direct mail. Maybe you send letters to people or you receive letters from people and packages and things like that.

As we look at all these communication channels from a marketing standpoint, our whole goal with marketing is delivering our message. Our message has one intent and one intent only, and that is to help people to recognize that we are the best solution for their problem. Whether it's a product or a service, doesn't really matter, people buy things, they spend money on things, they invest time and effort into things that solve a problem in their life. That problem can be anything. It could be boredom. It could be a tumor. It could be anything whatsoever. When we're doing marketing, we're simply trying to communicate a message that will help a person make a decision that we have the [00:02:00] best solution for their problem.

When you understand that, then you understand that in order for marketing to be effective, it has to actually be consumed. We can have the most compelling argument in the world and if we choose to only send it via email, we're only going to get about 20% of the people who said they wanted our help to actually see why they should get our help. That's a terrible statistic. Most people then chalk that up to interest. They'll go, oh, they weren't really interested in what I had to say. And the reality is, you were probably using the wrong media to communicate the message. Because the media wasn't getting consumed, it couldn't deliver the message. And because it couldn't deliver the message, it was as if it didn't even exist.

As we're thinking about our message that we have to deliver, we have to first determine who should be seeing that message. This is the first part of the marketing equation, after we get our message down, is the who or the market. What people should be seeing our message in order for them to be able to be impacted by [00:03:00] it?

If we know who our message is for, and we know what our message is, then the next part of this trifecta is the media in which we're going to deliver it. How do we get that message in front of people? Traditionally, when it comes to automated marketing, people have leaned on email to be that media. But, as we've already said, that media only has about a 20% success rate. Can you get more than 20% of the people that get an email to actually interact with it? Oh, yes, of course, but is it the best media for you to be using? That depends.

That really depends on who your market is and what medias do they interact with most? The more medias that you introduce into your marketing, the more effective you will be at delivering your message. This just stands to reason because not everybody is in their email inbox every day. Those that are, probably don't want to be there. And those that do want to be there probably aren't getting very much email and you're probably going to be [00:04:00] getting them here 20%.

For the other 80% that aren't interacting with your email, how do you get in front of them? This is where the concept of multimedia comes into play in terms of delivering our marketing message. This is where conversational marketing comes into play. The more natural your language is and the more conversational it feels, the more likely it is to actually be consumed. Once it's consumed, then lead to some sort of action.

What we need to be doing when we think about conversational marketing is think about, where do people have conversations in the medias that they use on a daily basis? These could be a text chat that could happen through Facebook, it could be through a post on a social network. It could happen through a tweet or a direct message through a tweet. It could happen through a text message, or it could happen on the phone. Those are the places where we have conversations. In terms of marketing, we have to be thinking also about leverage. Chances are, there's a lot of people who, at the end [00:05:00] of our analysis, will come out as being interested, but maybe not ready or appropriate for them to invest in our product or service. In that case, we want to be able to have that evaluation occur in a leveraged way.

This is where my preference, and obviously I have preferences that match and align with business interest, is text message. Text message, when I open up that channel, leads to opportunities to have conversations that can be highly leveraged. I can have one person handling 30, 40 conversations at once, verses on the phone it's going to be a one-to-one situation. I'm going to be using text messages to be able to create leveraged opportunities for communication or conversation to be happening that can then lead to a sales opportunity or an opportunity to initiate a customer relationship.

In that kind of scenario, what I'm thinking about is, how do I open up the communication channel of SMS? The way that we open up the communication channel of SMS is through our live texting conversations or [00:06:00] automated texting conversations. In an automated texting conversation, what happens is we have a little back and forth with some machine that allows a person to have a situation where they can give information in exchange for other information.

I might have somebody text, for example, SMS to 760-621-8199 in order for them to receive a report of the ways that people are using text messaging and their business today. When they do that, what's going to happen is, I'm going to ask them for their name and I'm going to ask them for their email address. There was an exchange of information and it happened in a conversational format. They gave something, I said thank you, and I asked for something else. And then they gave something and I delivered something to them that they wanted.

In that situation, I opened up a media channel that wasn't available prior to. In fact, it opened up three media channels when I have someone text into an automated conversation. Number one, I opened up the texting because there's multiple steps in that conversation. I opened up the [00:07:00] ability, the possibility that they could text chat with my company. Frequently, not always, but frequently, I'll add an open-ended question to the end of that automated conversation that will then allow them to start chatting with a live person.

Number two: I opened up the phone. When I have somebody text me, I now know what their cell phone number is. I can call them and make sure that they got the thing that they requested, make sure that, if they have any questions, those questions are answered so that they can make the best decision for themselves and their company.

Number three: Facebook. When I have a cell phone number, and probably through my SMS conversation, I asked for email address, through that process I have two points that I can now use to probably identify that person in a Facebook custom audience, which will then allow me to put Facebook messages in front of that person who expressed interest by texting in to my keyword or my phone number in the first place.

Now all these medias are opened up and I have these opportunities to create conversations. If I put a Facebook [00:08:00] marketing in front of them, whether it's a video or it's a link to an article, in those scenarios, there's and opportunity for people to have comments. They could comment on my blog post, they could comment on my Facebook post, they could comment on my Facebook video. Then I have an opportunity now to engage in a conversation and then take that maybe even into a sales conversation that could lead to a new customer relationship.

These are things that you want to be thinking about is you think about conversational marketing. How do I make the marketing natural? How do I put it into a position where it's entering into a media that's used for conversation or interaction versus just distribution? Once I do that, then how do I leverage that into creating opportunity where people can consume my marketing message in a way that's palpable to them so that they're going to enjoy having that process that will eventually lead to a customer relationship? This is Ryan Chapman with Fix Your Funnel. Keep moving forward.