Part 1: Five Key Stages Of Online Marketing For Start-up Growth
Hey, welcome
This is Cain Ndhlovu I am a
Start-up Growth Consultant and the Chief Executive Officer of Sunrise Start-up Solutions. I am the author of this three-part course Start-up Growth Mastermind.
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Now the million-dollar question is: How do you
realize your dream of purchasing a house in a flourishing suburb, a piece of
land, a dream car or achieve something significant in your life through your
start-up?
A start-up is a business you start from scratch as opposed
to purchasing a company that is already operational. Its usually a humble
beginnings story of ordinary people with ideas that can change the world.
To help you achieve your dreams a start-up
obviously must grow first, it must have an increased financial muscle. So the
next important question becomes, “ How do I grow my start-up?”
Some think its all about having money and borrowing.
Borrowing when starting a business is not recommended probably because borrowed
money has too many strings attached.
So how do you grow a start-up ? A good idea for
growing a start-up is doing marketing and
sales. Indeed, effective marketing and sales must be part and parcel of
your start-up’s growth strategy from the word go.
However, as an entrepreneur you must know that the
how-part of marketing a new product and a new enterprise is very different from
that of established companies. Why? As a start-up no one knows you exist yet so
you can’t just drop a new product in the market and hope it works but you must
engineer your marketing.
This is may be a new concept to many start-ups but
the good news is that the best way of doing all this has already been laid out
by an American Jeff Walker. Remember its not necessary to reinvent the wheel so
let’s briefly consider Jeff’s work at this juncture.
Probably a leading figure in the world of online marketing
for start-ups today Jeff Walker has humble beginnings as a stay-at-home dad. Through mastering and perfecting the art of launching
new products he rose into a multi-millionaire. At the center of it all was his
secret formula the Product Launch Formula
(PLF) which has been successfully duplicated by start-ups in diverse niches
across the world enabling them to close billions in sales of new products and
services !
The Product Launch Formula which Jeff Walker has described as “not a get rich quick scheme” is
shared in his book Launch a New York Times bestseller. This book is
a must-read for every start-up owner.
An Opportunity For You
However, if truth is to be told reading some ideas
in a book written in another country overseas is one thing, successfully implementing
them on the ground here in Zimbabwe is another totally different.
I myself can give testimony about how true this is.
Therefore, you do need someone who has successfully implemented the ideas to
help you implement them yourself.
Unfortunately for me, there was no one to help me
so I resorted to do my kind of reverse engineering. What I did is that I
subjected Jeff’s ideas to trial and error experiments with the hope of
successfully implementing his ideas. Through determination it eventually
worked.
It was a long and painful journey for me but the
good news is you do not need to go through a similar struggle yourself because I
have packaged the experiential knowledge
I acquired over time in this free course Start-upGrowth Mastermind. This program is designed to short-circuit your path to
success.
To help you do this Start-up Growth Mastermind has Part 1, 2 and 3. Part 1 present the
theory, Part 2 the practical and Part 3 helps you hit the road running. So do
not go away because this may turn out to be what you have been looking for !
Now let me tell you the story about how I got
involved in all this ? How can you get involved yourself ?
My story
It all started in 2007 with unemployment. This problem is part of the
economic challenges that have haunted Zimbabwe since the mid 90s and it has had
a multiplicity of consequences.
One example is the creation of survivalists instead
of entrepreneurs. How ? Employment centric Zimbabweans were caught off guard by
economic problems that emerged after the golden years immediately following the
1980 independence.
As a result millions fled overseas for greener
pastures. Those who remained started survivalist outfits (FinScope MSME Survey Zimbabwe 2012 ) instead of proper enterprises that
meaningfully develop the economy.
Indeed, entrepreneurs in Zimbabwe are few, the
majority are just survivalists. In the populous high density suburbs of Harare like
Budiriro 5 where I grew up people invented a Shona term for this kind of
enterprising called kungwavha ngwavha.
So in 2007 I managed to get employment in the real
estate industry. I became a sales man for immovable property known as a sales
negotiator. However, I struggled to sell and this in turn made it difficult for
me to meet my basic obligations like rent, food and clothing.
It also affected my ability to finance my Bachelor
of Commerce (B Com) Marketing degree program studies with the University of
South Africa (UNISA). My funds ran out quickly as soon as I wrote exams for the
first few modules.
Failure to afford a UNISA degree wasn’t the end for
me therefore, I resorted to self-education. This was out of Divine Providence
because self-education has in-built entrepreneurial traits like the ability to
take initiative, the appetite to continuously learn, fostering creativity,
problem solving and tenacity.
This has made me feel unique because the biggest
problem today in the education of the majority has been a focus on creating
employees for none existent industries instead of employers for a shrinking
economy.
So after starting my self-education studies on marketing
one day I found a book titled Advertising
in Zimbabwe by Chris Thompson in a Kingstones
bookshop. About marketing and sales Thompson said sales is not a “magic wand”
over a poor marketing situation. Simply put for sales to be successful it must
be supported by effective marketing.
When you talk about marketing today you quickly
realize that online marketing is a
buzz word. “ Cain do you know Brendon Burchard ?” a client asked one day. “ Oh
I don’t know him” I replied. “Who is he ?” I asked. “ Well you will need to
tell that yourself. But I believe that with what you do you need to know him,”
the client replied writing the name Brendon Burchard on a piece of paper.
Brendon Burchard was another online marketing
expert and he was mentored by Jeff Walker. Though these online gurus played an
important role inspiring me they didn’t give me a user manual. I had to figure
out how to customize for my context what they were saying.
For example working for E-Blue Institute a college
start-up I discovered that both offline and online marketing had to be used
together in a hybrid approach. This college’s target market was Budiriro 5
residents who were low income earners. Using online lead magnets like free
online lessons on webinars was going to struggle considering that data was
expensive in Zimbabwe.
The major mobile network operator (MNO) sold 10 gig
worth of data for US $13 for 30 days. But in South Africa Vodacom offered 10
gig data for R149 for 30 days. R149 was equivalent to US $8.35. All these
statistics were true as of 1 September 2024.
As a result instead of free online lessons I
designed free offline O-level lessons. I called this first-of-its-kind lead
magnet O-Level Simplified.
 |
Prospective
Students : O-Level Simplified –
Maths, English, Combined Science, Geography and
Business Enterprise Skills free offline lessons during the August 2024
school holidays. |
 |
| Paying students : Myself with E-Blue Institute students at the Innovation Hub, University of Zimbabwe |
Despite our prospective customers being low income
earners we however, have never experienced conversations like this;
Prospective Customer : “ How much do you charge for school fees ?”
E-Blue Institute : “ We charge $X.”
Customer : “ Oh you are expensive, I will consider
ABC College.”
Prospective customers have never compared us on the
basis of price because they now know what they were to benefit from us
before paying anything. This meant customers have been paying a good price
positively affecting profits.
At this point let’s now learn the specifics of what
I have proven to work during the years of experimenting. The good news is that
it turned out that Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula (PLF) can be explained
in terms of the sales funnel process an idea that some of you may already.
How many of you know the sales funnel process ? What
constitute the sales funnel process ? Please share in the comments section at
the end.
5 Key stages of online marketing for start-up
growth
What do we know on online marketing ? It doesn’t matter how advanced you
are or how new you are what make you find the best customers online involves
only five stages as follows;
1. Lead Generation And Prospecting
2. Pre-qualification Of Leads
3. Demonstration Of Value
4. Closing and negotiating
5. Delivery And Fulfillment
These five stages constitute what is known as the
sales funnel process and it can also be explained diagrammatically as follows ;
What is the sales funnel process ? The sales funnel
process refers to the buying
process that companies lead customers through when purchasing products.
From the word go it is important to note that the
sales funnel process operate comprehensively and this means that you cannot do
one thing and leave the others and expect results.
For example if you decide to boost a post on
Facebook or LinkedIn which is a top of the funnel activity called lead
generation then you must have the rest of the funnel optimized otherwise you are
flushing money down the drain.
Optimizing the rest of the funnel means making sure
that other stages of the funnel like pre-qualification of leads, demonstration
of value, closing and negotiating etc are there and working.
This is a process that a company of any size can
use to get customers. So how is it tailor-made for a start-up ?
1.Lead Generation And Prospecting
Online marketing starts with lead generation and
prospecting. This is were you create awareness. Customers do not know you exist
yet so you are saying, “ Hey look at me. I am here !” This is a top of the
funnel activity.
The best place to start from is social media like
Facebook, LinkedIn, Whatsapp etc. Almost everyone on earth has joined some form
of social media so your connections on social networks are a gold reserve of
prospective customers you must mine .
So how do you do this ? There are many ways. A
common one is running lead generation adverts e,g boosting Facebook and LinkedIn
posts. However, these are paid adverts. What about if as a business that is
just starting you do not have money ?
Remember I have discouraged borrowing so you can’t
borrow. Probably your savings have also run out. What do you do now ?
Well the good news is I invented a social media
based lead generation method called script
prospecting. Script prospecting was my way of generating leads on LinkedIn
using scripts but without having to pay and also not violating their User
Agreement. It was an opportunity for getting started even without a cent. We shall learn more about how script prospecting
is done in Part 2.
However, whether you boost a post (paid) or you use
script prospecting (free) you must know that any form of lead generation and
prospecting is done by offering free value a.k.a a lead
magnet in exchange for contact details like name and email address. So a
person who willingly shares contact details becomes a lead or prospective
customer. By giving you his or her contact details the person is saying, “call
me”.
A lead magnet can be an e-book, a video, a blog
post or any piece of content that offers free value. However, a lead magnet
doesn’t necessarily need to be digital. You can also create none digital lead
magnets like free offline O-level lessons I conducted for my client E-Blue
Institute a high school college in Budiriro 5 .
For a start O-Level Simplified offline worked well
but as the college grow we shall target a bigger audience and O-Level
Simplified online probably using a webinar will be more appropriate.
So a person who exchanges contact details for O-Level Simplified is either an O-level
student or a parent of one – the typical prospective customer for E-Blue
Institute.
Furthermore, you should know that the use of a lead
magnet in lead generation is indispensable also because it helps you to
separate the wheat from the weeds. The wheat are prospects likely to buy but
the weeds can be time wasters probably shopping for a price. So as you do lead
generation you also do pre-qualification of leads at the same time. Okay.
Ensuring that you are working with the right people
from the start is key to getting good results at the end. So doing
pre-qualification from the word go is important. This take us to the second
stage of the sales funnel process – pre-qualification of leads.
2. Pre-qualification Of Leads
The reason why a lead
magnet is used is to separate the wheat from the weeds. A lot of sales people often say, “If I can improve in
one area I will want to be a better closer.”
People always think that there are ways to become more persuasive in
closing and more manipulative but the reality is that we fall into the trap of
selling to prospects that just don’t really fit with what we have to offer.
There are good prospects out there but we waste valuable time talking to
bad ones and that time could have been spent finding good prospects.
So from the start it is important to size prospects up so that you know
how well they fit with what you have to offer. In other words you have to pre-qualify
people before considering them as leads and putting them on your subscriber
list.
The Contacts app by Google is good for creating a subscriber or mailing
list. For O-Level Simplified WhatsApp broadcast was effective because the
target audience apparently spent more time on WhatsApp than on e-mail.
So pre-qualification of leads is important because;
(1) It weeds out people who aren’t interested in what you are doing. They
look at the lead magnet you are giving away for free and they are like “Aah Iam
not interested in that”. Good you don’t want them on your subscriber list.
(2) It makes prospects give you their contact details like
their name, email and cell number so that you can contact them. If a person
gives you his or her contacts that person is simply saying, “Contact me”.
Once a person gives you his or her email address you immediately send
them the lead magnet or the free value as promised and in the future you can
sell them staff. This takes us to the third stage called demonstration of
value.
So after acquiring the contact details of a
prospect physically or on social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, WhatsApp etc
through boosting a post or script prospecting the next step to take is sending
the lead magnet or free value as promised. Sharing free value is called
demonstration of value. This is a middle of the funnel activity.
With O-Level Simplified our campaign targeted the
neighborhood immediately around the school so we moved from door to door
collecting cell phone numbers of O-level students or their parents. We
exchanged contact details with free O-level lessons. At least 95 O-Level students from Budiriro 5 Jaravaza, Goshen, Current and CABS neighborhoods attended the free
lessons during the August 2024 school holidays.
But at this juncture let me make it clear that you
have not sold anything yet. At this stage you are not only demonstrating value
but this is where you also establish your positioning.
However, old habits die hard. Once you get contact
details of a lead in many people there is always this temptation to now bombard
the lead with price catalogues. Here there is a serious need - the need for a
paradigm shift.
As you learn change. Bombarding leads with price
catalogues is an attempt on closing. Trying to close a lead without positioning
is an up hill climb folks because you are trying to create trust in few
minutes. Positioning is all about establishing authority by telling prospects
about who you are, the story of your struggle, the results you have gotten for
yourself or you have helped others to get. So you are positioning yourself as
an expert first before you sell.
You will get to closing soon and it will be the
easiest thing you do if you first establish your positioning. So you must
demonstrate value through sharing free content like how to guides, a free
course, a manual, handbooks etc. I guess you can now figure out were the phrase
content marketing comes from.
Usually in online marketing strategy these days thanks to Jeff Walker
and the product launch formula they
get free content 1, then a couple of days later they get free content 2, a
couple of days later they get free content 3, a couple of days later they finally
get a sales e-mail.
That’s where ultimately we are going to lead the customers to – the sales
e-mail or page that talks about nothing else except to learn about what you are
offering and to buy it. So after demonstration of value the next step is
closing.
So you are now sending them e-mails saying, “ Hey
here is free content 1, free content 2, free content 3 on the series.” Finally
you say, “Hey if you like this series I have been sending you then I have got
this sales post over here. Click on this link to learn about what I got.”
Now obviously you don’t call it the sales post.
You tell them it’s a page about more information pertaining my new program whatever
it is. But you drive them to the sales e-mail or page.
At this stage they now know who you are and what
they stand to gain from you . Given the right offer at the right time they are prepared
to buy from you. So the next logical step is closing which is the last activity
at the bottom of the funnel.
For closing in print a different kind of
marketing writing is introduced and its called copywriting. By the way in the sales funnel process there are two
principal writing methods involved – copywriting and content writing.
Content writing is all about writing educational content that is meant to generate leads
into the funnel and demonstration of value like what I am doing right now.
Typically involves writing blog posts, bonus
e-books, lead magnets, white papers, case studies, tutorials and newsletters.
None of these things has a goal of selling right away because its all about
educating.
Through content writing lawyers can also find an
excuse to promote their businesses without getting into trouble with the
regulator. In my country lawyers are prohibited from advertising by The Law
Society Of Zimbabwe.
However, I used to promote one legal practitioner’s
conveyancing business through content writing of real estate articles. (
conveyancing is the legal service of ownership transfer through title deeds) . With
cutthroat competition in the legal practice industry today lawyers in Zimbabwe must
figure out more ways of promoting their enterprises.
On the other hand copywriting is all about
writing copy that focuses on selling a product and advertising at the bottom of
the funnel. To do this it usually talk about the offer, features of the
products, the benefits, call to action. Examples of sales copy are
advertisements, brochures, sales emails, sales pages, landing pages etc.
A call to action (C.T.A) is probably one of the
most common features of copywriting and closing. A call to action must include urgency.
By this I mean leads have to act by the end of a certain date or some negative
consequence takes place.
Its either the offer is no longer quite as
attractive or the price goes up or the offer comes off the market. Urgency is
important because people procrastinate and eventually they do not take the
desired action which is buying.
So eventually you close. After doing this you must
take advantage of the opportunity and try to earn more money by selling
something additional. This is called cross
selling . Its cousins are upselling
and down selling.
An illustration of cross selling
The fact that a prospect has bought from you
demonstrate their trust therefore you can leverage on this. Whatever your
business is be creative and think of what additional thing you can sell when
customers buy from you. Here are few examples;
Information
Technology : If they buy a laptop
you can offer them a laptop bag.
Network
marketing ( Forever Living, Green World, Phyto Science, Super Life, AIM GLOBAL
etc ) : If they buy a supplement or
product you can offer them the business side by joining or vice versa.
Coaching :
If they are paying you for
your coaching services offer them your motivational book, DVD or even a mobile
app.
Accounting
and corporate compliance : If they
are your tax and business compliance customers sell them accounting software as
well.
 |
| Everyone love sadza including Mark Zuckerberg |
Sadza Inn : If they buy plates of sadza (usually served with
beef, chicken or fish in Harare) especially during lunch hours offer them soft
drinks also for wash down.
After eating sadza (especially served with a crispy
chicken roast) I do enjoy a wash down of a cool soft drink. I believe many
people do. So if you are in this business and you do not cross sell soft drinks
you are leaving money on the table!
The last step which is one of the most important
steps is delivery and fulfilment. Now that you closed the sale how are you
going to deliver the outcome you promised ?
Delivering quality is the only way to keep existing
customers, get repeat business and referrals. So the sale does not stop after
you close. The sale starts after you close the prospect. Remember there is no amount
of good marketing that beats a quality product!
As a start-up mind the price. You must charge well.
Remember at this point people are judging you on the basis of benefits not
price. If you charge a high price they are prepared to make a plan in order to
make it happen. A high price helps your startup to scale because you have few
customers who pay well so you are not spreading yourself thin.
If you charge a low price you will get many
customers but spread yourself thin. This will affect quality delivery. In turn
this will affect how you will keep existing customers, get repeat business,
referrals and business growth.
Now a question you may ask at this point is, “ What
tool can be used to implement the sales funnel process presented here in Part 1
?” Answering this question is what Part 2 is all about. So we will go a step
further and take a look into how everyday digital tools like Gmail, blogs,
social media like WhatsApp etc can be transformed into effective online
marketing instruments.
In Part 2 we will also make an interesting
comparison between online marketing and offline marketing. You are a business right
now and you might be wondering what is better online marketing (websites,
social media, e-mail marketing, Google Ads) or offline marketing (print
newspapers, billboards, fliers etc ) .
So lets meet again in Start-up Growth Mastermind
Part 2 and continue learning more.
Your comments are welcome.
Thank you !
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